Guten Morgen Mr. Bush - 500 Beiträge pro Seite (Seite 15)

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The end of American economic supremacy?

By Hussain Khan


09/18/03: (Asia Times) It is beginning to appear that the events of September 11, 2001 have had such an impact that it could end American economic supremacy in the world. The peril to the US economy has been compounded by fiscal actions taken by the administration of President George W Bush.

The costs of fighting and occupation in Afghanistan and Iraq, reconstruction and relief after September 11, and homeland security combined over the next two years, are expected to explode. Bush has already requested an additional US$87 billion for war funding alone. Administration tax cuts, according to the Congressional Budget Office, will cost the economy nearly three times as much as the costs of reconstruction and defense.

Moreover, these tax cuts are expected to rise to about $2 trillion over the decade. That is assuming that the sunset provisions phasing them out are enacted. If, as seems likely, they are not, the 10-year budgetary costs of the tax cuts will rise by another $2 trillion.

Bush wanted to follow on the footsteps of Ronald Reagan by relying on the theories of the supply-side economists, who believe that tax cuts generate so much additional economic activity that they increase government revenues. In his election campaign, Bush used tax-cut philosophy to appeal for votes. But the enactment of these theories is producing unforeseen negative effects rather than the positive qualities that the original supply-siders had assumed.

They had assumed that by cutting taxes, demand would increase due to surplus money available with the consumers for purchases. But this theory had already failed in Japan. Instead of spending, the Japanese simply increased their savings. The benefits of tax cuts were not cycled into the market to boost the economy, as consumers feared unemployment or business uncertainty. The situation is similar in the US today.

In a scenario changed by September 11, and after the administration`s decision to invade Afghanistan and Iraq to attempt to round up terrorists, the strain on the American economy has been so tremendous that these supply-side theories have fallen apart. Uncertainty and unemployment fear has grown due to this scenario. Psychologically, as in Japan, consumers were not encouraged to increase their spending as the supply-siders believed would happen under the tax cut measures. Their benefits were confined to the well-to-do, who simply deposited the extra money instead of spending it.

The federal government enjoyed a projected 10-year budget surplus of $5.6 trillion when Bill Clinton left the presidential office. But the Bush administration is now confronting sizable annual deficits just three years later. Private economists now forecast a 10-year deficit of around $4 trillion-$6.7 trillion, excluding the social security surplus. As a share of the economy, government debt and interest payments are expected to double over the next decade.

In a recent annual survey of the US economy, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) last month quoted a White House forecast that the federal budget deficit would explode to a record $455 billion in 2003 and then $475 billion next year. The IMF further quoted the Bush administration that the deficit - 50 percent bigger than that projected just five months ago – had been exacerbated by a weak economy, the Iraq war and a $350 billion tax cut package.

The deficit has thus increased more than 50 percent in just five months. This unforeseen increase is said to have occurred due to the Iraq war and the tax cuts. It actually shows that the tax cuts did not produce the results that the administration had expected. In fact, they were exactly the opposite.

The IMF notes two improvements in the US economy. First, its rate of economic growth was set to rise from 2.25 percent in 2003 to 3.5 percent next year. Second is the high growth in productivity, or output per hour work. As a matter of fact, the expected rise in the rate of economic growth is mainly due to the rise in productivity. If productivity growth were stifled, economic growth would also be affected negatively. And that is the factor about which the IMF has expressed concern in the following words:

"In particular, the worsening of the longer-term fiscal position, including as a result of the recent tax cuts, will make it even more difficult to cope with the aging of the baby-boom generation, and will eventually crowd out investment and erode US productivity growth."

That means that despite some possible improvements in a short-term scenario, the longer-term prospects are doomed to erode productivity growth and hence cut economic growth, leading to eventual crowding out of new investment, while the US has to face the challenge of an aging baby-boom generation. This is the IMF`s final conclusion. It added two further worries concerning social security and medicare in the following words:

"The risks to the fiscal outlook appear especially worrisome given the significant actuarial deficit arising from the longer-term demographic pressures on the social security and medicare [health care] systems. As a matter of fact, this temporary increase in the economic growth rate and in the productivity is going to occur at the cost of dismissing hundreds and thousands of workers. It is the result of increasing unemployment, which was accelerated by the 9/11 events. "

The number of employed workers continued to decrease after September 11 and overstocked goods had to be cleared. This situation resulted in a temporary increase in productivity or output per hour of work and hence the increase in the rate of economic growth.

As the IMF has pointed out, this situation cannot continue for long, as interest payments to fund the budget deficits will erode savings and drive out new investment. Increasing unemployment can be expected to erode purchasing power and shrink the urge for consumption and hence decrease demand, in turn bringing about stagnation and stifling growth.

Not only the IMF but the Republican-controlled Joint Committee on Taxation as well, using a variety of dynamic scoring assumptions, was forced to acknowledge that these cuts are likely to reduce the economy`s long-term growth. Explaining the reason as to why the committee has come to this conclusion, Laura d`Andrea Tyson, dean of London Business School writes:

"Any positive business-investment incentives from lower taxes will be outweighed by the curtailing of national saving and investment caused by mammoth budget deficits. To the extent that larger deficits diminish domestic saving, they eat into productive investment. To the extent that larger deficits are funded by borrowing from the rest of the world they raise the nation`s foreign debt and drive future income into servicing this debt. Contrary to the claims of administration ideologues, larger deficits mean lower future living standards.

"The administration argues that its tax cuts are necessary to stimulate growth in a sluggish economy. But this argument is specious. The economy may have needed a temporary infusion of additional demand during the past three years. But temporary tax cuts or spending hikes for hard-pressed working families, unemployed workers, and state governments would have stimulated demand much more effectively than tax cuts for the rich."

The tax cuts were designed to increase demand and employment opportunities, but they have backfired. The average tax cut is said to be about $1,000 per person. But half of the taxpayers will get a nominal tax cut of $120 only and one-third receive no benefit at all. The average refund is much higher because the benefit to the few rich taxpayers is very great. When more than half and the additional one-third do not benefit significantly from the tax cuts, how are those blessings going to come about that the supply-side theorists claim in the form of increased overall demand or in the purchasing power of the majority, while the number of the unemployed has peaked to a nine-year high level?

The increase in unemployment is a scourge in itself. A lot of companies like Enron and some airlines have been bankrupted. Those that survived dismissed a lot of their workers as a result of the September 11 events. The Clinton administration had created millions of new jobs and reduced unemployment to less than 4 percent. The events of September 11 reversed this trend. Unemployment is 50 percent higher than the Clinton administration figures, rising to a nine-year high of 6.1 percent. It has remained above that level for the last few months, despite slight negligible monthly adjustments.

The US had just emerged from recession in the beginning of 2001. But September 11 drove growth down again. Growth of at least 3 percent is needed to encourage hiring, say economists, but such growth has not occurred in consecutive quarters since the final six months of 1999. The economy grew only 1.4 percent annually in the first quarter of 2003. In an attempt to boost growth, the Federal Reserve cut short-term interest rates to 1 percent, their lowest level in 45 years.

The US Federal Reserve, the nation`s central bank, said at the time that the economy was still weak despite previous cuts in interest rates. But the impact of September 11 was so strong that all these efforts by the Bush administration and the Fed failed to spur growth and create new jobs.

On the contrary, under the so-called jobless recovery, more than 2 million jobs have disappeared since Bush took office in January 2001, reviving memories of 1929 depression. Bush could be the first president since Herbert Hoover, who was in the White House from 1929 to 1933, the years of the Great Depression, to oversee a decline in total US jobs during his term. By contrast, 22 million jobs were created during the Clinton years.

With presidential elections looming next year, Democrats have focused on the economy as Bush`s weak spot. Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, has described Bush`s economic record as "$3 trillion deeper in debt, three million fewer jobs".

As long as fiscal deficits continue to increase and erode savings and investment, there is no possibility of creating new jobs to significantly reduce unemployment. In addition to the increasing large fiscal deficits, unemployment, slow economic growth and falling living standards, other problems are hovering. One is in the form of the fall in federal revenues. Usually, with yearly growth, however small, revenues also continue to grow every year. But the war adventures of the Bush administration have reversed this historic trend.

In 2003, federal revenues are expected to fall to as far back as the 45-year-old level. The forecast is that the American economy will regress to the level of the 34th American president, Dwight D Eisenhower (1953-61). Federal revenues include a variety of sources of income, one of them tax revenue. If only tax revenue is compared, it is going to fall to about the 60-year-old level of 1943.

The present state of social security is such that one third of the dollars in this account have to be borrowed from outside, as internal revenues are not sufficient to cover costs. This is the largest share of deficit-financed spending in the past 50 years. This deficit spending is forecast to increase $400 billion by 2008. If no cuts are made in social security, medicare, defense and debt service, government spending on everything else - from education to homeland security - would have to be slashed by more than 80 percent to restore budgetary balance. The United States is in for a rough ride.

Hussain Khan holds a Master`s degree in Economics from Tokyo University, and worked for a German bank subsidiary selling Japanese stocks to institutional buyers in Japan, the Middle East, Europe and the US. He is an analyst on current affairs and economic issues for various newspapers and magazines. Email: [e-mail]

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Auch wenn der Inhalt der Meisten Postings nicht so erfreulich ist: Die 7000 müssengefeiert werden!

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Er freut sich auch mit, denn in
1 year 4 months 4 days 15 hours 8 minutes (33.51%) remaining in the Bush Occupation
hat er es geschafft.

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Mit seiner schusssicheren Weste sieht der gar nicht mehr so schmächtig aus!

Wie GWB heute versprach, energisch gegen den Sturm vorzugehen - das war schon imponierend

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So lange er keine Nukes einsetzt, werden die Amis es wohl überstehen.

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The split loyalties that now define the New Europeans
Disputes between the larger members over America pain the east

Martin Woollacott
Friday September 19, 2003
The Guardian

After the floods subsided in Prague, a cartoon in one of the newspapers showed the figure of Christ on the Charles Bridge surveying returning tourists and sighing "They`re back". Czechs would sometimes like to have their capital to themselves, but know that, barring calamities, its beauty will always attract outsiders and that it is vital for the economy that it continues to do so. It is just a small rider to the instruction Czechs have had in the limits of the possible over the centuries. That intimacy with the power of external forces is one reason why Prague is a good place from which to view Europe`s current difficulties.

The wilfulness which marks European affairs is more easily grasped from such a vantage point. In this view, France and Germany`s assumption that what they decide on Iraq or the stability pact is essentially European, in a way that decisions by other governments are not, is in the same spectrum as Tony Blair`s opposite course on Iraq, or indeed the Swedish "no" vote last weekend.

Europeans, it seems, are not behaving in a very European way. The countries of north-eastern and central Europe, who will help swell the ranks of the union to 25 next May, see with some pain the sharp debates and disputes between the larger members, and between France and Germany and the US. Not pleased but, on the other hand, not absolutely appalled by this relative disarray, they are inserting themselves gingerly into it. They know their interests will sometimes be bruised, but also that the chemistry of the union is changing and that no set pattern of dominance by others - a matter of serious concern to them given their past - is likely to be established.

This process of insertion is already suggesting that the idea that Europe can be sorted out into three streams - a "core" or "euro" zone, a non-euro zone of existing "outer" members and a "new Europe" of the east - has only a partial validity. The Poles and the Hungarians, for instance, are lining up with the French and the Germans on agricultural reform, or rather the desirability of delaying it. Most east European states want to join the euro as soon as they can. Some members of the euro-zone, and indeed of the original six, like Holland, are Atlanticists, opponents of defence structures that compete with Nato, and purists on economic discipline.

In another example of crisscrossing, smaller countries from all three of these groupings met in Prague this month to discuss their common concerns about the draft European constitution, and their common irritation at the tactic Joschka Fischer and Valéry Giscard d`Estaing have adopted in touring the continent to warn states not to try to unravel the constitutional package. Yet, like the Swedes who decided that a referendum in which the only acceptable outcome was "yes" was not a democratic procedure, the new Europeans argue that a constitutional project in which the key issues are not supposed to be raised in the final debate is defective. They, and their allies from other parts of Europe, will indeed raise them, although not with huge hopes of changing the minds of the big countries.

They are misunderstood, and not only by Donald Rumsfeld, if they`re thought to be pro-American and for the Iraq war in some simple way. This is not only because most people, as opposed to their governments, were hostile to the war, although in a less intense fashion than in western Europe. It is also because the historical legacy is complicated. There is gratitude to the Americans for standing against the Soviets in the cold war and after it, leading to the expansion of Nato while the EU procrastinated about expansion.

There is a wariness of German power, a lingering distrust of France and Britain, and an ingrained dislike of intervention, invasion and bombing from the air. There is also, according to the historian Jiri Pehe, the fact that "their memories of the totalitarian past are still fresh. There is still a sense that certain things have to be fought against ... Vaclav Havel expressed this in saying that he had doubts about the timing of the Iraq war, but no doubt that it was the right war to fight." Ambiguous feelings in Poland, for example, about military commitment in Iraq reflect the contradictory pulls of these impulses.

The split loyalties of new Europeans mean that their primary interest is in a compromise between the US and France and Germany, so that they do not have to choose. As Pehe says: "We are grateful to the United States, but on the other hand we are in Europe and cannot be the 51st state. Our policies are about trying to satisfy both sides."

As far as the Czechs go, and in distinction to the Poles, Pehe even speaks of "Schweiking through" after Jaroslav Hasek`s famous character, indicating a combination of ironic deference and subversion of the purposes of others. Thus, as the French and German governments conferred yesterday in Berlin, they were doing so on the edge of a region in which most countries devoutly desire a rapprochement between the US and Europe. Their citizens are perplexed by the growth of anti-Americanism in Germany and, in particular, eastern Germany, where they had expected their sentiments about the US to be shared.

Eastern and central Europe were also dismayed by the way in which France and Germany cemented their improved relationship by adopting a common position on the Iraq war - not so much by the position itself as by the lack of consultation. "We were all taken by surprise," says Alexander Vondra, formerly Havel`s foreign policy adviser. "They warned nobody in advance." The Czechs, he says, found themselves in the odd situation of hankering after the Atlanticism of the Christian Democrats, even though the Schröder government was much more to their liking when it came to bilateral issues like those arising from the expulsion of the Sudeten Germans. For former dissidents, he said, there were memories of their problems with the western peace movement`s campaign against the deployment of intermediate range missiles.

In making their moral choices, their neighbours to the west then seemed to be more governed by anger at an ally and fear that they might be the victims in a nuclear war than by awareness of the oppressive nature of the Soviet system and the plight of those trapped within it.

Chirac, Schröder and Blair will be meeting in Berlin this Saturday in an attempt to come up with formulas that will ease both the divisions between Europe and America and those within Europe. The two are now so intimately connected that there is scarcely a European decision that does not have an American dimension. A fundamental settlement of transatlantic and, therefore, European differences is not likely, but a partial making-up is a possibility. If that does come about, there will be no more relieved group of nations than the New Europeans of the east.

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IMF warns trade gap could bring down dollar
Charlotte Denny and Larry Elliott
Friday September 19, 2003
The Guardian

The International Monetary Fund yesterday warned that the colossal United States trade deficit was a noose around the neck of the economy, emphasising that the once mighty dollar could collapse at any moment.

Arguing that the world`s big economies were already too dependent on the willingness of American consumers to live beyond their means, the IMF said the US could not continue to run a current account deficit of 5% of GDP.

The IMF`s chief economist Kenneth Rogoff said that it was just a matter of time before the gap closed, tipping the dollar into a potentially steep fall.

"If we were looking at a poor developing country, the world gives them just enough rope to hang themselves. A country like the United States, they give them enough rope to tie the noose around their neck several times. But it does happen in the end," he said.

In its twice yearly report on the world economy, the Fund warns that even a controlled slide in the dollar`s value is likely to slow US growth and unless other countries picked up the slack, the global economy would suffer.

Mr Rogoff said the collapse of world trade talks last weekend in Cancun could spell disaster for a global economy already too dependent on unbalanced growth in the US. Describing the breakdown as a "tragedy", he said global poverty would rise if protectionism took root in the world`s biggest economies.

Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and heightened geopolitical tensions worldwide after the September 11 attacks on the US would "unquestionably" hold back growth in the decades ahead, Mr Rogoff told reporters.

The report was highly critical of Europe`s stagnating economies, blaming governments for failing to embrace deep structural reforms of their labour markets and welfare states.

"Reforms to improve the competitiveness of European labour and product markets could yield significant dividends in terms of regional output," the report said.

It also warned that an overrigid application of Europe`s fiscal rulebook could push the eurozone deeper into trouble.

Chancellor Gordon Brown echoed the IMF`s criticisms of the eurozone in an article in yesterday`s Wall Street Journal, arguing that the credibility of Europe was at stake.

Demanding wide-ranging change to policies "that have held back our continent for too long", Mr Brown added: "Reform is not just desirable, it is an urgent necessity."

The chancellor said: "Having created a single market in theory, we should make it work in reality - and help it spread competition, cut prices, increase consumer choice and deliver higher productivity."

The impact of the stalled trade talks in Mexico on the fragile global recovery will dominate this weekend`s annual meeting of the IMF and the World Bank in Dubai.

Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, said yesterday: "The failure of the talks in Cancun will cast something of a cloud over the meeting.

"That is not a happy background in which to assess the durability of the recovery."

Misalignments between the world`s biggest currencies are also likely to feature on the agenda, with the US hoping other countries will support its campaign to get China to strengthen its currency, the yuan.

Following an upgrading of its growth prospects by the fund, the US is expected to expand by 2.6% this year, the fastest of the big seven economies.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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`I do get rattled`
Paul Krugman is a mild-mannered university economist. He is also a New York Times columnist and President Bush`s most scathing critic. Hence the death threats. He talks to Oliver Burkeman

Oliver Burkeman
Friday September 19, 2003
The Guardian

The letters that Paul Krugman receives these days have to be picked up with tongs, and his employer pays someone to delete the death threats from his email inbox. This isn`t something that can be said of most academics, and emphatically not of economic theorists, but Krugman isn`t a typical don. Intercepting him in London on his way back home to New Jersey after a holiday in France, I half expect to find a couple of burly minders keeping a close eye on him, although they would probably have to be minders with a sound grasp of Keynesian macroeconomics. "I can`t say I never get rattled," the gnomish, bearded 50-year-old Princeton University professor says a little hesitantly, looking every inch the ivory-tower thinker he might once have expected to be. "When it gets personal, I do get rattled."

What drives his critics hysterical is not, it ought to be clarified, his PhD thesis on flexible exchange rates, or his well-regarded textbook on the principles of economics, co-written with his wife, the economist Robin Wells; nor the fact that he is probably the world authority on currency crises. For the past five years, Krugman - a lifelong academic with the exception of a brief stint as an economics staffer under Reagan - has been moonlighting as a columnist on the New York Times op ed page, a position so influential in the US that it has no real British parallel. And though that paper`s editors seem to have believed that they were hiring him to ponder abstruse matters of economic policy, it didn`t work out that way.

Accustomed to the vigorous ivy league tradition of calling a stupid argument a stupid argument (and isolated, at home in New Jersey, from the Washington dinner-party circuit frequented by so many other political columnists) he has become pretty much the only voice in the mainstream US media to openly and repeatedly accuse George Bush of lying to the American people: first to sell a calamitous tax cut, and then to sell a war.

"It`s an accident," Krugman concedes, addressing the question of how it came to be that the Bush administration`s most persuasively scathing domestic critic isn`t a loudmouthed lefty radical in the manner of Michael Moore, but a mild-mannered, not-very-leftwing, university economist, tipped among colleagues as a future Nobel prizewinner. "The Times hired me because it was the height of the internet bubble; they thought business was what would be really interesting. Turned out the world was different from what we imagined... for the past two-and-a-half years, I`ve watched what began as dismay and disbelief gradually turn into foreboding. Every time you think, well, yes, but they wouldn`t do that - well, then they do."

Even more confusing for those who like their politics to consist of nicely pigeonholed leftwingers criticising rightwingers, and vice versa, will be the incendiary essay that introduces Krugman`s new collection of columns, The Great Unravelling, published in the UK next week. In it, Krugman describes how, just as he was about to send his manuscript to the publishers, he chanced upon a passage in an old history book from the 1950s, about 19th-century diplomacy, that seemed to pinpoint, with eerie accuracy, what is happening in the US now. Eerie, but also perhaps a little embarrassing, really, given the identity of the author. Because it`s Henry Kissinger.

"The first three pages of Kissinger`s book sent chills down my spine," Krugman writes of A World Restored, the 1957 tome by the man who would later become the unacceptable face of cynical realpolitik. Kissinger, using Napoleon as a case study - but also, Krugman believes, implicitly addressing the rise of fascism in the 1930s - describes what happens when a stable political system is confronted with a "revolutionary power": a radical group that rejects the legitimacy of the system itself.

This, Krugman believes, is precisely the situation in the US today (though he is at pains to point out that he isn`t comparing Bush to Hitler in moral terms). The "revolutionary power", in Kissinger`s theory, rejects fundamental elements of the system it seeks to control, arguing that they are wrong in principle. For the Bush administration, according to Krugman, that includes social security; the idea of pursuing foreign policy through international institutions; and perhaps even the basic notion that political legitimacy comes from democratic elections - as opposed to, say, from God.

But worse still, Kissinger continued, nobody can quite bring themselves to believe that the revolutionary power really means to do what it claims. "Lulled by a period of stability which had seemed permanent," he wrote, "they find it nearly impossible to take at face value the assertion of the revolutionary power that it means to smash the existing framework." Exactly, says Krugman, who recallss the response to his column about Tom DeLay, the anti-evolutionist Republican leader of the House of Representatives, who claimed, bafflingly, that "nothing is more important in the face of a war than cutting taxes".

"My liberal friends said, `I`m not interested in what some crazy guy in Congress has to say`," Krugman recalls. "But this is not some crazy guy! This guy runs Congress! There`s this fundamental unwillingness to acknowledge the radicalism of the threat we`re facing." But those who point out what is happening, Kissinger had already noted long ago, "are considered alarmists; those who counsel adaptation to circumstance are considered balanced and sane." ("Those who take the hard-line rightists now in power at their word are usually accused of being `shrill`, of going over the top," Krugman writes, and he has become well used to such accusations.)

Which is how, as Krugman sees it, the Bush administration managed to sell tax cuts as a benefit to the poor when the result will really be to benefit the rich, and why they managed to rally support for war in Iraq with arguments for which they didn`t have the evidence. Journalists "find it very hard to deal with blatantly false arguments," he argues. "By inclination and training, they always try to see two sides to an issue, and find it hard even to conceive that a major political figure is simply lying."

Krugman can expect many more accusations of shrillness now that The Great Unravelling is on the bookshelves in the US. Already, he says, Alan Greenspan, the chairman of the federal reserve, is refusing to talk to him - "because I accused him of being essentially an apologist for Bush". And there will be plenty of invective, presumably, from the conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan, who hauled Krugman over the coals for accepting a $50,000 (£30,000) adviser`s fee from Enron. (Krugman ended the arrangement before beginning his New York Times column, and told his readers about it.

"I was a hot property, very much in demand as a speaker to business audiences: I was routinely offered as much as $50,000 to speak to investment banks and consulting firms," he wrote later, by way of justification - demonstrating the knack for blowing his own trumpet that even politically sympathetic colleagues find grating. They say he has had a chip on his shoulder since failing to get a job in the Clinton administration.)

Still, there`s an important sense in which his views remain essentially moderate: unlike the growing numbers of America-bashers in Europe, Krugman doesn`t make the nebulous argument that there is something inherently objectionable about the US and its role in the world. He claims only that a fundamentally benign system has been taken over by a bunch of extremists - and so his alarming analysis leaves room for optimism, because they can be removed. "One of the Democratic candidates - who I`m not endorsing, because I`m not allowed to endorse - has as his slogan, `I want my country back`," Krugman says, referring to the campaigning motto of Howard Dean. "I think that`s about right."

Or, to quote a state department official who put it pungently to a reporter earlier this year, describing the dominance of the Pentagon hawks: "I just wake up in the morning and tell myself, `There`s been a military coup`. And then it all makes sense."

· The Great Unravelling is published by Penguin


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John Lansdale
The man who captured Germany`s A-bomb secrets for America

Pearce Wright
Friday September 19, 2003
The Guardian

An aspect of the second world war that has long mystified military analysts is the absence of any signs of an early committed espionage effort by the Americans to discover the extent of Nazi progress in the development of an atomic bomb.

When, however, in the closing months of the war, the US intelligence service did react, it launched a mixed American and British strike force, under Lieutenant Colonel John Lansdale, who has died aged 91, to capture the German scientists and their stocks of uranium ore from under the noses of the advancing Soviet forces, and smuggle them out of Europe. Yet Lansdale had no record as the kind of action man needed for such an adventure.

Born in Oakland, California, he took a BA at the Virginia Military Institute and a law degree at Harvard University. In 1936, he joined the law firm of Squire, Sanders & Dempsey, first in Cleveland and later in Washington, until he was recruited into the army after the US entered the war.

The events that were to link him to the race for the atomic bomb began in 1942. That September, the US war department created the Manhattan Project, under Brigadier General Leslie Groves, to build a vast array of secret pilot plants, laboratories, manufacturing facilities and a weapons test site to develop the atomic bomb, at the then astronomical cost of $2bn.

Appointed as the project`s head of security and intelligence, Lansdale became one of Groves`s righthand men - and often the mediator in bitter disputes between the military and industrial people on the one side and the atomic physicists on the other. Groves was a career soldier - he was already deputy chief of construction for the entire US army - and recognised as having an aggressive, authoritarian temperament.

Before the Manhattan Project was launched, atomic weapons work had been largely theoretical, being based on fundamental experiments at several major universities by a handful of brilliant physicists, many of them exiles from Europe. Although divided philosophically about the ethics of developing an atomic weapon, they were united in a belief that the scientists should remain in charge. The Manhattan Project was the moment that they lost control, and their role changed from being on top to being on tap.

In addition to managing a team to vet security clearance for the largest secret project in history, Lansdale found himself interceding in bitter clashes between the military and science. Probably the most acrid of the many disputes he had to resolve erupted between Groves and the exiled Hungarian physicist and mercurial genius, Leo Szilard.

Szilard had fled from Nazi Germany to England in 1933 and, the following year, had taken out a patent on nuclear energy as an energy source. He went to America in 1938 to continue his work at Columbia University. When he learned of the progress being made in Germany on the fission of uranium, he approached Albert Einstein so the two could write and warn President Roosevelt of the possibility of atomic bombs.

Together with Enrico Fermi, Szilard organised in Chicago the first fission reactor that showed, in 1942, how to produce weapons grade plutonium 239. After that, his metamorphosis into a key member of the Manhattan Project was a given. But he constantly broke the rules with his criticisms of the project, and his views differed sharply from Groves`s. It was an inevitable collision between one man`s obsession with security and the other`s dedication to scientific openness.

When Szilard threw his patent on fission into the argument, as giving him rights to a greater say in development work, Groves exploded. Lansdale negotiated a truce, but never succeeded in reducing the intense dislike between the two men, and the distrust that the soldier had for the scientist. The degree to which Lansdale`s team maintained watertight security over the project for three years was a tour de force.

When Groves did turn his attention to looking at intelligence of Germany`s nuclear effort, he picked a team of scientists with no links to the Manhattan Project, and gave them the codename Alsos - meaning "grove" in Greek.

In April 1945, as allied and Soviet troops were pushing through Germany on their way to Berlin, the Alsos force was sent to track down the enemy`s atomic bomb project and its nuclear scientists before they could fall into the hands of the Soviet Union.

Lansdale led a raid on a factory in Stassfurt, northern Germany, where he suspected the Germans had a cache of bomb materials. He found about 1,100 tons of ore - some in the form of uranium oxide, the raw material of atomic bombs - and, in less than a week, had smuggled a number of German scientists, including Werner Heisenberg and Otto Hahn, out of Europe, together with the uranium ore.

In the mid-1950s, Lansdale was called before Congress to testify about his approval, 10 years earlier, of the appointment of J Robert Oppenheimer as head of the Manhattan Project`s scientific team. Oppenheimer had been accused of being a communist, and his security clearance had been revoked. Outraged at this treatment, Lansdale ardently defended his former colleague as a loyal American citizen.

In 1987, he retired from the law firm, to which he had returned after the war. His wife died in 2001, and he is survived by five daughters.



· John Lansdale, lawyer and security chief, born January 9 1912; died August 22 2003


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Afghan elite seizes land for mansions as poor lose homes
By Phil Reeves in Kabul
19 September 2003


He is the proud new owner of a plot of prime land, mystifyingly given to him by a nation that is desperately short of money. The neighbours will include Afghanistan`s most powerful ministers.

Little wonder that as he inspected his half-built mansion, nothing - especially questions about his country`s legions of homeless or rampant land grabbing by the ruling elite - could dent General Abdul Momen Atahi`s spirits.

"The city`s chief of police will live over there," the general said, cheerfully pointing at a site near by as a team of dust-covered labourers laid the bricks of what will become a spacious living room, adorned with balconies commanding a glorious view of the mountains.

"The Minister of Defence has a place over there," he said. "The deputy mayor of Kabul is there. And there`s the Minister of Water and Power`s plot." While millions of Afghans, many of them returned refugees, live in hopelessly inadequate housing - including buildings bombed out during two decades of war - government ministers and commanders are enmeshed in a scandal over the acquisition of prime land in Kabul.

International reconstruction efforts proceed at a snail`s pace in much of the countryside, but steady progress is being made on scores of palatial homes in the capital`s most prestigious neighbourhood. The affair is an embarrassment for the "transitional" government of Hamid Karzai, and for his chief sponsor, the United States, which is keen to declare Afghanistan a success, particularly after the disaster in Iraq.

It has come to the boil just after President George Bush requested $800m (£500m) from Congress for the reconstruction of Afghanistan and as Afghan officials prepare to press the argument for more rebuilding funds to the US Treasury Secretary, John Snow, who arrived in Kabul yesterday.

Afghanistan`s Independent Human Rights Commission says all but four of Mr Karzai`s 32 cabinet ministers have been given plots at Shir Pur village in Kabul, some of which the commission estimates are worth up to $170,000 - a reflection of soaring land prices in the post-Taliban capital.

General Atahi, commander of the 72nd Brigade, is one among scores of senior officials to benefit from the move, which he says was agreed by the cabinet. He says he paid the equivalent of $1,500 "for documentation"; otherwise the plot was free, although he is footing the bill for construction.

This, in itself, would be sufficient to generate an outcry. The list of people awaiting re-housing in the city of Kabul alone is 500,000, according to human rights activists. But the scandal acquired larger dimensions earlier this month when bulldozers were sent in to destroy mud and brick homes belonging to several hundred men, women and children in an attempt to drive them off part of the site.

Some of them have lived there for 25 years and say they have documents to prove their ownership rights. This claim contradicts some government officials who have sought to defend the construction of the estate by saying that it is on land wholly owned by the Ministry of Defence. "One hundred police came here and they started beating us," said one resident, Rahmat Shah, 43. "We were hoping things would be better after the Taliban, but then they did this."

Kabul`s chief of police, Basir Salangi, is widely blamed for the attempted eviction and has been sacked. The houses themselves were half-destroyed before United Nations human rights officials, accompanied by international peace-keeping forces, intervened to halt the demolition. Since then, the families have refused to budge.

Finger-pointing is under way in Kabul over who is responsible; questions abound over whether President Karzai was involved, and whether he will now act to redress the situation - which may involve direct confrontation with some of his most influential ministers. It is also a test of the nascent human rights groups, who have seized on the issue, and Afghanistan`s new media.

Several ministers have said that President Karzai himself approved the project. But he has denied any prior knowledge, and this week ordered a commission of inquiry.

"As far as I am aware the ministers who have taken land have paid for it," said the President`s spokesman, Jawid Ludin. "It may have been a notional figure; it may not have been the market price. The commission will hopefully shed light on that."

Further heat was added to the issue by Miloon Kothari, an independent consultant who spent a fortnight travelling around Afghanistan to compile a report on land and housing issues for the UN`s Human Rights Commission. He found widespread evidence that provincial warlords and government officials - exploiting the lack of a judiciary or land registries - are grabbing land illegally, forcing people to sell, and driving up property prices to levels well beyond the means of the poor by land speculation, sometimes to launder drugs money.

He also announced that a "very long list" of officials at the "very highest level" were involved and specifically cited the Shir Pur affair. He named the Defence Minister, Marshal Mohammed Qasim Fahim - who is one of Afghanistan`s most powerful and controversial figures - as directly involved, and called for his dismissal.

Marshal Fahim, a Tajik, has issued heated denials. But these have not mollified many. Abdul Sabor, a teacher, lives with his family in the bomb-shattered ruins of a house in west Kabul, much of which was damaged during the 1993 civil war. He has been waiting for years to be re-housed. "We are just pawns in a game played by thieves and criminals," he said.
19 September 2003 08:36


© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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In Kandahar and other Pashtun areas in southern Afghanistan, the Taliban is resurgent and disaffection is spreading.
September 19, 2003
THE NEXT PHASE
2 U.S. Fronts: Quick Wars, but Bloody Peace
By AMY WALDMAN and DEXTER FILKINS


The United States` military base in Gardez, Afghanistan — its perimeter marked by a small woodshed with the words Crack House painted over but still visible — straddles the smooth asphalt main road that leads southeast.

For the Americans, blocking the road helps create a "safe" radius around their base. For Afghans, however, it creates an inconvenient detour. When the main road is rejoined, it soon offers up the "customs inspectors" of a renegade Afghan commander taxing all new cars that pass. The Americans do nothing about this, local residents say.

Two years after the Bush administration vowed to fight terrorism worldwide, the American presence in the heavily Pashtun area of southern Afghanistan has mostly come down to this: two obstacles on the road, one imposed by the Americans, the other ignored by them, and neither, as Afghans see it, benefiting their country.

Not for a long time has the United States embarked on two such ambitious projects as the simultaneous pacification and rebuilding of Afghanistan and Iraq. The administration argues that progress has been significant in both countries — the removal of the Taliban and its ally Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, the overthrow of the Baathists in Iraq, the liberation of millions of people in each country from oppressive governments, the taking of the fight to terrorists on the soil where they found havens.

But even American officials in Afghanistan concede that the sense of alienation and disappointment may be helping to nourish the boldest regrouping yet by supporters of the Taliban, the regime the United States toppled in 2001. The Gardez base has been attacked twice this month; in the area, bands of Taliban are roaming, harassing local men who do not grow beards.

In Iraq, there are daily attacks on American soldiers, including one that killed three yesterday, and they may not be just the work of foreign fighters or Saddam Hussein loyalists. Defense Department officials warned this week that ordinary Iraqis increasingly hostile to the American occupation might soon constitute the most formidable foe.

In both countries, an apparently rapid military victory has been followed by a murkier, bloodier peace. Militant Islamic extremism, in its Afghan and Iraqi guises, is proving, for now, to be an ideology that can be contained but not defeated.

The Bush administration is now struggling to respond. Aid to Afghanistan is being doubled, and the cost of the occupation of both countries over the next year is now put at $87 billion. In neither country does any exit for American troops appear feasible in the foreseeable future.

This month, President Bush vowed to stay the course. Noting that "America has done this kind of work before" in Germany and Japan after World War II, he made clear that the United States would not cut and run.

It took four years to hold the first elections in Germany after the war ended in 1945, and 54 years to win the wider struggle against Communism engaged there.

"Now and in the future," Mr. Bush said in his nationally televised address before the second anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, "we will support our troops and we will keep our word to the more than 50 million people of Afghanistan and Iraq."

Keeping that word will be expensive and arduous, but administration officials see an even wider objective: the engagement of a struggle to remake the Middle East as a region of possibility and democracy rather than a place where frustrations seethe under authoritarian governments, breeding anti-American violence.

But such broad ambitions seem far from America`s reach for now. In both countries, militants are mounting attacks on Americans and American-backed locals in the tried and tested guerrilla style.

They are staging nighttime attacks on police posts and hit-and-run assaults on American convoys. The guerrillas are killing international and local aid workers, chasing away the very people trying to rebuild their shattered countries.

"We`re easy targets," said Staff Sgt. Paul Anderson, who is part of a team the Americans have fielded in southeast Afghanistan in a bid to win hearts and minds. "If they really want to get us they can."

Central Iraq

American Occupation, Guerrilla Resistance

Americans in both countries have already learned one lesson: good intentions are not always rewarded. This is clear in the perilous Ramadi-Falluja region of central Iraq, some 70 miles west of Baghdad.

Early in September, a five-ton American truck was blown off the road by a homemade bomb, probably set off by an Iraqi soldier hiding in the tall grass. An American soldier lay in the road, his clothing in bloody shreds.

As an American troop carrier lifted the ruined vehicle from the roadside, the Iraqis who had gathered nearby cheered. Farmers and shopkeepers, parents with children, all of them threw their arms into the air as the troop carrier rumbled past.

"Death to America!" the Iraqis cried, some holding up the bloody shreds of an American uniform. "God is great! The American Army will collapse here in Iraq!"

Remote-controlled bombs explode regularly next to American troops. The American camp in Ramadi is bombarded almost nightly by mortars and artillery. In four months, 19 American solders have been killed and more than 100 wounded.

"One day after another, it`s bang, boom, pow," said Specialist Ferdinand Frizarry, walking in a foot patrol along River Road, where American soldiers have been ambushed by remote-controlled bombs repeatedly in recent days. Bomb craters lined a two-mile stretch of road. "You could hide a bomb anywhere in there," he said.

The precise source of these anti-American attacks remains unclear. But officials say there is growing evidence that the country is now seen as the epicenter of a struggle between the West and Islam. Fundamentalist Islamic warriors, or jihadists, are being drawn to the country, fighting alongside or perhaps in conjunction with loyalists of the fallen government of Saddam Hussein.

Responding to the violence, the Bush administration has returned to the United Nations — a body spurned in the buildup to the war in Iraq — to try to secure a mandate that would encourage other countries to send troops to help in the battles and tasks that lie ahead. It also seeking to speed up the transfer of security duties and political responsibility to Iraqis.

Ramadi probably amounts to the worst that Iraq can offer. To the south, the country`s Shiite Muslim majority remains relatively tolerant of their American occupiers, while in the north, the Kurds are the Americans` most stalwart supporters.

But if most of Iraq is proving largely amenable to the occupation, the guerrilla war being waged in the central part of the country serves as a measure of how far the American project in Iraq must go before its architects can claim success.

In Afghanistan, too, success still seems elusive. Striking differences exist between the countries, not least the larger scale of the resistance in Iraq. In Afghanistan an international coalition forged before the war has held, with countries like Germany and Canada still sending troops, while in Iraq the Americans are laboring largely alone.

In Afghanistan, an American-backed administration, led by President Hamid Karzai, has been in office for more than 18 months. Iraqis are still governed mainly by an American civilian administrator, L. Paul Bremer III.

But a hardening of attitudes often seems evident in both countries. After the bombing of the truck in the Ramadi area in Iraq, an American tank dispatched to the scene sprayed a field of tall grass with heavy machine gunfire, killing no one, for there was no one there to kill.

Even the jokes have turned. In the American military headquarters in Gardez, a soldier scrawled out the word "FUN" vertically on a blackboard, then wrote out sentences to follow each letter: F is for the fire that burns through downtown; U is Uranium bombs; and N is for No Survivors in Al Ramadi.

"I know they hate my guts, but they can`t say so because I`ve got a gun," an American soldier said the other night, standing guard outside the base. "Kind of funny, isn`t it?"

Afghanistan

Faltering Progress, Security Fears

Much as 30 years of Saddam Hussein`s Baath Party rule altered the culture and social structures of Iraq, 23 years of war had the same effect in Afghanistan.

Everything was destroyed, from schools to roads to hospitals to the most basic of government services, whether tax collection or policing. Thousands of warlords were empowered and cannot now be dislodged. Factionalism colors everything.

Most of Afghanistan`s citizens are now illiterate. The country`s human capacity is "beyond words," said Khwaja Sultan, who heads a consulting team working on economic management. "Very, very low."

Most Afghans live miles from even minimal health care, and many parts of the country lack phones, electricity, drinking water and decent roads. Children support families by herding goats or filling in potholes in the road. Old men do harsh physical labor until they drop. Women bear children until they die, often by age 43.

Afghanistan`s mountainous geography is much more challenging than that of Iraq. The four northern provinces that Germany is proposing to cover with a provincial reconstruction team of 300 to 400 soldiers are equivalent to 20 percent of German territory.

The United States, too, came to Afghanistan with what is referred to as a "light footprint." The mission was to capture or kill Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters. So while the populations of Iraq and Afghanistan are roughly equivalent, America has 127,000 troops in Iraq, and 9,800 in Afghanistan.

That smaller Afghan force is now stretched. The signs that the Taliban may be resurgent in the Pashtun south are multiplying — in the form of attacks on pro-government Afghans and spreading disaffection.

So, two years after the war, America is not scaling back its effort but ramping up.

It is encouraging the possible expansion outside of Kabul of an international peacekeeping force now under NATO`s command; investing more in building a national army and police force; and having some soldiers work as they have in Iraq, fixing wells, setting up mobile clinics, settling disputes and otherwise trying to imprint this notion on Afghan minds: America does good.

The needs in one of the world`s poorest countries are arguably far greater than in Iraq. If Iraq suffered from an excess of the state, one that spied on all its citizens, Afghanistan has suffered from the lack of one.

"This is a country that has not thought about its own development for 25 years," said Filippo Grandi, the chief of mission for the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

America is now thinking about that development but facing an increasingly sullen population. Afghans had expected that America, the world`s superpower, which had announced its intentions to bring peace and reconstruction to Afghanistan, would act quickly and effectively.

Instead, as of May, according to a study by the Center for International Cooperation at New York University, only $191 million in reconstruction projects had been completed. A critical artery of the country — the Kabul-Kandahar road — is still far from complete, a potholed mess in many sections.

This faltering progress has prompted some Afghans to say that the Americans have already lost the battle for the Pashtun south, which gave rise to the Taliban and does not feel represented in the postwar government.

"We are scared, because they started rebuilding very late," said one Afghan security official from the southeast. "Most people will say the Americans aren`t doing anything."

At the same time, Americans have generated anger by searching homes and wrongly arresting people, said Hajji Azrat Khan, an elder of the Ahmadzai tribe who lives not far from the American base in Gardez. This problem — offended local sensibilities — also exists in Iraq.

"They take someone to Bagram" — the American base near Kabul — "for two or three months, then release them and say, `I`m sorry. I`m sorry,` " he said , as if testing the words before spitting them out.

The task of reversing this kind of sentiment quickly has fallen to a Provincial Reconstruction Team, essentially a civil affairs unit of about 60 American soldiers whose focus is less on capturing terrorists than on winning public support.

While aiding the military mission by gathering intelligence as they work, they have focused on reconstruction. In Gardez, the team has 29 projects under way, most involving the building or fixing of schools.

They have had at least some effect. One Ahmadzai elder, Abdul Hanam, said the Americans had built three schools in his district, Ahmadabad, including a girls` school to be opened soon, and conducted mobile clinics. "People are very happy with the Americans," he said.

Paktia Province`s new governor, Asadullah Wafa, said the Provincial Reconstruction Team was now doing much of the rebuilding in his province, as nongovernment groups have pulled back because of security fears.

Critics note that even school-building can be more about symbolism than substance. Barnett R. Rubin, an Afghanistan expert at New York University, said Afghanistan had a $600 million deficit in its recurrent expenditures trust fund, used for, among other things, government salaries.

"What is the point of building schools," he asked, "when there is no money for teachers?".

The American soldiers` role, they said, comes down to this: to fire back when someone fires at them, and to serve as de facto bodyguards for the reconstruction team.

This, they said, was a job better done by the military police, who are heavily deployed in Iraq, but absent in Afghanistan.

As they waited, they talked about recent American casualties in Shkin, near the Pakistani border: two killed, one wounded.

They knew it could be them. With almost no direct contact with the population, they tried to read faces, and they did not like what they saw. "The children like us," one 10th Mountain Division soldier said. "That`s pretty much it."

Rebuilding

Repairing Dams, Winning Few Friends

In Ramadi, too, Americans` efforts to rebuild are taking them deep into the mundane details of engineering and public administration.

Lt. Christopher Rauch, a 24-year-old Army civil affairs officer, spent a day last week inspecting the half dozen dams standing inside the Euphrates River. Over the past several weeks, Lieutenant Rauch has spent tens of thousands of dollars to repair the dams, some of which are a half-century old.

Only six months ago, he was working as a clerk for the State of South Carolina, processing applications for unemployment insurance. But he was an army reservist, too, a college graduate with a degree in agriculture, and suddenly he found himself presiding over engineering projects about which he had received no formal training.

"I`m not an engineer," said Lieutenant Rauch. "But I understand pretty well how things work." Over time, he said, he has developed a close rapport with his Iraqi counterpart, Hussein Alawi, the minister for dams for Al Anbar Province, which stretches west of Baghdad to the Syrian border.

Through an Arabic translator, Lieutenant Rauch listened intently and offered advice. Mr. Alawi proclaimed him an expert. "When it comes to engineering, the Americans know what they are doing," Mr. Alawi said. But beyond that Mr. Alawi would not go.

Asked about the Americans and their occupation, Mr. Alawi shook his head. "I am cooperating with the Americans for the sake of my country," Mr. Alwai said. "It`s the nature of the Iraqi people to be proud and nationalistic, more than most people. We want to evict them."

American commanders still express confidence in the institutions they are helping to build in Iraq, including local councils, police and fire departments and highway patrols. In some parts of the country, these efforts are beginning to yield results.

In Ramadi, though, it is less clear that these American-inspired institutions are working, or even that the beneficiaries of the new government endorse them.

One day last week, a group of new officers from the Iraqi Highway Patrol lounged beneath a highway overpass. Asked about the Americans, they responded with scorn.

"I hate the Americans," said Muhammad Khobaeir Waeel, a new officer. "They don`t respect us. They throw us to the ground and put their boots on the backs of our heads."

With such friends, America may scarcely need enemies as it tries to govern two countries that are very different from post-1945 Germany and Japan. Those who work with the Americans do so at risk.

In Gardez, one Afghan interpreter for the military said that when he went on raids, he wore a hood over his head so no one could identify him. He had heard that interpreters working with the Americans had a bounty on their head. "People blame us for giving the Americans information," he said.

Getting accurate information has been perhaps the greatest challenge for the Americans in places like Paktia Province in the southeast. Local tribal leaders and government officials sketch a picture of an American military trying to follow trails in the sand on a windy day.

Perhaps that is not a bad image for the current state of the American efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Masood Karokhail, a program officer for the Gardez area for the aid group Swisspeace, said American soldiers had sometimes become pawns in feuds dating back generations, with scores settled by passing often false information to the Americans.

One American Special Operations soldier at the local base insisted that intelligence was solid, and mistakes few. "Our house searches are always based on good information," he said.

But an Afghan security official, a Pashtun and supporter of the American presence, was blunt in his assessment of American actions. "Unfortunately they don`t have faithful Afghan friends," he said. "That is very dangerous for them."


Amy Waldman reported from Gardez, Afghanistan, and Dexter Filkins reported from Ramadi, Iraq.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Iraqis brought a portrait of Saddam Hussein and what they said was part of a burned American military vehicle, at right, to a celebration in Khaldiya after two American soldiers were wounded there. Three G.I.`s were killed in another attack near Tikrit.
September 19, 2003
CASUALTIES
3 G.I.`s Killed in an Ambush by Guerrillas Near Tikrit
By IAN FISHER


BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 18 — Guerrillas shattered a two-day lull in deadly attacks against American forces in Iraq tonight, ambushing soldiers with small-arms fire near Saddam Hussein`s hometown of Tikrit north of Baghdad. Military officials said three soldiers were killed and two were wounded.

Earlier today, two American soldiers were wounded and three military vehicles were destroyed when a convoy hit explosives in the road while patrolling the hot-spot town of Khaldiya, west of Baghdad.

Maj. Pete Mitchell of the Marine Corps, a spokesman for United States Central Command, said tonight that an "unknown force" attacked American forces in the Tikrit area. He said he had no further details on the American casualties or whether any of the attackers had been killed or wounded.

The Tikrit attack was the first deadly assault on American forces here since Monday. More than 70 American soldiers have been killed in hostile fire in Iraq since President Bush declared major combat operations over on May 1.

Several news organizations tonight quoted witnesses as saying that two or more American soldiers had died in the attack in Khaldiya, but Amy Abbott, an American military spokeswoman, said soldiers were only wounded.

Elsewhere today, a fire erupted on an oil pipeline near the northern town of Bayji that feeds the main pipeline to Turkey. Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the commanding officer for the ground forces in Iraq, said it was unclear whether the blaze was an accident or sabotage.

The area where the Khaldiya attack occurred today roiled with further anger at Americans. In nearby Falluja — where nine police officers were killed last week by American soldiers — crowds marched for the funeral of a 14-year-old boy who had been shot, residents said, by American troops Wednesday night.

Residents said American troops, apparently thinking they were under attack, opened fire near a wedding where guests were shooting off machine guns in celebration.

The Khaldiya attack today occurred about 3 p.m. along the main road, 15 miles west of Falluja. Sergeant Abbott said that the convoy hit mines and that two transport trucks and a Humvee were destroyed.

The Associated Press reported that five tanks, two Bradley fighting vehicles and about 40 troops surrounded the area. The news agency reported a second attack about nine miles to the west, but the military command could not confirm that tonight.

Khaldiya has been unsettled in recent weeks, with several attacks on the new police force that is supported by American troops. On Monday, the town`s new police chief — condemned by many in town as a collaborator with the Americans — was assassinated on his way home.

The American military has been working to calm tensions in the area, and today officers met with local leaders in Falluja to discuss the deaths of the policemen. General Sanchez said the military would consider paying the families of the dead men, as he said had happened in other instances when American soldiers have accidentally killed Iraqis.

"We`ve paid almost a million in claims across the country," General Sanchez said today in Baghdad.

He also said no Americans or Britons were being held in Iraq. That possibility had been raised this week by an American brigadier general. General Sanchez also confirmed reports that the Americans were holding 3,856 members of the Iranian group People`s Mujahedeen, a force backed by Mr. Hussein that has fought Iran`s Islamic government.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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September 19, 2003
Late-Arriving Candidate Got Push From Clintons
By KATHARINE Q. SEELYE


WASHINGTON, Sept. 18 — Behind Gen. Wesley K. Clark`s candidacy for the White House is a former president fanning the flames.

General Clark, in fact, said today that he had had a series of conversations with both the former president, Bill Clinton, and his wife, Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York, as well as close aides to them and that all of them had encouraged him to run.

The story, though, is not simple.

At first glance, it would seem that Mr. Clinton and General Clark would have a longtime bond. They each lost their fathers early. From the same small patch of 1950`s America, they emerged as ambitious, high-achieving golden boys, becoming Rhodes Scholars and attending Oxford University, then soaring to the tops of their respective professions at relatively young ages.

In reality, they hardly knew each other. Instead of paths that crossed, theirs were parallel. And when their lives finally intersected — while Mr. Clinton was president and General Clark commanded the allied troops in Europe — it was a complex and tortured time for both.

To General Clark`s humiliation, President Clinton`s Pentagon relieved him of his command. And President Clinton had signed off on the plan, according to several published accounts, apparently unaware that he was being deceived by Clark detractors.

Now the 58-year-old career Army officer wants to be president. And the 57-year-old former president seems eager to promote his candidacy.

General Clark said in an interview today he had talked with both Mr. and Mrs. Clinton over the last few weeks. Beyond saying that they had been encouraging, he was reluctant to discuss the conversations because he was "afraid I`m going to misquote one of them."

Earlier this summer, Mr. Clinton and Mrs. Clinton were talking up General Clark to their friends.

"During their visits to Martha`s Vineyard, there was certainly a lot of buzz about General Clark`s potential candidacy," said Alan M. Dershowitz, the author and Harvard Law School professor who hobnobbed on the Vineyard with the Clintons.

"Obviously they didn`t make any endorsement, but Bill particularly was clearly talking up his virtues," Mr. Dershowitz added. "You could tell he was Bill`s kind of guy."

And just last week, at a dinner at the Clintons` home in Chappaqua, N.Y., the former president told guests the Democratic Party had "two stars," referring to Senator Clinton and General Clark.

Since then, some of Mr. Clinton`s former associates have signed on with General Clark`s incipient campaign.

One of them is Mickey Kantor, who was Mr. Clinton`s campaign chairman in 1992. "I`m doing everything I can to give him personal advice and talk to others about him," Mr. Kantor said.

Both Clintons, Mr. Kantor said, "are really admirers of General Clark and his talents and are greatly impressed with him." He added: "Given their admiration for General Clark, I`d be surprised if they were anything but supportive of anyone who has worked for them for doing anything to help him."

Mr. Kantor said that the Clintons` enthusiasm did not extend to recruiting people for the Clark campaign, and he expected that neither Clinton would endorse any candidate in the Democratic primaries. But their enthusiasm is evident.

"He`s a good man, he`s a smart man, served our country well," Mr. Clinton said on Saturday in Iowa. "He was fabulous in the Bosnian peace process."

On Tuesday, he hailed General Clark as having "a sack full of guts" for a heroic rescue bid of State Department officials whose vehicle had slid off a Balkan mountainside.

The Clintons` promotion for General Clark`s candidacy has set off speculation about their long-term strategy. Conservative commentators have suggested that the Clintons were encouraging weak candidates to enter the race so that they would lose, leaving the Democratic field open for Senator Clinton in 2008.

Asked today about some of that speculation, including whether he might be a stalking horse for Senator Clinton and might wind up as her vice presidential candidate, either next year or in 2008, General Clark said he had heard the talk but dismissed it. He also said he had no interest in being vice president.

"If you`re concerned about national security affairs," he said, "then the right place for the person who wants to be commander in chief is to be the commander in chief."

General Clark also said he had not had much of a relationship with the Clintons. "I had, like, seen him twice in my life before he became president," he said.

Even though they both grew up in Arkansas, General Clark wrote in his book, "Waging Modern War" (PublicAffairs, 2001), that he met Mr. Clinton for the first time in 1965 at a student conference at Georgetown University. He met Hillary Clinton in 1983 in France at a conference of French-American Young Leaders. The Clarks and the Clintons had dinner once when Mr. Clinton was governor of Arkansas and, as General Clark told it, "I had talked to him once on the phone as I was passing through the state a few years later, but that was about it."

Still, early in the Clinton administration, Mr. Clark was named a senior aide to the joint chiefs of staff. It was not then clear whether Mr. Clinton had a hand in the promotion, but General Clark wrote in his memoirs that he had heard later from a fellow officer that Mr. Clinton had referred to him as "my friend, Wes Clark."

General Clark did not at that time dispel the impression that the two were friends. The similarities in their histories led people to think that there must have been a relationship. One rumor then circulating had it that Mr. Clark had double-dated with Mr. Clinton and Hillary Clinton.

The stories became so common that after several weeks, General Clark did start setting the record straight. And in reality, Pentagon officials said, General Clark`s promotions were approved by President Clinton but not initiated by him.

With the extent of his connection to the president unclear, several accounts said that the impression grew that General Clark circumvented the Pentagon to go to his friends at the White House.

"There was a belief at the Pentagon that this was happening," a senior Clinton administration official said today. "But this was wildly overstated."

Still, this belief fueled resentment toward General Clark among some top Pentagon officials. Military officials described that resentment as based in part on jealousy and partly on the fact that General Clark — first in his class at West Point, achingly ambitious and with a knack for getting good press — had not fit in with the military culture.

From that assignment as senior aide to the joint chiefs, General Clark took on a succession of promotions, culminating in his assignment as NATO supreme allied commander. But his end came unceremoniously.

It was July 1999, shortly after General Clark had led the successful war in Kosovo — though as he wrote in his memoirs, he could not claim victory because the administration had been reluctant to call it a war.

In any case, General Clark was forced to retire early by Pentagon officials who, according to several accounts, tricked President Clinton.

Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff told the White House that they had to find a spot for Joe Ralston, a popular Air Force general and right-hand man to William S. Cohen, the secretary of defense. General Ralston had been denied the promotion to chairman of the Joint Chiefs after admitting to adultery 10 years earlier while separated from his wife.

These members, according to several accounts, told President Clinton that General Clark`s regular tour of duty as NATO supreme allied commander was up and that they wanted General Ralston to succeed him.

"Clinton signed on, apparently not realizing that he had been snookered," David Halberstam wrote in his book, "War in a Time of Peace: Bush, Clinton and the Generals" (Scribner, 2001).

"Clark was devastated by the news, a world-class slap in the face, a public rebuke of almost unparalleled proportions," Mr. Halberstam wrote. He added that Samuel Berger, Mr. Clinton`s national security adviser, had told General Clark that the Pentagon had fooled the White House.

General Clark wrote that later, President Clinton had told him privately, "I had nothing to do with it."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

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September 19, 2003
Iraqi Factions Seek to Take Over Security Duties
By PATRICK E. TYLER


SALAHUDDIN, Iraq, Sept. 18 — Five Iraqi leaders devised a sweeping new security proposal today that would call for most American troops to withdraw to their bases and turn over day-to-day police duties to Iraqi militia forces working under a new interior ministry.

While the proposal still requires approval from Iraq`s Governing Council and the American authorities, it represented the strongest action to date on the deteriorating security climate in Iraq by leaders of the former Iraqi opposition to Saddam Hussein.

Some of these leaders, who met privately here in this city in northeastern Iraq to create the proposal, said they were prompted to act out of deep frustrations over the continuing instability in the country.

Massoud Barzani, leader of the Kurdish Democratic Party and the host of the meeting, said in an interview that United States forces were making serious mistakes by trying to become a "front line" occupation force. He said they needed to turn over this task quickly to Iraqi militia forces who could work with Iraqi civic and tribal leaders to draw up security arrangements tailored to each part of the country.

The proposal, which will be presented to American officials in the next few days, raised questions of how the disparate Iraqi militias would function together, if at all, and whether their return to the streets would foment a kind of warlordism in Iraq. The Iraqi leaders said, however, that their forces could be integrated under the control of a new interior ministry and monitored by Iraq`s interim government and the United States military.

The militias, Mr. Barzani said, could provide a transitional force until tens of thousands of Iraqi police officers and a new Iraqi army were ready to assume the task.

Mr. Barzani said Iraqi leaders want to continue to work closely with the more than 140,000 allied forces in Iraq, but he indicated that the five former opposition leaders would recommend to the 25-member Governing Council that the United States military take a secondary and much reduced role.

"The biggest mistake the Americans have made is to confront the Iraqis face to face and to be in the front line of confrontation," Mr. Barzani said. "But I think American forces should be withdrawn to bases nearby. They should not be policing and conducting patrols. They should hand over these duties to Iraqis."

It was not immediately clear how the United States will respond to the proposal. But military authorities have said they would be receptive to a workable plan to speed up the transfer of security functions in the country to the Iraqis.

Gen. John P. Abizaid, who heads the United States Central Command, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal that American military commanders were considering a plan to pull back from policing duties by next spring.

The commander of the allied forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, told reporters in Baghdad today they "would be willing to do that immediately" if local security forces were prepared to take over.

The plan drawn up by the Iraqi opposition leaders would call for a more rapid pullback of allied forces and would bring into play Kurdish, Shiite and other militia forces that the American military commanders have either sought to disarm, disband, or, in the case of the Kurds, restrict to guard duties in the Kurdish homelands in northern Iraq.

The meeting here was unannounced and came as a surprise to some members of the 25-member Iraqi Governing Council in Baghdad.

No American military officials were present, but a senior Central Intelligence Agency officer in Iraq lunched with the five leaders at Mr. Barzani`s guest house here. When a reporter was invited into the lunch by Mr. Barzani, the C.I.A. official and his aides departed.

The dramatic initiative by the core leaders of the former Iraqi opposition to Mr. Hussein follows a month of increasing violence and security setbacks for American forces that have created a perception that the American security plan for postwar Iraq is failing.

Today`s meeting also reflected the growing determination on the part of the interim Iraqi government to assert itself politically by insisting on taking over more responsibility from the Coalition Provisional Authority headed by L. Paul Bremer III.

"The Iraqi people understand the logic of liberation and they reject the logic of occupation," said Ahmad Chalabi, head of the Iraqi National Congress and one of the participants in today`s meeting. Mr. Chalabi is president of the Iraqi Governing Council this month under a rotation arrangement. "The faster that sovereignty is vested in the Iraqis, the faster that security will be established in the country," he said.

Mr. Chalabi, who leaves for the United States this weekend, said the new security plan had been completed. It was expected that it would be presented to senior Bush administration officials in coming days.

"It would put the Iraqi militias under the ministry of interior and take control of security in agreement with the Americans with some sort of liaison so we can avoid incidents of friendly fire," he said, adding that the plan could be carried out this fall.

Also attending the meeting were Jalal Talabani, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the second largest Kurdish faction; Iyad Alawi, leader of the Iraqi National Accord; and Adel Abdul Mahdi, a senior official of the main Shiite religious party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

"The current situation cannot continue," said Mr. Abdul Mahdi, whose party blamed American forces for the security lapse that led to the car-bomb attack that killed Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim. "The death of Ayatollah Hakim was for us like Sept. 11, and we believe Iraqis now should take a clear responsibility on the question of security."

A number of Governing Council members, including Mr. Abdul Mahdi, said in interviews that they would take no step to undermine the relationship between the interim government and the occupation authority. They added, however, that they were resolved to assume a greater measure of sovereignty and more authority for the current interim government while following an agreed plan to write a constitution and hold elections for a permanent government over the next year.

"We do not prefer to do things quickly at the expense of doing them well," said Akila al-Hashemi, a Shiite from a prominent religious family in Najaf who held a Foreign Ministry post in Mr. Hussein`s government and was selected to serve on the Governing Council.

But in comments reflecting the current mood on the Governing Council, Ms. Hashemi told a group of her colleagues recently, "Rights are taken, they are not given."

A number of Iraqi ministers appointed this month to take over major sectors of the government and economy already have complained to the Governing Council that they have no budget resources and that their directives are either ignored or reversed by Mr. Bremer`s staff.

Nevertheless, some of Mr. Bremer`s aides believe that the interim Iraqi government is ill equipped to assume greater responsibilities.

A proposal by France this month to transfer sovereignty to the interim Iraqi government within weeks seems to have been rejected by some Governing Council members.

"We are not counting on the French position," said Muhammad Othman, a Kurdish physician who returned from exile in London to join the Iraqi council. "But it is a good opportunity to push our cause and to get a resolution at the United Nations that restores our sovereignty."

Ms. Hashemi, who visited Paris on Sept. 10 and met Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, said she admonished the French not to try to drive a wedge between the United States and the new Iraqi government by offering a tempting plan for quick sovereignty.

"Don`t think the Iraqis will ever forget what the Americans did in liberating them," she said she told French officials, adding, "We will not allow the Americans to fail."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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The suicide bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad, at the Canal Hotel, has left the secretary general, Kofi Annan, more determined to remake the organization to fit 21st-century realities.
September 19, 2003
U.N. Senses It Must Change, Fast
By FELICITY BARRINGER


UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 18 — A mood of skittish uncertainty has descended on the leaders of the United Nations. They are eager to overhaul their institution, but worry whether any change can give it the freedom it needs to survive without being seen as either a lackey of the United States or an easily swattable gadfly.

The bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad last month has, however, also made the secretary general, Kofi Annan, more aggressive. He is more nervous about putting his people in harm`s way, particularly if they are operating with an ambiguous mandate, but he is increasingly insistent that member states end a decade of dawdling and remake the institution to fit the geopolitical realities of the 21st century.

Mr. Annan, who says he will outline plans for reform as the annual General Assembly gathers next week, has said that only "radical" revisions in the institution are likely to preserve it. Iraq has shattered any global consensus on handling security issues, and, as last week`s meeting in Cancún showed, there is no consensus on trade issues.

It is already clear that events since Sept. 11, 2001, have cost the United Nations dearly. The fundamental assumption of its neutrality has been supplanted, at the fringes of the Muslim world, with the assumption that the United Nations is simply a stalking horse for the imperial ambitions of the United States.

Two weeks after the Baghdad bombing on Aug. 19, the United Nations public relations personnel in the Arab world gathered here to brief Mr. Annan on this growing perception. Salim Lone, the communications director of the Baghdad mission and a survivor of the bombing, said, "It was clear to many of us in Baghdad that lots of ordinary Iraqis were unable to distinguish our U.N. operation from the overall U.S. presence in the country."

"This perception is growing in the Middle East," he said. "Extremists prosper from that, which is why I am afraid that a terrible line has been crossed by this bombing and given other groups a new terror option."

Europeans today view the United Nations as the embodiment of international law and world order. The United States seems to view it as a tool to be used when handy. Africans and Asians tend to have more case-specific uses for United Nations diplomacy and its general advocacy for the poor and disadvantaged who are not much in the minds of rich nations.

But for United Nations officials, many of whom have never worked anywhere else, the bottom-line question remains how to relate to the United States.

"The worst fear of any of us," said Shashi Tharoor, an under secretary general whose entire career has been spent at the United Nations, "is that we fail to navigate an effective way between the Scylla of being seen as a cat`s paw of the sole superpower and the Charybdis of being seen as so unhelpful to the sole superpower that they disregard the value of the United Nations."

Mr. Annan believes that one problem is that the United Nations does not reflect the world as it exists today. The Security Council, he argues, must be enlarged, with new members added to both the group of 10 elected nations that serve two-year terms, and the group of five permanent members that hold veto power: the United States, Britain, France, China and Russia.

The General Assembly, he said, needs to remake itself so that it does not simply pass "lowest common denominator" nostrums. "We started with 51 member states and we are now 191 member states," he noted, but "the structure of the Council has not changed."

In public forums and in worldwide news outlets, Mr. Annan has been hammering home his points, saying, with soft-spoken passion, that the global security infrastructure is broken, and if it is not fixed right away, it will be too late.

The United Nations, whose $1.2 billion budget supports three major regional headquarters outside New York, supports more than 9,000 employees worldwide and dozens of peacekeeping and relief missions. Its usefulness — in places from Kosovo to Liberia — is not widely disputed, but its raison d`être is.

American ambivalence over the institution has come into focus over Iraq. The question is now being asked: is it worth bringing the United Nations into more of a substantive partnership role in Iraq`s political transformation?

The Bush administration is facing a lot of international skepticism. Despite the recent decision to turn back to the United Nations for its imprimatur on the forced remaking of Iraq, many here fear that the United States may step back yet further from the creed of multinationalism hewn to by presidents from Franklin D. Roosevelt to George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton and treat the organization merely as a necessary evil.

The latest draft resolution on Iraq being circulated by the United States reflects a continued wariness. Instead of offering the United Nations the role of midwife to a new government, which it played in Afghanistan, or the more direct administrative role that it had in East Timor, it calls on Iraqis — specifically the Governing Council created under the auspices of the United States and Britain — to be the midwives of their own future, and to set the timetable for the restoration of Iraq`s political rebirth as a sovereign nation with a constitution and a democratically elected government.

The resolution, as originally crafted, still leaves the United Nations in the role of facilitator, not decision maker, with the job of "providing humanitarian relief, promoting the economic reconstruction of and conditions for sustainable development," and "advancing efforts to restore and establish national and local institutions for representative governance."

Such language seems unlikely to satisfy the French and Germans, who see the United Nations at the center of balanced world governance. The French dislike the degree of American power being exercised today around the world, and the American tendency to skirt, isolate or ignore multilateral institutions.

Meanwhile, the vicious, small conflicts that the great powers are sometimes reluctant to confront continue to flare, these days in Central and West Africa. At the root of them is often a pure economic conflict, like the possession of diamond mines set against a backdrop of failed development schemes.

A significant body of American opinion, particularly conservative opinion, is that the United Nations has been ineffectual in halting such conflicts.

In most such situations, said Joshua Muravchik, a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, "the story of United Nations efforts to play a security role has been a story of failure, except in a significant handful of cases, like Salvador and the Sinai, in which there really was a deal made that all sides wanted to keep."

Overarching security issues, like nuclear proliferation, are trotted on and off the United Nations stage but never seem to be resolved by the United Nations itself.

In an interview less than a month before the Baghdad bombing, the former British envoy to the United Nations, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, said the problem was not so much a growing misunderstanding of what the United Nations is, as a perpetual misunderstanding of what it can do.

"It sets the agenda on development, environment, rights, the way the world is going to look in the next generation," he said. "It`s not a short-term fix organization. The U.N. doesn`t have power unless those who have power switch it through to the U.N. as a matter of choice. But on the longer-term issues they are not in control. The U.N. provides the order on the long-term issues."

But it is the current short-term issue, Iraq, that threatens to shape the world body for the long term.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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September 19, 2003
The Terrorism Link That Wasn`t

On Wednesday, President Bush finally got around to acknowledging that there was no connection between Saddam Hussein and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

White House aides will tell you that Mr. Bush never made that charge directly. And that is so. But polls show that lots of Americans believe in the link. That is at least in part because the president`s aides have left the implication burning.

President Bush himself drew a dotted line from the 9/11 attack in declaring the end of hostilities in Iraq. "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001, and still goes on," Mr. Bush said. He continued the theme in his last major speech on the war.

But on Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney went too far. He said it was "not surprising" that many Americans drew a link between Mr. Hussein and 9/11. Asked if there was a connection, he replied, "We don`t know."

But the administration does know, and Mr. Bush was forced to acknowledge it on Wednesday.

Of course, Mr. Cheney was not surprised that Americans had leapt to a conclusion. He was particularly enthusiastic in helping them do it. "Come back to 9/11 again," Mr. Cheney said on Sept. 8, 2002, "and one of the real concerns about Saddam Hussein, as well, is his biological weapons capability."

Mr. Cheney was careful then not to claim that any evidence really linked Mr. Hussein to the 2001 attacks. But he drew a convoluted argument about Mr. Hussein`s ties to Al Qaeda and suggested in closing that he was not telling all he knew because he did not want to reveal top secrets.

Before the war began, Mr. Bush switched the justification for the invasion repeatedly. The argument that was most persuasive, the danger of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Mr. Hussein, has fallen flat since the weapons have failed to turn up.

Plenty of evidence has emerged that Mr. Hussein was a bloody despot who deserved to be ousted for the sake of his beleaguered people. But recent polls suggest that the American public is not as enthusiastic about making sacrifices to help the Iraqis as about making sacrifices to protect the United States against terrorism. The temptation to hint at a connection with Sept. 11 that did not exist must have been tremendous.

The Bush administration always bristles when people attempt to draw any parallels between the quagmire in Vietnam and the current situation in Iraq. If the president is really intent on not repeating history, however, he should learn from it. The poison of Vietnam sprang from a political establishment that was unwilling to level with the American people about what was happening overseas. Stark honesty is the best weapon Mr. Bush can employ in maintaining public confidence in his leadership.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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September 19, 2003
Snapping to Attention
By BOB HERBERT


Democrats wandering like outcasts in a desert of disillusion have spotted—— what?

Is that a four-star general out there? You say he`s from the South? And he`s a Democrat who wants to be president?

All right, all right, calm down! Yes, the original lineup of Democratic candidates — Dean, Kerry, Lieberman, et al. — was a caravan of disappointments. But some questions must be asked.

Is Wesley Clark — first in his class at West Point, Rhodes scholar, former NATO supreme allied commander, holder of the Purple Heart and Silver Star — the real deal, or just a mirage?

Is this (by all accounts) brilliant former general really a dream candidate for the parched and leaderless Democrats, or just a dream?

In theory, he`s almost perfect. He inoculates the Dems against the G.O.P. canard — now more than half a century old — that they are somehow less than patriotic. General Clark was severely wounded in combat in Vietnam and led the successful military operation in Kosovo in 1999.

Republicans are not eager to have the general`s career contrasted with the military misadventures of George W. Bush, who escaped Vietnam by joining the Texas Air National Guard and who celebrated the alleged end to major combat in Iraq by staging his very own "Top Gun" fantasy aboard the aircraft carrier Abraham Lincoln.

General Clark`s instincts (or at least the little we know of them) seem to push him in the direction of bridge-building and cooperative efforts, which would be good for a party in disarray, and even better for a country that needs as many allies as possible in the fight against terror and other threats around the world.

With regard to the fight against terror, he has said the first order of business for the U.S. should have been an alliance of the U.S., the United Nations and NATO against Al Qaeda. As for Iraq, in a telephone conversation yesterday he told me the American people deserve to know a lot more about our rationale for invading.

"It`s important to ask why the administration set the timeline in such a manner that they were unable to wait for an international coalition to emerge and work together," he said. "And why is it that they failed to plan adequately for the postwar task? Certainly the officers in uniform understood very well the difficulties and what could happen afterward. Why is it that the administration didn`t want those difficulties aired?"

The problem, of course, is that presidencies are not won on paper. It takes awhile — sometimes too long — to determine what`s real about a politician, any politician. Lyndon Johnson ran as a peace candidate in 1964. Richard Nixon said he had a secret plan to end the war in Vietnam. George Herbert Walker Bush told the voters to read his lips. Bill Clinton said, "I did not have sex. . . ." And George W. Bush assured us he was uniter, not a divider.

So we`ll scrutinize General Clark, undoubtedly a lot more closely than he would like. Meanwhile, he`s the flavor of the moment. He comes across as less angry than Howard Dean (who can give the impression that one-on-one he might put the president in a headlock). He seems more personable than John Kerry, more mature than John Edwards, more telegenic than Joe Lieberman and so on.

The general cheered Democrats with this swipe at Mr. Bush on Wednesday: "For the first time since Herbert Hoover`s presidency, a president`s economic policies have cost us more jobs than our economy has the energy to create."

But he also said that while his campaign is committed to asking hard questions and demanding answers, "we`re going to do so not in destructive bickering or in personal attacks, but in the highest traditions of democratic dialogue."

The comparisons of General Clark to a fellow named Eisenhower are as overblown at this point as they are inevitable. But there`s a lot that any candidate can learn from the Eisenhower model: the quick and endearing smile, the optimism, the quiet sense of strength, the ability to read and reflect the national mood.

We`ll know a lot more about General Clark soon enough. Meanwhile, the Democrats should welcome him not as a savior but as someone with the potential to energize their stagnant field of presidential contenders.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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September 19, 2003
Germany Will Share the Burden in Iraq
By GERHARD SCHRÖDER


BERLIN — Terrorism continues to be a very serious risk to security and stability in the world. With the fight against terrorism far from over, Germans and Americans stand united in the battle. Together, we will prevail.

For many months now, German soldiers have been fighting side by side with American troops in Afghanistan, once a haven and a logistical base for international terrorism. I am firmly convinced that we have no choice but to continue on in this common struggle, given the threat that global terrorism and Al Qaeda pose to the international community.

I put my own political future on the line in 2001 when I asked the German Bundestag for a vote of confidence for sending troops to Afghanistan, a military commitment unprecedented for Germany.

Until very recently, German troops played a leading role in the International Security Assistance Force, which has brought a measure of stability and order to Kabul and the surrounding areas. Though the force is now commanded by NATO, a German NATO general is in charge. Freeing Afghanistan from the bondage of the Taliban and Al Qaeda was an exceptional accomplishment.

Now, however, we must focus our efforts on helping a troubled country introduce democracy and rebuild itself under extremely difficult circumstances. Germany is therefore prepared to participate in extending the reconstruction program beyond Kabul and to assign military personnel to protect civilian aid workers and organizations.

It would be tragic, both for the Afghan people and the international community, if this country were to relapse into tyranny or once more become a breeding ground for terrorists. We have a joint responsibility to prevent this, for it is in our common interest and in keeping with our common values.

German-American cooperation is solid in other areas as well. Our troops are working with American forces in the Balkans to ensure stability there. Our navy is helping to patrol the Horn of Africa, protecting international sea routes. And more than 8,000 German troops are participating in peacekeeping missions around the world.

In the fight against terrorism, German intelligence services and law enforcement are working closely with American and other international partners. And on the diplomatic front, Germany and its European partners are doing their utmost with Washington to bring forward the peace process between Israel and the Palestinians. Our commitment to peace in the Middle East, based on the security of Israel and the right of the Palestinian people to form a state of their own, is a pillar of our foreign policy.

It is true that Germany and the United States disagreed on how best to deal with Saddam Hussein`s regime. There is no point in continuing this debate. We should now look toward the future. We must work together to win the peace. The United Nations must play a central role. The international community has a key interest in ensuring that stability and democracy are established as quickly as possible in Iraq. The international mission needs greater legitimacy in order to accelerate the process leading to a government acting on its own authority in Iraq.

In addition to its current military involvement in Afghanistan, the Balkans and elsewhere, Germany is willing to provide humanitarian aid, to assist in the civilian and economic reconstruction of Iraq and to train Iraqi security forces.

When we gather in New York next week for the United Nations General Assembly, we will underline that Germany and the United States are linked by a profound friendship based on common experiences and values. For Germans, the 2003 general assembly is very special. It was exactly 30 years ago that Germany was admitted to the United Nations, a milestone in our postwar history. Back then, Germans were still forced to live in two states, divided by a wall and a dangerous border. Today, Germany is united.

We Germans will not forget how the United States helped and supported us in rebuilding and reuniting our country. That Germany is living today in a peaceful, prosperous and secure Europe is thanks in no small measure to America`s friendship, farsightedness and political determination.

Beginning with President Harry S. Truman, all American presidents have supported and encouraged European integration. This remains a wise policy, for a strong and united Europe is also in the interest of the United States. With the adoption of a European constitution and the enlargement of the European Union, Europe is opening an important new chapter in unity. Germany, as a civilian power in the heart of Europe, knows from its own history that cooperation and integration are conditions for security and prosperity.

Not until after the fall of the wall and unification did Germany fully regain its sovereignty. Today we are a full member in the international community — with all the rights and obligations this entails. Germany`s role in the world has changed and so has our foreign policy. My country is willing to shoulder more responsibility. This may entail using military force as a last resort in resolving conflicts.

However, we must not forget that security in today`s world cannot be guaranteed by one country going it alone; it can be achieved only through international cooperation. Nor can security be limited to the activities of the police and the military. If we want to make our world freer and safer, we must fight the roots of insecurity, oppression, fanaticism and poverty — and we must do it together.


Gerhard Schröder is the chancellor of Germany. This was translated by the German Embassy from the German.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

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washingtonpost.com
Steel Tariffs Appear to Have Backfired on Bush
Move to Aid Mills and Gain Votes in 2 States Is Called Political and Economic Mistake

By Mike Allen and Jonathan Weisman
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 19, 2003; Page A01


In a decision largely driven by his political advisers, President Bush set aside his free-trade principles last year and imposed heavy tariffs on imported steel to help out struggling mills in Pennsylvania and West Virginia, two states crucial for his reelection.

Eighteen months later, key administration officials have concluded that Bush`s order has turned into a debacle. Some economists say the tariffs may have cost more jobs than they saved, by driving up costs for automakers and other steel users. Politically, the strategy failed to produce union endorsements and appears to have hurt Bush with workers in Michigan and Tennessee -- also states at the heart of his 2004 strategy.

"They tried to play politics, and it looked like it was working for a while," said Bruce Bartlett, a conservative economist with ties to the administration. "But now it`s fallen apart."

The issue is being brought to a boil by the scheduled release today of voluminous progress reports by the U.S. International Trade Commission. The ITC`s mid-session assessment of the three-year tariff program`s impact will examine not only the tariffs` effects on the steel industry but also on the hard-pressed manufacturers that shape steel into products.

White House officials said Bush will not make a decision until he has digested the ITC reports. But his top economic advisers have united to recommend that the tariffs be lifted or substantially rolled back this fall, and several administration officials said it is likely he will go along. The retreat would roil the political and economic landscape of the Rust Belt, where both parties expect the presidential election to be won and lost.

It also could produce a tidal wave of negative publicity in West Virginia, a traditionally Democratic state that Bush won by 6 percentage points, and Pennsylvania, which Bush lost by 5 percentage points and had targeted as one of his most promising possible pickups for 2004.

"The only reason they won`t do it is if they`re unwilling to admit they made a mistake," said a Republican strategist who works closely with the White House.

Administration officials said the office of Bush`s top political adviser, Karl Rove, was a vocal and energetic advocate of tariffs during the debate last winter. Rove became so identified with the duties that a Wall Street Journal editorial calling for their repeal was headlined, "Steel Thyself, Karl Rove."

Republican lawmakers from steel states said Bush is considering compromises that would increase the number of exclusions from the tariffs, easing prices for steel buyers.

Administration officials are careful to say they see both sides of the argument. "A healthy steel industry is important to this country," said Grant Aldonas, undersecretary of commerce for international trade, in an interview. "But the small- and medium-sized guys who bend metal for a living have a real complaint about the steel tariffs. There`s no doubt about that. We can`t hide from it."

Even as they express their sympathies, however, they make no apologies for the tariffs -- or trade "safeguards," as the administration prefers to call them. "It`s important to recognize these safeguards have had an adverse impact on [steel] consumers -- that`s why safeguards are used sparingly," a senior U.S. trade official said. "But the president thought that on balance the benefits would outweigh the costs, and the story of the last 18 months has borne that out."

That conclusion is subject to fierce debate. A study backed by steel-using companies concluded that by the end of last year, higher steel prices had cost the country about 200,000 manufacturing jobs, many of which went to China. Small machine-tool and metal stamping shops say they have been decimated by steel costs that rose in some cases by as much as 30 percent.

Steel producers have their own job numbers. Investments that flooded into the protected steel industry over the past 18 months brought idled steel mills back on line and kept teetering mills from shutting down, said Peter Morici, a University of Maryland business professor hired by the steel producers. That resurrected 16,000 steel jobs, and more than 30,000 jobs when steel suppliers are included.

Gary Hufbauer, a critic of the tariffs at the Institute for International Economics, said that both sides are exaggerating their numbers. The steel industry has added some jobs in the past 18 months, but not because of the steel tariffs. Steel consumers have shed jobs because of the tariffs, but he said the number was probably 15,000 to 20,000.

But in this case, the facts may be less important than the perception in key states where the tariffs have been debilitating. The tariffs failed to give Bush the allegiance of the United Steelworkers of America, the industry`s largest union and one the White House had hoped to win over. In August, the union endorsed Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) for president and issued a statement saying any of the Democratic candidates would offer better than "the reactionary policies of the current administration."

Perhaps worse for Bush, the tariffs alienated thousands of small businessmen who run steel-consuming companies. "He didn`t win the steelworkers over, and he sure as hell didn`t win the users over, and there are a hell of lot more of us," said Jim Zawacki, chief executive of G.R. Spring & Stamping, Inc., a small manufacturer in Grand Rapids, Mich. "A lot of people feel burned," said Mike Lynch, vice president of government affairs at Illinois Tool Works, a large machine tool company outside Chicago.

Political divisions over the tariffs remain fierce, even within the GOP. Sen. Arlen Specter (Pa.), who talked to Bush about the issue this week, contends the tariffs "are saving thousand of jobs in the steel industry, and you had a steel industry headed for more bankruptcies."

Sen. Lamar Alexander (Tenn.), however, insists the tariffs have "shifted more steel-consuming jobs overseas than exist in the steel-producing industry in the United States," causing thousands of layoffs and closing the doors of hundreds of small businesses that supply automakers in Tennessee, a state that Bush won by just 4 percentage points and is counting on for his reelection.

But among Bush`s economic team, opposition to the tariffs has hardened substantially. Administration officials said Commerce Secretary Donald L. Evans, one of Bush`s closest friends, thinks the tariffs should be lifted as a way of showing that the administration has heard the pain of manufacturers, who account for 2.5 million of the more than 2.7 million jobs lost during Bush`s presidency. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, chief economic adviser Stephen Friedman and N. Gregory Mankiw, chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, are said to agree.

That marks a significant change from 18 months ago, when R. Glenn Hubbard, then chairman of Bush`s Council of Economic Advisers, drafted detailed analyses against the tariffs, including state-by-state job losses that he forecast for manufacturing.

But the economic team was fractured. Evans was torn between the steel industries and the steel users. He ultimately decided against the tariffs, but with caveats that the White House political team took as a sign of weakness, former administration economic officials say. Likewise, then-Treasury Secretary Paul H. O`Neill expressed philosophical opposition to tariffs, but he was more interested in opening talks with allies on limiting steel production capacity abroad.

At a crucial meeting of the economic team, tariff opponents said they were abandoned. O`Neill sent his undersecretary for international affairs, John Taylor. Then-Budget Director Mitchell E. Daniels Jr. told Hubbard, who also has since left the administration, that he would back him, but left the meeting before Hubbard`s presentation. And Lawrence Lindsey, the famously opinionated chairman of the White House National Economic Council, decided his role was to facilitate the discussion, not express an opinion.

Perhaps most importantly, former Bush economic advisers said, Robert B. Zoellick, the U.S. trade representative, supported the tariffs, figuring that backing them would win congressional votes to give Bush "fast track" trade negotiation powers. Indeed, Congress did hand the president that win. Zoellick also calculated that the lucrative subsidies backed by Bush that year in the massive farm bill would help the cause of free trade, by giving the United States a chip to bargain with at the World Trade Organization`s upcoming round of talks to eliminate farm subsidies.

But, trade experts say, Zoellick`s calculations have had mixed results. "Fast track" trade powers have allowed Bush to conclude free trade agreements with Chile and Singapore, but those have yet to show results in terms of jobs. And last week, WTO trade talks in Mexico fell apart after poor countries concluded the United States and other Western nations were not serious about cutting farm subsidies.

The strategizing was "too clever by half," Bartlett, the economist, said. "It presupposed that nobody was watching what we were doing, and it presupposed that our credibility was of no importance."



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washingtonpost.com
Patriot Monitoring Claims Dismissed
Government Has Not Tracked Bookstore or Library Activity, Ashcroft Says

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 19, 2003; Page A02


The Justice Department escalated its attack on opponents of the USA Patriot Act yesterday, ridiculing criticism of the anti-terrorism law and accusing some lawmakers of ignoring classified reports that showed the government has never used its power to monitor individuals` records at bookstores and libraries.

In an unusually sharp and at times sarcastic speech to police and prosecutors in Memphis, Attorney General John D. Ashcroft labeled critics of the law "hysterics" and said "charges of abuse of power are ghosts unsupported by fact or example."

"The fact is, with just 11,000 FBI agents and over a billion visitors to America`s libraries each year, the Department of Justice has neither the staffing, the time nor the inclination to monitor the reading habits of Americans," he said. "No offense to the American Library Association, but we just don`t care. . . .

"The charges of the hysterics," Ashcroft added, "are revealed for what they are: castles in the air built on misrepresentation; supported by unfounded fear; held aloft by hysteria."

Ashcroft`s comments came after the release yesterday of a memo he wrote disclosing that the Justice Department has never used a controversial section of the Patriot Act that allows authorities in terrorism investigations to obtain records from libraries, bookstores and other businesses without notifying the subject of the probe.

That portion of the law, Section 215, has become a central focus of criticism from civil liberties groups, booksellers and librarians, and has perhaps been some lawmakers` most frequently cited example of potential government abuse. By disclosing that the provision has never been used, Ashcroft and other Justice officials hope to neutralize much of the criticism and beat back attempts to curb the law, officials said.

The Justice Department did not disclose how many times investigators have used a similar tool, national security letters, to obtain business records. Sources have said that scores of such letters have been used since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

The department also took special aim yesterday at some members of Congress who have implied that Ashcroft was spying on Americans` book-reading habits, despite the lawmakers` access to classified reports that showed that the Patriot Act provision had never been used. The Justice Department updates the intelligence committees on its use of the Patriot Act twice a year, and other members of Congress can request those reports, officials said.

"There are members of Congress who ought to be held accountable for their statements, because they had access to this information but continually charged that abuses were taking place," Justice spokesman Mark Corallo said. "They knew better. . . . We hope that the release of this information will bring some rationality back to the debate."

Corallo declined to identify the lawmakers to whom he was referring. But some of the strongest congressional criticism in recent weeks has come in the Democratic presidential race. In a debate in Baltimore last week, Sen. John Edwards (D-N.C.) warned of turning over "our constitutional rights to John Ashcroft" and decried "the notion that they are going to libraries to find out what books people are checking out, going to bookstores to find out what books are being purchased."

As a member of the Senate intelligence committee, Edwards had access to the reports on the use of the Patriot Act.

His spokeswoman, Jennifer Palmieri, said yesterday that Edwards, who voted for the Patriot Act when it was approved in October 2001, was concerned about potential abuse of some parts of the statute. She also said that Justice officials have offered confusing information about the monitoring of library use. One Justice official testified earlier this year that the FBI had sought records from about 50 libraries, but that most, if not all, of the requests were part of criminal investigations, not counterterrorism probes.

"The senator believes that the law gives the attorney general too much discretion in this area," Palmieri said.

The American Civil Liberties Union, which has filed a lawsuit challenging the government`s powers to monitor such records, said yesterday its concerns were not allayed. "What we`ve always been focused on is the scope of the law itself, and that hasn`t changed at all," ACLU attorney Ann Beeson said. "They could use it tomorrow and we would never know, and that makes it extremely dangerous."

Ashcroft`s decision to publicly disclose the previously classified information marked a turnabout for Justice, which has consistently resisted requests for the information on the basis of national security concerns. Ashcroft is in the midst of a cross-country tour in defense of the Patriot Act.

More than 150 cities and three states have passed resolutions condemning the legislation as an attack on individual liberties. The House voted in July to cut off funding for "sneak-and-peek" searches, in which investigators do not immediately notify the subject that a search has been conducted.

Ashcroft and the administration have reacted aggressively, vowing to thwart any attempts to limit the Patriot Act`s reach. And in an announcement last week, President Bush proposed expanding the powers granted by the law to investigate terrorism cases.

Ashcroft, whose speeches during most of his tour have been forceful but measured, has unleashed aggressive new rhetoric in several appearances this week.

At his speech in Memphis, for example, the attorney general said he sought to clarify who should be worried about government monitoring. "If your idea of a vacation is two weeks in a terrorist training camp" or "if you enjoy swapping recipes for chemical weapons from your `Joy of Jihad` cookbook," Ashcroft said, "you might be a target of the Patriot Act."



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Clark `Probably` Would Have Backed War
On First Campaign Stop, Democrat Lacks Specifics but Rallies Crowd

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 19, 2003; Page A05


HOLLYWOOD, Fla., Sept. 18 -- Retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark said today that he "probably" would have voted for the congressional resolution last fall authorizing war, as he charged out into the presidential campaign field with vague plans to fix the economy and the situation in Iraq.

Clark said his views on the war resemble those of Democratic Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) and John F. Kerry (Mass.), both of whom voted for the war but now question President Bush`s stewardship of the Iraqi occupation. "That having been said, I was against the war as it emerged because there was no reason to start it when we did. We could have waited," Clark said during a 75-minute session with four reporters.

En route to his first campaign stop as a candidate, a high-energy rally at a local restaurant, Clark said he has few specific policy ideas to offer voters right now and offered a few thoughts that might surprise Democrats flocking to his campaign. As recently as Sunday night, he was unsure if he should run for president, so Clark said voters need to give him time to think things through.

Clark`s statement on the war resolution put him at odds with former Vermont governor Howard Dean, whose stock has soared among Democratic activists in recent months on the strength of his antiwar position. It could make it difficult for Clark to differentiate himself from the other nine candidates in the field on policy, other than by touting his résumé as a former Army general and commander of NATO forces in Kosovo.

In the interview, Clark did not offer any new ideas or solutions for Iraq that other candidates have not already proposed.

A decorated Vietnam War veteran, Clark said that if he were in Congress, he would vote against Bush`s request for $87 billion for operations and reconstruction in Iraq unless the president details a specific strategy to eventually withdraw U.S. troops. Clark said he wants more troops in Iraq, but was unsure who best can provide them -- the United States, Iraqis or other countries. . He would consider cutting defense spending if elected, he said.

Clark, relaxed and chatty, portrayed himself as a different kind of Democrat, one without strong partisan impulses. He said he "probably" voted for Richard M. Nixon in 1972 and backed Ronald Reagan. He did not start considering himself a Democrat until 1992, when he backed fellow Arkansan Bill Clinton. "He moved me," Clark said. "I didn`t consider it party, I considered I was voting for the man."

Clark said that as recently as last week, the former president and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) both encouraged him to run, as did many of their close friends. He said the former president initially was cool to the idea but warmed to it as the draft-Clark movement grew. Clark said he never discussed running with Sen. Clinton on the same ticket, however. Clark, who discussed the vice presidency with Dean at a recent meeting, said he would not rule out taking the No. 2 slot on a ticket.

Clark said the country "will not function well" with one party controlling the White House and Congress. He sounded a bit like former presidential candidate H. Ross Perot as he talked about focusing on "context" and not specifics and his yearning to work "with people of all sides and all parts of the political spectrum."

But Clark took some shots at Bush, too. He compared Bush to Nixon in abusing his power to bully Congress and U.S. allies. "This is an administration which has moved in a way we have not seen any administration since Nixon to abuse executive authority to scheme, manipulate, intimidate and maneuver," Clark said.

Still, it is domestic issues that often dominate presidential elections, and Clark remains largely undefined in this arena. He may be put to the test next week, when he is likely to participate in a Democratic debate in New York. Clark said he did not watch the last two debates.

He said he supports universal health coverage that includes preventive care and a "freeze" on Bush`s tax cuts that have yet to take effect for people earning $150,000 or more.

Clark said he supports a ban on assault weapons and was uncertain of precisely what the Brady gun law does -- and if any changes to it are needed. The law requires background checks and waiting periods for gun purchases.

"I support the Second Amendment. People like firearms, they feel secure with firearms, they should keep their firearms," said Clark, who has been shooting weapons since he was young.

Clark, who said he does not consider homosexuality a sin, said the military needs to reconsider the "don`t ask, don`t tell" policy for gay service members. He suggested the military should consider the "don`t ask, don`t misbehave" policy the British use. "It depends how you define misbehave. That`s what has to be looked at," he said.

While Clark`s agenda is a work in progress, he passed one test today: he showed here he could draw a big crowd and rouse them with fiery speech. Clark flew in on a friend`s private jet to shake hands here and to rally a large crowd of young and old, all shouting, "We want Clark."

While new to politics, Clark jumped up on a chair and sounded like a seasoned pro as he delivered a lively, if brief, call to arms.

"We are trapped in a jobless economy and an endless occupation" of Iraq, Clark told the crowd. "The simple truth about politics is if you are going to make a difference in the country, you have to have an organization, you have to be able to communicate the message, you have to travel, you have to have the signs, and all of that takes resources. This is America -- we operate on the greenback and I need your help."



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White-Rumsfeld Dispute, Round 2
Ex-Army Secretary Fires Back on Iraq

By Bradley Graham
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 19, 2003; Page A23


For several months after Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld fired him as secretary of the Army, Thomas E. White kept a low profile.

His departure from the Army`s top civilian job followed a series of clashes with Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz over the nature and pace of Army modernization and planning for postwar Iraq. Summoned to Rumsfeld`s office late one Friday in April and abruptly told his services were no longer desired, White, a retired Army general and former Enron Corp. executive, left without any public comment on his removal or his two years overseeing the military`s largest branch.

But in recent weeks White has started speaking out and, not surprisingly, he has some critical things to say about his old boss -- about the tight control Rumsfeld exerted over the timing of U.S. troop deployments to Iraq before the war, about the adequacy of Rumsfeld`s planning for postwar reconstruction and about Rumsfeld`s negative views of the Army`s willingness to transform itself.

The main vehicle for this reemergence has been publication of a book written by White and three political and economic specialists from CountryWatch Inc., a Houston firm headed by a longtime friend of White`s that publishes forecasts for 192 countries. Entitled "Reconstructing Eden," the 380-page book is more a loose compilation of statistics and general prescriptions than a comprehensive, tightly argued work. But it has afforded White an opportunity to register some concerns.

"It is quite clear in the immediate aftermath of hostilities that the plan for winning the peace is totally inadequate," the preface says about the Iraqi situation. "Clearly the view that the war to `liberate` Iraq would instantly produce a pro-United States citizenry ready for economic and political rebirth ignored the harsh realities on the ground."

To some extent, White is picking up where he left off with Rumsfeld. In a very public dispute several weeks before the war, White sided with Army Chief of Staff Eric K. Shinseki, warning that several hundred thousand troops would be needed to stabilize Iraq after hostilities ended. Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz rejected that estimate as grossly exaggerated, insisting stability could be quickly established and U.S. forces rapidly reduced.

Wolfowitz chided White in private afterward. Wolfowitz "was not happy that we had taken a position that was opposed to what his thinking on the subject was," White recalled in an interview. "He couldn`t imagine a situation where the size of the force necessary to secure the peace would be larger than the force necessary to fight the war. But in hindsight, which is always 20/20, that ended up to be precisely the case."

Another senior defense official with direct knowledge of the conversation between the two men said the Pentagon`s estimated postwar requirement had come from the top U.S. commander in the region, Gen. Tommy R. Franks, and Wolfowitz told White it was not appropriate for a military service chief to be publicly contradicting the commander.

White agreed and said he would talk to Shinseki, this official said. As for events since, the official noted, the numbers of U.S. and total coalition troops have declined as the level of reconstituted Iraqi forces has risen.

During the interview, White was seated in the spacious living room of his Georgetown apartment in the Washington Harbour complex overlooking the Potomac. The apartment, listed last year for $5 million, was recently sold, although White declined to disclose the price or the buyer, saying both are covered by a confidentiality clause. He plans to move back to Houston soon and expects to reenter the energy business.

Direct and articulate, with thinning gray-streaked hair and penetrating blue eyes, White, 59, came to the Army job with a mix of military and corporate experience. A West Point graduate and Vietnam War veteran, he spent 23 years in the Army, rising to brigadier general. His final year was spent as executive assistant to Gen. Colin L. Powell, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In July 1990, he moved to Texas to become vice chairman of Enron Energy Services, a division of Enron Corp.

His appointment as Army secretary in 2001 reflected a broad push by Rumsfeld to place corporate executives at the top of the military services. James G. Roche, a Northrop Grumman vice president, was tapped to head the Air Force, and Gordon R. England, a General Dynamics executive vice president, took charge of the Navy. Together, the three were to form a kind of board of directors with Rumsfeld as chairman, but the analogy never took hold, White said.

"Over time, each of us became focused on our own services," he said. "The building ended up being run by Rumsfeld and his OSD [Office of Secretary of Defense] staff, which is the way it`s been run for years."

Part of that reflected Rumsfeld`s hands-on style, White added. Part also reflected the unanticipated demands of the war on terrorism after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

In his first year, White was heavily distracted by controversy over his former role as an Enron executive. Despite being grilled by Congress and questioned by Justice Department investigators, White said no legal action was taken against him -- and he expects none. He described Rumsfeld as especially supportive throughout the ordeal.

"He`s someone who`s been around town for a long time and had seen a lot of this come and go, and so his counsel was very helpful," White said.

Where White ran into serious trouble with Rumsfeld was over the Pentagon leader`s decision to cancel the Crusader, a 155mm self-propelled howitzer that the Army had been developing for years. White strongly favored the $11 billion program and resented Rumsfeld moving to kill it in the spring of 2002. Rumsfeld saw the weapon as a carryover from the Cold War and opted to pursue newer technologies that promised lighter, more mobile, precision-guided systems.

The action became emblematic of Rumsfeld`s view that the Army was not transforming itself fast enough into a more agile force.

"I think he was of the view that somehow as an Army, that either Shinseki and I personally, or that we as an Army culturally, didn`t get it -- didn`t get this business of transformation or modernization," White said. "And we were always billed or characterized as being stodgy and reluctant to change."

White considered the characterization wrong. In recent years, he said, the Army has invested heavily in such transformational programs as the Stryker wheeled armored vehicle and the Future Combat System. While acknowledging that the Army has been slow to restructure its corps and divisions into smaller, more easily deployable units, White said the demands of wars in Afghanistan and Iraq made such change difficult in the near-term.

"I suppose it`s a hit on me that I never was able to convince Rumsfeld that we were on the right track in the Army, that we knew exactly what we were doing, that we had committed ourselves to transform the force and we were getting on with it as rapidly as possible," White said. "I don`t ever think that Shinseki and I got over that hurdle."

For all the strains with Rumsfeld, White expressed admiration.

"Professionally, we had our differences," he said. "Personally, I have tremendous respect for him. He`s a man of enormous talents and energies and has really been a very strong secretary of defense."

White also praised the conduct of combat operations in Iraq. But in addition to being critical of postwar planning, he faulted Rumsfeld for the way troops were deployed in the run-up to the fight. Instead of sticking with the military`s detailed schedule -- the time-phased force deployment list -- Rumsfeld dispensed with it and insisted on micromanaging the process, White said.

"The whole deployment process was incrementalized into at times very small packages, all of which had to be decided separately, down to occasionally small units -- some about 50 people," White said. "That process caused things to get out of sync, and decisions would be delayed, and consequently, there were some reserve units that didn`t get proper lead time to mobilize. It was not done in a well-oiled fashion and it needs to be, because it caused us a lot of human suffering.

"The secretary wanted to run it, he wanted control," White added. "I think his fundamental view was that we as services are not disciplined enough in our manpower business -- we call up too many people, we ask for too much, and this sort of thing."

Replied Rumsfeld spokesman Larry DiRita: "There`s no question that the flow of forces was different for this conflict than past ones. But the secretary worked closely with the combatant commander, General Tommy Franks, and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, General Richard Myers, in deciding the flow this time. The old system was designed for a different era."



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A Shiite Cleric`s Caution


By David Ignatius

Friday, September 19, 2003; Page A25


BEIRUT -- The Bush administration hoped its invasion of Iraq would produce a shock wave of democracy in the Arab world. But when you look at what America has actually wrought, the real earthquake is the new power of Iraq`s long-oppressed Shiite Muslim majority.

Shiites throughout the Arab world have been emboldened by the fact that their co-religionists control the transitional 25-person Governing Council in Iraq and are almost certain to win elections that are likely in 2004. Some analysts tout Iraq as the Shiites` biggest political victory in the 1,200 years since they split from the Sunni branch of Islam.

But a leading Lebanese Shiite religious leader, Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, cautioned in an interview here this week that Iraqi Shiites should proceed cautiously and avoid any quick political transition that might exacerbate Sunni fears that they will be victimized in the new Iraq.

"My advice to Iraqis is to stay away from all who want to start making trouble between the Sunni and the Shia," Fadlallah said, speaking through a translator. "We call on Iraqis to solve problems in a peaceful way. Iraq is not a country of Shia alone or Sunni alone, it`s a country for everyone. They have to cooperate to solve its problems."

Rather than transferring political power quickly to the Shiite-led Governing Council, Fadlallah said he favored a more gradual transition under the auspices of the United Nations. "Iraqis have nothing against the U.N.," he said. "If the U.N. receives international support, there won`t be any problem. Iraqis will receive it in a good way."

Fadlallah`s comments are important because he is regarded as the spiritual leader of Iraq`s Dawa Party, which for several decades fought an underground resistance against Saddam Hussein`s rule. Born in Iraq himself, Fadlallah is related to the late Ayatollah Mohammed Bakir Hakim, who was assassinated in Najaf last month.

The Shiite leader`s cautious line will be welcome news to Sunni Muslims who fear the Arab world will be destabilized by a Shiite-dominated Iraq. "It`s as if the Americans are making the Sunnis pay the price for Saddam Hussein, rather than the Baathists," worries one prominent Sunni politician. He warns that any sudden move by the United States to lock in Shiite power could trigger a civil war in Iraq.

The Lebanese cleric underlined his go-slow theme by refusing to endorse calls for an immediate transition to an Iraqi provisional government or for a quick withdrawal of U.S. troops. His response to both questions was that they were complicated issues that required "careful study."

"The Governing Council doesn`t have the means to manage the state," he said. He urged careful deliberation "before choosing the Iraqis who will rule."

As for a quick pullout of American troops, he said: "We have to study this case. We can`t just give a verdict and say what to do." But he noted that if the American occupation troops can`t provide security and stabilize the country, "What`s the difference, whether America stays or goes?"

Other Arab leaders quietly worry about a sudden American withdrawal, however much they criticize America`s poor performance in postwar Iraq. "If the Americans left it would be a disaster for Iraq. Everyone knows that," says a top Lebanese official.

For all of Fadlallah`s caution about Iraq, he is sharply critical of United States actions there. "There is some kind of confusion among American officials in Iraq," he said. Rather than having a clear structure for rebuilding the country, "the Americans are drafting their plan through experimentation."

The trial-and-error nature of the occupation had added to Iraqi anxieties, Fadlallah argued. Convinced that Americans couldn`t provide security, the Iraqis began arming themselves -- adding to the lawlessness of recent months.

The Americans made a devastating blunder when they dismantled the Iraqi state bureaucracy in the name of de-Baathification, Fadlallah said. America couldn`t take over the functions of the state, and neither could the former exile leaders who run the Governing Council.

Fadlallah was especially critical of the CIA, arguing that it should have better information about terrorist attacks such as the one that killed Ayatollah Hakim. "I don`t know what is the role of American intelligence spread throughout the world if it fails to discover the Iraqi quagmire," he said.

The Shiite leader`s comments are the latest sign of a remarkable transformation. Twenty years ago, he was seen as a terrorist mullah because he allegedly issued a fatwa sanctioning the 1983 truck bombings that destroyed the U.S. Embassy and Marine barracks here. He survived a subsequent assassination attempt by Lebanese intelligence officers, apparently undertaken with the knowledge of William Casey, the CIA director at the time..

Now Fadlallah is proffering moderate political advice and critiquing the CIA`s performance. U.S. officials should hope that Iraqis pay attention to what he says.

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Judicial Payback


By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Friday, September 19, 2003; Page A25



Revenge for an act of judicial activism is a dish best served by a court that coldly -- you might even say conservatively -- follows precedent. Republicans are enraged by the decision of a three-judge panel on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit that postpones California`s recall election. But how can they dislike this decision? The judges defended their reasoning by citing the infamous Bush v. Gore ruling -- which Republicans praised to the heavens -- not once, not twice, but 13 times.

Which makes it a wonder to hear conservatives sputtering about "liberal judicial activism" and the sanctity of "the people`s will." Activism and discernment of the people`s will were not issues that troubled them when five justices on the U.S. Supreme Court abruptly shut down Florida`s recount in December 2000.

The judges in the California case are not stopping anything. They simply postponed the recall for a few months. Why? Because some voters will vote on flawed punch-card systems -- remember them? -- and run a greater risk of losing their votes than citizens using better equipment. As the court wrote, "punch-card balloting machines can produce an unfortunate number of ballots which are not punched in a clean complete way by the voter." The Constitution, the court insisted, requires "some assurance that the rudimentary requirements of equal treatment and fundamental fairness are satisfied."

Isn`t that just liberal judicial activism? Only if Justices Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas and the rest of the Bush Five are liberal judicial activists. The two quotations you just read come straight from Bush v. Gore. The 9th Circuit`s supposedly activist three were just quoting their judicial betters.

Ah, but aren`t those 9th Circuit liberals preventing a speedy resolution of the recall? Perhaps, but there are more important issues than speed: "The press of time does not diminish the constitutional concern. A desire for speed is not a general excuse for ignoring equal protection guarantees." Yes, that is also a quotation from Bush v. Gore.

There is one difference between the 9th Circuit judges and the Supreme Court majority in the Bush case. The 9th Circuit judges are being far less activist.

Recall that the Supreme Court majority first stopped recounts already in progress while it considered the Bush case. The recounts, Scalia wrote, might do "irreparable harm" by "casting a cloud on what he" -- that would be George W. Bush -- "claims to be the legitimacy of his election." Then, when the Bush Five declared that Florida`s recounting methods violated equal protection guarantees, they didn`t give Florida a chance to fix the problem. They just ended the counting and made Bush president.

This did not sit well even with some of Bush`s staunchly conservative supporters. Michael W. McConnell -- then a law professor, who was later made a circuit court judge by Bush -- said the decision to halt the recount was "one for the state to make." Writing in the Wall Street Journal Dec. 14, 2000, McConnell criticized the Supreme`s Court`s twofer -- "approving a manual recount under proper standards, but forbidding the state to conduct a recount because of time constraints." Doing so, he wrote, meant that Bush would take office "under conditions of continued uncertainty."

Prophetically, McConnell declared: "Many of the vice president`s supporters will continue to believe -- probably to their graves -- that their man would have won if only they had been given more time."

The 9th Circuit Three, on the other hand, did not stop the recall -- let alone rule California Gov. Gray Davis the winner and leave it at that. They put the election off a few months until the state could make sure that all voters have a chance to cast ballots on roughly comparable equipment.

Critics of the 9th Circuit panel are trying to argue that the Supreme Court in Bush v. Gore was applying its equal protection argument only to recounts, not to the method through which votes were cast. But this argument is simply an admission that the Supreme Court majority didn`t really care about equal protection of voters. It was looking for a narrow, one-time fix that would make George Bush president. If the Supreme Court ever rejects the use of its precedents by the 9th Circuit, it will make this abundantly clear.

You can bet the Bush Five are praying that this case never hits their doorstep. But even if the three 9th Circuit judges are overturned, they have already made their point.

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The Cartoon Graveyard
Just the Cartoons Without the Commentary
Heute gibt es 83 mal Sekundärtugenden als Cartoons:
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(IWR Satire) -- Welcome to Vice President Dick Cheney`s Believe It or Not website! This is a fun place where facts are unfettered by the constraints of reality or accountability.
Yes friends, this is where you can get the amazing secret truths straight from the high priest of implausible deniability himself -- Swami Dick Cheney.

Here are Swami Dick`s official Believe It or Not factoids:

Saddam Hussein was the pilot of the first plane that crashed into the WTC, but somehow he managed to parachute out at the last moment and escape.

Believe It or Not!

We know Saddam resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons, based on reliable intelligence provided by Baghdad Bob, and that the African "yellow cake" story is, in fact, true.

Believe It or Not!

There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction. We also know that he reconstituted these programs since the Gulf War.

Believe It or Not!

Saddam Hussein has reconstituted nuclear weapons with components that he purchased on eBay from Bill Clinton.

Believe It or Not!

Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden met secretly in 1993 at a Trivial Pursuit marathon in Sudan.

Believe It or Not!

Hijacker Mohamed Atta secretly met Iraqi agents Bill Clinton and Tarik Aziz in Prague at a Hooter`s bar during a visit in April 2001.

Believe It or Not!

It is just a coincidence that Halliburton is getting all of the major contracts in Iraq. It has nothing to do with the fact that Halliburton was my former employer.

Believe It or Not!

I have nothing to hide regarding my energy task force meetings with oil industry lobbyists, which included representatives from Kenny Boy`s Enron corporation.

Believe It or Not!

There is a Santa Claus, Easter Bunny and Tooth Fairy.

Believe It or Not!
http://www.internetweekly.org/photo_cartoons/cartoon_cheney_…

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September 18, 2003

Wesley Clark for President?
Another Con Job from the Neo-Cons
By WAYNE MADSEN

Let it never be said the neo-conservatives are not persistent. That`s why they must be rounded up by the FBI and charged with violating the Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) statutes. But let`s save that issue for another time.

The latest trick of the neo-cons is running retired General Wesley Clark for President as a Democrat. But not just any Democrat -- a "New Democrat." The same bunch that are pushing Joe Lieberman`s candidacy are obviously hedging on their bets and want to have Clark in the race as a potential vice presidential candidate (to ensure their continued influence in a future Democratic administration of Howard Dean, John Kerry, or Dick Gephardt) or as a "go-to" candidate in the event that Lieberman stumbles badly in the first few Democratic primaries next year.

The "New Democrats" (neo-cons) are as much masters at the perception management (lying) game as their GOP counterparts (Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, and Donald Rumsfeld). Clark`s presidential candidacy announcement in Little Rock is one warning sign. This city is a sort of "Mecca" for the neo-con Democratic Leadership Council (DLC) and its main nurturers, Al From and Bruce Reed. It was from Little Rock where the DLC propelled a little known governor named Bill Clinton into the White House. And although Clinton did not turn out exactly as conservative as the DLC hoped for, his support for globalization and selected use of U.S. military power abroad were neo-con keystone successes.

Now enter "Arkansan" Wesley Clark. Like Hillary Clinton, Clark is a Chicago transplant to Little Rock. And he is about as power driven as the former First Lady. According to Pentagon insiders, when Clark was Commander of the US Southern Command in Panama from June 1996 to July 1997, he was fond of "ordering" Latin American military commanders and defense ministers to appear before him. Some of the Latin American officials, particularly those from Brazil, Argentina, and Chile, refused to be bullied by Clark, whose personality is said to be acerbic. From his pro-consul position in Panama, Clark supported with US military advisers and American mercenaries, continued warfare against anti-oligarchic movements in Colombia, Peru, Guatemala, Mexico, and Bolivia.

Fast forward to the Kosovo wars when Clark was NATO commander. Not only did Clark lord over the first unprovoked aerial bombardment of a major European city (Belgrade) since Adolf Hitler`s Luftwaffe pounded virtually defenseless European cities, but he almost got into a shooting war with Russian peacekeeping troops in Kosovo. It was only the intervention of the British government, Defense Secretary William Cohen, and Joint Chiefs Chairman General Hugh Shelton that prevented Clark from starting World War III. When Clark ordered British Lt. Gen. Michael Jackson to forcibly block Kosovo`s Pristina Airport to prevent Russian planes from landing, the Briton replied, "Sir, Ia*TMm not starting World War III for you.a** Jackson was backed up all the way to Number 10 Downing Street. Clark was forced to back down. Eventually, Cohen fired Clark as NATO commander three months before his term was to expire.

Before becoming NATO Commander, Clark was the Director for Strategic Plans and Policy within the Joint Chiefs of Staff. From this vantage point, Clark was well aware of and likely supported the arming of the Bosnian government by accepting contributions from various deep-pocketed Muslim countries, including Saudi Arabia, Iran, Malaysia, Brunei, Jordan, and Egypt. Via something called the Bosnia Defense Fund, these countries deposited millions of dollars into U.S. coffers to buy weapons for the Bosnians and train them in their use through the use of private military contractors like Military Professional Resources, Inc. (MPRI). And when some of the weapons and cash for the Bosnians became "unaccounted for," where did some of the guns and cash wind up? In the hands of Al Qaeda and Iranian Pasdaran (Revolutionary Guard) units in Bosnia.

More interestingly is how General Clark`s Bosnia strategy ultimately goes full circle. According to Washington K Street sources, the law firm that established the Bosnia Defense Fund was none other than Feith and Zell, the firm of current Pentagon official and leading neo-con Douglas Feith. Feith`s operation at Feith and Zell was assisted by his one-time boss and current member of Rumsfeld`s Defense Policy Board, Richard Perle. Both Feith and Perle advised the Bosnian delegation during the 1995 Dayton Peace talks. The chief U.S. military negotiator in Dayton was Wesley Clark.

A long time ago, the French, tired of war, turned to a short general named Napoleon to lead them to peace and prosperity. Instead, Napoleon seized imperial power and ensured the French would have more war. After four years of Bush, the neo-con Fifth Column in the Democratic Party is trying to convince us that Clark is the "anti-war" candidate. Tell that to the people of Serbia, Kosovo, and Montenegro. Tell that to the coca farmer in Bolivia or Colombia who is trying to feed his family. Let`s not fall for the deception and tricks of the neo-cons again. If you are tired of Bush, Cheney, and the neo-cons and their phony wars, Clark is certainly not the answer. He has been, and remains part of, the great deception of the American people.

Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and columnist. He wrote the introduction to Forbidden Truth. He is the co-author, with John Stanton, of the forthcoming book, "America`s Nightmare: The Presidency of George Bush II."

Madsen can be reached at: [e-mail]

http://www.counterpunch.org/madsen09182003.html

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THE WORLD



Taliban Rebels Hit Hard in Afghanistan, U.S. Says
Recent fighting has killed at least 11 militia members -- and four Americans.
From Associated Press

September 19, 2003

KABUL, Afghanistan — U.S. warplanes supporting Afghan ground forces pummeled Taliban positions in southern Afghanistan, killing at least 11 rebels in three days of fighting, military officials said Thursday.

The fighting in the mountains of Kandahar and Zabol provinces began at the end of August, and more than 100 suspected Taliban have been killed, according to U.S. and Afghan officials. Four American soldiers have died in recent fighting in Afghanistan.

The battles in Zabol and Kandahar are part of a U.S.-Afghan operation dubbed Mountain Viper.

"Operation Mountain Viper continues to destroy the Taliban`s ability to operate in the southern region of Afghanistan," the U.S. military said from Bagram air base, north of the capital, Kabul.

The military says it is inflicting heavy casualties on the rebels — but the militia`s ability to mount such stiff resistance for a sustained period has led to fears that the security situation is worsening two years after U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban regime.

The insurgents have been increasingly bold in their threats to Afghans who are seen as cooperating with the coalition. Last week, four Afghans working for a Danish charity were tied up and shot to death alongside a road. They had been warned several times to stop working with foreigners, and the Taliban is suspected in the deaths.

The U.S. Embassy in Kabul has warned Americans that they should consider themselves "targets of opportunity" for Taliban rebels, especially when traveling in the provinces of Kandahar and Oruzgan. Embassy official Sandy Ingram said the warning, issued Wednesday, was "based on specific intelligence."


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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THE NATION



Clark Comes Out Blazing at Bush`s `Arrogance` on Iraq
The former general opens his Democratic presidential campaign in Florida. He criticizes the president`s foreign policy as `dogmatic.`
By Johanna Neuman
Times Staff Writer

September 19, 2003

FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. — Former Gen. Wesley Clark, in his first full day as a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination, blasted President Bush for a "dogmatic" foreign policy and for putting "strong-arm tactics" on Congress to rush approval for the war in Iraq.

Saying the Bush White House used its executive authority "in ways that cut off debate," Clark said he would likely have voted to authorize the war because "the simple truth is that when the president of the United States lays the power of office" on the line, "the balance of judgment probably goes to the president."

"I was against the war," Clark said. "In retrospect, we should never have gone in there. We could have waited. We could have brought the allies in."

Asked whether he would support the president`s $87-billion request for operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, Clark said he would first want to see an accounting of the administration`s projected costs and its exit strategy.

He faulted the administration for "arrogance" in slighting Congress and many of the nation`s traditional allies. But he added, "Now that we`re there, I want the mission to succeed."

In a 75-minute interview en route from his home in Little Rock, Ark., to his first campaign stop in Florida, Clark told reporters he made the decision to run Monday after conferring with his wife, Gertrude. He said a respected friend from the West Coast helped seal the decision, calling to tell him, "You must run."

Clark said he had a few conversations with former President Clinton and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), saying they were "encouraging." While some political activists have been promoting a Hillary Clinton and Clark ticket, the retired general said, "The right person to be the commander in chief is the right person to be commander in chief." Asked if he thought the Clintons would endorse him, Clark said he had not thought about it.

Clark, whose first stop was a kosher-style delicatessen in Hollywood, Fla., said he hopes to attend next week`s Democratic debate in New York. He confessed that he has watched none of the Democratic debates nor read a newspaper this week.

At the Deli-Den Restaurant, Clark navigated through a crowd of well-wishers and tables topped with sauerkraut and pickles. Some people bounded through the aisles to shake his hand, pledge their volunteer help and urge him to oust Bush. Several in the audience handed checks to campaign staffers.

Standing on a chair and using a microphone, Clark assailed Bush`s economic record, asking why the country has lost 2.7 million jobs, to which the crowd responded, "Bush!"

Clark said he had some other tough questions for Bush:

"Why are we engaged in Iraq?" Clark asked. "Mr. President, tell us the truth. Was it because Saddam Hussein was assisting the hijackers? Was it because Saddam Hussein had a nuclear weapon?"

Someone in the audience yelled, "Oil!"

Clark said: "We don`t know. And that`s the truth. We have to ask that question."

To which another person in the crowd shouted, "Halliburton is why!"

Mark Fabiani, a former aide to Al Gore`s 2000 campaign and Clark`s communications advisor, said the Clark team selected Florida for the candidate`s first appearance for several reasons. "We wanted to firmly plant the flag in the South," said Fabiani, and "in light of what happened in 2000 in Florida, the general wanted to send a message that he will fight for every vote and the right of every person to have their vote counted."

The day also brought a few campaign lessons.

The first was that Mother Nature is often more powerful than even Democratic voting blocs. Plans to make a speech at the Citadel in South Carolina, established as a military college in 1842, were scotched when campaign staffers hesitated to fly Clark so close to the eye of Hurricane Isabel.

Another lesson was that campaigns launched on the backs of draft movements can have a rough transition. With two teams of volunteers vying for power — the draftwesleyclark.com team and the Clark2004 contingent — one group often was unaware of the efforts of the other.

Clark waved off questions about strategy and specifics of his campaign positions. "We pulled together a staff after the decision," he said. "It`s early."

Still, some things were going well. A new Web site — AmericansforClark.com — was up and running as soon as Clark announced his candidacy Wednesday.

It highlighted many of the themes the campaign hopes to develop, including links for female supporters, whose "Women for Wes" signs were evident in the crowd at Wednesday`s announcement in Little Rock.

On a two-hour flight from Little Rock, Clark talked to four reporters for more than an hour, answering questions about domestic issues:

• Gays in the military. He thinks the Pentagon should reevaluate its "don`t ask, don`t tell" policy because it is "not working well." He said the British army`s policy, "don`t ask, don`t misbehave," has been more effective because "heterosexual sexual fraternization" can be just as disruptive to morale.

• Gun control. He supports a waiting period for gun purchases and sees no reason for assault weapons outside of the military, but he grew up in a house full of guns and believes in the 2nd Amendment.

• The Bush tax cuts. Clark favors gearing tax relief to the middle class and the poor. He said Bush is trying to have it all, "guns, butter and a tax cut."

• Health care. Praising the military`s system of preventive maintenance, he advocated universal coverage. "I don`t see why we can`t have health insurance for everyone," he said.

On a more personal note, Clark answered questions about his travel habits. He uses a Blackberry for e-mail messages and uses two cellphones; he packs with plastic wrap around each article of clothing to prevent wrinkles.

And, as a newsmagazine photographer captured the moment, he lobbed his own luggage into the back of his traveling van.

Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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EDITORIAL


So Which Story Is It?

September 19, 2003

President Bush`s declaration Wednesday that Saddam Hussein had Al Qaeda ties but that there was "no evidence" he was linked to 9/11 had an Alice-in-Wonderland quality. Only a few days earlier, Vice President Dick Cheney on national television had expanded the administration`s claims, hinting darkly that Hussein`s security forces might have been involved in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing and that Iraq was at "the heart of the base" of the terrorist threat that culminated in Sept. 11.

Who is the public supposed to believe, Bush or Cheney? In delivering a different message depending on what day of the week it is, the administration is shredding whatever remains of its credibility on Iraq.

On Thursday, Hans Blix, the former United Nations weapons inspector who has patiently watched as the United States and Britain fruitlessly search for weapons they said Blix was too incompetent to discover, finally decried "the culture of spin, the culture of hyping." Both Blix and his successor at the U.N., Demetrius Perricos, say Hussein probably destroyed any weapons of mass destruction a decade ago.

The administration`s flip-flops aren`t trivial, but rather are symptomatic of wider disarray. At a moment when Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is trying to win the cooperation of wary allies for a U.N. resolution that will internationalize the occupation and bring in foreign troops and money, Cheney went out of his way to antagonize Europeans. Cheney made an impassioned case Wednesday at the Air Force Assn.`s annual convention for an America goes-it-alone policy — preemptive strikes abroad whenever and wherever Bush sees fit. The unspoken premise is that the U.S. doesn`t need the U.N. or other countries to help rebuild invaded countries.

With Iraq in danger of meltdown, however, it`s clear that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and the Pentagon have failed to properly plan for the postwar period. Bush not only needs Europe on board, he also must listen to Republican lawmakers, led by Sen. Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) and Sen. Charles Hagel (R-Neb.), who are urging the White House to shift control of Iraq`s reconstruction from the Pentagon to the State Department.

In April, Congress went on record stating that it wanted Powell, not Rumsfeld, to oversee reconstruction. It backed down after lobbying by Cheney but shouldn`t make the same mistake again. It seems clear that civilian employees would be less apt to anger Iraqis. Moreover, U.S. aid workers have far more experience in nation-building than the military. Instead of giving the administration carte blanche with the additional $87 billion it has requested for Iraq, Congress should insist that the State Department take the lead.

Better yet, Bush could make clear his full and total support of the internationalization of the reconstruction in Iraq when he addresses the U.N. on Tuesday. It`s the first step toward restoring the administration`s credibility.



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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COMMENTARY



For the World of Letters, It`s a Horror
Giving a National Book Foundation award to Stephen King is only the latest chapter in the dumbing down of our culture.
By Harold Bloom
Harold Bloom is a professor at Yale, a literary critic and author of "The Western Canon," (Riverhead Books, 1995).

September 19, 2003

The decision to give the National Book Foundation`s annual award for "distinguished contribution" to Stephen King is extraordinary, another low in the shocking process of dumbing down our cultural life. I`ve described King in the past as a writer of penny dreadfuls, but perhaps even that is too kind. He shares nothing with Edgar Allan Poe. What he is is an immensely inadequate writer, on a sentence-by-sentence, paragraph-by-paragraph, book-by-book basis.

The publishing industry has stooped terribly low to bestow on King a lifetime award that has previously gone to the novelists Saul Bellow and Philip Roth and to playwright Arthur Miller. By awarding it to King, they recognize nothing but the commercial value of his books, which sell in the millions but do little more for humanity than keep the publishing world afloat. If this is going to be the criterion in the future, then perhaps next year the committee should give its award for distinguished contribution to Danielle Steel, and surely the Nobel Prize for literature should go to J.K. Rowling.

What`s happening is part of a phenomenon I wrote about a couple of years ago when I was asked to comment on Rowling. I went to the Yale bookstore and bought and read a copy of "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer`s Stone." I suffered a great deal in the process. The writing was dreadful; the book was terrible. As I read, I noticed that every time a character went for a walk, the author wrote instead that the character "stretched his legs." I began marking on the back of an envelope every time that phrase was repeated. I stopped only after I had marked the envelope several dozen times. I was incredulous. Rowling`s mind is so governed by clichés and dead metaphors that she has no other style of writing.

But when I wrote that in a newspaper, I was denounced. I was told that children would now only read J.K. Rowling, and I was asked whether that wasn`t, after all, better than reading nothing at all? If Rowling was what it took to make them pick up a book, wasn`t that a good thing?

It is not. "Harry Potter" will not lead our children on to Kipling`s "Just So Stories" or his "Jungle Book." It will not lead them to Thurber`s "Thirteen Clocks" or Kenneth Grahame`s "Wind in the Willows" or Lewis Carroll`s "Alice."

Later I read a lavish, loving review of Harry Potter by the same Stephen King. He wrote something to the effect of, "If these kids are reading Harry Potter at 11 or 12, then when they get older they will go on to read Stephen King." And he was quite right. He was not being ironic. When you read "Harry Potter" you are, in fact, trained to read Stephen King.

Our society and our literature and our culture are being dumbed down, and the causes are very complex. I`m 73 years old. In a lifetime of teaching English, I`ve seen the study of literature debased. There`s very little authentic study of the humanities remaining. My research assistant came to me two years ago saying she`d been in a seminar in which the teacher spent two hours saying that Walt Whitman was a racist. This isn`t even good nonsense. It`s insufferable.

I began as a scholar of the romantic poets. In the 1950s and early 1960s, it was understood that the great English romantic poets were Percy Bysshe Shelley, William Wordsworth, Lord Byron, John Keats, William Blake, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. But today they are Felicia Hemans, Charlotte Smith, Mary Tighe, Laetitia Landon and others who just can`t write. A fourth-rate playwright like Aphra Behn is being taught instead of Shakespeare in many curricula across the country.

Recently, I spoke at the funeral of my old friend Thomas M. Green of Yale, perhaps the most distinguished scholar of Renaissance literature of his generation. I said, "I fear that something of great value has ended forever."

Today, there are four living American novelists I know of who are still at work and who deserve our praise. Thomas Pynchon is still writing. My friend Philip Roth, who will now share this "distinguished contribution" award with Stephen King, is a great comedian and would no doubt find something funny to say about it. There`s Cormac McCarthy, whose novel "Blood Meridian" is worthy of Herman Melville`s "Moby-Dick," and Don DeLillo, whose "Underworld" is a great book.

Instead, this year`s award goes to King. It`s a terrible mistake.

Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/140282_ourplace19.html

Our Place in the World: Iraqis` mistrust is nothing new
Friday, September 19, 2003

By AIDA KOUYOUMJIAN
GUEST COLUMNIST

As an AAA person -- Armenian by ethnic heritage, Arabic by education and American by choice -- I am sad for the Iraqi devastation and sad for the United States` casualties. I am ashamed of the Iraqi ingratitude and ashamed of our blatant media. And I am proud of the U.S. liberation of Iraq and have hope for the Iraqi people. The United States should ask for help from the world civilizations to reconstruct Iraq but not from the United Nations.

Iraqis think historically and react emotionally. Without going too far into history, Iraqis have mistrusted the West since World War I, and they have hated the United Nations since the creation of Israel.

During WWI, T.E. Lawrence (better known as Lawrence of Arabia) convinced the peoples of the Fertile Crescent (the lands of current Iraq, Syria and Jordan) to revolt against their Ottoman masters in return for independence and self-determination. The Arabs proved to be a formidable guerrilla force for the Western Allies in defeating the Ottoman Empire, which had ruled all across the Middle East for more than 400 years. For such support, the Arabs were promised the independence to pave their own destiny. The Iraqis have been waiting to do that since 1918.

The promise of independence was a lie, of course. The Iraqis have never forgotten that and will never forget. And Lawrence, perhaps, never forgave himself for being duped by the politicians of the West.

In dividing the spoils of victory in 1921, Earl Balfour, British statesman and a former prime minister, drew the current boundaries of the countries, and instead of independence, Iraq, Jordan (then called Transjordan) and Palestine became a British mandate while Syria and Lebanon became a French mandate. There would be no sight of independence until the West decided it would be politically feasible -- a futile hope for the Arabs.

To make things worse, when the Jews persistently pushed for their independence as promised (also a lie) Britain gave up fighting the revolt in Palestine and asked the United Nations to settle the dispute. That`s when the United Nations made its first trademark in the Middle East -- the trademark of dividing countries into a north and a south or an east and a west. Thus, the British mandated Palestine be divided into Jewish and Palestinian states.

With the creation of Israel in the late 1940s, the United Nations defined itself as a "hated" entity in the Arab world. The death of Sergio Vieira de Mello, the chief U.N. official in Iraq, wasn`t the first attack on the United Nations. Count Bernadotte, the Swedish U.N. envoy, was assassinated while negotiating between the Palestinians and the Israelis in 1948. I was in Baghdad then. While officially the pro-West government mourned his death, we heard that the Iraqis celebrated it in their homes.

Iraqi resentment of the United States is a carryover of suspicions of the failed promises throughout the Middle East. For them what the West says is not what the West does.

It would not be wise to call in U.N. forces for Iraq: They will not succeed in securing peace or reconstructing the devastation. In enforcing the trademark solution for countries in conflict, the United Nations may divide Iraq into a North Sunni and a South Shi`a at the 33-degree parallel -- exactly midstream the Tigris River in Baghdad, where I learned how to swim. If not razed by Saddam or bombed by the United States, would my childhood home fall within the U.N.-drawn lines of a no-man`s-land and become the nest for future conflicts?

The United States succeeded in toppling Saddam`s brutal regime but now it needs international assistance in keeping the peace and reconstructing Iraq. In my time, Iraqis showed great admiration toward Germans and Scandinavians. More currently, Iraq`s commerce has thrived with those in South Korea and Japan. Manpower from these countries could rebuild Iraq and their forces could secure peace for its people. The cost for these endeavors should be the burden of the global community, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund, the overseer.

The pursuit of democracy cannot be accomplished solely by the likes of my grandson, who is serving with the Marines. The price of democracy is the burden for all civilizations.



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Aida Kouyoumjian lives on Mercer Island. Submissions for Our Place in the World, of up to 800 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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Jesus Doesn`t Wear Prada
The New Testament gets a "sassy" teen fashion-mag makeover. And you thought Britney was scary
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, September 19, 2003
©2003 SF Gate

URL: http://sfgate.com/columnists/morford/



These are the things to imperil young girls.

These are the things to corrupt young gullible minds and short-circuit self-expression and demean the desperately needed impulse toward spontaneous self-awareness and individuality and happy guiltless vaginal investigations.

These are the things to make Mary-Kate and Ashley`s alarming and utterly demonic stranglehold on the world of vacuous saccharine multimillion-dollar teendom seem like a boring day at the mall, with lots of makeup and tube tops and Hot Dog on a Stick.

Here`s the gimmick: Take a weird, modern conservative revisionist New Testament and wrap it in faux-hip fashion-mag duds and hawk it to unsuspecting young maidens who otherwise wouldn`t get within ten low-rise jean lengths of the gray-bearded dust-choked finger-wagging dogma of King James and all his hoary misogynistic machismo. Clever indeed.

It`s called "Revolve: The Complete New Testament" and it`s apparently racing up the Amazon.com sales charts -- whatever that means -- as it sucks up all the accoutrements of a teen fashion rag and rams them through the cute Christian grinder of humorlessness and sexual rigidity and homophobia, and regurgitates them as kicky dumbed-down slightly numb virginal tidbits of advice and admonition and, yes, Biblical storytelling.

Because apparently girls don`t already have enough hollow dogma out there telling them what to do. Apparently they don`t already face a large enough mountain of misinfo and scorn and sexual mixed messages, and not a single one of them telling them how to really tune into themselves, listen to their own unique voices, find their own sex and their own power and their own divine potency.

Nope. Instead they get this, a sweetly uptight, revisionist Bible cross-bred with a bad fashion magazine, full of Top-10 lists and quizzes and Q&As, telling them to "pray for a person of influence" every day and check the "godly" quotient of the boys they date, and that Jesus doesn`t really like it when they wear, you know, thongs and sexy bras and low-slung jeans. Yep, that should clear things right up.

"A `Revolve` girl makes a point of dressing modestly. She might wonder to herself, Would God find this too revealing or too suggestive?" That`s a direct quote from the ultra-prim Laurie Whaley, one of "Revolve`s" editors over at Thomas "Bibles `R Us" Nelson publishing house, whose picture graces a recent interview in the Mew York Times.

Wonder not, my children, at the status of Laurie`s chastity. Wonder not at what kind of pristine white underwear she might be wearing. Wonder not at her desperate need for a Hitachi Magic Wand and a bottle of Anejo Silver and a long, hot summer night, all alone. Oh, Laurie. Come back to us.

What, not scary enough? Fine. How about this: "Revolve" takes a decidedly conservative view of the Bible, condemns homosexuality, encourages virginity until marriage, and informs girls that excessive makeup and jewelry and revealing clothes are to be avoided and chastity is to be rewarded because, well, Jesus really loves baggy sweaters and granny underwear.

More? You got it. It also tells them to quietly shut up and always listen to your parents and don`t take the initiative by actually calling a boy on the phone, ever. Did Mary Magdalene ever call Jesus? Of course she didn`t. And "Revolve" tells these befuddled girls, in all seriousness, that it`s best to let the males lead the relationship.

There now. All better. Screw the female cause. Screw individuality and divine feminine power. Sure Jesus loves you, Jenny, but he loves you more if you wear long shapeless wool skirts and minimal mascara and not think too darn much, K?

And yet, weird little makeup tips abound in the book, outright groaners for all but the most painfully gullible Bible-belted girls. "You need a good, balanced foundation for the rest of your makeup," says one "tip." "Kinda like how Jesus is the strong foundation in our lives."

Yes that`s right. Jesus is the Chapstick for the dry lips of your sinning self. Jesus is the holy Clearasil for your Satanic shin zits. Jesus is that amazing clenched feeling you get when you lie back and aim the shower massager just right and... oh, never mind.

"Make sure that Jesus would be pleased with what you wear. You don`t have to look frumpy, just make sure you look like a child of God." This is the advice. This is what passes for serious religious assistance. Has it really come to this? Are girls supposed to believe God really cares what they wear, and is watching their every purchase at the Esprit outlet like some supreme pervert stalker? "Revolve" says, hell yes!

"The fire of God`s love burns out the sin the same way the hot steam routs the dirt out of your pores. This kind of relationship with God will do more to improve your looks than any amount of facials," reads the part on "Spiritual Facials." Isn`t that clever? Doesn`t it just make your colon clench right up in divine bliss? Sure it does.

Maybe you`d be tempted to think this is progress. Maybe you`d like to think it`s somehow a good thing that Christianity and certain publishers of mutant bibles are trying to reach new audiences, to break down barriers and make themselves "hip" while striving to hook a new generation into Christianity`s lair or gentle oppressive patriarchal fun.

Or maybe you think "Revolve" is really chock full of nice, safe, wholesome messages teen girls can really use in a world of teeming, roiling sexual anxiety and confusion and way, way too much Britney and MTV and premarital sex and poor condom awareness.

You would be wrong. "Revolve" is actually very much like a mind-control experiment, very much like some sort of sinister trick wherein they, like Christian rock bands, surreptitiously infiltrate a world the girls actually care about and use the teen`s own anxieties and angst against them to instill a certain, narrow Christian agenda, induce a fluffy sense of guilt and shame, all while imparting a bleached, sanitized morality that includes not a whit of funk or style or messy icky sex or intuition or sly winking cosmic knowledge. Almost makes "Glamour" look like "The Celestine Prophecy," no?

"Revolve" is basically a sheep in wolf`s clothing, a prim training manual for future well-Valiumed housewives who let their husbands rule the roost and don`t strive too hard for anything and don`t think overly much or who have long given up notions of exploring the diversity of the world, or divinity, or sexuality, or much of anything, really. And yes, it`s a bestseller.

"Revolve" devolves the teen cause. Not a word about how individuality is cool and self-exploration is way bitchin` and that they themselves are divine, are all-powerful, and that sex is a gorgeous powerful wondrous sticky joy to be respected and enjoyed and explored and consented upon and well learned. Heaven forefend. That way debauchery and hellfire lies.

Are these really the only choices? Is it really either vapid anorexic fashion mags or an uptight prudish revisionist New Testament designed to reduce the female teen spirit to shrill hollow pious guilt-addled automaton Formica?

Where, pray where, can a young teen turn for true unadulterated perspective and inspiration? For insight and anxiety relief and a big heaping dose of the gloriously convoluted, slithery, well-accessoried mess that is modern life? Hmm. Maybe that`s why God invented books.


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USA vs. Demokratie "Arab Style"

Thomas Pany 19.09.2003
In den arabischen und muslimischen Ländern hat sich eine neue öffentliche Sphäre formiert; die US-Administration hat ihre Probleme damit

Ein Amerikaner tritt in einer politischen Talkshow eines arabischen Fernsehsenders auf. Es geht um die Frage, ob Amerika eine imperialistische Macht sei. Am Ende beantworten 96 % Prozent der Zuschauer die Frage mit "ja". Obwohl man eine Milliarde Dollar pro Jahr dafür ausgebe, das Image der Vereinigten Staaten in der Welt aufzupolieren, zeigten Umfragen, dass der Antiamerikanismus in den muslimischen und arabischen Ländern stetig zunehme, resümiert ein Kongreßbericht, der letzte Woche veröffentlicht wurde.

Im Juni diesen Jahres erschien die Länder übergreifende Pew Global Attitudes-Umfrage, wonach die USA gegenüber den hohen Sympathie-Werten nach dem 11.September 2001 in muslimischen und arabischen Ländern nur mehr bei einer kleinen Minderheit Wohlgefallen findet. In Indonesien, Jordanien und Marokko war sogar eine Mehrheit davon überzeugt, dass Osama Bin Laden das "Richtige" tue, im Gegensatz zu George W.Bush.

Der Misserfolg der bisherigen "Public Diplomacy"

Der politischen Öffentlichkeitsarbeit, "public diplomacy", galt nach dem 11.September höchste Priorität. Das Budget hierfür wurde um 9% erhöht, in den Ländern des Mittleren Ostens und Südasiens um mehr als die Hälfte. Mit wenig Erfolg, wie der Bericht des Kongreßbüros für "General Accounting" moniert.

Die Aktivitäten des Außenministeriums seien zu unkoordiniert, die Mitarbeiter hätten zuviel Papierkram zu erledigen, zu wenige würden die Fremdsprache beherrschen und man habe kein wissenschaftliches Instrumentarium, das die Effizienz der Öffentlichkeitsarbeit bewerten könne. Stattdessen gebe es nur Anekdoten von Emissären, die von deren Erfolg bei Reden vor geneigtem Publikum erzählten.

Das Unbehagen des Kongresses an der mageren Ausbeute resultierte schließlich in der Gründung einer neuen Kommission (Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab und Muslim World), unter Leitung von Edward Djerejian, die Empfehlungen darüber aussprechen sollte, wie die Öffentlichkeit in der muslimischen Welt besser zu erreichen sei. Anfang Oktober wird der erste Bericht dieser Kommission erwartet.

Irrige Annahmen

Arabisch buchstabiert man Demokratie "W-ü-r-d-e". Man kann keine Würde in Isolation habe, wie ein Cowboy der stark, stolz und alleine herum geht und träumend in einer Freiheit von allen Verpflichtungen schwelgt. Würde - "Karameh" auf Arabisch - impliziert die Existenz von anderen, weil es um klare und aufrichtige Beziehungen zu ihnen geht
Laurie King-Irani in The Daily Star


"Nur in paar wenige Personen in der amerikanischen Administration erkennen das eigentliche Problem", diagnostiziert demgegenüber der Politikprofessor Marc Lynch in einem beachtenswerten Essay, erschienen in der neuen Ausgabe der Foreign Affairs.http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20030901faessay82506/marc-lync…

Selbst wenn man gelegentlich ein paar Leute in die arabischen Sender schickt, es via eigenem Radioprogramm mit populärer Musik ( Radio Sawa) versucht, mit dem richtigen "Spin" in den TV-Auftritten, der jedoch von der Zielgruppe nur zu gut als Propaganda-Make-up entlarvt wird, mit dem geplanten neuen arabischen Fernsehkanal, gesponsort mit amerikanischen Geldern (der Kongreß hat 30 Millionen Dollar bewilligt), der allerdings große Schwierigkeiten haben wird, einen Platz im mittlerweile vollen Markt zu finden - solange all dies auf dem überkommenen Ansatz der Bush-Administration fußt, prognostiziert Lynch, werde sich an der schlechten Verständigung zwischen Amerikanern, Muslimen und Arabern nichts wesentliches ändern: Die neue Kommission werde eine große Gelegenheit verschwenden, wenn sie nur mehr Mittel oder eine bessere Umsetzung traditioneller Ansätze fordere.

Die Araber fühlen sich behandelt wie Kinder. Sie wollen Gesprächspartner sein, statt Objekte von Manipulation.

Der herkömmliche Ansatz der "Puplic diplomacy" sei nämlich voller irriger Annahmen, behauptet Lynch. Schon im Zentrum der Politik gegenüber Araber stehe ein fatal falsches Axiom, dass die Araber nämlich autoritätsgläubig seien und ihnen entsprechend nur mit einer Politik der Stärke begegnet werden kann. Lynch listet in seinem Essay folgende Falschannahmen des gängigen Ansatzes auf:

Die öffentliche Meinung der Araber ist nicht wirklich wichtig, weil die autoritären Regimes die Unzufriedenheit entweder kontrollieren können oder ignorieren.
Die Wut auf die Vereinigten Staaten kann und sollte nicht weiter beachtet werden, weil sie der islamischen bzw. der arabischen Kultur immanent sei, und den Neid der Schwachen und Gescheiterten auf die Erfolgreichen repräsentiere oder von unpopulären Führern hoch gekocht werde, um von eigenem Versagen abzulenken.
Ein Gedanke, der mehr und mehr zum bestimmenden Allgemeingut (in der US-Administration) wird, ist, dass der Antiamerikanismus aus schlichtem Unverständnis der amerikanischen Politik resultiere.

Kein Wunder, meint Lynch, dass dieser Ansatz, genau die Menschen vor den Kopf stoße und der US-Politik entfremde, deren Unterstützung für den Erfolg der USA so nötig wären. Vor allem, wenn man sich die Nichtbeachtung der örtlichen Opposition durch die Amerikaner vor Augen halte, wenn es um militärische Interventionen gehe. Dies sei durch gönnerhafte Versuche, die amerikanische Botschaft `rüber zu bringen, nicht wett zu machen.

Stattdessen fordert der Experte für Öffentlichkeit in der arabischen Region, dass die USA eine fundamental neue "public diplomacy" in den muslimischen Ländern entwickeln müssten. Man sollte sich dem direkten Dialog mit meinungsbildenden Kräften einer neuen öffentlichen Sphäre aussetzen.


Strukturwandel der arabischen Öffentlichkeit


Die arabische öffentliche Meinung sei nämlich weitaus komplexer als das verbreitete Klischee einer zynischen Elite, die der arabischen Straße, geprägt von Leidenschaften und Nationalismus, gegenüber steht. In diesem überkommenen Fixierbild fehlt die neue öffentliche Sphäre, die Lynch in den Ländern des Nahen und Mittleren Ostens ausmacht. Sie hat sich in den letzten Jahren durch reichhaltige Medienangebote von internationalen Zeitungen und überstaatlichen Fernsehsendern, prominent: Al-Jazeera, entwickeln können. Diese Öffentlichkeit bestimme mehr und mehr die Debatten auf den Strassen, aber auch in den Palästen. Genau in dieser neuen Sphäre würden der Streit um die Ideen zu inneren Reformen und den Beziehungen zu den Vereinigten Staaten ausgefochten.


Da gibt es einerseits die großen arabischen Blätter, die in London herausgegeben werden, Al-Hayat z.B., sich somit dem direkten Einfluss von Regierungen entzogen haben und große Zugkraft auf ambitionierte Journalisten und Intellektuelle in der ganzen arabischen Welt ausüben. Und zum anderen das dicht gedrängte Angebot von Fernsehsendern mit einer umfassenden, internationalen Nachrichtenberichterstattung wie Al-Jazeera, Al Arabyia oder Abu Dhabi TV, das sich im Irakkrieg durch seine sensationsferne Berichterstattung einen guten Namen erworben hätte und viele andere, die den konservativen nationalen Sendern den Rang abgelaufen hätten. Als Beispiel für die Zugkraft etwa von Al-Jazeera zitiert Lynch den jemenitischen Präsidenten Ali Abdallah Salih, der regelmäßig Al-Jazeera dem eigenen nationalen TV-Sender vorziehe.

Viele "intellektuelle Leuchten" der arabischen Welt, so Lynch, ebenso wie einflussreiche politische Persönlichkeiten würden regelmäßig in diesen Fernsehstationen erscheinen oder viel gelesene Essays in der Presse schreiben und damit neue Argumente in die Debatte bringen.


Ein anderer sehr wichtiger Aspekt: die Programme werden oft in der Gemeinschaft gesehen, in öffentlichen Cafés, die so zu politischen Salons werden, vor allem in Krisenzeiten, oft werde dann zwischen Programmen hin-und hergezappt wird und die Berichterstattung heiß diskutiert.

Die Annahme, dass die Fernsehsender nur papageienhaft wiedergäben, was ihnen die offizielle Linie vorgibt, stimme nicht mehr. Kommentatoren würden regelmäßig die bestehenden arabischen Regime als unbrauchbar, schwach und korrupt bezeichnen. In einer kürzlich gesendeten Talkshow auf Al-Jazeera wurde die Frage gestellt, ob die bestehenden arabischen Regime schlimmer seien als die Kolonisation. 76% der Zuseher einschließlich des Moderatoren stimmten dem zu.


Gängige Nichtbeachtung der arabischen Öffentlichkeit


Nach dem 11.September 2001 habe die Bush-Administration die Notwendigkeit erkannt und zahlreiche Repräsentanten zu Al-Jazeera-Sendungen geschickt, aber der frische Enthusiasmus sei schnell Frust und Zorn gewichen, weil der Sender zu sympathisch über Al-Qaida berichtet habe und zu feindselig über die amerikanische Politik gegenüber Afghanistan und dem Irak. Der Druck, den die amerikanische Administration auf den Sender ausgeübt habe, um Bänder von Bin Laden zu zensieren, habe die amerikanische Rhetorik von freier Meinungsäußerung in den Augen der Araber zum Gespött gemacht.


Lynch kritisiert, dass man durch die ignorante und gönnerhafte Attitude gegenüber arabischen Empfindlichkeiten, die ihren Ausdruck in der neuen öffentlichen Sphäre finden, nicht nur anfängliche Sympathie und Mitgefühl nach dem 11.09. verspielt habe, sondern es auch ignoranterweise versäumt habe, den ganz anderen Blick der arabischen Welt auf den Irakkrieg zur Kenntnis zu nehmen.

Die arabische Meinung vor dem Krieg war nicht vorher bestimmt.


Während viele zu Beginn des Krieges durchaus Sympathien für die Absetzung Saddam Husseins gehabt hätten, wandelte sich das von den Neocons lancierte Image der "Befreier" im Laufe des Konflikts zum schlechten Image der "Besatzer". In der Berichterstattung der arabischen Fernsehsender habe es so ausgesehen, als ob Amerikaner und Briten, isoliert von der restlichen Welt, gegen einen unerschütterlichen irakischen Widerstand ankämpften. Im Gegensatz zu den westlichen TV-Anstalten wurden Bilder von zivilen Toten und den Schäden gezeigt, die der Krieg im Lande anrichtete. Der zentrale, ikonische Moment des Sieges der Amerikaner, der Fall der Saddam-Statue in Baghdad, sei vom arabischen Publikum als weitaus weniger bedeutend wahrgenommen worden: als Bühnenshow mit einer Handvoll echter Iraker

Den Schaden, der den USA durch die Ignoranz der neuen arabischen Öffentlichkeit entstanden sei, habe die gegenwärtige Administration noch gar nicht erkannt. Wichtiger als arabische Führer anzusprechen oder übergroße Kategorien, wie " die Jugend", wäre es jetzt, so Lynch, sich an diese Öffentlichkeit zu wenden, an die Intellektuellen und Journalisten, die zentral sind für die Meinungsbildung und statt unbeirrt an zementierten Überzeugungen zu hängen sei es erforderlich, den Stil der Debatte zu verändern und das ganze Spektrum der Meinungen zuzulassen, wie eben in den amerikanischen Debatten auch. Man müsse wie dort ernsthaft mit Gegnern diskutieren.

http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/special/auf/15666/1.html

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From: Peter Lee: `Useful idiot`
Posted on Friday, September 19 @ 10:27:34 EDT
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By Peter Lee

The international community, just like Halliburton, the neocons, and the religious right, have discovered the advantages of having a weak and easily led nincompoop in the White House.

Just at the time that ordinary Americans are finally waking up to the enormous political and financial cost.

Under the judicious management of Colin Powell, the current buyathon of "allies" for a new UN resolution for the reconstruction of Iraq is proceeding much more discretely and successfully than the red-faced, foam-flecked hectoring that doomed US efforts to gain support for the Iraq invasion earlier this year.

In a striking development, South Korea, a strong critic of the war at elite and popular levels, is reportedly ready to send 10,000 crack troops deep into the shit north of Baghdad (see Seoul May Send 10,000 Troops to Iraq, LA Times, 9/17/03).



Payback: the US will endorse South Korea`s program of diplomatic engagement with North Korea (at least until Korean boots hit Iraq sand: that`s a heads-up to you, President Roh) instead of pushing the neocon agenda of turning the Korean peninsula into a smoking nuclear ruin through a process of escalating confrontation.

In a sign of US sincerity, John Bolton, State`s designated asshole for international affairs, has been dispatched to chew morosely on Bashar Assad`s leg on the bogus issue of Syrian WMD ambitions instead of lingering in Asia to pointedly and intentionally insult Kim Jung Il.

The Turks, who wisely flouted the command to mount Bush`s triumphal chariot into Baghdad that turned into a bandwagon to oblivion, have been quietly granted the $ 8.5 billion in loan guarantees the U.S. contemptuously withheld prior to the invasion. They will be more than happy to send troops into Iraq--into northern Iraq, to bedevil the local Kurds.

India, through the intercession of its new strategic partner Israel--and in response to Sharon`s promise to assist in the noble task of killing Pakistani Muslims through sales of Israeli military technology and materiale--may agree to throw a few thousand troops in the Iraq meatgrinder once the UN resolution goes through (see A New Strategic Triangle, Haaretz 9/15/03).

So Powell will be able to convince the veto holders on the Security Council that they are not just giving a rubber stamp to Rumsfeld and Cheney to brutalize and despoil Iraq.

Instead, brutalizing and despoiling Iraq will be a true international effort!

Brown troops and white money.

The Europeans will be placated by the international donors` conference--a glorious combination market collusion exercise and circle jerk party to be held after the UN resolution passes. Fourteen Iraq infrastructure markets will be divied up between the nations. The US salts the pot with a few billion dollars, Europe and Japan ante up, and then the loot will be passed around from country to country in the form of contracts for each regime`s favorite industrialists (see U.S. Dangles a Carrot: Opportunities in Iraq, LA Times, 9/10/03).

To the Bush administration, it`s a no brainer: "You take the money from your taxpayers and give it to the corporations who support your election. And since the money`s pissed away in Iraq there`s no accountability. Just ask Halliburton!"

For a brief moment, it is wonderfully amusing to watch the neocons floundering on Iraq, and somewhat heartening to watch the media remembering to snap in its attack-dog dentures. Dana Milbank and Walter Pincus` startling use of a front-page news article to perform a point-by-point dissection of Cheney`s mendacious performance on Meet the Press seems to have flustered the White House (see Bush Team Stands Firm on Iraq Policy, Washington Post, 9/15/03).

In recent days we have seen a flurry of denials and mea culpas from Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld, Rice, and even Bush that have undermined the administration`s chest-thumping pretexts for the Iraq war, including nukes, WMDs, the al-Qaeda alliance, and even that gleaming genuine zirconia crown jewel of neocon deception, the implied Saddam-9/11 link.

Obviously Rove has decided to clean all the impeachable skeletons out of the closet in anticipation of a clean slate--and relieved American indifference about that war that happened so long ago and far away to somebody else--after the UN resolution.

Note well that every pretext has been abandoned except for the Big Lie that we attacked Iraq to enforce the U.N. resolutions against Saddam. Look for that one to resurface after a new enabling resolution is obtained:

"We didn`t want to invade Iraq; the UN made us do it. Any problems over there in Baghdad? Better talk to those crazy blue hats."

In a sure sign the fix is on, the Europeans seem to have cast aside the Palestinian bargaining chip usually produced during negotiations with America on Iraq. The U.S., with a blithe fuck you to the bewildered Third Worlders who thought that America playing ball with the UN was somehow about them, vetoed the Security Council resolution urging protection of Arafat.

So look for Bush to dodge the Iraq bullet, at least for now.

Despairing anti-Bushites will wail, "But the bozo`s on the ropes! Why would Chirac and Schroeder help him out of the Iraq mess?"

Why indeed?

A simple reason is that Bush administration is not yet in political free fall. If Old Europe sticks it to George this time, they might still have to put up with him after the election.

A more subtle reason is that a politically and morally weakened leader is somebody you can do business with. And when that Dummkopf has access to the resources of the world`s greatest financial and military power, well that`s something more important and useful than indulging feelings of contempt or moral repugnance.

Which is why America`s elite, which turned its back on Clinton for the awful crime of oral sex, is willing to put up with a leader whose mismanagement has led to America`s worst fiscal, military, and diplomatic debacle since the Vietnam war.

Bush is the clown they can rely on to always do the right thing by the rich.

It`s a sad but central fact of American politics that a significant number of the rich have convinced themselves of the utility, morality, and even necessity of plundering America`s public resources and popular well-being and security for the sake of personal, private advantage.

And that the man in the White House is their willing, eager, and conscienceless stooge.

As evidence of Bush`s incapacity and unfitness for office mounts, money pours into his re-election fund.

As Bush`s domestic and international stature shrinks, his coterie of rich bastards becomes ever more necessary and influential.

As Bush`s fiascos pile up, the first instinct of the moneyed and powerful and those who collude with them is to hunker down, say and do anything to get past Iraq and through this next election somehow, and use Bush to screw the American people for another four years.

And as Bush guts our public institutions, loots the Treasury with tax cuts and mortgages our future with deficits, and ravages the social fabric and natural environment the American people rely upon to provide joy and meaning to their lives, what happens?

America`s working people step up: to hold two jobs if they can find them in a quest for the health care and retirement security threatened by Bush`s irresponsible fiscal policies; they volunteer at schools and shelters to compensate for Bush`s malign neglect of our social and physical infrastructureÅc

Åcand they fight and die in Bush`s cruel and useless wars.

And our struggle to provide for our families and the future provides the energy, creativity, stability, and wealth that Bush`s crowd feeds on for their private profit.

I guess that makes us useful idiots too.

Copyright 2003 Peter Lee

Peter Lee is the creator of the anti-war satire and commentary webwsite Halcyon Days, which will be relaunched shortly.
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=13022&mode=nest…" target="_blank" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=13022&mode=nest…

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Randolph T. Holhut: `Health care costs, not al-Qaeda, worries Americans`
Posted on Friday, September 19 @ 10:24:27 EDT
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By Randolph T. Holhut

DUMMERSTON, Vt. - What is considered a bigger worry to the average American - another 9/11-style terrorist attack or not having health insurance?

According to a recent poll taken by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the latter is more feared by Americans.

The Kaiser poll found that 33 percent of the people they surveyed who now have health insurance are afraid their income won`t keep up with the ever-increasing costs of the premiums. By comparison, only 8 percent fear that they`ll be a victim of a terror attack.

Despite all the fear-mongering by the Bush administration, it`s very apparent that most Americans are more afraid of health care costs than al-Qaeda.



Americans have every reason to be afraid. According to Kaiser, monthly premiums for employer-sponsored health care rose 13.9 percent between spring 2002 and spring 2003. That`s the biggest increase since 1990 and it`s certain to mean higher premiums, higher co-payments and higher deductibles. Already, workers have seen their out-of-pocket costs for doctor visits and prescription drugs double in the last three years.

Why is health care getting so expensive? Look no further than a study published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine. Investigators from Harvard University and the Canadian Institute for Health Information found that 31 cents of every dollar spent on health care in the U.S. goes to pay administrative costs. By comparison, Canada - which has a single-payer health care system administered by the government - spends about half as much, 16.7 cents.

Administration costs for the U.S. health care system amount to nearly $295 billion a year. If we had the Canadian system in the U.S., that $295 billion would be more than enough to cover the cost of coverage for the 41 million Americans who currently don`t have health insurance.

It stands to reason that you could save a lot of money having one insurer - the federal government - instead of having thousands of different insurers and managed care providers. And government-run doesn`t necessarily mean inefficient. Administration costs for Medicare are estimated at around 3 percent, far less than private insurers. And instead of watching their premiums go up 15-30 percent every year, some employers are starting become receptive to the idea of paying into a central fund - the way they do for Social Security - to cover health care costs for their workers.

Of course, we know the obstacles to getting some sort of single-payer health care plan enacted. Even though it has the support of most Americans, the medical-industrial complex - the drug companies, the insurance companies and the rest of the elements of the for-profit health care system in this country - is absolutely opposed and isn`t afraid of spending millions of dollars to protect a system that allows them to make billions of dollars in profits. Their work in crushing President Clinton`s feeble attempt at health care reform in 1993-94 is a perfect example of the kind of fight they put up when their profits are threatened.

The chattering classes won`t offer support for single-payer health care either. Given the anti-government, pro-private market bias of the corporate press, they repeatedly dismiss single-payer health care as being costly and unworkable. And the politicians won`t back single-payer health care, especially considering how much money they get in campaign contributions from the medical-industrial complex.

Despite the abundant evidence of the inefficiency and wasted money of the current American health care system, there are still people who are quick to scream about the evils of "socialized medicine" and how a government-administered system would mean less care and more restrictions.

That argument falls apart when you look at the HMO-dominated system we have now, which has given us less care and more restrictions. As this country has moved from a mostly fee-for-service system to a profit-driven HMO system, we`ve gotten more bureaucracy without better coverage and have managed to make health care an expensive commodity that millions of Americans can`t afford.

We should be embarrassed by our status of being the only industrialized nation that doesn`t insure all its citizens. Streamlining our health insurance system while providing universal and comprehensive health care for all is something that can be done.

It won`t be done easily, given the power of the folks interested in maintaining the present profitable status quo. But the inescapable conclusion is that the present system isn`t working, and that there is an alternative.

Randolph T. Holhut has been a journalist in New England for more than 20 years. He edited "The George Seldes Reader" (Barricade Books).

http://www.kff.org/content/2003/20030909a/

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DERRICK Z. JACKSON
Cheney`s conflict with the truth
By Derrick Z. Jackson, 9/19/2003

ON "MEET THE PRESS" last Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney said, "Since I left Halliburton to become George Bush`s vice president, I`ve severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interests. I have no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven`t had now, for over three years."

That is the latest White House lie.

Within 48 hours, Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg of New Jersey pointed reporters toward Cheney`s public financial disclosure sheets filed with the US Office of Government Ethics. The sheets show that in 2002, Cheney received $162,392 in deferred salary from Halliburton, the oil and military contracting company he ran before running for vice president. In 2001, Cheney received $205,298 in deferred salary from Halliburton.

The 2001 salary was more than Cheney`s vice presidential salary of $198,600. Cheney also is still holding 433,333 stock options.

Flushed into the open, Cheney spokeswoman Catherine Martin said the vice president will continue to receive about $150,000 a year from Halliburton in 2003, 2004, and 2005. If President bush wins a second term, that means Cheney will make at least $800,000 from the company while sitting in office.

Martin said the payments did not represent a lie. She said Cheney had already earned that salary. She said Cheney took out an insurance policy that would guarantee the money would be paid to him no matter what happened to the company.

Five years ago, America was in a tizzy over President Clinton`s "That depends on what the meaning of is, is." That was over lying about sex. For that, Clinton was impeached. Now, we have a vice president who tells America he has severed his ties even as his umbilical cord doubles his salary. To him, it depends what the meaning of i$, i$.

We know what the meaning of i$, i$ to Halliburton. It is by far the largest beneficiary of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. With no-bid, no-ceiling contracts, the company has already amassed $2 billion in work. It is doing everything from restoring oil facilities to providing toilets for troops. A year ago Halliburton was staring at nearly a half-billion dollars in losses. In the second quarter of 2003 it posted a profit of $26 million.

No conflict of interest has been proven between Cheney`s salary and Halliburton`s Iraq work, but even before the invasion and occupation, Cheney`s concern about the public`s perception led to years of deception.

In the summer of 2000, he told Larry King that quitting Halliburton for the vice presidency means "I take a bath." He gave up a $1.3 million annual salary, but most people would have settled for mere shower droplets of his $33 million "retirement" package. By strange coincidence, at the time of the Republican National Convention, Halliburton gave about $280,000 to Republican candidates for office in the first half of 2000. It gave less than $10,000 to Democrats.

At the time, Cheney said: "I will take whatever steps I have to take to avoid any conflict of interest. That is to say, by the time I`m sworn in on January 20, I will have eliminated any possibility that I have a continuing financial interest in Halliburton stock or share price. . . . I will do whatever I have to do to guarantee that there`s no conflict."

Cheney has set up the 433,333 stock options in a charitable trust. But his whole vice presidency has been a general conflict of interest, symbolized by his secret industrial society known as the Energy Task Force. Cheney has resisted all efforts by the General Accounting Office and advocacy groups to provide documents that detail the proceedings of the task force. In the two and a half years since the task force was convened, the White House has been on a rampage to slash or gut environmental measures.

Cheney`s latest attempt to play Americans for fools came in the very same interview during which he was forced to say "I did misspeak" about Saddam Hussein having nuclear weapons, a falsehood that whipped up support for the invasion. The question is how many more misspeaks and lies Americans will tolerate. Back when Clinton was in trouble, Cheney`s wife, Lynne, said, "The Clintons are very good at defining and creating new realities that are based not on absolute truths, but on what they believe to be true at any given moment."

Clinton will be forever tarnished for "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." Dick Cheney`s continuing salary from the top profiteer of an invasion fueled by his sexed-up claims of Saddam Hussein`s weapons is the creation of a new, mad reality. Cheney has said in so many words, "I did not have financial relations with Halliburton." Americans must determine whether that lie is as sexy as lies about sex. With nearly 300 American soldiers dead, one would hope so.

Derrick Z. Jackson`s e-mail address is [e-mail].

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/arti…

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EU Big Three Defy U.S. to Offer Iran Nuclear Carrot
Fri September 19, 2003 01:12 PM ET


By Paul Taylor and Louis Charbonneau
BRUSSELS/VIENNA (Reuters) - Britain, Germany and France defied the United States last month by offering Iran the prospect of sharing technology if it stops its disputed nuclear fuel enrichment program and accepts tougher U.N. inspections.

Western diplomats told Reuters a joint letter by the big three European foreign ministers, the content of which has not previously been disclosed, was delivered to Tehran in early August despite intense lobbying by Washington.

It highlighted a wide gulf between the Bush administration and even its closest European ally, Britain, on whether to engage or isolate the Islamic republic.

The Europeans urged Iran to sign, implement and ratify a protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) that provides for intrusive, short-notice inspections and to halt its uranium enrichment program, which the West fears could be at the heart of a clandestine nuclear arms program.

In return for compliance, the letter raised the prospect of some cooperation on technology, without specifically pledging help with a civilian nuclear energy program, the sources said.

"Washington did not consider it very helpful at all. They were worried it ran the risk of splitting Europe and America on this issue...and attempted to dissuade them from sending the letter," a diplomat familiar with the exchanges said.

British and French officials confirmed the letter had been sent with the knowledge of the United States, but said Tehran had been offered no direct "quid pro quo."

However, a British official said that if Iran did comply fully with the NPT, "that would bring certain rights with it."

European diplomats said they were disappointed there had not been a more specific reply from Tehran so far.

KHATAMI VAGUE

On August 18, Iranian President Mohammad Khatami sent a broadly worded letter to European leaders, including EU president Italy, pledging that Iran would never divert its civilian nuclear program for military purposes and had decided to enter immediate talks on the so-called additional protocol.

But that message, seen by Reuters, did not commit Iran to sign or ratify the protocol, and European diplomats question whether Khatami, locked in a power struggle with hardline clerics, has effective control over the nuclear program.

Since then, attention at the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has shifted from intrusive future checks to investigating Iran`s past nuclear activities, diplomats said.

The governing board of the IAEA, in a vote that united Americans and Europeans, gave Tehran an ultimatum last week to prove by October 31 it has no secret weapons program or be reported to the Security Council for possible sanctions.

But a diplomat from one of the European states stressed that the joint British, French and German initiative remained valid.

"The offer still stands," he said.

Diplomats said the United States and Russia were both involved in preliminary discussions on the letter but Washington fundamentally opposed offering Iran any carrot.

Moscow, which is helping Iran build a nuclear power station at Bushehr despite U.S. opposition, thought the wording too harsh and sent its own letter instead.

INCENTIVE TO COOPERATE

European diplomats said the letter gave Tehran an incentive to cooperate by responding to a key demand it has raised for the right to peaceful nuclear cooperation under the 1968 treaty.

"Iran has a confidence deficit," said a diplomat, adding that the offer was one possible way of removing the deficit.

The NPT preamble affirms the principle that "the benefits of peaceful applications of nuclear technology... should be available for peaceful purposes to all Parties of the Treaty."

But diplomats said the letter also hardened the European position by shifting emphasis from simply demanding Iran accept tougher inspections to insisting it abandon fuel enrichment.

Khatami`s letter did not address that issue but since he outranked the European ministers in protocol terms, it was not clear whether Tehran would reply to their detailed demands.

The IAEA`s August 26 report made clear that Iran`s uranium enrichment program began in 1985, 12 years earlier than Tehran had originally stated, intensifying suspicions that its nuclear work is far more advanced than the agency had realized.

One diplomat at IAEA headquarters in Vienna noted that South Africa, Argentina and Brazil were all persuaded to abandon nuclear arms programs after political change.

"We`d rather be dealing with a Brazil than with a North Korea or an Iraq," he said.

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Big Explosion Shakes Downtown Baghdad
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS


Filed at 1:22 p.m. ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A big explosion rocked central Baghdad late Friday and a huge cloud of smoke was seen rising from the direction of Martyrs` Square, where the American military maintains a base.

The explosion shook the Palestine Hotel about 2 1/2 miles away from where it was believed to have occurred.

No other details were available.

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Published on Friday, September 19, 2003 by the lndependent/UK
Another Day, Another Death-Trap For The US
by Robert Fisk

The American Humvee had burnt out, the US troop transporter had been smashed by rockets and an Iraqi lorry - riddled by American bullets in the aftermath of the attack - still lay smoldering on the central reservation.

"I saw the Americans flying through the air, blasted upwards," an Iraqi mechanic with an oil lamp in his garage said - not, I thought, without some satisfaction. "The wounded Americans were on the road, shouting and screaming."

The US authorities in Iraq - who only report their own deaths, never those of Iraqis - acknowledged three US soldiers dead. There may be up to eight dead, not counting the wounded. Several Iraqis described seeing arms and legs and pieces of uniform scattered across the highway.

It may well turn out to be the most costly ambush the Americans have suffered since they occupied Iraq - and this on the very day that George Bush admitted for the first time that there was no link between Saddam Hussein and the 11 September assault on the United States. And as American Abrams tanks thrashed down the darkened highway outside Khaldiya last night - the soft-skinned Humvee jeeps were no longer to be seen in the town - the full implications of the ambush became clear.

There were three separate ambushes in Khaldiya and the guerrillas showed a new sophistication. Even as I left the scene of the killings after dark, US army flares were dripping over the semi-desert plain 100 miles west of Baghdad while red tracer fire raced along the horizon behind the palm trees. It might have been a scene from a Vietnam movie, even an archive newsreel clip; for this is now tough, lethal guerrilla country for the Americans, a death-trap for them almost every day.

As usual, the American military spokesmen had "no information" on this extraordinary ambush. But Iraqis at the scene gave a chilling account of the attack. A bomb - apparently buried beneath the central reservation of the four-lane highway - exploded beside an American truck carrying at least 10 US soldiers and, almost immediately, a rocket-propelled grenade hit a Humvee carrying three soldiers behind the lorry.

"The Americans opened fire at all the Iraqis they could see - at all of us," Yahyia, an Iraqi truck driver, said. "They don`t care about the Iraqis." The bullet holes show that the US troops fired at least 22 rounds into the Iraqi lorry that was following their vehicles when their world exploded around them.

The mud hut homes of the dirt-poor Iraqi families who live on the 30-foot embankment of earth and sand above the road were laced with American rifle fire. The guerrillas - interestingly, the locals called them mujahedin, "holy warriors" - then fired rocket-propelled grenades at the undamaged vehicles of the American convoy as they tried to escape. A quarter of a mile down the road - again from a ridge of sand and earth - more grenades were launched at the Americans.

Again, according to the Sunni Muslim Iraqis of this traditionally Saddamite town, the Americans fired back, this time shooting into a crowd of bystanders who had left their homes at the sound of the shooting. Several, including the driver of the truck that was hit by the Americans after the initial bombing, were wounded and taken to hospital for treatment in the nearest city to the west, Ramadi.

"They opened fire randomly at us, very heavy fire," Adel, the mechanic with the oil lamp, said. "They don`t care about us. They don`t care about the Iraqi people, and we will have to suffer this again. But I tell you that they will suffer for what they did to us today. They will pay the price in blood."

Jamel, a shopkeeper who saw the battle, insisted - and in Iraq, it is what people believe that governs emotion, not necessarily reality - that 60 Americans were killed or wounded in a mortar attack on the former Iraqi (and former RAF) air base at Habbaniyeh last week. Untrue, of course. But as we spoke, mortar fire crashed down on Habbaniyeh, its detonation lighting up the darkness as explosions vibrated through the ground beneath our feet. This was guerrilla warfare on a co-ordinated scale, planned and practiced long in advance. To set up even yesterday`s ambush required considerable planning, a team of perhaps 20 men and the ability to choose the best terrain for an ambush.

That is exactly what the Iraqis did. The embankment above the road gave the gunmen cover and a half-mile wide view of the US convoy. They must have known the Americans would have opened fire at anything that moved in the aftermath - indeed, the guerrillas probably hoped they would - and angry crowds in the town of Khaldiya were claiming last night that 20 Iraqi civilians had been wounded.

Six days ago, American soldiers killed eight US-trained Iraqi policemen and a Jordanian hospital guard 14 miles away in Fallujah, claiming at first that they had "no information" on the shootings, and then apologizing - but without providing the slightest explanation for the killings. Several Iraqis in Khaldiya suggested that yesterday`s ambush may have been a revenge attack for the slaughter of the policemen.

True or false, that is what the guerrillas may well claim. Do they, many Iraqis wonder, follow the political trials of President Bush and Prime Minister Blair? Was the devastating attack timed to coincide with Mr Bush`s increasing embarrassment over the false claims that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction? Unlikely. But yesterday when the former UN weapons inspector Hans Blix condemned the "culture of spin, the culture of hyping" - in reference to the Anglo-American exaggeration of Saddam Hussein`s threat to the world - some of his words may have found their mark in Iraq. "In the Middle Ages," Mr Blix said, "when people were convinced there were witches, they certainly found them."

Now Mr Bush is convinced he is fighting a vast international "terrorist" network and that its agents are closing in for a final battle in Iraq. And the Iraqi mujahedin are ready to turn the American President`s fantasies into reality.

I couldn`t help noticing the graffiti on a wall in Fallujah. It was written in Arabic, in a careful, precise hand, by someone who had taken his time to produce a real threat.

"He who gives the slightest help to the Americans," the graffiti read, "is a traitor and a collaborator."

C 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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Published in the October 6, 2003 issue of The Nation
9/11/01: Where Was George?
by Eric Alterman

September 11 is often said to be the defining moment in the Bush presidency, even of modern history. How strange, therefore, that Bush`s behavior that morning--along with that of his Administration--is almost never examined in any detail. This is all the more incredible when one considers the fact that 9/11 is among the most exhaustively chronicled days in human history and Bush among its most heavily covered individuals. No less odd has been the media`s willingness to let the many inconsistencies in White House stories pass unexamined. They seem content instead to let Showtime tell the story, Leni Riefenstahl-style.

That fateful morning, Bush was visiting the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota. The moment he learned of the attacks is a matter of deep dispute. CIA chief George Tenet was informed of the first crash almost immediately and is reported to have remarked to his breakfast companion, former Senator David Boren, "You know, this has bin Laden`s fingerprints all over it." But the President`s aides maintain that he was not told about the attack for more than fifteen minutes, well after viewers saw the first building engulfed in smoke on CNN, and even after he interrupted his schedule to take a call from Condoleezza Rice upon leaving his limousine, after the first crash took place.

The various accounts offered by the White House are almost all inconsistent with one another. On December 4, 2001, Bush was asked, "How did you feel when you heard about the terrorist attack?" Bush replied, "I was sitting outside the classroom waiting to go in, and I saw an airplane hit the tower--the TV was obviously on. And I used to fly myself, and I said, well, there`s one terrible pilot. I said, it must have been a horrible accident. But I was whisked off there. I didn`t have much time to think about it." Bush repeated the same story on January 5, 2002, stating, "First of all, when we walked into the classroom, I had seen this plane fly into the first building. There was a TV set on. And you know, I thought it was pilot error, and I was amazed that anybody could make such a terrible mistake...."

This is false. Nobody saw the jetliner crash into the first tower on television until a videotape surfaced a day later. What`s more, Bush`s memory not only contradicts every media report of that morning, it also contradicts what he said on the day of the attack. In his speech to the nation that evening, Bush said, "Immediately following the first attack, I implemented our government`s emergency response plans." Again, this statement has never been satisfactorily explained. No one besides Bush has ever spoken of these "emergency plans," and the mere idea of their implementation is contradicted by Bush`s claim that at the time, he believed the crash to have been a case of pilot error.

Other contradictions abound. Bush told an interviewer that Chief of Staff Andrew Card had been the first person to let him know of the crash. Card was saying, Bush explained, "`Here`s what you`re going to be doing: You`re going to meet so-and-so, such-and-such.` Then Andy Card said, `By the way, an aircraft flew into the World Trade Center.`" Ari Fleischer repeated this story, claiming that Card had told Bush about the crash "as the President finished shaking hands in a hallway of school officials." But other sources, including Bob Woodward`s allegedly authoritative account, have Karl Rove telling Bush the news.

What we do know is that Bush continued to read to the children and pose for the cameras long after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the North American Aerospace Defense Command (NORAD), the National Military Command Center, the Pentagon, the White House, the Secret Service and Canada`s Strategic Command were all aware that three jetliners had been hijacked. The President`s entourage hung around a full fifty minutes after CNN broadcast the news of the first crash. Half an hour after the first plane hit, Bush told the children, "Hoo! These are great readers. Very impressive! Thank you all so very much for showing me your reading skills. I bet they practice, too. Don`t you? Reading more than they watch TV? Anybody do that? Read more than you watch TV? [Hands go up] Oh that`s great! Very good. Very important to practice! Thanks for having me. I`m very impressed."

White House staff members claimed that Bush remained with the children so as not to "upset" or "alarm" them. This is a truly bewildering excuse. If the country was under attack, Bush might be forgiven for upsetting a few schoolkids. If the President`s life was in danger, then so was the life of every little child in that room. At the time, fighter jets had been dispatched to defend New York City. But according to one of the fighter pilots, it would have done no good to catch up to one of the hijacked planes before it landed in a murderous explosion at the next population center. The only person with the authority to order the plane to be shot down, noted the pilot, was the President, who was still reading to schoolchildren.

The panic motif runs through the rest of the President`s actions that day. While the presidential motorcade did finally head for the airport, Bush is alleged to have spoken on the phone to Cheney and ordered all flights nationwide grounded. Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta has also tried to take credit for the order, but according to Slate, this too is false, though "FAA officials had begged [the reporter] to maintain the fiction." In fact, according to USA Today, it was FAA administrator Ben Sliney who issued the order. Amazingly, Air Force One took off with no military protection. It remained unprotected in the sky for more than an hour, though Florida is filled with Air Force bases just minutes away with planes that are supposed to be on twenty-four-hour alert.

Bush`s aides later offered, and retracted, the excuse that he spent the day flying around the country because of threats to Air Force One believed to have been received at the White House. What nobody has ever explained is this: If you think Air Force One is to be attacked, why go up in Air Force One?

I don`t have the answers to these questions. But why is no one asking them?

Eric Alterman currently writes the "Stop the Presses" media column for The Nation and the "Altercation" web log for MSNBC.com.

Copyright © 2003 The Nation

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GIs in Iraq Kill Aide to Italian Envoy

Friday September 19, 2003 1:49 PM


By ALESSANDRA RIZZO

Associated Press Writer

ROME (AP) - American soldiers in northern Iraq fired on a car carrying the Italian official heading up U.S. efforts to recover Iraq`s looted antiquities, killing the man`s Iraqi interpreter, an official said Friday in Rome. The Italian, Pietro Cordone, was unhurt.

Cordone, who is the senior adviser for cultural affairs of the U.S. provisional authority and the top Italian diplomat in the country, was traveling on the road between Mosul and Tikrit on Thursday when his car was fired on at a U.S. roadblock, said a Foreign Ministry official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

The official said American troops fired at the car, and that Cordone`s Iraqi interpreter was killed. Cordone was unharmed.

The official said it appeared the car`s driver did not understand the signals that the American troops were giving, and that the American`s didn`t understand what the car was trying to do.

The Foreign Ministry said U.S. officials had expressed regret over the incident.

Cordone, who was born in Egypt and spent his diplomatic career in the Arab world, was named to his position in May to head up the coalition office responsible for finding and restoring Iraq`s looted antiquities.

He was on hand at the Iraqi National Museum last week when three men returned the Vase of Warka, a 5,000-year-old white limestone vessel that is one of the most valuable of the museum`s artifacts.

The museum, once the home of rare Islamic texts and priceless, millennia-old collections from the Assyrian, Sumerian and Babylonian civilizations, was plundered in the lawlessness and chaos that followed the fall of Baghdad on April 9.

The destruction triggered an international uproar, with many curators and archaeologists from around the world blaming the United States for failing to protect the institution.

When he was named to his position, Italian Culture Minister Giuliano Urbani said Cordone`s task was to recover ``one of the most important artistic patrimonies`` in the world.

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Iraq`s future
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French lesson for Bush
Leader
Saturday September 20, 2003
The Guardian

At the risk of committing lese majeste, it is possible to predict the line that Tony Blair will take on Iraq when he meets the French and German leaders in Berlin today. The prime minister will tell Jacques Chirac and Gerhard Schröder that it is time to bury the hatchet. Prewar differences and any lingering bitterness over London`s scapegoating of France for last winter`s UN fiasco should be set aside.

It no longer really matters what happened then, Mr Blair may say; what is important is what happens next. Nobody needs another transatlantic row. The resuscitation of a common European approach is in the interest of all three of the EU`s great powers and of "old" and "new" Europe as a whole. It is also vital if the cohesion and future effectiveness of the UN, about which Kofi Annan recently spoke in such strikingly gloomy terms, is to be safeguarded. Mr Blair may note that the stability of the wider Middle East, progress on the Israel-Palestine roadmap and the fight against terrorism depend to an appreciable extent on increased international collaboration on Iraq, especially in achieving day-to-day security. For these reasons, he may argue, France, at any rate, should agree to send a peacekeeping contingent, as the US is proposing in its new draft security council resolution, if only to help Britain.

France`s response to such arguments, and to a lesser degree that of Germany, will be of the utmost interest. But while the outlines of a compromise agreement on the US draft are discernible, it is unlikely that it will be handed to Mr Blair in Berlin. The French government is well aware of Mr Blair`s severely weakened domestic position as he struggles to clamber out of the hole into which he has dug himself. Mr Chirac may calculate that Britain`s leader needs his help more than France needs Mr Blair`s assistance in mending fences with Washington. Both Mr Chirac and Mr Schröder are in any case due to meet George Bush at the UN next week. Whatever they intend in Iraq, they may prefer to reveal it to the headmaster rather than the head boy.

To an exemplary degree, however, France`s response to the US draft resolution is already known. For once, Antoine de Rivarol`s old boast, "ce qui n`est pas clair n`est pas français" (that which is not clear is not French), may be justified. Led by its able foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, France is calling for a swift transfer of sovereign powers from the US-led coalition to an Iraqi provisional government, comprising the governing council and cabinet - as the Iraqi council itself demanded this week. France wants the UN security council to have primary political oversight. And it seeks a constitutional convention, followed by elections next spring. In short, France insists that control of Iraq must be returned to Iraqis within a matter of months, not years. If that is agreed, it will back and may indeed join a UN-mandated, US-led peacekeeping force. It is a radical plan, as Mr De Villepin admits. It may be overly optimistic, as Colin Powell grumbles. But at least it is a plan, whereas, in the case of the US, there is - as Democrats complain - no plan at all.

A compromise is not impossible and the Berlin meeting may yet facilitate it. But in the end, success will not depend on Mr Blair`s arguments. Rather, success depends on Mr Bush and his advisers overcoming their state of denial, admitting the US needs help and agreeing to work along the lines proposed by France. Common sense insists America`s discredited leaders open their eyes. Pride and prejudice suggest they may not.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Shia militia arrest top Ba`athist
Rory McCarthy in Najaf
Saturday September 20, 2003
The Guardian

They came after midnight for Karim Ghaith. Outside his two-storey sandstone house in the holy city of Najaf, they shouted out his name, then opened fire.

After a gun battle lasting most of the night, Mr Ghaith, a high-ranking member of the former Ba`ath party, was held and taken for questioning on his suspected involvement in attacks on US troops.

It looked like another of dozens of raids since the war to capture senior Ba`athists. But the men who detained him early this month were not American soldiers or Iraqi police. Witnesses say they were the Badr Brigade, armed wing of Iraq`s biggest Shia Muslim party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri).

The operation, denied by Sciri, is evidence of the frustration of Shia groups and the growing willingness to tackle the perceived security threat themselves.

Since Ayatollah Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim, the head of Sciri, was killed last month, Shias have become increasingly angry at the pervading lawlessness. They insist that their militias must fill the security vacuum. They risk a confrontation withUS forces, whose commanders insist there is no role for militias and have ordered the militias to disarm or face arrest.

So far groups like the Badr Brigade and the Security Committee, set up by another Shia cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr, have avoided a confrontation with US troops, but resentment is simmering. "The Ba`athists must be punished because they are criminals who oppressed the Iraqi people," said Syed Abid Zaid al-Jabari, a Sciri official in Najaf.

"I think if the Iraqis are given a clearer role to participate in maintaining security and courts are set up, then people will start coming to us with the names of these people who are still in our city."

He said so far Badr had not arrested any Ba`athists in Najaf. But Abdul Amir Hassan Hussein, the head of Najaf`s human rights association, said: "It was Badr gunmen who arrested [Mr Ghaith]. They held him and they questioned him, and then they handed him over to be held in prison. We think it is a good step by the Badr, because since they started these kinds of operations there has been much more security in Najaf. Many of the Ba`athists have now left the city."

Abu Mohammad and his son Mustafa, 13, living next door to Mr Ghaith, said the Badr men had ordered him to surrender. Mustafa said: "The Badr Brigade came to the door and kept asking if Ghaith was hiding here. We told them he wasn`t. The gunmen said they were from the Badr Brigade."

During the gun battle Mr Ghaith hid inside a pile of tyres in their yard. At least two Badr gunmen were killed. Eventually, just after dawn, they captured him. His family fled and a mob ransacked their house, smashing windows and stripping it bare, removing even the floor tiles.

At the nearby police station officers insisted they had no part in the raid, but appeared ready to grant the militia a free hand. "The Badr Brigade doesn`t interfere in our job and they asked us not to interfere in their job," Captain Ishar al-Ardawi said. Badr officials in Najaf insist their men are no longer armed, though several, dressed all in black and sometimes wearing Badr armbands, are frequently seen in the city.

"We were not involved in this arrest, we have no weapons now. But Karim Ghaith is a criminal and everybody knows that," said Abdul Karim Rimimi, a brigade leader.

Mr Rimimi, who has met US marine officers in Najaf several times, said the Americans wanted his man to give up their guns and hand back their Kalashnikov permits. "The security is still so weak," he said. "If they left it up to us it would be much better."

US officials say they are considering plans to withdraw from some cities and leave security in the hands of trained Iraqi troops. But they mean the newly retrained Iraqi police or the newly formed paramilitary Civil Defence Battalions.

"We believe that there is not a role in the new Iraq for organised militias," the US civilian administrator, Paul Bremer, said this month.

American and British officials are particularly wary of Badr, which they say is still armed and funded by the Iranian government. For 20 years Sciri and the Badr Brigade were exiled in Iran, where Badr fought on the side of Tehran in the war of the 1980s.

Political leaders of the Shia movement are worried that security problems are likely to make people even more disillusioned with the US military occupation. Many want the Iraqis to have more responsibility now for their political future. "We feel very frustrated," said Adil Abdul Mehdi, 61, head of Sciri`s political bureau. "We understand the Americans, but they have to understand us. They cannot dictate things to us."

He said few expected a clash between the Shia majority and the Sunni minority, but there was a danger of Shias turning against the Americans, as many Sunni communities north and west of Baghdad had done.

"It will start with very small groups: actions and reactions. But if this starts, how it will finish nobody knows," he said. "If people cannot find a security solution even in the southern regions we will see an escalation of the situation."


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Europeans fail to end Iranian nuclear crisis
Tehran rejects offer of technology cooperation

Dan De Luce in Tehran
Saturday September 20, 2003
The Guardian

Britain, France and Germany have made an unsuccessful attempt to encourage Iran to comply with the International Atomic Energy Agency rules and curb its nuclear ambitions by offering to share their nuclear technology.

The incentive was intended to persuade Iran to accept tougher nuclear inspections and to halt its uranium enrichment programme.

It was offered despite strong objections by the US, according to a Reuters news agency report yesterday .

Iran`s lukewarm reaction served to unite the US and European governments behind the IAEA`s tough resolution last week, which requires Iran to prove that it has no-nuclear weapons programme by October 31.

It it fails to do so it make face action by the UN security council action.

The reported behind-the-scenes offer sheds new light on the crisis caused by Iran`s nuclear activities.

Tehran`s attempt to buy time on the issue has backfired and appears to have paved the way for transatlantic unity.

The Bush administration wants Iran isolated and dismisses Europe`s attempts at "constructive engagement" with reformers in the theocratic leadership.

Iran`s decision to reject the offer will make it more difficult for the foreign secretary, Jack Straw, and other foreign ministers to defend the benefits of engagement.

Iranian officials told journalists privately in August that England, France and Germany were putting pressure on their government to accept short-notice inspections of Iran`s nuclear plants.

But they but did not mention the incentives that were also proposed.

A letter from the three powers said that if Iran agreed to the demands they would offer cooperation on technology. It did not specify what sort of technology,.

But Iran has made it clear that civilian nuclear technology is the only incentive it is interested in.

"Washington did not consider it very helpful at all," a diplomat familiar with the matter said.

The administration was worried that it might divide Europe and the US, talked to "friends and colleagues in Europe" and "attempted to dissuade them from sending the letter," the diplomat told Reuters.

A source said that the joint British, French and German initiative "still stands".

Iran has given conflicting signals about how it will react to the IAEA resolution, but has said it will continue to cooperate with the agency.

But Conservative figures advocate following the North Korean example by withdrawing from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty altogether and ejecting UN inspectors.

"What is wrong with considering this treaty on nuclear energy and pulling out of it?" Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, who heads the supervisory body the Guardian Council, said yesterday at Friday prayers in Tehran.

"North Korea pulled out of it and many countries have never entered it."

While the reformist government, led by President Mohammad Khatami, has said it will consider signing the additional protocol to the treaty which would allow short-notice inspections, Ayatollah Jannati said that would be represent "an extraordinary humiliation".

The final decisions on Iran`s nuclear programme are believed to rest with the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and allied senior clerics, not with Mr Khatami`s cabinet, whose powers have been systematically curtailed.

The US and European governments suspect that Iran has a clandestine nuclear weapons programme and point to its efforts to enrich uranium, build a heavy water plant, and secure spent nuclear fuel, and to its contradictory accounts of its activities.

Iran says its nuclear programme is designed for peaceful purposes, to meet growing demand for electricity.

As for the IAEA tests which showed enriched uranium at a nuclear site, Iranian officials say the samples came from contaminated components bought on the black market abroad.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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What good friends left behind
Two years ago, as the bombs began to drop, George Bush promised Afghanistan `the generosity of America and its allies`. Now, the familiar old warlords are regaining power, religious fundamentalism is renewing its grip and military skirmishes continue routinely. What was the purpose? John Pilger reports

Saturday September 20, 2003
The Guardian

At the Labour party conference following the September 11 attacks, Tony Blair said memorably: "To the Afghan people, we make this commitment. We will not walk away... If the Taliban regime changes, we will work with you to make sure its successor is one that is broadbased, that unites all ethnic groups and offers some way out of the poverty that is your miserable existence." He was echoing George Bush, who had said a few days earlier: "The oppressed people of Afghanistan will know the generosity of America and its allies. As we strike military targets, we will also drop food, medicine and supplies to the starving and suffering men and women and children of Afghanistan. The US is a friend of the Afghan people."

Almost every word they spoke was false. Their declarations of concern were cruel illusions that prepared the way for the conquest of both Afghanistan and Iraq. As the illegal Anglo-American occupation of Iraq now unravels, the forgotten disaster in Afghanistan, the first "victory" in the "war on terror", is perhaps an even more shocking testament to power.

It was my first visit. In a lifetime of making my way through places of upheaval, I had not seen anything like it. Kabul is a glimpse of Dresden post-1945, with contours of rubble rather than streets, where people live in collapsed buildings, like earthquake victims waiting for rescue. They have no light and heat; their apocalyptic fires burn through the night. Hardly a wall stands that does not bear the pock-marks of almost every calibre of weapon. Cars lie upended at roundabouts. Power poles built for a modern fleet of trolley buses are twisted like paperclips. The buses are stacked on top of each other, reminiscent of the pyramids of machines erected by the Khmer Rouge to mark Year Zero.

There is a sense of Year Zero in Afghanistan. My footsteps echoed through the once grand Dilkusha Palace, built in 1910 to a design by a British architect, whose circular staircase and Corinthian columns and stone frescoes of biplanes were celebrated. It is now a cavernous ruin from which reed-thin children emerge like small phantoms, offering yellowing postcards of what it looked like 30 years ago: a vainglorious pile at the end of what might have been a replica of the Mall, with flags and trees. Beneath the sweep of the staircase were the blood and flesh of two people blown up by a bomb the day before. Who were they? Who planted the bomb? In a country in thrall to warlords, many of them conniving in terrorism, the question itself is surreal.

A hundred yards away, men in blue move stiffly in single file: mine-clearers. Mines are like litter here, killing and maiming, it is calculated, every hour of every day. Opposite what was Kabul`s main cinema and is today an art deco shell, there is a busy roundabout with posters warning that unexploded cluster bombs "yellow and from USA" are in the vicinity. Children play here, chasing each other into the shadows. They are watched by a teenage boy with a stump and part of his face missing. In the countryside, people still confuse the cluster canisters with the yellow relief packages that were dropped by American planes almost two years ago, during the war, after Bush had prevented international relief convoys crossing from Pakistan.

More than $10bn has been spent on Afghanistan since October 7 2001, most of it by the US. More than 80% of this has paid for bombing the country and paying the warlords, the former mojahedin who called themselves the "Northern Alliance". The Americans gave each warlord tens of thousands of dollars in cash and truckloads of weapons. "We were reaching out to every commander that we could," a CIA official told the Wall Street Journal during the war. In other words, they bribed them to stop fighting each other and fight the Taliban.

These were the same warlords who, vying for control of Kabul after the Russians left in 1989, pulverised the city, killing 50,000 civilians, half of them in one year, 1994, according to Human Rights Watch. Thanks to the Americans, effective control of Afghanistan has been ceded to most of the same mafiosi and their private armies, who rule by fear, extortion and monopolising the opium poppy trade that supplies Britain with 90% of its street heroin. The post-Taliban government is a facade; it has no money and its writ barely runs to the gates of Kabul, in spite of democratic pretensions such as the election planned for next year. Omar Zakhilwal, an official in the ministry of rural affairs, told me that the government gets less than 20% of the aid that is delivered to Afghanistan - "We don`t even have enough money to pay wages, let alone plan reconstruction," he said. President Harmid Karzai is a placeman of Washington who goes nowhere without his posse of US Special Forces bodyguards.

In a series of extraordinary reports, the latest published in July, Human Rights Watch has documented atrocities "committed by gunmen and warlords who were propelled into power by the United States and its coalition partners after the Taliban fell in 2001" and who have "essentially hijacked the country". The report describes army and police troops controlled by the warlords kidnapping villagers with impunity and holding them for ransom in unofficial prisons; the widespread rape of women, girls and boys; routine extortion, robbery and arbitrary murder. Girls` schools are burned down. "Because the soldiers are targeting women and girls," the report says, "many are staying indoors, making it impossible for them to attend school [or] go to work."

In the western city of Herat, for example, women are arrested if they drive; they are prohibited from travelling with an unrelated man, even an unrelated taxi driver. If they are caught, they are subjected to a "chastity test", squandering precious medical services to which, says Human Rights Watch, "women and girls have almost no access, particularly in Herat, where fewer than one per cent of women give birth with a trained attendant". The death rate of mothers giving birth is the highest in the world, according to Unicef. Herat is ruled by the warlord Ismail Khan, whom US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld endorsed as "an appealing man... thoughtful, measured and self-confident".

"The last time we met in this chamber," said George Bush in his state of the union speech last year, "the mothers and daughters of Afghanistan were captives in their own homes, forbidden from working or going to school. Today, women are free, and are part of Afghanistan`s new government. And we welcome the new minister of women`s affairs, Dr Sima Samar." A slight, middle-aged woman in a headscarf stood and received the choreographed ovation. A physician who refused to deny treatment to women during the Taliban years, Samar is a true symbol of resistance, whose appropriation by the unctuous Bush was short-lived. In December 2001, Samar attended the Washington-sponsored "peace conference" in Bonn where Karzai was installed as president and three of the most brutal warlords as vice-presidents. (The Uzbek warlord General Rashid Dostum, accused of torturing and slaughtering prisoners, is currently defence minister.) Samar was one of two women in Karzai`s cabinet.

No sooner had the applause in Congress died away than Samar was smeared with a false charge of blasphemy and forced out. The warlords, different from the Taliban only in their tribal allegiances and religious pieties, were not tolerating even a gesture of female emancipation.

Today, Samar lives in constant fear for her life. She has two fearsome bodyguards with automatic weapons. One is at her office door, the other at her gate. She travels in a blacked-out van. "For the past 23 years, I was not safe," she told me, "but I was never in hiding or travelling with gunmen, which I must do now... There is no more official law to stop women from going to school and work; there is no law about dress code. But the reality is that even under the Taliban there was not the pressure on women in the rural areas there is now."

The apartheid might have legally ended, but for as many as 90% of the women of Afghanistan, these "reforms" - such as the setting up of a women`s ministry in Kabul - are little more than a technicality. The burka is still ubiquitous. As Samar says, the plight of rural women is often more desperate now because the ultra-puritanical Taliban dealt harshly with rape, murder and banditry. Unlike today, it was possible to travel safely across much of the country.

At a bombed-out shoe factory in west Kabul, I found the population of two villages huddled on exposed floors without light and with one trickling tap. Small children squatted around open fires on crumbling parapets: the day before, a child had fallen to his death; on the day I arrived, another child fell and was badly injured. A meal for them is bread dipped in tea. Their owl eyes are those of terrified refugees. They had fled there, they explained, because warlords routinely robbed them and kidnapped their wives and daughters and sons, whom they would rape and ransom back to them.

"During the Taliban we were living in a graveyard, but we were secure," a campaigner, Marina, told me. "Some people even say they were better. That`s how desperate the situation is today. The laws may have changed, but women dare not leave their homes without the burka, which we wear as much for our protection."

Marina is a leading member of Rawa, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan, a heroic organisation that for years tried to alert the outside world to the suffering of the women of Afghanistan. Rawa women travelled secretly throughout the country, with cameras concealed beneath their burkas. They filmed a Taliban execution and other abuses, and smuggled their videotape to the west. "We took it to different media groups," said Marina. "Reuters, ABC Australia, for example, and they said, yes, it`s very nice, but we can`t show it because it`s too shocking for people in the west." In fact, the execution was shown finally in a documentary broadcast by Channel 4.

That was before September 11 2001, when Bush and the US media discovered the issue of women in Afghanistan. She says that the current silence in the west over the atrocious nature of the western-backed warlord regime is no different. We met clandestinely and she wore a veil to disguise her identity. Marina is not her real name.

"Two girls who went to school without their burkas were killed and their dead bodies were put in front of their houses," she said. "Last month, 35 women jumped into a river along with their children and died, just to save themselves from commanders on a rampage of rape. That is Afghanistan today; the Taliban and the warlords of the Northern Alliance are two faces of the same coin. For America, it`s a Frankenstein story - you make a monster and the monster goes against you. If America had not built up these warlords, Osama bin Laden and all the fundamentalist forces in Afghanistan during the Russian invasion, they would not have attacked the master on September 11 2001."

Afghanistan`s tragedy exemplifies the maxim of western power - that third world countries are regarded and dealt with strictly in terms of their usefulness to "us". The ruthlessness and hypocrisy this requires is imprinted on Afghanistan`s modern history. One of the most closely guarded secrets of the cold war was America`s and Britain`s collusion with the warlords, the mojahedin, and the critical part they played in stimulating the jihad that produced the Taliban, al-Qaida and September 11.

"According to the official view of history," Zbigniew Brzezinski, Presi dent Carter`s national security adviser, admitted in an interview in 1998, "CIA aid to the mojahedin began during 1980, that is, after the Soviet army invaded Afghanistan... But the reality, secretly guarded until now, is completely otherwise." At Brzezinski`s urging, in July 1979 Carter authorised $500m to help set up what was basically a terrorist organisation. The goal was to lure Moscow, then deeply troubled by the spread of Islamic fundamentalism in the Soviet central Asian republics, into the "trap" of Afghanistan, a source of the contagion.

For 17 years, Washington poured $4bn into the pockets of some of the most brutal men on earth - with the overall aim of exhausting and ultimately destroying the Soviet Union in a futile war. One of them, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, a warlord particularly favoured by the CIA, received tens of millions of dollars. His speciality was trafficking opium and throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil. In 1994, he agreed to stop attacking Kabul on condition that he was made primeminister - which he was.

Eight years earlier, CIA director William Casey had given his backing to a plan put forward by Pakistan`s intelligence agency, the ISI, to recruit people from around the world to join the Afghan jihad. More than 100,000 Islamic militants were trained in Pakistan between 1986 and 1992, in camps overseen by the CIA and MI6, with the SAS training future al-Qaida and Taliban fighters in bomb-making and other black arts. Their leaders were trained at a CIA camp in Virginia. This was called Operation Cyclone and continued long after the Soviets had withdrawn in 1989.

"I confess that [countries] are pieces on a chessboard," said Lord Curzon, viceroy of India in 1898, "upon which is being played out a great game for the domination of the world." Brzezinski, adviser to several presidents and a guru admired by the Bush gang, has written virtually those same words. In his book The Grand Chessboard: American Primacy And Its Geostrategic Imperatives, he writes that the key to dominating the world is central Asia, with its strategic position between competing powers and immense oil and gas wealth. "To put it in terminology that harkens back to the more brutal age of ancient empires," he writes, one of "the grand imperatives of imperial geostrategy" is "to keep the barbarians from coming together".

Surveying the ashes of the Soviet Union he helped destroy, the guru mused more than once: so what if all this had created "a few stirred up Muslims"? On September 11 2001, "a few stirred up Muslims" provided the answer. I recently interviewed Brzezinski in Washington and he vehemently denied that his strategy precipitated the rise of al-Qaida: he blamed terrorism on the Russians.

When the Soviet Union finally collapsed, the chessboard was passed to the Clinton administration. The latest mutation of the mojahedin, the Taliban, now ruled Afghanistan. In 1997, US state department officials and executives of the Union Oil Company of California (Unocal) discreetly entertained Taliban leaders in Washington and Houston, Texas. They were entertained lavishly, with dinner parties at luxurious homes in Houston. They asked to be taken shopping at a Walmart and flown to tourist attractions, including the Kennedy Space Centre in Florida and Mount Rushmore in South Dakota, where they gazed upon the faces of American presidents chiselled in the rockface. The Wall Street Journal, bulletin of US power, effused, "The Taliban are the players most capable of achieving peace in Afghanistan at this moment in history."

In January 1997, a state department official told journalists in a private briefing that it was hoped Afghanistan would become an oil protectorate, "like Saudi Arabia". It was pointed out to him that Saudi Arabia had no democracy and persecuted women. "We can live with that," he said.

The American goal was now the realisation of a 60-year "dream" of building a pipeline from the former Soviet Caspian across Afghanistan to a deep-water port. The Taliban were offered 15 cents for every 1,000 cubic feet of gas that passed through Afghanistan. Although these were the Clinton years, pushing the deal were the "oil and gas junta" that was soon to dominate George W Bush`s regime. They included three former members of George Bush senior`s cabinet, such as the present vice-president, Dick Cheney, representing nine oil companies, and Condoleezza Rice, now national security adviser, then a director of Chevron-Texaco with special responsibility for Pakistan and Central Asia.

Peel the onion of this and you find Bush senior as a paid consultant of the huge Carlyle Group, whose 164 companies specialise in oil and gas and pipelines and weapons. His clients included a super-wealthy Saudi family, the Bin Ladens. (Within days of the September 11 attacks, the Bin Laden family was allowed to leave the US in high secrecy.)

The pipeline "dream" faded when two US embassies in east Africa were bombed and al-Qaida was blamed and the connection with Afghanistan was made. The usefulness of the Taliban was over; they had become an embarrassment and expendable. In October 2001, the Americans bombed back into power their old warlord friends, the "Northern Alliance". Today, with Afghanistan "liberated", the pipeline is finally going ahead, watched over by the US ambassador to Afghanistan, John J Maresca, formerly ofUnocal.

Since it overthrew the Taliban, the US has established 13 bases in the nine former Soviet central Asian countries that are Afghanistan`s resource-rich neighbours. Across the world, there is now an American military presence at the gateway to every major source of fossil fuel. Lord Curzon would never recognise his great game. It`s what the US Space Command calls "full spectrum dominance".

It is from the vast, Soviet-built base at Bagram, near Kabul, that the US controls the land route to the riches of the Caspian Basin. But, as in that other conquest, Iraq, all is not going smoothly. "We get shot at every time we go off base," said Colonel Rod Davis. "For us, that`s a combat zone out there."

I said to him, "But President Bush says you liberated Afghanistan. Why should people shoot at you?"

"Hostile elements are everywhere, my friend."

"Is that surprising, when you support murderous warlords?" I replied.

"We call them regional governors." (As "regional governors", warlords such as Ismail Khan in Herat are deemed part of Karzai`s national government - an uneasy juxtaposition. Karzai has pleaded with Khan to release millions of dollars of customs duty.)

The war that expelled the Taliban never stopped. Ten thousand US troops are stationed there; they go out in their helicopter gunships and Humvees and blow up caves in the mountains or they target a village, usually in the south-east. The Taliban are coming back in the Pashtun heartland and on the border with Pakistan. The level of the war is not independently known; US spokesmen such as Colonel Davis are the sources of news reports that say "50 Taliban fighters were killed by US forces". Afghanistan is now so dangerous that it is virtually impossible for reporters to find out.

The centre of US operations is now the "holding facility" at Bagram, where suspects are taken and interrogated. Two former prisoners, Abdul Jabar and Hakkim Shah, told the New York Times in March how as many as 100 prisoners were "made to stand hooded, their arms raised and chained to the ceiling, their feet shackled, unable to move for hours at a time, day and night". From here, many are shipped to the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay.

They are denied all rights. The Red Cross has been allowed to inspect only part of the "holding facility"; Amnesty has been refused access altogether. In April last year, a Kabul taxi driver, Wasir Mohammad, whose family I interviewed, "dis-appeared" into Bagram after he inquired at a roadblock about the whereabouts of a friend who had been arrested. The friend has since been released, but Mohammad is now in a cage in Guantanamo Bay. A former minister of the interior in the Karzai government told me that Mohammad was in the wrong place at the wrong time: "He is innocent." Moreover, he had a record of standing up to the Taliban. It is likely that many of those incarcerated at Bagram and Guantanamo Bay were kidnapped for ransoms the Americans pay for suspects.

Why, I asked Colonel Davis, were the people in the "holding facility" not given the basic rights he would expect as an American taken prisoner by a foreign army. He replied: "The issue of prisoners of war is way off to the far left or the right depending on your perspective." This is the Kafkaesque world that Bush`s America has imprinted on the recently acquired additions to its empire, real and virtual, rising on new rubble in places where human life is not given the same value as those who perished at Ground Zero in New York. One such place is a village called Bibi Mahru, which was attacked by an American F16 almost two years ago during the war. The pilot dropped a MK82 "precision" 500lb bomb on a mud and stone house, where Orifa and her husband, Gul Ahmed, a carpet weaver, lived. The bomb killed all but Orifa and one son - eight members of her family, including six children. Two children in the next house were killed, too.

Her face engraved with grief and anger, Orifa told me how the bodies were laid out in front of the mosque, and the horrific state in which she found them. She spent the afternoon collecting body parts, "then bagging and naming them so they could be buried later on". She said a team of 11 Americans came and surveyed the crater where her home had stood. They noted the numbers on shrapnel and each interviewed her. Their translator gave her an envelope with $15 in dollar bills. Later, she was taken to the US embassy in Kabul by Rita Lasar, a New Yorker who had lost her brother in the Twin Towers and had gone to Afghanistan to protest about the bombing and comfort its victims. When Orifa tried to hand in a letter through the embassy gate, she was told, "Go away, you beggar."

In May last year, the Guardian published the result of an investigation by Jonathan Steele. He concluded that, in addition to up to 8,000 Afghans killed by American bombs, as many as 20,000 more may have died as an indirect consequence of Bush`s invasion, including those who fled their homes and were denied emergency relief in the middle of a drought. Of all the great humanitarian crises of recent years, no country has been helped less than Afghanistan. Bosnia, with a quarter of the population, received $356 per person; Afghanistan gets $42 per person. Only 3% of all international aid spent in Afghanistan has been for reconstruction; the US-led military "coalition" accounts for 84%, the rest is emergency aid. Last March, Karzai flew to Washington to beg for more money. He was promised extra money from private US investors. Of this, $35m will finance a proposed five-star hotel. As Bush said, "The Afghan people will know the generosity of America and its allies."

© John Pilger, 2003. John Pilger`s documentary, Breaking The Silence: Truth And Lies In The War On Terror, will be shown on ITV1 on Monday at 10.45pm.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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America`s rich get richer thanks to tax-cutting Bush
By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
20 September 2003


America`s richest people have seen a 10 per cent increase in their net worth over the past year, the latest list of individual fortunes in Forbes magazine reveals.

The latest Forbes 400 list is further evidence that the affluent are thriving under President Bush even as unemployment continues to rise and the income of average workers remains stagnant.

The list, published yesterday, showed that Bill Gates of Microsoft remains the world`s richest man. He has spent ten years at the top and now has an estimated net worth of $46bn (£28bn), more than the GDP of most small or developing countries. The figure was up $3bn on last year`s.

Number two was the superstar investor Warren Buffett, with $36bn. Number three was Mr Gates` erstwhile founding partner at Microsoft, Paul Allen, with $22bn.

Forbes ascribed the fattening portfolios of the super-rich to the recovery of internet and other tech stocks after the dot-com meltdown of 2000-2001.

Jeff Bezos of the online retailer Amazon.com had the biggest percentage gain. His fortune leapt more than $3bn to $5.1bn. This was the first year the Forbes 400 saw an increase in their wealth after two straight years of decline.

Collectively, the top 400 were worth $955bn - a figure reached by computing the value of publicly traded stocks and estimating the value of private stocks by assessing a fair market value for them.

The improving fortunes of those on the list also reflected the largesse being shown to the richest Americans by the Bush administration.

They are the main beneficiaries of tax cuts that will pump $100bn into the economy - most of it into the pockets of the top 1 per cent - this year alone. They have also benefited from measures such as the repeal of estate taxes and the lifting of various government regulations on industry and large businesses.

Such economic benefits are being enjoyed on a highly unequal basis, according to the Economic Policy Institute, a Washington think-tank.

Unemployment stood at 6.2 per cent in July, the most recent figure available, or 10.2 per cent when broader indicators of under-employment and generally failing to make ends meet are factored in.

Real wages, which have grown about 2 per cent per year for the past several years, stopped growing entirely in 2002.

The disparity is perhaps best illustrated by the heirs of Sam Walton of the WalMart discount store empire. The five Walton children were valued at $20.5bn each in the Forbes list, making them the richest single family on Earth.

At the same time, WalMart is being lambasted - most notably in the California governor`s recall election - for paying its workers so poorly that personnel managers hand out information to new recruits on how to obtain government food stamps.

US Rich List

Bill Gates: $46bn

Warren Buffett: $36bn

Paul Allen: $22bn

Walton heirs: $20.5bn each

Larry Ellison: $18bn

Michael Dell: $13bn

Steve Ballmer: $12.2bn

Cox heirs: $11bn each

John Kluge: $10.5bn

Mars heirs: $10.4bn each

Sumner Redstone: $9.7bn

Source: Forbes
20 September 2003 10:34



© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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White House is ambushed by criticism from America`s military community
By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles
20 September 2003


George Bush probably owes his presidency to the absentee military voters who nudged his tally in Florida decisively past Al Gore`s. But now, with Iraq in chaos and the reasons for going to war there mired in controversy, an increasingly disgruntled military poses perhaps the gravest immediate threat to his political future, just one year before the presidential elections.

From Vietnam veterans to fresh young recruits, from seasoned officers to anxious mothers worried about their sons` safety on the streets of Baghdad and Fallujah, the military community is growing ever more vocal in its opposition to the White House.

"I once believed that I served for a cause: `To uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States`. Now I no longer believe that," Tim Predmore, a member of the 101st Airborne Division serving near Mosul, wrote in a blistering opinion piece this week for his home newspaper, the Peoria Journal Star in Illinois. "I can no longer justify my service for what I believe to be half-truths and bold lies."

The dissenters - many of whom have risked deep disapproval from the military establishment to voice their opinions - have set up websites with names such as Bring Them Home Now. They have cried foul at administration plans to cut veterans` benefits and scale back combat pay for troops still in Iraq. They were furious at President Bush for reacting to military deaths in Iraq with the phrase "bring `em on".

And they have given politically embarrassing prominence to such issues as the inefficiency of civilian contractors hired to provide shelter, water and food - many of them contributors to the Bush campaign coffers - and a mystery outbreak of respiratory illnesses that many soldiers, despite official denials, believe is related to the use of depleted uranium munitions.

"It is time to speak out because our troops are still dying and our government is still lying," Candace Robison, a 27-year-old mother of two from Krum, Texas, and a politically active serviceman`s wife, told a recent protest outside President Bush`s Texas ranch. "Morale is at an all-time low and our heroes feel like they`ve been forgotten."

How deep the anti-Bush sentiment runs is not yet clear, but there is no doubt about its breadth. Charlie Richardson, co-founder of a group called Military Families Speak Out, said: "Our supporters range from pacifists to people from long military traditions who have supported every war this country has ever fought - until this one.

"Many people supported this war at the beginning because they believed the threat from weapons of mass destruction and accepted the link between Saddam Hussein and al-Qa`ida ... Now they realise their beliefs were built on quicksand. They are very angry with the administration and feel they`ve been duped."

Most of the disgruntlement expressed in the field has of necessity been anonymous, so Tim Predmore`s counterblast in the Peoria Journal Star felt particularly powerful. Having been in the army for five years, he is just finishing his tour of duty in Iraq. He wrote that he now believes the Iraq war was about oil, not freedom, "an act not of justice but of hypocrisy.

"We have all faced death in Iraq without reason or justification," he added. "How many more must die? How many more tears must be shed before Americans awake and demand the return of the men and women whose job it is to protect them rather than their leader`s interest?"

Less visible, but no less passionate, has been the ongoing voicing of grievances over the internet. A prominent military affairs specialist, David Hackworth, keeps a website filled with angry reflections on conditions in Iraq for both the military and the local civilian population, and the government that put the troops there. "Imagine this bastard getting away with such crap if we had a draftee army," runs one typically scabrous anti-Bush line from Mr Hackworth.

More considered analysis is also available online, such as this reflection from a 23-year-old serving in the US Air Force, who wonders what the Iraq mess is going to do to the future of the US military: "The powers that be are destroying our military from the inside, especially our Army.

"How many of these people that are `stranded` (for lack of a better term) in Iraq are going to re-enlist? How many that haven`t deployed are going to re-enlist ... how many families are going to be destroyed?" he asked.

One big rallying point for the critics is the Pentagon`s budget plan, which proposes cutting $1.8 billion (£1.1bn) from veterans` health benefits and reducing combat pay from the current $225 a month to $150, which is where it stood until the Iraq war began in the spring. The budget will not be finalised until later this month, and the White House - embarrassed by editorials in the Army Times and by news stories in the mainstream press throughout America - says it won`t insist on the combat pay cutback.

Another rallying point is the lack of official explanation for more than 100 cases of respiratory illness in the Middle East. According to the Pentagon, 19 soldiers have required mechanical ventilation and two have died. Military personnel believe the use of depleted uranium may have played a part in this mystery illness.
20 September 2003 10:36



© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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Blair seeks agreement from European allies over role for UN in post-war Iraq
By Stephen Castle, Andrew Grice and Tony Paterson
20 September 2003


Tony Blair`s attempt to heal Europe`s deep political rift faces its moment of truth today as the leaders of Britain, France and Germany struggle to overcome differences over Iraq and EU defence.

Billed as a symbolic meeting of reconciliation, the summit between Mr Blair, Gerhard Schröder, the German Chancellor, and Jacques Chirac, the French President, is expected to involve tough negotiations.

The gathering in Berlin - the first three-way meeting since the Iraq war - is seen as an opportunity to make a fresh start after the bitter divisions caused by the invasion. France and Germany led opposition to the war in the Gulf, and Mr Blair`s relations with M. Chirac were plunged into acrimony.

With the stakes high, London tried to lower expectations yesterday. British officials played down hopes of a breakthrough on a new UN resolution on Iraq, despite signs of flexibility from Germany.

Instead, British officials hope there will be progress towards a broad agreement on the way ahead in Iraq. "A specific resolution was never going to be on the agenda," a British source said.

In an article in yesterday`s New York Times, Mr Schröder said Germany and the US had to work together to "win the peace" and pledged to offer substantial humanitarian aid and training for security forces to help form a democratic government in Baghdad. Mr Schröder`s remarks amounted to the clearest sign in more than a year of Germany`s determination to end its simmering row with America over Iraq.

"It is true that Germany and the United States disagreed on how best to deal with Saddam Hussein`s regime. There is no point in continuing this debate. We should now look forward to the future," Mr Schröder wrote. "We must work together to win the peace. The United Nations must play a central role. Germany is willing to provide humanitarian aid, to assist in the civilian and economic reconstruction of Iraq and to train Iraqi security forces."

Neither Washington nor London believes that the wording of a suitable UN resolution will be agreed by the time President George Bush addresses the UN General Assembly in New York next week. But Mr Blair will sound out the French and German leaders over the possible wording of the text.

Meanwhile, there remains a clear division on EU defence policy between France and Germany on the one hand, and the UK on the other. Mr Schröder and M. Chirac will put pressure on Mr Blair to dampen his opposition to plans by France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg to strengthen military ties. But the UK said the ideas, enshrined in a draft constitution for the EU, would undermine Nato and duplicate its functions.

Britain is hostile to a proposal for so-called "structured co-operation" by France, Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg. London argues that this would not be accessible to all EU nations, and would mean the "gang of four" could mount military operations in the name of the EU without consulting their allies.

Germany and France said that one clause in the draft treaty makes it clear that this could not happen and that such an eventuality is politically inconceivable. But the UK also opposes plans for a mutual defence pledge, arguing it could undermine Nato.

The talks come two weeks before EU leaders start negotiations on the draft EU constitution, drawn up by the former French president Valery Giscard d`Estaing. Tomorrow, Mr Blair will host talks with the Spanish Prime Minister, José Maria Aznar.
20 September 2003 10:38


© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

[Joerver]

September 20, 2003
PROTECTION
In Iraq, Demand Makes Security Growth Industry
By JOHN TIERNEY


BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 19 — Politicians may have started negotiating a sweeping proposal to relieve American soldiers of their police duties, but many Iraqis are way ahead of their leaders. They gave up on the Americans some time ago and started paying for their own protection.

Some have turned to political militias, which have reappeared despite an American demand that they be disarmed, while others have turned to dozens of new private companies. Such companies were essentially illegal under Saddam Hussein, but in today`s Iraq, business executives now say "security" the way American executives once said "plastics."

The urge for self-protection began as soon as looters started rampaging under the gaze of American soldiers, and it flourished after American occupation officials ordered the populace to disarm while they retreated into fortresses guarded by tanks and Nepalese Gurkhas.

"We had militias ready to protect people, but the Americans came in and dissolved everything and created a power vacuum," said Adel Abdul Mahdi, a senior official in the main Shiite party, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. He is one of the architects of a plan devised this week to send the American troops back to their bases and turn over police duties to militias working with local civic and tribal leaders under the supervision of the national government.

"The soldiers and the police are not going to eliminate the remnants of Saddam Hussein," Mr. Abdul Mahdi said. "Only the local forces who know the Baathists can do that."

Mr. Abdul Mahdi estimated that there were at least 40,000 members of the various militias who could be put to work. Some of the more than 10,000 members of his party`s militia, the Badr Brigade, began providing armed security for pilgrims to the holy city of Najaf after a car bomb exploded outside a shrine there last month.

Leaders of the occupying forces have said they will not authorize independent militias for fear of civil war. But they have left open the possibility of militia members` working under the control of local and national government officials. In the Kurdish north, the autonomous region run by two political parties for the last decade, the parties` militiamen have been allowed to keep their guns and go on guarding buildings, and they have helped keep their region the safest part of Iraq.

American officials have said the rest of Iraq will become safer as they establish a national civil-defense force and put more trained policemen on the streets, but Iraqis remain skeptical. The police did not have a good reputation for controlling crime even when Mr. Hussein was their boss. Public order was maintained mainly through fear engendered by the secret police.

Now that the fear is gone, neighborhood merchants are pooling resources to hire their own security forces, and many prominent business executives and politicians have their own small armies of guards. When members of the Iraqi Governing Council complained that the American authorities were not offering them protection, one of the members, Ahmad Chalabi, provided it to his colleagues by sending some of his private guards.

Mr. Hussein, never one to tolerate competition, forbade private citizens to carry weapons, effectively outlawing the security industry. Now, it is one of Iraq`s great growth industries, with local companies often forming partnerships with the established foreign companies that are rushing into the market.

Some of the foreign companies are American, but in this industry the British empire still rules. For those who can afford it, like Asian corporate executives or American television crews, the muscle of choice is a $1,000-a-day veteran of the British special forces. For the rest, a trained Iraqi guard can be hired for $25 a day or less.

One two-month-old Baghdad company, Near East Security Services, already has 250 employees guarding embassies, museums, ministries, foreign-aid groups, corporations and other clients here. Its executives, noting that Mr. Hussein had a quarter of a million men in the army and police force doing routine security work, estimate that there is a need for 100,000 to 150,000 more security guards to supplement the 65,000-member police force planned by American officials.

American officials have doubled police salaries and are trying to create a professional force, but what works in the United States is not necessarily practical here. How, for instance, do you run a background check on someone whose records were destroyed by the looting of government buildings in April?

The best way to hire workers, said Paul Evans, a British special forces veteran who manages operations in Iraq for Janusian Security Risk Management, a British company, is to adopt local customs: instead of relying on background checks and aptitude tests, consult the local sheik.

"When a client asks me to provide security guards in an area, I tell the tribal leader I will hire only his men and I will pay them well," Mr. Evans said. "I still try to vet the men by looking at whatever records we can get, and I train them. But I need the sheik to assure their loyalty by putting his own reputation on the line. The Americans have got to learn to work with tribal leaders, because they have a lot more influence than any government officials."

Disorder is generally good for the security business, of course; Janusian markets its services with a brochure that shows a flaming gasoline bomb in midair and asks, "Should you have known things were going wrong?" But the recent bombings have sent some clients fleeing the country. Still, the security companies say business is brisk.

"Some people did leave Iraq after the U.N. bombing, but now we`re seeing more people wanting to come back with enhanced security," said Nicola Hudson of Control Risks Group, a British company that is one of the industry`s largest. "Also, the people who didn`t leave are asking us to take new looks at the way they move around, whether they need armored vehicles, whether the walls of their buildings need hardening and their windows need blast protection."

Why, when American soldiers are now the world`s premier fighting force, do British veterans dominate in the security industry? One reason is that British forces have long traditions in Iraq and other former outposts of the empire. Another is their decades of experience policing Northern Ireland.

"The American forces are well trained for fighting wars, but the British have more experience in internal security," said Paul Rees, managing director of Centurion, a British company with many American media companies as clients. "After dealing with terrorism in Northern Ireland, we`re used to operating in built-up areas."

American soldiers often seem to approach security as a form of warfare, especially at the palace in Baghdad used as the headquarters of the occupying forces. It is impossible for most people to get within hundreds of yards of the building, and those who make it past the barbed wire and tanks and American soldiers will run into yet another army, a private force of Gurkhas, the Nepalese-born soldiers who take an oath to the British throne.

"If you`re trying to deal with a local security situation, I`ll take a guard from the local sheik over a Gurkha any time," said Mr. Evans, the British security executive.

Mr. Abdul Mahdi said he and other political leaders had been asking the Americans to make better use of the expertise of Iraqis. "There should be guardians from the neighborhood recruited to do patrols," he said. "We need local ideas and practices. The Americans are safe inside their compounds and their tanks, but they have left the Iraqi people unarmed and insecure. Let the Americans take care of their own troops, and let us take care of ourselves."



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September 20, 2003
Clinton, on a Visit to Kosovo, Warns Against Getting Even
By NICHOLAS WOOD


PRISTINA, Kosovo, Sept. 19 — Former President Bill Clinton was welcomed with acclaim here today, more than four years after NATO troops first entered this province, effectively ending two years of conflict and placing it under a United Nations mandate.

The visit was arranged so Mr. Clinton could receive an honorary degree and visit American soldiers serving with the United Nations peace-keeping force.

Hundreds of people lined the roadside and waved flags in greeting the former president on the four-and-a-half-mile journey from the airport to the center of the city.

Few other politicians could expect the same reception. Mr. Clinton, who last visited in 1999, is seen by the province`s ethnic Albanian majority as being responsible for ending Yugoslav rule in the province, and taking it effectively a step closer to independence. The city`s largest boulevard is named in his honor.

While four years of United Nations rule have brought comparative peace to the region, ethnic violence remains a problem. Attacks on the Serbian minority have increased in the last three months.

Mr. Clinton used his visit to warn Albanians that those seeking revenge for atrocities committed by Serbian and Yugoslav forces during the late 1990`s could hinder the prospects for independence. "Do you want to get even?" he asked an invited audience at Pristina University, "I hope not. My Bible says that vengeance belongs to God." He added that reconciliation was "the only way you can achieve a secure, stable and prosperous Kosovo."

Kosovo`s sovereignty has been in limbo since the end of the war. Security Council Resolution 1244, which established the United Nations administration, states that the province is still part of Yugoslavia. Its final status was to be tackled once the United Nations had established substantial self-autonomy.

Ethnic Albanian leaders and members of the Serbian government are preparing for preliminary talks on the province`s future later this month. Serbian leaders oppose any kind of move toward an independent state.

Mr. Clinton also used the occasion to add to the debate on American troop commitments in the Balkans saying, "I think we belong here until our job is finished."

His remarks follow the statement from the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Gen. Richard B. Myers, that the Pentagon was reconsidering its troop deployments around the world, including the Balkans, because of the increased demands on American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan.

On Saturday, Mr. Clinton is to travel to Bosnia where he will attend a memorial service for 7,000 Bosnian Muslims massacred by Serbian forces in Srebrenica, the worst atrocity in Europe since World War II.



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September 20, 2003
Clark Explains Statement on Authorization for Iraq War
By JODI WILGOREN


IOWA CITY, Sept. 19 — On the third day of his campaign, Gen. Wesley K. Clark struggled today to clarify his statement on Thursday that he would "probably" have voted for the Congressional resolution authorizing the invasion of Iraq.

General Clark, a former NATO commander who has retired from the Army, never denied making the statement in an interview with four reporters on his chartered plane. But he seemed stunned by the headlines that it generated, as supporters worried that he had undercut his position as an antiwar candidate with military bona fides.

"I never would have voted for war," he said here this afternoon in an interview and in response to a question after a lecture at the University of Iowa. "What I would have voted for is leverage. Leverage for the United States to avoid a war. That`s what we needed to avoid a war."

Speaking about the resolution on Thursday, General Clark said, "At the time, I probably would have voted for it, but I think that`s too simple a question."

He then added: "I don`t know if I would have or not. I`ve said it both ways, because when you get into this, what happens is you have to put yourself in a position. On balance, I probably would have voted for it."

His clarification, along with a slapped-together schedule in which he met few voters and offered no specifics on domestic issues, seemed to reflect the inexperience of the first-time candidate and disorganization in his nascent campaign.

His debut day in Iowa, whose early caucus is crucial to the Democratic Party`s nomination process, was barely a toe touch, with a brief diner stop and a pageant of 10-minute news media interviews crammed between private receptions surrounding the long-scheduled nonpolitical lecture, for which a foundation paid $25,000. (General Clark receives 80 percent.)

Despite his disappointment with reports of his airborne interview, including one in The New York Times, General Clark seemed as comfortable as could be in his new role as candidate, stopping frequently to slap shoulders as he strode across the university campus.

Although he considered a presidential race for a month, he balked at most questions, saying he would spend this weekend at home in Little Rock, Ark., working on policy positions. Among the issues he told voters he was not ready to discuss in detail were health care, education, employment, AIDS in Africa, the USA Patriot Act and medical marijuana. In interviews this afternoon, he referred to a talking-point tip sheet on the hot local issues of ethanol and farm subsidies.

"I don`t know enough to give you a comprehensive answer at this point," he said in response to a voter`s question about universal health insurance. "I know enough not to give you a comprehensive answer at this point."

Regarding a complicated proposal about financing AIDS research and prevention abroad, he said, "I`m not committing anything right now to anything, until I`ve got my economic facts and figures in order."

What he did say, over and over, was how happy he was to be in Iowa. He exulted over the egg white omelette a waitress put in front of him. "Now this is an Iowa breakfast!" the candidate said.

He also complimented a woman`s overalls, saying, "That`s a real Iowa outfit!"

He also said, "Some of my best friends from the military are from Iowa."

"I`ve been dying to get back to Iowa," General Clark said in the Hamburg Inn, which was packed with 50 supporters, many carrying "Draft Clark" placards edited to say "Elect Clark." "I want to learn this state and meet the people here, because I think you`re the very heart of America."

With his competitors counting down the 122 days until the Jan. 19 caucuses here, General Clark has a long chase in the Iowa ground game.

He has missed the summer trifecta of local Democratic politics: visiting the butter cow at the Iowa State Fair, marching in the Labor Day Parade in Des Moines and appearing at Senator Tom Harkin`s annual steak fry in a balloon field.

Former Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont has visited 79 of the 99 counties since he started campaigning in the state in February 2002. Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri has virtually been a regular presence since 1988, when he won the Iowa caucuses in his first campaign for the White House. Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts has 12 field offices adorned with endorsements from 18 state legislators and 71 labor leaders.

Today was barely an Iowa introduction, with nary a town hall meeting or a house party.

"He didn`t say very much," said Hyman Joseph, who bore his bias on his shirt in the form of a Dean button. "Any of the other candidates would have taken 10 or 15 minutes of questions. Some people who are for Dean will give him a look. But I don`t know how long that look will be."

Robert Bork and Sally Mills, art historians who live in Iowa City, said they signed up with General Clark last week because he has the right combination of characteristics — "progressive and macho," Mr. Bork, 36, said — to beat President Bush.

"We were looking for a candidate who could stand out of the pack," Ms. Mills, 47, said.

"We think highly of Dean," Mr. Bork said. "We think highly of Kerry. We don`t think they can bring the pain to Bush."

Late starting or not, General Clark showed a natural knack for retail politics, holding long onto each shaken hand, complete with elbow grab, as he listened to concerns. The main event was a 45-minute lecture, sponsored by the law school.

He won several standing ovations and earned easy laughter for his quips about adjusting to retirement after having at his disposal a fleet of security guards with machine guns, along with military helicopters and a jet.

About Iraq, he said "There was never an imminent threat," and called the war "a major blunder."

"We`re not the sort of `you`re with us or against` kind of people," he said.

"We`re a come-and-join-with-us kind of people," he told a crowd of 1,000 in the main lounge of the Iowa Memorial Union. "Americans know in their hearts that you don`t make our country safer by erecting walls to keep others out. You make us safer by building bridges to reach out.

"We also have to recognize that force should be used only as a last resort, when all other means have failed."



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September 20, 2003
Listening to the Wrong Iraqi
By DAVID L. PHILLIPS


Critics say the Bush administration had no plan for postwar Iraq. In fact, before the war, hundreds of Iraqis were involved in discussions with Washington about securing and stabilizing their country after military action. Today`s difficulties are not the result of a lack of foresight, but rather of poor judgment by civilians at the Pentagon who counted too much on the advice of one exile — Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress — and ignored the views of other, more reliable Iraqi leaders.

Last year the State Department, joined by 17 other federal agencies, put together the Future of Iraq Project, which was supposed to involve Iraqis from the country`s many ethnic and religious factions, including representatives from the exile community. The project had working groups on topics ranging from agriculture to the economy to new government structure. I was adviser to the democratic principles working group, which the Iraqis called the "mother of all working groups." Anticipating many of the problems playing out in Iraq today, participants worked on plans for maintaining security, restoring services and making the transition to democracy.

On security, the participants envisioned a key role for reformed elements of the Iraqi Army. They insisted on the dissolution of agencies involved in atrocities — like military intelligence and the secret police (the Mukhabarat) — and proposed setting up a body to investigate war crimes, prepare a "most wanted" list, and prosecute war criminals. They envisioned a military council vetting and then taking steps to professionalize the armed forces.

Representatives of the Iraqi National Congress, however, claimed to control a vast underground network that would rise in support of coalition forces to assist security and law enforcement. They insisted that the entire Iraqi Army be immediately disbanded. The Pentagon agreed, in the end leading many Iraqi soldiers who might otherwise have been willing to work with the coalition to take up arms against it. Mr. Chalabi`s promised network didn`t materialize, and the resulting power vacuum contributed to looting, sabotage and attacks against American forces.

The working group also emphasized winning hearts and minds of average Iraqis, largely through improving living conditions. It urged cooperation with Iraq`s existing technocracy to ensure the uninterrupted flow of water and electricity. Though civil servants and professionals for the most part were required to be Baath party members, the working group maintained that not all Baathists were war criminals. The group proposed so-called lustration laws to identify and remove officials who had committed atrocities.

On the other hand, the Iraqi National Congress was adamant that all former Baath party members were inherently complicit in war crimes. Siding with Mr. Chalabi, the coalition provisional authority decided that the Baath party would be banned, and dismissed many party members from their jobs. As a result millions of Iraqis are still without electricity and fresh water, necessities they could at least count on under the criminal regime of Saddam Hussein.

Most important, the working group insisted that all Iraqis needed a voice in the transition to a stable, democratic Iraq. Participants agreed that exiles alone could not speak for all Iraqis, and endorsed discussions with leaders inside and outside the country as the basis for constituting a legitimate and broadly representative transitional structure.

Before the London opposition conference in December, Mr. Chalabi lobbied the United States to appoint a government in exile, dominated by his partisans, to be installed in Baghdad at the moment of liberation. Concerned about legitimacy, the Bush administration ultimately rejected this proposal. Still, Mr. Chalabi`s supporters in Washington — particularly civilians in the Pentagon — relentlessly promoted him as Iraq`s future leader. Exceptional treatment included airlifting Mr. Chalabi and his American-trained 700-man paramilitary force to Nasariya in the middle of the war. He is now a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, serving as its president this month.

Why such devotion to a man whose prewar advice proved so misguided? For one thing, Mr. Chalabi has shown himself amenable to those in Washington who want to reshape the entire Middle East. They envision Iraq as a springboard for eliminating the Baath party in Syria, undermining the mullahs in Iran and enhancing American power across the region.

There are benefits to spreading democracy in the Middle East, but hegemonic ambitions are sabotaging the shorter-term project of turning Iraq into a viable state. The other day, a Sunni participant in the democratic principles working group told me he is reluctant to speak up about how its recommendations have been ignored lest criticism discourage the coalition. In frustration, he asked: "So this is liberation?"

The Iraqi people have suffered a generation of tyranny and deserve better. To succeed in Iraq, and be constructive elsewhere in the world, the Bush administration must listen to all voices, not just those that are ideologically compatible. Liberation cannot be imposed.


David L. Phillips is deputy director of the Center for Preventive Action at the Council on Foreign Relations.



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What the $87 Billion Speech Cost Bush
Polls May Indicate That TV Address Eroded President`s Support on Iraq

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 20, 2003; Page A02


President Bush has often used major speeches to bolster his standing with the public, but pollsters and political analysts have concluded that his recent prime-time address on Iraq may have had the opposite effect -- crystallizing doubts about his postwar plans and fueling worries about the cost.

A parade of polls taken since the Sept. 7 speech has found notable erosion in public approval for Bush`s handling of Iraq, with a minority of Americans supporting the $87 billion budget for reconstruction and the war on terrorism that he unveiled.

"If Bush and his advisers had been looking to this speech to rally American support for the president and for the war in Iraq, it failed," said Frank Newport, editor in chief of the Gallup poll. He said Bush`s speech may have cost him more support than it gained, "because it reminded the public both of the problems in Iraq and the cost."

Since the speech from the Cabinet Room, headlines on poll after poll have proved unnerving for many Republicans and encouraging for Democrats. "Bush Iraq Rating at New Low," said a CBS News poll taken Sept. 15 and Sept. 16. "Americans Split on Bush Request for $87 Billion," said a Fox News poll taken Sept. 9 and Sept. 10. A Gallup poll taken Sept 8 to 10 pointed to "increasingly negative perceptions about the situation in Iraq" and found the balance between Bush`s approval and disapproval ratings to be "the most negative of the administration."

A Washington Post-ABC News poll taken from Sept. 10 to Sept. 13 found that 55 percent of those surveyed said the Bush administration does not have a clear plan for the situation in Iraq, and 85 percent said they were concerned the United States will get bogged down in a long and costly peacekeeping mission.

Those results were disappointing to supporters who had watched Bush galvanize public opinion with his speech on Iraq at the United Nations on Sept. 12, 2002, stanching accounts of drift and infighting in his administration. Other addresses that gave Bush a lift included his address to Congress nine days after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and his speech to the nation two nights before the Iraq war began last March.

Bush acknowledged this week that he was having trouble getting his message out. He told a roundtable of reporters from the Oregonian of Portland and other newspapers in swing states that he needs "to continue to explain to the American people why it`s important we succeed in Iraq."

"I know we`ve got a construction plan, and we`ll continue to explain it," Bush said. "Sometimes it`s hard to get through the filter. That`s why I gave the address from this room next door the other night, so I could explain directly to the American people what`s important. And I will continue to make the case."

Bush, whose aides say he eschews the nitty-gritty of politics, quibbled with the wording in one poll when he was asked about two polls that showed a majority of Americans opposed his $87 billion request to Congress. "If you look at the question, it`s kind of a strange question," he said, in what sources called a reference to a question that told respondents how much spending Congress had already approved.

Senior officials at Bush`s campaign said the declines in polls were no cause for alarm because they were not driven by the speech but instead were part of a natural decline from historic levels that Bush aides have long predicted.

A campaign official also pointed to a question in the Post-ABC News poll that showed the percentage of respondents who thought the war with Iraq was worth fighting had risen from 54 percent in a poll ending the day of the speech to 61 percent afterward.

White House officials point out that the address had a smaller audience than some other presidential speeches. Nielsen Media Research said the Sept. 7 address was seen by about 31.7 million viewers, compared with 62 million for this year`s State of the Union address, 55.8 million for his news conference on March 6 and 73.3 million for his ultimatum to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

"We didn`t put all our hopes into one speech," White House communications director Dan Bartlett said. "This is going to be a sustained commitment by the administration and the president to educate the public about the stakes in the war and why we are committed to prevailing."

A wide range of Republicans close to the White House said they do not blame the speech for Bush`s poll problems, and said they are not panicked about how he will fare in the 2004 election. "The speech had limited objectives," one official said. "The wolves were out, and the speech sucked some of the wind out of that."

But there was widespread agreement among these Republicans that the speech did little if anything to help steady his standing, which had been hurt by a stream of bad news from Iraq and disclosures about the administration`s handling of prewar intelligence.

Several of these Republicans complained about the decision to have Bush stand and read from a TelePrompTer instead of showing him seated and speaking more conversationally.

"Can you find anybody on Capitol Hill who thinks, `Boy, that really gave us momentum?` " one presidential adviser asked. "The setting was a failure. The linguistics were bad. The language was off. It wasn`t typical Bush language, and he should have been in front of a group. He isn`t at his best discussing the appropriations process."

George C. Edwards III, a Texas A&M political scientist whose book, "On Deaf Ears: The Limits of the Bully Pulpit," is being published this month, said he studied presidential speeches back to 1981 and found that they rarely produce a statistically significant change in approval ratings. But Edwards said Bush may have hurt his credibility by not acknowledging "that we didn`t have a very good plan, and that we`ve had more setbacks than we anticipated."

"Facing up to that, and then saying we really need to be persistent, would have been more credible, given all the things that are going on and that people are aware of," Edwards said.



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washingtonpost.com
In Texas Senate, a Racial Outburst


By Lee Hockstader
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 20, 2003; Page A06


AUSTIN, Sept. 19 -- If not exactly a love fest, the Texas state Senate is, by tradition, a relatively sedate and collegial body whose members proclaim their love of consensus and take their seats to hear colleagues deliver speeches of "personal privilege."

So it was a measure of how incendiary the Texas fight over congressional redistricting has become when several of the chamber`s Democrats -- all but two of them black or Hispanic -- on Thursday denounced their all-white Republican brethren as racists, supremacists and bigots.

"The last time I was treated the way we were on the Senate floor was when I was about 6 years old when I first entered the first grade, and I was just a little Mexican boy who had his first taste of what white supremacy was like," said Sen. Frank L. Madla of San Antonio, heretofore regarded as a moderate to conservative.

Sen. Mario Gallegos Jr., a Democrat from an inner-city district in Houston, attacked a Republican colleague, Sen. Tommy Williams, who represents a wealthy suburban enclave north of Houston called the Woodlands.

"The people from the Woodlands did not elect me," Gallegos told reporters. "That`s a gated community. The nearest gated community to me in inner-city Houston is the county jail."

Ironically, the racially loaded outburst was triggered by what the majority Republicans regarded as a conciliatory gesture: Rather than imposing a threatened fine of $57,000 on each of 11 Democratic senators who fled the state for 45 days this summer to block progress on the GOP redistricting plan, the Republicans voted to place the Democrats on "probation."

Several Republicans said that should have laid the matter to rest. It didn`t.

"The very word `probation` to a senator is condescending and patronizing," said Harvey Kronberg, who edits an independent newsletter on Texas politics.

From the outset of their bitter fight over redistricting last spring, the Democrats have insisted that the Republican maps would disenfranchise minorities in Texas, who comprise nearly half the state`s population. They say the GOP`s goal -- to shift five or six congressional seats into the Republican column -- could be accomplished only by packing some blacks and Hispanics into "super-majority districts" while carving up other minority communities to dilute their electoral clout in districts that have elected liberal white Democrats to Congress.

"This is not particularly revolutionary -- the Democrats did it to Republicans a decade ago," Kronberg said. "They`d take Republican population centers and fracture them into predominantly Democratic districts. But Democrats doing it to Republicans was essentially a white-on-white battle; a decade later, Republicans doing it to Democrats becomes a white-on-color battle."

The Republicans, for their part, have not agreed among themselves on how to draw the lines on a new congressional district map. It may take a week or more, and heavy horse-trading, before they produce a plan. But they profess astonishment at being accused of racism, insisting that what they are up to is no more than aggressive partisanship.

"It has nothing to do with race, and I am offended at the insinuation that anything we`ve done has been racially motivated," said Sen. Craig Estes of Wichita Falls, in north Texas. "It`s Democratic spin to keep from facing the fact that all the citizens of Texas have elected mostly Republicans."

Republicans insist that any map they draw would produce at least as many black and Hispanic lawmakers as already serve in the U.S. House. Independent analysts agree that would be the case, noting that the courts would reject any map that is likely to eliminate a seat for a minority member of Congress.

"It may well turn out there will be some more opportunities for blacks or Hispanic Democrats to win seats in Congress," said Earl Black, a political scientist at Rice University in Houston. "It`s the white Anglos in the current congressional delegation who are the endangered species."

Still, having been forced into a corner by the Republicans who control the state legislature, the Democrats are sharpening their rhetorical swords.

"I was suspended from school in San Antonio as a little girl, and my offense was that I accidentally spoke Spanish in the playground," said Sen. Leticia Van De Putte, the Senate Democratic leader. "And so now as a senator, I stand up and try to represent my constituency and say these maps try to disenfranchise minority voters. It reopens those times in Texas history when African Americans and Hispanics would not be allowed in the political process."




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washingtonpost.com
Baghdad, Birmingham and True Believers


By Colbert I. King

Saturday, September 20, 2003; Page A31


Count me among those who are having a little trouble keeping track of the Bush administration`s intentions in Iraq. It`s not the barrage of criticism from the antiwar crowd that`s throwing us off. It`s the administration itself. There are some folks, you see, who have this almost incorrigible inclination to take the administration at its word. And the word, sorry to say, keeps changing.

For starters, there`s the now familiar reason we launched the March invasion. An imminent threat from Saddam Hussein and his nasty weapons of mass destruction, we were told. No question, Hussein has them, said the administration. And we know where they are. To protect America and her friends from another surprise attack, we are going in to disarm him, with or without the United Nations. Right on, said those of us who took it on trust that when the administration said Hussein was armed and ready to strike, it was telling the truth.

Now we`re told we went to war because Hussein was a tyrant who killed lots of his own people, because Hussein was working on a nuclear bomb and conspiring with international terrorists, and, now, because Iraq is the first stop in a U.S. quest to transform the Middle East into a region more to our liking.

Bait-and-switch? Hush your mouth!

Remember this? We were assured there would be hugs and kisses in the streets of Baghdad when our troops marched in, and that with Saddam Hussein`s tyrannical infrastructure brought to ruin, the rule of law would prevail. Why then, since May 1, when President Bush declared major combat over, have 159 Americans been killed in Iraq? Where`s the love?

And this: When the administration was asked how our deficit-ridden America will pay for postwar reconstruction, we were told not to worry. Iraq sits astride the world`s second-largest oil reserves; Iraqi oil sales will pay the freight. Wonderful, wonderful, said the chorus of true believers once more.

Now comes word from the commander in chief that U.S. taxpayers will have to pony up $20.3 billion for Iraqi relief and reconstruction, including $900 million to -- get this -- pay for the sale of oil to Iraq. And that`s only the first installment on the more than $50 billion in reconstruction aid that the Bush administration says is needed to bring Iraq up to snuff. That`s not counting the billion a week necessary to keep U.S. troops on the ground.

They do know how to test the faithful.

Then there`s the Saddam Hussein-al Qaeda link. A Post poll found that nearly 70 percent of Americans believed it likely that the Iraqi regime had a hand in the 9/11 attacks. President Bush said this week that "we`ve had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th."

Duh.

Where, pray tell, did the American people get that idea? Did not the president, decked out in a flight suit on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, say to the assembled on May 1: "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001 -- and still goes on"? Did Bush not add: "We`ve removed an ally of al Qaeda"? I ask again: Where did the American people get that idea?

If those flip-flops weren`t enough to send the assured to drink, along come the administration`s postwar strategists to push us over the edge.

Was it not national security adviser Condoleezza Rice who visited the National Association of Black Journalists` annual meeting in Dallas last month to remind us that we ought to side with the Iraqis who are seeking freedom? Yes, indeed.

Rice urged us, as it has been widely reported, to reject the "condescending voices" saying that Africans and Middle Easterners aren`t interested in freedom and are "culturally just not ready for freedom or they just aren`t ready for freedom`s responsibility." And just in case we missed her point, Rice injected race into the equation with this bit: "We`ve heard that [blacks aren`t ready] argument before, and we, more than any, as a people, should be ready to reject it. The view was wrong in 1963 in Birmingham, and it is wrong in 2003 in Baghdad and in the rest of the Middle East."

Frankly, if someone on the antiwar side said that the Iraqis weren`t ready for freedom, I missed it. But no matter. Rice`s point about singing freedom`s praises for everybody and rejecting the "they`re not ready" claim struck a chord with those who take her words to heart.

But wait a minute. What`s this I read in my Monday Post?

"They`re not ready for more power," said an administration official, referring to the U.S.-appointed, 25-member Iraqi Governing Council, which wants a quicker end to U.S. occupation and transfer of power. The Bush administration, reports The Post`s Rajiv Chandrasekaran, wants to retain ultimate control over Iraqi affairs well into next year, when a new constitution is to be ratified and an elected government is installed. (And if the constitution is rejected or Iraq`s elected leaders give the administration heartburn? Well, let`s not go there).

It`s hard to know what the administration really thinks of the Iraqis.

In an April 14 press briefing, Rice said that pre-Hussein Iraq was the economic strength of the Middle East; that present day Iraq has "an educated population, a sophisticated population" and that it has a "a pretty sophisticated bureaucracy." Only last week she told the Foreign Press Center that the Iraqi people, through the governing council, are developing a "political horizon and timetable for the establishment of a sovereign Iraq when they are capable and able to take on those responsibilities." But Secretary of State Colin Powell pooh-poohs the idea of an accelerated handover of sovereignty, preferring instead a "deliberate process" that leads to the handover of power to "a responsible government."

So are the Iraqis ready or are they about to get a taste of Birmingham 1963?

And as to whether the next Iraqi government is "responsible," who gets to decide: the Iraqis or George W. Bush?

The true believers need to know.

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Volume 14, Issue 9. October 1, 2003.

Bush`s Saudi Connections
And why this is a crucial issue in 2004
Michael Steinberger

Saudi Arabia is the wellspring of radical Islam, its primary source of sustenance and inspiration. Yet, since September 11, the Bush administration has consistently ducked the truth about Riyadh`s role in nurturing terrorism -- and concealed the truth as well. Given the many business and personal ties binding the president, his family and his associates to the House of Saud, George W. Bush`s see-no-evildoer attitude toward the Saudis is a vulnerability just begging to be exploited by the Democrats. And they need to do so if they hope to recapture the presidency next year.

Unfortunately, apart from Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has been blasting the administration for months over its pusillanimous Saudi policy, the Democrats appear largely oblivious to the opportunity staring them in the eye. True, several Democratic presidential hopefuls, notably Howard Dean, have recently begun to include Saudi Arabia in their bill of particulars against Bush, but the criticism has been episodic and rather tepid.

The Democrats are instead pinning their hopes on the economy. They really seem to think it`s 1992 redux, and that now, as then, rising unemployment will prove to be the Bush-beater and their ticket back to the White House. However, with the amount of stimulus in the pipeline, the economy may not be all that weak a year down the road. And even if it is, the Democrats will not be able to send this Bush packing merely by howling about the number of jobs lost on his watch.

September 11 changed American politics. Voters care about foreign policy in a way that they haven`t in a long while. The Democrats had little to say about terrorism and national security during last year`s midterm elections, and they paid dearly at the polls as a result. Karl Rove plainly intends to wrap the president`s re-election bid in the black crape of 9-11, and unless the Democrats can convince the public that they can be trusted with homeland defense, they are almost surely headed for defeat. That`s the bad news. The good news is that the Saudi issue gives them a chance to demonstrate their mettle -- at Bush`s expense.

The incubatory role played by Saudi Arabia and the Wahhabite sect in fostering Islamic extremism is well documented. The desert kingdom leads the way in financing and inciting Muslim holy warriors the world over. How much of this is done with the complicity of the Saudi regime is unclear, but what is clear is that the royal family is a kleptocracy that has forestalled its own inevitable demise by redirecting domestic unrest outward. September 11 was a plot hatched by an exiled Saudi dissident, and 15 of the 19 hijackers were Saudis.

In the two years since 9-11, the Saudis have been an obstacle, not an ally, in the battle against Islamic terrorism. Sure, they`ve muzzled a few firebrand clerics and rounded up some lumpen Islamicists. But they`ve shown little inclination to stanch the flow of money from so-called charity organizations to al-Qaeda and other militant groups, and they`ve kept cooperation with the FBI and the CIA to a minimum.

The royal family`s many American mouthpieces assure us that the May 12 suicide bombing in Riyadh was a watershed -- that the Saudis now understand how dangerous al-Qaeda is and will henceforth be tripping over themselves to help us. That hope is delusional and illogical. The royal family is interested only in self-preservation, and joining the fight against terrorism in any meaningful way would be an act of suicide.

John O`Neill, the sadly prescient FBI counterterrorism expert who perished in the World Trade Center attack, understood long before 9-11 that the problem of "Islamofacism" was chiefly a Saudi one. "All the answers," he said, "everything needed to dismantle Osama bin Laden`s organization, can be found in Saudi Arabia." But that`s only if you`re willing to look, which Bush clearly is not. Indeed, he has protected the Saudis at every juncture.

The pattern was established within hours of the atrocities in New York and Washington, when Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador (long known as Bandar Bush because of his coziness with the first family), was permitted to spirit members of the bin Laden clan out of the United States before the FBI could properly interview them. Since then, the Department of Justice has impeded the lawsuit filed against the Saudi regime by the September 11 families; the White House blacked out the portions of a congressional report that detailed the Saudi role in 9-11, and everyone from the president on down has steadfastly insisted that the Saudis are paid-up members of the anti-terrorism posse.

Bush can spew all the frontier rhetoric he wishes, but in the case of the Saudis, his inaction speaks louder. Why he would rather undermine the war on terrorism than confront Riyadh is an interesting question, and it doesn`t require a particularly active imagination to wonder if there is more here than just oil and a bad case of realpolitik.

The links between the House of Bush and the House of Saud are deep, overlapping and notoriously opaque: the Saudi investment in the Carlyle Group, the private equity firm whose rainmakers include George Bush Senior; the Saudi bankrolling of Poppy`s presidential library; the lucrative contracts the Saudis doled out to Halliburton when Dick Cheney was at the company`s helm. The main law firm retained by the Saudis to defend them against the 9-11 families is Baker Botts -- as in James Baker, the Bush family consigliere. And, of course, there`s oil, the black glue connecting all these dots.

In short, the Bushies have profited mightily from a relationship with a foreign government that can be indirectly, perhaps even directly, implicated in the September 11 attacks and other terrorist incidents and that has been the driving force behind a worldwide jihad.

The administration`s coddling of the Saudis presents the Democrats with an opening the size of Texas, and they need to seize it. Bush is never more inarticulate and unconvincing than when on the defensive, and no subject is going to set him on his heels faster, and keep him there longer, than the Saudi question.

It wouldn`t take much for the Democrats to turn this issue into a political bonanza. Some sustained pot stirring by the presidential candidates and various party organs would arouse the interest of the press. Soon enough, all those media sleuths who so assiduously ransacked the lives of the Clintons would be shamed into finally giving the Bush-Saudi nexus the scrutiny it deserves, and in the flash of a news cycle, the president would have a problem. Who knows where it all might lead? There are still unanswered questions about the role Saudi money played in Bush Junior`s oil ventures; ditto the Iran-Contra scandal, which never quite caught up with Bush Senior. The possibilities seem endless.

Playing the Saudi card would be a hardball move, setting the stage for a bruising campaign. But Bush is no stranger to brass-knuckle tactics (just ask John McCain), and Republicans have been sliming Democrats for decades on issues of national security. A little retribution is long overdue, and the Democratic faithful are clearly in a fighting mood; using the Saudis as a cudgel to bash Bush would be a very effective way of channeling all that rage.

Nor could anyone justly accuse the Democrats of demagoguery; the Saudi issue is legitimate. The administration appears to have two sets of rules in the war on terrorism: one for the Saudis and one for everyone else. It`s fair to ask why (plenty of conservatives are), to plant that question in the minds of voters and to tell voters that things will be different with a Democrat in the White House.

Things need to be different. It is imperative that the United States end its dependence on Middle East oil and its dysfunctional relationship with the Saudi regime, a medieval theocracy headed for the proverbial dustbin, and rightly so. Robert Baer`s new book, Sleeping With the Devil: How Washington Sold Our Soul for Saudi Crude, meticulously details the odiousness of the royal family, and it is a mark of enduring shame that we ever crawled into bed with these characters.

Four more years of Bush will likely mean four more years of business as usual -- four more years of ignoring Saudi Arabia`s links to terrorism and its egregious human-rights record. On the stump and on the airwaves, the Democrats should be hammering home this point, giving the Saudis the bashing they so richly deserve and promising the American public a long-overdue reckoning with Riyadh.

Vilifying the Saudis would not just be good politics and good policy; it would be good for the Democratic soul. In pledging to free the United States from this pathetic entanglement, the Democrats would, in a sense, be reclaiming Woodrow Wilson from the Republicans generally and the neocons specifically. It used to be that the Democrats were the ethical standard-bearers in American foreign policy, committed to ensuring that the United States conducted itself in a manner consistent with its founding principles. But they have ceded the high ground of late. Disinterest in global affairs among the party`s rank-and-file, coupled with the economic emphasis of the Clinton years, has robbed the party of its traditional internationalist voice.

Excoriating Bush over his handling of relations with the Saudis and vowing to put abundant daylight between Washington and Riyadh would be a way of regaining that voice -- of making the Democrats once again synonymous with human-rights concerns and the quest for justice abroad. The Saudi issue is a winning one on every count for the Democrats, and they need to take advantage of it -- now.

Michael Steinberger
Copyright © 2003 by The American Prospect, Inc. Preferred Citation: Michael Steinberger, "Bush`s Saudi Connections," The American Prospect vol. 14 no. 9, October 1, 2003. This article may not be resold, reprinted, or redistributed for compensation of any kind without prior written permission from the author. Direct questions about permissions to
http://www.prospect.org/print/V14/9/steinberger-m.html

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The Cartoon Graveyard
Just the Cartoons Without the Commentary
Big Brother is watching you, hier aber gibt es 87 frische Cartoons zu betrachten. Achtung Nannsen Mindest-IQ beachten!

http://www.flu-ent.com/graveyard/20030920__087toons.htm

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September 19, 2003
Q&A: Islam and Democracy

From the Council on Foreign Relations, September 19, 2003


Is Islam compatible with democracy?

It can be. Millions of the world`s 1.4 billion Muslims live in democracies, ample proof that there is no inherent discord between the two ideas, most scholars say. But Islam, like almost all religious traditions, can be interpreted in different ways, and some interpretations--such as those favored by al Qaeda and less radical Islamists--conflict with democratic ideals. The validity of the different interpretations is a complex question debated by religious scholars.

Is Islam the reason many Muslim countries are not democratic?

Most scholars say no, and point to a mix of historical, cultural, economic, and political factors--and not Islam as a religion--to explain why democracy has failed to take root in many Muslim countries, especially in the Arab world. Recent Pew Global Attitudes surveys, in fact, show that majorities in the Arab world favor democracy as a form of government.

Which Muslim nations are considered democracies?

Most experts cite Turkey, Indonesia, Bangladesh, Mali, and Senegal as democracies. (Indonesia, with 196 million people, is the world`s largest Muslim nation). Other countries, such as Malaysia, Nigeria, and Iran, are nominally democratic, but to a greater or lesser extent lack many of the attributes of fully functioning democracies, such as protections for civil liberties and legitimate opposition parties. Most of the world`s 47 Muslim-majority nations conduct elections; some are relatively free and fair, some are not. In any case, elections alone do not make a country a democracy, according to most scholars.

Which countries in the Arab world are democratic?

The Arab world, home to 18 percent of the world`s Muslims, is a democracy-free zone, according to many scholars. Syria, Libya, Tunisia, and Saudi Arabia are the least democratic nations in the Arab world, according to a study by Daniel Brumberg of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Other Arab nations fall somewhere between autocracy and democracy: they may have legislatures, labor unions, and political parties, but their ruling party, president, or king exercises final control. On a spectrum from most to least democratic, these countries are: Morocco, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, Bahrain, Algeria, Qatar, and Yemen. Lebanon was a fully functioning democracy in the early 1970`s, but years of civil war and conflict have transformed it into a more repressive nation.

How does the record of democracy in Muslim countries compare to that of other regions of the developing world?

Poorly. According to Freedom House, a nonprofit organization that tracks democracy worldwide, "the last 30 years have seen a trend diametrically opposite to the global trend toward political liberalization" in Muslim nations. This is particularly true for nations in the Arab world, many of which have taken steps backward in terms of political liberties and electoral democracy in the last 10 years. However, some scholars argue that the "democracy gap" that appears to separate Muslim nations from the rest of the world applies only to the Arab world. In other regions, argues Alfred Stepan in the July 2003 issue of Journal of Democracy, Muslim nations are on par with--or outpace--comparable non-Muslim developing nations in terms of civil liberties and free and fair elections.

What are the main reasons so few Muslim nations are democratic?

There are many, says Marc Plattner, the co-director of the International Forum for Democratic Studies at the National Endowment for Democracy. In the Arab world, for example, oil has been a factor, entrenching elites and slowing the development of market economies and the political freedoms that can accompany them. Tribalism and patriarchal social systems also play a role. Political manipulation of the Arab-Israeli conflict, in which Muslim leaders channel domestic unrest into criticism of Israel and the West, is also a factor. Other scholars point to additional issues: repression by monarchies and military governments; the lack of independent secular political parties; traditional mindsets that consider Western-style democracy a foreign, non-Islamic invention; an ideological obsession with unity; and a long-standing policy of U.S. and Western support for many autocrats in the Arab world.

Why have Western nations supported Arab autocrats?

Because they are friendly to Western interests, which mainly have to do with oil and other national security concerns. Another key reason has been the fear that, if autocrats fell, they would be replaced by radical regimes. The most powerful opposition to entrenched leaders in many Arab nations are Islamists, groups that embrace a political view of Islam and reject secular forms of government. In many cases, these groups are anti-Western in outlook; some advocate the use of violence to bring about change.

What are the religious ideals within Islam that could favor democracy?

The Koran, the holy book of Islam, contains a number of ideas that some Islamic scholars say support democratic ideals. One is shura, or consultative decision making. The other is ijma, or the principle of consensus. However, Muslim scholars disagree about whether these terms have political applications. Is shura obligatory or merely desirable? Binding or non-binding? Another powerful argument for democracy emerges from the principles in the constitution of Medina, which was written by the prophet Mohammed in 622 A.D, according to Muqtedar Khan, the director of international studies at Adrian College in Michigan. The document sets down the rules of the community of Medina, as agreed to by Muslims and Jews of the city--and grants equal rights to Jews and Muslims who follow its laws.

What are the religious ideals within Islam that may oppose democracy?

At core is the fact that in Islam, God is the giver of laws, and men have only limited autonomy to implement and enforce God`s laws. These laws, known as sharia, apply to all aspects of religious, political, social, and private life. Interpreted literally, they can clash with Western democratic ideals. An Islamic democracy has to navigate tensions created by Islam`s traditional rules, such as those that give lesser weight to women`s testimony in Islamic courts and those that dictate corporal punishment, such as death by stoning for female adulterers. Modern Islamic democracies have reinterpreted or chosen not to enforce some or all of these laws.

Some Muslim scholars argue against democracy because they see it as a system in which the whim of the majority is the source of law. The counterargument to this, says John O. Voll, professor of Islamic history at Georgetown University, is that all nations create laws--whether they are monarchies, dictatorships, or democracies. And in a democracy, more checks exist on man`s whim than in an autocracy.

Are these tensions delaying the acceptance of democracy?

In some countries, yes. But scholars differ about whether democracy for the Muslim world can wait until these theological questions are better resolved. "There`s an interesting argument happening among Muslims about sequencing," Plattner says. "Some say you first have to reinterpret Islam, then you can build a democracy. There are others who say that if you establish a democracy first, that`s the best way to get a reformation in Islam. It`s kind of a `chicken and egg` problem."

Are democratic interpretations of Islam gaining ground in the Muslim world?

So far, it`s difficult to know for sure. Among Muslim intellectuals, they are certainly having an impact, but "it`s not a political trend," Brumberg says. Liberal Islamists have had problems building an organized political base in the Muslim world, he adds--in part because they are often restricted from participating in politics by the same laws that ban more radical Islamist political parties. "Clearly, they haven`t been winning the population as a whole over," Plattner says.

Is the desire for democracy gaining ground?

It appears so, but at the same time support for organized Islamist parties with inherently anti-democratic views is also strong, Brumberg says. The complexity of the political situation in the Muslim world is reflected in the recent Pew survey, which found both that majorities in the nine predominately Muslim nations surveyed believe that democracy can work in their countries--and that Osama bin Laden is one of their three "most trusted" world leaders. Respondents also favored a prominent--in many cases expanded--role for Islam and religious leaders in national politics, but majorities in most countries also said they valued ideals associated with democracy, such as freedom of the press.

In many Arab nations, Brumberg says, Islamist parties command the support of between 35 percent and 40 percent of the population. "When people say they want democracy," he says, "you have to ask, `What would that mean? Whose interests would the democracy serve?`"



Copyright 2003

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September 19, 2003
Q&A: Bronson on Iraq, the road map, and Saudi Arabia

From the Council on Foreign Relations, September 19, 2003


Conditions in Iraq remain "very unpredictable, very dangerous," says Rachel Bronson, Olin Senior Fellow and Director of Middle East and Gulf Studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. That`s the result, she says, of the Bush administration`s failure to win international backing for the war. But she also chides the Europeans--and the French in particular--for blocking efforts to forge a postwar consensus.

On other Middle East issues, she urges the United States to make a clear declaration of its vision for peace between Palestinians and Israelis and says that a critical reconsideration of U.S.-Saudi relations is long overdue.

Bronson was interviewed by Bernard Gwertzman, consulting editor for cfr.org, on September 18, 2003.

In our last interview, shortly before the end of the fighting in Iraq, you described the results of the Bush administration`s efforts to win Security Council backing for the war as "a diplomatic train wreck." Now, the United States is again seeking U.N. approval of another Iraq resolution. Have the "tracks" been cleared yet?

We are still sifting through the rubble of that original train wreck. Post-conflict Iraq would have been a lot easier to manage had there been international unity, rather than division. The United States didn`t work hard enough to make it happen. It let military timetables, rather than diplomatic prudence, drive the train. It was predictable that, even under the rosiest scenarios, Iraq would be very difficult for the United States to manage alone and that Iraq would be very expensive to reconstruct. The situation we see today is very unpredictable, very dangerous. It is not clear that postwar Iraq will be a success, that Iraq will see a better, more stable future. It might, but it is not a sure thing. A lot of heavy lifting needs to be done.

At this point, would getting a U.N. mandate and additional troops help much?

The Pentagon wants another division`s worth of troops. According to a convincing Congressional Budget Office report, the current U.S. military posture and operating tempo are unsustainable after March 2004. Something has to give. It is not necessarily a case of the more troops the better, but there is a certain number of troops that the United States thinks is required to make its presence sufficiently robust.

The United States is also under-resourced in terms of money. The president has just requested $15 billion for Iraqi reconstruction, as part of the $87 billion he`s asking from Congress. The White House itself estimates that Iraq needs between $50 billion and $75 billion. Those estimates are based on projections of petroleum revenue that oil experts think are probably high. In other words, the cost could be even higher than $50 billion to $75 billion. And right now, it looks as if the United States will arrive at a donor`s conference on Iraq in Madrid next month with very anemic funding support from its partners and allies.

No one`s made a substantial offer?

No. When the president earmarked $15 billion for reconstruction, I thought that was a serious number. Until recently, the United States was saying its contribution of $2.7 billion for reconstruction was enough. It was farcical, embarrassing. Had the Americans continued with that low-ball number, we--rightfully--would have been laughed out of the Madrid conference. Fifteen billion dollars is serious money. It`s the equivalent of what the United States put into Germany under the Marshall Plan.

Unfortunately, now the Europeans and Arab states are not coming up with serious money. I agree with Thomas Friedman of The New York Times--the Europeans, the French in particular, should be ashamed of themselves. I can understand arguing that they refuse to financially support an American policy they oppose. But what the French and other Europeans should be saying is, "If you do what we want at the Security Council, if you internationalize the Iraq mission, if you start thinking about a process to shift political control of the country back to the Iraqis, we will increase our funding, we will do something."

But the Europeans--and in particular the French, who are the authors of a joint French-German proposal--aren`t providing any incentives for the administration to listen to them. Neither side is helping themselves. The president has raised the possibility of a larger role for other countries in Iraq but still seems reluctant to cede authority. The French and others in the international community want a larger role but are not providing any reason for the United States to acquiesce. The Pakistanis and the Indians until recently were saying that a U.N. Security Council authorization would allow them to provide the troops. Now even they are backing away.

The Americans and the Europeans generally remain at loggerheads?

What the Europeans want, in many respects, is right. They want to internationalize this process. They want a plan, though the timetable in their proposal for shifting political authority to the Iraqis is too rapid. The basics of what they want, the United States should want, too: internationalization and a plan. But to the administration`s ears, it sounds as if the Europeans are demanding that the United States internationalize the mission and include them in the political process but they are refusing to pay anything or otherwise contribute. Such an unthoughtful and unhelpful diplomatic strategy frustrates those of us who think the mission should be internationalized. Maybe the Russian proposals will be more helpful. The Russians are much more important to the U.N. debate at the moment then are the French.

Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder said this week that Germany would help train Iraqi police and lend a hand restoring infrastructure. What do you think of the German position?

I have much more sympathy for the Germans than I do for others because they have been so active in Afghanistan. They didn`t support the U.S. Iraq policy but, demonstrating that they are not anti-American, they energetically backed U.S. policy in Afghanistan. They took charge of Afghan security and helped shift control of [the peacekeeping operation] to a NATO-led force. They have been very involved, even regarding Iraq--much of the U.S. military equipment ended up being shipped through Germany.

Will the Turks send troops?

The United States and the Turks are looking for ways to heal the rift that developed in the run-up to the Iraq war. Now that the United States is desperate to get others to contribute troops, Turkey, which has always wanted a role in Iraq, might be a natural partner. But the Iraqi view, which I think is legitimate, is that the neighbors--Turks, Iranians, Saudis--should not send troops.

Regarding the other pressing Mideast issue, in June, President Bush seemed enthusiastic about putting the full weight of the United States behind the road map peace plan. Now it seems the United States doesn`t want to get too involved.

The road map, which I was never very optimistic about, seems to have failed. I don`t think the president will now enter into anything new. The administration has so much on its plate, and it doesn`t have many new ideas on how to move forward on this. The trouble is, the United States has been focusing on process and allowing the parties to negotiate toward an end-point. Instead, the United States should announce its vision of an end-point and let the Israelis and Palestinians build a process to reach it.

What should the end-point be?

The only way to get a peace between these two parties is for the United States to declare its support for two states whose borders would follow the pre-war 1967 lines [in 1967, Israel took control of the West Bank, all of Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and other territory]; the division of Jerusalem; and a limited right of return that permitted Palestinian refugees to go back to Israel only in order to reunite families and offered settlement in Palestine or compensation to all others. This should be official U.S. policy.

Such a policy would slowly build constituencies on both sides for an alternative to what their leaders are providing. If the Israeli public felt that [Prime Minister] Ariel Sharon was blocking a legitimate deal, it would sweep him aside. [Palestinian Authority President] Yasir Arafat would support a deal if he felt that his constituents supported it. After all, he is a survivor. The United States can`t wait for him to build support. It should create it, despite him. This doesn`t imply sending force or imposing a peace. That would be a recipe for disaster.

What`s happened to the idea that a free Iraq could become a democracy and a beacon throughout the Middle East?

That was a very good idea, and I agreed with its premise. But achieving such goals will take years. The president should continue to talk about democracy and continue to insist upon it in Iraq. Promotion of democracy is a goal the United States should be supporting around the world; it is who we are and what we should be behind. But the administration made the prospect of Iraq`s democratic transformation sound so simple, as if it could happen next year, painlessly and effortlessly. If Iraq is moving in a positive direction, that will inspire hope in the rest of the region. If it is not, that will contribute to the dismay, disappointment, frustration, and radicalization of the Middle East.

Is there an easy solution to the crisis brewing over Iran`s nuclear program?

The problems of the Middle East will be solved only through transatlantic cooperation--Iran, Iraq, Israel-Palestine, all of it. Iran poses a very serious problem and the United States must have intense consultations with its European partners. They`re Iran`s trading partners; they`re the ones who have had contact with Tehran over the last 20 years. The good news is that U.S. and European views on Iran are starting to align.

How are U.S.-Saudi relations?

The basic premise of the U.S.-Saudi relationship has collapsed. Throughout the Cold War, Saudi Arabia was important to the United States because of its oil, because the United States wanted to keep it out of the hands of the Soviets, because of its geographic position, and because of its ideology. As a theocracy, it provided a natural antidote to communism. Today, the pillars of this relationship have fallen away, and it is not clear what this relationship is about except a crude exchange of security in return for oil. This arrangement is unacceptable to both the American public and the Saudi public. There needs to be a fundamental rethinking of this relationship.

On the terrorism front, something has happened, which is under-appreciated. The Saudis defined the May 12 bombings in Riyadh [that killed 34] as an attack against them. They have aggressively rounded up religious zealots, acknowledged al Qaeda`s presence in the kingdom, and broken up terror cells. If that bombing had occurred before September 11, I believe the Saudis would have swept it under the rug and done nothing. But they defined the May bombings as a major attack on Saudi Arabia, which allowed the crown prince to adopt some reforms--that the United States had been urging him to take--and portray them as a Saudi initiative. It took 18 months for the Saudis to respond to September 11.

Some good news at least?

A small silver lining in a very gray and cloudy area.



Copyright 2003

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/complete/la-fg-…
NEWS ANALYSIS



Iraqi Council`s Path Diverges From U.S. Plan
Representatives act without consulting the coalition authority, a sign of a power struggle.
By Alissa J. Rubin
Times Staff Writer

September 20, 2003

BAGHDAD — Cracks are emerging in the relationship between the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority and the Iraqi Governing Council, suggesting that as the Iraqis gain more power they may well pursue policies that could undercut coalition efforts to install a democratic government here.

The unelected council members, appointed in consultation with the coalition, have begun acting preemptively, approving provisions and publicly floating proposals without discussing them with coalition leaders. Topics include ridding the government of many former members of Saddam Hussein`s Baath Party, remaking the nation`s security forces, outlining the criteria for Iraqi citizenship and prodding Americans to hand over power more quickly.

One proposal likely to be approved by the council envisions combining the militias of various factions as well as some members of the old regime`s police and military into a paramilitary force controlled by the Iraqi Interior Ministry — a move that coalition officials worry could create a host of problems.

"We know there is concern about the security situation — a concern the coalition shares," said Dan Senor, a spokesman for and advisor to coalition administrator L. Paul Bremer III.

"But we also have to ensure that when we leave Iraq, the security structure has a proper vetting process so that former Baathists and dead-enders and Mukhabarat [members of Hussein`s dreaded security force] don`t figure out a way to weasel back into the security structure," Senor said. "We also have to make sure that there is respect for human rights and a high standard of professionalism."

Some also fear a paramilitary force composed of fighters loyal to different political factions would attempt to divide power and territory across the country.

Such a force, as opposed to the Iraqi army currently being trained by international experts, could lead "to the fragmentation of the country, warlordism and civil war," said Gary Samore, director of studies for the London-based Institute for International Strategic Studies.

Under international law, the Governing Council`s recommendations must be approved by occupation officials before they go into effect, and Bremer has the power to veto the council`s proposals. But because the American goal is to hand over power to the interim council, it has been in Bremer`s interest to assent as much as possible to its proposals, and he has publicly said he expects he would never have to use his veto.

However, he has not yet approved the security initiative.

The council`s growing independence puts the Americans in a corner. Coalition officials are trying to prove to the world that they are sincere about giving Iraqis real power over their government, but they also want to ensure that the policies adopted are roughly compatible with those of a democratic government and the rule of law.

"The U.S. is in fact interested in handing over power, but they are concerned that the current contenders for power are not likely to be able to run the country effectively or democratically," Samore said.

The council members` bid for power comes at a time when the Americans can ill afford to confront them. France and Germany are pushing the Americans to hand over control to Iraqis quickly in order to win U.N. financial support and diplomatic backing for Iraq`s reconstruction — help the Americans sorely need.

While many Governing Council members` proposals are still in the formative stage, they have the backing of the five most powerful members of the body — those who represent established political organizations.

It is those five groups — the Iraqi National Congress, the Iraqi National Accord, the Kurdish Democratic Party, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq — that have moved most aggressively on the security front, pushing to take responsibility from the Americans, a maneuver that would also hugely augment their own power.

Those council members are aware of the pressure on the Americans to give the Iraqis power and avoid confrontation, and are capitalizing on it, one coalition official said.

If an idea can gain enough currency before it reaches Bremer, it makes it harder for him to oppose it, especially with a U.N. debate on Iraq set to begin Tuesday.

For instance, on Sunday, the council approved a new law on de-Baathification and announced it publicly before reviewing the details with Bremer. The measure would not only remove a number of Iraqis from their jobs because they formerly held positions in the Baath Party — the organization through which Hussein maintained tight control over the nation — but also revoke exceptions made by Bremer in the de-Baathification order he issued in May. The new rules were announced earlier this week by a spokesman for the council`s current president, Ahmed Chalabi.

De-Baathification, the term used for the process of ridding government ministries and institutions of former Baath Party members, is a controversial policy. While many people support the idea, there are also many Iraqis who became Baathists only to be able to feed their families. They feel such policies have unfairly punished them for simply doing what it took to scrabble together a living.

Bremer is trying to soften the proposal — for practical reasons — but is limited in the changes he can make without giving the impression that he is second-guessing the council`s authority over a policy that has to do almost entirely with internal Iraqi politics. Bremer`s concern is that under the council-authored de-Baathification, many teachers would lose their jobs, making it difficult to reopen schools two weeks from now, said Saad Shakir, a top advisor to council member Adnan Pachachi.

"Bremer asked only that we take into consideration that if we go ahead, half of the teachers will not be able to come to their post in two weeks," Shakir said.

The biggest fight on the horizon is over the council`s effort to take responsibility for security from the Americans. Security is the single most important issue to most Iraqis and is also the key to power in a country where virtually every citizen is armed.

Under a proposal now being discussed by the council`s security committee, which includes the five key political parties, a paramilitary force, supplied with helicopters, tanks and other equipment, would act as a quick reaction force when there are problems but also would take preemptive steps to stop crimes before they happened, said Safeen Dizayee, the chief representative on foreign relations for the Kurdish Democratic Party.

He described the new force as a sort of "gendarmerie" that initially would be made up of "people from the major [political] groups that have their own units that they can contribute."

The advantage, he said, is that with U.S. soldiers being killed almost every day while on patrol, an Iraqi security force could quickly serve as a replacement for protecting the country.

The more Iraqi faces on the streets, Dizayee said, "the more the coalition can return to its barracks."

At the same time, a paramilitary force is also an attractive option to the Iraqi political parties because by incorporating their military wings into the government, they would be in a better position to maintain some power as they compete for political control over Iraq in coming years. In past Iraqi governments, the Interior Ministry was a key power base, and a paramilitary force would ensure that the parties have people loyal to them firmly planted there. By contrast, the national military and police would be loyal to Iraq`s leader.

Three of the parties on the Governing Council already have militias — the two Kurdish groups and the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, a Shiite Muslim group. The Iraqi National Congress has small cadres of armed men, and the Iraqi National Accord, which has long been backed by the CIA, according to Bush administration officials, is thought to be able to muster some armed men.

Recently appointed Interior Minister Nouri Badran, a Shiite, is an official of the Iraqi National Accord.

Dizayee said he thought the groups would work together well, but others on the council worry that such a force would undermine the role of the national police and military.

"I don`t agree with any kind of militia because it will divide the people; we should have one police force, one power structure," Shakir said.

How the coalition copes with the latest efforts by the council`s major parties to augment their power remains to be seen, but it appears all but certain that the next several months will be a constant struggle between the council and the coalition.

"Bremer is trying to give them authority ... but he doesn`t want to lose control," said Rachel Bronson, director of Middle East studies at the Council on Foreign Relations. "There`s a natural power struggle built into the relationship, but the coalition also knows that if you transfer too quickly to local power, you end up with factions fighting over power-sharing rather than having a debate about how to rebuild the country." `The U.S. is in fact interested in handing over power, but they are concerned that the current contenders for power are not likely to be able to run the country effectively or democratically.`

Gary Samore, Institute for International Strategic Studies


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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COLUMN ONE



Al Qaeda`s Stealth Weapons
Muslim converts who are drawn to fanaticism pose special dangers well beyond their symbolic impact. `The blue-eyed emir` is one example.
By Sebastian Rotella
Times Staff Writer

September 20, 2003

CHAMBLES, France — The convicted terrorist has a hard-core moniker: "the blue-eyed emir of Tangier."

But Pierre Richard Robert was once a French country boy, an athletic blond teenager living in a house built by his father among pastures here in the Loire region.

Robert liked drinking and fast bikes more than school. He got interested in Islam when he played soccer at the Turkish cultural center in a neighboring industrial town. He said he wanted to convert because Allah watched over him as he sped downhill into town on his bicycle.

"I told him it`s not like changing shirts," said Ibrahim Tekeli, a leader of the Turkish community. "The imam told him, `I want you to reflect and talk to your family first.` But Richard said: `I`ve already reflected For months before I made my decision, I would run the red light on the big hill every day going real fast. I would always pray to Allah to protect me. And I never got hit by a car.` "

Fourteen years later, though, Robert has hit bottom. A Moroccan court sentenced him to life in prison Thursday after convicting him of recruiting and training Moroccan extremists for a terrorist campaign.

He joins an unlikely group of men with non-Muslim backgrounds that includes Richard Reid, the British "shoe bomber" convicted of trying to blow up an airliner; American Jose Padilla, an alleged Al Qaeda operative being held as an enemy combatant; and Christian Ganczarski, a German convert arrested in June by French police.

Robert and Ganczarski were not just foot soldiers, investigators say. They represent a dangerous trend as police chop away at Islamic networks two years after the Sept. 11 attacks: converts who assume front-line roles as recruiters and plotters.

The number of converts has grown as Islamic militants have struck a chord with young Europeans from non-Muslim backgrounds. These "protest conversions," as scholar Olivier Roy calls them, have less to do with theology than with a revolutionary zeal dating to Europe`s ultra-left terrorist groups of the 1970s and `80s.

"The young people in working-class urban areas are against the system, and converting to Islam is the ultimate way to challenge the system," said Roy, a director of the National Center for Scientific Research in Paris. "They convert to stick it to their parents, to their principal They convert in the same way people in the 1970s went to Bolivia or Vietnam. I see a very European tradition of identifying with a Third World cause."

As demographics and immigration propel Islam`s spread in Europe, the number of French converts — the vast majority of them law-abiding — has increased steadily to about 100,000, Roy said.

Extremists of European descent worry police for the same reasons that Al Qaeda prizes them: their symbolic value, their Western passports and their fanaticism.

"Converts are the most important work for us right now," a French intelligence official said. "They want to show other Muslims their worth. They want to go further than anyone else. They are full of rage and they want to prove themselves."

The rise of the converts actually may be a sign of Al Qaeda`s weakness, a need to fill a vacuum as leaders are hunted down. The limited hierarchy of Islamic networks can make leadership a question of circumstance and initiative. A Spanish investigator said Al Qaeda has "many soldiers, some sergeants and the generals."

Ganczarski and Robert were no generals, but they allegedly stepped up to plot attacks and recruit. And investigators say Ganczarski, 36, became a pivotal figure in Europe during the post-Sept. 11 period because of his alleged ties to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, Al Qaeda`s now-imprisoned operational boss, who turned increasingly to converts while on the run.

Ganczarski is being held in a French jail as a suspected conspirator in the bombing of a Tunisian synagogue that killed 21 people, including French tourists, in April 2002.

Investigators say Mohammed controlled the plot from Pakistan despite the vigilance of U.S. spy satellites that intercepted some of his coded conversations with accomplices. To elude detection, he used non-Arabs in Europe to support the Tunisian suicide bomber, Nizar Nawar, police say.

On the day Nawar blew himself up in a truck-bomb at the historic synagogue on the island of Djerba, he called Mohammed in Pakistan, investigators say, and Ganczarski`s home in Duisburg, Germany. A German wiretap recorded the latter call: As if addressing a mentor, Nawar asked Ganczarski for a blessing, investigators say.

Although the Germans lacked proof to arrest Ganczarski, who denied involvement in the attack, the widening investigation soon involved French, Spanish and Swiss police. It revealed Ganczarski`s access to Al Qaeda`s "hard core," in the words of a Swiss intelligence report dated last December.

Ganczarski called Mohammed`s Swiss cell phone in Pakistan "numerous times" in the months before the Djerba attack, according to the report.

The phone call intercepts also pointed to a Swiss convert, Daniel "Yusuf" Morgenej, who had befriended the German in Saudi Arabia, authorities say. Swiss police questioned and released Morgenej. But Spanish and French investigators say he and Ganczarski remain suspected links in an intricate chain leading to the plot`s accused money man, a Spanish exporter.

Moreover, the Djerba plot appears to have been part of a larger effort led by Mohammed to deploy converts. Padilla, the American who allegedly schemed to set off a radioactive bomb, was arrested in Chicago in May 2002 after arriving from Switzerland. In the preceding weeks, Padilla placed four calls to the same phone number for Mohammed that Ganczarski had called, according to the Swiss intelligence report.

Ganczarski was born in Gleiwitz, Poland. His family moved to Germany when he was 9. He dropped out of school and found work as a metallurgist in the Ruhr Valley. It was on the shop floor that a fellow immigrant, a North African, introduced him to the Koran, officials say.

"Ever since his youth, it appears he was greatly preoccupied with questions of faith," said a senior French law enforcement official.

His radicalization accelerated when he met a Saudi cleric visiting European mosques in search of Western-born acolytes. In 1992, Ganczarski received a scholarship to attend an Islamic university in Medina, Saudi Arabia, the senior official said.

Ganczarski spent three frustrating years in Medina. He took special courses to overcome his lack of schooling, but failed to enter the university, the senior official said. Yet his zeal did not seem to waver.

He traveled to Afghanistan in 1998 — the first of four sojourns — trained at an Al Qaeda camp and saw combat there and in Russia`s breakaway republic of Chechnya, officials say.

Ganczarski met Osama bin Laden and other Al Qaeda leaders, who entrusted him with handling computers and communications, the senior official said. Bin Laden saw converts as "an especially potent weapon," the official said.

Returning from Afghanistan after the Sept. 11 attacks, Ganczarski persisted in trying to organize plots even after the Tunisian case drew attention to him, officials say.

An alleged accomplice from Duisburg has told French interrogators that Ganczarski began preparations for an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Paris. Karim Mehdi said the two explored a technique developed by Mohammed in Afghanistan. It involved packing model planes with 3 or 4 kilos of explosives and diving them into a building by remote control, according to the senior French official.

"They got as far as acquiring material," the official said. "They did a lot of research on planes in Germany. You can pilot these planes from a mile away. The embassy is a double target — you hit the French and Americans in one blow."

U.S. officials declined to comment, citing a policy of not discussing threats to embassies.

Mehdi also admitted scouting targets for a planned car bombing at tourist sites on Reunion island, a French territory in the Indian Ocean, officials say. Mehdi said Ganczarski was an "organizer and the financier" of the plot, according to French Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, who described the German as "a high-ranking member of Al Qaeda."

Ganczarski found refuge for a time in Saudi Arabia, where he took his family last November. But after this year`s terrorist attacks on expatriate compounds in Riyadh put pressure on the Saudis, they expelled him to France. Under tough anti-terrorism laws, Judge Jean-Louis Bruguiere has accused Ganczarski in the Djerba attack based on his alleged ties to the plotters, and has at least two years to bring him to trial. Authorities are also interested in the fact that Ganczarski had phone numbers for two imprisoned members of the Hamburg cell that planned the Sept. 11 attacks.

Ganczarski`s alleged access to the inner circle is not surprising. Al Qaeda has embraced true believers regardless of ethnicity. Just as many converts marry Muslim women, some terrorism suspects of Arab origin have European wives, who often equal them in ideological ferocity.

"The Ganczarskis, the Roberts, they show that the radicalization is here, not just in the Middle East," said Roy, the French scholar. If Al Qaeda`s urbanized, globalized jihad continues to attract angry Europeans, the network could gain a "second wind," he said.

Robert, 31, could be a case in point. Like Ganczarski, the Frenchman represents a breed of blue-collar convert — neither jailhouse recruit nor university radical.

He grew up in the French hamlet of Chambles. His studies ended at Anne Frank Middle School in Andrezieux, the industrial town just down the hill where his father worked at a glass factory. The teenager made Turkish friends doing spot jobs in textile plants and playing in the Turkish soccer league, which was popular with French and immigrant youths because it used the best field in town.

The Turks of Andrezieux, who describe themselves as moderate Muslims, remember Robert as a silent kid crouching off by himself in the mosque. Like many converts, he had struggled with "drinking, stupid things" and yearned for discipline and purpose, said Tekeli, 35, a veteran union activist.

"In Europe you have everything you need: work, health benefits, family," he said. "Yet something is missing. People find it in religion. And Islam is the religion that is growing. The French young people are more open than their parents."

Robert`s stunned father called his change of faith "a betrayal," Tekeli said. But when Robert turned 18 and decided to study Islam in Turkey, his parents paid for the trip. Robert traveled to Konya, a center of tourism and religion that is a magnet for European converts.

When Robert returned to France in 1992, the French intelligence official said, he complained that Turkey was "too secular."

He went to Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Afghanistan, where in the mid-1990s he trained at a camp run by Al Qaeda, according to French and Spanish investigators.

He also married a Moroccan woman and began wandering between Europe and Morocco. They came to Chambles for an extended stay about seven years ago, living at his parents` house before renting apartments around the nearby city of St. Etienne, a fading landscape of shuttered arms factories and abandoned coal mines.

Robert had acquired a beard, traditional Islamic garb and the name Yacub. During visits in 1999 and 2000 to an Islamic bookstore in St. Etienne, he impressed the manager with his Arabic and his religious knowledge.

"He knew more than me," said the manager, Ahmed Abdelouadoud.

Robert`s aggressive ideas caused conflict even at fundamentalist mosques, the intelligence official said. He became an itinerant late-night preacher in housing projects, Tekeli said.

He also got involved in the used-car racket in which Islamic extremists are active, buying cars in Europe for resale in Morocco. In 1998, he was jailed in Belgium on suspicion of auto theft.

That was nothing compared with his clandestine activity in Tangier, the Moroccan smuggling haven where Robert, by then a father of two, spent most of his time the last two years. He was convicted Thursday of recruiting several dozen young men for terrorist cells he set up in Tangier and Fez.

Robert`s Al Qaeda credentials crossed cultural borders: The group made him its "emir." He led weapons training sessions in forests and deserts, according to the court`s verdict.

Then came the May 16 suicide bombings that killed 45 people in Casablanca, the worst attack ever in Morocco, a kingdom that prides itself on its relative tolerance. Police rounded up hundreds of extremists, catching Robert in a forest at the wheel of a pickup truck with fake Dutch plates.

Authorities charged that he served as a leader of a network that had planned a coming wave of attacks on tourist and commercial targets. After initially confessing, Robert denied it all and said he had been tortured because police needed a foreign fall guy.

"I am the victim of a frame-up by the security services," he said in a statement relayed by his lawyer.

Robert also testified during his trial that he had worked as an informant for French intelligence, a claim French officials denied.

Investigators say Robert was part of a strategy of "training the trainers" — a model of how an increasingly decentralized Al Qaeda will function. The network exported terrorism to Morocco through a handful of recruiters who quickly whipped locals into killing shape, officials say.

Robert also wanted to bring his war home to France, police say. He and Abdulaziz Benayich, a die-hard holy warrior with longtime ties to European terrorist cells, schemed about using a bazooka or rocket-propelled grenade on targets including a giant refinery and a plutonium shipment near Lyon, about an hour from Robert`s hometown, investigators say.

When Spanish police captured Benayich in June in Algeciras, across the strait of Gibraltar from Morocco, he had shaved off his body hair — as is done in a purification ritual that precedes suicide attacks.

"He was preparing for an attack," a Spanish police commander said. "Benayich is very dangerous."

Although some French officials feel Robert`s threat has been exaggerated, he narrowly avoided the death penalty that was requested by prosecutors.

His old friends have watched the news reports. Robert looked exhausted in court, a pale figure surrounded by guards. He had shaved his beard. One day he wore the red and yellow jersey of Galatasaray, a Turkish soccer team.

At that moment, the "blue-eyed emir" resembled the 17-year-old his friends remember: crouched over the handlebars on his way to town, praying to Allah, gathering speed.



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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EDITORIAL



Promises, Promises

September 20, 2003

George W. Bush is hardly the first president to say one thing and do something else. Like his predecessors, Bush strode into the Oval Office clutching a sheaf of spending proposals to tackle the nation`s ills. But even before the budget surplus morphed into a gargantuan deficit, a distressingly large gap opened between Bush`s photo-op pledges and his dollars-and-cents proposals. Now that gap looks more like an abyss.

Middle-class voters who gnash their teeth over indifferent teachers and decrepit schoolhouses loudly cheered Bush`s No Child Left Behind Act. Signed in January 2002, the measure requires states to test students` reading and math skills yearly and fix dysfunctional schools. Yet although federal education spending is up, it is falling way short of what states need to comply with the law. Meanwhile, Bush wants to siphon off $75 million for vouchers that parents could use for private schools.

As a candidate, Bush promised to spruce up decaying national park facilities, and he has said he earmarked $2.9 billion from 2002 through 2004, a 132% increase for the huge repair backlog. But a National Park Service official testified in July that only $200 million to $300 million of this was new money.

Standing by the rubble of the World Trade Center two years ago, Bush promised to make domestic security his first priority. Last year Congress appropriated millions for airport screening, FBI counter-terrorism technology and measures to safeguard food and water supplies. But Bush froze the bulk of these funds, urging "fiscal restraint." He sought no increase in funding for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention despite anthrax attacks and bioterrorism threats. The CDC finished its urgently needed emergency operations center only after Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus kicked in the final $4 million. The building now bears his name. Some penny-pinching is in order as the deficit grows, but first Bush should stretch out his tax cuts and drop his efforts to make them permanent.

The latest promise to tumble into the credibility canyon involves AIDS prevention and treatment. At home and on his Africa tour in July, Bush justly trumpeted his January pledge of $15 billion over the next five years. Now the administration is holding back and privately urging congressional allies to cut the president`s program.

This shell game began before the towers fell in New York, before the economy slid into red ink. As it continues, Bush risks not just his personal credibility but the nation`s security, economic future and natural resources.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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U.S. Soldier Kills Baghdad Tiger After Attack - Zoo
Sat September 20, 2003 07:37 AM ET
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - A U.S. soldier shot dead a rare Bengal tiger at Baghdad zoo after the animal injured a colleague who was trying to feed it through the cage bars, the zoo`s manager said on Saturday.
Adil Salman Mousa told Reuters a group of U.S. soldiers were having a party in the zoo on Thursday night, after it had closed.

"Someone was trying to feed the tigers," he said. "The tiger bit his finger off and clawed his arm. So his colleague took a gun and shot the tiger."

The night watchman said the soldiers had arrived in military vehicles but were casually dressed and were drinking beer.

There was no immediate U.S. comment.

At the tiger`s now-empty cage, pools of blood showed that the soldier passed through a first cage intended only for keepers and was standing right up against the inner cage`s narrow bars.

Mousa said U.S. officials came to see him on Friday to discuss the incident.

The tiger was one of two in the zoo -- once the largest in the Middle East, today a decrepit collection of dirty cages and sad-looking animals.

In April, U.S. soldiers killed four lions that had escaped from the zoo. Hundreds of other animals were stolen or let loose by looters in the aftermath of the U.S. invasion of the Iraqi capital.

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Afghanistan

Die Jagd nach dem Scheich

In den Kiefernwäldern der Provinz Kunar vermuten Geheimdienste aus aller Welt Osama Bin Laden. Kaum befahrbare Straßen und die Nähe zu Pakistan machen die Gegend zu einem perfekten Versteck. Der Mann, der im Auftrag Kabuls nach dem Terrorchef fahndet, ist selbst ein Gejagter.

In den Hotels von Kabul treffen sich Agenten aller Herren Länder. Jede Nation scheint ihre eigenen Geheimdienstler an den Hindukusch entsandt zu haben. Konkurrenz belebt das Geschäft. Südafrikaner fragen aus, wer immer ihnen über den Weg läuft. Australier ohne erkennbare Profession recherchieren fleißig, und es bleibt unklar, für wen.

Auch der türkische Geheimdienst Milli Istihbarat Teskilati hat seinen Mann an die unsichtbare Front im Kampf gegen den Terrorismus geschickt. Seine Tarnung ist allerdings so schlecht, dass er bald von den Bewohnern der Pension im Stadtteil Schahr-inaw nur noch "der Türke" genannt wird.

Die Regierung in Ankara zeigt immer noch reges Interesse an Afghanistan. Fast acht Monate lang leiteten türkische Generäle die Internationale Schutztruppe.

Der Türke hält stets seine Ohren offen, setzt sich am liebsten in die Nähe von Journalisten, die von ihren Erlebnissen in den noch immer unbefriedeten Regionen außerhalb von Kabul berichten.

Den nächsten Tag verbringt er dann am Schreibtisch - genau wie die Journalisten, die gleichfalls ihre Berichte absetzen. So lässt es sich aushalten in Kabul: Es gibt europäisches Bier, es gibt Pizza und Satellitenfernsehen - und eine ungelöste Frage, an der, von den Amerikanern ausgelobt, 25 Millionen Dollar Kopfgeld hängen: Wo ist Osama Bin Laden?

Um diese Frage zu klären, schleicht unser Mann in Kabul morgens mit einer Afghanistan-Landkarte zur Rezeption und flüstert: "Wo liegt Kunar?"

Der Hotelmanager, ein dürrer Tadschike, deutet mit dem Zeigefinger auf einen kleinen Punkt auf der äußersten rechten Kartenseite. "Dangerous?", fragt der Türke, der Hotelmanager nickt.

Kabul wird der Kundschafter deshalb so schnell nicht verlassen. Aber die Frage nach Kunar war nicht schlecht. Dem eigentlichen Objekt seiner Neugier wäre er dort um einiges näher gewesen.

Nordöstlich der Provinzhauptstadt Jalalabad, im gebirgigen Grenzgebiet der afghanischen Provinzen Nangarhar und Kunar, sitzt ein großer korpulenter Mann auf einem Plastikstuhl und wischt sich den Schweiß von der Stirn.

Es ist zwölf Uhr mittags, ein Dutzend Pick-ups und Toyota-Geländewagen parken in der Nähe eines Gasthauses am Rand der Straße - wenn diese staubige Geröllpiste, die in die Berge führt, überhaupt den Namen verdient.

"Scheißhitze!", flucht der dicke Mann, "außerdem habe ich Hunger."

Sofort flitzt einer seiner Begleiter los und kommt wenige Minuten später mit einer Aluminiumschüssel voller Rosinenreis und Lammfleisch zurück. Der dicke Mann isst ohne Besteck, er löffelt den Reis mit Hilfe des Fladenbrots. Ein Dutzend bewaffneter Soldaten schaut ihm dabei zu. Die Männer sind seine Leibgarde.

Zamans ewiger Hunger könnte ihm noch mal zum Verhängnis werden. Denn zum Essen muss er anhalten. Wenn Zaman aber aus seinem Toyota-Geländewagen mit den schwarzen Fensterscheiben steigt, spricht sich das viel zu schnell herum in dieser unwirtlichen Bergwelt, in der man schon für hundert Dollar einen Killer mieten kann.

Mohammed Zaman, 45, Militärkommandeur der Grenzprovinz Kunar, ist seit gut anderthalb Jahren auf der Suche nach dem "loar Scheich", dem großen Scheich. So nennen die Afghanen den Chef des Terrornetzwerks al-Qaida, Osama Bin Laden.

Irgendwo hier, im Nordosten des Landes an der Grenze zu Pakistan, soll er sich herumtreiben. Nachdem ihm im Dezember 2001 die Flucht aus den nahe gelegenen Höhlen von Tora Bora gelungen war, richtete sich Bin Laden zunächst eine Reihe geheimer Stützpunkte in den Stammesgebieten der Paschtunen in Pakistan ein.

Die so genannten Tribal Areas stehen formal unter Selbstverwaltung. Doch die pakistanische Armee und der berüchtigte Geheimdienst ISI kontrollieren die undurchdringliche Region erheblich besser, als sie zugeben. "Die wissen genau, wo Bin Laden steckt", sagt Zaman kauend, "wenn die dem Scheich nicht helfen würden, hätte ich ihn schon längst gefasst!"

Die Grenze der Provinz Kunar zu Pakistan ist praktisch unkontrollierbar. Selbst die Hochtechnologie der Amerikaner nützt hier nicht viel.

In den Bergen wuchert ein Urwald voller Eichen und immergrüner Nadelbäume. Lager und Stützpunkte sind weder per Helikopter noch per Satellit auszumachen. Hunderte Schleichpfade verbinden Afghanistan mit Pakistan, in Kunar "gibt es mehr Höhlen als Menschen", sagt Zaman.

Die Zentralregierung im nur 150 Kilometer entfernten Kabul, von der er den Auftrag hat, den Qaida-Chef dingfest zu machen, hat hier nichts zu sagen. Stattdessen tummeln sich im Grenzland so ziemlich alle Terror- und Guerillagruppen, die Afghanistan zu bieten hat.

Da wäre beispielsweise der paschtunische Terrorpate Gulbuddin Hekmatjar, den Ermittler in Kabul für den Auftraggeber des Juni-Anschlags auf einen voll besetzten Bundeswehrbus halten. Hekmatjar hat sich in der Provinz Kunar mit arabischen Kämpfern verbündet, die ab und zu auch auf eigene Verantwortung operieren. Doch der Wichtigste von allen, die sich im Grenzgebiet tummeln, ist Osama Bin Laden.

Drei Söhne, berichtet Zaman, kämpfen an seiner Seite. Zwei Frauen Bin Ladens, auch da ist der Kommandeur ganz sicher, leben im Dickicht der Kiefernwälder. Der Scheich besucht sie angeblich regelmäßig.

Nie benutzt er ein Telefon. Nachrichten lässt er nur auf handgeschriebenen Zetteln per Boten verbreiten - das dauert länger, ist aber abhörsicher. "Wo der Scheich genau steckt, weiß ich auch nicht", sagt Zaman. "Vielleicht weiß er selbst manchmal nicht, wo er am nächsten Tag sein wird."

Auf Hilfe von den Amerikanern hofft Zaman schon lange nicht mehr. Die verlassen hier im Grenzgebiet kaum ihre Stützpunkte, den Kampf gegen die Taliban "müssen wir allein führen, nicht einmal anständige Waffen geben sie uns".

Zaman lebt gehetzter als der Mann, den er fassen will. Selbst engen Freunden kündigt er sein Kommen nicht an. "Ich versuche immer, in Bewegung zu bleiben - denn Bin Laden will mich töten."

Schon mehrmals ist er Anschlägen nur knapp entgangen. Seine Gegner sind ihm ständig auf den Fersen. Am liebsten operieren sie mit ferngezündeten Minen, doch bislang sind lediglich Autoscheiben zu Bruch gegangen.

Pünktlich zum zweiten Jahrestag der Anschläge auf die Twin Towers und das Pentagon tauchte Bin Laden nun auf einem Video auf. Seelenruhig spaziert er mit seinem Stellvertreter, dem ägyptischen Kinderarzt Aiman al-Sawahiri, durch eine idyllische Berglandschaft.

Afghanische Geheimdienstler sind sich sicher, dass die Aufnahmen in Kunar entstanden sind. Die hohen Nadelbäume und die Berglandschaft deuten ihrer Ansicht nach auf das Grenzgebiet zu Pakistan hin.

Scheinbar allem Irdischen entrückt, schreitet der meistgesuchte Terrorist der Welt da durch unberührte Natur und lässt weitere Katastrophen ankündigen. Von Unruhe keine Spur.

Zaman dagegen ist nervös, und er will es gar nicht verbergen. Wenn er spricht, wandern seine Augen hin und her. Nähert sich ein Unbekannter, duckt er sich weg. Seine Männer gehen dann in Habachtstellung, ihre Gewehre sind immer geladen.

Die ganze Truppe reist nach Jalalabad, der Hauptstadt der Nachbarprovinz Nangarhar. Unter riesigen Zeltplanen sitzen dort mehrere hundert Männer vor einem Podium. Es sind Mudschahidin und Stammesälteste aus der Region.

Die Männer begehen den zweiten Todestag des Nordallianz-Kommandeurs Ahmed Schah Massud. Bin Laden hatte ihn zwei Tage vor dem Anschlag auf das World Trade Center ermorden lassen.

Ein zwei Meter hohes Ölgemälde Massuds hängt über dem Podium, auf dem die Provinzfürsten Platz genommen haben. Daneben hängen die Porträts der Paschtunenführer Abdul Haq und seines Bruders Abdul Qadir. Sie wurden von den Taliban ermordet. Zaman hat sie gut gekannt.

Helfer verteilen Pepsi und Poster mit dem Konterfei Massuds. Auf den Plakaten sieht der Held der Nordallianz nach einer Computerüberarbeitung aus wie eine afghanische Mischung aus Bob Marley und Ché Guevara.

Zaman nippt an seiner Cola, schüttelt vorsichtig Hände und lauscht den Worten von Hazrat Ali. Der charismatische Militärführer war ein enger Freund Massuds und hat mit ihm gegen die Sowjets und die Taliban gekämpft. Nun befehligt Zamans Kollege in Jalalabad die Truppen der Regierung. Doch viele glauben, die Soldaten hörten nur noch auf sein Kommando - und nicht mehr auf Kommandos aus Kabul.

"Wir wissen genau, wer unsere Feinde sind", ruft Ali seinen Gotteskriegern zu. "Wir müssen uns in Acht nehmen vor unserem Nachbarland, dessen Namen ich nicht nennen will." Zaman klatscht Beifall, bis seine schweren Hände rot sind.

Der pakistanische Präsident Pervez Musharraf gilt eigentlich als wichtiger Verbündeter der USA im Kampf gegen den Terror. Doch die Taliban-Einheiten, die in den vergangenen Monaten zu Hunderten den Kampf mit der afghanischen Nationalarmee und den Amerikanern aufgenommen haben, unterhalten ihre Basislager ganz offensichtlich in Pakistan.

Überall im Grenzgebiet schlugen die Kämpfer Mullah Omars zu - auch in der Provinz Kunar. "In den vergangenen drei Monaten haben die Anschläge und Attacken rapide zugenommen", sagt Zaman. Doch der neue Gouverneur, klagt der Kommandeur, fahre gegenüber den Taliban in Kunar neuerdings einen Schmusekurs - auf Anordnung der Regierung in Kabul.

Weil Präsident Hamid Karzai die Taliban nicht besiegen kann, will er sie offenbar ruhig stellen. In vielen Provinzen haben Regierungsunterhändler schon Kontakt zur islamistischen Guerilla aufgenommen.

Doch das Kalkül geht nicht auf. Die Taliban sehen in Karzai keinen Verhandlungspartner, sondern bloß den Mann, der ihnen mit Hilfe der Amerikaner die Macht genommen hat. "Das werden sie uns nie verzeihen", sagt Zaman.

So sitzt der Bin-Laden-Jäger derzeit zwischen allen Stühlen. "Kaum nehme ich ein paar von diesen Strolchen fest, lässt der Gouverneur sie wieder laufen", klagt er. Die generösen Gesten der Regierung legen die Taliban offenbar als Schwäche aus - und mit dieser Analyse liegen sie gar nicht mal falsch.

Gleichzeitig wird die Rolle Pakistans in dem schmutzigen Krieg im Grenzgebiet immer dubioser. "Pakistanische Soldaten dringen immer häufiger auf unser Territorium vor", berichtet Zaman. Angeblich, um Kämpfer der Qaida zu jagen.

Doch das glaubt Zaman nicht. "In einigen unserer Dörfer geben sie bereits pakistanische Pässe aus. Und sie versorgen unsere Feinde mit Waffen und Munition."

Als die pakistanische Armee vor kurzem 20 Kilometer weit nach Afghanistan vorrückte, drohte Hazrat Ali, die Truppen anzugreifen. Die Amerikaner verhinderten im letzten Moment einen Waffengang. Nach Protesten der USA in der pakistanischen Hauptstadt Islamabad zogen sich die Pakistaner zurück.

Wie angespannt die Lage an der Grenze inzwischen ist, ist zwei Autostunden östlich von Jalalabad erkennbar, am Grenzübergang Torkham, der zum Khyber-Pass hinaufführt. Die Pakistaner nutzten die Wirren des Krieges gegen die Taliban vor zwei Jahren und rückten auf afghanisches Territorium vor.

An vielen Orten, auch bei Torkham, bauten die Soldaten ihre Posten auf afghanischen Boden. "Wir warten auf den Befehl, dann holen wir uns unser Land zurück!", droht Zaman. Hazrat Ali, der sich inzwischen neben seinen Freund gesetzt hat, nickt.

Schon jetzt kommt es zu Scharmützeln. Als vor kurzem eine Paschtunin in ihrer Burka von pakistanischen Soldaten am Grenzübergang geschlagen wurde, feuerten afghanische Soldaten auf die andere Seite. Miteinander geredet wurde erst nach dem Schusswechsel.

Der Grenzverlauf ist umstritten. Nach einer 1893 von den Engländern willkürlich festgeschriebenen Grenzbestimmung zwischen Afghanistan und Britisch-Indien, der so genannten Durand-Linie, hätten die jetzt auf pakistanischer Seite liegenden Stammesgebiete der Paschtunen bereits vor zehn Jahren zurückgegeben werden müssen.

Doch keine afghanische Regierung war bisher stark genug, die umstrittenen Forderungen gegen Islamabad durchzusetzen. "Deshalb haben die Pakistaner auch kein Interesse an stabilen Verhältnissen in Afghanistan", glaubt Zaman - dann gibt er seinen Männern ein Handzeichen.

Es dämmert, die Feier geht zu Ende. Zum Abschluss singen ein paar junge Mädchen mit hellen Stimmen ein trauriges Lied über den Tod Massuds. Alles blickt zur Bühne, manche Mudschahidin weinen.

Mohammed Zaman, der Jäger Bin Ladens, ist plötzlich verschwunden. Niemand, nicht einmal sein Freund Hazrat Ali, weiß wohin.

CLAUS CHRISTIAN MALZAHN




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© DER SPIEGEL 39/2003

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Patrick Seale: Americans know they have gone well past the point of no return
| | 19/09/2003




I came back from a visit to Washington this week with one overwhelming impression: US thinking on the Middle East is going through a profound revolution. Public opinion is beginning to rebel against the failed policies of the Bush administration - and against their enormous costs in money, human casualties, and chaos.

The tide is turning against the architects of these policies - in particular against Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his closest Pentagon aides, Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith - who now find themselves on the defensive, having got the US in the mess it is in. Some observers of the American political scene believe these men could lose their jobs before the end of the year, and many think they should.

The leading advocates of America`s muscular, unilateralist approach to foreign policy were the so-called `neo-cons`, a powerful right-wing group of senior US officials and their supporters in the media and in Washington`s numerous lobbies and think-tanks, many of them close to Israel`s hard-line Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and his Likud party.

The neo-cons pressed for war against Saddam Hussain, arguing that it would lead to the defeat of Arab and Islamic radicals, the rout of the terrorists, the `reform` of the entire Middle East on democratic lines, and the resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict in Israel`s favour. The road to Occupied Jerusalem, they proclaimed, lay through Baghdad.

The swift collapse of Saddam`s regime marked the high-point of the neo-cons` political fortunes. Throughout this period, Bush enjoyed the almost unqualified support of the US Congress, while the American press and television echoed the triumphalist tone of the administration.

All this has now changed. The American public is waking up to the fact that the country has got itself into a very deep hole in Iraq, from which it sees no obvious exit. The soaring budget deficit ($455 billion this year and an astounding $525 billion in 2004); the daily killing or wounding of American soldiers; the alienation of allies; the apparent lack of planning for post-war Iraq - all these are beginning to cause real alarm.

Members of the Congress, Democratic presidential candidates, retired generals, leading academics, and a media that has remembered its professional duty to the public, are all turning their guns on the Bush administration.

In an unprecedented attack on the Defence Secretary, The Washington Post wrote on September 14 that Donald Rumsfeld might be remembered as `a principal architect of a foreign policy disaster.` In turn, The New York Times reported this week that two senior Democratic members of the House of Representatives had called on Bush to fire his advisers on Iraq because American plans for post-war Iraq had clearly failed.

"Iraq never threatened US security," leading columnist Maureen Dowd wrote on September 12. "By pretending Iraq was crawling with Al Qaida, they`ve created an Iraq crawling with Al Qaida."

Last April, Bush asked Congress for a one-off $75 billion for the war in Iraq, which he was given with no questions asked. His latest request for another $87 billion has, however, aroused a storm of protest and will, over the coming weeks, face intense scrutiny in Congress. Many in Washington are stunned at the colossal cost to the American tax payer of Iraq and Afghanistan.

Last week, the International Institute of Strategic Studies, a prominent London-based think-tank, held its annual conference in the Washington area. The keynote address, delivered by a leading Republican Senator, Chuck Hagel, was a devastating critique of the Bush administration`s policies.

The US, Hagel said, was heading to a situation of deep debt. Vietnam had consumed the US for eleven years. Now America was embroiled in another war, and people wanted to know where the money was going, where the troops would come from, what was the plan.

The US, he said, was in danger of fracturing the multilateral institutions of collective security forged after the Second World War. The US could not on its own deal with today`s immense agenda. The key lay in partnership with its allies.

Bush`s chances of re-election in November, 2004, are likely to be determined by the state of the US economy and the situation in Iraq. While the economy is beginning to show signs of recovery, few new jobs have as yet been created to make up for the three million jobs that have been lost during Bush`s disastrous economic stewardship.

And the mess in Iraq is already taking its toll on Bush`s popularity, as may be seen from the latest polls. Like his father, Bush could end up being a one-term president.

All eyes are now on a possible alliance between Dr. Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont and the frontrunner in the race for the Democratic nomination, and General Wesley Clark, a retired US Army general and former Nato supreme commander.

Both men want to be president rather than merely vice-president, so it remains to be seen whether theirs will be a Dean-Clark ticket or a Clark-Dean ticket. If Iraq dominates the campaign, General Clark`s military experience, and his considerable eloquence, could prove very damaging to Bush.

The revolution in American thinking is not restricted to Iraq. It is also beginning to embrace the Arab-Israeli conflict itself, which has long been dominated by pro-Israeli voices inside and outside the US government.

For example, when Howard Dean recently proposed an even-handed US approach to the conflict and called on Israel to dismantle most of its settlements, he was promptly shouted down by the staunchly pro-Israel Senator Joseph Lieberman, himself a candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination.

But then a remarkable thing happened. A powerful editorial in The New York Times, the main shaper of American opinion, declared that "we strongly disagree" with Senator Lieberman.

"Ending colonies in the occupied lands is central to the survival of the Jewish state…Israel must begin to plan its exit from the West Bank and Gaza not only to permit the creation of a viable, contiguous Palestinian state but to preserve its own future."

The battle to change American policy has only just begun. The neo-cons have not disarmed nor have Israel`s hard-line supporters been silenced. Bush cannot easily pressure Israel and risk losing the support of the millions of Christian Zionists in the American Midwest, which are the basis of his electoral strength and a well-financed ideological force in American politics.

Nor can he easily withdraw from Iraq and risk inflicting a devastating blow on American credibility. These dilemmas are painful, but at least they are now being debated out in the open.

The writer is an eminent commentator and the author of several books on Middle East affairs. He can be contacted at: [e-mail]

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The Lebanon Scenario

Anonymous car bombs, political kidnappings, ethnic militias ... The Iraqi battleground has echoes of an earlier occupation.

By Rod Nordland
NEWSWEEK

Sept. 22 issue — Iraq under occupation is starting to look uncomfortably similar to Lebanon during its long civil war. The central government exists only in name, and neither police nor occupying troops are able to keep the peace.
IN RESPONSE, militias organized along ethnic and religious lines are taking up arms. Neighboring countries patronize friendly groups, or try to undermine rival ones. Arms smuggling over the borders is rife. Massive but anonymous car bombs assassinate opponents, terrorize civilians and intimidate foreigners. Even kidnapping has returned as a political tactic.
It’s dangerous to overemphasize historical parallels, but also useful to examine similarities—particularly at a time when senior U.S. officials, like Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, are arguing that Iraqis should take a greater role in securing their country. Many leading Iraqis want the Americans to hand over power altogether; they just don’t agree on who or what should replace them. Rival groups don’t trust one another. And many want to form their own militias—not in order to fight any other group, they insist, but for self-defense.
How U.S. forces deal with nascent militias may well determine the future of the country. Already the Coalition has worked with local fighters—in part because they depend on Iraqis for intelligence. U.S. Special Forces cooperated closely with Kurdish peshmerga guerrillas, some 70,000 strong, during the invasion. And the Iraqi National Congress still maintains an armed force, composed mainly of glorified bodyguards, but which conducts its own operations and detentions. The Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), which was based in Iran before the war, has a 15,000-man militia called the Badr Brigades. The militiamen had been keeping a low profile until the assassination of SCIRI’s leader, Ayatollah Mohamad Baqir al Hakim, in a massive car bombing at a sacred shrine in Najaf last month. Then it was the Badr Brigades that took over security at the shrine and in much of the city. That in turn prompted the U.S. commander in Najaf to issue a warning last week that militias there had to disband by Friday. He was only partially obeyed. “How many ayatollahs can we sacrifice?” says Adel Abdul Mehdi, political-bureau head of SCIRI. “We have to ensure our own security.”


More worrisome still are the armed followers of Moqtada al-Sadr, a radical young scion of a rival family of Shiite leaders who has built a small but vocal following in the Shiite slums of Baghdad. “We have guns not to attack people but to protect ourselves and our leaders,” al-Sadr said in a rare inter-view last Monday with a small group of journalists. “That’s our right.” Al-Sadr’s followers vowed to defy the American order to disband. But when the deadline approached, al-Sadr’s group avoided a confrontation by staying mostly out of sight.



If Iraq does become the new Lebanon, it could make the old one seem tame. “It’s an even uglier potential than you had in Lebanon because so much more is at stake,” says Yahya Sadowski, an American political scientist who lived in Beirut through much of the war. “You could run a nightmare scenario where Iraq is the Congo of the Middle East, militias all coming in from neighboring countries,” he says. Yet precisely because so much is at stake, Sadowski doesn’t think it will come to that. America can’t afford to pack up and leave, as it did in Beirut after a suicide bomber hit the Marine barracks in 1983, killing 241 Americans.

Israel’s bloody history in Lebanon is even more instructive. The Israeli occupation of the south was initially welcomed by the disenfranchised Shiites. But with time, it was the Shiites under Hizbullah leadership who eventually drove them out (after 17 years). Uri Lubrani, who was Israel’s main policymaker on Lebanon, believes that the Shiite majority in Iraq—representing 60 percent of the population—could give the country stability that Lebanon never had. But he also envisages their turning on their occupiers, and he suspects that Iran will try to foment that: “Their strategy might be to have as many Americans sent back in body bags during the election period as possible.” As Lubrani and the Israelis found in their own occupation, today’s friends can easily become tomorrow’s enemies.


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With Babak Dehghanpisheh in Najaf, Colin Soloway in Baghdad and Dan Ephron in Jerusalem

© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.

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September 20, 2003
Iraqi Council Member Shot; Europeans Still Divided
By REUTERS
Filed at 3:01 p.m. ET
BAGHDAD/BERLIN (Reuters) - Gunmen seriously wounded a leading woman member of Iraq`s Governing Council on Saturday, as Europe`s three biggest powers failed to resolve their rift over Iraq six months after the war began.
They disagreed on how fast power should be handed back to Iraqis by the United States, which tried again to put the bitter prewar debate aside as it seeks international help to rebuild and stabilize Iraq.
Officials said President Bush would issue a ``call to action`` at next week`s U.N. General Assembly meeting, urging members to back a new resolution to share the financial and military burden of Iraqi reconstruction.
In the latest in a string of attacks on Iraqis cooperating with the country`s occupying powers, attackers in Baghdad fired on a car carrying Akila al-Hashemi, a Shi`ite Muslim and career diplomat. She was hit in the abdomen.
Some Iraqis have denounced the 25-member Governing Council for cooperating with the U.S.-led administration in overall charge of the country since the war that ousted Saddam Hussein.
Hashemi, who served in Iraq`s Foreign Ministry during Saddam`s rule, had been due to travel to New York with Iraqi delegates attending the General Assembly meeting.
Leaders of Britain, principal backer of the United States in the war, and Germany and France, main European opponents of the war that began on March 20, met in Berlin in an effort to overcome their differences over the conflict and its aftermath.
But divisions remain.
``Our views are not quite convergent,`` French President Jacques Chirac told a news conference after meeting German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
STRONGER U.N. ROLE Chirac and Schroeder want a much stronger U.N. role and a faster transition to democracy in Iraq.
``It`s important to give the United Nations a bigger role,`` Schroeder said. ``On the technicalities and timetable, we are still not fully agreed,`` Chirac said.
He restated France`s position that Iraq must regain sovereignty within months. Secretary of State Colin Powell has ridiculed the notion that Washington could hand back power overnight.
Blair, in contrast, stressed the leaders` common ground.
``We all want to see a stable Iraq. We all want to see Iraq make a transition to democratic government as swiftly as possible. We all want to see, and know there must be, a key role for the United Nations,`` he said.
The United States, whose 130,000 troops in Iraq suffer almost daily casualties from guerrilla attacks, is seeking a new U.N. Security Council resolution to pave the way for more countries to send troops to Iraq.
Russia`s Vladimir Putin, who also opposed the war, said on Saturday he would not send Russian troops to the country.
``In a practical sense, there is no question of sending troops to Iraq, and we are not even considering this matter,`` the president was quoted as saying by Russian news agencies.
DONOR MONEY
Washington also wants to spread the cost of rebuilding Iraq.
Iraq`s battered economy needs more donor money, with one estimate as high as $70 billion over three to four years, Trade Minister Ali Allawi, in the Gulf state for an IMF/World Bank meeting, said on Saturday.
Bush, under pressure at home about postwar Iraq, will lump his appeal for assistance for Iraq together with efforts to combat the spread of weapons of mass destruction, fight AIDS and people trafficking, senior administration officials said. He will also ask for help in Afghanistan.
``It really is an opportunity to say to the international community: We have real challenges, we can`t ignore them, we have to meet them. It`s a call to action,`` said one official.
Chirac and Schroeder are both due to meet Bush next week at the United Nations, and the Iraqi issue is set to dominate.
In Baghdad, Iraq`s U.S. governor Paul Bremer condemned the attack on Hashemi, which also wounded three bodyguards.
``This senseless attack is not just against the person of Akila al-Hashemi,`` he said. ``It is an attack against the people of Iraq and against the common goals we share for the establishment of a fully democratic government.``
The gunmen struck near Hashemi`s home in western Baghdad. Her car veered off the road and crashed, witnesses said. Bullet holes scarred a tree and bloodstains spattered the roadside.
Copyright 2003 Reuters Ltd


Heute nicht aktualisiert

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Iraq`s occupiers suspected of losing touch with reality

Robert Fisk:

09/20/03: BAGHDAD - A culture of secrecy has descended upon the Anglo-American occupation authorities in Iraq.

They will give no tally of the Iraqi civilian lives lost each day.

They will not comment on the killing by an American soldier of one of their own Iraqi interpreters on Thursday – he was shot dead in front of the Italian diplomat who was official adviser to the new Iraqi ministry of culture – and they cannot explain how General Sultan Hashim Ahmed, the former Iraqi minister of defence and a potential war criminal, should now be described by one of the most senior US officers in Iraq as "a man of honour and integrity."

On Thursday, in a three-stage ambush that destroyed an American military truck and a Humvee jeep almost a hundred miles west of Baghdad, a minimum of three US soldiers were reported dead and three wounded – local Iraqis claimed the fatalities numbered eight – yet within hours, the occupation authorities were saying that exactly the same number were killed and wounded in a sophisticated ambush on Americans in Tikrit.

Only two soldiers were wounded in the earlier attack, they said.

And for the second day running yesterday, the mobile telephone system operated by MCI for the occupation forces collapsed, effectively isolating the `Coalition Provisional Authority` from its ministries and from US forces.

An increasing number of journalists in Baghdad now suspect that US proconsul Paul Bremmer and his hundreds of assistants ensconced in the heavily guarded former presidential palace of Saddam Hussein in the capital, have simply lost touch with reality.

Although an enquiry was promised yesterday into the shooting of the Iraqi interpreter, details of the incident suggest that US troops now have carte blanche to open fire at Iraqi civilian cars on the mere suspicion that their occupants may be hostile.

Pietro Cordone, the Italian diplomat whom Bremmer appointed special adviser to the Iraqi ministry of culture, was travelling to Mosul with his wife Mirella when their car approached an American convoy.

According to Mr Cordone, a soldier manning a machine gun in the rear vehicle of the convoy appeared to signal to Mr Cordone`s driver that he should not attempt to overtake.

The driver did not do so but the soldier then fired a single shot at the car, which penetrated the windscreen and hit the interpreter who was sitting in the front passenger seat.

A few minutes later, the man died in Mr Cordone`s arms.

The Italian diplomat later returned to Baghdad.

Yet the incident was only reported because Mr Cordone happened to be in the car.

Every day, Iraqi civilians are wounded or shot dead by US troops in Iraq.

Just five days ago, a woman and her child were killed in Baghdad by an American soldier after US forces opened fire at a wedding party that was shooting into the air.

A 14-year old boy was reported killed in a similar incident two days ago.

Then on Thursday afternoon, several Iraqi civilians were wounded by US troops after the Americans were ambushed outside the town of Khaldiya. At least two American vehicles were destroyed and eyewitnesses described seeing body parts on the road after the ambush.

Yet 12 hours later, the authorities said that the Americans had suffered just two wounded – even though at least three Americans were first reported to have died and witnesses said the death toll was as high as eight.

Then came the ambush at Tikrit – almost identical if the authorities are to be believed -- in which exactly the same casualty toll was produced: three dead and two wounded

On this occasion, the incident was partly captured on videofilm.

During an arms raid around Saddam`s home town, guerrillas attacked not only the American raiders but two of their bases along the Tigress river. It was, an American spokesman said, a "coordinated" attack on soldiers of the US 4th Infantry Division. Up to 40 men of "military age" were then arrested.

In what must be one of the more extraordinary episodes of the day, General Sultan Ahmad, the former Iraqi ministry of defence, handed himself over to Major General David Petraeus – in charge of the north of Iraq – after the American commander had sent him a letter describing him as "a man of honour and integrity." In return for his surrender – or so says the Kurdish intermediary who arranged his handover to US forces – the Americans had promised to remove his name form the list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis around Saddam.

I last saw the portly General Ahmed in April, brandishing a gold-painted Kalashnikov in the Baghdad ministry of information and vowing eternal war against his country`s American invaders.

It was Ahmed who persuaded now retired General Norman Schwarzkopf to allow the defeated Iraqi forces to use military helicopters on "official business" after the 1991 US-Iraqi ceasefire agreed at Safwan.

These helicopters were then used in the brutal repression of the Shia Muslim and Kurdish rebellions against Saddam which had been encouraged by President George Bush`s father.

Afterwards, there was much talk of indicting General Ahmed as a war criminal, but US General Petraeus seems to have thrown that idea in to the waste-bin.

His quite extraordinary letter to Ahmed – which preceded the Iraqi general`s surrender and was revealed by the Associated Press news agency – described the potential war criminal as "the most respected senior military leader currently residing in Mosul" and promised that he would be treated with "the utmost dignity and respect."

In the same letter – which may be studied by war crimes investigators with a mixture of awe and disbelief -- the US officer said that "although we find ourselves on different sides of this war, we do share common traits.

"As military men, we follow the orders of our superiors. We may not necessarily agree with the politics and bureaucracy, but we understand unity of command and supporting our leaders in a common and just cause."

Thus far have the Americans now gone in appeasing the men who may have influence over the Iraqi guerrillas now killing US soldiers in Iraq.

What is presumably supposed to be seen as a gesture of compromise is much more likely to be understood as a sign of military weakness – which it clearly is – and history will have to decide what would have happened if similar letters had been sent to Nazi military leaders before the German surrender in 1945.

Historians will also have to ruminate upon the implications of the meaning of "supporting our leaders in a common and just cause." Are Saddam and Mr Bush supposed to be these `leaders`?

- INDEPENDENT

[Joerver]

#6996 steht das Original.

Interview - Nacht für Nacht Gemetzel
Juan Gonzalez interviewt Robert Fisk
mit Robert Fisk
DemocracyNow.org / ZNet 18.09.2003


Juan Gonzalez:
Robert Fisk - hier spricht Juan Gonzalez, mit Amy. Zum Thema Zivilopfer - Sie haben mehrere Artikel über ein Thema verfasst, das ansonsten nicht ‘gecovert’ wird, vor allem nicht hier, in den USA. Es geht um die Zahl ziviler Opfer, Menschen, die Tag für Tag im Irak als Resultat der Besatzung ihr Leben verlieren. Können Sie uns etwas dazu sagen?

Robert Fisk:
Ja. Ich habe mich auf diese Story eingelassen - eine ganze Serie von Artikeln -, weil ich so erschüttert bin über einen Artikel, der letzte Woche in der New York Times erschien. Darin war von der schrecklich hohen Opferzahl in den Sommermonaten die Rede. Erst im dritten Absatz wurde mir klar, dass mit ‘schrecklich hoher Opferzahl’ ausschließlich die 72 (toten) amerikanischen Soldaten im Land gemeint waren. Aber seit 9. April sind tausende irakischer Zivilisten hier im Land durch Gewehrfeuer und andere Formen der Gewalt umgekommen. Schuld sind Anarchie und Chaos, die nach der ‘Befreiung’ Bagdads (auf das Land) losgelassen wurden. Nochmal, es geht nicht darum, Saddam zu romantisieren. Vor dem Krieg war es dessen Regierung, die die Verbrechen beging. Jetzt, nach dem Krieg, begehen die Irakis die Verbrechen; das eigentliche Problem aber ist, es gibt keine Sicherheit. Nacht für Nacht geschehen absolute Gemetzel an Irakern. Entweder, sie werden aus Rache ermordet oder sie fallen Dieben zum Opfer, oder sie werden an amerikanischen Checkpoints von schießwütigen US-Soldaten niedergeschossen, oder es handelt sich um Leute, die in Familien- Fehden verwickelt waren. Gerade komme ich - ich erzähle Ihnen von der Bagdader Leichenhalle, (von der ich gerade komme). Kurz zuvor kamen dort 21 neue Opfer mit Schusswunden an. Mit 5 der betroffenen Familien habe ich gesprochen. Alle Opfer wurden erschossen, weil jemand ihr Auto stehlen wollte, oder sie wurden nächtens von Dieben ermordet oder von völlig Unbekannten getötet. Es gibt hier Waffen zuhauf. Jede Nacht hört man die Schießereien. Ganz Bagdad dröhnt vom Gewehrfeuer. In einer Leichenhalle, in der ich war, erzählte mir der Leichenwächter, fast 40% aller Toten, die in seine Leichenhalle kämen, seien an US-Checkpoints erschossen worden, von Soldaten. Entweder, ein Auto nähert sich dem Checkpoint zu schnell, oder amerikanische Soldaten geraten unter Feuer und feuern zurück - und treffen Zivilisten in der Nähe - sie (die Soldaten) suchen nicht den direkten Feindkontakt, wer immer die Angreifer sein mögen. Hier so ein Vorkommnis: Vor 4 Tagen wurde eine Frau und ihr Kind tot ins Krankenhaus eingeliefert, US-Soldaten hatten sie erschossen. Sie hatten das Feuer auf Leute eröffnet, die anlässlich einer Hochzeitsfeier in die Luft schossen. Und solche Dinge passieren ständig. Vor rund 6 Wochen hatten wir auch so einen Fall - den ich persönlich untersuchte. 2 Männer fahren zu nah an einen Checkpoint heran - kein normaler Checkpoint, nur ein Stück Stacheldraht über die Straße geworfen; es passierte in einem sehr armen Stadtteil Bagdads. Die Amerikaner eröffneten das Feuer auf den Wagen. In dem ausgebrannten Fahrzeug habe ich etwa 23 Einschusslöcher gezählt. Die Kugeln setzten das Benzin in Brand. Ich weiß nicht, ob die zwei Insassen, beides Männer, noch lebten (aber ich schätze), sie verbrannten bei lebendigem Leib. Jedenfalls verbrannten sie, bis sie tot waren. Ich schätze, einer oder beide haben noch gelebt, als das Auto in Flammen aufging. Als das Auto brannte - so Augenzeugen - hätten die Amerikaner einfach zusammengepackt und den Checkpoint geräumt. Später ging ich wieder in die Leichenhalle. Ich fand zwei Skelette mit verbranntem Fleisch vor. Ihre Ausweise waren längst im Feuer verbrannt. Das Auto selbst und das Autokennzeichen schmolzen in die Straße hinein. Also warteten in jener Nacht erneut zwei irakische Familie auf geliebte Menschen, die nie mehr heimkehren sollten.

Juan Gonzalez:
In einem Ihrer Artikel, Robert, schätzen Sie, dass landesweit rund 1000 Iraker pro Woche sterben. Aber Sie haben Schwierigkeiten, in die Hospitäler hineinzukommen - die Besatzung verbietet es Journalisten oder erschwert es ihnen, in die Hospitäler zu gehen.

Robert Fisk:
Absolut richtig. Die Provisorischen Koalitionsbehörden (C.P.A.) - wie sich die Besatzungsbehörden ja nennen -, haben durch das Gesundheitsministerium mitteilen lassen, das neue Gesundheitsministerium, es untersteht der C.P.A. und arbeitet natürlich für die Besatzungsbehörden, dass es Journalisten nicht erlaubt sei, in die Hospitäler zu gehen, es sei denn, sie besäßen eine offizielle Erlaubnis der neuen Minister, und die arbeiten natürlich für die Besatzungsbehörden. Das heißt, theoretisch wird so verhindert, dass wir an die Zahlen kommen. In der Praxis allerdings kommen wir in die Krankenhäuser hinein, wir kennen ja viele Ärzte, oder es findet sich ein anderer Weg. Normalerweise sympathisieren die Sicherheitsleute sehr mit uns. Es sind Iraker. Sie wollen, dass wir die Geschichte dieser großen Tragödie für die Iraker erzählen. Gestern zum Beispiel. Ich habe ja gerade wieder 6 Stunden in der städtischen Bagdader Leichenhalle verbracht. Gestern also bekamen sie 21 Tote herein - zwölf davon im Kugelhagel gestorben. Heute morgen hatten sie bis 10 Uhr - Bagdader Zeit - schon wieder 5 Neuzugänge. Rechnet man das alles zusammen und bezieht es auf einen tödlichen Monat - und man bedenke, selbst auf den Najafer Friedhof, der etwa 200 Meilen südlich von Bagdad liegt, werden an Tagen, an denen es zu Schießereien kommt, 20 Tote eingeliefert, Gewaltopfer, nicht alle natürlich von Amerikanern getötet, manche sind Opfer familiärer Rache, von schießenden Dieben, oder Leute versuchen Plünderer zu stoppen und kommen dabei eher zufällig ums Leben oder sie geraten ins Kreuzfeuer -, also demnach kommen wir auf eine Zahl von mindestens 1000 getötete Iraker pro Woche. Aber natürlich ist es nicht möglich, in die Hospitäler zu gehen - nicht nur wegen der Restriktionen für Journalisten - man kann einfach nicht jeden Morgen sämtliche Hospitäler sämtlicher irakischer Städte besuchen, und die Todeszahlen addieren. Dennoch, es ist wirklich extrem.

Heute morgen hatte ich auch so einen Fall - ein junger Mann, einziger Sohn eines Schiiten. Er stammte aus der ärmsten Gegend Bagdads. Man hat ihn unter seiner Türe getötet - keiner weiß warum. 4 sehr, sehr wütende Schiiten brachten den Leichnam zur Leichenhalle. Der eine trug eine Milizuniform, ich denke, er war Mitglied der sogenannten Badr-Brigade. “Das ist, weil es keine Sicherheit gibt. Amerika will nicht, dass wir Sicherheit haben. Es will unsere Gesellschaft spalten. Wir werden es nicht zulassen. Wir werden uns explodierend gegen die Amerikaner werfen”, sagte er und meinte damit die Selbstmordbomber. Er war Schiit - nicht etwa Sunnit aus dem sunnitischen Dreieck. Was hier passiert, immer mehr Irakis - zumindest die etwas Politischeren - haben das Gefühl, die Amerikaner hätten gar kein Interesse, das Sicherheitsdefizit zu beheben. Iraker, die weniger konspirativ denken, sehen die Sache etwas milder. Aber sie hegen die - in meinen Augen schreckliche - Vorstellung oder Haltung, es sei den Amerikanern so ziemlich egal, was aus den Irakern wird, dass sie zwar über Demokratie reden, die sie ihnen bringen wollen, sie befreien. Dabei interessierten sie sich aber nur für die westlichen Soldaten, die sterben. Das Leben ganz normaler Irakis interessiere sie nicht wirklich.

Und immer und immer wieder diese Beispiele - Menschen, die an Checkpoints von Amerikanern erschossen wurden. Die Amerikaner wollen nicht einmal herausfinden, wen sie niedergeschossen, getötet oder verletzt haben. Nachts gehen sie nicht auf die Straße. Gerade vor ein paar Tagen hatten wir einen sehr traurigen Fall. Ein Mann, er hat überlebt - ich habe mit seiner Familie geredet -, er ist Nachtwächter und bewachte ein Gebäude, eine Fabrik, sie wurde von Plünderern angegriffen. Er erwiderte das Feuer auf die Plünderer, dann tauchten Amerikaner auf und schossen ihn in die Brust. Vor zwei Tagen wurde er zum zweitenmal operiert, um sein Leben zu retten. Kein einziges Mal haben ihn die US-Militärs besucht. Und von niemandem eine Entschuldigung. Keiner sagt, wollen Sie vielleicht eine Entschädigung? Wir helfen Ihnen. Aber wir kennen Fälle - vor allem in abgelegenen Gebieten, in denen es sehr rau zugeht -, wo die Amerikaner und andere westliche Truppen den Familien ihrer toten Opfer durchaus finanzielle Kompensation anboten und auch gezahlt haben. Ich denke, auch im Falle der Polizisten sind sie so verfahren. Die Dritte US-Infanterie-Division hat ja nahe Falludschah mindestens 8 Polizisten getötet - Freitag letzter Woche bzw. Donnerstag letzter Woche. Es war empörend, lange Zeit haben die Amerikaner nur immer gesagt, sie hätten keine Information zu den Todesfällen - lange, nachdem wir dort gewesen waren und bewiesen hatten, dass US-Munition einer Infanterie-Einheit bei der Tötung der Polizisten verwendet wurde. Ich habe die Zähne und das Gehirn eines der Polizisten neben der Straße gefunden*. Hätte es sich um das Gehirn und die Zähne eines Amerikaners gehandelt, ich glaube kaum, dass man das alles so einfach dort hätte herumliegen lassen. Es ist ein generelles Gefühl. Es geht nicht darum - da widerspreche ich den Verschwörungstheorien - dass die Amerikaner den Bürgerkrieg wollen oder die Leute spalten, Gewalt erzeugen - nein. Sie werden auf die Weise ja selbst zu Opfern - wenn auch in einem unendlich kleineren Maßstab als die Iraker. Nein, die Amerikaner interessieren sich einfach nicht wirklich für die Iraker. Und das ist genau das Krebsgeschwür, das sich momentan in diese Gesellschaft hineinfrisst.

Anmerkung: Falls Sie eine Audio- oder Videokopie des gesamten Beitrags möchten, rufen Sie an unter 1 [phone]

Anmerkung d. Übersetzerin

*‘Ein Rätsel - und die USA beeilen sich nicht mit der Auflösung’ von Robert Fisk, hier auf unserer ZNet-Seite





[ Übersetzt von: Andrea Noll | Orginalartikel: "Slaughter Every Night" ]

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Published on Saturday, September 20, 2003 by the Boulder Daily Camera
Bush Inflicts `Compassion` on Poor, Hungry, Jobless
by Christopher Brauchli

Let them eat cake.
— Attributed to Marie Antoinette

If more is better, then things couldn`t be better, although the juxtaposition is a bit awkward. Recent statistics show an increase in the wealth of the wealthy, the number of poor and the number of unemployed. Much of it can be attributed to the enlightened policies of the Bush administration, although the wealthy`s increasing wealth was a work in progress when Mr. Bush became president and was simply enhanced by his enlightened tax cuts.

According to a report by Rorie Sherman, Editor in Chief of Trusts and Estates Magazine, the most recent Federal Reserve Board survey of consumer finances discloses that the rich in America have gotten even richer over the last few years. Ms. Sherman reports that the "[a]verage net worth of the top 10 percent of households increased by 30 percent to $2.75 million from 1998 through the end of 2001. Average income, assets and home value of the top 10 percent of households also increased in that time by 39 percent, 29 percent and 31 percent respectively." The survey interviewed 4,449 families and found that the remaining 90 percent of the population enjoyed gains as well, but in significantly smaller amounts. Income, assets and home value for that group increased on average 10 percent, 19 percent and 18 percent, respectively.

The survey results are hardly a surprise. In an effort to boost the economy, all sorts of tax cuts have been enacted under the watchful eye of George Bush and most of their benefit has been reserved for the very rich. Thanks to the tax cuts, those with incomes in excess of $1 million a year (which probably includes most of the folks in the top 10 percent) realize tax savings of more than $100,000, whereas those with exceedingly (or as they might put it, excessively) low incomes realized savings of less than $100.

The wealthy`s good news was accompanied by census figures released on Sept. 2. They disclosed that at the same time the very rich were getting even richer and the rest of us were getting only slightly richer, there were a few leftovers who escaped this felicitous trend. They are those we prefer not to notice but who continue to force themselves into our collective consciousness because of their deplorable state, which is mostly attributable to their own lack of resourcefulness. They are the poor and the unemployed.

According to the Census Bureau`s American Community Survey, the number of Americans living below the poverty line (and thus not enjoying increased incomes, assets and home values) grew by more than 1.3 million people during the second year of the second Bush administration. The total percentage of people living in poverty in the wealthiest country in the world went from 12.1 percent to 12.4 percent, bringing the number of people who live in poverty to 34.8 million. Families living in poverty went from 6.6 million in 2001 to 7 million in 2002 and the number of children living in poverty rose from 11.6 million to 12.2 million.

Responding to the report, Stuart Butler, an economist with the American Heritage Foundation, was quoted in The New York Times as saying that the data were "a fairly predictable product of the slowing economy." He went on to say that: "The issue is, what do you do to continue to strengthen the economy? You take the necessary steps to encourage people to move back into the work force, plus making sure we don`t do anything to weaken the welfare reforms put in place some years ago."

Which brings us to the final bit of good news, as it were.

On Sept. 5 the Labor Department announced that 93,000 jobs were lost in August, thus suggesting that a lot of people need encouragement to "move back into the work force." The problem is, if there are no jobs, encouragement is not terribly useful. Mr. Bush, being a compassionate sort, since he knows what it`s like being a failure in business (having been that himself on more than one occasion), said in a speech that the unemployment report "shows we`ve got more to do. And I`m not going to be satisfied until every American who`s looking for a job can find a job."

Being the president of everyone in the country, including the poor, he did not simply end his speech with meaningless words. He came up with great ideas on how the jobless could find work. In a speech given the same day as the new unemployment statistics were released, he articulated the solutions. He said that the tax cuts which have been so helpful to the very rich should be made permanent, which will, of course, be of great benefit to the unemployed. He called upon Congress to limit legal damages against doctors and corporations and urged it to permit more domestic oil and gas drilling. He also said Congress should ease up on regulating business. Although he didn`t say it, given the context of the speech, it is obvious that he thinks once those things are done, jobs will magically reappear and the unemployed will once again become productive members of society.

Of course it will probably take a few weeks for Congress to do all those things. In the meantime, the unemployed should be patient. They know Mr. Bush cares about them and that`s worth a lot even to the hungry.

Christopher Brauchli is a Boulder lawyer and and writes a weekly column for the Knight Ridder news service. He can be reached at [e-mail]

Copyright 2003, The Daily Camera

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Blair gets the cold shoulder at Berlin summit
Luke Harding in Berlin
Sunday September 21, 2003
The Observer

Tony Blair`s efforts to seek agreement with France and Germany over Iraq suffered an embarrassing setback yesterday when French President Jacques Chirac bluntly insisted that power should be handed back to Iraqis in a `few months`.

Speaking after a meeting with Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, Blair sought to set aside his diplomatic feud with Paris and Berlin - and said all three leaders believed the United Nations should play a `key role` in rebuilding Iraq. `Whatever differences there have been over Iraq, it is important that France and Britain and Germany should work together,` Blair said.

But his conciliatory remarks did little to hide the continuing split between Britain and the United States and France - and, to a lesser extent, Germany - over the timetable for returning Iraq to domestic rule. Chirac yesterday repeated his demand that the UN be given a `significant and operational role` in running the country. The transfer of sovereignty should be `immediate`, he added. While Schröder was less outspoken, it was clear that Germany supports the French position.

Schröder, who hosted yesterday`s summit, greeted Blair with a polite, effusive handshake. By contrast, he gave the French President an enormous bear hug, a sign of the two countries` continuing political warmth.

Chirac`s unambiguous comments make it less rather than more likely that agreement can be reached next week at the UN on a new resolution drafted by Washington. All three leaders are flying to New York for discussions, with the German Chancellor meeting George Bush for the first time in more than a year.

The Bush administration is offering to give the UN an increased role in the Iraqi political process in the hope that UN involvement will be enough to get other countries to provide troops for Iraq. In reality, though, the US will still rule the country. `We all want to see a stable Iraq. We all want to see Iraq make a transfer to democratic government as swiftly as possible,` Blair said yesterday.

There was no disagreement with the principle that the UN should play a key role in Iraq, Blair added. But British and American officials have made it clear they believe the French demand that power be transferred in months is `totally unrealistic`.

The fragile situation inside Iraq was dramatically confirmed yesterday when gunmen shot one of only three women members of Iraq`s governing council. Aqila al-Hashimi was leaving her Baghdad home when unidentified men opened fire. US doctors were last night treating her for abdominal wounds. The US administrator in Iraq Paul Bremer condemned the attack, saying he was `shocked and saddened`.

Yesterday`s meeting in Berlin was the first between Europe`s three biggest players since the fall of Saddam five months ago - and their public feud which saw Britain, the US`s closest ally, pitted against France and Germany, its biggest critics. Yesterday Blair was asked whether he had gone to Berlin to heal the rift as an envoy of Bush.

`He has been invited as Tony Blair. He came as Tony Blair and I`m quite definite he is going to return as Tony Blair,` Schröder joked. It had been `fascinating` to listen to the Prime Minister, he added.

US officials have indicated their latest diplomatic strategy on Iraq is to isolate the French, ignore the Germans and buy off the Russians. There are some signs this is working, with Berlin much keener than Paris to mend its relationship with Washington.

However, in Moscow President Putin said Russian troops would not serve in any international force in Iraq. `We are not even considering this matter,` Russian news agencies reported him as saying. Putin meets Bush at Camp David on Friday and Saturday.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Bush covers up climate research
White House officials play down its own scientists` evidence of global warming

Paul Harris New York
Sunday September 21, 2003
The Observer

White House officials have undermined their own government scientists` research into climate change to play down the impact of global warming, an investigation by The Observer can reveal.

The disclosure will anger environment campaigners who claim that efforts to cut greenhouse gas emissions are being sabotaged because of President George W. Bush`s links to the oil industry.

Emails and internal government documents obtained by The Observer show that officials have sought to edit or remove research warning that the problem is serious. They have enlisted the help of conservative lobby groups funded by the oil industry to attack US government scientists if they produce work seen as accepting too readily that pollution is an issue.

Central to the revelations of double dealing is the discovery of an email sent to Phil Cooney, chief of staff at the White House Council on Environmental Quality, by Myron Ebell, a director of the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). The CEI is an ultra-conservative lobby group that has received more than $1 million in donations since 1998 from the oil giant Exxon, which sells Esso petrol in Britain.

The email, dated 3 June 2002, reveals how White House officials wanted the CEI`s help to play down the impact of a report last summer by the government`s Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), in which the US admitted for the first time that humans are contributing to global warming. `Thanks for calling and asking for our help,` Ebell tells Cooney.

The email discusses possible tactics for playing down the report and getting rid of EPA officials, including its then head, Christine Whitman. `It seems to me that the folks at the EPA are the obvious fall guys and we would only hope that the fall guy (or gal) should be as high up as possible,` Ebell wrote in the email. `Perhaps tomorrow we will call for Whitman to be fired,` he added.

The CEI is suing another government climate research body that produced evidence for global warming. The revelation of the email`s contents has prompted demands for an investigation to see if the White House and CEI are co-ordinating the legal attack.

`This email indicates a secret initiative by the administration to invite and orchestrate a lawsuit against itself seeking to discredit an official US government report on global warming dangers,` said Richard Blumenthal, attorney general of Connecticut, who has written to the White House asking for an inquiry.

The allegation was denied by White House officials and the CEI. `It is absurd. We do not have a sweetheart relationship with the White House,` said Chris Horner, a lawyer and senior fellow of CEI.

However, environmentalists say the email fits a pattern of collusion between the Bush administration and conservative groups funded by the oil industry, who lobby against efforts to control carbon dioxide emissions, the main cause of global warming.

When Bush first came to power he withdrew the US - the world`s biggest source of greenhouse gases - from the Kyoto treaty, which requires nations to limit their emissions.

Both Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are former oil executives; National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice was a director of the oil firm Chevron, and Commerce Secretary Donald Evans once headed an oil and gas exploration company.

`It all fits together,` said Kert Davies of Greenpeace. `It shows that there is an effort to undermine good science. It all just smells like the oil industry. They are doing everything to allow the US to remain the world`s biggest polluter.`

Other confidential documents obtained by The Observer detail White House efforts to suppress research that shows the world`s climate is warming. A four-page internal EPA memo reveals that Bush`s staff insisted on major amendments to the climate change section of an environmental survey of the US, published last June. One alteration indicated `that no further changes may be made`.

The memo discusses ways of dealing with the White House editing, and warns that the section `no longer accurately represents scientific consensus on climate change`.

Some of the changes include deleting a summary that stated: `Climate change has global consequences for human health and the environment.` Sections on the ecological effects of global warming and its impact on human health were removed. So were several sentences calling for further research on climate change.

A temperature record covering 1,000 years was also deleted, prompting the EPA memo to note: `Emphasis is given to a recent, limited analysis [which] supports the administration`s favoured message.`

White House officials added numerous qualifying words such as `potentially` and `may`, leading the EPA to complain: `Uncertainty is inserted where there is essentially none.`

The paper then analyses what the EPA should do about the amendments and whether they should be published at all. The options range from accepting the alterations to trying to discuss them with the White House.

When the report was finally published, however, the EPA had removed the entire global warming section to avoid including information that was not scientifically credible.

Former EPA climate policy adviser Jeremy Symons said morale at the agency had been devastated by the administration`s tactics. He painted a picture of scientists afraid to conduct research for fear of angering their White House paymasters. `They do good research,` he said. `But they feel that they have a boss who does not want them to do it. And if they do it right, then they will get hit or their work will be buried.`

Symons left the EPA in April 2001 and now works for the National Wildlife Federation as head of its climate change programme. The Bush administration`s attitude was clear from the beginning, he said, and a lot of people were working to ensure that the President did nothing to address global warming.

Additional reporting by Jason Rodrigues


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Profile: Wesley Clark
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
General Election
He has all the advantages of Clinton as a would-be Democrat President, plus he`s a Vietnam vet and the US hero of Kosovo... and his image is a lot more wholesome to boot. But as a man more used to ordering than persuading, he must learn to run rather than gun for the White House

Paul Harris
Sunday September 21, 2003
The Observer

From atop a plastic chair in a Fort Lauderdale deli, General Wesley K. Clark last week finally began to pound his electoral war drum. It was the first campaign stop of his long-expected bid for the White House, and the beat was familiar. `Why are we engaged in Iraq, Mr President? Tell the truth,` he thundered in a firm voice that still betrayed an Arkansas drawl. `Why, Mr President?`

Why indeed? Finding an answer to the Iraq Question is what has finally propelled the General to seek the Democratic nomination, ending a painfully prolonged `Will he? Won`t he?` dance. It is the reason President George Bush suddenly looks vulnerable. It is the reason Clark - faced with a Democrat field packed with no-hopers - has opted to run for public office for the first time. It is typical of the General that that office is the top job. He does not like half-measures.

You can feel the relief (and some jaw-dropping disbelief) from many Democrats. From no chance just a year ago, they now have a candidate who hails from Arkansas, is a former Rhodes scholar and who joined the race late to run as an outsider. Sound like anyone you know? But in truth it is the differences with Bill Clinton that are more important. While Clinton was debating the merits of inhaling or not, Clark was finishing top of his class at West Point. No whiff of scandal pollutes Clark`s solid marriage to his wife, Gertrude, a native of Brooklyn. Clark did not shirk the Vietnam War: he was wounded and decorated in it.

And it gets better. Clark`s homely appearance betrays a diverse background. He grew up a Baptist but converted to his wife`s Catholicism. He was born in Chicago but raised in the Deep South. Oh, and his real father was Jewish. In a country where the ethnic/ regional vote matters, Clark seems to have all the bases covered.

But the ace in Clark`s pack lies in the word `General`. For Democrats it used to be a dirty word but now it is a totem. For half a century the Republicans have pounded the Democrats for being soft on national security. Clark, like a white knight on a charger, can finally slay that dragon. It says much about America that the only sort of anti-war candidate with a chance of being elected is a four-star General, and Clark is that man. Cut him and he bleeds the army. He fought in one war and led Nato in another. But he opposed invading Iraq and, unlike many other Democrat candidates, he did it from the beginning. If the Democrats did not already have Clark they would have to invent him. Perhaps they did.

Certainly they have been trying to pull him into the fold for a long time, and so have the Republicans. It was only days after the 11 September terrorist attacks when an Arkansas Republican leader phoned the General and asked him to join them. With a war brewing, the Democrats, holed by their old `national security` weakness, would be finished for a generation, the Republican insisted. Clark (who has not always been the committed Democrat he must now appear) refused. The Iraq débcle has changed everything. If he wins the White House next year, one wonders just how much Southern humble pie that particular Republican will be forced to eat.

But is Clark the dream Democrat that so many fervently pray for? He is certainly determined enough for the job. One of the most over-employed words to describe him is `intense`. It is true, though. He is. His whole life has been about discipline and hard work, most often shown in the service of his country. In a military career spanning 34 years he took 23 jobs and moved 31 times. At the end of it he was `fired` (his words) after winning a war (also his words) in Kosovo as supreme comman der of Nato. That is his great strength. Republicans, itching to face off against the anti-war Howard Dean, can`t accuse Clark of a lack of patriotism. When Clark was wounded in an ambush in Vietnam he taught himself to walk without a limp despite missing a quarter of the flesh from one calf. He taught himself a firm handshake again, despite losing muscle tissue from his right thumb. His motivation? He did not want to be furloughed out of the army. That scares Republicans. You simply can`t accuse a man who took four bullets from the Viet Cong of not loving his country.

Clark appears small (though actually stands at 5ft 10ins) but his body is lean and agile. He is addicted to swimming, which he does every day if at all possible. His fans call him resolute and fearless, but others, including some fellow generals, have criticised him of being high-handed and narrow-minded. An oft-cited incident occurred in the Kosovo conflict when Clark wanted British General Sir Michael Jackson to take over the airfield at Pristina to prevent a Russian force landing. Jackson refused, insisting: `I am not going to start the Third World War for you,` retorted Jackson.

Yet behind Clark`s barrack room discipline lies a man of warmth and wit. He has a well known talent for mimicry, Slobodan Milosevic being a speciality (`General Clark, he obeys orders; he is like dog,` Clark will say, complete with Serbian hand gestures). Despite his left-leaning politics, he hunts and fishes and is at home in the Country Club in Little Rock. But he is not southern born. Clark`s father was Benjamin Kanne (that`s what the `K` stands for), a Jewish lawyer and World War I veteranwho died when Wesley was a child. His mother, Veneta, moved from Illinois back to her home town of Little Rock where she married an ex-banker, Victor Clark. Young Wesley took his stepfather`s name and says he only discovered his Jewish background when he was in his twenties.

Clark seemed destined for the military from an early age. His brightness attracted a clutch of scholarship offers but he was interested only in the one from West Point. It is only now, at the age of 58, that he is having a proper tilt at a non-military career. He has fought plenty of wars, but never an election campaign. In Kosovo Nato prevailed without taking a single casualty, but Clark was defeated away from the battlefield when he fell victim to the Pentagon planners back home. He won a military victory and then lost it all in the office war where he was outmanoeuvred by Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Hugh Shelton and Defence Secretary William Cohen. Clark, they thought, was too political. Too outspoken. He had to go. That defeat rankled with Clark. He described it as one of the two worst moments in his life (the other was being shot).

This coming campaign could bring more pain. Clark has lived his life in the army. Now the General has to go on the stump and face the realities that his rivals (all professional politicians) thrive on. He must develop policies beyond being anti-war. He is not afraid to call himself a liberal but has admitted already that he needs time to develop policies on many areas that he will be questioned on: the economy, free trade, the environment.

More importantly, Clark the General must become Clark the Politician. He must ask for money, he must ask for help, he must want people to love him, to trust him and want to vote for him. Generals don`t usually know how to ask for anything. In the army they order things to be done. Clark must learn to take the rough with the smooth. He must ignore the jibes that will come his way. In 1988 another former Nato commander, General Alexander Haig, sought the Republican nomination. Standing outside a factory gate and pressing the flesh, he was rebuffed by one worker. Offended, he snapped to the waiting hack pack: `Every once in a while you meet an asshole.` Sometimes Generals and politics simply do not mix, and Haig soon withdrew. No one thinks Clark is a Haig (he is too smart, too dedicated, too keen to serve), but the point is fair. Winning wars is not the same as winning elections. Mistakes do happen.

Clark has slipped up before. During talks to end the Bosnian war he met Serb General Ratko Mladic, a man whose hands are stained with the blood of many innocents. But Clark and Mladic got along fine (perhaps they had to) and swapped caps and posed for pictures. Clark even accepted a bottle of plum brandy and an engraved pistol from the murderer. It triggered a huge press furore. Such a public relations disaster could kill Clark as a viable candidate. And there is no doubt that the rocky terrain of an American election is every bit as treacherous as a Balkan civil war.

In the end only time and the primaries will tell. But if he wins, if somehow the General pulls it off, some in the Democratic Party believe in an inspiring dream. In it Bush, their flight-suit wearing enemy who has styled himself a Warrior President, will be coming up against the Real Thing. The dream is called Victory.

Wesley Kanne Clark


Age: 58

Born: Chicago, 23 December 1944

Jobs: General and aspirant US President

Family: Married to Gertrude, with one son, Wesley Jnr, who is an LA scriptwriter

Sport: Swimmer

War wounds: Four Viet Cong bullets... and a post-Kosovo sacking on the Pentagon battlefield


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Bush steps up fight against European safety testing
By Geoffrey Lean, Environment Editor
21 September 2003


President George Bush is mounting an intensive campaign to force European countries to drop safety tests expected to save thousands of lives each year, internal US government documents seen by The Independent on Sunday reveal. Britain, which has been generally supportive, last week denounced the measures as "disastrously wrong".

The documents - which include diplomatic cables signed by the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell - show that the Bush administration has threatened Europe with trade sanctions if it goes ahead with the tests, which are designed to protect workers and the public from highly toxic chemicals.

It has already succeeded in weakening the proposals, even though they were approved in principle two years ago by EU governments and the European Parliament. And environmentalists fear that Mr Bush - with Tony Blair`s help - will now succeed in emasculating them altogether.

The tests are designed to identify the most dangerous chemicals threatening Europeans, including cancer-causing and "gender-bender" substances, so that they can be controlled. Only a tiny proportion of the 100,000 or so man-made chemicals used in the EU has ever been tested for the effects on the people who use them.

It plans to reverse the burden of proof by getting industry to provide evidence of the hazards or safety of the chemicals it sells, rather than marketing them and waiting for governments to try to pick out the most dangerous ones when they have already done harm.

The European Commission estimates that it would prevent up to 4,300 cases of cancer a year among chemical workers alone; far more lives could be expected to be saved among the public at large.

The US pressure seems to be changing British policy. Up to now Britain has taken a generally favourable approach to the directive. But last week Patricia Hewitt denounced it as "disastrously wrong".
21 September 2003 10:44


© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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Members of the new Iraqi Army received directions from an instructor Saturday during ambush training at the Kirkush base east of Baghdad.
September 21, 2003
Iraqis` New Army Gets Slow Start
By ALEX BERENSON


KIRKUSH MILITARY TRAINING BASE, Iraq, Sept. 15 — The mock attack begins with whistles, because the new Iraqi army needs to conserve its blanks.

Within a few minutes, under the watchful eye of private trainers paid by the United States, a platoon of recruits overruns the enemy position. Like the rest of their battalion, these young men are only weeks from becoming full-fledged soldiers.

When they are ready, their new army will have 735 men.

In Washington, politicians and military planners say the United States needs to rely much more heavily on Iraqi soldiers and police officers, both to restore order and to lighten the load on overworked American troops. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said that strengthening the Iraqi security services is a top priority. Pentagon planners have optimistically spoken about replacing American soldiers with Iraqi troops.

But on the ground here, the Iraqi cavalry appears a long way off.

Until now, the American-led occupying force has made only desultory efforts to train a force to replace Saddam Hussein`s army of 400,000, which disintegrated with Mr. Hussein`s defeat.

Whether the Americans simply underestimated Iraqi resistance or whether the United States wanted Iraq to depend on America for security — as some Iraqis contend — the delay has fueled Iraqis` distrust of Washington`s intentions and placed a heavy burden on American troops.

But continuing violence, American casualties and doubts about the war at home have prompted an abrupt change in strategy. The United States hopes to train a force of 20,000 Iraqis by next September, said Maj. Gen. Paul D. Eaton, who is overseeing the creation of the new army. That is almost triple the 7,000 previously planned.

An additional 20,000 people will be hired for supply duty and other administrative tasks in the new army, though they will not be trained as soldiers.

"I did not anticipate the level of violence that we`re going through right now," said General Eaton, the former commander of Fort Benning, Ga., where the Army trains its elite Ranger units. A plain-spoken man expert in training troops, he now works out of an office at the occupying forces` headquarters in Baghdad. He commutes by helicopter to the base here in Kirkush, in the desert between Baghdad and Iraq`s border with Iran, where the first battalion is being trained.

The new strategy calls for middle-ranking officers from the former Iraqi Army to receive a few months of training early next year. The officers will then create two divisions totaling 13,000 troops, with only minimal American oversight.

Even if the United States can find enough officers who pass security and other checks to carry out this plan, these troops will not be available until next summer, General Eaton said.

Over all, the United States plans to spend $2.2 billion in the next year training the new army, a figure included in the $87 billion that President Bush has requested for military operations and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The new units will be lightly trained, to carry out tasks like guard duty and border patrols, rather than raids and weapons sweeps. At first, they will carry only assault rifles and some light machine guns in a country where rocket-propelled grenade launchers are sometimes displayed at funerals.

The new army will be of little use against well-armed guerrillas, much less as a deterrent to the established armies of Iran and Turkey, Iraq`s neighbors to the east and north, said Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington policy institute. That is likely to remain the case for the next several years, he said.

"One of the great problems here is that they are creating an Iraqi army that is seen by most Iraqis as not an Iraqi army, but as a paramilitary force that looks more like a tool of the occupation than a national defense force," Mr. Cordesman said.

That opinion is widely shared on the streets of Iraq. In Kufa, a religious center 100 miles south of Baghdad, a half dozen men agreed in interviews that America had acted deliberately to leave Iraq`s army weak. "It`s not the right thing to do," said one of the men, Hussan Muhammad.

Bush administration officials deny that allegation. They say the future Iraqi government will decide how many troops Iraq needs and whether to allow the United States to establish permanent bases here, should the Pentagon seek them.

"This is the beginning, not the end," said Walter B. Slocombe, the Pentagon official in charge of rebuilding Iraqi security institutions. "The future Iraqi government will make decisions on how big the military should be."

General Eaton does not argue that the new army can defend Iraq on its own. "You apply the right force against the right threat," he said.

In the short run, he said, the new soldiers will mainly relieve American troops on less risky assignments like traffic checkpoints and highway patrols.

Some of those duties would be similar to the tasks of a national Iraqi police force, which Mr. Rumsfeld has suggested will also play an important role in relieving the burden on occupying troops. But the police force is also being built up slowly.

It now has 37,000 officers, all carry-overs from the previous government, about as many as in the New York City Police Department, to patrol all of Iraq, which is about as large as California. This has left large sections of Iraq basically unpoliced, especially at night, when many Iraqis are afraid to go out. Gunshots rattle Baghdad after dark, and 751 people died in suspicious circumstances or in car accidents in July, compared with 237 the previous July.

"A critical mass sufficient to handle the current situation is going to have to be much more than we have on the streets at the present time," said Douglas Brand, a senior British police officer who is the chief adviser to the Iraqi police.

The occupying forces want to train an additional 35,000 Iraqi police officers in Hungary over the next two years, Mr. Brand said. None are now being trained, though training is expected to begin this fall.

Even if the plan to have former Iraqi officers recruit a new army works, the only new troops in the next 10 months will come from the training at the base here, which is expected to produce about 6,700 by next September.

By comparison, about 151,000 occupying troops are now in Iraq.

General Eaton said the occupying forces were reconstructing the Iraqi army as quickly as possible. The soldiers of that army, many of them conscripts who had been ill treated, fled after the fall of Mr. Hussein`s government. Its barracks were looted to their walls, its tanks blown apart or stripped to their tracks, its weapons stolen.

The old Iraqi bases "do not tolerate human life right now," General Eaton said. "The buildings are carcasses."

The occupying forces plan to rebuild the bases while they train a select group of former Iraqis officers in how to lead a volunteer force in a democratic nation, he said. Then, next spring, it will recruit former soldiers, telling them that "the barracks are ready" and "your leaders have been retrained."

If all goes as planned, the 13,500 recruits will form the two new divisions to complement the 6,700 from Kirkush.

But the change in strategy will not affect the 735 Iraqi men now at Kirkush. About 20 American, Australian and British officers and enlisted soldiers are on hand to oversee Vinnell Corporation, a Virginia subsidiary of the Northrop Grumman Corporation, which runs the training under contract.

The recruits get a heavy dose of classroom instruction on their moral obligations as soldiers. They also get physical and military training, although it is far less rigorous than American or British soldiers receive.

One trainee, Saman Talabane, an Iraqi Kurd, said he looked forward to serving in the first battalion when it graduates in early October.

"We hope to make a good small army," he said.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Mein Beitrag zur Bayernwahl. Für manche Amis dürfte es nicht bekannt sein, dass D nicht nur aus Bayern und Heidelberg besteht.

September 21, 2003
Clinging to Conservatism in the Land of Lederhosen
By MARK LANDLER


MUNICH, Sept. 19 — The beer steins clinked merrily, laughter flowed up and down the long tables and a gentle, late-summer breeze whispered through the trees. To drink a beer in the garden at the Paulaner brewery on the eve of the Oktoberfest is to take part in a ritual as old as Bavaria itself.

Franz Maget chose this comfortable destination for the last day of his hopeless campaign on Friday to oust the prime minister of Bavaria, Edmund Stoiber. Mr. Maget`s supporters gamely held up placards that said "Maget can" and "Maget wins," though everyone in the place, the candidate most of all, knew he could not and would not.

The only suspense in Bavaria`s state elections, to be held on Sunday, is whether Mr. Stoiber`s conservative party, the Christian Social Union, will gain two-thirds of the seats in the Bavarian Parliament.

That would leave the opposition, Mr. Maget`s Social Democratic Party, even more marginalized than usual here in Germany`s largest state, where the conservative party has ruled without interruption — or even serious challenge — for 46 years.

"It is a danger to democracy," Mr. Maget said in a brief interview after his last formal campaign speech. "Democracy depends on a power balance. It may sound defensive to talk about this two-thirds majority, but we have to warn people."

A pleasant man with a finely tuned sense of irony, Mr. Maget may be the perfect choice to lead the Social Democrats on their quixotic quest. He does not patronize his supporters with empty references to his impending victory. He does not wail about being a sacrificial lamb.

Mr. Maget, 49, simply poses a question: Is it healthy for Bavaria, the undisputed economic powerhouse of Germany — home not only of beer but also of BMW — to function like a one-party state?

That may be stretching things a bit. The mayor of Munich, Christian Ude, is a Social Democrat, as are the mayors of Bavaria`s two other major cities, Nuremberg and Augsburg, which have younger, more ethnically diverse populations than are found in the countryside.

Despite the success of the Social Democrats in attracting these urban voters, Mayor Ude said the conservatives` hold on power at the state level could open the door to abuses.

"A two-thirds majority would be politically and psychologically devastating," he said. "The government could do whatever it wanted. It could close its meetings. It could restrict committees that look into scandals."

The Christian Social Union says it would never invoke such powers, since that would alienate the voters it has spent a half-century cultivating. Party leaders, in fact, play down the potential effect of such a large majority, which only became a campaign issue recently when polls indicated that the party was piling up 60 percent of the vote, versus 20 percent for the Social Democrats.

"Our measure is not how strong or weak the opposition is, but how well we reflect the hopes and dreams of the people," said Alois Glück, the parliamentary leader of the Christian Social Union. "Of course," he added with a benevolent smile, "it would add to the myth of the C.S.U."

Indeed, there is something mythical about the party. At a time when politics in Germany is widely disparaged or even dismissed, this party preserves an almost atavistic link with Bavarians.

Founded in the postwar ashes, the party originally drew a mix of southern German Catholics and evangelical Protestants. Pious, conservative, and tied to the land, it represented what was then a poor, overwhelmingly agrarian society.

Under the forceful, sometimes bombastic leadership of Franz Josef Strauss, the party presided over the transformation of Bavaria from a bucolic farming community into a prosperous high-tech economy.

Mr. Stoiber, a hard-working, somewhat dour former aide to Mr. Strauss, built on this record, attracting Internet start-ups and helping build a dazzling Munich airport. By German standards, Bavaria is thriving, with a jobless rate well below the national average of 10.4 percent.

Even as Bavaria goes digital, the party has zealously guarded its links to the old folkways. Mr. Stoiber, who usually prefers wine, dutifully hefts a beer stein at public appearances. Pundits here call his approach "laptops and lederhosen."

Mr. Stoiber tried to ride this formula to national office last year, and came within a whisker of ousting Chancellor Gerhard Schröder. Mr. Stoiber is expected to run again in 2006, if he can vanquish rivals like Angela Merkel, leader of the Christian Democratic Union, the sister party of the Christian Social Union, which covers the rest of Germany.

A two-thirds majority in Bavaria would bolster his case that he should continue to be the standard-bearer for Germany`s right.

After a decade as the state`s leader, Mr. Stoiber, 61, is an almost imperial figure. But he is more respected than revered. Commentators say that Mr. Stoiber, never a zesty campaigner, has seemed restless, even bored during this race.

"He is in some ways the anti-Bavarian," said Heribert Prantl, a columnist at the Munich paper Süddeutsche Zeitung. "He is not a beer drinker, he is not gemütlich" — which translates roughly as comfortable.

Mr. Maget, by contrast, is like a cozy eiderdown. His eyes twinkle. He wades into crowds with open arms. He cracks self-deprecating jokes. He was born in Munich, so his Bavarian bona fides are not in question.

Alas for Mr. Maget, he has been a member of the Social Democratic Party since 1971, and its state parliamentary leader since 2000. This is a ticket to obscurity, and Mr. Schröder, sensing a humiliating defeat, has kept his distance.

Mr. Prantl, who has watched Social Democrats tilt at windmills here for decades, has an air of weary resignation. But he cannot resist a small plug for his left-of-center newspaper. "There`s a saying in Bavaria," he said, "that the only true opposition to the C.S.U. is the Süddeutsche Zeitung."



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September 21, 2003
THE ECONOMY
Iraq Offering Laws to Spur Investment From Abroad
By TIMOTHY L. O`BRIEN


DUBAI, United Arab Emirates, Sept. 20 — Iraq, in an effort to jump-start its economy and override security concerns, will announce new laws here on Sunday that remove most hurdles to foreign investment in the struggling country and offer very low tax rates for corporations and individuals, a senior Iraqi official said tonight.

The Iraqi announcement coincides with an annual meeting here of the world`s leading financial ministers and central bankers to discuss global economic matters.

The moves are intended to make a stable Iraq, which has the world`s second largest pool of known oil reserves, one of the most attractive venues for doing business in the Persian Gulf region. Yet Iraq is far less than stable, and with the pace of reconstruction proceeding much more slowly than the Bush administration anticipated, the announcement by the Iraqi Governing Council`s finance minister, Kamel al-Gailani, also seeks to boost parallel efforts by the White House to drum up outside financial support for its efforts there.

The American treasury secretary, John W. Snow, will meet with Mr. Gailani here Sunday at the World Bank and International Monetary Fund conference. Mr. Snow has been pressing hesitant allies to contribute billions of dollars in aid to help rebuild both Iraq and Afghanistan.

Although Mr. Snow said in an interview here today that the United Nations had not been discussed as a possible conduit for such financing, President Bush is expected to issue a "call to action" in a speech to the United Nations General Assembly in New York on Tuesday for member nations to contribute both troops and money to Iraq and Afghanistan.

In an interview at his hotel here tonight, Mr. Gailani said that Sunday`s announcement "is the most important thing we are working on. It`s a message for the investors to come invest in our country and help get Iraq back on its feet."

The fact that Iraq appears to be awash in uncertainty, antagonism and violence may not inspire confidence from foreign investors. The Bush administration faces similar hurdles in Afghanistan, where it is trying to introduce a market economy and encourage foreign investment at a time when machine gun nests still bristle from the rooftops of government buildings.

To try to allay safety concerns and provide for rich returns to those willing to risk investing money in a war zone, Mr. Gailani said foreign owners could control as much as 100 percent of any enterprise in which they invest in Iraq; that would be a sharp contrast with most of the Arab world, where foreign ownership of locally based concerns is typically highly restricted. The ownership rule applies to every sector of the economy except natural resources, meaning that the lucrative, but still relatively dormant, oil industry will remain entirely in the hands of Iraqi owners.

The new ownership laws, completed on Friday, allow investors to jump into Iraq immediately, without having to be screened by the government. All profits from such ventures can be fully and immediately remitted overseas, meaning the money does not have to be stored for any period of time with an Iraqi institution. Real estate cannot be owned by foreigners under the new law, but can be leased for up to 40 years.

For companies and individuals who set up shop in Iraq, corporate and personal income tax rates will range from 3 to 15 percent after a tax holiday expires at the end of the year. To boost trade, Iraq will impose a flat tariff of just 5 percent on all imports except for relief supplies.

The Central Bank of Iraq has been made legally and operationally independent, and foreign banks will be allowed to open branches there. The law permits six foreign banks to buy complete control of local banks within the next five years, after which there will be no limits on foreign banks` entry into Iraq. An unlimited number of foreign banks can purchase up to 50 percent of local banks.

The banking law, should it gain traction with outsiders, would introduce competition to a market dominated by just two large Iraqi banks, Rafidain Bank and Rashid Bank. Lending in the country is anemic, and an adviser to Mr. Gailani said he hoped that the law would encourage new banks entering the market to make loans to small businesses, which are seen as a key to future economic growth.

On Oct. 15, Iraq will introduce a national currency, the new Iraqi dinar. It will be the first single unified currency in Iraq in some time.

All of these moves come in advance of a donors` conference in Madrid in late October, where America will ask allies to contribute funds to Iraq. The United States will hold a similar conference here on Sunday to seek funds for Afghanistan.



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September 21, 2003
Housing Plan for Top Aides in Afghanistan Draws Rebuke
By CARLOTTA GALL


KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 20 — Outrage over a plan to build high-end residences in central Kabul for government officials is threatening to discredit the 20-month-old administration of President Hamid Karzai.

The accusations come as Mr. Karzai enters the last year of his current term and he prepares for another foreign tour to raise money to rebuild. His government has already been losing support because of perceived injustices and the government`s slowness in its reconstruction efforts.

To build the new housing, which would be for Afghan cabinet ministers, government officials and mujahedeen commanders, a crew of 100 armed police officers with bulldozers started demolishing the modest mud-walled houses of about 30 families two weeks ago.

The crew broke down walls of 12 houses, injuring at least two children who were inside, residents said. In scuffles with the residents, the police beat several with rifle butts, residents said, leaving at least two men with cuts on their heads.

"We received no warning," said Rahmat Shah, a former army colonel who lived in one of the houses with his wife and 10 children. "We faced armed people who said our houses were rubbish." Some families have repaired their damaged homes and refuse to leave.

The United Nations Human Rights Commission`s special representative for housing, Miloon Kothari, was in Kabul at the time. He criticized the evictions and also questioned a system that allowed government officials to receive land and housing ahead of half a million people who have applied for land allocations in the city.

He accused the defense minister, Marshal Muhammad Qasim Fahim, and the capital`s police chief, Abdul Basir Salangi, of being behind the action and said they should be removed from office. He also implicated the education minister, Yunus Qanooni.

"The governmental authorities should not be involved in any processes that lead to further dispossession of the vast majority of the people of Afghanistan," Mr. Kothari said in an interview.

The Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission then published a list of 29 names of government ministers, mujahedeen commanders and local officials who had received plots of land in the area, known as Shirpur. As many as 300 officials have received plots, and all but 4 of the 32 cabinet ministers have accepted land, commission members said.

"Any minister who accepts this, knowing the price is low, is liable and not being honest," Mr. Kothari said. "People see the land-grabbing and corruption."

Evidently angry, Mr. Karzai denounced the plans and ordered an inquiry and a freeze on building in the neighborhood. "The government will resolve any issue around this and any mismanagement," his spokesman, Jawed Ludin, said at a weekly briefing. Then, on Wednesday, Mr. Karzai replaced the police chief, Mr. Salangi.

Cabinet ministers who admitted benefiting from the plan denied any part in the attempted evictions, but defended their right to land or housing in the capital. One said she had accepted the land as part of a plan to provide secure housing for the cabinet. Four of those interviewed said Mr. Karzai had signed a plan last year for the development.

A Defense Ministry spokesman denied that Marshal Fahim was involved in any wrongdoing. He said that the land distribution and demolition orders came from the mayor`s office and that the presidential palace had agreed to them.

Mr. Karzai`s spokesman denied the president approved the plan.

A man who identified himself only as Hakim, an engineer who lives across from the development, said that he and his neighbors had watched as high walls rose and that builders had told him the new housing belonged to Marshal Fahim, his cousin and several of his generals.



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September 21, 2003
Pakistan, a Troubled Ally

Pakistan was not directly involved in the events of 9/11, but its international standing and the reputation of its leader, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, were thoroughly transformed in the wake of the terrorist attacks two years ago. By abruptly switching sides in Afghanistan and letting Washington use Pakistani bases to fight the Taliban, General Musharraf managed, in weeks, to lift Pakistan`s status in Washington from pariah to strategic partner.

Yet beneath the surface of Washington`s new closeness with Islamabad, mutual suspicions continue to fester. Neither country has fully delivered what the other expected, though America`s shortcomings and Pakistan`s are scarcely equivalent. The Bush administration has withheld trade benefits Pakistan deserves. General Musharraf has failed to sever all links with international terrorism.

During the cold war, Pakistan`s geography and anti-Communism made it an American favorite. After that, relations began to sour. Washington grew increasingly unhappy over Pakistan`s strong support for the Taliban, links with Kashmiri terrorists and covert development of nuclear weapons. Then, in 1999, General Musharraf overthrew a democratically elected government.

For a brief time after General Musharraf`s switch on Afghanistan, there seemed a chance for a healthier relationship. In breaking with the Taliban, the general stood up to some of the most troubling forces in Pakistani society, including military intelligence leaders and Islamic fundamentalists. He promised a timely return to democracy and announced he would expel foreign fundamentalists. His actions fell short of his words.

In return for his help in Afghanistan, General Musharraf hoped that Washington would grant broad relief from the protectionist American import quotas that stifle Pakistan`s textile and apparel industry, the country`s largest industrial employer and main exporter to the United States. Instead, only selective bonuses have been offered, many for products Pakistan does not produce in large quantities. Unlike the military aid Washington has offered, freer trade in textiles would benefit Pakistan`s weak economy and struggling factory workers.

Meanwhile, Pakistan`s behavior has fallen well short of what Americans are entitled to expect from an ally in the war on terrorism. Although it has cooperated in the arrest of some leaders of Al Qaeda, Pakistan has never adequately sealed the Afghan border. That made it possible for key Qaeda fugitives to escape and now allows Pakistani recruits to join a reviving Taliban. Pakistan still provides Kashmiri terrorists with sanctuary and access to areas bordering Indian-ruled territory. Wresting Kashmir away from India remains an open goal of Pakistani policy, with violence considered a legitimate tool.

Pakistan has behaved extremely irresponsibly with respect to nuclear weapons. American experts believe it may have helped both North Korea and Iran develop nuclear weapons technology. Pakistan`s own nuclear weapons are thought to be under General Musharraf`s control, but in a country whose history has been scarred by repeated military coups, that is not totally reassuring. Democracy remains a distant mirage.

Pakistan`s help in Afghanistan, though less than ideal, is still needed. Now Washington is hoping General Musharraf will contribute Pakistani peacekeeping troops to Iraq. If that can be done under a United Nations flag, it makes sense. Otherwise, America must look for ways to reduce its dependence on General Musharraf. Fighting terrorism effectively requires allies untainted by terror.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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September 21, 2003
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Worried Optimism on Iraq
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN


I am an optimist by nature, and last week in Tel Aviv an Israeli friend told me he knew why. He said it was because I was short — and short people tend to be optimists because they can only see the part of the glass that is half full, not half empty.

These days, though, even someone at my eye level is having a hard time seeing the part of the glass in Iraq that is half full. I am still an optimist on Iraq, but a "worried optimist." My optimism is based on one big thing that has happened — and my worrying is based on two smaller things that have not.

The big thing that has happened in Iraq, which you can really feel when you`re there, is that there is a 100 percent correlation of interests between America`s aspirations for Iraq and the aspirations of Iraq`s silent majority. We both want the same thing for Iraq — that it not become Iran, that it not become Saddam, but that it become a decent, modern-looking Iraqi alternative. This overlap of aspirations is hugely important. This is not Vietnam.

This also explains why the remnants of Saddam`s order, who want all their old privileges and powers back, have had to go to such incredible lengths — bombing the U.N. office and the most holy mosque in Shiite Islam. It is not easy to break apart the overlap of interests between America and the Iraqi silent majority. It has real weight and inertia: the Iraqi Governing Council has appointed ministers, the ministers are getting the government running, normality is returning to many streets.

But here`s what`s worrying. The resistance from the Saddamists is getting stronger, not weaker. It is becoming so strong, I would argue, that a new war needs to be mounted against the Saddamist forces in the Sunni triangle near Baghdad. Two Republican Guard divisions just melted away in this area and they still have to be defeated. The war has to be finished, but we can`t be the ones to finish it. This is a purely urban fight, and if we try to finish it alone what will happen is more of what`s happened in the past two weeks — fatal blunders. We just accidentally killed 10 Iraqi policemen in one town and gunned down a 14-year-old Iraqi boy in another who was part of a wedding party firing guns in celebration. Non-Arabic-speaking Americans cannot fight an urban war in Iraq. Forget it. We must get off this course immediately.

If we have many more such "friendly fire" incidents, even the Iraqi silent majority will turn hostile. That is what the Saddamists want. Which is why I will stop worrying about this only when I see the new Iraqi government has formed its own robust internal security force (now being discussed), with its own intelligence assets, to fight the Saddamists by the local rules. That is the only way to root them out, and only Iraqis can fight this war. If Americans have to keep killing Iraqis, we`re dead.

The other thing that will make me stop being a worried optimist, is when I not only see Iraqis fighting for the aspirations we have in common, but when I hear them speaking out to defend those aspirations in public — in Arabic. Whenever senior U.S. officials tell me about Iraqis who thanked them, with tears in their eyes, for getting rid of Saddam, I have a simple response: Could you please ask those Iraqis to say it in public, in Arabic, on Al Jazeera TV? There`s been way too little of that.

In part, this is because many Iraqis are still afraid that we`re going to leave and Saddam will come back and punish all who worked with us. In part, this is because America is so radioactive in the Arab-Muslim world that even an America that has come to Iraq with the sole intention of liberating its people cannot be openly embraced. In part this is because while we think we`ve "liberated" Iraq, and deserve applause, we forget the fact that Iraqis couldn`t liberate themselves is deeply humiliating for them, and our mere presence there reminds them of that. And in part, it`s because while we and the Iraqis share the same broad aspirations, it doesn`t seem to them that we have a workable plan to achieve them.

We need to ease those doubts, and Iraqis need to get over them, because we can`t stay as long as we need to, to get the job done, without Iraqis ready to defend the progressive outcome we both aspire to.

Friedman`s first rule of Middle East reporting: What people tell you in private is irrelevant. All that matters is what they will defend in public. And when I see Iraqis defending our shared aspirations — with both their words and their lives — my optimism will know no bounds and every glass will look full.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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September 21, 2003
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Labors of Hercules
By MAUREEN DOWD


LOS ANGELES

I picked up the phone.

Arnold Schwarzenegger`s Teutonic accent boomed through the line. "Who`s your daddy?" he demanded.

I was stunned. I was expecting a call from his campaign, because I had asked him the day before if I could have an interview. But what could he possibly be thinking? Had all the flak he`d been taking from the other candidates about avoiding debates driven the movie star off the deep end? Were those Arnold the Barbarian rumors true?

As I was trying to figure out how to answer, the voice grew more insistent: "Who is your daddy and what does he do?"

"He was a policeman," I replied.

"You lack discipline!" Arnold barked.

While I was puzzling over how he knew that, before we`d even met, I heard my assistant, Julie, giggling in the next office. It turned out the voice on my phone was emanating from her computer — downloaded sound clips from the actor`s movies.

Real Arnold, as it turned out, knew about Computer Arnold. When I met him Friday evening at Caffe Roma in Beverly Hills, he laughed when I confessed my mistake. "That`s from `Kindergarten Cop` — `Tell me, who is your daddy, what does he do?` "

He seems unfazed by those who make fun of his father`s Nazi past or his accent. Smoking a cigar and sipping an espresso, he recalled the voice coach he went to after he was told he`d never make it in Hollywood: " `A fine wine grows on a vine` was one of the things we practiced, because in German the F, the W, the V sounds are switched."

"How about the guy who was on Howard Stern just recently?" Mr. Schwarzenegger says, about an Arnold impersonator. "People really thought it was me, talking about strippers and things."

That`s not helpful, I noted, at a time when the fledgling politician has been getting some heat for his real appearance Wednesday with Howard Stern, who tried in vain to draw him into a discussion on why the Los Angeles City Council banned lap dances. The show, prudishly sniffed Bruce Cain of Berkeley`s Institute of Governmental Studies to The San Francisco Chronicle, is "classic adolescent male humor."

Poor Arnold. He`s squeezed between McClintock conservatives, who don`t like his female-friendly positions on social issues, and starchy P.C. types, who don`t like his history of ribald humor and macho roles. At a press conference in South Central the other night, an overwrought woman from a TV station pressed him on a quote he gave while promoting "Terminator 3," about how cool it was to push the female Terminator`s face into a toilet bowl.

It was impossible not to feel sorry for the guy, as he explained once more: "She was a machine. She wasn`t a woman. She was a machine. Do you get it? I love women. Trust me."

Gray Davis, the stiff, unpopular guy, is out there straining to act spontaneous and loosey-goosey. On Thursday, Jesse Jackson coached Mr. Davis in rhyming, and on Friday, the wooden governor relied on Al Gore to help him kick back. As Mr. Gore wiggled his derrière to a blaring soundtrack of James Brown, Mr. Davis did his best to clap on beat.

Mr. Schwarzenegger, the engaging, popular guy, is out there straining not to act spontaneous and loosey-goosey. His new strategist, the crafty Mike Murphy, says they need to let Arnold be Arnold, but Arnold confesses the transition from sassy star to serious pol is hard. "I have to now be very careful," he said. "People say to you all the time, `Arnold, be yourself, just the way you are.` It sounds good but as soon as I put on my cowboy boots or the loud belt buckle, they say, `Arnold, don`t wear that jacket. That T-shirt doesn`t work.` So they say be yourself and you really can`t."

The other candidates have ganged up on the ex-bodybuilder and kicked sand in his face. The governor doesn`t bother to put up much of a defense of his record. Instead, he paints himself as another victim of the right wing that snatched Florida and impeached Bill Clinton. But even as he denounces those who would have impeached Mr. Clinton over his peccadilloes, his supporters have not hesitated to spread gossip about Mr. Schwarzenegger`s racy past.

"It`s not about my personal life," the Republican says. "It`s not about what I said to Oui magazine. It`s not about me going to this debate versus this debate. It`s all about people wanting to get him out of there."



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A photo of Omar Shaabani with martyr`s black tape in the corner is shown in the Khaldiya home of his father, Ahmed, shown in the background.
washingtonpost.com
Attackers United By Piety in Plot To Strike Troops


By Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, September 21, 2003; Page A01


KHALDIYA, Iraq -- In an austere room with concrete floors and walls adorned with two renderings of Islam`s holiest shrine in Mecca, two brothers of Adnan Fahdawi pulled out a creased and torn green folder stuffed with the memorabilia of martyrdom.

There was a tag from the black body bag in which the 31-year-old Fahdawi`s body had been delivered to the police station. "Multiple GSW," read the bloodstained card, using a shorthand label for gunshot wounds. Cause of death: "extrusion of brain matter." Next, a picture of Fahdawi`s hard, bearded face. Smoldering eyes, hinting at determination, stared out over a caption that declared him a martyred hero. After that was a letter he and several others had written before they attacked U.S. forces under a full moon on July 15 near this Euphrates River town.

"Today, we have sacrificed ourselves to defend our honor and pride," read the typed statement, embossed with traditional religious invocations in floral, Arabic script. "We have sacrificed our souls for the sake of Islam, sacrificed our souls to get rid of the monkeys, pigs, Jews and Christians. To all our brothers and sisters, we prevail on you to be joyful with us."

In the guerrilla war that grips the provincial towns and weary villages of the Tigris and Euphrates valleys, the U.S. occupation is meeting resistance from those President Bush has described as foreign terrorists and "members of the old Saddam regime who fled the battlefield and now fight in the shadows." They have a common goal, he said in an address this month: "reclaiming Iraq for tyranny."

But in this Sunni Muslim town colored in shades of brown and intersected by canals of open sewage, Fahdawi and the others who died are celebrated as heroes. Neighbors and relatives call them defenders of faith, not supporters of former president Saddam Hussein. And in their words, actions and ideas, relatives say, the men represent a homegrown movement, grounded in a militant reading of religion, that augurs a new enemy for the occupation.

Fahdawi and the five others hailed from different families and tribes, their relatives say, but were united by the resurgent piety that followed the collapse of Hussein`s government in April. They were devotees of a militant Syrian preacher, whose once-banned bootleg tapes and videos sell for less than $1 and intersperse calls for jihad with images of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. They congregated in a small mosque, with a tidy garden of periwinkles and jasmine, whose chalkboard at the entrance reads, "You, the ones who believe, do not take the Jews and Christians as guardians."

They went into the attack, relatives say, believing that their deaths would serve as a collective example.

"When the neighbors arrived, they said, `We didn`t come to give condolences, we came to give congratulations,` " said one of Fahdawi`s brothers, Salah, 33. "He was a hero. We wish God would plant the faith in our hearts that He put in Adnan`s."

As the brother spoke, U.S. helicopters whirred overhead, a familiar sound in a town where guerrillas have repeatedly attacked U.S. forces and where the police chief, considered by many a collaborator, was killed last week. Salah Fahdawi, filled with pride, ignored them.

"Adnan truly believed in God," he said.

A Formidable Presence


For weeks, Fahdawi`s picture hung at the Mashaheer Barbershop, on Khaldiya`s main drag. His portrait was bordered by roses. Written above it was the familiar Koranic saying: "Do not consider dead those killed for the sake of God. Rather they are living with God." Below it was inscribed the date of his death, July 15, and a caption saying he had been "martyred for the sake of raising the words `there is no god but God.` "

The men at the barbershop said Fahdawi had been a formidable, even intimidating presence in this conservative town.

Born into a family of 14, he formed a construction crew after his discharge from the military, and he was a familiar sight on his battered red motorcycle in the serpentine alleys of Khaldiya. In his leisure time, he studied Islam with the town`s elder cleric, 65-year-old Sheik Abed Saleh, and he brought religious fervor, they said, to almost every element of his life.

He never missed the obligatory five daily prayers, often performing them at the Nur Mosque. He fired his employees for not doing the same. He refused to eat with residents he suspected of looting in the war`s chaotic, lawless aftermath. During the lunar month of Ramadan, when Muslims fast from sunrise to sundown, he would refuse to speak with those he suspected of having cheated.

At 31, the equivalent of middle age in Iraq, he had yet to start a family of his own.

"He preferred to be a martyr than to marry," said Salah, his brother.

Neighbors and relatives said Fahdawi was at the center of the cell that came together for the attack. Through construction jobs, he met Khalil Huzeimawi, a stocky, 32-year-old father of five who moved from neighboring Fallujah a year ago. Fahdawi shared a passion for sports with Omar Shaabani, a quiet, 24-year-old father of three. And he was a childhood friend of both Hamid and Raed Kirtani, cousins in their twenties who worked together selling poultry from a shack built of chicken wire and dried reeds.

Each had his own lifestyle. Fahdawi was nicknamed "the sheik," a reflection of his religious study and public demeanor. Shaabani and Huzeimawi were more mature, with families to raise. Hamid, the only one not to serve in the military, was working on obtaining a business degree in Baghdad, commuting 50 miles from Khaldiya on most days. Raed, who was supposed to marry last month, was obsessed with soccer, hanging pictures of Argentina`s Javier Saviola, Gabriel Batistuta and his favorite, Diego Maradona, on his wall.

Relatives recalled that the men shared a growing piety after the war, along with new influences made possible by Hussein`s fall.

The relatives said most of them enjoyed listening to Koranic recitation and began attending with devotion the Friday prayers at Khaldiya`s Grand Mosque. At least three listened to the sermons of Mahmoud Quul Aghassi, the militant Syrian preacher. Relatives said two of them, upset and angry, went to the funeral in Fallujah for Sheik Laith Khalil, a fiery prayer leader who was killed June 30 together with six religious students in what U.S. officials said appeared to be a mistake during a "bomb manufacturing class" in his mosque.

While their neighbors complained of rising prices -- cooking gas that has gone from 16 cents to $2, cement that has gone from $20 to $90 a ton -- the men railed against the U.S. occupation, a presence they viewed through the prism of religion, not politics.

It was a message, relatives said, pronounced often at the Nur Mosque, a small worship hall down the street from a vegetable stand where the men often met. Inside the mosque, along freshly painted walls, is a picture of Jerusalem`s al-Aqsa Mosque, one of Islam`s holiest sites. Across the top, lettering reads, "Jerusalem, we are coming."

"The Americans are infidels," Sheik Aalam Sabar, a 33-year-old cleric, said as he sat on his mosque`s spotless gray carpets. "It is legitimate to fight the Americans."

On the night of July 14, Fahdawi prepared for his death.

His brothers said he told his mother to put henna on the palms of her hands, a sign of joy and celebration often reserved for a wedding night. He told his family he wanted no grieving if he was killed -- not the tents set up for mourners, not the shooting in the air that traditionally marks funerals. As a martyr, they recalled him insisting, he believed he would be alive in heaven.

He sat down to a dinner of rice, tomatoes and eggplant. When the last call to prayer pierced the sweltering summer night, he got up from the table, said an abrupt goodbye and left through a yard of lotus trees. "He didn`t return," said Salah.

The muezzin`s sonorous call, at 9:30 p.m., was the signal for the others.

Raed Kirtani had taken a bath and put on cologne, then laughed with his mother before leaving. Shaabani simply bid his family farewell. Some of the men donned their dark tracksuits and tennis shoes before they left. Others wore them under their dishdashas, a traditional gown. Fahdawi, his family said, had put his clothes in a bag and taken them to the mosque a day earlier.

`I Had a Feeling`


They staged their attack near an ammunition depot where U.S. forces are still stationed, between Habanniya Lake and a canal that snakes along brown, rocky bluffs interspersed with scraggly eucalyptus trees and electric towers.

At about 1:30 a.m., Fahdawi and the others lay in wait as troops left the depot. U.S. officials at the time said the men might have been expecting Humvees. Instead, they met Bradley Fighting Vehicles. Armed with rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47s, they opened fire, but were outgunned. Fahdawi and four others were killed. A sixth fighter was captured. There were no U.S. casualties.

In central Khaldiya, a mile or so away, residents woke up and clambered onto their roofs to watch a battle that some said lasted 90 minutes, others three hours. But even before the fighting ended, relatives and friends said they knew what the outcome would be.

"I had a feeling," said Khaled Kirtani, Raed`s brother.

As the sun rose, relatives went to the moonscape that was the battlefield. U.S. soldiers had taken the bodies to the hospital, a nearby base and finally Khaldiya. Left behind were 100-yard trails of blood, marking where relatives believed the bodies had been dragged away, along with spent rounds, soiled shoes and shreds of clothing. Muthanna, Shaabani`s 19-year-old brother, found the bloodied, bullet-holed head scarves of Shaabani, Fahdawi and Huzeimawi. Nearby were the baseball hats, one emblazoned with the Nike logo, that had been worn by the Kirtani cousins.

"We delivered each one to their families," Muthanna said.

Sheathed in body bags and transported for hours in Humvees under a scorching sun, the bodies arrived at the police station in the afternoon. Khaled Kirtani said his brother`s face was so mangled he could recognize him only by his hair. The belly of his cousin, he said, was ripped open. He thought Shaabani`s body had been run over by a tank. Fahdawi`s relatives said half his face was blown away.

Within hours, the relatives recalled, the men crossed the threshold from death to martyrdom in the eyes of the town.

Khaled said his brother`s body seemed to retain a lifelike quality, as befitting a sacred death. "There was no odor," he recalled, surprised even now. "They had gone to meet God."

In the funerals held the same day, hundreds of relatives and neighbors paid their respects.

Shaabani`s father, Ahmed, 45, displayed a yellow and black notebook with the names of 40 relatives and 318 friends. Carefully recorded in handwritten script, it noted their names and the sums they gave -- from $1 to $14 -- to mark his death.

In Fahdawi`s house, the family heeded his wishes and refused to cry as they received mourners who numbered -- in Salah`s words -- "200, 300, perhaps 1,000." Sheik Abed, his former teacher, told the family not to wash the body, but, as is customary for martyrs, to bury it as was. He bestowed on Fahdawi an honorific reserved for fathers, a symbol of the marriage that awaited him in heaven.

As they placed his body in a white shroud, then inside a wood coffin, the sheik declined to utter the funeral prayers.

"A martyr doesn`t need the prayers," Salah recalled the sheik saying. "He`s guaranteed to be in heaven. He`s already there."

Sheik Abed, a pacific man with a gray and black beard, was long the most influential cleric in Khaldiya. In an interview, he acknowledged knowing Fahdawi and said they had sometimes studied together, but he declined to call him a martyr. That`s God`s judgment, the sheik said. While he said he understood their reasons for fighting -- as Muslims, they should not be ruled by infidels -- he described the men as reckless and impetuous. The occupation is too young, he said, and it is too early to take up arms.

"It`s not time for jihad," he said.

But relatives of the men said Sheik Abed is no longer an unquestioned voice in Khaldiya. With Hussein`s fall, they said, the city has opened to influences that were once underground, currents that have swept the Arab world for a generation.

For Fahdawi and the others, Aghassi, the preacher also known as Abu Qaqaa, was their cleric of choice. Based in Syria, the tall, lanky Aghassi refrains from criticizing his own government but delivers a stern message of jihad that views the United States and Israel as allies in a campaign against the Muslim world. As it does for other Islamic preachers, the Palestinian cause sits at the heart of Aghassi`s rhetoric, which is framed as a struggle between religions. In a booming voice, he punctuates his speeches with talk of traitors and mercenaries.

His cassettes and videos are available in religious bookstores in Jordan, but were circulated only by hand in Iraq before the occupation. Now they are freely sold in neighboring Fallujah for less than $1 each. Relatives said the young men around Fahdawi rented them for 15 cents, sometimes watching them together and trading them among themselves.

A Love for Death


A gifted orator, Aghassi favors a style that builds to a crescendo, then softens, only to build again.

"We want manhood and heroism," he declared in one taped sermon, delivered to a crowd that broke into tears. "We want people to love death and yearn for heaven. We want the words `no god but God` to shake the world."

Muslims, he said, should look to martyrdom "as a thirsty man looks to water."

In another video, he delivers his sermon as images are shown of planes flying into the World Trade Center, followed by pictures of the White House, Congress and Kremlin and sounds of loud explosions. In the background, the cleric stands clad in camouflage, with an M-16 rifle in one hand, a pistol in the other.

"America has tyrannized the Muslim nation," Aghassi said in a sermon titled "The Cadence of Justice in the Time of Defeat" and recorded last year. "Pour on it your anger and change its strength to weakness, its wealth to poverty, its unity into disunity."

On a cassette taped after Baghdad`s fall, he railed against Arab leaders allied with the United States "who know nothing but palaces" and drew on Islamic history to make his points. While forgiving of Hussein and Syria`s president, he suggested the conflict would unfold in a clearly religious context -- of infidels against believers, of Muslims against others.

"Show these mercenaries a black day," he intoned. "Like a dark night, drown them in the Euphrates and the Tigris."

Capt. Michael Calvert, a military spokesman in neighboring Ramadi, said U.S. troops along the Euphrates have yet to determine the motives for the guerrilla attacks that seem to be on the rise.

"If you can build us a profile," he said, "we`ll hire you."

Little Doubt on Motives


But Khaled Kirtani, whose brother was buried with his cousin in a cemetery overlooking the green-domed Sheik Masoud shrine, has little doubt about the men`s motives. Their tombstones called them "martyred heroes." Ribbons colored the green of Islam are tied at the base.

Kirtani, like other relatives whose conversations are peppered with the phrases of Aghassi, said they died for God, not Hussein. "Saddam Hussein put a tent over the Iraqi people," said Kirtani, 27. "He cheated the Iraqi people."

Slender and stern like his brother, Kirtani listed the former Iraqi leader`s sins. He started the Iran-Iraq war, in which Muslim killed Muslim. He invaded Kuwait. He gave the Americans a pretext for occupying Iraq. And his army, he said, "dissolved in minutes."

"Saddam Hussein is behind all our problems," he said, wearing a black shirt inherited from his brother. "My expectation is that Saddam Hussein is in the United States on an island. They`ll build a monument for him because he made their mission easy."

Some residents of this Sunni Muslim town express nostalgia for the days when their region was favored at the expense of the Kurdish north and the Shiite-dominated south. To many of them, Hussein stands as the embodiment of a recognized past as opposed to an uncertain future. But Kirtani angrily dismissed those sentiments, voiced most often by his parents` generation.

"The young people are waking up. I saw it with my brother and cousin," he said. "They`re not Baathists, they`re not party members. They did it for God. When they saw the Americans come, raid the houses, steal from the people, they didn`t accept it."

He invoked the Koran. He quoted the prophet Muhammad`s sayings. And he talked with the fervor of the converted.

"The American people should realize they`re going to start receiving coffins," Kirtani said. "We`re not their slaves." He stopped to catch his breath, shaking his head as if uttering a self-evident truth. "We accept death as easily as we drink water."



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3 European Leaders Back U.N. Role in Iraq


By Keith B. Richburg
Washington Post Foreign Service
Sunday, September 21, 2003; Page A27


BERLIN, Sept. 20 -- The leaders of Germany, France and Britain met today for the first time since their bitter split over the war in Iraq and said they had reached a consensus that the United Nations should play a central role in Iraq`s reconstruction and that power should be transferred to Iraqis as soon as possible.

But there was little evidence that the meeting had bridged the huge chasm that separates Britain, the closest U.S. ally on Iraq, from Germany and France, which led the opposition to the war and are now pushing for a speedy end to the U.S.-led occupation.

The three countries agreed to continue negotiations at the United Nations, once again setting up a potential confrontation between President Bush and the two leaders who most vociferously opposed his Iraq policy, President Jacques Chirac of France and Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder of Germany. Chirac and Schroeder are scheduled to fly to New York next week and meet separately with Bush on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly`s opening session.

France and Germany are insisting that the United Nations replace the United States as the key manager of Iraq`s political transition and that power be transferred quickly to Iraq`s nascent governing institutions, such as the American-appointed Iraqi Governing Council.

"What we wish for is for there to be a real, immediate transfer of power to the Iraqi people, meaning to the institutions that exist today," Chirac said at a news conference, with Schroeder and British Prime Minister Tony Blair beside him. "All of that should be under the aegis of the United Nations."

"This transfer of sovereignty should take place as rapidly as possible -- in our view, in a matter of months," Chirac said, adding that "as for the means and the timetable, there we don`t entirely agree."

Blair, under political pressure at home for his staunch backing of the war, said, "Whatever the differences there have been about the conflict, we all want to see a stable Iraq, we all want to see Iraq make the transition to democratic government as swiftly as possible."

Speaking about the U.N. role, Blair said: "Whatever the nuances or differences between us, we recognize that this job of reconstruction -- which everyone agrees should happen -- isn`t going to happen unless the United Nations plays a key role. . . . I`m sure that whatever the differences, they can be resolved."

Schroeder, host of the meeting, tried to play a mediating role between the two positions and attempted to emphasize the broad areas of consensus on an increased U.N. role in Iraq. But he acknowledged that "there are obviously differences of opinion on how to achieve that."

Bush administration officials have called the proposal for a quick transfer unrealistic and are insisting that the United States, which has the bulk of the troops in Iraq, continue to manage the transition.

Although Schroeder and Chirac both strongly opposed the U.S.-led war in Iraq, the German chancellor has lately struck a more conciliatory tone with the United States, hoping to mend relations that soured over his vocal opposition earlier.

While still ruling out sending German troops to Iraq, Schroeder has offered to train Iraqi police officers in Germany -- a position Chirac has publicly backed. And in an opinion piece for the Friday edition of the New York Times, Schroeder said that despite past differences, "There is no point in continuing this debate.

"We should now look toward the future. We must work together to win the peace."

The idea of transferring authority to the United Nations and laying out a precise timetable for handing over power to the Iraqis has wide support in Europe. In a weekend interview with the German newspaper Die Welt, the EU`s foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, said any new resolution "must lay out the precise political role of the U.N. In addition, we need a timeline for turning over power to the Iraqis. These are the requirements for a strong EU engagement in the reconstruction."

At today`s news conference, the leaders faced one embarrassing question when asked whether Blair was seen by the other leaders as Bush`s envoy to the talks. Schroeder, answering first, said he believed that Blair had "a completely independent position of his own."

Chirac said, "I want to pay tribute to the vivid imagination of the last journalist" who posed the question.



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Democrats and Taxes




Sunday, September 21, 2003; Page B06


THE DEMOCRATIC presidential candidates generally agree that President Bush`s tax cuts ought to be rolled back, but they split on whether the cuts should be erased entirely or whether provisions that primarily benefit the middle class (about one-third of the total cuts) should be retained. The roll-`em-way-back camp includes Missouri Rep. Richard Gephardt, who wants to get rid of the tax cuts but would then blow it all on health care, and former Vermont governor Howard Dean, who also has a bevy of new spending proposals. The partial-rollback camp encompasses most of the rest of the field, including Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, who`s been pounding Mr. Dean for supposedly wanting to sock it to the middle class, and the latest entrant, retired Gen. Wesley Clark. The smart political play here may well be to cozy up to the middle class. Who wants to be against a child tax credit or tax relief for married couples? But as a matter of economic policy, none of the Democrats has it right. The sound approach, once the economy has recovered, would be to raise taxes -- and to have the discipline to refrain from spending all the savings.

One way to look at the issue is to consider whether Americans -- as a whole or in the middle class in particular -- were overtaxed when Mr. Bush took office. The answer, at least by historical standards, is no. A new study by the Congressional Budget Office of effective tax rates from 1979 through 2000 found that the percentage of their overall income Americans paid in federal taxes, directly and indirectly, remained relatively flat during that period. It was 22.2 percent in 1979 and 23.1 percent in 2000. This figure includes a broad array of taxes, but the same trend line holds for income taxes alone. It is true that federal receipts grew to a postwar record 20.8 percent of gross domestic product in 2000, but that was in large part a result of the booming economy. Without the Bush tax cuts, revenues would be down to an estimated 17.8 percent of GDP this year, on the low end for the postwar period.

One of our biggest complaints about the Bush tax cuts has been that the benefits flow so disproportionately to the wealthiest Americans. In 2006, for example, 10.6 percent of the reductions will go to the middle fifth of taxpayers (average tax cut $566), while 33 percent will flow to the top 1 percent (average cut $35,238), according to calculations by the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center. Any rewrite of the tax code ought to start with this glaring discrepancy. But that`s not to say the new round of middle-class cuts ought to be considered sacrosanct. Politicians who bemoan the overtaxed middle class ought to take a closer look at the numbers even before the latest round of cuts. According to the CBO, the middle group of taxpayers (average income $50,300 in 2000) saw their effective federal tax rates fall from 18.6 percent in 1979 to 16.7 percent in 2000. The same is true for the next highest income group (average income $74,500 in 2000), which politicians often lump into their definition of middle class.

Meanwhile the tax cuts have aggravated the country`s already dire fiscal predicament. The CBO predicts cumulative deficits of $1.4 trillion from 2004 through 2008; the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts account for about two-thirds of that. And today`s depressing deficit numbers are not nearly as daunting as the long-term chasm between the country`s revenues and its obligations, particularly to the baby boomers who will soon begin drawing on Social Security and Medicare. As Comptroller General David M. Walker put it in what he described as a "wake-up call" last week, the country`s "large and growing structural deficits" need to be addressed -- and soon. The tax cuts were unaffordable when passed and now are even more demonstrably reckless. Would it be too much to ask the Democratic candidates to demonstrate the fiscal responsibility that has been so lacking in the incumbent president?



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Sunday, September 21, 2003; Page B06


THE SUMMER offensive by Taliban forces in southern Afghanistan has damaged the already shaky U.S. mission in more than one way. In addition to killing scores of Afghans, several foreign aid workers and three U.S. soldiers, the hundreds of insurgents who have been operating in the countryside have slowed vital reconstruction projects and caused many Afghans to question whether the U.S.-backed regime of Hamid Karzai will ever succeed in establishing its authority around the country. U.S. commanders say they are getting the better of the enemy and have killed hundreds of fighters. Even so, the intensified combat has had the effect of reinforcing American dependence on Afghan militias and their warlord commanders -- who, after the Taliban, may be the largest obstacle to stabilizing and rebuilding Afghanistan.

U.S. dependence on the warlords began with the decision two years ago to remove the Taliban from power by backing opposition forces grouped in a loose alliance. Once the war was won, the Bush administration orchestrated the formation of a new government under Mr. Karzai and promised to help him extend its authority while overseeing reconstruction. But the Pentagon refused to break its links with the irregular fighters and their often brutal and corrupt commanders, who now control provinces and cities, collect their own taxes and sometimes wage war against each other. Instead, U.S. commanders continued to use militia forces to fight the Taliban and al Qaeda. Though international peacekeepers were deployed in Kabul, the administration resisted their deployment in other cities, meaning that warlords remained in control and the Kabul government was unable to establish its authority.

Afghanistan`s reconstruction plan calls for a new constitution to be completed and approved and democratic elections held sometime in the next year or so. That will be hard enough if a resurgent Taliban is operating in the south; it will be impossible if the warlords continue to rule most of the rest of the country. Curbing their authority will not be easy, but an opportunity to take a first step is now at hand. Prompted by Germany and Norway, the NATO alliance -- which formally assumed command of the Kabul peacekeeping force last month -- is considering whether to deploy outside Kabul. One option is for NATO forces to add to the "provincial reconstruction teams" that the United States and Britain have set up in four places around the country. These are groups of several hundred soldiers that offer security to international aid groups, collect loose weapons and help keep the peace among local factions. Paving the way for these new deployments may require considerable diplomatic effort; all of NATO`s 19 governments must agree, and a new United Nations mandate may be necessary. But the Bush administration should embrace the initiative. The deployment of a few hundred more Western soldiers won`t disarm the warlords, but it should give Mr. Karzai`s government a modest boost -- and in the coming months, his administration will need all the help it can get.




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Bremer`s Tug of War


By Jim Hoagland

Sunday, September 21, 2003; Page B07


A man with $20 billion to spend is certain to accumulate a lot of things, including new troubles and determined rivals for control of that fortune. The hot seat that L. Paul Bremer occupies as America`s proconsul in Iraq is about to get even hotter.

Bremer of Baghdad has exercised uncontested authority with a toughness and dogmatism needed to surmount the chaotic conditions he found when he arrived in Baghdad in May.

Those qualities won him support even from Iraqis and Americans he had to rebuff; in today`s rapidly changing diplomatic and political environment, similar stubbornness could easily undermine Bremer`s early successes.

The maxim of the Watergate scandal -- follow the money -- is a good guide to understanding the heated scuffling that has erupted on Capitol Hill, in high-level diplomatic talks about a new U.N. Security Council resolution on Iraq and in increasingly tense behind-closed-doors exchanges in the Bush administration over Bremer`s place in the presidential chain of command.

Bremer has little to fear from open challenges to his authority, whether they come from France at the Security Council, from congressional Democrats eager to force the administration into admitting error on Iraq or from Iraqi politicians. They are not likely to influence President Bush or Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the two officials to whom Bremer reports in Washington. It is the hidden agendas he must fear.

A host of newfound friends will cluster around Bremer and the $20 billion that Bush proposes to spend on Iraqi reconstruction in the coming year. Saddled with weak U.S. staffing and infrastructure in Baghdad and still reluctant to share authority and information with Iraq`s Governing Council, Bremer will personally decide how to spend sums so huge that they are difficult for most humans to comprehend.

He also faces new pressures to accelerate his seven-point political plan to get Iraqis to write and ratify a new constitution and hold national elections before the coalition hands over sovereignty.

Bremer is insisting on his timetable with a rigidity that is troubling other nations, Iraq`s fledgling leadership and some of his colleagues -- who for a variety of motives are extraordinarily careful about saying anything critical of Bremer.

The battle over a new Security Council resolution revolves around the desire of other nations to put Bremer -- not U.S. forces -- under U.N. control. That effort may provide the State Department with an opening to have more of a say in Bremer`s operations as well.

State Department officials have chafed at their exclusion from decision-making on Iraq since Rumsfeld chose Bremer, a hawkish retired career diplomat, from a White House list of 15 or so candidates to head the Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq.

The diplomats on Bremer`s staff in Baghdad report directly to him, not to Washington. Secretary of State Colin Powell has told friends that he has to rely on newspapers and the diplomatic reporting of other nations that is shared with State to follow developments in Iraq.

Powell no doubt has a point: The lack of communication within the Pentagon itself is a well-known problem, and the fierce rivalries between the two departments rule out what might be described as meaningful contact. This has become a severe problem for Bush, who has tolerated an unacknowledged but visible war between Powell and Rumsfeld.

But having Bremer report to the United Nations or to State instead of Defense -- or giving State budget authority over the $20 billion reconstruction fund -- would not solve those or other problems. Such changes would add to the confusion and disarray that currently hobble the U.S. effort in Iraq.

The path out of Iraq runs through Bremer`s maintaining the unity of command that working with the Pentagon offers, and his moving with greater speed to turn over responsibility to the Iraqis on the Governing Council and in its cabinet.

Bremer shows signs of increasing irritation with Iraqi politicians such as Ahmed Chalabi and others who easily rival the presidential envoy in displays of strong will and considerable ego as they push for greater power sooner.

That is perhaps no bad thing: Chalabi and his colleagues must show that they are defending Iraq`s national interests to maintain credibility with the Iraqi populace.

Bremer should not mistake Iraqi prodding on a timetable as an attempt to sabotage him. In this administration, that is more likely to come in Washington.

Bremer is in Baghdad to fix the country by working himself out of a job as soon as he can. It is time to let Iraqis help him get on with it.

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The Cartoon Graveyard
Just the Cartoons Without the Commentary
Heute keine frische Ware

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Bush Returning to U.N. With Altered Iraq Stance
By Robin Wright
Times Staff Writer

September 21, 2003

WASHINGTON — A year ago, President Bush addressed the U.N. General Assembly on the urgent need to intervene in Iraq — and pledged that the United States was prepared to act without the world body if other nations balked.

"We cannot stand by and do nothing as dangers gather," he told the General Assembly opening session. "By heritage and by choice, the United States will make that stand."

The president returns to New York on Tuesday to once again appeal for major international involvement in Iraq — this time seeking a resolution that implicitly acknowledges that Washington needs the world. Although Bush could shun the U.N. to get into Iraq, solidifying postwar peace and then getting out of Iraq is proving difficult without the U.N. imprimatur.

"He won`t put it that way, but that`s the reality," reflected a well-placed U.S. official who requested anonymity.

Washington is hoping that the new resolution will, first and foremost, heal the bitter divisions over Iraq policy and eventually lead allies to provide additional troops and funds for reconstruction — the prerequisites of an exit strategy.

It`s going to be another challenge in the Iraq saga, senior U.S. officials concede. And for Bush to get help bailing out a troubled policy that is taking an increasing toll in American lives and resources, the administration will effectively have to yield to the international community on other key points, say foreign officials close to the crisis.

First, the United States needs to further define and detail its plans, and then provide a better sense of the timing. Too often, foreign officials say, the process seems to drift, whatever the good intentions.

France, Russia, China and Germany, key Security Council members, all want a greater sense of momentum in Iraq, a prime reason they balked at the original draft of the U.S. resolution circulated last month. Some of America`s closest allies are openly worried about alienation and other consequences of delays in the transition.

"It`s taken time for the coalition leadership to articulate the strategy or the plan. We`re kind of confused about what the overall objective is, [and] if we`re confused, so are the Iraqis," Jordan`s King Abdullah II said last week in an interview during his visit to Washington. "If Iraqis don`t really know what tomorrow will bring, then how can they buy into it?"

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell began to deal with that issue last week.

His two-day visit to Iraq was designed in part to refocus attention on how Iraqis are assuming control of their own country, from the top governing council and municipal bodies all the way down to parent-teacher associations.

The administration contends that any handover must follow a sequence — a new constitution, a public referendum on it, then elections — to ensure that a stable democracy emerges. Each step could take months if done right, U.S. officials say. In contrast, France, which wields a Security Council veto, wants a much speedier return of sovereignty, proposing that political power be turned over to a provisional Iraqi government next month.

The specter of Lebanon also hangs over Iraq, U.S. officials add. For decades, power in Beirut was divided among religious sects based on an informal agreement. When demographics shifted, demands for a change in the distribution of power fueled a 15-year civil war.

A new Iraqi system must be cast in constitutional concrete to prevent cracks among its rival ethnic and religious communities that could lead to the breakup of the country, U.S. officials say.

At the same time, however, Iraqis need more details on the transition to avoid deepening frustration with the U.S.-led coalition 4 1/2 months after Bush pronounced an end to major conflict, top foreign officials say. The uncertainty could undermine the United States` effort.

"It`s that lack of knowing. They don`t know if Saddam is going to come back. They don`t know what the exit policy is and how soon it will happen," Abdullah said.

"A timetable is important for Iraqis. Leaving the timing open or Iraqis in the dark makes them nervous. It also makes them feel excluded — the way they felt during Saddam Hussein`s rule," said Ghassan Salameh, chief advisor to the U.N. representative in Iraq killed in a bombing last month and now advisor to Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

One measure to bridge the gap is accelerating the training of Iraqi security forces so they can assume more responsibility, leaving U.S. forces exposed as targets less often — another step Powell emphasized during his visit to Iraq.

"We need more boots on the ground but they need to be more Iraqi boots on the ground," said Abdullah, whose country is training 3,000 Iraqi police.

Crucial to a new resolution, broader assistance and an exit strategy is determining the relationship between the United Nations and the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, Salameh said.

"The United Nations is not looking for a larger role or a smaller role, but a more defined role" on political transition and security, both of which are vague, he said. Only the U.N. humanitarian role is clear-cut.

Finally, to win wider support from the international community, the United States may have to acknowledge, by act if not in specific words, that a so-called regime change is only a part of the solution in dealing with either terrorism or tyrants.

"We lost a bit of focus because there was a campaign against a nation, but that`s a small part of the equation. It`s the ideological struggle that we have to get back into high gear on," Abdullah said.

Added a top envoy from a country involved in the U.N. debate: "That`s what this whole thing is really about — getting the United States to recognize that you can`t simply remove governments, you have to follow through on creating alternatives for a whole society. It`s much, much bigger and more complicated than getting rid of bad guys."

Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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DEMOCRACY



`New Russia` Ailing; Stand Up, Mr. Bush
Putin is presiding over a steady erosion of rights and freedoms.
By James M. Goldgeier and Michael McFaul
James M. Goldgeier is a professor at George Washington University. Michael McFaul is a Hoover fellow and professor at Stanford University. Their book, "Power and Purpose: U.S. Policy Toward Russia Aft

September 21, 2003

At a time when relations between the United States and some of its traditional allies are strained, President Bush must be looking forward to Russian President Vladimir V. Putin`s visit this week. The two men seem to have genuine rapport, and although Putin did not endorse the U.S. decision to invade Iraq, he does speak from Bush`s script on the global war on terrorism. Bush also knows that Russia is in a position to offer real help in tackling critical security threats to the United States. The president hopes to secure commitments from Putin for Russian troops in Iraq and for cooperation in attempts to slow Iran`s development of nuclear weapons and for help in defusing the standoff with North Korea.

Because Bush wants Putin`s support on foreign policy issues, he may be tempted to remain silent at the summit about negative trends inside Russia. This would be a mistake. If Bush ignores clear signs that Russia is backing away from democracy, he will undermine democratic forces in Russia — and he will bring into question the U.S. commitment to fostering democracy abroad.

The evidence of an erosion of democracy in Russia under Putin is now overwhelming. Since coming to power, he and his government have seized control of Russia`s last independent national television networks and silenced or changed the editorial teams at several national newspapers and weeklies. Reporters Without Borders, which recently published its first worldwide freedom- of-the-press index, ranked Russia 121st out of 139 countries assessed.

On Putin`s watch, state intrusion in Russian society has increased dramatically, from the arrest and harassment of human rights activists to the creation of state-sponsored "civil society" organizations whose mission is to crowd out independent actors. Even businesses are not immune from persecution: Over the summer, the state launched a politically charged criminal investigation into the giant oil company Yukos after its chief executive gave money to opposition political parties.

In Chechnya, Putin`s armed forces continue to abuse human rights on a massive scale. During the 2000 presidential campaign, Bush remarked, "We want to cooperate with [the] Russian [government] on its concern with terrorism, but that is impossible unless Moscow operates with civilized restraint." It`s true that Al Qaeda has supported terrorists in the region who continue to attack innocent Russians. But the gross violation of international norms by the Russian government in combating the problem has left a trail of devastation that will take years to overcome — and has brought Russia no closer to ending the Chechen conflict.

Putin also seems increasingly determined to limit Western contacts with Russian society. His government has tossed out the Peace Corps, closed down the Chechnya office of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, declared the AFL-CIO`s representative in Moscow persona non grata and denied visas to American academics.

Most ominously, the Kremlin has blatantly intervened to influence the electoral process, including limiting the flow of information about the next parliamentary vote in December and removing candidates in regional elections from the ballot without just cause. In the upcoming presidential election in Chechnya, there is now, thanks to the Kremlin, only one real candidate.

Putin`s new rules also make it illegal for analysts to comment on the campaign. His government has acted to limit the independence of Russia`s oldest and most respected polling firm, the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion, something not surprising since most opinion polls show that a solid majority of Russian citizens supports democracy (even if they are unprepared to fight for it); that a growing portion does not support the military campaign in Chechnya; and that only a minority is prepared to back the ruling party in the upcoming parliamentary elections.

This backsliding from democracy is a potential threat to American national security. In the 1980s, the United States helped to destroy the communist regime in Afghanistan but failed to finish the job of democratic state-building. The consequences, as we learned on Sept. 11, were tragic. The same will be true in Iraq if we fail there. And the same will be true in Russia.

Bush has little power to reverse internal Russian trends, but he should at least not exacerbate them by pretending they do not exist. Most immediately, Bush must communicate to Putin at Camp David privately and to the people of Russia publicly that he recognizes and worries about these signs that democracy is eroding.

Just weeks before assuming her responsibilities as national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice wrote about the consequences of not speaking honestly about Russia`s internal problems: "The United States should not be faulted for trying to help. But, as the Russian reformer Grigori Yavlinsky has said, the United States should have `told the truth` about what was happening [inside his country]." She then attacked the Clinton administration`s "happy talk" about Russia. Rice`s message is even more relevant today. Yavlinsky still wants U.S. officials to tell the truth. Democracy-building takes decades, and America`s public support for reformers and condemnation of antidemocratic trends can make a real difference.

In addition to honest rhetoric, the Bush administration must continue funding democracy assistance to Russia. For next year, the administration proposed cutting funding to Russia under the Freedom Support Act from $148 million to $73 million. Concerned members of Congress have pushed these numbers back up in the right direction, but the final budget has still not been approved. Drastic cuts for educational exchanges between Russia and the United States are also slated.

More than a decade after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the job of democracy-building in Russia is not only incomplete; it is becoming more difficult. This is no time for cutbacks. And if the United States abandons democratic activists in Russia now — before democracy is firmly rooted — what signal would this send to the democratic leaders we`re trying to nurture in Iraq and Afghanistan?

Speaking before the Veterans of Foreign Wars national convention in August, Rice argued: "The people of the Middle East share the desire for freedom. We have an opportunity — and an obligation — to help them turn this desire into reality." Russians also want freedom. We still have an obligation to help them, as well.


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TERRORISM



The Risky Business of Modern War
A top U.S. military leader shares his thoughts about armed conflict in a post-9/11 world.
By William M. Arkin
William M. Arkin is a military affairs analyst who writes regularly for Opinion. E-mail: [e-mail].

September 21, 2003

SOUTH POMFRET, Vt. — American armed forces have now been at the so-called war on terrorism for two full years. The White House, defending the increasingly controversial military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, released a progress report Sept. 10 declaring that the United States "has dismantled the repressive Taliban, denied [Al Qaeda] a safe haven in Afghanistan, and defeated Saddam Hussein`s regime."

Dismantled, denied and defeated. Those are strong, even definitive, words. Yet the American military remains as fully engaged as ever in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Congress is being asked to add $87 billion to the Pentagon budget to continue the fight.

As the presidential election contest heats up, objective analysis of these military operations is likely to be swamped by waves of ideology and political spin.

So, how are we doing and what have we learned in two years of intense activity by almost the full spectrum of U.S. military and intelligence resources?

A good starting point is a recent conversation with Maj. Gen. Victor E. "Gene" Renuart Jr. Behind the scenes, Renuart has run the armed forces` day-to-day war on terrorism since 9/11. Before that, he was in the desert directing Operation Southern Watch, the joint U.S., British, French and Saudi air campaign to enforce the no-fly zone over southern Iraq.

He moved to Gen. Tommy Franks` staff at Central Command in Tampa, Fla., four months before Al Qaeda terrorists hijacked four airliners and changed the world.

As operations director for Central Command, Renuart was deeply involved in the Afghanistan war and the subsequent hunt for the Taliban and for Osama bin Laden. For the Iraq campaign, he had a hand in the creation of the war plan, the buildup of forces and virtually every subsequent decision of the war.

Renuart tries to approach his job with professional objectivity, and he is willing to acknowledge that mistakes have been made. But the most important lesson suggested by talking to him is how the military looks at "failure." To begin with, every decision assumes risks. And, Renuart says, "every risk you assume on the battlefield has a cost associated with it." What that means is that if an operation fails to achieve its goal, the failure does not necessarily mean somebody screwed up. As the professionals see it, when an opportunity presents itself, you take the shot — even if it`s not a guaranteed bull`s-eye.

Case in point: The March 19 decision to move up the starting date for invading Iraq and begin it with an air attack aimed at killing Iraqi President Hussein and his sons on a farm near Baghdad.

Early on, intelligence had identified 58 residences and safe houses associated with Hussein. They were being monitored. On March 19, intercepts suggested Hussein would be staying at a Tigris River facility known as Dora Farms, which was linked to his wife`s family. Subsequent reconnaissance identified guards and vehicles tucked into tree lines on the farm. SUVs used by the regime were also spotted. Armed with these indicators — suggestive but not definitive — Renuart discussed the options with Franks and others.

By the time Franks, and subsequently President Bush, approved a strike, the Navy and Army had received top-secret targeting information. Ideally, they might have done further reconnaissance with a special forces team or an unmanned surveillance plane. But there were no special operators in the area, and Predator drones were not yet flying over Baghdad because of potent Iraqi antiaircraft artillery.

Still, Renuart says, "I was very comfortable with the intelligence." Despite some uncertainty and risk, the decision-makers reasoned that "if we had the chance to eliminate the head of the snake on that very first night, of course that would have been a good thing." Renuart believes that someone important was gravely injured or killed in the strike at Dora Farms, but, more important, neither the military nor the administration was thrown into a tizzy when the operation did not produce confirmed hits on Hussein or other senior officials.

This was neither the first nor the last such attempt at bagging enemy leaders.

All during the Afghanistan campaign, for instance, intelligence tried to track the heads of Al Qaeda and the Taliban. As U.S. forces moved into the eastern mountains after the fall of Kabul, snippets of intelligence suggested that Bin Laden was hiding at Tora Bora. From years of fighting the Soviet Union, the enemy had learned how to lower its profile.

"Al Qaeda understood that the night was their friend and that they had to travel in small groups," Renuart says. "They were already not talking on phones or radios much." As with Dora Farms, Tora Bora was a target of opportunity. Central Command ordered an attack. It tried but failed to bag its targets. In hindsight, Renuart says, planners probably should have relied more on coalition special forces for intelligence than on Afghan allies. The planners also should have focused more heavily on the paths leading across the border with Pakistan above the Tora Bora valley, and the secret escape and supply routes known as "rat lines" that went off to the southwest. Criticism that the coalition put too much trust in Afghan warlords, or that more forces should have been mobilized, may be correct. But it misses the point that military planners once again faced an opportunity — and only that. Had they waited for perfect intelligence or more troops, they wouldn`t even have had an opportunity, because Bin Laden would have been gone by then.

"I`d hate to pin the tail on my intel friends," Renuart says. "All the satellites and Predators in the world weren`t going to find [Bin Laden]." This is an important lesson as the U.S. settles into the long struggle against terrorists and related foes: Nowhere is there complete freedom of action. The U.S. is not all-seeing. And, huge as its military capabilities are, they are not omnipotent. Special forces and secret agents have their limits.

Which brings us to another point: This is a thinking man`s war. Fighting smarter can be more important than fighting harder. Since Sept. 11, 2001, Renuart says important advances have been made in "time-sensitive targeting" and "fusion of intelligence" from disparate sources. Still a problem and a major constraint on military effectiveness is the lack of people able to understand all of the data being collected. "Intelligence experts are a precious commodity that we have stretched fairly thin," Renuart admits.

Advances are constantly being made in the ability to "sense" and collect technical intelligence, but the U.S. intelligence community has had difficulty transforming the tightly focused systems developed during the Cold War into ones capable of quick, dependable analysis of the diffuse and fragmentary information collected on today`s enemies. U.S intelligence agencies need a better understanding of culture and religion and other "soft" subjects.

The deficiencies mean that failures and partial successes will continue. So, unavoidably, will casualties. To professional soldiers like Renuart, every war — especially the war on terrorism — is a series of learning experiences paid for in loss. Ambiguity is intrinsic, especially when facing an enemy that does not stand and fight. The military leadership expects losses and failures. It keeps plugging away, examining what it did and trying to do it better.

When sensitive decisions must constantly be made — in real time and with imperfect information — military leaders are often frustrated by the news media`s focus on the negative. To reporters, that`s the news. To soldiers, it is everyday reality — the longest part of any road to victory.

And, finally, it may surprise some to learn that a man like Renuart sees victory in the war on terrorism hinging on something other than the military: He sees the key as providing education and economic development to countries where the seeds of terrorism grow.

"This is not just a military problem," he says. Terrorists "find a home in ungoverned spaces" and in countries "that are sorely lacking for jobs and a future for their people." The U.S., he says, must "invest in the world."

"If you can`t get the angry young men off the streets," Renuart believes, "you are going to have to fight them."

Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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IRAQ



Bad Forecasts Cause Sticky Oil Situation
By Michelle Billig
Michelle Billig was in the U.S. Department of Energy under the Clinton and Bush administrations and is currently a fellow with the Council on Foreign Relations.

September 21, 2003

NEW YORK — Oil and gasoline are not much cheaper today than they were during the height of the war in Iraq. Sabotage of pipelines, power failures and uneven security have delayed the restarting of Iraq`s oil industry, depressing the country`s oil exports below prewar levels. In particular, the loss of the northern pipeline to Turkey last month has kept nearly 1 million barrels of oil per day off world markets. If the problems are not corrected, oil supplies will remain tight, gasoline prices will stay high or climb, and the U.S. economic recovery could stall.



Why has the situation deteriorated to this point? Wasn`t securing and protecting Iraq`s oil fields a prime military objective? Wasn`t modernizing the country`s production facilities part of postwar reconstruction planning?

U.S. and British soldiers were successful in keeping Iraq`s oil industry from becoming an infrastructure casualty of war. The Defense Department expected oil to flow within weeks of victory. Then, the sabotage and violence began, and postwar planners have been playing catch-up ever since. It`s increasingly evident that they didn`t expect strategic and sequential attacks on pipelines and pylons.

In some ways, U.S. and coalition authorities were justified in downplaying the possible effect of Iraqi resistance on oil exports. When Saddam Hussein previously cut Iraq`s oil exports, prices didn`t skyrocket. In part, this was because other oil-producing countries were willing and able to pick up the production slack.

That situation has changed. World oil supplies are now extremely tight. They have never fully recovered from a December 2002 general strike in Venezuela, which resulted in the loss of more than 3 million barrels a day of production. Civil unrest in Nigeria compounded shortages on the eve of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

Since then, the coalition`s management of Iraq`s oil industry has worsened the problem. Initial postwar statements from the Defense Department fed false expectations that Iraq`s oil production and exports would be quickly restored. The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which produces about one-third of the world`s oil, took the optimistic statements at face value and cut production immediately after the war to avoid an oil glut and falling prices.

As a result, commercial oil inventories in the United States and Europe reached their lowest seasonal level in years. The supply crunch has left energy prices more vulnerable to continued disruptions in Iraq and elsewhere.

Mixed messages from Iraq continue to confuse the oil market and impede additional production. Before the war, the U.N. "oil for food" program kept track of Iraq`s oil exports and released regular reports. Today, there is no single official source for information on Iraq`s oil industry. Press reports cite ambiguous and, at times, conflicting statements from the Coalition Provisional Authority; the Army Corps of Engineers, which has little understanding of oil-market dynamics; and the Iraqi oil ministry. Furthermore, U.S. and British officials desperate to demonstrate concrete progress with the reconstruction effort have a strong incentive to overstate actual production in order to tout the recovery plan for Iraqi and American audiences.

Damage assessments and repair schedules vary from spokesman to spokesman. For example, Iraq`s then-acting oil minister said last month that repairs on the sabotaged northern pipeline would take up to a week. At the same time, Col. Guy Shields, a military spokesman, estimated the repairs at 10 days to two weeks. Then, earlier this month, with the pipeline still closed, Col. Robert Nicholson of the 4th Infantry Division said repairs would take five weeks more.

Faced with this uncertainty, OPEC is reluctant to act. Why risk oversupplying the market and pushing down prices if Iraqi oil production comes back sooner than expected? The organization is scheduled to meet Wednesday to consider lowering production quotas to avoid a price collapse if (and when) more oil from Iraq and non-OPEC countries, including Russia, hits the market early next year.

U.S. officials in Washington privately acknowledge the negative effect that Iraq has had on the world`s oil market and point to the pressing need for more accurate and reliable information. Better forecasts of Iraqi oil exports over the next six months would help OPEC and other producers determine how much extra oil is needed to meet world demand.

The recent appointment of Iraq`s first postwar oil minister provides an opportunity to send the right signals to oil producers. A spokesperson to deliver regular status reports on the country`s energy supply should also be designated. The reports should include current production levels, export numbers and updates on infrastructure repairs. If need be, they could be made available through the U.S. Energy Information Administration, which typically provides this kind of information during a supply disruption.

Obviously, Iraq`s oil industry requires a lot more than better and more reliable information. But the U.S.-led coalition should help untangle the global oil market from Iraq by ensuring that information coming out of it will not act to create havoc in energy markets.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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An aerial view of Iraq`s Abu Ghraib prison on the outskirts of the capital Baghdad is seen in this July 20, 2003, file photo. Two U.S. soldiers were killed and 13 wounded in a mortar attack on the U.S.-run prison, a military spokeswoman said on Sunday.
Three U.S. Soldiers Killed in Latest Iraq Attacks
Sun September 21, 2003 08:47 AM ET


By Andrew Gray
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Attackers killed two American soldiers in a mortar attack and a third died from a roadside bomb blast in the latest strikes against U.S. occupation forces in Iraq, military officials said Sunday.

The Saturday night attacks and an assassination attempt on a member of Iraq`s U.S.-backed Governing Council earlier in the day cast a shadow over efforts by the country`s interim leaders to entice investors with a raft of liberal economic measures.

Iraq`s new finance minister announced the reforms, including allowing foreign investments into all sectors except oil, in Dubai Sunday. But the violence plaguing the country is bound to make many investors extremely wary.

Under cover of darkness, guerrillas fired two mortar bombs Saturday evening at the Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad which is guarded and run by the U.S. Army.

"There were two soldiers killed and 13 wounded," a military spokeswoman said, adding that the dead were military police.

She said no detainees were injured in the attack.

On August 17, assailants fired mortar rounds on the prison killing six Iraqis and wounding 59.

U.S. forces hold common criminals and Iraqis suspected of guerrilla attacks against them at the jail, one of the largest in Iraq and which human rights groups say was notorious for the execution and torture of inmates during Saddam Hussein`s rule.

Also Saturday night, a soldier from the U.S. 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment was killed by a bomb attack on his vehicle. He was pronounced dead on his way to a military hospital, U.S. Central Command said in a statement.

The deaths raised to 79 the number of U.S. soldiers killed by hostile fire since President Bush declared major combat in Iraq over on May 1, following the war that ousted Saddam the previous month.

The rising death toll is putting more pressure on Bush at home as he seeks a new U.N. resolution to create a multinational force for Iraq.

But France and Germany, opponents of the U.S.-led war that toppled Saddam, are demanding that the U.S. agree to a fast handover of power to Iraqis. The U.S. believes a speedy power transfer would lead to failure.

Leaders of France and Germany stood firm on their demand at weekend talks in Berlin with Britain`s Tony Blair, casting doubt on whether talks with the United States this week will make progress.

SADDAM`S SUPPORTERS BLAMED

U.S. commanders mainly blame secular Saddam loyalists for attacks on troops, running at about a dozen a day. Some Iraqis argue that resistance fighters are motivated by Islamic beliefs and revulsion at seeing their country under occupation.

Guerrillas are also targeting Iraqis cooperating with the occupiers. Saturday morning, gunmen shot and critically wounded Akila al-Hashemi, a Shi`ite career diplomat who is one of three women on the U.S.-appointed Governing Council.

Hashemi was in a critical but stable condition having undergone two operations, a senior official in Iraq`s U.S.-led administration told reporters Sunday.

Despite the violence, officials have voiced determination to push on with efforts to transform Iraq after decades of authoritarian rule under Saddam.


U.S.-controlled Iraq Sunday unveiled sweeping reforms allowing foreign investors into all sectors except oil, ending 30 years of state economic control.

Iraqi Finance Minister Kamel al-Keylani said Sunday the reforms would "significantly advance efforts to build a free and open market economy in Iraq," spur economic growth and speed Iraq`s re-entry into the international community.

The list of reforms for liberalizing foreign investment, the banking sector and taxes and tariffs read like a recipe devised by Washington for a capitalist Iraq.

"Iraq needs jobs, it needs to have growth," a senior U.S. official involved in Iraq`s reconstruction said.

THE LAW OF THE LAND

"This isn`t just a proposal -- this is the law, this is done. This was all signed yesterday," the U.S. official said.

Keylani said the reforms would be implemented soon.

The surprisingly broad measures, which end an era of economic domination under Saddam Hussein and the socialist Baath Party, were aimed at improving global opinion before a donors` conference in Madrid next month.

Washington`s invasion of Iraq in the face of worldwide opposition raised hackles in Europe and concern in Iraq and the Arab world that it sought control of Iraq`s oil and resources.

However, the reforms include 100 percent foreign ownership in all sectors except natural resources, excluding current outside participation in Iraq`s coveted oil reserves, the second-largest behind those of Saudi Arabia.

"The fact that they ban investment in oil resources is good because it sends the message that America was not only after Iraq`s oil," an Arab finance minister who declined to be identified said of the steps.

Keylani and a big delegation of Iraqi and Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) officials are in Dubai to discuss an assessment of Iraq`s needs to be presented to donors in Madrid.

Paul Bremer, U.S.-appointed administrator of Iraq, was not present because he was in Washington, a CPA official said. His absence surprised some delegates who had expected him to outline U.S. policy to possible donor nations.

"SIGNIFICANT STEPS"

Joe Saba, World Bank country director for Iraq, called the steps "significant."

Iraq`s reconstruction has been hampered by lawlessness five months after Saddam`s fall and its people are struggling to cope with daily life.

Saba said Iraq`s U.S.-backed Governing Council had supported the measures, an endorsement the CPA has said is essential to attract foreign investors.

A senior Arab official said: "If (the package) is legal and it stands, then it would be excellent but the proof is in the pudding if investors trust it enough to come."

The U.S. official noted the open-ended foreign investment proposals did not require any screening process -- something he said the Iraqis had requested -- which would make investment there more alluring to foreigners.

"There is no screening committee. There is no way for a sort of niggling process to grab hold of your ankle and chew on it," he said.

Foreign investors cannot own real estate but can lease property for 40 years under the new rules.

"You can make money in a country like Iraq," the U.S. official said. "You don`t have to have everything be perfect to make money."

The reforms also include a free transfer of foreign exchange earnings for investors, full central bank independence and relatively free entry for foreign banks into Iraq.

New bank rules were signed in Iraq Saturday, the U.S. official said. Six foreign banks will get "fast-track" entry into Iraq and full ownership of local banks within five years.

"We are going to have a separate and early ... process to select two of those banks. And we are going to ask those banks to do substantial lending early," he said.

Other foreign banks would be allowed 50 percent stakes in local banks.

The new laws also slash top marginal tax rates for individuals and corporations to 15 percent from a prior 45 percent, the U.S. official said.

Iraq will also slap a five percent surcharge on all imports except for humanitarian goods like food, medicine and books. The CPA had earlier declared a tariff-free, open-border regime in Iraq that was to last to the end of 2003.

[Joerver]

ZNet | Global Economics

Globalization Outlook
The USA shoots itself in the foot; or worse

by Doug Dowd; September 21, 2003

If you are reading this you don`t need to be told of globalization`s always greater harm to U.S. industrial workers, nor about the sweating of workers in the poorer countries or the environmental damage to their countries. Etc. Such matters are not matters for worry on the part of the giant companies that brought them about. But there is something else going on that should worry them; it very much resembles what happened to Britain -- the USA of the 19th century -- as that century drew to its close. As of now, the signs are only those of a rumbling undersea volcano; pretty much where Britain was in the 1880s. But things move faster these days, and go deeper.

History never does nor can it ever repeat itself in particulars; the always changing multidimensional social context makes even close repetitions impossible. But certain patterns do recur; among them is that where socioeconomic domination produces conditions leading to its own downfall.

In the capitalist era, there have been two such instances of the decline of once unchallengeable strength: the Dutch in the 18th century, and the British in the 19th. Now it is increasingly likely that the USA will be the third. The Dutch and the British did themselves in by their successes; what follows argues that, in our own ways and time, we do likewise. It goes with the capitalist territory, so to speak.

Capitalism has always been and must always be "global" in order to survive and flourish, as it needs also to have a dominating power over the globe. The "degrees" of the globality and the associated degrees of benefits and harm have been set by the technology of the time. The capitalist era was born with the Dutch in the 17th-18th centuries, the most economically advanced society. Their advanced status was dependent upon trade and finance, not industry; and, in comparison with what would come with industrial capitalist Britain, the power of the Dutch was limited: the Dutch could reach out; the British could reach out further and had to. As the Dutch spread over the world, they did so within the framework of colonialism; the British, because they were industrial, became the bearers of modern imperialism. The globalization created and dominated by the USA is imperialism in today`s dress of jazzed-up communications, production, and transportation -- which, in giving us the ability to do what we have done, also give the others the ability to take us down. As happened to the Dutch and the Brits.

The differences between the three forms of global domination are enormous: Colonialism essentially stopped at the coastlines of exploited territories; imperialism could and had to penetrate deeply into the affected societies -- geographically, socially, and politically. Its consequent quantitative and qualitative destruction therefore went well beyond that of colonialism. And, in the past half century, the destructive powers of globalization have once more produced a quantum leap; we have succeeded in wiping out the past and foreclosing the future of most of the peoples of the world. They are no longer citizens of their societies, but captives of capitalism; with the same capivity spreading through the peoples of the leading countries. It is commonly said now that the entire world is being "americanized": it is more accurate to say that it is being "capitalized." . Of which more in a moment.

First a very brief discussion of Britain`s rise and fall, as a basis for understanding capitalism`s self-destructive tendencies and, at the same, time to illustrate the differences between their past and our present. Britain`s great power in the 19th century arose from its having been the first country to industrialize. When that was well underway, Britain enhanced its strength and its wealth by massive lending abroad, most importantly to Germany and the USA . But the latter`s industrialization, able to take advantage of rapidly evolving new technologies within their more conducive (and contrasting) institutional frameworks, made Britain a second-rate industrial power already by 1900. Veblen saw this as "the penalty of taking the lead and the advantages of borrowing." As the 20th century opened, Britain`s wealth and prosperity depended increasingly upon its financial gains from abroad, and less and less upon its once great industrial strength and its exports. Still, as of 1900, and despite that it was importing considerably more than it was exporting, Britain`s levels of average real income were high and rising. It was still exploiting the rest of the world, but in ways that would come back to haunt it. By World War I -- although the Brits didn`t know it -- they were on their way down. Indeed, "they didn`t know it" as late as 1926, when a leading British economist described the USA as an "agricultural economy." .Overwhelming strength breeds not only arrogance but ignorance; everywhere.

The world over which we preside is VERY different from that of Britain`s; but along with the differences are some underlying similarities and probable consequences which, although different from the earlier period, are not likely to be less serious. Look again at the main points of the previous paragraph and the differences between then and now:

1. Britain was the world`s largest creditor; the USA is the world`s largest debtor.

2. Britain loaned to what became its main competitors; the USA has invested in and built U.S.-owned factories, abroad (where the labor is cheap and there are no environmental constraints), as levels of real income for an already substantial and always rising percentage of its once best-off workers are consigned to the garbage heap.

3. Britain`s exports and the enormous income from its foreign loans were the source of its prosperity; the "health" of the U.S. economy has increasingly come to depend upon its service sector (especially its financial core) not its manufacturing sector, with the latter`s profits dwindling from exports and dependent upon domestic consumption; in turn, that domestic consumption is critically dependent upon dangerously bloated household debt -- now well in excess of monthly household income. Equally bloated is the debt of both non-financial and financial companies, and our foreign, state and national debts -- all contributing to an an ever-higher and already perilous fragility.

The great strength and powers of the USA arose first and foremost from its manufacturing industries. They were prominent already in the late 19th century and exploded in the 20th century. Now that sector is imploding..

Globalization, so essential and so beneficial for the profits of a few hundred of the top U.S. corporations, has been a disaster for manufacturing jobs in the USA: the news has finally come through to the mainstream media (see below). Those losses began to be serious in the 1980s, because of what was called "downsizing and outsourcing." Since then, for example, the U.S. workers in steel and in autos -- those with the highest wages and benefits -- have gone down by about half, with worse on its way for all blue collar workers.. .

Those processes were prodded into existence by both need and possibility: the need was to cut costs in order to meet already strong competition from the other industrial powers. The latters` strength came in critical part from the interactions of the political economy of the Cold War with our external loans and grants. The principal beneficiaries among the leading countries were Japan and Germany; they also became our principal competitors. But our attention and our carrots and sticks were also meted out to the "emerging economies," where labor was sickeningly cheap, corruption was rampant, and the always more powerful transnational companies could have their way with the easily corruptible governments there and at home: no holds barred.

But, as in earlier epochs, something went awry. The main difficulties of 19th century imperialism arose from the conflicts between the imperializing countries competing to gain controlling power over the resources, markets, and strategic locations of weak societies; in our time, now, what once were colonies are politically independent. To make or keep them economically dependent the main powers must deal with substantially different and always changing stresses and strains with the newly-independent nations and amongst themselves.

Already in the 1950s an important group of the ex-colonies had dubbed themselves "the third world (the other two "worlds" being the capitalist/communist combatants of the Cold War). The world of the weaker countries was wildly diverse: tiny to large countries in size and populations, desperately to mildly poor, tending toward (or having achieved or thrust upon them) one degree or another of fascist, communist, or mildly socialist governments. Nor, unlike the earlier imperialist era, were the major capitalist nations the only players in the game; the USSR and Red China were also involved. For better and for worse, this required different strategies and yielded unpredictable results for the entire global system; one unexpected and usually intractable surprise after another from all quarters, none of them welcome.

Those who designed and executed the joined-at-the-hip policies of cold war and globalization had not the slightest inkling that our suppression of the Soviet Union would lead to its current "mafia capitalism," or that our encircling of Red China would lead to -- what to call it? -- China`s variation on the horrors of the industrial revolution; its effectively slave labor is presided over by Communists just as devoted to the bottom line as the 19th century British "Messrs. Moneybags" (as Marx called them). Nor was it anticipated that our use of Japan and Germany as key military outposts would, given its essential economic accompaniments, create our two most potent competitors -- or that our installation of the fascist Syngman Rhee in South Korea and our effectively occupying army would, taken together, lead to a modern and competitive Korean economy and, at the same time, anti-capitalist and anti-American politics. Least of all was it expected that our "outsourcing" to cheap labor places like China and India would lead them to move toward dominance in, among other unimportant and important industries, computer hardware, with more to come..

So it is that, once again, companies` pursuit of profits through global expansion act to pull the rug out from under the very economy upon whose strength the well being of the companies ultimately depends, what is very sensible from each participating company`s point of view spits back in its face. Such short-sightedness is not a defect of the business mentality, it is a necessity for what are seen as their successes: It is capitalism`s middle name.

It is against that background that current economic processes must be placed if they are to be judged intelligently. Financial columnists, mainstream economists and the White House do what they can to spin each and every economic factoid to show that -- as the saying went -- prosperity is just around the corner. We are expected to give at least two cheers when we are told that productivity in manufacturing is climbing the heights; however, in the small print we find that a good chunk of that advance is due to fewer workers putting in more hours without overtime pay (while paying a higher percentage of their health care benefits. Rarely is it noted that the increased revenues from that productivity -- naturally -- go mostly to profits and dividends (as with Bush`s tax cuts); nor is it often noted that in addition to not paying overtime manufacturers are also not investing in equipment for expansion. For two years we have been told that recovery is underway, but that it is a "jobless recovery"; in fact it has been a "jobloss" non-recovery: almost 3 million jobs have been lost since 2001. Moreover, the new jobs are almost entirely in the service sector at much lower levels of skill and wages, with no benefits;

Since the 1950s union membership has gone down by two-thirds; their political clout has gone down even more. In partial consequence, social reforms have been crushed or reduced. The average family continues to increase its household indebtedness, is less and less for buying manufactured goods and more and more to pay for education, higher rents and indirect taxes, and higher health care and prescriptions prices -- while workers` coverage declines and co-payments go up: As a headline in the financial news put it recently, "Necessities, not luxuries, are driving Americans into debt." (NY Times, 9-4-03) From the point of view of a particular company, business is business; from the standpoint of the economy and the demand for its manufactures, it is a disaster waiting to heppen..

Meanwhile, what is happening around the globe is also sending warning signals. If there is any truly "emerging economy" in the world today it is China`s: It will surely be among the top 2-3 economies in aggregate strength within 10 years; as things go with the Top Three these days (USA, Japan, Germany, in that order), China could damn well be Number One; and as for Japan, the present Number Two, what would be better for the USA (remembering that Japan holds the largest part of our debt), to have Japan regain its strength, or lose more of it? Add to that the growing uneasiness of "Europe" with the USA: As U.S. arrogance and non-cooperation have risen (Kyoto on the environment, WTO on tariffs, and World Court and UN defiance), it is not only France and Germany that have been nay-saying, and not only about Iraq; no less than the Romano Prodi, Commssioner of the European Union, has been openly pressing for Europe to distance itself from the USA, make itself less dependent. Of such dilemmas hath the mighty fallen.

Another part of the larger picture has to do with the impact of ongoing U.S. domestic policies as they interact with the world economy. The combination of extraordinary tax cuts for the rich (and peanuts for two-thirds of us) and rapidly rising expenditures on the Middle East and on weaponry, not only mean that social expenditures at the federal, state, and local levels are decreasing (and do so as their federal grants go down), but that the taxes of the lowest 90 percent will rise while at the same time social programs (in education, housing, medical care, especially) decline. There`s lots wrong with that; making it wronger is that it will further weaken our manufacturing sector: the beating heart of the U.S. economy, remember. But we must remember this, too: Since the 1980s, the USA has become "the consumer of last resort"; all the countries in the rest of the world economy have been dependent upon the USA importing more than we export. In the old expression, "when the USA gets a cold, the rest of the world gets pneumonia."

That old expression was coined before we were running our enormous trade deficit (now at a rate of half a trillion dollars a year). You don`t have to know economics -- in fact you`re better off not knowing it -- to understand that as we continue along present paths, the rest of the world will be dragged along with us. As they begin their roll over the cliff, not only will they buy even less from us, it might occur to them to try to get back some of those trillions we owe them. U.S.A. could make Argentina`s defaults look like kid stuff.

Ominous as all of that seems, and even though it leaves out a lot that would also feed that volcano, does it signify anything in particular around any corner soon to be reached? Who knows? Predictability on such matters is impossible, whether for next year or the next decade. All that can be said is that present tendencies point to an already serious and a continuing decline in U.S. manufacturing strength and therefore in its overall economic strength. To the degree that is so, the future of the entire globe becomes even rockier than it would otherwise be; and it portends all too much of that even with continuing U.S. strength. It needs repeating that whatever its defects, a global capitalist economy must have a controlling or guiding central power; we are losing our ability to be that power. It is more likely that chaos than that any other identifiable power will take our place -- for better or for worse.

To which it needs adding that -- as the politics of the U.S. stand today and for the foreseeable future -- if and when we loose the market power to dominate economically, we will remain the dominating military power until -- to put it bluntly -- death do us part. We are unbeatable militaryily, if and when we use all of our "weapons of mass destruction."

The conclusion to all this is that we had better get our political act together, fast and well. Many might think, hey! great, the biggies are gonna get their asses kicked, finally! Maybe so; what is absolutely certain is that most of the people, in and out of the USA, will take the greatest hit economically and, maybe, all of us, "nuclearly." We may have as much a decade to get going effectively, maybe much less. No matter; the time to get off our political asses is NOW.

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Bush is losing support on right
Bob von Sternberg
Star Tribune
Published 09/20/2003

The criticisms of President Bush aren`t surprising: He`s bungling the war in Iraq; his budget deficits are disastrous; he`s trampling civil liberties; his spending plans are misguided.

But the source of those criticisms is: They`re increasingly coming from conservatives.

Think tank studies, op-ed columns, talk radio callers and opinion polls show conservatives` disenchantment with Bush`s policies and priorities has been climbing, although nowhere near as much as it has among liberals. And although those dismayed conservatives might rally round him in next year`s presidential election, his campaign aides are keeping a close eye on the trend.

"I hate to say they`ve got nowhere else to go, but I think most conservatives will stick with the president," said former Rep. Vin Weber, who is co-chair of Bush`s reelection campaign in Minnesota and four other states. "Conservative voters across the country will conclude backing the president is imperative. Of course, it`s impossible not to have a few dissident voices."

One of those voices belongs to Daniel Cragg, a college student from Eagan who in June launched a Web site called conservativesagainstbush.com "to propound the conservative principals this administration has forsaken."

The site has been averaging about 200 hits a day, Cragg said. "The idea is to get the word out about how far off track he`s gotten," he said. "A lot of people are mad about what`s going on."

Evidence of grumbling on the right can be gleaned from recent polls.

A Star Tribune Minnesota Poll this month found that 31 percent of self-described conservatives gave Bush a thumbs down for the way he`s doing his job. That was up from 9 percent who disapproved in April, days after the fall of Baghdad. The current disapproval rate among conservatives is the highest the Minnesota Poll has recorded in Bush`s presidency.

Conservatives` displeasure has been growing nationally too. A recent ABC News poll found that 23 percent of conservatives nationwide disapprove of the job Bush is doing, up from 14 percent in April.

Such sentiments (along with considerably higher disapproval ratings by moderates and liberals) shouldn`t be surprising, Weber said. "We`ve come off a summer of difficult news, what with the economy and the post-war," he said. "If those things were to continue and deepen, you`d start to worry. But the opposite is true."

Besides, no president satisfies every member of his political base all the time.

Minnesota conservatives` disapproval of Bush`s performance has seesawed, from as low as 3 percent immediately after the Sept. 11 attacks to 18 percent 10 months later. (And it`s a bipartisan phenomenon: Witness the fact that a month after Bill Clinton became president, 19 percent of liberal Minnesotans disapproved of his performance.)

"Every successful Republican president, including Ronald Reagan, ends up criticized by a number of voices on the right who complain he`s not pure enough," Weber said. "Any compromise is unacceptable to them, but it`s impossible to govern the country with rigid ideological principles."

A similar point was made by Mitch Pearlstein, who heads the Center for the American Experiment, a Minneapolis-based conservative think tank. "There are indeed conservatives out there who will complain about any officeholder who`s not doing precisely what they want him to do," he said. "These are early seeds of disgruntlement, but they`re still very faint."

Fuming

Conservatives universally praise Bush`s relentless tax cutting but have little good to say about the growth in government programs, spending and budget deficits.

Pointing to this year`s projected $455 billion budget shortfall and proposals for a Medicare prescription drug benefit, Club for Growth president Stephen Moore wrote this month: "Imagine that Al Gore and a Democratic Congress were doing all this profligate spending. Would conservatives stand for it? . . . Fiscal sanity is in retreat, under a solidly Republican regime."

Federal spending last year grew by 7.9 percent, the highest in a dozen years. Much of that is because of increased military and homeland security spending in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, but a double-digit increase in Medicaid spending has contributed to the growth.

Cato Institute president Edward Crane fumed to the New York Times this summer that Bush`s "fiscal record is appalling -- spending is out of control. The fiscal record of the Bush administration makes Clinton look downright responsible."

Research recently published by the Brookings Institution, a liberal-leaning think-tank, showed that the true size of the federal workforce stood at 12.1 million in October 2002, up from 11 million in October 1999.

Despite the Bush administration`s claim that it has shrunk the federal workforce, reductions have been more than offset by "off-budget" jobs paid for with federal contracts and grants, the study found.

An analysis last spring by the Cato Institute compared spending during the first terms of Bush and Reagan and found that spending grew in 11 categories under Bush and four under Reagan. While spending on education, training, employment and social services shrunk by 32.6 percent under Reagan`s watch, it has grown by 26.8 percent under Bush`s.

Assessing Bush`s record, conservative columnist Andrew Sullivan recently wrote: "The Bush administration is actually a big government liberal administration on fiscal policy. It likes spending money; it takes on big projects; it`s quite content to borrow `til the fiscal cows come home."

Some conservatives have blasted Bush for his quiet acquiescence in the wake of the Supreme Court`s recent ratifications of affirmative action and gay rights. Others have complained that he has not attempted to restrict the number of abortions performed in the United States.

Conservatives of a libertarian bent have railed against the Patriot Act and what they see as its threat to trample civil liberties. And conservatives with isolationist beliefs have blasted the war and occupation of Iraq.

Prominent among these is erstwhile Republican and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan. Now editor of the American Conservative magazine, his lead editorial in the current issue concludes that "the Bush administration`s prosecution of the war on terror has gone terribly, terribly wrong."

Twin Cities talk show host Jason Lewis has occasionally gotten an earful from conservatives fed up with one or another of Bush`s policies.

"It`s uneasiness, not open revolt," he said. "There`s a limit to conservatives` patience, but I don`t think it`s going to be a huge problem in the election."

In many ways, Lewis said, Bush`s domestic policies resemble his father`s, who was famously unable to hold onto conservatives` allegiance.

The saving grace for the younger Bush is his tax-cutting zeal and his war on terror, Lewis said. "Without the specter of war right now, Bush would be getting many of the same criticisms his dad got," he said. "Plenty of criticisms on the spending side are warranted, but the war on terror trumps all of that."

Bob von Sternberg is at [e-mail].

© Copyright 2003 Star Tribune. All rights reserved.

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Clark`s Fast Start
By Laura Fording, Newsweek Web Exclusive


Retired Gen. Wesley Clark may have only entered the presidential race on Thursday, but he is already the Democratic frontrunner, according to a new NEWSWEEK poll.

CLARK WON SUPPORT from 14 percent registered Democrats and democratic leaners, outpacing former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (12 percent), Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman (12 percent), Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry (10 percent) and Missouri Congressman Dick Gephardt (8 percent).
Meanwhile, as Americans focus on the fiscal realities of creating a stable Iraq, President George W. Bush`s approval ratings continue to slide, the poll shows. The president`s approval rating now stands at 51 percent, down 1 point from last week`s poll and from 65 percent on May 1, when major hostilities in Iraq ended.

For the first time in a year, Bush`s approval for his handling of the situation in Iraq has dropped below 50 percent to 46 percent, a 5-point drop from last week. Fifty-six percent of Americans say they think the amount of money being spent in Iraq is too high. And 57 percent of Americans now disapprove of how Bush is handling the economy, an increase of 6 points from only one week ago.

The NEWSWEEK poll was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates, which interviewed 1,001 adults by telephone on September 18 and 19. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points.

Americans are divided on whether Clark`s military background gives him an edge in national defense and security issues--40 percent said it made them more confident in his abilities to handle these areas while 42 percent said it didn`t. And more than half--52 percent--said it didn`t matter to them that Clark had never held political office.

Despite Clark`s strong entrance, the Democrats remain less than enthusiastic about their choice in candidates. If former Vice President Al Gore or New York Sen. Hillary Clinton were to enter the 2004 presidential race--both have said they will not run--loyalties of Democrats would shift dramatically, with 33 percent saying their first choice for Democratic nominee would be Clinton, and 28 percent saying their first choice would be Gore.

Others in the race look especially weak. The Rev. Al Sharpton polls at 7 percent among registered Democrats and leaners, while North Carolina Sen. John Edwards received 6 percent, Florida Sen. Bob Graham 4 percent, and former Illinois Sen. Carol Mosely Braun and Ohio Congressman Dennis Kucinich received only 2 percent each. Nineteen percent of Democrats and democratic leaners are still not sure who they will vote for in the upcoming primary.

When registered voters were asked who they would vote for if a general election if President George W. Bush was pitted against Clark, Kerry or Dean, none of the candidates were able to beat the incumbent, although Clark fared better than the others, polling at 43 percent to Bush`s 47 percent. Kerry was next, polling at 43 percent to Bush`s 48 percent. Dean fared worst, with Bush beating him by a full 14 points (52 percent to 38 percent).



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Healing the wounds of war

http://www.sundayherald.com/36894



2 Iraq: Without UN help Blair and Bush face a long, expensive conflict. If the French have anything to do with it, that help will never arrive
By James Cusick, Westminster Editor, in Berlin



THE chancellery, the official residence of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, looks like a cathedral to modernism. It is clean, linear, tall and impressive. Locals, either amused or dispirited by its attempt at grandeur, call it the Waschmachine – the washing machine. But yesterday, in the heat of a sunny Berlin afternoon the spin cycle failed to work properly.
Downing Street had dispatched some message carriers to first play down any expectation that the trilateral talks between Tony Blair, Gerhard Schroeder and Jacques Chirac would produce anything positive on Iraq. Clearly there was the hope that even a small movement could be presented as a major triumph for the prime minister.

When no triumph, however small, appeared, other than a faint hint at common ground on bringing democracy to Iraq, the segregated international media audience in the chancellery garden were told by Blair “this detail will be left to our people in New York”. So there no breakthrough .

Iraq, in the spin cycle of the chancellery, was not the point of the gathering. If the message was supposed to be “a display of unity please gentlemen” then only President Jacques Chirac failed to stick to the script.

In the lengthy run in to the Iraq war, Blair promised to keep the UN on board, promised to keep the US away from unilateral action, and failed on both accounts. Berlin yesterday was his first shot at post-war redemption.

The French are threatening again to block President George W Bush’s plan to internationalise the war, share the financial burden of occupying Iraq, and bring in the organisation the US administration tried to shred, the United Nations. Bush wants to do this while allowing the US to retain overall control of all Iraqi institutions. Only the US will decide Iraq is ready to run itself,

Chirac is having none of this. And once again Bush’s men in New York are preparing the ground against the French by portraying them as the real barriers to democracy in Iraq. The 15 members of the Security Council are being lined up to back a new US resolution on post-war Iraq that would internationalise reconstruction.

While Chirac and Schroeder will both meet Bush in New York before Blair has had a chance to tell the US president in person the inside track on Berlin, Blair has little to report.

Berlin was supposed to help narrow the gap with the French, enthuse Schroeder to come back inside the fold and offer the embattled PM a chance at claiming a diplomatic victory . Schroeder tried as best he could to put a Germanic gloss on the lunch party’s chat. He said: “There are obvious differences of opinion … we want to give a more prominent role to the UN.”

Chirac tried from the very moment he entered the chancellery. It was the third time he’d been there in a fortnight. He opened his arms first to Schroeder in a Gallic gesture of “Yes I know, here I am again .” The three leaders chatted, highly animated before the cameras, probably saying nothing more than “looks a bit windy in Washington this weekend, doesn’t it."

But when Chirac could have gone all diplomatic, he chose not to. Yes, he said there was “common ground” but after the mini-summit or the quick lunch (because officials were insisting this was not a summit), Chirac said: “We still do not agree fully on Iraq.” If Blair had taken off his smart grey suit, his blue shirt and matching blue tie, he may have revealed a vast area of serious political sweat. Having lost Brent East on Thursday, he was about to lose Berlin Central on Saturday.




Blair tried to rescue his crumbling vote by attempting to change the subject. The Berlin meeting had accomplished much: it was important to deliver a workable constitutional framework when the EU was enlarged to 25. There was an “increasingly common approach”. On EU defence and Nato defence, Blair said there was no conflict. An American journalist muttered: “I didn’t think there was one.”

But as Blair insisted it was New York who would be dealing with Iraq,and after all had not all three agreed that the UN must play a “key role” and yes “differences could be resolved”, Chirac again ruined the party game by stating bluntly: “There is not much point in me saying we slightly disagree” by which he meant: “There is no agreement – period.” The French president wanted to see progress towards Iraqis being sovereign in their own country – within a few months. Practicalities aside and differences of opinion over the timetable, Chirac was saying “we still disagree” and that the UN should play a far more significant and operational role to help Iraq return to democracy. In the sunlight flooding the chancellery garden, Chirac, if the White House had been listening in, reached boiling point saying: “I hope for immediate transfer of sovereignty – and that should be done by the UN.”

In the brief trilateral talks, which had begun at just after 11.30am and continued through a lunch of iced tomato red pimento soup with sautéed scallops and basil, saddle of venison with sweet potatoes and apricot coulis, ending with red current tart with crème fraiche, the three leader had managed to get through EU integration , problem on EU economic growth, the coming Inter-governmental conference, EU defence, the Middle East, Afghanistan, denials they were the elite inside the new bigger EU club and might abuse their power – and, of course, Iraq. As foreign policy was said by a Downing Street official to have been only discussed at lunch, it is possible (though unlikely) that the world’s press in the chancellery garden, had turned up to hear the outcome of a trilateral discussion that lasted the time it took to down a currant tart with a few glasses of 2002 Ihringer Winklerberg .

Questioning of the three leaders had been fairly tame before a British TV journalist asked Blair how comfortable he was at coming to Berlin as the envoy of Bush? Before Blair had time to answer, Schroeder jumped in to offer a fulsome defence. Blair laughed saying, “my spokesman has done a very good job for me”.

In another era, spokesman Alastair Campbell, would have done exactly that. But sadly for Blair the spinmeister was elsewhere, just when he needed him.

21 September 2003

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Taking Arabs Seriously
By Marc Lynch
From Foreign Affairs, September/October 2003

http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20030901faessay82506/marc-lync…

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RIGHT GOAL, WRONG APPROACH


For the hawks in the Bush administration, one of the keys to understanding the Middle East is Osama bin Laden`s observation that people flock to the "strong horse." Bush officials think U.S. problems in the region stem in part from "weak" responses offered by previous administrations to terrorist attacks in the 1980s and 1990s, and they came into office determined to reestablish respect for U.S. power abroad. After nearly two years of aggressive military actions, however, the United States` regional standing has never been lower. As the recent Pew Global Attitudes survey put it, "the bottom has fallen out of Arab and Muslim support for the United States."

The failure to find dramatic evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction has spurred widespread debate in the Middle East about the real purpose of the recent war, which most Arab commentators now see as a bid by the United States to consolidate its regional and global hegemony. U.S. threats against Iran and Syria play into this fear, increasing a general determination to resist. And the chaos that followed the fall of Baghdad, the escalating Iraqi anger at what is always described as an American occupation, and the seemingly ambivalent U.S. attitude toward Iraqi democracy have reinforced deep preexisting skepticism about Washington`s intentions.

Because of the speed with which intense anti-Americanism has recently emerged across all social groups in the region -- including educated, Westernized Arab liberals -- the problem cannot be attributed to enduring cultural differences, nor to long-standing U.S. policies such as support for Israel or local authoritarian leaders. Arabs themselves clearly and nearly unanimously blame specific Bush administration moves, such as the invasion of Iraq and what they see as a desultory and one-sided approach to Israeli-Palestinian relations. But perhaps even more important than the substance of the administration`s policies is the crude, tone-deaf style in which those policies have been pursued. The first step toward improving the United States` image, therefore, must be figuring out how to address Arabs and Muslims effectively.

Ironically, for this administration above all others, taking Arab public opinion seriously cannot be considered either a luxury or a concession to "Arabists" lurking in the bureaucracy. It is instead crucial to the success of the administration`s own strategy, which links U.S. security to a democratic and liberal transformation of the region. The Bush team`s practice, however, has worked against its stated goals, largely because it has been based on misguided assumptions about the Arab world.

One such assumption is that Arabs respect power and scorn attempts at reason as signs of weakness -- and so the way to impress them is to cow them into submission. Another assumption is that Arab public opinion does not really matter, because authoritarian states can either control or ignore any discontent. Still another is that anger at the United States can and should be disregarded because it is intrinsic to Islamic or Arab culture, represents the envy of the successful by the weak and failed, or is simply cooked up by unpopular leaders to deflect attention from their own shortcomings. And a final, increasingly common notion is that anti-Americanism results from a simple misunderstanding of U.S. policy. Together, these concepts have produced an approach that combines vigorous military interventions with a dismissal of local opposition to them, offset by occasional patronizing attempts to "get the American message out" (through well-intentioned but ineffective initiatives involving public diplomacy, advertising, and the promotion of radio stations featuring popular music). Not surprisingly, the result has been to alienate the very people whose support the United States needs in order to succeed.

Because the administration is right about the political, social, and economic stagnation afflicting much of the Arab world, the way out of the dilemma should not be to return to the traditional "realist" course of pursuing U.S. security interests through strategic alliances with local authoritarian regimes. Nor would a change in U.S. policy toward Israel and the Palestinians be a panacea, as the lukewarm regional reaction to the Bush team`s promotion of its "road map" for Middle East peace demonstrates (although a more evenhanded approach to the road map`s implementation would give the project greater credibility). Instead, the administration should continue its focus on fighting a war of ideas but change its strategy.

The United States needs to approach regional public diplomacy in a fundamentally new way, opening a direct dialogue with the Arab and Islamic world through its already existing and increasingly influential transnational media. Such a dialogue could go a long way toward easing deep-seated anger over perceived American arrogance and hypocrisy and could address the corrosive skepticism about Washington`s intentions, which colors attitudes toward virtually everything the United States does. It might also help nurture the very kinds of Arab liberalization that the Bush administration claims to seek.


THE NEW ARAB PUBLIC SPHERE


Arab public opinion is a more complex phenomenon than conventional notions of a cynical elite and a passionate, nationalistic "Arab street" suggest. The street, or mass public, is real, and its views (expressed or anticipated) can indeed affect government policies. But what now matters more than the street, and sometimes even more than the rulers, is the consensus of elite and middle-class public opinion throughout the Arab world. Articulate and assertive, combative and argumentative, this nascent public sphere increasingly sets the course for the street and the palace alike. It is here that the battle of ideas about internal reform and relations with the United States is already being fought, and here that it must be won.

The emergence of this new public debate has been obscured by the Arab media`s less-than-glorious past track record. During the 1950s, Egypt`s revolutionary radio programs galvanized Arab audiences and transformed the political landscape, but the angry monologues they featured did little to promote rational discourse in the region. With the credibility of Egyptian broadcasts destroyed by Israel`s devastating military victory in 1967 and with President Gamal Abdel al-Nasser`s death soon afterward, the Arab media settled into a dreary parade of presidential receptions and official news. National press and broadcast media in Arab countries were subject to state control, with clear "red lines" governing acceptable speech. Occasional bursts of exciting press activity, such as the openings in Jordan and Yemen during the first half of the 1990s, tended to be local affairs, dominated by local issues, and were soon tamed by uneasy regimes.

During the second half of the 1990s, however, a genuinely new kind of Arab public sphere emerged, as satellite television brought disparate local debates in the various Arab countries and the Arab diaspora together in a remarkably coherent, common, and ongoing public argument accessible to almost everyone. Even as (or perhaps because) Arab regimes struggled to maintain their control over local media, transnational media emerged as an alternative location of vibrant and open political debate.

Whereas the broadcasting of the 1950s had been in the service of powerful states, the new media (both television and press) have self-consciously portrayed themselves as a mouthpiece for an Arab public deeply frustrated with all Arab regimes and beholden to none of them. Based primarily in London, the elite Arab press has been able to escape direct government control while drawing on writers and journalists from all over the world. Regular news roundups broadcast on the new satellite stations, along with the increasing availability of newspapers on the Internet for a small but growing younger following, have allowed this Arab press to reach a large audience. As a result, the staid and politically conservative national television stations have been rapidly losing market share and political significance. Yemeni President Ali Abdallah Salih, for example, once famously admitted that he watched the Qatar-based independent satellite network al Jazeera more regularly than he did official Yemeni TV.

It is easy to be skeptical about claims for the revolutionary impact of al Jazeera and its counterparts, but in this case the excitement is not misplaced. Unlike earlier stations, which focused on belly dancing and soap operas, from its launch in 1996 al Jazeera put politics first. Its talk shows pointedly included representatives from across the spectrum, promoting sharp arguments that made for good television and shocked audiences unaccustomed to such fireworks. Such a transnational media outlet naturally focused on issues of broad Arab concern, transforming Arab political culture in the process.

Many intellectual luminaries and influential political figures of the Arab and Islamic world (along with some foreigners) now appear regularly on Arabic satellite television programs or contribute essays to Arabic newspaper opinion pages. The new media outlets spark arguments among viewers and readers, shaping the terms of debate and framing the understanding of the news. Television watching and newspaper reading are often communal affairs. During crises, cafes become virtual political salons, with patrons flipping channels, comparing coverage, and arguing vociferously about what they see.

The conventional wisdom that the Arab media simply parrot the official line of the day no longer holds true. Al Jazeera has infuriated virtually every Arab government at one point or another, and its programming allows for criticism and even mockery. Commentators regularly dismiss the existing Arab regimes as useless, self-interested, weak, compromised, corrupt, and worse. One recent al Jazeera talk show took as its topic the question, "Have the existing Arab regimes become worse than colonialism?" The host, one of the guests, and 76 percent of callers said yes -- marking a degree of frustration and inwardly directed anger that presents an opening for progressive change.

Al Jazeera may have pioneered the new format, but its success has sparked an explosion of market-seeking Arabic satellite stations broadcasting political news and argument. The field is intensely competitive, with the Saudi MBC, the Lebanese LBC-al Hayat, Hezbollah`s al Manar, Abu Dhabi TV, and others contesting al Jazeera`s leading position. Stations are eager to differentiate themselves; whereas some seek market share by engaging in what the scholar Mamoun Fandy has called a "political pornography" of radical views and shocking imagery, others cultivate an image of seriousness or an image attractive to cosmopolitan businessmen. Abu Dhabi TV, for example, did surprisingly well during the Iraq war with a less sensationalistic approach.


A TALE OF TWO WARS


These new Arab media increasingly construct the dominant narrative frames through which people understand events. In some ways, the absence of real democracy in the region makes the new media outlets even more powerful, since they face few real rivals in setting the public agenda. An effective approach to Arab public opinion today should therefore focus less on the street and the palaces than on the participants in and audiences of these new public forums.

The Bush administration seemed to recognize this necessity after September 11, 2001, sending numerous representatives on al Jazeera programs, but early enthusiasm gave way to frustration and fury over the network`s sympathetic coverage of al Qaeda and hostile coverage of American policies toward Afghanistan and Iraq. The administration`s pressure on al Jazeera to censor tapes of bin Laden made a mockery of its free-speech rhetoric in Arab eyes, and Arab journalists were disinclined to take advice on objectivity from the United States, where broadcasters wear American flags on their lapels.

But ignoring al Jazeera and its counterparts will not make them go away. Rather than shun them out of pique, the United States should try to change the terms of debate in the Arab world by working through them and opening a genuine dialogue. Doing so effectively, however, will require more than simply sending more officials onto talk shows, especially because all too often such appearances only confirm the viewers` worst stereotypes. On one recent al Jazeera program, for example, a running survey tallied votes on the question, "Is the United States acting as an imperialist power in Iraq?" The longer a prominent former U.S. official talked, the more voters said yes, with 96 percent voting yes by the end of the show.

Despite what some may think, such hostility is neither preordained nor unchangeable. After the September 11 attacks, wide segments of the Arab public expressed sympathy with the victims, and the elite media presented nuanced discussions of the attacks` implications. Yusuf al-Qaradawi (a prominent Islamist made even more famous by his regular appearances on al Jazeera) and five other leading moderates issued a fatwah condemning the terrorist attacks as contrary to Islam and calling for the apprehension and punishment of the perpetrators -- a remarkable intervention that received little attention in the West. Nor did the war in Afghanistan provoke universal opposition (although many initially doubted American claims of bin Laden`s responsibility for the terrorist attacks). The real turning point for Arab public opinion was Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon`s bloody reoccupation of the West Bank in the early spring of 2002, with anger reaching a fever pitch during the battle over Jenin.

Few single remarks have angered more Arabs more deeply than President George W. Bush`s description, offered at the height of the fighting, of Sharon as a "man of peace." Repeated endlessly in the Arab media, this sound bite came to symbolize the United States` inability to comprehend Arab sensitivities. Directed equally at the United States for failing to intervene and at local Arab rulers for failing to act, the fury created an atmosphere that shocked even seasoned observers of Arab opinion. A widespread boycott of American goods, albeit economically insignificant, became a regular part of political and cultural life in many Arab states. The mediocre Egyptian singer Shaaban Abdel-Rahim scored a breakaway hit with his anti-American song "Attack on Iraq." And by March 2003, many of the same Islamists who had backed the United States against al Qaeda -- including Qaradawi -- now urged jihad to defend Iraq against a U.S. onslaught.

For years, Iraq ranked alongside Palestine as an issue of collective Arab concern. It was al Jazeera`s furious nonstop coverage of the 1998 Operation Desert Fox bombing raids that first gained the network a mass following, and support for the Iraqi people suffering under sanctions became a powerful defining principle of a new Arab and Islamist identity. It was no accident, therefore, that bin Laden invoked the sanctions on Iraq in addition to Palestine as a core issue guaranteed to mobilize Arab outrage. And it was a deep-rooted conviction that the United States was primarily responsible for the massive humanitarian suffering of the Iraqi people that left most Arabs skeptical about sudden expressions of concern for their "liberation."

In spite of all this, however, Arab opinion toward the recent war was not predetermined. Arabs have long been deeply divided in their views about Saddam Hussein`s regime. Debate has raged on the pages of the elite press and in the al Jazeera studios over the extent of Saddam`s responsibility for the suffering of the Iraqi people. Iraqi opposition figures regularly get heard, if only because their unpopular positions guarantee good television. And although almost all Arabs attribute bad faith and cynical motives to the United States, few think any more highly of Saddam. Every time he attempted a Nasser-style appeal to the Arab masses to rise up, in fact, he triggered a backlash that weakened his position.

It is conceivable, therefore, that more honest and less overbearing diplomacy by the Bush administration might have produced greater international support for a campaign against Saddam, even in the Arab world. But Washington chose not to go that route, relying instead on calculations that Arab public opinion would be won over by a quick and clean American victory in Iraq followed by images of Iraqis welcoming U.S. troops as liberators. Radicals would be shocked and awed by U.S. military prowess, the argument ran, while mainstream Arab publics would be impressed by the gratitude of the Iraqi people for their newfound freedom. Anti-American voices would be discredited, opening a window for new thinking and self-criticism.

This was always a somewhat implausible scenario, but the theory cannot truly be said to have been disproved, since it was never tested -- in fact, few Arabs witnessed the conflict the way neoconservatives in Washington expected. The war in the Arab media began with an isolated United States and United Kingdom attacking against the will of the entire world. The troops were seen to run into stiff resistance. And Arab coverage was dominated by civilian casualties, American casualties, bombed-out buildings, and angry Iraqis. The accidental bombing of a Baghdad market on March 28, for example, was showcased repeatedly and set off gusts of fury.

The sudden fall of Baghdad deflated the furor, but few Arabs had ever really believed that Iraq would win. The toppling of Saddam`s statue, meanwhile -- an iconic moment that virtually shut down debate over the war in the United States -- received much less attention in the Arab media, which viewed it as a stunt stage-managed by the American military with few authentic Iraqi participants. And then the narrative segued quickly from a "tough fight" story to one of a quagmire of American and British mismanagement, Iraqi hostility, and rising guerrilla resistance.

In the language used to describe the war, American troops were always "invaders" rather than "liberators." The description of the American presence in Iraq as an occupation echoes the hated Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. And just as most Arabs consider Palestinian violence against Israelis to be a legitimate response to occupation, so the attacks on U.S. and British forces in Iraq since the war`s end have been portrayed, and received, as both understandable and justified. In short, the Arab media have not given many Arabs reason to view the war or its aftermath as quick, clean, successful, or particularly benign.


DIALOGUE ANOTHER DAY?


Some elements of the U.S. government recognize the problem and have tried to correct it. Their efforts have focused on promoting the administration`s policies through occasional media appearances by official and semiofficial speakers and promoting a positive image of the United States through popular culture. The former approach has achieved little, however, because the target audiences sense that they are being "spun," and the latter is unlikely to do much better. A planned U.S.-sponsored Arabic satellite television station will have a difficult time finding a market, for example, since any political content will automatically be discounted as propaganda, and existing satellite stations already fill the demand for music videos, reality shows, and mainstream entertainment such as Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The bottom line is that the new Arab media, both broadcast and print, are more than a match for any popular-culture alternative the United States might muster.

The Advisory Group on Public Diplomacy for the Arab and Muslim World, a panel established this July at the request of Congress, will therefore miss a crucial opportunity if it recommends simply greater resources for or better implementation of traditional approaches to these issues. What it should press for is a fundamentally different approach to the United States` interactions with the region -- one that speaks with Arabs rather than at them and tries to engage rather than manipulate. The German philosopher Jürgen Habermas has distinguished between "strategic" and "communicative" action, with the first designed to manipulate others so as to further one`s own self-interest and the second designed to search for truth. This echoes a widely recognized distinction drawn by Arab thinkers between dialogue (hiwar) and other forms of intellectual combat. All too often, U.S. public-diplomacy efforts have fallen crudely into the strategic category and missed their mark for that very reason. Information has gone in one direction; the target`s views and thoughts have been of interest only insofar as they could be molded.

Arabs and Muslims recognize and dismiss such efforts as propaganda, something they are quite familiar with from their own regimes. They are angered at being treated like children and feel the sting of contempt in being objects of manipulation rather than true interlocutors. As one Egyptian bitterly complained, "Americans think Arabs are animals, they think we don`t think or know anything." Only by treating Arabs and Muslims as equals, listening carefully and identifying points of convergence without minimizing points of disagreement, will a positive message get through. It may be uncomfortable -- particularly for this administration -- but Washington needs to put its own interests and viewpoints up for discussion as well, rather than focusing solely on Arab pathologies. And words will have to be matched by deeds if they are to have any chance of persuading a highly suspicious and skeptical audience.

Nevertheless, if a call for true dialogue were ever sounded, it would resonate powerfully in the new Arab public sphere, where people have been discussing the concept obsessively ever since Iranian President Muhammad Khatami`s abortive outreach to the West in the late 1990s. Rather than targeting Arab rulers or overbroad categories such as "youth," Washington should concentrate on engaging the intellectuals, politicians, journalists, and other public figures who have become so instrumental in shaping Arab public opinion. An ongoing, meaningful conversation with these new media elites could give them a stake in the success of the American enterprise by making it their own and perhaps even generate some level of common identity and purpose -- something that Arabs and the United States so glaringly lack today.

Successful dialogue requires minimizing power considerations and demonstrating mutual respect. Obviously, no U.S.-Arab dialogue could or should avoid the reality of American power, but invoking that superiority too directly would cripple efforts at rational persuasion. Arab and Islamist commentators focus obsessively on the imbalance of power and hardly need to be reminded of their weakness. Relying on "shock and awe" to win respect will alienate far more than it will persuade. Threats of force, no matter how useful in the short term, will entrench the impression of American hostility and ensure future conflict.

Unless the United States reaches out, it is unlikely that Arab attitudes will change spontaneously, for as it stands, ambitious politicians and public intellectuals have powerful incentives to criticize the United States in ever stronger terms and almost no incentives to defend it. Anti-American rhetoric earns one a reputation for authenticity, courage, and clear thinking, whereas a pro-American line -- though praised by Americans as the height of courage -- is usually perceived in the Arab world as cheap opportunism.

If the Bush administration seriously wants to rally Arabs to push for a more democratic and liberal Middle East and win their support for its occupation of Iraq and the war on terror, it must change those incentives. It needs to recognize that the elite Arab public can speak for itself, deeply resents being ignored or condescended to, and is more than capable of directly observing American words and deeds for inconsistencies. Frequent and appropriately frank appearances in the new Arab media by American representatives could have a salutary effect simply by changing the pool of participants and the style of argument, creating new ways for individuals to stand out and enhance their reputation. They could open up a space for influential Arab intellectuals to triangulate between the extremes, staking out a new, reasonable middle ground.

This does not mean simply assisting moderates and shunning radicals, however. Open American support goes a long way toward discrediting any Arab, so anointing favored candidates would likely doom them to irrelevance. It would be better to engage with the full spectrum of existing political debate, trying to shift the balance and style of argument by gradually inserting the United States into the conversation. Indeed, engaging those who hold hostile political views is more important than giving a platform to those who already agree with American positions. Currently, the vast majority of politically active Arabs -- most especially those Westernized and educated members of the new media elite -- feel powerless and frustrated. Giving them a respectful hearing could bring them into an ongoing discussion about realistic alternatives, other possible readings of motivations and actual policies, and a search for solutions in which they have a stake.


ARGUING THE WORLD


As a recent Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on public diplomacy put it, "there is little doubt that stereotypes of Americans as arrogant, self-indulgent, hypocritical, inattentive, and unwilling or unable to engage in cross-cultural dialogue are pervasive and deep rooted." Such attitudes color the reception of any initiative. At the same time, most Arabs are painfully aware of the urgent problems facing the Arab world. The goal of American policy must thus be to find ways to engage this kind of public opinion -- eager for reform but suspicious and resentful of American power.

Any overture must begin with an honest recognition of Arab skepticism of American intentions: Washington must eschew grandiose rhetoric and instead acknowledge the full range of interests and motivations behind American policies. (Suspicious observers will assume self-interest anyway and take protestations of altruism as evidence of dishonesty.) And expectations should be kept low; a realistic goal for the near term might be to strive for a relationship in which American policy simply gets the benefit of the doubt.

The United States could begin by addressing the nearly unanimous consensus on American insincerity in calling for democracy. American policymakers have long hesitated about promoting democracy for Arabs out of fear that Islamists might win free elections. Now that political liberalization has been put forward as such a prominent American objective, however, the only way for the United States to retain any credibility in Arab eyes is by demonstrating its willingness to accept unpalatable electoral outcomes -- as it eventually did, albeit with bad grace, in Turkey recently.

Arab liberals complain that they have long been fighting for human rights and public freedoms without any palpable American support and ask why things should be any different now, at a time when the war on terror and public outrage over Iraq have made Arab regimes ever more repressive. They want to believe American promises and credit American good intentions, but Washington must give them a reason to do so. The goal should be to establish the United States, through words and deeds, as an ally of the Arab public in its own demands for liberal reform, rather than making such reform an external imposition. A recent al Hayat essay nicely captured Arab ambivalence about the United States` role: "We need to reform our educational systems even though the Americans tell us to." Washington should recognize such sensitivities, understanding that attempts to coerce change, whether through threats or hectoring monologues, will provoke resistance even among those who share its basic goals.

The most important item on the agenda, however, must be Iraq. U.S. actions there over the next several months will have more impact on American relations with the Arab world than anything else. Although Arabs remain deeply invested in the Palestinian struggle, most recognize the complexity and recalcitrance of that situation and understand that even an honest effort there could fail. But fairly or unfairly, in Iraq the United States is seen as having a free hand, and thus the outcome will be read as a direct reflection of Washington`s intentions.

The current haphazard U.S. policies in Iraq, which most Americans see as pragmatic reactions to a deteriorating situation, are seen by most Arabs as evidence of malevolent American priorities. It is critical, therefore, that progress be made, and be seen to be made, quickly. Restoring public order and erecting a functioning Iraqi state is vital. American forces must avoid the temptation of heavy-handed military reprisals or of a retreat behind the high walls of Saddam`s old palaces. Washington needs to be transparent in its dealings with the Iraqi oil industry and in its financing of reconstruction projects. It should move rapidly toward Iraqi representation in governance and enunciate a clear commitment to a meaningful democratic transition sooner rather than later. It should allow Iraqi newspapers a long leash in openly criticizing the American occupation, because although that would be uncomfortable and not always constructive, such openness would nevertheless set a powerful example of how a free press operates and greatly increase the credibility of any positive reports that might emerge. And Washington should make explaining what it is doing in all these areas openly, clearly, and continuously in the Arab media one of its highest priorities.

Certainly, no amount of dialogue will change Arab opinions about the United States and its intentions absent tangible changes in policy. But just as certainly, changes in policy cannot and will not speak for themselves. Pressing the Israeli government to dismantle settlements, allowing genuinely representative Iraqi elections, easing the visa process for Arabs to visit the United States -- all of these could help repair the damage incurred over the last couple of years, but only if they are explained through open debate in credible and independent Arab media.

A dialogue with Arabs offers no magic bullets. It requires patience and self-restraint, a sustained commitment to efforts that might not deliver immediate gratification. The Bush administration has to set aside its distaste for diplomacy, its penchant for threats and coercion, and its tendency to divide the world into simplistic categories of good and evil. But given the changes that have taken place in the Arab world in recent years, such a dialogue might well be the best, and perhaps the only, way to make progress in achieving the lofty goals that President Bush has laid out for the Middle East.



Copyright 2003 by the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc. All Rights Reserved.

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

September 20, 2003

Stage Zero
The Moral Development of George W. Bush
By CAROL NORRIS

If George wasn`t driving the world down the road to extinction with his wars, his environmentally disastrous choices and world alienating policies--"Look at me, ma, no hands" he says while sitting behind the wheel of our children`s future--I`d think he was almost fascinating.

Fascinating the way one who is steeped in myriad psychological issues is.

I`m a psychotherapist. And, having never seen George in therapy, despite my open invitation, it would be unethical for me to make an official diagnosis of him. So, I won`t. But, I can kick some thoughts around.

Remember Tom Hanks` movie, "Big," when the kid, by an accident of fate, finds himself turned into an adult, playing grown-up roles he is not developmentally ready for? This is George. I don`t mean this maliciously or satirically; I really mean it. I think developmentally speaking George is a big kid. Lots of people are. The difference is they don`t have the means to bomb human beings into "pink mist," obliterate the infrastructures of countries, and poison the world with coal and pesticides and carbon dioxide and depleted uranium and napalm, as they play grown up.

Nowhere was George playing grown-up more conspicuous than his staged re-election photo op on the USS Lincoln. When I saw him all dressed up pretending to be a naval aviator, I kept waiting for him to pull out his GI Joe doll with karate action, sit down and start playing: "Bring `em on. We can take `em. Huh, Joe? Take that--heeeyah," while making Joe do a big karate chop as the real soldiers look on, saluting their Commander in Chief.

And now KB Toys has come out with an Elite Force Naval Aviator Action Figure to immortalize George`s "historic" day of pretend play. And with that, in a moment of unintentional, yet brilliant psychological mindedness, they have placed George, the pretend combat-ready naval aviator, exactly where he belongs--in the make believe world of the 10 and under set.

In short, George is stuck.

Without getting into too much psychobabble, in human development terms this means he had some significant issue or trauma at one stage in his development that precluded him from advancing to higher stages. Again, theorists would argue that we all have developmental issues to one degree or another. And we do. But, again, most of us are playing out our intrapsychic havoc in the battlefields of our minds, not the battlefields of the world. Our casualties, disastrously enough, are often our relationships, not the lives of U.S. soldiers and civilian mothers and children bombed out of their homes in far away neighborhoods.

There are many ways to think about human development. One could explore cognitive, psychosexual or psychosocial development. I suspect George is developmentally stuck in many ways, so we could look at any of these.

But perhaps more than any other president I can think of, George evokes pure morality as a rationale for his policy decisions. This, as opposed to choices based on reason and facts and evidence informed by morality. [Example: George`s rationale for going to war were WMD`s that were an imminent threat to the U.S. Oops. No WMD`s. Now George says in essence, "Yeah, well, so? Saddam is bad. Really bad. And we`re good. So, us being good and Saddam being bad justifies all the lying and misleading about this illegal war."]

So, while I don`t psychologically assess people from a moral perspective, it makes sense for George. You have to meet people where they are.

A preeminent theorist on moral development is Lawrence Kohlberg, a famous Harvard professor, who demonstrated through his scientific studies that people progress in their moral reasoning (i.e., in their bases for ethical behavior) through a series of levels. He delineated three levels, further broken down into six stages.

The first is "the Preconventional Level," where one usually finds oneself in elementary school. The first stage of this level is where George, I believe, makes his home. It`s called: Stage Zero.

Kohlberg writes: "Stage Zero: Egocentric judgment. The child makes judgments of good on the basis of what he likes and wants or what helps him, and bad on the basis of what he does not like or what hurts him. He has no concept of rules or of obligations to obey or conform to independent of his wish."

I know! It`s uncanny.

We saw George`s egocentric judgment during his college years as he publicly argued for the right of his fraternity, DKE, to use cruel hazing rituals, such as branding, on its pledges. After all, George said, "the resulting wound is `only a cigarette burn.`" (New York Times, November 8, 1967).

We saw it in AWOL George, who didn`t see the need to fulfill his obligations, his promised duties in the National Guard because it didn`t align with his wishes.

And we have seen unprecedented self-serving judgment time and time and time again during Bush`s tenure as president.

One example among thousands: The current administration is seeking to create legislation that will make some 18 year old kid who wrongly downloads a song off the Internet without permission a felon. A felon. Such a label will dog her and impede her for the rest of her life. This, as Kenneth Lay, who robbed countless families of their life savings is not held accountable, but is running free, living not off his wife as he pretends, but off the fruits of his manipulation. So, what`s the moral here? Rob a corporate buddy of George`s of a buck fifty and, because it`s technically illegal, you`re forever bad. Run a corporation, be a buddy of George`s, rob your employees of thousands upon thousands of dollars and, although it`s illegal, you`re still good.

A summation of George`s egocentric philosophy might very well be his words to Bob Woodward: "I am the commander, see. I do not need to explain why I say things. That`s the interesting thing about being the president. Maybe somebody needs to explain to me why they need to say something, but I don`t feel like I owe anybody an explanation."

What a profoundly childlike thing to say (not to be confused with childish). It sounds to me like a kid trying desperately, yet transparently, to convince people he is fit for a role he secretly is unsure he can fulfill and discuss.

An appropriate response by Woodward to George`s subtext might`ve been, "Such a big boy, Georgie! Yes you are!!"

I`m not a big Clinton fan, believe me, but can you imagine those words coming out of his mouth during the absurd Lewinsky debacle?

An interviewer asks: "But didn`t you say you did not have sexual relations with that woman?"

"I am the commander, see. I do not need to explain why I say things. That`s the interesting thing about being the president...I don`t feel I owe anybody any explanation."

Now, we all know many a president has lied and distorted the truth in office. But, the difference is they kept in mind the concept of rules and obligations that they had to at least pretend to obey and conform to. Not just George, but this entire administration has completely flouted what every other administration previously has not--the need to pretend to play by the rules. The rules are forever changed, they tell us. Remember 911!

Speak brashly and carry a big photo of Ground Zero is their new philosophy. And Remember 911! is the battle cry that drowns out any dissenting skirmish this administration finds itself in. Remember 911! Is the catch-all response that replaces any obligation to account for their actions. It is the cozy, protective cloak that has made the Bush administration all but impervious to questioning and doubt.

And not can they be heard crying, Remember 911!, but Beware The Terrorist Hiding in Your Underwear Drawer! Code Orange. Code Orange. Duct tape at the ready! Of course, a terrorist attack could absolutely happen again. We`d be foolish to think otherwise. But, this in no way negates the fact that the Bush administration has brilliantly and unabashedly exploited our post-911 apprehension. There is no greater fuel for righteous indignation and the resulting lack of critical thinking than fear. And the Bush administration is fanning the flames of fear every chance it gets.

So, through our post-9.11 eyes, many of us have very understandably come to see the radical (yes, the Bush administration is not conservative, it is radical) egocentric judgment of the Bush administration as truth. And in many cases, it has become law. The Patriot Act is the radical, egocentric judgment of a few, turned law.

And it is from the same Stage Zero mindset that a plethora of alarming legislation is being passed as hard fought civil liberties are being overturned. It is from Stage Zero that John Ashcroft and the proposed "Patriot Act II" will be enforced. Ashcroft`s egocentric judgment--the same judgment that spent $8,000 of tax payers` money to cover a stone breast apparently too titillating for John`s libido--is going to determine who is a terrorist and who isn`t, who can be expatriated and who can`t. It will be Ashcroft, the same man who reportedly thinks Calico cats are signs of the devil, who is the final arbiter of right and wrong, good and bad. And let`s not forget that Rumsfeld was reportedly all too recently considered so way out there his colleagues didn`t take him seriously.

While the causes of all this egocentric morality are beyond the scope of this article, it is worth saying that, in George`s case, it is surely informed by his particularly privileged background that has left him without a realistic sense of how the vast majority of us live and struggle. As he said in a moment of uncharacteristic truth telling to Reverend Jim Wallis, "I don`t understand how poor people think."

In addition, his morality and subsequent choices are surely informed and perhaps superceded by his addiction issues and by his deep-seated shame and desperate need for validation.

George`s egocentric judgment is also given credibility under the auspices of his religious conviction. I do believe George is a religious man. But, he has in many ways prostituted his religion to serve his true dogma--the advancement of the corporation.

So, for all his touting of religious and moral imperatives, George`s policy decisions constitute nothing less than a moral failure. They have nothing to do with God, despite George`s fantasy of divine rule, they have nothing to do with compassion, and they have nothing to do with helping you and me in any real way. Intrapsychically, they have everything to do with George`s wish to finally be more than what he fears he is--a moral/business/personal failure. And interpersonally, they have to do with paybacks and power jockeying.

I believe George`s handlers exploit his insecurities, posing him as an Air Force Naval Aviator here and a Friend of the Poor there, feeding into his need to play those rolls. At the same time, it fills their need to have an affable, malleable front man, willing to please and needy enough to believe the rolls in which he is cast. Karl and Dick and Co., I believe, are to a certain extent manipulating George just as they are trying to manipulate us.

So, why don`t we all see through this and call them on it? Because George`s handlers and speechwriters and the rest of the gang are very adept at pretending to be at a stage where they aren`t: Stage 5.

Kohlberg writes: "Stage 5: The social-contract legalistic orientation. Right action tends to be defined in terms of general individual rights and standards that have been critically examined and agreed upon by the whole society... The result is an emphasis upon the "legal point of view," but with an additional emphasis upon the possibility of changing the law in terms of rational considerations of social utility...The "official" morality of the American government and Constitution is at this stage."

This is where most of us Americans believe we are, or at least we used to. Because this is much of what our country was founded on. And the Bush administration knows this and they exploit it. They talk the talk of Stage 5 as they walk the walk of Stage Zero.

But such incongruity is crazy making. It`s like a mother who beats her child as she tells him she loves him and would never hurt him.

Like the abused kid, many of us want to believe George is telling the truth and is looking after our best interest. He seems like a nice enough guy. We try to contort our sense of morality and reality to fit his, questioning our own. But, while we hear George tell us the economy is recovering, we see thousands upon thousands in our communities laid off with no future job prospects. And we can only contort and deny so long until finally something gives. So now, the facade is cracking and many people are starting to see the real, ugly, self-serving picture behind George`s wall of pretty words. And it is through this crack that activists, progressive politicians and those of us concerned about the once unimaginable state of our country must thoughtfully, respectfully and gently enter and begin to mobilize and organize.

The final of Kohlberg`s stages is Stage 6. Again, Kohlberg writes: "Stage 6. The universal ethical-principle orientation. Right is defined by the decision of conscience in accord with self-chosen ethical principles that appeal to logical comprehensiveness, universality, and consistency... At heart, these are universal principles of justice, of the reciprocity and equality of the human rights, and of respect for the dignity of human beings as individual persons."

Kohlberg believed many people never truly reach Stage 6. But, I think it is not unreasonable to hope that the man who is running our country and our world should aspire to this stage. Having a Stage Zeroling behind the wheel is a sure sign our world will be driven into an enormous ditch before you can say Robust Nuclear Earth Penetrator.

To help clients move through the stages, Kohlberg believed a therapist should present him or her with moral dilemmas to discuss. Never have I considered, nor do I plan on doing therapy with clients this way. But, I think it is my patriotic duty to help our morality-touting Commander in Chief rise out of Stage Zerohood and step into a stage more fitting of his position.

So, again, I invite you, George, to come see me in therapy and work out some of your moral development issues, just as I invited you to work out some of your shame issues a while back.

In the meantime, here is a moral dilemma for you to chew on to help you work your way up the moral ladder. Hope it helps.

Moral Dilemma: You are an exceptionally privileged man who has a long history of personal and business failures. Despite yourself, you find you are appointed to the most powerful position in the land through the help of friends and family in high places.

You say you are compassionate (burning the flesh of others aside). Yet in your short tenure in office, you have instituted public policies and norms that have irretrievably pockmarked the face of the world such as walking away from international treaties, years in the making: The Kyoto Treaty, the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the International Criminal Court Treaty, and the Land Mines Ban Treaty, making our world infinitely more dangerous.

You have created the largest federal budget deficit in American history, as you blithely accept the highest unemployment rate in decades, (the upturn of the last economic quarter was mostly due to payments to the coffers of a few defense contractors. So only a few of your friends have seen the benefits of the slight upturn. And the small unemployment decrease was due to people so frustrated they just dropped out of the job market).

And as the US now boasts the highest proportion of children born into poverty in the "developed" world (22%) and 43 million Americans have no health insurance, your administration is slowly but surely gutting all our country`s safety nets, which will ultimately add fuel to your privatization frenzy and create a truly vicious cycle.

Through this same privatization, you are pilfering the jobs and futures of millions of federal employees in the name of national security, effectively gutting the Civil Service Act of 1883, dragging federal employment practices back to the good old days of nepotism and cronyism while you do your best to pass a law to cut the overtime pay of hard working citizens.

Your administration reportedly instructed the EPA to lie to the people of New York City about the toxic air they have been breathing since 9.11, which has caused very serious respiratory illnesses. You ask soldiers to continue to die, to expose themselves to higher and higher levels of toxic depleted uranium that promise years of subsequent health problems, as you show a uniquely George-esque brand of "supporting our troops"--ignoring the demands of the family members of active troops who are clamoring for some answers and accountability for this war; trying to block the pay raises of those on active duty; and pledging to veto a bill that would overturn an old law that, in effect, makes veterans pay for their own benefits.

Do you have Laura look up what the word compassionate means in the dictionary and pick a new, more appropriate word like, say, self-interested? Do you have a moral reckoning and become the man you pretend to be? Or, do you forever remain "...a white Republican guy who doesn`t get it..." as you said to Reverend Jim Wallis and, true to your pervasive pattern, continue to pull an Orwell and tell us War is Peace, Occupation is Liberation, and Self-Interest is Compassion? Discuss.

Carol Norris is a psychotherapist, freelance writer and member of CODEPINK: Women for Peace. She can be contacted at [e-mail].
http://www.counterpunch.org/norris09202003.html" target="_blank" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">http://www.counterpunch.org/norris09202003.html

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Foreign firms to bid in huge Iraqi sale
Rory McCarthy, Baghdad
Monday September 22, 2003
The Guardian

Iraq was effectively put up for sale yesterday, when the US-backed administration unveiled a sweeping overhaul of the economy, giving foreign companies unprecedented access to Iraqi firms which are to be sold off in a privatisation windfall.

Under the new rules, announced by the finance minister, Kamil Mubdir al-Gailani, in Dubai, foreign firms will have the right to wholly own Iraqi companies, except those in the oil, gas and mineral industries. There will be no restrictions on the amount of profits that can be repatriated or on using local products. Corporate tax will be set at 15%.

Mr Gailani said a free and open market was the quickest route to prosperity. "Our objective is simple to state: promote Iraqi economic growth and raise the living standards of all Iraqis as soon as possible," he said.

The reforms won the backing of the US treasury secretary, John Snow, who said they were "policies that make sense... that offer real promise."

The news came as President George Bush said in an interview with Fox News that he was unsure how far the US would have to yield to the United Nations to make way for a new resolution on Iraq.

He said he would declare in his speech on Tuesday to the UN general assembly that he "made the right decision and the others that joined us made the right decision" to invade Iraq.

Yesterday, one Iraqi businessman warned that the economic reforms would "destroy the role of the Iraqi industrialist". Wadi Surab told the BBC that Iraqi entrepreneurs would be unable to compete with foreign companies in privatisation tenders.

The rules give foreign firms greater access to business in Iraq than in most developing countries, where local industries are often shielded from overseas buyers. For some Iraqis such unfettered access is a concern, yet the privatisation of Iraq`s 192 public sector companies is not up for debate.

The most valuable contracts on offer have already gone to US corporate giants.

Kellogg, Brown and Root - a subsidiary of Halliburton which was once run by the American vice-president, Dick Cheney - won a contract worth up to $7bn (£4.3bn) to repair Iraq`s oil infrastructure.

Bechtel, a San Francisco-based firm, won the $680m chief contract to start rebuilding other essentials, such as roads and schools.

One of the most high-profile contracts still up for grabs - for mobile phone licences - is to be announced shortly. Fifteen bids have been put forward, including some from Iraqi businessmen who plan to involve more Iraqis in the business of reconstruction.

"There is a big business class of Iraqis that we haven`t seen yet. We want to get them back doing things for their own economy," said Mohamed Shaboot, an Iraqi businessman educated in the US who has spent 10 years in Baghdad.

Mr Shaboot and several other Iraqis have formed a consortium, called Zagil, which has submitted a bid to run one of three new mobile phone networks. The consortium`s proposal for the licence includes a pledge to sell half the company to ordinary Iraqis.

Mr Shaboot said: "We are trying to get Iraqi investors to put in some of the money that they have made abroad back into their country. This is the first step towards really rebuilding."

There are few mobile phone contracts left in the world that offer such potential. Many expect at least 2 million subscribers within a few years.

But the licence, worth at least $200m, will not be won easily. The US-led authority in Iraq, the coalition provisional authority (CPA), stipulated that bidders must have run mobile phone networks in other countries. Some argue that key contracts should be reserved for Iraqis. But among the elder Iraqi businessmen, some are struggling to adapt to the new business climate.

Farouk al-Obeidi, the vice-president of al-Maimana group, one of the country`s most established construction and trading firms, has a file on his desk containing some of the CPA`s requests for bids to provide equipment. "This is a chaotic situation. Out of these 50 offers, I`ve only been able to submit proposals for three and none of them has won," he said.


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How the world can aid Iraq without helping Bush
The UN should drive a hard bargain in exchange for bailing out the US

Simon Tisdall
Monday September 22, 2003
The Guardian

When George Bush addressed the UN general assembly in September last year, his message was blunt. The UN must either support his campaign against Iraq or be doomed to irrelevance. In the event, most countries refused to back him and, ignoring the UN, Bush plunged into war. Tomorrow, when Bush returns to the general assembly, his tone is expected to be somewhat less brusque.

Although Bush is loath to admit it, the US badly needs international assistance, troops and money to prevent its Iraq occupation becoming an inescapable quagmire. In other words, the UN has turned out to be anything but "irrelevant". And through officials like Colin Powell, Bush the heedless unilateralist is now emphasising consultation and an agreed, multilateral approach.

Has he seen the error of his ways? Hardly. If Bush has changed his tune, it is not because he has developed new-found respect for the UN and those who opposed his war. It is because the cost of Iraq, in terms of American lives and American tax dollars, is beginning to have a seriously negative impact on his re-election hopes. It is because ordinary Americans are critical (as ever, in fact) of his go-it-alone approach.

It is because Bush`s credibility, like Tony Blair`s, is rapidly shredding. His admission last week that there is "no evidence" tying Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida`s 9/11 attacks was a significant moment. For months, he and his top advisers have been deliberately giving the very opposite impression. As a result, a large majority of Americans did come to believe Saddam was somehow responsible for September 11. They can see now that Bush knowingly misled them.

When this realisation is coupled with Bush`s failure to justify claims that Saddam presented an imminent threat to the US and possessed fearsome weapons of mass destruction, it is not hard to see why trust in his leadership is eroding. When George Bush Sr broke his famous "read my lips, no new taxes" pledge, he broke the back of his 1992 re-election bid. Bush Jr`s forced confession on Iraq may yet prove to be a similar watershed.

Bush`s handling of the economy, and in particular the stark contrast between higher unemployment, higher deficits, public spending cuts and multibillion tax giveaways for the better-off, is increasing a national sense of disenchantment. The post-9/11 popularity bonanza from which Bush profited for nearly two years is all but spent. And the Democrats sense it. Senator Edward Kennedy calls the Iraq war a "fraud made up in Texas" and - unusually for him - he is now probably expressing the majority opinion.

As the 9/11 trauma fades, Americans are beginning to remember that the 2000 election installed Bush as a minority president. And as Bill Clinton put it in a recent speech in Iowa: "That election was not a mandate for radical change, but that is what we got. We went from surplus to deficit, from a reduction in poverty to an increase in poverty..." After 9/11, he said, "instead of uniting the world, we alienated it. And instead of uniting America, we divided it by trying to push it too far to the right." After appearing untouchable for so long, a former White House official notes: "Bush is vulnerable."

These and other considerations pose a strategic choice with implications stretching far beyond Iraq. Why should the international community gathered at the UN help Bush get out of his Iraq mess? Why not let him stew and, by withholding cooperation, possibly hasten his electoral demise?

This is indeed tempting, for another four years of Bush in the White House is an unappealing prospect. Bush bamboozled the UN as well as his fellow citizens over Iraq, pretending for at least six months that a decision to attack Saddam had not been made, when in truth it had. He made of Hans Blix`s good faith weapons inspections a charade that was sure to end in failure, whatever Iraq did and whatever Blix found.

Bush`s primary purpose was not enforcement of the UN`s resolutions, as he said at the time. It was regime change - which, ironically, has become his only remaining justification for the war as his other claims have been exposed as exaggerations or lies. Bush`s treatment of the UN on Iraq and other issues has been disgraceful. By him it has been disdained, divided, debauched. The UN as a body owes him nothing.

A second Bush term promises more, not less, WMD proliferation and more confrontations. Iraq`s fate, when contrasted with North Korea`s, has taught others that only a nuclear arsenal may provide protection against US attack. Yet Bush`s threats against Iran, Syria and Libya and his pre-emptive war doctrine presage only more conflicts. His failure to follow through on his Aqaba pledge of a new, balanced beginning for Israel and Palestine promises more, not less, Middle East strife.

By alienating Muslim opinion, and insulting key allies, Bush has undermined the fight against international terrorism. On a wide range of other issues, from the international criminal court to civil rights to climate change to multilateralism in its broadest sense, it is plainly in the national interest of many states to see the back of Bush.

Under Blair, Britain has lost its independent voice. But France, Germany, Russia and other big powers could and perhaps should hold out for a government in Washington that is more amenable to their vision of a multipolar world. Bush`s growing weakness should certainly be recognised and exploited to contain his worst excesses in the last 15 months of his presidential term. This is already beginning to happen as countries prevaricate over US requests for troops and cash.

The problem with such recalcitrance is that it does not help the people of Iraq right now, as their country totters on a knife-edge between chaos and recovery. It opens opposing states to charges of irresponsibility.

The answer must thus be to do all that is possible in terms of immediate humanitarian and technical aid to Iraq while insisting, with France, on a greatly accelerated handover of sovereign powers to a provisional Iraqi government and on primary political oversight for the UN security council. Longer-term reconstruction investments and loans and any contributions to a UN-mandated peacekeeping force should be conditional on US agreement to relinquish its stranglehold on Iraq.

Until Iraqis are able physically to control their country, and unless it cuts and runs, the US will continue to bear the main security burden. Yet as the war`s progenitor, it is only right that it should. It is a price Bush should be made to pay even though, thanks to his foolishness and hubris, it is America`s soldiers who pay the highest price of all.

Such a hard-nosed approach by the international community will hardly help Bush`s re-election chances. It may even dish him. But it will help Iraq recover its dignity and get back on its feet.

[e-mail]


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US approval for Bush falling
Oliver Burkeman in Washington and Luke Harding in Berlin
Monday September 22, 2003
The Guardian

For the first time since the war in Iraq began, less than half of Americans say they approve of the way President George Bush is handling the situation, according to a poll published today.

The Newsweek poll, which also shows a 14-point fall in Mr Bush`s overall approval ratings, comes at a critical point for the White House, as it girds for UN talks to win a new resolution followed, the president hopes, by offers of troops and money.

In a week, the number of those supporting Mr Bush`s Iraq policies fell five points to 46%, with 56% saying they believe too much money is being spent on the country. At home, meanwhile, those who disapprove of his economic policies has risen six points, to 57%.

The two issues became further entwined last week after Senator Joseph Biden, a prominent pro-war Democrat, introduced a bill to force Mr Bush to fund his $87bn (£53bn) request for Iraq by scaling back tax cuts for the top 1% of US taxpayers.

And there is worse, as the former Nato commander General Wesley Clark - who declared his candidacy last week - went to the top of the Democratic contenders, with 14% of the party`s registered voters saying they would vote for him.

Supporters of Gen Clark, a vocal critic of the Iraq war, believe his military credentials would panic the Bush administration in next year`s race far more than Howard Dean, the previous frontrunner, or the uncharismatic Joe Lieberman. The duo came joint second in the poll, with 12% support.

Gen Clark lacks any electoral experience - but 52% of Americans do not believe that matters, says the poll. Mr Bush would still win the race against Gen Clark if it were held now - by 48% to 43% - but much more narrowly than if he were running against Mr Dean (52% to 38%), the opinion poll found.

Compounding the White House`s domestic problems, there were doubts last night that the US can win support this week at the UN for its new resolution on Iraq.

Both France and Germany indicated they want Iraq to be returned to domestic rule as soon as possible, and for the UN to get a far larger role.

Speaking on Saturday after meeting Tony Blair and the German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, President Jacques Chirac of France insisted that the US should hand back sovereignty in Iraq in a "few months". The UN should play a "significant and operational role", he added.

Mr Blair`s attempts to mediate met with little success.

Both Britain and the US believe the French demand is unrealistic. But after months of hostility, there are signs that Mr Bush would like to mend ties with France and Germany, his biggest critics in the war.

Mr Bush will meet Mr Chirac tomorrow at the UN in New York, and will breakfast with Mr Schröder on Wednesday.


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Democrats` dilemma
Wesley Clark may have been a top general, but is he the best candidate to go into battle against Bush?

Gary Younge
Monday September 22, 2003
The Guardian

When former Nato commander General Alexander Haig was seeking the presidential nomination for the Republican party`s 1988 campaign he went to canvass votes from workers on the early shift at a factory in New Hampshire. When one man was hostile to his advances, Haig turned to reporters and barked: "Every once in a while you meet an asshole." Not long afterwards he pulled out of the race.

It`s not difficult to see why American generals have made reluctant electoral warriors in recent times. They are more used to giving than taking orders and to direct lines of command rather than the unruly insubordination that is public opinion. Dwight Eisenhower, the one exception of the last century, won the New Hampshire primary for the Republican nomination before he had even formally entered the race, and went on to a two-term presidency.

General Wesley Clark is hoping he might do the same for the Democrats after he became the 10th contender for the party`s nomination last week. Clark`s long-awaited announcement has brought him much-needed media attention, given that he entered the race so late in the day and with so few funds. Some have pinned great hopes alongside the epaulettes on his shoulders.

Ask them why and they will first brandish his CV. He graduated first in his class from West Point, was a Rhodes scholar at Oxford and supreme allied commander of Nato, in which position he prosecuted the Kosovan war. He hails from the south, where Democrats are becoming extinct. In a political culture where religion matters, Clark was raised a Baptist, converted to Catholicism when he got married, and his real father was Jewish. He`s from Democratic party central casting.

Only then do they talk politics. He is pro-choice, pro-affirmative action and against tax cuts. His views on the war have wobbled of late, but as a CNN pundit in the build-up he was always sceptical.

Clark, they say, is everything both Bush and the other Democratic candidates are not. His personal history shows he is a man of the establishment with whom you can trust your security. His policy positions suggest he is a decent type you can trust with your civil rights and social welfare too. He is tough and tender, Mars and Venus - the man, they say, who can appeal to both America`s head and its heart.

It is way too early to make any sensible prediction about how he will fare in the primaries. But his decision to stand already tells us a great deal about American politics and the mood of the Democratic party in particular.

It reveals the growing awareness that President Bush could lose in 2004. With the economy haemorrhaging jobs, and few signs of an endgame in Iraq, his approval ratings are now lower than they were before the terrorist attacks. "Taking a fall was inevitable, but he is increasingly vulnerable now," says Jaime Regalado, a political scientist at California State university. "The war in Iraq is showing escalating costs in money and human life, and the American public is showing escalating doubts."

When pollsters ask people whether they would vote for Bush or a Democrat, Bush barely breaks even. Just think how difficult it will be for him once the voters have a name for that Democrat. Clark is a shrewd man. Becoming the candidate would mean little to him unless he thought he was in with a shot at the big prize. Sadly, it also reveals that many Democrats have not yet worked out why Bush is vulnerable and how they can beat him. Clark is favoured partly on the premise that Bush will not be able to argue that a four-star general is weak on security and therefore removes the president`s trump card. There are three problems with this.

First, the next election will most likely be fought on the economy, not on security, which has slipped to third place in voters` priorities behind jobs and healthcare. "A good economy can compensate for a bad Iraq," says Larry Sabato, director of the Centre for Politics at the University of Virginia. "A good Iraq cannot compensate for a bad economy."

Second, the war factor is a huge variable in any case, based not on whether it is right or not (most Americans still think it was) but whether it is successful (most Americans think it isn`t). If they capture Saddam Hussein, support for the occupation will rise. If the Iraqi resistance launches a devastating attack on an American base, it will plummet. If there is another terrorist attack in the US, who knows?

Third, a war record is no guarantee that the Republicans will not brand you as weak on security. Senator Max Cleland of Georgia lost three limbs in Vietnam and is a former head of the Veterans` Administration. That didn`t stop the Republicans defeating him by branding him unpatriotic for opposing the creation of Homeland Security. Being a retired general certainly won`t hurt Clark. But it won`t help him half as much as his supporters think either.

In truth, the sigh of relief from the Democratic party leadership on hearing of Clark`s decision was less about how much they liked him and more to do with how much they loathe the other nine candidates in the race. As recently as early summer, the party hierarchy had written off the next election as a dead loss and were thinking ahead to Hillary in 2008.

In this judgment they have been overly hasty and out of touch with their base. Between them, the nine candidates - ranging from the conservative Joseph Lieberman to the radical Al Sharpton - were doing a relatively good job galvanising the party`s supporters and reaching out to new ones.

The party bigwigs` attempts to dismiss the frontrunner Howard Dean have done little to stem his growing support among activists or his ability to raise money. While the Democratic leadership has been telling everyone who will listen that he cannot win, Dean has been drawing crowds of thousands and making the cover of Time and Newsweek. Dean has been cast as beyond the pale largely because of his opposition to the war and his pledge to reverse Bush`s latest tax cuts. The problem for the party`s leaders is that most Democratic voters agree with him on those points, and an increasing number of independents do too. Moreover, Dean is pro-gun, pro-death penalty and fiscally conservative. "I don`t mind being characterised as a `liberal`," he said in February. "I just don`t happen to think it`s true."

Clark is probably no worse and may even be somewhat better than the other leading candidates. His entry to the race should be welcomed for the simple reason that it gives Democrats more choice at a time when they are so angry they would embrace anyone who they thought could take the White House. Within limits this is no bad thing. But, as any general would tell you, desperation and anger are doubtful allies in battle. The good news is that defeating Bush is possible. The bad news is a Democratic victory still feels a long way off.

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Hier noch zwei Artikel, einmal über Reagan:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1047162,00.html

Und der Zweite über Graham Greene und die USA
http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1047016,00.html

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Original 9/11 plan `involved 10 planes`
Oliver Burkeman in Washington
Monday September 22, 2003
The Guardian

The man believed to have organised the September 11 terrorist attacks has told his US interrogators that the original plan was to hijack 10 American planes and simultaneously hijack or bomb aircraft in south-east Asia.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed said the had plan changed from 1996, when he first proposed to Osama bin Laden an attack in which terrorists would "hijack 10 planes in the United States and fly them into targets", according to reports seen by Associated Press.

Mr Mohammed has confirmed that he was involved in the failed Bojinka plot to blow up 12 planes in Asia in the mid-90s, AP said, and at one point planned a similar approach with US airlines.

But visa problems for the initial volunteers, and Bin Laden`s doubts about synchronising attacks in the US and Asia, led to a change of plan.

An international team of hijackers was replaced by Saudis because Mr Mohammed learned that "there was a large group of Saudi operatives that would be available to participate in the plot to hijack planes in the United States", one report says.

US intelligence sources have said this might have been because the close relations between the two countries would make it easier for them to enter the US.

The AP said the investigators had been able to corroborate much of what they have been told by Mr Mohammed, who was captured in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in March and is being held at an undisclosed location, where he is being questioned by the CIA.

The interrogation reports apparently show that he and al-Qaida were planning strikes against western targets at least as late as earlier this year.

Mr Mohammed reportedly said that he had communicated by means of internet chat software with two hijackers, Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, upon their arrival in California, and suggested that they were more crucial to the plot than Mohamed Atta, previously seen as the ringleader.


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Suicide car bomb explodes at UN compound in Bagdad
AP
22 September 2003


A car bomb exploded this morning while being examined at a checkpoint as it tried to enter the United Nations compound, killing at least two people and injuring seven others, Iraqi police reported.

The suicide bombing occurred about 100 yards from the UN compound at the Canal Hotel, scene of a devastating car bomb last month that killed 23 people, including the UN`s top envoy in Iraq Sergio Vieira de Mello.

The casualties of today`s blast, which could be heard over much of the Iraqi capital, appeared to be the driver and Iraqi police.

The explosion ocurred as the UN General Assembly was meeting in New York where the United States is expected to offer the world body an expanded role in rebuilding Iraq, a condition set by many nations for contributing peacekeepers and money to the reconstruction effort.

UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has made clear he wants assurances of security for UN personnel in Baghdad along with any expanded role.

The United Nations curtailed its efforts in Iraq after last month`s bombing. At the time of the attack, there were about 300 international staff in Baghdad and more than 300 elsewhere in Iraq. These numbers are thought to have now been dramatically reduced.

The bomb exploded two days after an assassination attempt against Aquila al-Hashimi, one of three women on the Iraqi Governing Council and a leading candidate to become Iraq`s UN ambassador if the interim government wins approval to take the country`s UN seat. She was reported in critical but stable condition following the attack on Saturday, which occurred as she was in a car near her home in western Baghdad.

The Governing council president, Ahmad Chalabi, blamed remnants of the regime of Saddam Hussein, whose government was toppled by US-led forces in April. Since President Bush declared an end to major combat operations 1 May, more than 160 American soldiers have been killed.

More than 300 US soldiers who have died in Iraq since the US-led coalition launched military operations March 20. The ongoing violence has raised questions about American stewardship of the country and has led to calls for an expanded role for the United Nations in post-Saddam Iraq.

President Bush said yesterday that he was not sure that the United States will have to yield a significantly larger role to the United Nations to make way for a new resolution on Iraq. He continued to insist on an orderly transfer of authority to the Iraqis rather than the quick action demanded by France.

In an interview with Fox News, he said he will declare in his speech tomorrow at the UN General Assembly that he "made the right decision and the others that joined us made the right decision" to invade Iraq. But the president said he will ask other nations to do more to help stabilize Iraq.

"We would like a larger role for member states of the United Nations to participate in Iraq. I mean, after all, we`ve got member states now, Great Britain and Poland, leading multinational divisions to help make the country more secure," he said.

Asked if he was willing to have the United Nations to play a larger role in the political developments in Iraq to get a new resolution, he replied: "I`m not so sure we have to, for starters."

But he said he did think it would be helpful to get UN help in writing a constitution for Iraq. "I mean, they`re good at that," he said. "Or, perhaps when an election starts, they`ll oversee the election. That would be deemed a larger role."
22 September 2003 09:29


© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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America puts Iraq up for sale
By Philip Thornton in Dubai and Andrew Gumbel
22 September 2003


Iraq was in effect put up for sale yesterday when the American-appointed administration announced it was opening up all sectors of the economy to foreign investors in a desperate attempt to deliver much-needed reconstruction against a daily backdrop of kidnappings, looting and violent death.

In an unexpected move unveiled at the meeting in Dubai of the Group of Seven rich nations, the Iraqi Governing Council announced sweeping reforms to allow total foreign ownership without the need for prior approval.

The initiative bore all the hallmarks of Washington`s ascendant neoconservative lobby, complete with tax cuts and trade tariff rollbacks. It will apply to everything from industry to health and water, although not oil.

But it is still likely to feed concerns that Iraq is being turned into a golden opportunity for profiteering by multinational corporations relying on their political connections.

Already, the biggest reconstruction contracts have been allocated to American firms such as Bechtel and Halliburton, which have ties to the Bush administration. They were selected behind closed doors, with no opportunity for competitors to present bids.

Iraq is far from an ideal environment for business, however, and the new initiative seemed calculated to overcome qualms overseas companies have had about the risks to both people and capital.

It remains to be seen whether the prospect of buying into Iraq`s most essential services, pricing those services at will and repatriating profits in their entirety will be a strong enough lure to offset the continuing inability of the US military to make the country secure from resistance fighters and heavily armed criminal gangs.

Wholesale privatisation is a dramatic departure from Saddam Hussein`s centralised management of the Iraqi economy, which was reasonably successful in capitalising on the country`s oil wealth to build modern hospitals, schools and other infrastructure, at least until the upheavals of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, the 1991 Gulf War and the imposition of United Nations sanctions after that conflict.

One Arab expert said: "There`s a fear that privatisation of too many things will lead to things being sold off for a mess of potage." Kamel al-Gailani, the Finance Minister in the provisional government, said the moves would open Iraq to free- market competition that would deliver investment, job creation and long-term economic growth.

"We are providing Iraqi citizens with the freedom and opportunities they were denied for so long under the Baath party to realise their economic potential," he said. "The reforms will advance efforts to build a free and open market economy in Iraq, promote Iraq`s future economic growth, [and] accelerate Iraq`s re-entry into the international economy and reintegration with other countries."

The moves presented by Mr Gailani, approved by the US and UK`s coalition provisional authority, include:

• 100 per cent foreign ownership in all sectors except natural resources;

• direct ownership as well as joint ventures and setting up branches;

• full, immediate remittance to the host country of profits, dividends, interest and royalties.

Privatisation of everything from electricity and telecommunications to pharmaceuticals and engineering could see hundreds of previously state-owned companies sold off.

There will be a tax holiday for the rest of this year, and income and business taxes for investors will be capped at 15 per cent from next year.

Trade tariffs will be slashed to show that Iraq is a "country that embraces free trade". A 5 per cent surcharge will be levied on all imports, other than humanitarian goods such as food, medicine and books, to fund the reconstruction effort.

America defended the decision to offer such a generous package of tax breaks to entice investors. "Capital is a coward," said John Snow, US Treasury Secretary. "It doesn`t go places where it feels threatened. Companies will not send employees to places that aren`t secure." Iraq`s vast oil reserves, the world`s largest apart from Saudi Arabia`s, would remain in government hands. "They`re going to run government finances based on oil revenues," Mr Snow said.

Five months after the overthrow of Saddam, there are no visible signs of reconstruction. Clean water and electricity are still not available to most people and entire neighbourhoods are still without phone lines.

Washington is desperately seeking help with footing the $100bn bill it estimates rebuilding Iraq will cost.
22 September 2003 09:31



© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

[Joerver]

Another Day In The Bloody Death Of Iraq

At least 10,000 Iraqi civilians have been gunned down since the end of the war.

Robert Fisk

21 September 2003: (The Independent. UK) Ahmed Qasm Hamed was dumped in a black sack at the mortuary of the Yarmouk hospital last week. Taleb Neiemah Homtoush turned up at the city morgue with three bullets in his head. Amr Alwan Ibrahim`s family brought him to the morgue five minutes later with a bullet through his heart. Amr was to have married his fiancée Naghem in a week`s time.

There are flies around the mortuaries and the smell of death, and up at Yarmouk they had so many bodies the other day that I found them lying in the yard because the fridge was already filled with corpses. On stretchers with blankets thrown over them, on the hot concrete beneath the sun, the flies already moving to them in the 45 degree heat. At the city morgue, the morticians appear in dirty green overalls, scarcely glancing at the wailing relatives by the gate, slumped in tears beside a lake of sewage.

After a while - after hours, day after day at the mortuaries - you get to know the victims. Their fathers and wives and cousins tell you how they dressed, how they worked, how many children they have left behind.

Often the children are there beside the cheap wooden coffins, screaming and crying and numb with loss. The families weep and they say that no one cares about them and, after expressing our sorrow to them over and over again, I come to the conclusion they are right. No one cares. "Al baqiya fi hayatek," we tell them in Arabic which, roughly translated, means "May his lost life be yours in the future." But it is lost for ever - his life, and, by even the most conservative estimates, those of 10,000 other Iraqi civilians gunned down since we "liberated" Baghdad on 9 April.

Here, for the record, are just a few of last week`s cull. Hassan Ahmed was 26. At the morgue, his cousin Sadeq produces a photograph of the young man for me. Hassan is smiling, he has a thin, slightly bearded face and is wearing a bright purple shirt. His father, a soldier, was killed in the Iran-Iraq war in 1982, when Hassan was just five years old. At 3pm last Wednesday, he was walking in the street in his home neighbourhood of Al-Biyar in Baghdad when someone - no one knows who or why - shot him twice in the head.

Old Sarhan Daoud is almost toothless and bespectacled and is standing outside the doors of the Baghdad city morgue in a long white "dishdash" robe. A few hours earlier, his only sons, 19-year-old Ahmed and 27-year-old Ali were gunned down outside their Baghdad home. There is talk of a revenge killing but the father isn`t certain. "We are just trapped in this tragedy," Sarhan says. "There were very few killings like this before. Now everyone uses guns. Please tell about our tragedy." After half an hour, waiting beside the pool of sewage, shoved aside as other corpses are brought into the morgue - the coffins come from the mosques and are re-used day after day - Ahmed and Ali are brought out in their plywood caskets and roped to the top of a minivan into which cousins and uncles and the old father climb for the funeral journey to the family`s home village near Baquba.

The family of Amr Ibrahim say they know who shot the 30-year-old construction worker on Wednesday. They even gave the name to the American-paid Iraqi police force. But the police did nothing. "It is anarchy that we live through," his uncle Daher says. "Then, when we get here, they charge us 15,000 dinars (£5) for the autopsy - otherwise we can`t have a death certificate. First we are robbed of life. Then they take our money." For many in Iraq, £5 is a month`s wages.

Twenty-six-year-old Fahad Makhtouf was knifed to death near his home on Tuesday night. His uncle speaks slowly. "No one cares about our tragedy. No one cares about us."

Up at the Yarmouk, they`ve had a bad week. Mortada Karim has just received the bodies of three men, all shot dead, from local police stations. All are believed to have been murdered by thieves. "Four days ago, we had one of the worst cases," he says. "A mother and her child. There had been a wedding party and people had been shooting in the air. The Americans opened fire and the woman and her child were hit and killed." On the same day, they received an Iraqi man, killed by his father because they had quarrelled over the loot they had both stolen in Baghdad.

Last month, a family of nine were brought to the Yarmouk. The mortuary attendants believe the five women were found by their brothers in a brothel and in the subsequent "honour killings" their brothers were caught up in a gun battle.

On the walls of the city mortuary, families have for weeks left photographs of those who have simply disappeared. "We lost Mr Abdul-emir al-Noor al-Moussawi last Wednesday, 11 June, 2003, in Baghdad," it says beneath the photograph of a dignified man in suit and tie. "He is 71 years old. Hair white. Wearing a grey dishdash. A reward will be paid to anyone with information." Or there is 16-year-old Beida Jaffer Sadr, a schoolgirl apparently kidnapped in Baghdad - her story has already been told in The Independent - whose father`s telephone number is printed below her picture. "Blond hair, brown eyes, wearing a black skirt," it says.

The occupation powers, the so-called "Provisional Coalition Authority", love statistics when they are useful. They can tell you the number of newly re-opened schools, newly appointed doctors and the previous day`s oil production in seconds. The daily slaughter of Iraq`s innocents, needless to say, is not among their figures. So here are a few statistics. On Wednesday of last week, the Baghdad city morgue received 19 corpses, of which 11 were victims of gunfire. The next day, the morticians received 11 dead, of whom five had been killed by bullets. In May, approximately 300 murder victims were brought to the morgue, in June around 500, in July 600, last month about 700. In all of July of last year - under Saddam`s regime - Dr Abdullah Razak, the deputy head of the morgue, says that only 21 gunshot victims were brought in.

Of course, it`s possible to put a gloss on all this. Saddam ruled through terror. If there was security in Baghdad under his regime, there was mass murder in Kurdistan and in the Shia south of Iraq. Tens of thousands have been found in the mass graves of Iraq, men - and women - who had no death certificates, no funerals, no justice. At the Abu Ghraib prison, the head doctor, Hussain Majid - who has been reappointed by the prison`s new American guards - told me that when "security prisoners" were hanged at night, he was ordered not to issue death certificates.

It might be argued that under the previous regime, the government committed the crimes. Now, the people commit them. How can the Americans be held to account for honour killings? But they are accountable, for it is the duty of the occupying power to protect the people under their control. The mandate of the CPA requires it to care for the people of Iraq. And they don`t care.

None of the above statistics take into account the hundreds of shooting incidents in which the victims are wounded rather than killed. In the Kindi hospital, for example, I come across a man whose father was caretaker of a factory. "Looters came and he opened fire on them and then the Americans came and shot my father because he was holding his gun," he said. "He`s had two operations, and he`ll live. But no one came to see us. No one came to say sorry. Nobody cared."

One of the most recent corpses to arrive is that of Saad Mohamed Sultan. He was an official interpreter for the occupying powers and was, incredibly, shot dead by an American soldier on a convoy as he travelled with an Italian diplomat to Mosul. After shooting him, the Americans drove calmly on. They didn`t bother to stop to find out who they`d killed. Saad was 35. He had a wife and two children.

In the yard of the City Morgue, a group of very angry young men have gathered. They are Shia and, I suspect, members of the Badr Brigade. They are waiting for the coffin of Taleb Homtoush who was killed by three bullets fired into his head as he stood at the door of his Baghdad home on Wednesday. Taleb had lost his legs in the Iran-Iraq war. Two of his brothers were killed in the same conflict. Another cousin who will not give his name, a tall man, is spitting in anger as he speaks.

"You must know something," he shouts at me. "We are a Muslim country and the Americans want to create divisions among us, between Sunni and Shia. But no civil war will occur here in Iraq. These people are dying because the Americans let this happen. You know that the Americans made many promises before they came here. They promised freedom and security and democracy. We were dreaming of these promises. Now we are just dreaming of blowing ourselves up among the Americans."

Copyright: The Independent. UK

[Joerver]

a poignant Iraqi tragedy

By Robert Fisk in Baghdad
22 September 2003

Pietro Cardone is an elegant, discreet man, an Italian diplomat who hates polemics and who pleaded with me that his story should speak for itself.

It does. Three days ago, he held in his arms his dying Iraqi interpreter, shot through the heart by an American soldier. Mr Cardone, 69, works for the occupation authorities. So did his translator. So did the soldier who killed his translator. But here tragic irony must give way to a terrible narrative.

On the day after two more US soldiers were killed ­ and 13 wounded ­ by guerrilla mortar fire at the Abu Ghraib prison west of Baghdad, Mr Cardone`s story might seem mundane, even prosaic. But it is a poignant Iraqi tragedy.

Saad Mohamed Sultan was 36 and had two children, aged three and five. Mr Cardone`s wife, Mirella, who was travelling with her husband in the back of the car in which their interpreter died, says she can still hear the shot that killed him. "I came here on 15 May, sent by my Foreign Ministry at the request of the American government," Mr Cardone says. "They were looking for an adviser on culture. I have spent all my career in the Arab world. I speak the language. I understand the mentality." Indeed, Mr Cardone served in Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria and Morocco and was Italian ambassador in Yemen and the United Arab Emirates. But nothing could have prepared him for last Friday. He had set out for archaeological sites in north Iraq with a project that would provide guards and police to protect the ancient cities.

"I was driving in a Land Cruiser with a second car behind," he says. "Saad and my driver were in the front of my car, my wife and I in the back. At 1.45pm we approached two American Humvees, both driving in the same direction as us." Mr Cardone`s hands shake as he approaches the convoy again in his memory, now sitting in the lobby of the Rashid Hotel in Baghdad.

"Our driver started to overtake the first Humvee. The young soldier at the back made a gesture as if to say, `Don`t overtake, go back`. Perhaps our driver was slow and this created a suspicion in the soldier. We were five metres from him ­ which was a bit close. The American soldier fired one shot from his machine-gun. That shot came through the car and hit Saad in the heart and came out of the back of the poor guy and scratched my arm and exited through the roof of the car." Then the Americans drove on. They didn`t stop, Mr Cardone says.

"Mirella had been talking to Saad when the shot came into the car. Our driver turned and shouted, `My God, my God, why?" We pulled to the side of the road but the Americans had gone. He was a very young soldier who killed Saad. I guess he was 19 or 20. I was keeping Saad`s head upright but there was a lot of blood. He was making noises, saying `Ugh! Ugh!` But when we reached the hospital, the doctor examined him and just said, `There is nothing to be done`. The bullet had broken his heart."

Mr Cardone left Saad at the hospital and returned to Baghdad in their second car. "This morning, his sister and brother came to see me," he says. "They were very dignified. I expressed my sorrow and assured them the Americans would carry out a thorough investigation and that they would receive compensation. I am confident the Americans will have an investigation because they take these things seriously." Ask Mr Cardone for his opinion of what happened and he remains a diplomat. "I think it has been a needless death, generated by a misinterpretation of behaviour." Iraqis might interpret events differently.

"I hate the phrase," Mrs Cardone says. "But I think they call these things `friendly fire`."

Copyright: The Independent. UK.

[Joerver]

September 22, 2003
THE FRENCH LEADER
Chirac Urges a Transfer of Power
By ELAINE SCIOLINO


PARIS, Sept. 21 — President Jacques Chirac called today for the immediate transfer of sovereignty in Iraq to the Iraqi people, and indicated that France would approve only a new United Nations resolution that recognized this need.

In an hourlong interview at Élysée Palace, Mr. Chirac for the first time laid out a two-stage plan for Iraqi self-rule, the first stage being a symbolic transfer of sovereignty from American hands to the existing 25-member Iraqi Governing Council, followed by the gradual ceding of real power over a period of about six to nine months.

The French president added that if the Security Council, France included, could agree on empowering Iraqis at once, France would be ready to train Iraqi police officers and soldiers — either in or out of Iraq. Mr. Chirac also said France had no intention of sending troops to be part of the American-led occupation force, although he suggested that circumstances could change.

"There will be no concrete solution unless sovereignty is transferred to Iraq as quickly as possible," Mr. Chirac said in the interview, speaking just before he left for New York, where he will meet President Bush on Tuesday.

The Bush administration is proposing the United Nations resolution to attract more foreign troops and international funds to Iraq. [Over the weekend, three more American soldiers were killed in Iraq, and at least one person died in a car bombing Monday outside the United Nations mission in Baghdad.]

Mr. Chirac made clear that he did not intend to veto that resolution, unless it became "provocative." He explained, "We don`t have the intention to oppose. If we oppose it, that would mean voting `no,` that is to say, to use the veto. I am not in that mind-set at all."

But he said France would vote for the resolution only if it included a deadline for the transfer of sovereignty and a timetable for the transfer of power, as well as a "key role" for the United Nations. Otherwise, he said, France will abstain.

Without Iraqi self-rule, he said, there is the dangerous situation of a "governor who is Christian and foreign" administering an Arab and Muslim country, and that is "a very difficult situation for any people to accept in the 21st century."

As for sending French combat troops to Iraq, Mr. Chirac said, "We are talking about training, and not sending troops to Iraq, of course."

But at another point, he was slightly less categorical. After saying, "As things are now, there is no situation where I can imagine that France would send troops to Iraq," he added, "Everything could change. I don`t have a crystal ball. But for the moment, this is the position of France and the position of a number of countries."

It is not clear whether Mr. Chirac intended to hold out the possibility of deploying French troops — however slight — as a means of negotiating a resolution more palatable to France.

The United States has ruled out any plan to strip the American administrator of Iraq, L. Paul Bremer III, of his power, saying a hasty transition to Iraqis would be counterproductive and dangerous. Britain, America`s main ally in the war, has expressed similar concerns.

The sharp divergence between the United States and France over the management of postwar Iraq reflects both the scars of a yearlong conflict between two old allies and their profoundly different visions of the place of American power and the role of the United Nations.

Mr. Chirac`s proposal suggested that it would be difficult for the two sides to agree on the wording of a resolution that Washington introduced in draft form early this month. Washington put it forward in an attempt to secure the United Nations blessing necessary to attract more foreign troops and more international funds to Iraq.

The Bush administration argues that the Iraqis are not ready to take power, and that the only beneficiaries of a quick transfer would be former Iraqi exiles who are politically active but enjoy little support among the Iraqi people.

While Mr. Chirac believes that continued governance of Iraq by the United States will produce more violence and require a longer presence of foreign troops, the United States believes that the relinquishing of any authority will create more chaos.

Still, Mr. Chirac seemed eager to appear conciliatory, saying three times that whenever American soldiers are killed in Iraq, "it hurts us," and rejecting any suggestion that the aim of his proposal was to provoke the United States. "I want you to understand that I`m not saying `white` because the Americans say `black,` " he declared.

Rather, he said, his goal was to engineer in Iraq a system similar to the one in Afghanistan, where the Afghan leader, Hamid Karzai, has full sovereignty over the country, while the United States and its coalition partners keep the peace through the presence of their troops.

"I am not inventing anything extraordinary, as I have read somewhere, simply to annoy the United States," he said of his ideas for ways out of what he called an increasingly dangerous situation in Iraq.

In an indication that France`s negotiating position is fluid, Mr. Chirac refused to articulate a precise timetable for Iraqi self-rule except to say that sovereignty should be transferred as quickly as possible.

Last week, however, Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin laid out a plan under which Iraq would establish a provisional government in a month, write a constitution by the end of the year and hold elections next spring, all under United Nations auspices. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell quickly dismissed Mr. de Villepin`s proposal as "totally unrealistic."

Mr. Chirac is also seeking to avoid a repetition of the diplomatic fiasco last March when, nine days before the war began, he went on national television to say France would veto any United Nations resolution paving the way to war. That declaration contributed to Washington`s failure to get a resolution justifying the war, damaged France`s relationship with the Bush administration and sparked outrage among the American people.

Even if France abstains this time, the United States is likely to receive the nine votes necessary to pass the resolution.

Mr. Chirac said France would be willing to provide financial support and military and police training for Iraq once sovereignty was transferred to the Iraqis.

Of the estimated 152,000 troops in Iraq, 127,000 are American, and the United States is eager to have other countries share the burden. France has about 36,000 troops deployed around the world. In Afghanistan, for example, France has 500 regular troops under NATO command, 200 special forces under American command and several dozen troops training Afghan soldiers.

Although Mr. Chirac was relaxed and spoke easily throughout most of the interview, conducted in French, the subject of postwar Iraq was so sensitive that he referred to typewritten talking points highlighted in yellow when he spoke about it.

Mr. Chirac took exception to the Bush administration`s conviction that the overthrow of the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, would provide the catalyst for the spread of peace and democracy in the Middle East. "I`d like to think so, but frankly, I don`t believe so," he said, calling the war "traumatic for this region and culture."

Despite his insistence on a quick, symbolic transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis, Mr. Chirac stated paradoxically that elections had to be handled with care, because the majority of Iraqis belong to the Shiite branch of Islam.

"Are the Shiites in this analysis the real symbol of tomorrow`s democracy?" he asked. "It is not so obvious."

Mr. Chirac confessed that his own experience as a lieutenant in the French Army during Algeria`s war for independence had influenced his thinking about Iraq, because it proved to him how a vast and powerful army could be defeated by a small group of determined adversaries convinced of the right to run their own country. "We know from experience that imposing a law on people from the outside hasn`t worked for a long time," he said.

The French president defended his position before the war that United Nations weapons inspectors should have been given more time to complete their work before war was waged. He noted that no unconventional weapons, which the Bush administration used as the main justification for going to war, had been found inside Iraq.

Mr. Chirac said it was "absolutely not" wrong to overthrow Mr. Hussein, but that he should have been overthrown "without a war."

Asked whether he had been tempted to tell Mr. Bush, "You were wrong," he replied: "On subjects as complex as this, it is always wrong to think that you are right and the other person is always necessarily wrong. This is a serious mistake, and you always pay the consequences."

Mr. Chirac defended his outburst in February, when he berated Central and Eastern European countries poised to join the European Union for missing an opportunity to "keep quiet" after they signed letters supporting American policy in Iraq before the war.

"I don`t regret it; I should regret it, but I don`t," he said, adding, "You can take your own position if you want to, that`s not the problem, but at least warn us first so we don`t look ridiculous." Such an approach, he said, is "not the way that Europe is made."

Mr. Chirac also defended the concept of a common European defense policy outside the framework of the NATO alliance, a development that the United States opposes.

"There is nothing unpleasant about it for the Americans," he said. "It suggests ignorance of the way things are to imagine it would be against them."

Mr. Chirac cited America`s insistence that Europe take charge of keeping the peace in the Balkans, and said, "We can do this, but how? With a flute?"



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

September 22, 2003
Bush to Defend Iraq War at U.N.
By DAVID E. SANGER


WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 — President Bush will tell the United Nations on Tuesday that he was right to order the invasion of Iraq even without the organization`s explicit approval, and he will urge a new focus on countering nuclear proliferation, arguing that it is the only way to avoid similar confrontations.

Mr. Bush`s unyielding presentation, described over the weekend by officials involved in drafting it, will come in a 22-minute speech to the United Nations General Assembly. Mr. Bush will then spend the rest of Tuesday and Wednesday meeting with the leaders of France, Germany, Pakistan, India and Afghanistan.

According to the officials involved in drafting the speech, for an audience they know will range from the skeptical to the angry, Mr. Bush will acknowledge no mistakes in planning for postwar security and reconstruction in Iraq. Privately, however, many officials are acknowledging that the Pentagon was unprepared for the scope and duration of the continuing guerrilla-style attacks against the American-led alliance and the newly appointed Iraqi Governing Council. Since Mr. Bush declared an end to active military operations on May 1, more than 70 American troops in Iraq have been killed by hostile fire.

In the speech, Mr. Bush will repeat his call for nations — including those that opposed the Iraq action — to contribute to rebuilding the country, but he will offer no concessions to French demands that the major authority for running the country be turned over immediately to Iraqis.

"We`ll stay on the same schedule" of drafting a constitution and holding national elections, one senior official said in an interview today. Mr. Bush will not discuss a timetable in the speech, but his aides said in interviews over the weekend that completing the process by spring or summer would be, in the words of one, "very ambitious." That assessment is bound to anger European nations that have demanded a far more accelerated transfer of power.

Mr. Bush made clear in a Fox News interview taped today, to be broadcast Monday, that he would define a larger role for the United Nations very narrowly. Asked if he was willing to give the United Nations more authority in order to obtain a new resolution, he said, "I`m not so sure we have to, for starters," according to excerpts released by Fox tonight.

Mr. Bush added that the United Nations could help write a constitution because "they`re good at that." He also said that when it came time for elections, the United Nations might oversee the process. "That would be deemed a larger role," he said, but he made clear that he would not allow any resolution "to get in the way of an orderly transfer of sovereignty based on a logical series of steps. And that`s constitution, elections and then the transfer of authority."

In final drafts of the speech circulating in the White House, Mr. Bush never mentions North Korea and Iran by name, though those two nations — the other members of the "axis of evil" he first described 20 months ago — are racing to obtain nuclear weapons. Mr. Bush will describe new steps to halt nuclear proliferation as one of the "next big challenges facing the United Nations," a senior official said today.

In recent weeks, some senior government officials had expected Mr. Bush to use his speech to describe a new agenda for strengthening the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, changing provisions that Iran and North Korea exploited to build up their nuclear capacity. But those proposals are not ready — they have not yet reached the desk of Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, officials say — and have been discussed only in general terms in the White House.

"Nobody thinks they are ready for prime time," said one official today, explaining why Mr. Bush will be far less specific about building new rules for disarming other nations than he was a year ago about disarming Iraq. Among the issues that the administration is still grappling with, midlevel officials say, is how to deal with nations, including Israel, that have never signed the nonproliferation treaty and whether it would be possible to prevent signers that have built major nuclear infrastructures from leaving the treaty. North Korea renounced it early this year, after ejecting international inspectors.

Instead of dealing with the broader legal problems, Mr. Bush is expected to focus on his Proliferation Security Initiative. That is an effort to recruit nations willing to interdict internationally transported nuclear supplies, using existing national laws. Several nations just completed the first of 10 scheduled exercises simulating the interdiction of nuclear shipments, in waters near Australia.

By declining to make specific demands about the North Korean and Iranian nuclear programs, Mr. Bush is signaling a very different approach than the one he took last year, concerning Iraq. He has said repeatedly that he wants a diplomatic solution to the North Korean and Iranian problems.

White House officials have claimed some modest progress, including a deadline of Oct. 31 set by the International Atomic Energy Agency for Iran to allow full inspections of sites where it may be enriching uranium. Around the same time, North Korea is expected to meet again with the United States and four other countries — South Korea, Russia, China and Japan — which the Bush administration is trying to organize into a united front to force North Korea to abandon its major nuclear projects.

Both Iran and North Korea appear much closer to producing a nuclear bomb than Iraq was a year ago, when Mr. Bush used the annual speech at the United Nations to issue a series of demands, and to make clear that defiance would mean war. Even so, an aide said this year`s speech at the United Nations was intended to ensure that "we never have to do another Iraq again."

About a third of the speech will discuss initiatives to combat AIDS and human trafficking, particularly for prostitution. "We need to make that globally illegal, like trans-Atlantic trafficking in slaves," said one senior official, adding that Mr. Bush would press for prosecutions of those caught selling people, particularly women and children, into servitude.

Mr. Bush`s descriptions of Iraq`s future will receive the most scrutiny, and he is expected to give little ground and admit no errors of judgment about the reconstruction of the country. While he will call for international financial contributions and more troops from around the world, he has so far gained little of either since his speech to the nation two weeks ago when he said it was the responsibility of other nations, including opponents of the Iraq action, to contribute to both security and reconstruction.

Turkey, India and South Korea have expressed deep reluctance about sending troops, saying Mr. Bush`s failure to obtain international approval for the invasion makes it politically difficult to help now.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

September 22, 2003
RECONSTRUCTION
Iraqi Leaders to Press Congress for Control Over Rebuilding
By PATRICK E. TYLER


BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 21 — In a 6,000-mile end run around American and British occupation authorities, leaders from the Iraqi Governing Council say they will go to Congress this week to argue that American taxpayers could save billions of dollars on Iraq`s reconstruction by granting sovereignty more rapidly to the council, the 25-member interim government here.

In interviews, the Iraqi leaders said they planned to tell Congress about how the staff of L. Paul Bremer III, the American occupation administrator, sends its laundry to Kuwait, how it costs $20,000 a day to feed the Americans at Al Rashid Hotel in Baghdad, how American contractors charge large premiums for working in Iraq and how, across the board, the overhead from supporting and protecting the large American and British presence here is less efficient than granting direct aid to Iraqi ministries that operate at a fraction of the cost.

"The Americans are spending money here to secure themselves at a rate that is two to three times what they are spending to secure the Iraqi people," said Ahmad al-Barak, a human rights lawyer and a member of the council. "It would be better for us if we would be in charge of how to spend this money and, of course, they could monitor how it is spent."

He estimated that in some cases the savings could be a factor of 10. "Where they spend $1 billion, we would spend $100 million," he said.

In the spirit of demonstrating such savings, the Governing Council this month canceled the $5,000-a-day contract that Mr. Bremer had arranged to feed the 25-member body and its staff and found a cheaper supplier. Mr. Barak said he did not know the cost of the new contract.

President Bush has asked Congress for $87 billion to finance military and reconstruction operations in Iraq and Afghanistan in the coming year. Of that amount $20.3 billion is dedicated to Iraq`s reconstruction.

The council`s maneuver to bypass Mr. Bremer, who has flown back to Washington for meetings this week, seemed bound to irritate and embarrass him. Council members said Mr. Bremer was not told in advance of the council`s plans to send representatives to Washington.

Mr. Bremer has said the council is not yet ready to take on more governing responsibilities. He was unavailable for comment tonight, but his spokesman here, Nabeel Khoury, said Mr. Bremer would be answering questions in Washington "about what we have been doing with the money we have" and would be explaining how the occupation authority would spend the $20.3 billion the White House has requested.

The council`s end run reflects a political struggle between occupiers and the occupied that Iraqi officials say is inevitable and, so far, has not undermined the otherwise close working relationship that the council maintains with Mr. Bremer and his staff. But the good will is wearing thin as the interim Iraqi leaders, most of them from the opposition groups that helped persuade the Bush administration to topple Saddam Hussein, become increasingly frustrated with the deteriorating security in the country and the impatient expectations of Iraqis to see some fruits of what the United States calls their liberation.

"To proceed, we need a new political consensus among the United States, the coalition and the Governing Council itself," said Iyad Alawi, a council member who will take over the rotating presidency of the governing body next month.

For that reason, he said, the delegation is being sent to Washington to seek support in Congress for a more rapid transfer of sovereignty, budget resources and security responsibilities to Iraqis.

Mr. Alawi was one of the five former opposition leaders who met privately in northern Iraq last week to formulate a proposal that would call for American troops to return gradually to their bases in Iraq and turn over the day-to-day policing of the country to a national Iraqi security force under the Ministry of Interior. The force would be drawn from the militia forces, but also from local tribes and police forces tailored to the security requirements of each part of the country, according to officials who attended the meeting.

One member of the delegation headed to Washington, Ahmad Chalabi, this month`s president of the council, said the group would press Congress to support a proposed United Nations mandate that would grant sovereignty to the current interim government before a new Iraqi constitution is written and before national elections are held.

"We don`t want to antagonize the United States in any way, shape or form," Mr. Chalabi said before he departed this weekend. But at the same time, he said, the daily attacks on American troops, accidental shootings of Iraqis and an overall sense of instability threatens to undermine American support for a long-term commitment to the emergence of a democratic state in Iraq.

"If we get sovereignty, the first thing we will do is ask the Americans to stay," he said.

Also headed to Washington was Adnan Pachachi, who had unsuccessfully sought to persuade Secretary of State Colin L. Powell during a meeting in Geneva this month to endorse the council`s bid for a new United Nations resolution ending the occupation and turning over sovereignty in the next few months.

Mr. Pachachi then took his draft elsewhere in Europe, where he found greater support among the French and Germans, who opposed the American invasion of Iraq. Though Bush administration officials were said by Iraqi leaders to resent their lobbying efforts, the Iraqis point out that President Jacques Chirac of France has modified his earlier proposal to turn over power in a matter of weeks — something Mr. Powell dismissed as unworkable — to a matter of months.

Missing from the delegation to Washington will be Akila al-Hashemi, who is recovering from a gunshot wound suffered in an assassination attempt on Saturday.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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September 22, 2003
THE COST
Bush to Focus on Benefits of Rebuilding Effort in Iraq
By THOM SHANKER


WASHINGTON, Sept. 21 — The Bush administration plans to make its case before Congress this week that a $20.3 billion request for the reconstruction of Iraq is as important in the campaign against global terrorism as the military portion of the $87 billion being sought over all, senior officials said today.

The administration accelerated its lobbying effort for the money, with Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and L. Paul Bremer III, the American administrator in Iraq, inviting Congressional leaders to the Pentagon this evening for informal discussions of the administration`s spending request, which President Bush called for on Sept. 7.

Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Bremer, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz and Gen. John P. Abizaid, the commander of American forces in the region, are scheduled to appear before Congressional committees this week to support the package.

"The $20 billion in reconstruction is as critical to the war on terror as every other component in the $87 billion package," said an official of the Coalition Provisional Authority, the American-led administration in Iraq.

"If we walk away now and don`t make these critical investments, we could have a situation there that is a real breeding ground for terrorism, and for extremists who would capitalize on any sort of instability," the official said. "These are key to setting Iraq on the path of sustained economic independence and growth."

A senior Democratic legislator, Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr. of Delaware, said today that he would support the spending request but cautioned that it would have to be supplemented by contributions from allies — or by a request to Congress and United States taxpayers.

In an appearance on "Fox News Sunday," Mr. Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee, was asked whether he would vote for the supplemental spending measure, and he replied, "I think we have to."

He said, however, that the total reconstruction cost was estimated at $50 billion to $75 billion over several years, far more than the administration`s request for $20.3 billion in the coming year.

"It`s going to cost a lot more," Mr. Biden said, adding later: "Somewhere you`ve got to get another, you know, 35, 40, 55, 60 billion dollars, and we either pay or someone else helps us pay it. Or we don`t do it."

A Republican who appeared on the same program, Senator Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, harshly criticized the Bush administration and the Pentagon for misjudging "what it was going to take to govern Iraq."

"That is just but one of the examples of how this administration did not do a very good job of planning," Mr. Hagel said. But he then added: "We are where we are. We can`t lose. We now must move forward. We must be successful in Iraq, in Afghanistan, and bringing peace to the Middle East. All are connected, and you can`t deal with any of them in a vacuum."

A senior Pentagon official rejected criticism that the administration underestimated what would be required to stabilize and rebuild Iraq, saying today: "Anybody that would have predicted in March what the needs were going to be in September would have been guessing. We have a much better feel now for the nature of challenges in front of us."

The supplemental request includes $51 billion for military operations in Iraq, $11 billion for military operations in Afghanistan and $4 billion to the Pentagon for domestic security and to support allied efforts.

The $20.3 billion for the provisional authority includes $5.1 billion to enhance security in Iraq, $5.7 for electricity services, $3.7 billion for water and sewer and $2.1 billion to rehabilitate Iraq`s oil industry.

One official of the provisional authority said today that Mr. Bremer, in his testimony, would highlight three main areas: why the security issue remained such a high priority, the plans for political and economic transition in Iraq and how the Bush administration planned to expand the contributions of allies, especially at a scheduled conference in Madrid.

As part of the effort, two members of the new Iraqi cabinet, the minister of municipalities and public works and the minister of electricity, are expected to meet with members of Congress this week in Washington.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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September 22, 2003
Patriot Act, Part II

he Bush administration has been on a campaign to shore up support for the Patriot Act and argue for an expanded version, which is being dubbed Patriot Act II. This public-relations offensive comes, however, at a time when a growing number of Americans are saying the original act already gives government too much power. Faced with these reasoned objections, the administration is becoming more shrill. Last week, Attorney General John Ashcroft named librarians as the latest group to pose a threat to freedom. Rather than lash out at well-intentioned critics, the administration should listen to the thoughtful voices from across the political spectrum who are saying we need less Patriot Act, not more.

President Bush spoke out last week in favor of a three-point plan for expanding the law. Patriot Act II would give the government broad powers to seize documents and force testimony without a court order, expand use of the death penalty and make it harder to be released on bail. None of these tools are necessary to fight terrorism, and each threatens to infringe on the civil liberties of Americans.

The most troubling part of the new plan is the call for expanding government access to private data, allowing federal agents to issue subpoenas for private medical, financial and other records, without a court order. The lack of judicial oversight removes an important check on government misconduct. Record holders would be required to comply, or face prison, and would be barred from telling anyone about the subpoena.

The two other parts of the plan are equally misguided. The new death penalty provision is not needed: antiterrorism laws already provide for capital punishment. And it is worded so vaguely that it could be used against people with no ties to international terrorism, including domestic political protesters. The bail provision, which creates a presumption in terrorism cases that bail will be denied, is also unnecessary. Judges can already withhold bail when defendants pose a threat. The new law simply tries to coerce judges into holding people they do not think need to be held.

The Justice Department announced on Thursday that it had not used its power under the Patriot Act to demand library records a single time. That revelation may have been intended to support Mr. Ashcroft`s mean-spirited attack on librarians, whom he charged with being caught up in "baseless hysteria." But selectively releasing this one statistic has a three-card monte feel: if the number grows, it is unlikely that the Justice Department will be so forthcoming. If the administration truly had nothing to hide about its use of this power, it would not be arguing for the authority to put a librarian in prison for speaking publicly about receiving a subpoena.

The administration is acting as if it does not have the legal powers it needs to fight terrorism, when it does. The drive to roll back civil liberties is a threat to freedom and a distraction. The administration would better use its energy on more effective law enforcement strategies to keep us safe.



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September 22, 2003
Bringing the U.N. Into the 21st Century

resident Bush`s turn to the United Nations for help in Iraq was a welcome, if belated, recognition that global policing can acquire legitimacy only through multinational endorsement. But the records of the major political bodies of the United Nations — the General Assembly and the Security Council — have little to show that this is the place to find that sort of legitimacy in the 21st century. The Assembly is usually mired in speechmaking. The Council is increasingly perceived as an antiquated relic of the cold war. These are not just the sentiments of neoconservatives in Washington; they were voiced most recently by Kofi Annan, the secretary general of the United Nations.

Mr. Annan challenged the U.N. to make radical reforms in an unusually candid report issued on Sept. 8.

In the 58 years since the United Nations Charter was written, the membership of the body has grown to 191 from 51. Nothing in the Charter provided for the relatively predictable cold-war world turning into one in which terrorists move freely across state lines, potentially armed with weapons of mass destruction. And where there were no rules or mechanisms, individual states could not be blamed for going it alone, Mr. Annan said. The United Nations, he said, was not a "suicide pact."

Mr. Annan called for expanding the most visible instrument of the U.N., the Security Council, in which five victors of World War II hold permanent veto powers and the rest of the world rotates through the other 10 seats. But the Council is the instrument least likely to be reformed. Just imagine asking France to cede its veto to Germany, or Pakistan to allow a permanent seat for India. The last reform commission began more than 10 years ago.

The real task is to open a serious debate on what a multilateral institution should be, and what rules and instruments it should have. As the world`s leaders arrive for the General Assembly`s opening this week, they would do well to present some concrete ideas on what the United Nations should be. Then, before leaving, they should charge a council of eminent people to work with Mr. Annan to remake it.



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September 22, 2003
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
Dying to Kill Us
By ROBERT A. PAPE


HICAGO — Suicide terrorism has been on the rise around the world for two decades, but there is great confusion as to why. Since many such attacks — including, of course, those of Sept. 11, 2001 — have been perpetrated by Muslim terrorists professing religious motives, it might seem obvious that Islamic fundamentalism is the central cause. This presumption has fueled the belief that future 9/11`s can be avoided only by a wholesale transformation of Muslim societies, which in turn was a core reason for broad public support of the invasion of Iraq.

However, this presumed connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism is wrongheaded, and it may be encouraging domestic and foreign policies that are likely to worsen America`s situation.

I have spent a year compiling a database of every suicide bombing and attack around the globe from 1980 to 2001 — 188 in all. It includes any attack in which at least one terrorist killed himself or herself while attempting to kill others, although I excluded attacks authorized by a national government, such as those by North Korea against the South. The data show that there is little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any religion for that matter. In fact, the leading instigator of suicide attacks is the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a Marxist-Leninist group whose members are from Hindu families but who are adamantly opposed to religion (they have have committed 75 of the 188 incidents).

Rather, what nearly all suicide terrorist campaigns have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel liberal democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland. Religion is rarely the root cause, although it is often used as a tool by terrorist organizations in recruiting and in other efforts in service of the broader strategic objective.

Three general patterns in the data support my conclusions. First, nearly all suicide terrorist attacks occur as part of organized campaigns, not as isolated or random incidents. Of the 188 separate attacks in the period I studied, 179 could have their roots traced to large, coherent political or military campaigns.

Second, liberal democracies are uniquely vulnerable to suicide terrorists. The United States, France, India, Israel, Russia, Sri Lanka and Turkey have been the targets of almost every suicide attack of the past two decades, and each country has been a democracy at the time of the incidents.

Third, suicide terrorist campaigns are directed toward a strategic objective. From Lebanon to Israel to Sri Lanka to Kashmir to Chechnya, the sponsors of every campaign have been terrorist groups trying to establish or maintain political self-determination by compelling a democratic power to withdraw from the territories they claim. Even Al Qaeda fits this pattern: although Saudi Arabia is not under American military occupation per se, the initial major objective of Osama bin Laden was the expulsion of American troops from the Persian Gulf.

Most worrisome, my research shows that the raw number of suicide attacks is climbing at an alarming rate, even while the rates of other types of terrorism actually declined. The worldwide annual total of terrorist incidents has fallen almost in half; there were 348 attacks in 2001 as opposed to 666 incidents in 1987. Yet the number of attacks in which the terrorists intend to kill themselves along with their victims has grown from an average of 3 per year in the 1980`s, to 10 per year in the 1990`s, to more than 25 in both 2000 and 2001.

And in terms of casualties, suicide attacks are far and way the most efficient form of terrorism. From 1980 to 2001, suicide attacks accounted for only 3 percent of terrorist incidents, but caused almost half of total deaths due to terrorism — even if one excludes as an aberration the unusually large number of fatalities on 9/11.

How should democracies respond? In the past, they have tended to react with heavy military offensives, only to find that this tends to incite more attacks and to stir public sympathy for the terrorists without hampering their networks (this has clearly been the case in the West Bank and Chechnya). In their frustration, some terrorized countries have then changed tacks, making concessions to political causes supported by terrorists.

Yet this doesn`t work either: one likely reason suicide terrorism has been rising so rapidly in recent years is that terrorist groups have learned that the strategy pays off. Suicide terrorists were thought to compel American and French military forces to abandon Lebanon in 1983, Israeli forces to leave most of Lebanon in 1985, Israeli forces to quit the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in 1994 and 1995, and the Turkish government to grant measures of autonomy to the Kurds in the late 1990`s. In all but the case of Turkey, the terrorists` political cause made far greater political gains after they resorted to suicide operations.

When one considers the strategic logic of suicide terrorism, it becomes clear that America`s war on terrorism is heading in the wrong direction. The close association between foreign military occupations and the growth of suicide terrorist movements shows the folly of any strategy centering on conquering countries that sponsor terrorism or in trying to transform their political systems. At most, occupying countries will disrupt terrorist operations in the short term. But over time it will simply increase the number of terrorists coming at us.

Unfortunately, negotiating concessions with the terrorists is also not a solution. The current failure of that approach in Israel is an all-too-common pattern. Concessions are usually incremental and deliberately staggered — thus they fail to satisfy the nationalist aspirations of the suicide terrorists, yet encourage terrorist leaders to see their enemies as vulnerable to coercion.

In the end, the best approach for the states under fire is probably to focus on their own domestic security while doing what they can to see that the least militant forces on the terrorists` side build a viable state on their own. Israel, for example, would be well advised to abandon the territory it holds on the West Bank but to go ahead with building the immense wall, 20 feet high and 20 feet wide, to physically separate it from the Palestinian population. This would create real security for Israel and leave the West Bank for a true Palestinian state.

For the United States, especially in light of its growing occupation of the Persian Gulf, it is crucial to immediately step up border and immigration controls. In the medium term, Washington should abandon its visions of empire and allow the United Nations to take over the political and economic institutions in Iraq. And in the long run, America must move toward energy independence, reducing the need for troops in the Persian Gulf. Even if our intentions in Iraq are good, our presence there will continue to help terrorist groups recruit more people willing to blow themselves up in the war against America.


Robert A. Pape teaches political science at the University of Chicago.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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September 22, 2003
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Clintons Anoint Clark
By WILLIAM SAFIRE


WASHINGTON

The Clintons decided that the Democratic primary campaign was getting out of hand. Howard Dean was getting all the buzz and too much of the passionate left`s money. Word was out that Dean as nominee, owing Clintonites nothing, would quickly dump Terry McAuliffe, through whom Bill and Hillary maintain control of the Democratic National Committee.

That`s when word was leaked of the former president`s observation at an intimate dinner party at the Clinton Chappaqua, N.Y., estate that "there are two stars in the Democratic Party — Hillary and Wes Clark."

Meanwhile, the four-star general that Clinton fired for being a publicity hog during the Kosovo liberation has been surrounded by the Clinton-Gore mafia. Lead agent is Mark Fabiani, the impeachment spinmeister; he brought in the rest of the Restoration coterie. When reporters start poking into any defense contracts Clark arranged for clients after his retirement, he will have the lip-zipping services of the Clinton confidant Bruce Lindsey.

As expected, fickle media that had been entranced with Dean (Dr. Lose-the-War) dropped the cranky Vermonter like a cold couch potato and are lionizing Clinton`s fellow Arkansan and fellow Rhodes Scholar. He`s new, handsome, intellectual, a genuine Silver Star Vietnam hero and taught economics at West Point.

I admired Nato Commander Clark`s military aggressiveness when the Serbs were slaughtering civilians in Kosovo. He wanted to use Apache helicopter gunships and send in NATO troops, as John McCain urged, but Clinton sided with Pentagon brass fearful of U.S. casualties, and the lengthy air campaign was conducted from 15,000 feet up; thousands of Kosovars died. (Four years later, U.N.-administered Kosovo is still not sovereign, and Clinton was there last week saying "I think we belong here until our job is finished.")

As a boot-in-mouth politician, however, Clark ranks with Arnold Schwarzenegger. He began by claiming to have been pressured to stop his defeatist wartime CNN commentary by someone "around the White House"; challenged, he morphed that source into a Canadian Middle East think tank, equally fuzzy.

Worse, as his Clinton handlers cringed, he blew his antiwar appeal by telling reporters "I probably would have voted for" the Congressional resolution authorizing Bush to invade Iraq. Next day, the chastised candidate flip-flopped, claiming "I would never have voted for war."

Clark`s strange explanation: "I`ve said it both ways, because when you get into this, what happens is you have to put yourself in a position." He put himself in the hot-pretzel position — softly twisted.

Let`s assume the Clinton handlers teach him the rudiments of verbal discipline and the Clinton fund-raising machine makes him a viable candidate. To what end? What`s in it for the Clintons?

Control. First, control of the Democratic Party machinery, threatened by the sudden emergence of Dean and his antiestablishment troops. Second, control of the Democratic ideological position, making sure it remains on the respectable left of center.

What if, as Christmas nears, the economy should tank and President Bush becomes far more vulnerable? Hillary would have to announce willingness to accept a draft. Otherwise, should the maverick Dean take the nomination and win, Clinton dreams of a Restoration die.

Here is where the politically inexperienced Clark comes in. He is the Clintons` most attractive stalking horse, useful in stopping Dean and diluting support for Kerry, Lieberman or Gephardt. If Bush stumbles and the Democratic nomination becomes highly valuable, the Clintons probably think they would be able to get Clark to step aside without splintering the party, rewarding his loyalty with second place on the ticket.

G`wan, you say, the Clintons should be supporting Dean, a likely loser to Bush, thereby ensuring the Clinton Restoration in 2008. But plainly they are not. Their candidate is Clark. Either they are for him because (altruistic version) they think Clark would best lead the party and country for the next eight years, leaving them applauding on the sidelines, or (Machiavellian version) they think his muddy-the-waters candidacy is their ticket back to the White House in 2004 or 2008.

Which is more like the Clintons?



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

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Für alle, die ältere Tom Toles Cartoons suchen, ein halbes Jahr Archiv:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/opinion/tolestom/archiv…

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Tourists and monks mingled last month in Lhasa at the Jokhang Temple, Tibet`s holiest shrine. The region has become a magnet for Chinese visitors.
washingtonpost.com
China`s Hippies Find Their Berkeley
Tourists and Big-City Dropouts Flock to Tibet to Sample a Simpler Existence

By Philip P. Pan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, September 22, 2003; Page A17


LHASA, China -- Slouched in a patio chair wearing a beach-bum cap and a stylish windbreaker, the software engineer rubbed his eyes and tried to shake off his hangover. The sun was shining brightly in a clear blue sky and it was already well past 1 p.m., but the 33-year-old Beijing native had just ordered breakfast.

Back home, he would have been sitting in his dreary cubicle by now, squinting at a computer screen in a windowless room illuminated by pale, fluorescent lights. But two months ago, he quit his job, gathered his savings and departed for a faraway land he had heard was entirely different from the rest of China -- Tibet.

Determined to leave behind his old life, and everything it represented, he even adopted a Tibetan name, Nyima Tsering. Several young Chinese professionals lounging with him in the courtyard of a cheap hostel here in the Tibetan capital said they had taken Tibetan names, too.

"We came here to get away from our old lives, and to experiment with the Tibetan lifestyle," Tsering said, gesturing at a Tibetan woman who was singing as she hung laundry on a nearby balcony. "We don`t want anything to remind us of our past, not even our names."

The inns of Lhasa are full of people like Tsering, young Chinese slackers who have traveled to Tibet in search of a romantic ideal, a land of natural beauty unspoiled by the materialism and competitiveness they see at home.

Some stay for months, others for as long as their money lasts. If they are China`s hippies, then Tibet is their Berkeley.

They are an extreme example of a growing popular fascination with Tibet in China. Especially among young, college-educated Chinese in the prosperous cities in the east, Tibet is the cool place to visit, and all things Tibetan are hip: Tibetan music, Tibetan jewelry, Tibetan literature, even Tibetan spirituality.

In many ways, these Chinese are interested in Tibet for the same reasons so many Americans and Europeans are: They see this isolated region of snowcapped mountains as a simpler, untainted alternative to the pressures of modern life.

"In Beijing, in Shanghai, it`s all about materialism. Your neighbor buys a car, and then you have to buy a better one. Life is so stressful. But here, it`s different," said Fei Tieren, 56, who gave up his job as an electrician in Shanghai to take a two-month journey through Tibet. "There`s a different culture, with different values, and I think we can learn from it."

One result of this surge in interest in Tibet among upwardly mobile, urban Chinese is a remarkable boom in domestic tourism. Last year, officials said, more than 720,000 Chinese tourists visited Tibet, up nearly 30 percent from 2001. By comparison, about 140,000 foreign tourists visited the region in 2002, an increase of about 2.4 percent.

Of course, not all these Chinese visitors are disillusioned city dwellers seeking spiritual enlightenment. Most journey through Tibet with tour groups, traveling on buses from one attraction to another, buying trinkets, taking pictures and interacting very little with Tibetans. Some are government officials from other parts of China using state money to fund "inspection visits" that are essentially junkets for their friends and relatives.

"Why shouldn`t we visit Tibet? It`s part of Chinese territory," snapped one portly official after posing for a photograph in front of Tibetan pilgrims prostrating themselves before the Jokhang Temple, Tibet`s holiest shrine. A security guard with a crew cut pushed a reporter away before the official could say more.

Li Shaoshan, a television producer who worked in Tibet for several years during the 1980s, said even the young Chinese who quit their jobs and stay for months in Tibet are largely ignorant of Tibetan culture.

"They treat it as Disneyland," he said. "If they really cared about Tibet, they should work and try to help the Tibetan people instead of just playing around."

But at least some Chinese visitors leave Tibet a little more sympathetic to the local people and a little more worried about what is happening to their homeland. Though Tibet has drifted in and out of Chinese control for centuries, the unprecedented influx of Chinese settlers is transforming its cities, and government policies are weakening its unique culture.

"I came to Tibet to visit the temples and shrines, to feel my religion more deeply. I thought it would be a very different place, a very spiritual place," said Li Xin, 26, a finance student from northeastern China on a two-week trip through Tibet. "But now I can see how much it has changed, and I know it is people like me, from inland, who are changing it."

The Chinese government appears somewhat uncomfortable with the growing interest of its people in Tibet, especially in Tibetan Buddhism.

Two years ago, Chinese authorities cracked down on a huge monastic encampment in eastern Tibet known as Larung Gar, ordering the expulsion of most of the community`s 7,000 to 8,000 monks and nuns, of whom nearly 1,000 were Chinese. According to eyewitness reports, police made it a priority to expel all the Chinese postulants first.

And though a government ad campaign urges tourists to "Take a Trip to the Holy Land," one Tibetan tourism official insisted during a recent news conference that there was nothing religious about the slogan. He said it referred to Tibet`s clean environment.

China has also tried to ensure that both Chinese and foreign visitors to Tibet hear only Beijing`s side of the international debate over Chinese rule of the region. Earlier this year, the government dismissed more than 150 Tibetan tour guides because of suspicions about their political views, according to people in the tourism business here.

Every tour guide who had studied English in India, where the Dalai Lama, the Tibetan spiritual leader, lives in exile, was fired, the sources said, and more than 100 new tour guides trained in China were brought in to replace them.

Tranor, deputy director of Tibet`s tourism bureau, acknowledged that "a few" Tibetan tour guides were dismissed. He said tourists complained that they had made remarks supporting independence for Tibet. He also confirmed that police now check the "political background" of every Tibetan who applies to be a tour guide.

"As for who qualifies or not politically, it`s not for us to decide," he said.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Taliban Leaders Reportedly Meet to Reorganize

Associated Press
Monday, September 22, 2003; Page A19


KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 21 -- Taliban leader Mohammad Omar has met with other leaders of the ousted militia group to reorganize their resurgent campaign against U.S. forces and the Afghan government, a purported spokesman for the group said today.




"Over the last few days we established a shura [council] under the leadership of Mullah Omar," the spokesman, Sayed Hamid Agha, said in a statement read during a telephone call to the Associated Press.

"The shura appointed four committees -- military, political, cultural and economic -- to regulate all relevant matters," he said.


© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
Iran`s Bomb




Monday, September 22, 2003; Page A22


IRAN NOW FACES an Oct. 31 deadline from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to give inspectors full access to its nuclear facilities and programs. If it does not meet a series of conditions intended to ensure that it is not developing nuclear weapons, it will risk being declared in violation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and referred to the U.N. Security Council for possible sanctions. It`s not clear how Tehran will respond. Its representatives angrily walked out of the IAEA meeting where the deadline was set, and some hard-liners have called for an open break with the treaty. On the other hand, Jordan`s King Abdullah said last week that senior officials had told him that they are eager to reach an agreement.

What is clear is that the world faces its own Iranian deadline. If work at the extensive nuclear facilities uncovered around the country during the past year is not frozen, the fundamentalist Islamic regime will soon have the capacity to manufacture the key elements of nuclear weapons. Israeli officials say this "point of no return" could be reached by the middle of next year. U.S. analysts are more cautious but still project an Iranian bomb by the latter part of this decade. Time is running out for the Iranian program to be stopped by diplomatic or political means. The Iranians understand this: They have been stalling the IAEA and its inspectors for months and likely will continue to do so even if they formally agree to the agency`s demands. Their strategy has a good chance of working unless the United States, Europe and Russia quickly start doing a better job of coordinating a common response.

The transatlantic differences over Iran are not as great as those on Iraq. The United States and the European Union have agreed that the Iranian nuclear program is a serious threat and that Tehran`s acquisition of a bomb should not be allowed. Russian President Vladimir Putin, too, seems to have grudgingly accepted the idea that recently disclosed Iranian activities, such as the construction of a massive facility for enriching uranium, are problematic. Yet Russia`s atomic energy agency has insisted on continuing work on a large nuclear power plant at Bushehr that would give Iran a potential source of plutonium. And European governments persist in a failed policy of "critical dialogue" with the Iranian regime; according to one report, the governments of Britain, France and Germany recently dangled an offer of technological cooperation before Tehran in exchange for its acceptance of stepped-up inspections, ignoring objections from the White House.

European governments make the point that the Bush administration`s policy of shunning the Iranian government while encouraging a pro-democracy opposition movement also has failed to get results. Russia`s atomic bureaucrats ludicrously claim there is no proof that Iran seeks nuclear weapons. Such arguments miss or dodge the main point: Unless Iran`s rulers are confronted with a broad and coherent international coalition that is prepared to apply painful sanctions -- through the United Nations or, if necessary, independently -- they will not stop pursuing a bomb. An opportunity -- maybe the last one -- to begin forging such a common front will open with Mr. Putin`s visit to Washington and Camp David this week. Mr. Bush should press Mr. Putin to state clearly that further Russian cooperation with Iran, including supply of fuel to the Bushehr plant, will depend on full and unambiguous Iranian cooperation with the IAEA. Mr. Putin and European leaders should also join the United States in planning a strong and immediate response in the event of noncompliance, on Oct. 31 or afterward -- one based on sanctions, not bribes. The time to address Iran by multilateral and nonmilitary means is now; those governments that want the Bush administration to embrace such an approach must step forward.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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The Cartoon Graveyard
Just the Cartoons Without the Commentary
Heute 71 frische Cartoons

http://www.flu-ent.com/graveyard/20030921__071toons.htm

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Dolcetto
Checker, ich habe Dich am Freitag übersehen.
Dafür als Entschuldigung gestern abend als Wiederholung den Cartoon, Gemeinschaft der Untoten.

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`Surprise` revamp for Iraq`s economy

By Alan Beattie in Dubai

September 21 2003: (Financial Times. UK) Iraq`s recently appointed finance minister on Sunday announced a radical liberalisation of the economy, but his plans surprised US allies and were attacked by Iraqi business representatives.

The laws abolished almost all curbs on foreign direct investment except in natural resources and allowed foreign domination of the banking sector.

Wadi Surab, a member of the Iraqi Businessman`s Union in Baghdad, told the BBC Arabic service the proposed reforms would "destroy the role of the Iraqi industrialist", as Iraqi business groups could not compete in privatisation tenders.

The measures surprised US allies. A UK Treasury official said he was unaware of them.

The laws were signed on Saturday by Paul Bremer, head of the Coalition Provisional Authority. They limit corporate and income tax to a top rate of 15 per cent from January and impose a 5 per cent tax on most imports, abolishing other tariffs.

A senior US official working with the CPA denied the new rules had been imposed from Washington or that they would likely to be reversed by a future democratically elected government, saying the Governing Council had been fully consulted. "Having done this today, as opposed to three months ago, before there was a governing council, fundamentally makes it have deeper roots."

The CPA said it would cover next year`s $12bn-$13bn (£7.4bn-£7.9bn) budget with oil revenues and taxes, leaving donor money to be spent on infrastructure.

The announcements - at the IMF-World Bank meetings in Dubai - come as the US administration, which recently asked Congress for a fresh $20bn for Iraq, struggles to secure commitments from other donors.

Additional reporting by Charles Clover in Baghdad

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Iraq for Sale

Yamin Zakaria: A Readers Commentary

09/22/03: It is now official and legal; the country is literally up for sale. Iraq’s economy is now open to foreign investors in every industry but oil; the paradoxical approach to the issue of oil will be examined later.

The US appointed Iraqi Finance Minister Kamel al-Keylani announced the news on behalf of the illegal and foreign invaders – naturally -- since the ordinary Iraqi population has not elected Mr. al-Keylani. Should an authority without legitimacy from the Iraqi masses be making such crucial decisions, or is this what the Bush and his cohorts (Neo-Cons) meant by establishing “Democracy” and “return Iraq to the Iraqis”? Perhaps “democracy” means to prepare Iraq to be devoured by multinationals and corporations, incidentally those companies happens to provide a lot of “funding” (bribes) to these political parties. The news was announced on Sunday in a meeting held in Dubai, organised by the International Monetary fund (IMF), where other leading financiers like the World Bank, G7 countries and other private institutions were also present -- a real Capitalist paradise.

This perhaps marks the beginning of the process of mortgaging the country to these financial institutions and multinationals. Create the debt syndrome. Something similar was already tabled earlier, the idea of reconstructing Iraq with its vast oil resources. The catch being that the finance would be in the form of a loan with interests, which would handed on a plate to the US based financiers, most of the candidates have good connections to the members of the US State department and the Pentagon, like Bechtel, Chevron and Halliburton.

As for the issue of foreign investment, which means a net outflow of the resources from the country since the profit ultimately ends up in the pockets of the foreign investors outside Iraq. Furthermore, in the course of the investment, the precious raw materials of the country may be simply get consumed or utilised in a manner that may not serve the long-term interests of Iraq. In any case, Iraqi oil should not be used for reconstruction; they have already paid for their own oil with their blood. The WMD has not been found, which was the legal pretext for the war -- absence of which confirms that the war was definitely illegal -- hence Iraq should be reconstructed with the reparation money that it is entitled to receive from the US and Britain. If the UN is suppose to be an independent international organisation why does it not account the belligerent nations for its crimes? But to the contrary it is trying to legitimise the illegal occupation.

So it appears that Mr. al-Keylani is facilitating the penetration of the domestic market by the large US multinationals, something that was recently attempted at the WTO meeting in Cancun by forcing the “Singapore issues” upon the poorer nations. Although he announced “opening” Iraq up to the foreign investors, a closer scrutiny at some point would reveal that the US based companies would end up with most of the contracts, as is the case already. So again like the US version of democracy, it would be open but more open for some.

Trade liberalisation and free market does have its merit however it does not necessarily mean that the recipient of the benefit will go to the right party. Simply because a free market does not necessarily mean it is fair market, which distributes wealth equitably, and ensuring the protection and survival of the weakest. As one economist remarked, the purpose of the free market is simply to be efficient and function. The question to pose is, if the US is so keen on trade liberalisation (free market), why then it practices protectionism by giving huge subsidies to its own industries? She is always eager to open up someone else economy to flood it with her own capital (investment), goods and services.

Opening up Iraq’s economy to the foreign investors, who are well equipped with greater resources and expertise will be able to out maneuver everyone else in the domestic market. Thus preventing the growth of Iraq’s industry in manner that would secure the interest of Iraq. Also undermine its sovereignty. In reality all of these schemes are geared towards speeding up the recovery of the cost of the war with a little profit at the end, just like the first Gulf war. This move was expected but never the less was a surprise due to its timing, since the issue of transferring power to the Iraqis have not yet been resolved at the UN, basic amenities like water, electricity, functioning civil administration has yet to be established. Similarly many are anticipating Iraq’s new governing council to declare the establishment of formal ties with Israel. Chalabi has many good friends within JINSA and IPAC. Adnan Pachachi has already discussed the matter with the Israeli authorities in person.

Coming back to the issue of oil, one unnamed Arab minister stated that it was a deliberate move to demonstrate that the US did not come for oil. Hence this is the explanation for its exclusion, a decision that was based on Political consideration as oppose to an economic one. This however implies that there is an implicit acknowledgement that the rest of the Iraq’s economy is being handed over to the US on a plate, which is not a problem since it was not singled out prior to the war, unlike the lucrative oil. In addition why the Arab minister chose to remain unnamed in making the statement, is there something to be ashamed about or does it not indicate a sense of guilt?

Finally, if the US has not come for oil, then surely that will be self-evident from the behavior of US in Iraq, why the need to announce it in this manner and resort to such antics. Could it be that the US behavior has already confirmed its oil interests by the fact that the oil fields and oil ministries were one of the few places that were never hit by the US forces and were the first to be protected and secured? Then as usual Halliburton and Bechtel were awarded the lucrative contracts on a plate without bid; this is simply part of the war booty. All of this substantiates the view that oil was a factor in this war but not necessarily a primary one. US does not need or want to open up Iraq’s oil resources for foreign investment (that is other companies except for the US multinationals), competition is the last thing the US would want, she is quiet happy with the status quo. Since the oil is being controlled by the US appointed authority, its quantity, and price will be determined by the US behind the scene. The only problem is dealing with those who are blowing up the pipeline to disrupt the oil supply.

Yamin Zakaria: [e-mail] UK, London

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Dollar could plumb new lows, say traders
By Jennifer Hughes in London
Published: September 21 2003 21:25 | Last Updated: September 21 2003 21:25
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/Sto…

The dollar could fall to fresh lows against the yen and weaken against other currencies, foreign exchange traders said on Sunday, after G7 countries called for more flexible exchange rates at the weekend. Japanese exporters would suffer from a stronger yen, which could choke off a nascent recovery in the economy.


The G7 communiqué emphasised the need for "more flexibility in exchange rates . . . to promote smooth and widespread adjustments in the international financial system, based on market mechanisms." However, the significance of the statement was later disputed.

The US currency ended last week at 32-month lows against the yen at ¥113.58 - down ¥4 on the week - as investors expected Japan to hold off from intervening in currency markets in a bid to head off expected criticism by other G7 countries. The dollar`s weakness also helped the euro reach six-week highs of $1.1377 and sterling touch a two-month peak of $1.6363.

"It will be open season on the dollar, particularly against the Asia-bloc," said Alex Schuman, strategist at Commonwealth Bank of Australia. He said the G7 communiqué represented a victory for John Snow, the US Treasury secretary, who has urged Asian countries to move away from managed exchange rates.

China operates a fixed-currency peg to the dollar, widely believed to undervalue its currency by at least 20 per cent and Japan has spent at least ¥9,000bn ($75bn) this year intervening in markets to try to prevent the appreciation of the yen. South Korea and Taiwan also regularly intervene to help their exporters.

Criticism of Asian currency policy, particularly by Japan and China, has increased. European officials have complained Asian manipulation has forced the euro to bear the brunt of dollar weakness. At its lifetime high at $1.193 in May, the euro had risen 20 per cent in a year, prompting complaints from eurozone manufacturers. The yen was 5 per cent stronger over the same period.

"The important fact here is that currencies moved back on to the G7 agenda at all," said Simon Derrick, currency strategist at Bank of New York. "If they had been more explicit and criticised Asian exchange rates directly, we could have walked in to chaos, perhaps seeing the dollar ¥10, ¥12 lower."

But few expect Japan to stop manipulating the market. Japanese officials said they saw no change in the G7`s stance on exchange rates, and they would continue monitoring the market.

"Asian central banks won`t stop intervening altogether, but they won`t be trying to push the rate aggressively higher," said Mansoor Mohi-uddin chief foreign exchange strategist at UBS.

Mr Derrick said a steady move in the yen was essential to give Japan`s exporters time to adjust.

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[DOLCETTO]

jo, i got it Joerver

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http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-clark22… a d v e r t i s e m e n t




Clark Wears Campaign Medals From Two Fronts
The 2004 hopeful counts diplomatic and military victories. But some peers cite an abrasive style.
By Paul Richter
Times Staff Writer

September 22, 2003

WASHINGTON — Before the Pentagon leadership picked Gen. Wesley Clark to head the command for the Latin American region in 1996, it asked the Army for its recommendations. The brass submitted a list of candidates — and Clark`s name was not on it.

A year later, before the Pentagon leadership elevated Clark to NATO supreme allied commander, it asked the Army again — and again received recommendations that did not include Clark.

Clark went on to win fame as the top military commander of the successful 1999 war to expel Serbian forces from the Yugoslav province of Kosovo. Now he is counting on a resume packed with military and diplomatic accomplishments to give his candidacy credibility.

But Clark`s military past is not an unalloyed asset. In fact, critics say, the Army`s reluctance to back him for promotion illustrates misgivings that a number of his peers had about Clark despite his distinguished 37-year career.

Clark, who was tagged as the Democratic front-runner in a poll released Sunday by Newsweek just days after becoming the party`s 10th candidate for president, gained strong supporters and patrons during his military career because of his brains and energy. But he also accumulated detractors, who considered him abrasive and overly ambitious, and sometimes questioned the wisdom of his decisions.

The 58-year-old Arkansan was "one of the quickest studies, hardest workers, brightest stars in the Army," said one Army general who worked closely with Clark. "But was he the guy you wanted on your team? Were his solutions the best? There was a lot more debate about that."

First in his West Point class in 1966, Clark also won the U.S. Military Academy`s only Rhodes scholarship that year. He earned Silver and Bronze stars in Vietnam, where he was wounded badly when the company he was leading on a patrol north of Saigon was ambushed and he was shot four times. After the war, Clark returned to West Point as an instructor in the academy`s social sciences department.

He was a White House fellow and later commanding general of the 1st Cavalry Division. In a top staff post as director of strategy and policy for the Pentagon`s Joint Chiefs of Staff, he worked with U.S. diplomatic troubleshooter Richard Holbrooke to help negotiate the Dayton peace accords that ended the three-way war in Bosnia-Herzegovina.

Clark`s accomplishments as a hustling problem solver again and again drew the attention of top civilian policymakers, from Gen. Alexander M. Haig Jr. during the Nixon administration to Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and national security advisor Samuel R. Berger during the Clinton administration.

In dealing with the Balkans crisis, Clark was "the best partner we could have had," Albright enthused in her autobiography. Top Clinton foreign policy officials continue to praise him.

Yet in 1999, there were bitter disagreements between Clark and his Pentagon bosses about what was probably the most important military judgment of his career — how to drive Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic and his troops out of Kosovo.

NATO leaders broadly agreed that the effort should rely on a high-altitude bombing campaign, rather than a ground war that would risk major casualties — and a public backlash. Clark pushed for weeks to use ground troops, in the face of resistance from President Clinton, Defense chief William S. Cohen and members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Clark`s desire to bring in low-flying Apache attack helicopters alarmed top Army officials, who argued that the Apaches would be vulnerable because they would lack the essential cover that long-range artillery could provide. "This wasn`t according to Army doctrine," one retired Army colonel said.

In the end, Milosevic caved and withdrew his troops from Kosovo, after a longer-than-expected 78 days of bombing — but without the use of Apaches or NATO ground troops. Victory was achieved without any U.S. combat deaths.

"Once we were on the ground, it [would have been] a much more difficult situation," former security advisor Berger said in an interview last week. "And, by the way, the strategy worked."

But if Clark`s ground troops weren`t proved to be necessary, many analysts believed the threat that NATO might escalate was key in persuading Milosevic to give up.

Clark`s critics in the Pentagon have long accused him of trying to get ahead by cultivating important civilian leaders.

On one 1998 trip to Washington, Clark met with White House officials to discuss the possible air campaign in Kosovo, without first stopping at the Pentagon — drawing a warning that he needed to share his itinerary with Joint Chiefs Chairman Henry Hugh Shelton and Cohen.

Berger acknowledged the tensions, but he insisted they were only natural when so much was at stake. "Inherent to the battlefield is a situation where the commander seeks to be somewhat more aggressive, in some respects Tell me a relationship between a field commander and the people back in headquarters that has not been somewhat laden with friction," Berger said. The Pentagon, he added, "over-imagined" how much secret contact there was between Clark and the White House.

Clark`s approach to the war revealed his broader philosophy about the use of the military. He split from the post-Vietnam era view that force should be used in overwhelming measure, and only if all else had failed, a doctrine associated with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and former Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger.

Clark`s view was that military force could be used in different degrees of intensity, in different situations, as one of the tools of foreign policy. "This distinguishes him from most of the post-Vietnam generals," said Ivo Daalder, who served as European specialist on the Clinton administration`s National Security Council. "He sees force as one of the tools in the toolbox."

Daalder noted that as a key staffer on the Joint Chiefs, Clark was important in urging its chairman, John M. Shalikashvili, and others to agree in 1995 — before the Kosovo intervention — to the NATO bombing of Bosnia that helped drive the parties to the bargaining table.

Clark also believed in aggressively using the military on the ground, sometimes in an improvised fashion.

As NATO boss, he sometimes clashed with the U.S. Army generals who were leading the NATO "stabilization force" in Bosnia because he wanted them to be more aggressive in using military pressure to force Bosnians to change. He wanted to use the troops to accelerate resettlement of populations, to get local leaders to agree to creation of a multiethnic police force, and to pressure ethnic leaders.

On this, there was "pushback" from the field commanders, including Gen. Eric K. Shinseki, who went on to serve as Army chief of staff from 1999 to August. Shinseki feared going too far in using military force for "nation-building," said another general who worked with Clark during the Kosovo war. The relationship between Clark and Shinseki in Bosnia "was extremely strained."

Clark, said the general, "would take more risk — he`d rely more on instinct than staff recommendations."

After the Kosovo war, Clark`s tactics raised questions in a confusing moment when the Russian army sent a column to the provincial capital of Pristina to occupy an airport. Clark ordered British Lt. Gen. Sir Michael Jackson to block the runway so the Russians couldn`t bring in reinforcements. The British general refused, telling Clark: "I`m not starting World War III for you," Clark said in his 2001 book, "Waging Modern War."

In his book, Clark said he feared NATO`s future influence would have been undermined if the Russians had been able to become a postwar force on the ground in Kosovo. He told Jackson that he had NATO support for his action.

But Kenneth H. Bacon, who was assistant secretary of Defense for public affairs, said this was a "controversial moment." Amid confusion about Russian intentions, "the feeling in Washington was that we needed to resolve this at the capital level, Washington to Moscow," rather than on the ground.

"We spent the entire Cold War resisting overly aggressive actions; we had a long history of talking these things out," said Bacon, who is now president of Refugees International.

Still, Clark came out of the war with wide acclamation, including praise for his efforts at holding together a fractious coalition of 19 NATO countries.

A year later, in July 2000, Shelton, the Joint Chiefs chairman, called Clark, shocking him with the news that he would be pulled off the job three months ahead of schedule — and without the year`s extension Clark was expecting. Officials insisted that the early departure was only to make way for a new commander, Air Force Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, who they said would otherwise have been forced to retire under Pentagon rules.

But "it didn`t wash," Clark later wrote in his book. "Was this a way of easing me out, without admitting it?"

Whatever the truth, at the close of his military career, Clark struggled with the residue of conflicts and strains he had experienced with senior officers and civilian leaders.

He had clashed with Shelton and Defense Secretary Cohen; he had a strained relationship with Shinseki, the Army chief of staff from 1999 to 2003; and he was cool to Shinseki`s predecessor, Gen. Dennis Reimer, according to senior Army officers who know Clark and the others.

In his high-visibility role in the Balkans and with his close ties to civilian leaders in the Clinton administration, Clark had drawn fire, in part because of a false assumption that he had ties to another Rhodes scholar from Arkansas, Bill Clinton. And Clark was criticized for meeting and exchanging gifts with Gen. Ratko Mladic in 1994. Mladic was a Bosnian Serb leader later indicted on war crimes charges.

Some who know him said part of Clark`s problem with some in the military is that he rose swiftly, moved aggressively to get what he wanted, and drew public attention.

Col. David Hackworth, a retired Army officer turned commentator, disparaged Clark in a 1999 column as "known to those who`ve served with him as the Ultimate Perfumed Prince." But in an e-mail exchange, Hackworth said he no longer believed that characterization of Clark to be accurate. "Withdrew it after I read [Clark`s] new book and did further research," Hackworth wrote, adding that he recently interviewed Clark "and came away very impressed."

Clark`s newest book, "Winning Modern Wars," examines the U.S. wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and is due out in October.

The general who served with Clark in the 1990s thinks Clark`s fast rise early in his career may have caused his superiors to start holding him back when he reached the upper rungs. Clark raced through the early promotions, but he needed more than six years to make it from colonel to brigadier general, the general said.

Officials said Clark`s outspokenness also got him in trouble.

During this year`s war in Iraq, speaking as a CNN commentator, Clark faulted the Pentagon. In late March, when the advance of U.S. forces had slowed because of bad weather and long supply lines, Clark pointed out that the Pentagon had been too optimistic about Iraqi cooperation, and would have been better off with more troops.

Retired Army Maj. Gen. Robert H. Scales Jr., an advocate of Clark, is among those who insist the general is not a credit hog, and no tougher to work for than other aggressive commanders. Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower "had the same kind of relationship with people around him; he had to get a job done, so he would never suffer fools."

Scales, a former commandant of the Army War College, believes Clark suffered fallout from some superiors` annoyance at his fast rise. Commanders got into a habit of throwing more and more difficult tasks at Clark, to the point that "I`d almost have to say they were hoping that he would fail," Scales said.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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Man sollte sich die Rede Bush`s vom Januar noch mal zu Gemüte führen, was er da so alles gesagt hat. Ich glaube er hat sich gegenüber anderslautenden Behauptungen, auch zu der Verbindung von Al Kaida und Saddam geäußert. Nur noch mal zur Erinnerung ngerade auch für Menschen, die von dieser Rede so beeindruckt waren. Zur allgemeinen Ausschlachtung freigeben. Danke für den Link.
`Read My Lips` war ganz bestimmt nicht so verlogen.

Bush`s State of the Union speech

WASHINGTON (CNN) --Transcript of President Bush`s second State of the Union address, delivered to Congress Tuesday night.

Mr. Speaker, Vice President Cheney, members of Congress, distinguished citizens and fellow citizens, every year, by law and by custom, we meet here to consider the state of the union. This year, we gather in this chamber deeply aware of decisive days that lie ahead.

You and I serve our country in a time of great consequence. During this session of Congress, we have the duty to reform domestic programs vital to our country, we have the opportunity to save millions of lives abroad from a terrible disease. We will work for a prosperity that is broadly shared, and we will answer every danger and every enemy that threatens the American people.

In all these days of promise and days of reckoning, we can be confident.

During the last two years we have seen what can be accomplished when we work together.

To lift the standards of our public schools, we achieved historic education reform which must now be carried out in every school and in every classroom so that every child in American can read and learn and succeed in life.

To protect our country, we reorganized our government and created the Department of Homeland Security, which is mobilizing against the threats of a new era.

To bring our economy out of recession, we delivered the largest tax relief in a generation.

To insist on integrity in American business, we passed tough reforms, and we are holding corporate criminals to account.

Some might call this a good record. I call it a good start. Tonight I ask the House and the Senate to join me in the next bold steps to serve our fellow citizens.

Our first goal is clear: We must have an economy that grows fast enough to employ every man and woman who seeks a job.

After recession, terrorist attacks, corporate scandals and stock market declines, our economy is recovering. Yet it is not growing fast enough, or strongly enough.

With unemployment rising, our nation needs more small businesses to open, more companies to invest and expand, more employers to put up the sign that says, "Help Wanted."

Jobs are created when the economy grows; the economy grows when Americans have more money to spend and invest; and the best and fairest way to make sure Americans have that money is not to tax it away in the first place.

I am proposing that all the income tax reductions set for 2004 and 2006 be made permanent and effective this year.

And under my plan, as soon as I`ve signed the bill, this extra money will start showing up in workers` paychecks.

Instead of gradually reducing the marriage penalty, we should do it now.

Instead of slowly raising the child credit to $1,000, we should send the checks to American families now.

This tax relief is for everyone who pays income taxes, and it will help our economy immediately. Ninety-two million Americans will keep this year an average of almost $1,100 more of their own money. A family of four with an income of $40,000 would see their federal income taxes fall from $1,178 to $45 per year.

And our plan will improve the bottom line for more than 23 million small businesses.

You, the Congress, have already passed all these reductions, and promised them for future years.

If this tax relief is good for Americans three or five or seven years from now, it is even better for Americans today.

We should also strengthen the economy by treating investors equally in our tax laws. It`s fair to tax a company`s profits. It is not fair to again tax the shareholder on the same profits.

To boost investor confidence, and to help the nearly 10 million seniors who receive dividend income, I ask you to end the unfair double taxation of dividends.

Lower taxes and greater investment will help this economy expand. More jobs mean more taxpayers and higher revenues to our government.

The best way to address the deficit and move toward a balanced budget is to encourage economic growth and to show some spending discipline in Washington, D.C.

We must work together to fund only our most important priorities. I will send you a budget that increases discretionary spending by 4 percent next year, about as much as the average family`s income is expected to grow. And that is a good benchmark for us: Federal spending should not rise any faster than the paychecks of American families.

A growing economy and a focus on essential priorities will be crucial to the future of Social Security. As we continue to work together to keep Social Security sound and reliable, we must offer younger workers a chance to invest in retirement accounts that they will control and they will own.

Our second goal is high quality, affordable health for all Americans.

The American system of medicine is a model of skill and innovation, with a pace of discovery that is adding good years to our lives. Yet for many people, medical care costs too much, and many have no coverage at all.

These problems will not be solved with a nationalized health care system that dictates coverage and rations care.

Instead, we must work toward a system in which all Americans have a good insurance policy, choose their own doctors, and seniors and low-income Americans receive the help they need.

Instead of bureaucrats and trial lawyers and HMOs, we must put doctors and nurses and patients back in charge of American medicine.

Health care reform must begin with Medicare; Medicare is the binding commitment of a caring society.

We must renew that commitment by giving seniors access to the preventive medicine and new drugs that are transforming health care in America.

Seniors happy with the current Medicare system should be able to keep their coverage just the way it is.

And just like you, the members of Congress, and your staffs and other federal employees, all seniors should have the choice of a health care plan that provides prescription drugs.

My budget will commit an additional $400 billion over the next decade to reform and strengthen Medicare. Leaders of both political parties have talked for years about strengthening Medicare. I urge the members of this new Congress to act this year.

To improve our health care system, we must address one of the prime causes of higher cost: the constant threat that physicians and hospitals will be unfairly sued.

Because of excessive litigation, everybody pays more for health care, and many parts of America are losing fine doctors. No one has ever been healed by a frivolous lawsuit; I urge the Congress to pass medical liability reform.

Our third goal is to promote energy independence for our country, while dramatically improving the environment.

I have sent you a comprehensive energy plan to promote energy efficiency and conservation, to develop cleaner technology, and to produce more energy at home.

I have sent you clear skies legislation that mandates a 70 percent cut in air pollution from power plants over the next 15 years.

I have sent you a healthy forest initiative to help prevent the catastrophic fires that devastate communities, kill wildlife and burn away millions of acres of treasured forests.

I urge you to pass these measures for the good of both our environment and our economy.

Even more, I ask you to take a crucial step and protect our environment in ways that generations before us could not have imagined.

In this century, the greatest environmental progress will come about not through endless lawsuits or command-and-control regulations, but through technology and innovation.

Tonight I`m proposing $1.2 billion in research funding so that America can lead the world in developing clean, hydrogen-powered automobiles.

A simple chemical reaction between hydrogen and oxygen generates energy, which can be used to power a car, producing only water, not exhaust fumes.

With a new national commitment, our scientists and engineers will overcome obstacles to taking these cars from laboratory to showroom, so that the first car driven by a child born today could be powered by hydrogen, and pollution-free.

Join me in this important innovation to make our air significantly cleaner, and our country much less dependent on foreign sources of energy.

Our fourth goal is to apply the compassion of America to the deepest problems of America. For so many in our country -- the homeless, and the fatherless, the addicted -- the need is great. Yet there is power -- wonder-working power -- in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people.

Americans are doing the work of compassion every day: visiting prisoners, providing shelter for battered women, bringing companionship to lonely seniors. These good works deserve our praise, they deserve our personal support and, when appropriate, they deserve the assistance of the federal government.

I urge you to pass both my faith-based initiative and the Citizen Service Act to encourage acts of compassion that can transform America one heart and one soul at a time.

Last year, I called on my fellow citizens to participate in the USA Freedom Corps, which is enlisting tens of thousands of new volunteers across America.

Tonight I ask Congress and the American people to focus the spirit of service and the resources of government on the needs of some of our most vulnerable citizens: boys and girls trying to grow up without guidance and attention, and children who have to go through a prison gate to be hugged by their mom or dad.

I propose a $450 million initiative to bring mentors to more than a million disadvantaged junior high students and children of prisoners.

Government will support the training and recruiting of mentors, yet it is the men and women of America who will fill the need. One mentor, one person, can change a life forever, and I urge you to be that one person.

Another cause of hopelessness is addiction to drugs. Addiction crowds out friendship, ambition, moral conviction, and reduces all the richness of life to a single destructive desire.

As a government, we are fighting illegal drugs by cutting off supplies and reducing demand through anti-drug education programs. Yet for those already addicted, the fight against drugs is a fight for their own lives.

Too many Americans in search of treatment cannot get it. So tonight I propose a new $600 million program to help an additional 300,000 Americans receive treatment over the next three years.

Our nation is blessed with recovery programs that do amazing work. One of them is found at the Healing Place Church in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. A man in the program said, "God does miracles in people`s lives, and you never think it could be you."

Tonight, let us bring to all Americans who struggle with drug addiction this message of hope: The miracle of recovery is possible, and it could be you.

By caring for children who need mentors, and for addicted men and women who need treatment, we are building a more welcoming society, a culture that values every life.

And in this work we must not overlook the weakest among us. I ask you to protect infants at the very hour of their birth and end the practice of partial-birth abortion.

And because no human life should be started or ended as the object of an experiment, I ask you to set a high standard for humanity and pass a law against all human cloning.

The qualities of courage and compassion that we strive for in America also determine our conduct abroad. The American flag stands for more than our power and our interests. Our founders dedicated this country to the cause of human dignity, the rights of every person and the possibilities of every life.

This conviction leads us into the world to help the afflicted, and defend the peace, and confound the designs of evil men.

In Afghanistan, we helped to liberate an oppressed people, and we will continue helping them secure their country, rebuild their society and educate all their children, boys and girls.

In the Middle East, we will continue to seek peace between a secure Israel and a democratic Palestine.

Across the Earth, America is feeding the hungry. More than 60 percent of international food aid comes as a gift from the people of the United States.

As our nation moves troops and builds alliances to make our world safer, we must also remember our calling, as a blessed country, is to make the world better.

Today, on the continent of Africa, nearly 30 million people have the AIDS virus, including 3 million children under the age of 15. There are whole countries in Africa where more than one-third of the adult population carries the infection. More than 4 million require immediate drug treatment. Yet across that continent, only 50,000 AIDS victims -- only 50,000 -- are receiving the medicine they need.

Because the AIDS diagnosis is considered a death sentence, many do not seek treatment. Almost all who do are turned away.

A doctor in rural South Africa describes his frustration. He says, "We have no medicines, many hospitals tell people, `You`ve got AIDS. We can`t help you. Go home and die`."

In an age of miraculous medicines, no person should have to hear those words.

AIDS can be prevented. Anti-retroviral drugs can extend life for many years. And the cost of those drugs has dropped from $12,000 a year to under $300 a year, which places a tremendous possibility within our grasp.

Ladies and gentlemen, seldom has history offered a greater opportunity to do so much for so many.

We have confronted, and will continue to confront, HIV/AIDS in our own country. And to meet a severe and urgent crisis abroad, tonight I propose the Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, a work of mercy beyond all current international efforts to help the people of Africa.

This comprehensive plan will prevent 7 million new AIDS infections, treat at least 2 million people with life-extending drugs and provide humane care for millions of people suffering from AIDS and for children orphaned by AIDS.

I ask the Congress to commit $15 billion over the next five years, including nearly $10 billion in new money, to turn the tide against AIDS in the most afflicted nations of Africa and the Caribbean.

This nation can lead the world in sparing innocent people from a plague of nature.

And this nation is leading the world in confronting and defeating the man-made evil of international terrorism.

There are days when our fellow citizens do not hear news about the war on terror. There`s never a day when I do not learn of another threat, or receive reports of operations in progress or give an order in this global war against a scattered network of killers.

The war goes on, and we are winning.

To date we have arrested or otherwise dealt with many key commanders of Al Qaida. They include a man who directed logistics and funding for the September the 11th attacks, the chief of Al Qaida operations in the Persian Gulf who planned the bombings of our embassies in East Africa and the USS Cole, an Al Qaida operations chief from Southeast Asia, a former director of Al Qaida`s training camps in Afghanistan, a key Al Qaida operative in Europe, a major Al Qaida leader in Yemen.

All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries.

And many others have met a different fate. Let`s put it this way: They are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies.

We are working closely with other nations to prevent further attacks. America and coalition countries have uncovered and stopped terrorist conspiracies targeting the embassy in Yemen, the American embassy in Singapore, a Saudi military base, ships in the Straits of Hormuz and the Straits of Gibraltar. We`ve broken Al Qaida cells in Hamburg and Milan and Madrid and London and Paris -- as well as Buffalo, New York.

We`ve got the terrorists on the run. We`re keeping them on the run. One by one the terrorists are learning the meaning of American justice.

As we fight this war, we will remember where it began: here, in our own country. This government is taking unprecedented measures to protect our people and defend our homeland.

We`ve intensified security at the borders and ports of entry, posted more than 50,000 newly trained federal screeners in airports, begun inoculating troops and first responders against smallpox, and are deploying the nation`s first early warning network of sensors to detect biological attack.

And this year, for the first time, we are beginning to field a defense to protect this nation against ballistic missiles.

I thank the Congress for supporting these measures. I ask you tonight to add to our future security with a major research and production effort to guard our people against bio-terrorism, called Project Bioshield.

The budget I send you will propose almost $6 billion to quickly make available effective vaccines and treatments against agents like anthrax, botulinum toxin, ebola and plague. We must assume that our enemies would use these diseases as weapons, and we must act before the dangers are upon us.

Since September the 11th, our intelligence and law enforcement agencies have worked more closely than ever to track and disrupt the terrorists. The FBI is improving its ability to analyze intelligence, and is transforming itself to meet new threats.

Tonight, I am instructing the leaders of the FBI, the CIA, the Homeland Security and the Department of Defense to develop a Terrorist Threat Integration Center, to merge and analyze all threat information in a single location.

Our government must have the very best information possible, and we will use it to make sure the right people are in the right places to protect our citizens.

Our war against terror is a contest of will in which perseverance is power. In the ruins of two towers, at the western wall of the Pentagon, on a field in Pennsylvania, this nation made a pledge, and we renew that pledge tonight: Whatever the duration of this struggle and whatever the difficulties, we will not permit the triumph of violence in the affairs of men; free people will set the course of history.

Today, the gravest danger in the war on terror, the gravest danger facing America and the world, is outlaw regimes that seek and possess nuclear, chemical and biological weapons.

These regimes could use such weapons for blackmail, terror and mass murder. They could also give or sell those weapons to terrorist allies, who would use them without the least hesitation.

This threat is new; America`s duty is familiar.

Throughout the 20th century, small groups of men seized control of great nations, built armies and arsenals, and set out to dominate the weak and intimidate the world.

In each case, their ambitions of cruelty and murder had no limit. In each case, the ambitions of Hitlerism, militarism and communism were defeated by the will of free peoples, by the strength of great alliances and by the might of the United States of America.

Now, in this century, the ideology of power and domination has appeared again and seeks to gain the ultimate weapons of terror.

Once again, this nation and our friends are all that stand between a world at peace, and a world of chaos and constant alarm. Once again, we are called to defend the safety of our people and the hopes of all mankind. And we accept this responsibility.

America is making a broad and determined effort to confront these dangers.

We have called on the United Nations to fulfill its charter and stand by its demand that Iraq disarm. We are strongly supporting the International Atomic Energy Agency in its mission to track and control nuclear materials around the world. We are working with other governments to secure nuclear materials in the former Soviet Union and to strengthen global treaties banning the production and shipment of missile technologies and weapons of mass destruction.

In all of these efforts, however, America`s purpose is more than to follow a process. It is to achieve a result: the end of terrible threats to the civilized world.

All free nations have a stake in preventing sudden and catastrophic attacks, and we`re asking them to join us, and many are doing so.

Yet the course of this nation does not depend on the decisions of others.

Whatever action is required, whenever action is necessary, I will defend the freedom and security of the American people.

Different threats require different strategies. In Iran we continue to see a government that represses its people, pursues weapons of mass destruction and supports terror.

We also see Iranian citizens risking intimidation and death as they speak out for liberty and human rights and democracy. Iranians, like all people, have a right to choose their own government, and determine their own destiny, and the United States supports their aspirations to live in freedom.

On the Korean Peninsula, an oppressive regime rules a people living in fear and starvation. Throughout the 1990s, the United States relied on a negotiated framework to keep North Korea from gaining nuclear weapons. We now know that that regime was deceiving the world and developing those weapons all along.

And today the North Korean regime is using its nuclear program to incite fear and seek concessions.

America and the world will not be blackmailed.

America is working with the countries of the region -- South Korea, Japan, China and Russia -- to find a peaceful solution and to show the North Korean government that nuclear weapons will bring only isolation, economic stagnation and continued hardship.

The North Korean regime will find respect in the world and revival for its people only when it turns away from its nuclear ambitions.

Our nation and the world must learn the lessons of the Korean Peninsula and not allow an even greater threat to rise up in Iraq. A brutal dictator, with a history of reckless aggression, with ties to terrorism, with great potential wealth will not be permitted to dominate a vital region and threaten the United States.

Twelve years ago, Saddam Hussein faced the prospect of being the last casualty in a war he had started and lost. To spare himself, he agreed to disarm of all weapons of mass destruction.

For the next 12 years, he systematically violated that agreement. He pursued chemical, biological and nuclear weapons even while inspectors were in his country.

Nothing to date has restrained him from his pursuit of these weapons: not economic sanctions, not isolation from the civilized world, not even cruise missile strikes on his military facilities.

Almost three months ago, the United Nations Security Council gave Saddam Hussein his final chance to disarm. He has shown instead utter contempt for the United Nations and for the opinion of the world.

The 108 U.N. inspectors were sent to conduct -- were not sent to conduct a scavenger hunt for hidden materials across a country the size of California. The job of the inspectors is to verify that Iraq`s regime is disarming.

It is up to Iraq to show exactly where it is hiding its banned weapons, lay those weapons out for the world to see and destroy them as directed. Nothing like this has happened.

The United Nations concluded in 1999 that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons materials sufficient to produce over 25,000 liters of anthrax; enough doses to kill several million people. He hasn`t accounted for that material. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

The United Nations concluded that Saddam Hussein had materials sufficient to produce more than 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin; enough to subject millions of people to death by respiratory failure. He hasn`t accounted for that material. He`s given no evidence that he has destroyed it.

Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent. In such quantities, these chemical agents could also kill untold thousands. He`s not accounted for these materials. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

U.S. intelligence indicates that Saddam Hussein had upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents. Inspectors recently turned up 16 of them, despite Iraq`s recent declaration denying their existence. Saddam Hussein has not accounted for the remaining 29,984 of these prohibited munitions. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

From three Iraqi defectors we know that Iraq, in the late 1990s, had several mobile biological weapons labs. These are designed to produce germ warfare agents and can be moved from place to a place to evade inspectors. Saddam Hussein has not disclosed these facilities. He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them.

The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb.

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production.

Saddam Hussein has not credibly explained these activities. He clearly has much to hide.

The dictator of Iraq is not disarming. To the contrary, he is deceiving.

From intelligence sources, we know, for instance, that thousands of Iraqi security personnel are at work hiding documents and materials from the U.N. inspectors, sanitizing inspection sites and monitoring the inspectors themselves.

Iraqi officials accompany the inspectors in order to intimidate witnesses. Iraq is blocking U-2 surveillance flights requested by the United Nations.

Iraqi intelligence officers are posing as the scientists inspectors are supposed to interview. Real scientists have been coached by Iraqi officials on what to say.

Intelligence sources indicate that Saddam Hussein has ordered that scientists who cooperate with U.N. inspectors in disarming Iraq will be killed, along with their families.

Year after year, Saddam Hussein has gone to elaborate lengths, spent enormous sums, taken great risks to build and keep weapons of mass destruction. But why?

The only possible explanation, the only possible use he could have for those weapons, is to dominate, intimidate or attack.

With nuclear arms or a full arsenal of chemical and biological weapons, Saddam Hussein could resume his ambitions of conquest in the Middle East and create deadly havoc in that region.

And this Congress and the American people must recognize another threat. Evidence from intelligence sources, secret communications and statements by people now in custody reveal that Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists, including members of Al Qaida. Secretly, and without fingerprints, he could provide one of his hidden weapons to terrorists, or help them develop their own.

Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained.

Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans, this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known.

We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes.

Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?

If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option.

The dictator who is assembling the world`s most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages, leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind or disfigured.

Iraqi refugees tell us how forced confessions are obtained: by torturing children while their parents are made to watch. International human rights groups have catalogued other methods used in the torture chambers of Iraq: electric shock, burning with hot irons, dripping acid on the skin, mutilation with electric drills, cutting out tongues, and rape.

If this is not evil, then evil has no meaning.

And tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq: Your enemy is not surrounding your country, your enemy is ruling your country.

And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation.

The world has waited 12 years for Iraq to disarm. America will not accept a serious and mounting threat to our country and our friends and our allies.

The United States will ask the U.N. Security Council to convene on February the 5th to consider the facts of Iraq`s ongoing defiance of the world. Secretary of State Powell will present information and intelligence about Iraqi`s -- Iraq`s illegal weapons programs, its attempts to hide those weapons from inspectors and its links to terrorist groups.

We will consult, but let there be no misunderstanding: If Saddam Hussein does not fully disarm for the safety of our people, and for the peace of the world, we will lead a coalition to disarm him.

Tonight I have a message for the men and women who will keep the peace, members of the American armed forces. Many of you are assembling in or near the Middle East, and some crucial hours may lay ahead.

In those hours, the success of our cause will depend on you. Your training has prepared you. Your honor will guide you. You believe in America and America believes in you.

Sending Americans into battle is the most profound decision a president can make. The technologies of war have changed. The risks and suffering of war have not.

For the brave Americans who bear the risk, no victory is free from sorrow.

This nation fights reluctantly, because we know the cost, and we dread the days of mourning that always come.

We seek peace. We strive for peace. And sometimes peace must be defended. A future lived at the mercy of terrible threats is no peace at all.

If war is forced upon us, we will fight in a just cause and by just means, sparing, in every way we can, the innocent.

And if war is forced upon us, we will fight with the full force and might of the United States military, and we will prevail.

And as we and our coalition partners are doing in Afghanistan, we will bring to the Iraqi people food and medicines and supplies and freedom.

Many challenges, abroad and at home, have arrived in a single season. In two years, America has gone from a sense of invulnerability to an awareness of peril, from bitter division in small matters to calm unity in great causes.

And we go forward with confidence, because this call of history has come to the right country.

Americans are a resolute people, who have risen to every test of our time. Adversity has revealed the character of our country, to the world, and to ourselves.

America is a strong nation and honorable in the use of our strength. We exercise power without conquest, and we sacrifice for the liberty of strangers.

Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America`s gift to the world; it is God`s gift to humanity.

We Americans have faith in ourselves, but not in ourselves alone. We do not claim to know all the ways of Providence, yet we can trust in them, placing our confidence in the loving god behind all of life and all of history.

May he guide us now, and may God continue to bless the United States of America.

Thank you.


Find this article at:
http://edition.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/01/28/sotu.transcrip…

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Was ist unzivilisierter einen Krieg zu führen oder ihn zu verurteilen?

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-unci… a d




Bush Calls Criticism of War `Uncivil`
From Associated Press

September 22, 2003

WASHINGTON — President Bush on Sunday described as "uncivil" Sen. Edward M. Kennedy`s critical remarks of the administration`s policies in Iraq.

Kennedy (D-Mass.) said last week the case for going to war against Iraq was a fraud "made up in Texas" to give Republicans a political boost. The longtime senator also alleged that the money for the war is being used to bribe foreign leaders to send troops.

In an Oval Office interview with Fox News` Brit Hume, Bush said that while he respected Kennedy, the senator "should not have said we were trying to bribe foreign nations."

"I don`t mind people trying to pick apart my policies, and that`s fine and that`s fair game," Bush said in the interview that will air tonight. "But, you know, I don`t think we`re serving our nation well by allowing the discourse to become so uncivil that people say — use words that they shouldn`t be using."

Kennedy`s comments, part of the drumbeat of criticism Bush has received lately from Democrats, were described as a "new low" by House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. Kennedy dismissed DeLay`s comments, saying that GOP leaders are avoiding questions about Bush`s policies "by attacking the patriotism of those who question them."

Kennedy elaborated on his comments in an interview on CNN Friday, saying the administration is announcing an $8.5-billion loan to Turkey, and that country will then provide military assistance in Iraq.

"It didn`t have to be this way," he said. "We wouldn`t have to be providing these billions of dollars to these countries to coerce them or bribe them to send their troops in, if we`d done it the right way, if we`d gone to the United Nations, if we had built an international constituency."


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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The meaning of `remove`
VIEW FROM THE LEFT
Harley Sorensen, Special to SF Gate
Monday, September 22, 2003
©2003 SF Gate

URL: http://sfgate.com/columnists/sorensen/



Abraham Lincoln got it wrong.

"The world will little note nor long remember what we say here," he said at Gettysburg, "but it can never forget what they did here."

I contend the reverse is true. We remember Lincoln`s famous speech, but we`ve forgotten the battle that inspired it. We know more of the words than of the deeds.

We know that words are important, yet the world at large seems to be overlooking the important words that came out of the Prime Minister Ariel Sharon`s security cabinet 11 days ago. On that day the cabinet voted to "remove" Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestinian people.

Considering Arafat`s present circumstances, the word "remove" has sinister implications. For months he has been confined to the bombed-out ruins of his headquarters in Ramallah.

Sharon has no intention of letting Arafat go into exile outside of Israel, where he would be free to tour the world to line up financial support.

So "remove" appears to mean "remove from Earth." It appears now that Sharon`s forces are merely waiting for the proper time and place for an "accident" to occur.

Perhaps Arafat will soon come down with a fatal case of "accidental" food poisoning.

Men like Arafat, like Osama bin Laden, like Saddam Hussein, are greatly admired on "the Arab street" primarily because they stand up to the West, and particularly to the Americans.

Arafat is especially adored because he has fought both with guns and diplomacy for the freedom of his people, and done so in the heart of western influence.

Arafat`s forthcoming martyrdom brings us back to the ill-fated "road map," a plan introduced by President George W. Bush in mid-March with many goals: to win Republican support by American Jews, to possibly snare a Nobel Peace Prize, to assure Bush`s re-election in 2004, and -- incidentally -- to perhaps bring peace to Israel.

The "road map" is, to be sure, a noble and workable plan, assuming, of course, that all parties proceed with the best of intentions. The chances of that happening, however, are zero.

Uri Avnery, an Israeli writer and war hero, is one of my favorite people. He tells the truth and he does so with great clarity and conviction. See for yourself: www.avnery-news.co.il/english/index.html

In an essay posted May 26, Avnery summed up some of the major problems with the "road map." In the quote below, "George" is George W. Bush, "Arik" is Ariel Sharon, and Abu-Mazen is the now-deposed Prime Minister of Palestine:

"George, it seems, believes Arik. When Arik proclaims his readiness for `painful concessions,` he believes him. When Arik announces his agreement to a Palestinian state, he believes him. When Arik accepts the Road Map, he believes him. When Arik seems ready to evacuate settlements and outposts, he believes him. When Arik promises to help Abu-Mazen, he believes him. He cannot imagine that Arik, his friend, his comrade, the upright soldier, will look him in the eye and lie through his teeth.

"But Ariel Sharon has no friends, and never had. He has no comrades, and never had. For Sharon, Bush is just another naive American, there to be cheated for the sacred cause of Greater Israel."

"Just another naive American." In a way, that sums up all our problems in the Middle East. The Middle East is a land with no price tags. People negotiate everything. They`ve done that for centuries. They`ve become good at it. It`s now in their genes. When it comes to bargaining, we are no match for them.

Most of what we hear from Israel parrots the official government line. But there are voices of dissent. Uri Avnery is certainly one. Another is Yossi Sarid, a columnist and member of the Knesset. In an Aug. 6 column in Haaretz, an Israeli newspaper (www.haaretz.com; use a Google search for "why Bush tells tall tales"), Sarid writes:

"The day is not far off when Abu Mazen and his government will fall. It`s only a matter of time. Then, Ariel Sharon will get Yasser Arafat back, and he will be relieved to be rid of Abu Mazen`s moderation.

"Sharon always had huge difficulties speaking to moderate Palestinians, while he swims like a fish in a sea of Palestinian extremism. There`s a problem with moderates. You have to encourage and strengthen them, offer them real proposals and make a real start on the famous `painful concessions.` Sharon doesnt have any such intentions. All he wanted to do is get home from Washington in one piece.

"Sharon`s behavior is not surprising to anyone who has known him for many years. The surprise is President Bush, who has evinced a strange passion for tall tales.

"It is completely unclear why the American president has decided to consume overflowing portions of complete lies served up to him by Ariel Sharon. Therefore, when Abu Mazen falls, and his government with him, the blame will fall on Sharon, but mainly on Bush, who maintains the pretention of an `honest broker`."

And so it goes. The world is suffering from a shortage of men of good will. (See Bush, George W.; Sharon, Ariel; Arafat, Yasser.) In Israel, madness reigns, with each side continuing the proven futility of increased violence. "You kill ours so we`ll kill yours so you`ll kill ours so we`ll kill yours ... and somehow we`ll win."

More than 50 years of failed tactics, and both sides keep using them. You`d think that sooner or later one side or the other would hire a good public relations firm to find out what works and what doesn`t.

Men of ill will make mistake after mistake. Very possibly the next big mistake will be the translation of words into a deed, the "removal" of Yasser Arafat.

If that happens, you can bet it will not soon be forgotten.

Harley Sorensen is a longtime journalist. His column appears Mondays. E-mail him at [e-mail].

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Robert Fisk: Iraq`s occupiers suspected of losing touch with reality

21.09.2003
COMMENT
BAGHDAD - A culture of secrecy has descended upon the Anglo-American occupation authorities in Iraq.

They will give no tally of the Iraqi civilian lives lost each day.

They will not comment on the killing by an American soldier of one of their own Iraqi interpreters on Thursday – he was shot dead in front of the Italian diplomat who was official adviser to the new Iraqi ministry of culture – and they cannot explain how General Sultan Hashim Ahmed, the former Iraqi minister of defence and a potential war criminal, should now be described by one of the most senior US officers in Iraq as "a man of honour and integrity."

On Thursday, in a three-stage ambush that destroyed an American military truck and a Humvee jeep almost a hundred miles west of Baghdad, a minimum of three US soldiers were reported dead and three wounded – local Iraqis claimed the fatalities numbered eight – yet within hours, the occupation authorities were saying that exactly the same number were killed and wounded in a sophisticated ambush on Americans in Tikrit.

Only two soldiers were wounded in the earlier attack, they said.

And for the second day running yesterday, the mobile telephone system operated by MCI for the occupation forces collapsed, effectively isolating the `Coalition Provisional Authority` from its ministries and from US forces.

An increasing number of journalists in Baghdad now suspect that US proconsul Paul Bremmer and his hundreds of assistants ensconced in the heavily guarded former presidential palace of Saddam Hussein in the capital, have simply lost touch with reality.

Although an enquiry was promised yesterday into the shooting of the Iraqi interpreter, details of the incident suggest that US troops now have carte blanche to open fire at Iraqi civilian cars on the mere suspicion that their occupants may be hostile.

Pietro Cordone, the Italian diplomat whom Bremmer appointed special adviser to the Iraqi ministry of culture, was travelling to Mosul with his wife Mirella when their car approached an American convoy.

According to Mr Cordone, a soldier manning a machine gun in the rear vehicle of the convoy appeared to signal to Mr Cordone`s driver that he should not attempt to overtake.

The driver did not do so but the soldier then fired a single shot at the car, which penetrated the windscreen and hit the interpreter who was sitting in the front passenger seat.

A few minutes later, the man died in Mr Cordone`s arms.

The Italian diplomat later returned to Baghdad.

Yet the incident was only reported because Mr Cordone happened to be in the car.

Every day, Iraqi civilians are wounded or shot dead by US troops in Iraq.

Just five days ago, a woman and her child were killed in Baghdad by an American soldier after US forces opened fire at a wedding party that was shooting into the air.

A 14-year old boy was reported killed in a similar incident two days ago.

Then on Thursday afternoon, several Iraqi civilians were wounded by US troops after the Americans were ambushed outside the town of Khaldiya. At least two American vehicles were destroyed and eyewitnesses described seeing body parts on the road after the ambush.

Yet 12 hours later, the authorities said that the Americans had suffered just two wounded – even though at least three Americans were first reported to have died and witnesses said the death toll was as high as eight.

Then came the ambush at Tikrit – almost identical if the authorities are to be believed -- in which exactly the same casualty toll was produced: three dead and two wounded

On this occasion, the incident was partly captured on videofilm.

During an arms raid around Saddam`s home town, guerrillas attacked not only the American raiders but two of their bases along the Tigress river. It was, an American spokesman said, a "coordinated" attack on soldiers of the US 4th Infantry Division. Up to 40 men of "military age" were then arrested.

In what must be one of the more extraordinary episodes of the day, General Sultan Ahmad, the former Iraqi ministry of defence, handed himself over to Major General David Petraeus – in charge of the north of Iraq – after the American commander had sent him a letter describing him as "a man of honour and integrity." In return for his surrender – or so says the Kurdish intermediary who arranged his handover to US forces – the Americans had promised to remove his name form the list of 55 most-wanted Iraqis around Saddam.

I last saw the portly General Ahmed in April, brandishing a gold-painted Kalashnikov in the Baghdad ministry of information and vowing eternal war against his country`s American invaders.

It was Ahmed who persuaded now retired General Norman Schwarzkopf to allow the defeated Iraqi forces to use military helicopters on "official business" after the 1991 US-Iraqi ceasefire agreed at Safwan.

These helicopters were then used in the brutal repression of the Shia Muslim and Kurdish rebellions against Saddam which had been encouraged by President George Bush`s father.

Afterwards, there was much talk of indicting General Ahmed as a war criminal, but US General Petraeus seems to have thrown that idea in to the waste-bin.

His quite extraordinary letter to Ahmed – which preceded the Iraqi general`s surrender and was revealed by the Associated Press news agency – described the potential war criminal as "the most respected senior military leader currently residing in Mosul" and promised that he would be treated with "the utmost dignity and respect."

In the same letter – which may be studied by war crimes investigators with a mixture of awe and disbelief -- the US officer said that "although we find ourselves on different sides of this war, we do share common traits.

"As military men, we follow the orders of our superiors. We may not necessarily agree with the politics and bureaucracy, but we understand unity of command and supporting our leaders in a common and just cause."

Thus far have the Americans now gone in appeasing the men who may have influence over the Iraqi guerrillas now killing US soldiers in Iraq.

What is presumably supposed to be seen as a gesture of compromise is much more likely to be understood as a sign of military weakness – which it clearly is – and history will have to decide what would have happened if similar letters had been sent to Nazi military leaders before the German surrender in 1945.

Historians will also have to ruminate upon the implications of the meaning of "supporting our leaders in a common and just cause." Are Saddam and Mr Bush supposed to be these `leaders`?

- INDEPENDENT

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Might Bush`s Blank Check for War Bounce If He Deceived Congress

by Thom Hartmann
Friday, September 19, 2003
On Tuesday, September 16, 2003, George W. Bush said what virtually every other senior member of his administration had been going out of their way to refute.

"We`ve had no evidence," he told CNN`s John King, "that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September the eleventh. No."

This came as a shock to the 70 percent of Americans who support the invasion and occupation of Iraq because they believed Saddam was a mastermind of 9/11 or that Iraqis were among the pilots who hijacked our planes.

But the bigger shock may be to members of Congress, who, hearing that, may now conclude that Bush just admitted he had explicitly misled them.

It started in the months leading up to the 2002 elections. In many parts of the nation Democrats were doing well in the polls, and it looked like Republicans may lose control of the House along with the Senate control they`d lost earlier when Jim Jeffords left the party in disgust.

An October Surprise was needed to turn 9/11 into a partisan issue the Republicans could exploit, some partisans suggest, so congressional allies of the Bush Administration trotted out Public Law 107-243, "A Joint Resolution to authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq."

The law specified that:

"Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States...by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations. ..."

"Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;

"Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;

"Whereas the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist organizations;

"... the risk that the current Iraqi regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States ... and the extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack, combine to justify action by the United States to defend itself;...

"Whereas Congress has taken steps to pursue vigorously the war on terrorism ... requested by the President 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 September 11, 2001, or harbored such persons or organizations;..." that the President could use force against the perpetrators of terrorism, implicitly, of 9/11.

Thus, the President was given a blank check to "defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq;" a nation whose Air Force had been destroyed and who UN inspectors had just said was almost certainly lacking any major (WMD) offensive or defensive weapons.

The law further required that Bush notify the Speaker of the House and the President of the Senate (the Vice President of the U.S.) before exercising the war powers that were being handed him, and to justify his actions at that time.

The passage of Public Law 107-243 on October 16, 2002 caused a national uproar, and enabled the Republicans to paint the Democrats as war-wimps, weak on defense, and only grudgingly willing to go along with efforts to get the guy who, as Public Law 107-243 said, "aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001..."

It was one of Karl Rove`s shining moments: the Republicans swept the elections a month later. The corporate aristocracy was on the move, quickly staking out more and more of the public commons of America as its own territory.

By March 2003, however, things were starting to turn against the Republicans again. Dick Cheney was under investigation for Halliburton dealings, and on March 5th an FBI agent who said the Bush administration had thwarted his efforts to investigate 9/11 made the headlines by refusing to speak out on TV "for fear of his job" according to Judicial Watch, who represented him.

On March 9th, Reuters reported that Halliburton had been awarded a contract to fight oil well fires in Iraq. On March 11th, a GOP consultant was named in an Enron investigation. On March 12th the Washington Post revealed that GOP consultant Ralph Reed had received $300,000 from Enron before its collapse; and the same day saw the Inquirer newspaper in London drop a bombshell that, "[Halliburton] payments, which appear on Mr. Cheney`s 2001 financial disclosure statement, are in the form of `deferred compensation` of up to $1m a year."

Things weren`t going well.

On March 18th, George W. Bush wrote to the Speaker of the House (Hastert) and the President of the Senate (Cheney) invoking the powers granted him by Public Law 107-243. Initiating the invasion of Iraq, he wrote:

"...I determine that:... [Declaring war on Iraq and] acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 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 September 11, 2001."

Thus the invasion of Iraq and seizure of its oil fields, was, according to George W. Bush, legally justified by 9/11.

But now he says there`s no connection between Iraq and 9/11.

Which will inevitably raise the question for many in Congress: Did George Bush deceive them and the nation in October of 2002 and March of 2003, and, in response to a reporter`s question, inadvertently blurt out an admission of that deception on September 16, 2003?

And, if so, how will Congress respond?


*************
Thom Hartmann (thom at thomhartmann.com) is the award-winning, best-selling author of over a dozen books, and the host of a syndicated daily talk show that runs opposite Rush Limbaugh in cities from coast to coast. www.thomhartmann.com

This article is copyright by Thom Hartmann, but permission is granted for reprint in print, email, blog, or web media so long as this credit is attached and the title is unchanged.

http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0309/S00186.htm

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Clarence Page: `Blurring the line: Hussein and 9/11`
Posted on Monday, September 22 @ 10:02:13 EDT
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
By Clarence Page, Chicago Tribune

WASHINGTON -- One of my favorite mayors of all time, the late, great Harold Washington of Chicago, used to talk about politicians who "throw the rock, then hide their hand."

That image vividly came to mind last week as President Bush admitted, with all the wide-eyed innocence of a kid caught with his hand in a cookie jar and with crumbs on his lips ("What? Who? Me ... ?"), that "We`ve had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with Sept. 11."

Yet a poll conducted by The Washington Post last month found that 69 percent of Americans believe Hussein probably was personally involved anyway. Why?

So where do people get this zany idea that Hussein and the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks were connected?



Do seven out of 10 Americans think all Arabs and Muslims look alike?

Are Americans too geopolitically illiterate to know Iraq from a hard place?

Or, ah, ha, have our leaders misled us?

The White House has never definitively declared a link between Iraq and Sept. 11. Yet members of Team Bush have chosen their words in ways that expertly avoid declaring such a link even as they strongly suggest one anyway.

"We know Iraq and the Al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy: The United States of America," Bush said during his televised address in which he made his case for an invasion of Iraq last October.

"The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001--and still goes on," he said from the deck of an aircraft carrier on May 1, in a speech in which he declared an end to major combat in Iraq. "With those attacks," Bush said, "the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what they got."

"We`ve learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bombmaking and poisons and deadly gases," the president said in his Oct. 7 speech in Cincinnati. "And we know that after Sept. 11, Saddam Hussein`s regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America."

Vice President Dick Cheney didn`t let up Sept. 14 on NBC`s "Meet the Press" when he said, "If we`re successful in Iraq ... then we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11."

Sept. 11? Wrong, Bush confirmed three days later.

Still, while discarding the Hussein-Sept. 11 link, the president clung to his belief that Hussein was linked to Al Qaeda, even though the evidence to support that concept has been shaky--when it has not been completely discredited.

But some still will say: "So what?" The U.S. deposed of an "evil dictator," as Bush promised. True enough. But the deposing of an evil dictator was not the reason why most Americans thought they were going to war. Most apparently thought they were striking at the core of what Bush was portraying as the terrorist networks behind Sept. 11. In fact, we were bombing the outskirts at best, while the central battle to find Osama bin Laden and break up Al Qaeda was going on miles away in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

But the deposing of evil dictators was not the main reason why most Americans thought they were going to war. Judging by the polls--and some of the mail I have received--most Americans believe our troops were sent to Iraq because of a Sept. 11 connection. Those of us who were paying close attention might have made the transition from bin laden and Afghanistan to Iraq and Hussein, but most of the public did not make that connection.

And members of Team Bush, whipping up their anti-Hussein frenzy, did what they could to blur the distinctions.

Fewer people would care now were it not for the way the war`s other underpinnings have fallen like dominoes. The Iraq Survey Group, with 1,500 experts, has been busily looking for weapons of mass destruction for five months, without finding any. The results have convinced Hans Blix, chief UN weapons inspector, that Iraq destroyed all its unconventional weapons a decade ago but wouldn`t admit it.

Right. Sort of like putting up a "Danger: Vicious Dog" sign to scare away burglars when you don`t really have a dog. It appears that Bush did not have as much of a dog in Iraq as he let on either.

Meanwhile, U.S. troop casualties mount and polls show a great number of Americans oppose spending the additional $87 billion Bush has requested for Iraq and Afghanistan. They`d rather spend it at home.

Maybe a simple apology to the people would help the president`s case. People forgive honest mistakes. They don`t like to be fooled.

E-mail: [e-mail]

Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune

Reprinted from The Chicago Tribune:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/
chi-0309210498sep21,1,6793786.column

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http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/03/20030319-1.h…

Presidential Letter
Text of a Letter from the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President Pro Tempore of the Senate




March 18, 2003

Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President: )

Consistent with section 3(b) of the Authorization for Use of Military Force Against Iraq Resolution of 2002 (Public Law 107-243), and based on information available to me, including that in the enclosed document, I determine that:

(1) reliance by the United States on further diplomatic and other peaceful means alone will neither (A) adequately protect the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq nor (B) likely lead to enforcement of all relevant United Nations Security Council resolutions regarding Iraq; and

(2) acting pursuant to the Constitution and Public Law 107-243 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 September 11, 2001.

Sincerely,

GEORGE W. BUSH

# # #

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BUSH WONDERS WHERE AMERICANS GOT KOOKY IDEAS ABOUT SADDAM AND 9/11

Blames Saddam for Confusion


President Bush said today that he was "baffled" as to where the American people got such "kooky ideas" about Saddam Hussein`s possible linkage to 9/11, and suggested that Saddam himself might be responsible for the confusion.

After seeing polls showing that seventy percent of Americans believe that Saddam was somehow linked to 9/11, President Bush said he was "flabbergasted" by how widespread that opinion was and wondered how the American people came to such a ""wacky"" conclusion.

"Let me tell you, it was a real head-scratcher," Mr. Bush said.

After first theorizing that the belief in the Saddam-9/11 link was the result of "a simple misunderstanding," Mr. Bush seized upon a more sinister explanation: that Saddam Hussein himself was responsible for misinforming the American people.

"Increasingly, we are seeing evidence that Saddam Hussein intentionally created the false impression that he was somehow responsible for 9/11 in order to confuse seventy percent of the American people," the President said.

Mr. Bush added that even though the U.S. has so far been unable to find any evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the Iraqi strongman`s "campaign of deception" to trick the American people into believing he was involved in 9/11 was "reason enough" to invade Iraq.

"Now that he has been removed from power, Saddam Hussein is no longer in a position to make people think he is linked to things he is not linked to," Mr. Bush said.

Later at the White House, spokesman Scott McClellan clarified the President`s remarks somewhat, saying, "There is no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to any attempts to trick the American people into thinking that Saddam Hussein is linked to anything."

**** BOROWITZ ON CNN MONDAY MORNING ****

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+++++++++++++++++++++++"I`m nuts about fake wars"

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22 September, 2003
``Support for War in Iraq Based on Fallacious Reasoning``
n Wednesday, September 17, U.S. President George W. Bush admitted that there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein had any role in the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States. President Bush stated, "We`ve had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September 11." The day before, National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice made similar comments, telling ABC`s "Nightline" that "We have never claimed that Saddam Hussein had either direction or control of 9/11." Yet despite these statements by members of the Bush administration, according to a recent poll, some 70 percent of Americans believe that Saddam was personally involved with the terrorist attacks of that day.

It is obvious why the American people believe this to be true: While there is clearly no serious evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the September 11 hijackings, members of the Bush administration consistently justified their invasion of Iraq over the past two years by implying a connection between the two. President Bush himself frequently made statements linking Saddam Hussein and September 11 by placing the two, previously separate issues within the same context during speeches advocating an invasion of Iraq. For example, President Bush argued on October 7, 2002: "We`ve learned that Iraq has trained al-Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases. And we know that after September 11, Saddam Hussein`s regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America." As recently as May 1, 2003, Bush warned, "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September 11, 2001 -- and still goes on." And as recent as September 14, Vice President Dick Cheney claimed, "If we`re successful in Iraq … then we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11."

By not making concrete statements connecting Saddam and the September 11 attacks, the Bush administration was able to avoid explicitly lying to the American people -- while at the same time achieving their objectives of getting support for a U.S. intervention in Iraq by putting Saddam Hussein`s government into the same political and military context as the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. From this perspective, the recent comments made by administration officials denying that they`ve ever tried to connect Saddam and September 11 are being made in order to disarm critics who charge that the administration mislead the American people into supporting the war in Iraq.

Washington`s desire to overthrow the leadership in Iraq has been evident since the Gulf War in 1991. However, due to the risks and costs involved in removing a foreign government -- such costs that are evident now as the U.S. struggles to maintain order in Iraq -- the first Bush administration decided against such a radical foreign policy objective and instead decided to slowly weaken Iraq through economic sanctions. The Clinton administration continued this policy by unwaveringly maintaining the sanctions regime. Yet despite this there was a group of politicians and academics constantly lobbying to have the Ba`ath Party removed from power through military force. These individuals -- known as the neo-conservatives and mostly working within the American Enterprise Institute and its underling, the Project for the New American Century -- managed to achieve much influence and clout with the election of the Bush administration and hoped to present their radical foreign policy objectives of removing the Ba`ath Party along with "reshaping" the Middle East in a manner that would better serve U.S. interests.

However, these individuals failed to put this policy into effect during the first nine months of 2001, as the political bureaucracy in Washington is traditionally hesitant about taking drastic foreign policy actions that could result in great risks and costs to American interests. Indeed, members of the Bush administration who were part of the neo-conservative camp -- such as Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Undersecretary of State for Disarmament John Bolton -- were aware of this difficulty in pursuing their broad, strategic foreign policy plans; in a report before the 2000 elections, the Project for the New American Century said it would be difficult to realize their objectives -- one being the removal of Saddam Hussein in Iraq -- without "some catastrophic and catalyzing event, like a new Pearl Harbor."

With the September 11 attacks, and the widespread fear in not only Washington but throughout the entire United States, the Bush administration knew they could use the attacks and the emotional maelstrom they created to their advantage. By insinuating that Saddam Hussein was somehow involved in the attack, the Bush administration successfully made their case for removing the leadership in Baghdad.

This chain of events highlights the difficulty that governments practicing democratic ideals have in achieving foreign policy objectives, especially moralist democracies like the United States. While non-democratic governments are able to implement radical foreign policy plans as long as they can prevent their people from rebelling -- usually through the use of physical repression -- democratic governments are held accountable by their voting population. Therefore, instead of publicly explaining foreign policy objectives and decisions, democratic leaders often find themselves having to mask their pursuit of national interests and power politics with moral explanations. This is most evident in recent U.S. politics, from the fight against the "evil empire" in the Soviet Union, stopping a "butcher" in Yugoslavia, to hunting down "evildoers" all over the world.

The fear of Iraq developing weapons of mass destruction to be used against the United States was also used by the Bush administration to shore up support for an intervention in Iraq. On October 7, 2002, President Bush stated in a speech in Ohio: "The Iraqi regime ... possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons. … Satellite photographs reveal that Iraq is rebuilding facilities at sites that have been part of its nuclear program in the past." In another statement from October, Bush said 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…"

On March 30, 2003, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld claimed that he knew where Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction were located, asserting, "We know where they are. They`re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat." Yet now Rumsfeld has retreated from pre-war claims that Iraq had massive stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. Now that weapons of mass destruction have not been found, Rumsfeld said, "Sometimes I overstate for emphasis. I should have said, `I believe they`re in that area. Our intelligence tells us they`re in that area, and that was our best judgment.`"

Like Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney argued three days before the invasion of Iraq that Saddam had "reconstituted nuclear weapons." Yet when this turned out to be a clear falsity, Cheney later said, "I misspoke. We never had evidence that [Saddam] had acquired a nuclear weapon." Instead, Cheney is now saying that Saddam only had "aspirations to acquire a nuclear weapon." Despite all of the previous claims by administration officials regarding Saddam`s "reconstituted" nuclear weapons program, somehow Defense Secretary Rumsfeld said in June 2003, "I don`t know anybody in any government or any intelligence agency who suggested that the Iraqis had nuclear weapons."

Finally, in addition to insinuating that Saddam was involved in the September 11 attacks and that Saddam also either had or was developing nuclear weapons, the Bush administration has tried to argue that individual Iraqis are not fighting against the U.S. occupation in Iraq, but instead resistance is only from former members of Saddam Hussein`s regime, al-Qaeda and foreign fighters infiltrating Iraq. For example, in June Rumsfeld told the House Armed Services Committee, "I think these people [attacking coalition forces] are the last remnants of a dying cause." He said U.S. forces "have the sympathy of the population, not the surviving elements of the Ba`athist regime." Following this trend, last week Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz claimed that "a great many of bin Laden`s key lieutenants are now trying to organize in cooperation with old loyalists from the Saddam regime to attack in Iraq." When questioned about this claim, Wolfowitz said, "It`s not `a great many` -- it`s one.`"

Furthermore, this comes shortly before the commander of the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez, told London`s The Times that ordinary Iraqis are also resisting the U.S. occupation. In response to complaints about persistent civilian casualties in Iraq and cases of U.S. soldiers dealing heavy handedly with Iraqi civilians, Sanchez conceded, "We have seen that when we have an incident in the conduct of our operations, when we killed an innocent civilian, based on their ethic, their values, their culture, they would seek revenge."

The Bush administration has consistently framed their foreign policy objectives in ways in which they will receive support from the American people, through the use of "moral logic" and a virtual demagoguery of sorts expressed in its preoccupation with security. Only a small percentage of Americans would still find palatable the U.S.` foreign policy objectives if expressed in the terms power politics, economic interests, and realpolitik.

Report Drafted By:
Erich Marquardt



The Power and Interest News Report (PINR) is an analysis-based publication that seeks to, as objectively as possible, provide insight into various conflicts, regions and points of interest around the globe. PINR approaches a subject based upon the powers and interests involved, leaving the moral judgments to the reader. PINR seeks to inform rather than persuade. This report may not be reproduced, reprinted or broadcast without the written permission of [e-mail]. All comments should be directed to [e-mail].

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Blow to Blair as majority say war not justified
Alan Travis, home affairs editor
Tuesday September 23, 2003
The Guardian

Tony Blair has decisively lost the debate over Iraq with a clear majority of voters now saying that the war was unjustified, according to the results of this month`s Guardian/ICM poll published today.

The survey shows that British public opinion on Iraq has moved sharply over the summer in the face of the Hutton inquiry, the failure to find weapons of mass destruction and the continuing instability in Baghdad.

In the immediate aftermath of the war in April public support for the war peaked at 63%. By July it had slipped to 51% but a majority still said the war was justified. Now for the first time a clear majority are saying the war was unjustified (53%), and only 38% believe it was right to invade Iraq.

The survey also shows that the Brent East byelection has provided a dramatic boost to the Liberal Democrats, who are now only two points behind the Tories and enjoying a 28% share of the vote, their highest poll rating for 14 years.

The ICM poll shows Labour maintaining a five-point lead over the Conservatives but reveals serious erosion in the government`s reputation for economic competence in the last six months.

On Iraq, the poll signals that the public is no longer giving Mr Blair the benefit of the doubt on the war.

The detailed results show some significant swings. Among men, the net justified/unjustified feeling about the war has moved from minus one in July to minus 29. Even Tory voters no longer support the war, moving from plus 20 in July to minus 12 now. Among Labour voters, sentiment is still pro-war but the gap has narrowed sharply from plus 30 to plus 16. Liberal Democrat voters are most hostile with a rating of minus 45 points.

The boost to the Lib Dems` poll position - up six points on the month to 28% - follows their byelection triumph but also reflects an underlying strengthening of their rating since the general election. It confirms that it has been Charles Kennedy`s party rather than the Tories who are benefiting most from the government`s troubles.

If the Liberal Democrats produced this kind of performance in the next general election they would have no trouble in achieving the 3.8% swing needed to implement their "decapitation strategy", which would see shadow cabinet members Oliver Letwin, Theresa May and David Davies losing their marginal seats.

The advance of the Liberal Democrats this month appears to have been at the equal expense of Labour and Tories. Labour`s 35-point rating is its lowest on the Guardian/ICM poll for 11 years.

Mr Blair`s failure to convince the public on Iraq may be one big factor in eroding Labour`s poll rating but the September ICM survey also uncovers a more subterranean shift. The party`s reputation for economic competence, which has been crucial to its landslide election successes since 1993, is showing signs of erosion.

In March this year 47% of voters named Labour as the party with the best policies for dealing with the economy. This month`s ICM poll shows that has fallen to 29% of voters.

The Tories are doing no better: their economic competence rating has also fallen, from 28 to 18 points.

· ICM interviewed a random sample of 1,002 adults aged 18 and over by telephone from September 19-21. Interviews were conducted across the country and the results weighted to the profile of all adults.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Reality in the melting pot
According to `multiverse` theorists, life as we know it could be nothing but a Matrix-style simulation

Paul Davies
Tuesday September 23, 2003
The Guardian

Five hundred years ago it was widely believed that the Earth lay at the centre of the universe and mankind was the pinnacle of creation. Then along came Copernicus and showed that our planet was merely one of several orbiting the sun. Since then the lesson of Earth`s mediocrity has been reinforced again and again: ours is a typical planet around a typical star in a typical galaxy, of which there exist untold billions.

The Copernican principle - that our location in space is unremarkable - is the default assumption for most scientists. But recently this principle has been challenged by a group of cosmologists who claim that what we have all along been calling "the universe" is nothing of the sort. Rather, it is a tiny fragment of a much vaster and more elaborate system that, for want of a better word, has been dubbed "the multiverse".

The basic idea is simple. Cosmologists think the universe began with a big bang about 14bn years ago. This means we can`t see anything farther than 14bn light years away, however good our telescopes may be, because light from those regions hasn`t had time to reach us yet. But this doesn`t mean there is nothing there, and for decades astronomers supposed that what lies beyond this horizon in space is likely to be more or less the same as we observe in our cosmic backyard - just more galaxies.

Now this assumption is in serious doubt following major developments in fundamental physics. A key premise of the more-of-the-same view of the universe is that the laws of physics are identical everywhere and for all time. But physicists have found that some features of nature thought to be law-like might actually be frozen accidents - properties that were locked in only as the universe cooled from its fiery birth.

Take the mass of the electron. Why does it have the value it does? Well, maybe the mass isn`t decided in advance once and for all by some deep law, but just comes out at random, like the throw of a die, in the searing maelstrom of the big bang. In which case, it could come out differently somewhere else. In the same way, the strength of gravity or the number of space dimensions might also vary from place to place.

There is no evidence for any substantial variation in these features out as far as our best telescopes can peer. But that is no guarantee that a trillion light years away it will be the same. Electrons could be heavier there or space might have five dimensions. A God`s-eye view of the cosmos would then resemble a patchwork quilt, with a haphazard pattern of properties. What we took to be universal laws of physics would be relegated to mere by-laws, appropriate only to our local "Hubble bubble", while far out in space other "bubbles", possibly generated by other big bangs quite distinct from ours, possess other laws.

Multiverse enthusiasts bolster their claims by pointing to the astonishing bio-friendliness of the universe. It has long been known that the existence of life depends rather sensitively on the exact form of the laws of physics. Change things a bit and life would never have happened. This looks suspiciously flukey, but it can be readily explained by the multiverse. Most of the cosmic patches in the quilt will be sterile, their physics all wrong for making life. Only here and there, in rare patches where all the numbers come out right, will life arise and observers like us evolve to marvel at it all.

History has thus turned full circle. According to the multiverse theory, if you look at Earth`s location in space on a grand enough scale, then it does occupy a special and privileged position, namely one that can support life. Like winners in a gigantic cosmic lottery, we find ourselves in a rare bio-friendly patch for the simple reason that we could not exist in any of the bio-hostile ones.

If one accepts recent advances in fundamental physics, then some sort of multiverse seems inevitable. But how far down this slippery slope should one go? Max Tegmark, a cosmologist at the University of Pennsylvania, argues that there is no need to stop with properties like the strengths of forces or the masses of particles. Why not consider all possible mathematical laws? Don`t like the law of gravity? No problem. There`s a universe out there somewhere with gravity that waxes and wanes in a paisley pattern. Of course, there`s nobody there to admire it.

Tegmark`s speculation forces us to confront what is perhaps the deepest of all the deep questions of existence: why there is something rather than nothing. There are only two "natural" states of affairs. The first is that nothing exists. The other is that everything exists. The former we can eliminate by observation. So should we conclude that everything exists - all possible worlds? Those who would argue against this position must concede that there is some rule that divides what actually exists from what is merely possible, but not real. But where does that rule come from? And why that rule rather than some other?

These are murky waters, but they get even murkier when we scrutinise what is meant by the words "exist" and "real". In the Tegmark multiverse of all possible worlds, some worlds will have intelligent civilisations with computers powerful enough to create authentic-looking virtual worlds. Like in the movie The Matrix, it may be almost impossible for an observer to know which is the real world and which is a simulation. And if the simulation is good enough, is there any fundamental difference between the two anyway?

It gets worse. Mathematicians have proved that a universal computing machine can create an artificial world that is itself capable of simulating its own world, and so on ad infinitum. In other words, simulations nest inside simulations inside simulations ... Because fake worlds can outnumber real ones without restriction, the "real" multiverse would inevitably spawn a vastly greater number of virtual multiverses. Indeed, there would be a limitless tower of virtual multiverses, leaving the "real" one swamped in a sea of fakes.

So the bottom line is this. Once we go far enough down the multiverse route, all bets are off. Reality goes into the melting pot, and there is no reason to believe we are living in anything but a Matrix-style simulation. Science is then reduced to a charade, because the simulators of our world - whoever or whatever they are - can create any pseudo-laws they please, and keep changing them.

The final twist in this saga is that almost all multiverse theories predict the existence of infinitely many duplicate cosmic regions, including duplicate Earths and duplicate Guardian readers. There will also exist all possible variations on this theme.

So if you are uncomfortable with the multiverse idea, content yourself with the fact that there will be another you out there somewhere who has just read a thoroughly convincing refutation of the entire multiverse concept.

· Paul Davies is a physicist in the Australian Centre for Astrobiology at Macquarie University, Sydney. His latest book is The Origin of Life, published by Penguin.

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Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Arabic TV faces expulsion for `incitement`
· Iraqi governing council warns of action against media
· UN offices bombed

Rory McCarthy in Baghdad
Tuesday September 23, 2003
The Guardian

Iraq`s governing council is to take action against the Arabic television networks al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya for what it calls "incitement to violence" in their reporting about Iraq.

Some sources in Baghdad said the council intended to expel the two leading Arabic channels from the country for a month.

Leading Iraqi officials have complained for several weeks about the tone of the coverage on the Arabic networks, particularly their decisions to air recorded messages from Saddam Hussein and threats against the 25 Iraqis who were appointed to the governing council.

Samir Shakir Mahmoud al-Sumaidy, head of the council`s media committee, told the Guardian last night: "The council has discussed the problem of incitement to violence in which al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya have persisted and has resolved to take firm action." He said a decision would be announced today.

The move came as a suicide bomber blew himself up in a car outside the UN`s headquarters in Baghdad yesterday, killing an Iraqi security guard and injuring at least 17 others. It was the second attack on the UN in a month.

It is not clear whether the decision to act against the two Arabic TV channels was endorsed by the US-led civilian administration, and whether the governing council, which is little more than an advisory body, has the power to expel journalists from the country. America and Britain remain the legal authority in Iraq.

Al-Jazeera, based in Qatar, and al-Arabiya, in the United Arab Emirates, both have large teams of reporters in Iraq and are widely watched by locals. They frequently broadcast graphic images of the daily attacks on US soldiers, and much of their reporting has been deeply critical of the military occupation, often openly doubting the military`s version of events.

Last week al-Arabiya reported that eight American troops were killed in an ambush of a military convoy near the town of Khaldiya, west of Baghdad. The US insisted only two soldiers were wounded.

The governing council seems to have been particularly angered by a message from unnamed Islamic militants, broadcast by al-Arabiya in July, which carried threats against council members. The broadcast was a "conduit for terrorists", said Philip Reeker, an American state department spokesman.

The Iraqis` concern came to a head on Saturday when Aqila al-Hashmi, one of three women on the council, was shot and seriously injured in an attack outside her home.

Speaking before yesterday`s meeting, Mr al-Sumaidy described the two Arabic television channels as "hostile media outlets" and said there were plans to introduce tougher media laws.

"They show groups of masked terrorists who read out long statements about how everybody dealing with the Americans should be punished and killed, and that is really crossing a line that should not be crossed," he said.

Jihad Ballout, a spokesman for al-Jazeera in Doha, last night defended his network`s coverage of Iraq. "We are a news organisation; we do not deal in politics," he said. "Al-Jazeera believes in being a platform for various points of view ... whether they are Americans, Britons or Iraqis opposed to the regime."

Yesterday`s blast at the UN building came when an Iraqi security guard opened the bonnet of a car for a routine inspection at a checkpoint at the rear of the building. UN officials said the bomber wore a belt of explosives and also had what was thought to be a 25kg bomb in the car.

Security at the UN compound had been tightened after a suicide bomber last month killed 23 people, including the UN special representative, Sergio de Mello. At the time 300 UN staff worked in Baghdad. That number has now been reduced.

The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, warned that if the situation continued to deteriorate, the organisation`s work in Iraq would be handicapped considerably. He added: "I`m shocked and distressed by this latest attack."

The guards who bore the brunt of yesterday`s attack were members of the new facility protection service, a 4,000-strong Iraqi force established by the US military. The military provides the force with a brief three-day training programme, although the men at the UN compound yesterday said they were still waiting to be trained. They complained that they were allowed no weapons, wore no body armour and had no mirrors or metal detectors to inspect cars and visitors at checkpoints.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Vision of the neocons stays fixed on making hard choices
Oliver Burkeman in Washington
Tuesday September 23, 2003
The Guardian

Every Tuesday morning during the Iraq war Washington`s opinion-makers and journalists knew there was only one place to be: at the "black-coffee briefings" held at the American Enterprise Institute, a fortress-like building on M and 17th streets, opposite the main offices of the National Geographic magazine.

Technically, AEI is a thinktank. More than that, though, it is the headquarters of the intellectual movement known as neoconservatism. Its staff includes famous names such as Richard Perle, Irving Kristol and Newt Gingrich. The magazine Weekly Standard, the neocon bible, is published at the same address.

Black coffee was not strictly compulsory at the briefings - adding milk was allowed - but it did seem a particularly apt metaphor. The neocons felt they were delivering stern, sobering truths, wake-up calls with all the kick of a strong espresso: that liberating Iraq and making an awesome show of American power was vital for the US and the world, that democracy would spread through the region as dictators fell like dominoes.

Resistance would be minimal: the war could be fought, most argued, with the lean hi-tech military championed by Donald Rumsfeld. But not with the UN and Europe, who did not have the stomach for the new era of muscular American power. But that was then; September in Washington finds the ultra-hawks in ferment. They confess to being taken aback by events in Iraq. Some are responding by arguing that the terrorist attacks on US troops there may actually be, counterintuitively, a good thing.

Sceptical


In interviews with the Guardian they expressed deep scepticism about President Bush`s new overtures to the UN, accusing the White House of a lack of commitment - and, most surprising of all, rounding on their former hero Donald Rumsfeld. The distance between the president and the movement widely credited with persuading him to go to war in the first place has never seemed greater.

"All of us surely understand that, but for the president, we wouldn`t be arguing about postwar Iraq - we would still be arguing about what to do with Saddam," said Thomas Donnelly, an AEI scholar and senior fellow at the Project for the New American Century, the influential rightwing group whose founding signatories include Dick Cheney, the vice-president, Mr Rumsfeld, and his deputy, Paul Wolfowitz.

"But having got rid of the guy, we`re now understanding that regime change is a much larger undertaking than we thought it was. But this is a unique American responsibility, and passing the buck to the rest of the world, a good portion of which didn`t agree with us in the first place, is not a great idea."

There is still plenty of the old defiant optimism that prompted one AEI scholar, Danielle Pletka, to publish a paper in April, mid-war, bluntly entitled Everything is Going Well. Mr Donnelly and his colleagues are emphatic that they still feel that way. But insufficient troops, he argues, mean "we`re making it harder than it has to be".

The near-daily grim news of US casualties in Iraq has inspired some audacious responses - most notably what has been labelled the "flypaper theory", pungently summarised by the conservative commentator Andrew Sullivan. "Being based in Iraq helps us not only because of actual bases, but because the American presence diverts terrorist attention away from elsewhere," he argued on his website.

Even General Ricardo Sanchez, commander of the coalition`s ground forces in Iraq, appeared to subscribe to this theory, conceding that Iraq was "a terrorist magnet" but adding: "This is exactly where we want to fight them." Other neoconservatives disagree, however - one of numerous ways in which their previous consensus seems to be fragmenting.

Some dissenters have seen the breach with the Pentagon coming since before the war. As an example, Mr Rumsfeld was reported to have personally delayed the dispatch to Iraq of heavy artillery units based in Texas and Germany. Even to many hawks that seemed a foolhardy degree of commitment to the "revolution in military affairs", the doctrine that America will win the wars of the future with light, nimble forces using laser-guided missiles and precision bombs.

"Rumsfeld, in particular, has become a bit of a problem, because he`s so committed to the revolution in military affairs that he doesn`t like the idea of American ground troops patrolling, doing low-tech things," said William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard.

"But ... sometimes the world doesn`t allow you to do everything with precision bombs. And I think we should be willing to do what it takes."

In the interest both of American influence and the Iraqi people a much bigger commitment of US troops and money is essential, he argues. This is why the president`s request for billions more in funds has spread some relief among the neocons. Some privately hint that they might prefer it if French and German opposition to Mr Bush at the UN were to result in the defeat of US negotiators there.

One prominent pro-war voice has even said so publicly. "It would be a delightful irony if Jacques Chirac prevented President Bush from putting the wrong foot forward," Reuel Marc Gerecht of the AEI wrote recently in the Weekly Standard.

"[The administration has] been trying to do it on the cheap, and that`s a mistake," Mr Kristol said. "What`s going to rectify that mistake is not the UN - it`s the $87bn, and a more urgent full-throated US commitment to getting it right, doing the reconstruction, and laying the conditions for the Iraqis taking over."

If the motives for urging an attack on Iraq in the first place seemed ever-changing, that might have been because, in the words of the liberal Washington commentator Joshua Micah Marshall, "it was the classic overdetermined question". Several of these thinkers` deeply held convictions, in other words, all pointed to the same conclusion.

Passion


They have a passionate belief in the benefits of US-style democracy. They want to stun potential enemies, both terrorists and "rogue states", into realising the scale of American force. They want to reduce US reliance on such allies as Saudi Arabia. And reduce regional pressure on Israel. All dictated the same thing: attacking Iraq. "There was a period where they had a way of winning all the arguments," said Mr Marshall, who edits the website TalkingPointsMemo.com. "But now they`re off their game plan."

A White House that appeared in tune with their thinking has proved to have other concerns: proving a point about military technology, in Mr Rumsfeld`s case, and, in the president`s, winning the next election. "There are peple around the president who can see that, politically, this is a mess," Mr Marshall said. "But the neocons see it all in grand-historical terms - if it takes 100,000 soldiers, if it takes a draft, who cares? We gotta do it."

Their clarion call now is for "Iraqification" of Iraq: an argument which brings the neoconservatives curiously close to the viewpoint put by the French and Germans at the UN. "We need a game plan for a swift transfer to the Iraqis, because we haven`t won until we have government by the Iraqis," said Danielle Pletka, author of the optimistic mid-war paper, although going to the UN "doesn`t accelerate that, it decelerates it."

Ms Pletka`s argument represents yet another emerging camp. She blamed problems in Iraq on "a bizarre colonial attitude" on the part of Colin Powell`s state department and the British. But her comments underline a pervasive sense that the marriage of the neocons and the Rumsfeld wing of the Bush administration may be heading for the rocks.

Those with old-fashioned colonialist attitudes had influence over the governance of the country, Ms Pletka said, "because they`ve got the bodies ... And yet, for reasons utterly mysterious to me, the Pentagon refuses to send its people there. They should be making sure they have a big role there, too. And they won`t. And I have no idea why."

Right stuff: the main players

Paul Wolfowitz


The most visible neocon in Washington, whose power transcends his modest title of deputy secretary of defence. Like almost all neocons, he is a former Democrat, combining a liberal sense of mission to spread democratic ideas with a traditional conservative readiness to use military force. But he is now at loggerheads with the "paleocons" about how long to stay in Iraq

Richard Perle


Wolfowitz`s mentor and veteran cold warrior from the Reagan administration, where he was known as the "prince of darkness". Like many a neocon, he began his career working for the hawkish Democratic senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson before defecting to the Republicans. Forced to step down as chairman of the defence policy board in March after his many business connections raised questions of conflict of interest

Douglas Feith


Another veteran Scoop Jackson Democrat, Feith stands out for his close ties with Israel`s Likud party. His former law company had offices in Washington and Tel Aviv, and when he became undersecretary of defence for policy, overseeing the office of special plans and its search for damning "intelligence" on Iraq, he remained open to input from Sharon government. Seen as the neocon most likely to fall if things turn from bad to worse in Iraq

Elliott Abrams


The White House`s chief adviser on the Middle East became notorious in the Reagan administration when he admitted misleading Congress about the Iran-contra scandal. Abrams, yet another Scoop Jackson graduate, backed Likud on the Middle East

William Kristol


Offspring of one of the first neocon dynasty. Irving Kristol was a founder of the movement. His magazine, the Weekly Standard, is the main neocon sounding board in Washington.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

[Joerver]

Say no to privatisation
Leader
Tuesday September 23, 2003
The Guardian

America`s plan to privatise the Iraqi economy is a mistake that needs to be corrected before it is implemented. The huge sell-off programme, tax breaks and virtual elimination of tariffs on imports is designed to attract foreign investment and revive Iraq`s moribund industries. But recent evidence suggests Washington`s radical prescription is doomed to fail. The last big socialist, centralised economy that opted for such sudden and drastic shock therapy was Russia in 1992. The result was economic devastation, rampant corruption and the rise of a powerful class of businessmen, the oligarchs. Clearly a case of all shock and no therapy - and Iraq could go the same way. In reaching for such extreme measures, Paul Bremer, the American running Iraq, has exposed the limitations of Washington`s efforts at nation-building.

Reconstructing the country needs cash - which thanks to George Bush`s "America-alone" policy over Iraq has not been forthcoming from friends or alienated allies. Iraq`s oil production, which should have paid the bills, has not materialised thanks largely to US failure to keep the peace. It is also clear that the Bush administration underestimated just how dilapidated Iraq`s infrastructure has become - thanks to Saddam`s neglect and sanctions imposed after the last Gulf war. America`s taxpayers, who went to war without being told about the costs involved, are understandably angry about being being asked to pick up a large part of the tab, some $150bn. To share the burden, the occupying powers decided to court foreign, private sector capital and opted to lower taxes and put a large "For Sale" sign over Iraq.

This is where the problems begin. First, these plans have no popular mandate. It would have been better to wait for an elected Iraqi government to produce a national economic plan rather than get a US-appointed Iraqi finance minister to rubber stamp them. Second, any dreams of a rapid transition to a free market in Iraq must be tempered by the fact that most of the population is dependent on state handouts. Not only is the state Iraq`s biggest employer but the Iraqi people depend on a heavily subsidised system of inputs to industry and the inexpensive goods and services that result. In privatising Iraq`s industries, one would expect businesses to become profitable - by raising prices or cutting costs and staff. The outcome could be unemployment and inflation, a recipe for chaos. Third, there is no effective legal system and Iraqi state institutions are still not functioning - both of which the Russian experiment showed were needed for big structural reforms.

It is true that Iraq`s vast oil reserves, the world`s second largest after Saudi Arabia`s, will remain in government hands. But Washington is inflicting on Iraq what it would never accept itself. The US protects its airlines and media with foreign ownership restrictions, heavily subsidies its farmers and is prepared to slap import duties on steel. The US-inspired tariff-lowering and tax-cutting regime for Iraq is clearly inappropriate - especially when there is a clear need for revenue to finance the health and eduction needs of 25 million Iraqis. What the US is planning in Iraq is presumably what the world would look like if no one dissented. But they do - that is why the trade talks in Cancun failed. In adopting a neoliberal economic orthodoxy, the US falls into the trap of believing that the state has only to be removed from the sphere of the economy to see a vibrant free market appear. History suggests this process has to be managed by a stable, home-grown government. Iraq deserves to get one before enacting such major changes. In imposing free trade and removing the right to set tariffs, America has written its own unequal treaty with Baghdad. Washington should tear it up, before it is torn up by events.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

[Joerver]

Right stuff: the main players

Julian Borger
Tuesday September 23, 2003
The Guardian

Paul Wolfowitz

The most visible neocon in Washington, whose power transcends his modest title of deputy secretary of defence. Like almost all neocons, he is a former Democrat, combining a liberal sense of mission to spread democratic ideas with a traditional conservative readiness to use military force. But he is now at loggerheads with the "paleocons" about how long to stay in Iraq

Richard Perle


Wolfowitz`s mentor and veteran cold warrior from the Reagan administration, where he was known as the "prince of darkness". Like many a neocon, he began his career working for the hawkish Democratic senator Henry "Scoop" Jackson before defecting to the Republicans. Forced to step down as chairman of the defence policy board in March after his many business connections raised questions of conflict of interest

Douglas Feith


Another veteran Scoop Jackson Democrat, Feith stands out for his close ties with Israel`s Likud party. His former law company had offices in Washington and Tel Aviv, and when he became undersecretary of defence for policy, overseeing the office of special plans and its search for damning "intelligence" on Iraq, he remained open to input from Sharon government. Seen as the neocon most likely to fall if things turn from bad to worse in Iraq

Elliott Abrams


The White House`s chief adviser on the Middle East became notorious in the Reagan administration when he admitted misleading Congress about the Iran-contra scandal. Abrams, yet another Scoop Jackson graduate, backed Likud on the Middle East

William Kristol


Offspring of one of the first neocon dynasty. Irving Kristol was a founder of the movement. His magazine, the Weekly Standard, is the main neocon sounding board in Washington.

[Joerver]

Annan challenges US on force
UN secretary general to warn that pre-emptive strikes are a threat to world peace and stability

Julian Borger in Washington and Jon Henley in Paris
Tuesday September 23, 2003
The Guardian

The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, will openly challenge the White House doctrine of preemptive military intervention today, arguing that it could lead to the unjustified "lawless use of force" and posed a "fundamental challenge" to world peace and stability.

In a speech to be delivered shortly before George Bush addresses the UN general assembly, Mr Annan will declare that the Iraq crisis brought the UN to a "fork in the road" as decisive as 1945 when the world body was formally established.

The 191 UN member are struggling to heal deep rifts caused by the war on Iraq, in which the US acted without the aproval of the security council.

In a text of his speech released in advance, Mr Annan questions US arguments that nations have the "right and obligation to use force pre-emptively" against unconventional weapons systems, even while they are still being developed.

"My concern is that, if it were to be adopted, it could set precedents that resulted in a proliferation of the unilateral and lawless use of force, with or without credible justification," he says.

He says the UN charter allows military action for the purpose of self defence.

"But until now it has been understood that when states go beyond that and decide to use force to deal with broader threats to international peace and security, they need the unique legitimacy provided by the United Nations.

"Now some say this understanding is no longer tenable since an `armed attack` with weapons of mass destruction could be launched at any time.

"This logic represents a fundamental challenge to the principles on which, however imperfectly, world peace and stability have rested for the last 58 years."

President Bush plans to make a defiant stand at today`s UN meeting, demanding international support in cash and troops for the US occupation of Iraq, while rejecting a speedy transfer of authority to Iraqis.

Excerpts of his speech to the general assembly released yesterday make it clear that there remains a gulf between the US and its European critics, led by France, about the governance of Iraq.

But both sides are clearly anxious to avoid the bitterness of earlier UN debates on Iraq, offering goodwill concessions.

France promised not to brandish its security council veto, while Mr Bush said the UN could help draw up a constitution - "they`re good at that" he told Fox News - and play a role in supervising eventual elections.

The timetable for those elections and the transition to Iraqi self-rule is at the heart of the current debate, in which the US is insisting on a deliberate pace, going deep into next year, and the French are calling for a much faster handover.

Condoleezza Rice, Mr Bush`s security adviser, said last night that the transfer must follow "an orderly process." She told reporters: "The French plan, which would somehow transfer sovereignty to an unelected group of people, just isn`t workable."

According to one version of the text yesterday, Mr Bush will offer a compromise solution, asking the Iraqi governing council to come up with a schedule for elections.

Most of the council`s 25 members are in favour of a fast-paced transfer and several are in New York to lobby for that option. But a diplomat in New York said it was unlikely that the US would surrender the decision to the council without a prior agreement that it would respect Washington`s wishes.

Mr Bush will urge UN members to bury their differences on Iraq, send money and soldiers, and focus on other global problems, such as nuclear proliferation in "rogue states", Aids and human trafficking .

President Jacques Chirac, who will address the assembly after Mr Bush, indicated that France would not veto a US-backed security council resolution calling for military and financial support for Iraqi reconstruction, but also made clear that Paris would not answer that call unless authority was handed over to Iraqis promptly.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

[Joerver]

The Campbell Diaries: my private war with the BBC
By Kim Sengupta, Paul Waugh and Ben Russell
23 September 2003


The private diaries of Alastair Campbell revealed yesterday how the he and Geoff Hoon, the Defence Secretary, were desperate to expose Dr David Kelly in its conflict with the BBC, and to try to shore up the crumbling credibility of the Iraq arms dossier.

The bitterness of the confrontation was highlighted in one entry in which Mr Campbell spoke of how identifying Dr Kelly as the BBC source would "fuck" Andrew Gilligan, the journalist who made the claim that the dossier was "sexed up" by Downing Street.

Selected extracts from the diary were read out by Mr Campbell, the Prime Minister`s director of communications and strategy, when he gave evidence last month to the first session of the Hutton inquiry to support his version of events.

The extended versions produced yesterday at the request of Lord Hutton gave the fullest insight yet into the thinking of the Government`s communications director in the crucial days leading up to Dr Kelly`s apparent suicide but also cast fresh and serious doubts on the official version of the affair.

The new evidence reveals Mr Campbell and Mr Hoon believed that the "biggest thing needed" was for Dr Kelly`s name to come out, contradicting claims made in the inquiry that all efforts had been made to protect his identity. Mr Campbell also disclosed that Dr Kelly had been "well schooled" for his appearance before the Foreign Affairs Committee by Ministry of Defence officials, while the inquiry had been told by, among others, the Prime Minister, that the scientist had received only a "routine" briefing. Mr Campbell said, however, that the testimony was a "disaster" because the MPs had decided he was not Mr Gilligan`s main source.

The diary entries covered five days between 4 July and 15 July. In his first entry, Mr Campbell writes "Spoke to H [Hoon], who said that a man had come forward who felt he was probably G`s [Gilligan`s] source. He had come forward and was being interviewed today. GH said his immediate instinct was to throw the book at him but in fact there was a case for trying to get some kind of plea bargaining.

"Says that he had come forward and he was saying Yes to speaking to AG [Gilligan], yes he said intel [intelligence] went in late but he never said the other stuff. It was double-edged but GH and I agreed it would fuck Gilligan if that was his source

On 6 July, Mr Campbell wrote "GH, like me, wanted to get it out that the source had broken cover to claim AG had misrepresented him."

Mr Blair wanted either Mr Hoon or Mr Campbell to tell the Foreign Affairs Committee - nearing the end of its lengthy investigation into the Iraq invasion - that an unofficial had come forward. But the Prime Minister appeared to be apprehensive about the consequences. The entry continues "His (Mr Blair`s) worry was that it could lead to them reopening the inquiry. He wanted, and GH did, to get it to the BBC Governors that we may know who the source was. That he was not a spy, not involved in the WMD dossier and was a WMD expert who advised departments.

"TB [Tony Blair] was fine about that, but backed off speaking to Omand [Sir David Omand, the Cabinet Office security co-ordinator] ... He felt the guy had to be treated properly and interviewed again. I suggested to GH to speak to TB to try to persuade him we should do this".

On 7 July, Mr Campbell`s entry reports a conversation with Sir Kevin Tebbit, the Permanent Under Secretary at the MoD. He wrote " Kevin said the guy claimed he never mentioned me, he was a bit of a show-off though.

"Felt that maybe Gilligan just lied about the stuff about me ... Again we should be saying the source was misrepresented by [Gilligan]. TB was keen for the officials (Kevin Tebbit and David Omand) to be in the control of the process",

On the same day, Mr Campbell wrote "several chats with MoD, Pam Teare and Geoff H re: the source. Felt we should get it out through the papers, then we have a line to respond...

"TB felt we had to leave it to Omand/Tebbit judgement and they didn`t want to do it. Had to go for natural justice. GH said it was a problem that he (Dr Kelly) once gave evidence alongside Jack Straw ..."

On 9 July, Mr Campbell then wrote "There was a big conspiracy at work ... We kept pressing on as best as we could at the briefings but the biggest thing needed was the source out ... We agreed that we should not do it ourselves, so we didn`t but later the Financial Times, Guardian, and Evans [Times defence correspondent] got the name."
23 September 2003 09:00


© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

[Joerver]

David Clark: Why Alastair Campbell`s `mate` should resign
Scarlett`s cronyism resulted in precisely the sort of intelligence failure the JIC was designed to prevent
23 September 2003


As the Hutton inquiry rumbles to its conclusion this week, most of the attention has focused on what the final report will say about the role played by the key political figures involved in the drama. But more important than the fate of Geoff Hoon is what the Kelly affair says about our style of government. Today`s cross-examination of John Scarlett, chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee (JIC) and the man Alastair Campbell yesterday claimed had full control of the dossier, will fill in some important gaps about the process that led Britain to war.

Whether or not one feels comfortable with the phrase "sexed-up" ("over-interpreted" was Hans Blix`s more sober judgement), it is no longer possible to deny that the intelligence on Iraq was grossly distorted in the months leading up to the war and that the process of distortion involved sins of both commission and omission.

Work on the September dossier began after the existing assessment on Iraq failed to establish a clear enough threat and Alastair Campbell asked the JIC to come up with something "new" and "revelatory". The effect of his intervention was to turn the proper decision-making process on its head. From that point on intelligence followed the policy and not the other way round. The language describing the Iraqi threat was progressively hardened and the notorious 45-minute claim made its first appearance.

Every bit as serious was what the dossier neglected to tell us. The Government presented it as an accurate account of the intelligence on which it was in the process of making life or death decisions, but in its tone of certainty it bore little resemblance to the work of the JIC as it is presented for consumption within Whitehall. JIC assessments are carefully hedged, sometimes maddeningly so. While it may be true that the JIC believed the 45-minute claim to be a valid piece of intelligence, I am certain that its internal communications would have made it clear that it referred to battlefield munitions only and that it was based on the hearsay testimony of a single source. Neither fact was shared with the public.

Perhaps the most damning evidence to emerge from the Hutton inquiry is the fact that the Government knew exactly how flimsy its case was, but chose to keep its doubts to itself. Tony Blair`s own chief of staff, Jonathan Powell, was blunt in his assessment that "the document does nothing to demonstrate a threat, let alone an imminent threat from Saddam", and that this would need to be made clear in the dossier. Yet Mr Blair did the opposite, claiming in his foreword that the threat from Saddam was "serious and current".

In taking the country to war, the Government had a duty to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. The September dossier failed on all three counts.

The Government`s last line of defence in the face of these revelations has been to pass the buck. Everything was subject to the agreement of the JIC, whose chairman, Mr Scarlett, had "ownership" of the dossier. This may be true, but it begs its own question: who had ownership of Mr Scarlett?

The evidence presented to Hutton reveals an alarming departure in British constitutional practice in which Britain`s most senior intelligence official was in effect co-opted into the Prime Minister`s kitchen cabinet. Mr Scarlett should have had no business dealing with a political appointee like Mr Campbell, let alone becoming his "mate". Indeed, the JIC should never have been put in the position of negotiating the terms of its assessment with anyone outside the intelligence community.

It is simply risible of Mr Campbell to claim, as he did yesterday, that his role in drawing up the dossier was purely "presentational". As every New Labour functionary knows, presentation and policy are indivisible. They know this because Alastair Campbell beat it into their heads.

The strength of the British intelligence system has always rested on the objectivity of its analytical output and its ability to present its work without regard to political considerations. The JIC was specifically set up to provide a single source of intelligence advice, thereby avoiding the catastrophic intelligence failures that occur when different agencies are allowed to jockey for advantage by telling politicians what they want to hear.

John Scarlett`s descent into cronyism subverted this process and resulted in precisely the sort of intelligence failure it was designed to prevent. His interventions reveal a man more interested in pleasing his political masters than protecting the integrity of a system on which the security of our country depends. He even passed on a last-minute plea from Downing Street for the intelligence services to provide any additional information that might help to make the dossier "as strong as possible".

By inflating the language used to describe Iraq`s capabilities against the stated opinions of its own experts and systematically filtering out any intelligence that conflicted with the Government`s stated view that Saddam represented a major threat, the JIC crossed the line dividing legitimate intelligence analysis from propaganda. Our confidence in it will not be restored unless its chairman takes responsibility for this debacle by resigning his post.

The writer was political adviser at the Foreign Office, 1997-2001.
23 September 2003 09:03



© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

[Joerver]

September 23, 2003
Iraq Council Head Shifts to Position at Odds With U.S.
By PATRICK E. TYLER and FELICITY BARRINGER


BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 22 — Ahmad Chalabi, the president of Iraq`s interim government, is in New York this week to press alternatives to the Bush administration`s occupation policy in postwar Iraq, he and his aides say. In the process, he may complete a personal transformation from protégé of Pentagon conservatives to Iraqi nationalist with a loud, independent voice.

In an interview today in New York, Mr. Chalabi professed gratitude to the Bush administration for toppling Saddam Hussein`s government, but his specific proposals were directly at odds with the policies Washington is pursuing in Baghdad and at the United Nations. He demanded that the Iraqi Governing Council be given at least partial control of the powerful finance and security ministries, and rejected the idea of more foreign troops coming to Iraq.

Mr. Chalabi`s strategy, he says, is to get from the United Nations General Assembly sovereign status for the unelected 25-member Governing Council. This move to lobby other nations for a swift transfer of some sovereignty is going down poorly in Washington, according to the Iraqi leader`s aides.

Mr. Chalabi has sent representatives to France and Germany to discuss putting Iraqis back in charge under a new United Nations mandate that would end American control of the occupation, even if American troops remain in Iraq. His aides say he also plans to tell the Senate that the United Nations could save billions of dollars on Iraq`s reconstruction by allowing an Iraqi administration to handle it.

"People in D.C. are accusing us of `conspiring with America`s enemies,` " one aide said, describing the reports of his advance men on the mood in Washington.

Mr. Chalabi insists that he is not changing diplomatic sides. "The last thing we are going to do is fall into the trap of France," he said this weekend. He said that he was looking forward to seeing the president at a reception Mr. Bush is giving for visiting government leaders on Tuesday evening, and that his strategy was intended to make it easier to maintain the American presence in Iraq.

"I am fighting to keep Americans in Iraq," Mr. Chalabi said before leaving Baghdad. "We are afraid that they will lose their resolve and go home if the current situation continues."

Yet Mr. Chalabi`s arrival in New York with a delegation determined to advance the clock on sovereignty puts him and the interim government he heads in direct confrontation with Mr. Bush.

"We want to claim Iraq`s seat at the United Nations," Mr. Chalabi said today.

He also declared that "we are not at cross purposes" with the Americans, but his words seemed so.

The United States is seeking a new United Nations resolution that would help bring foreign troops into Iraq in a newly constituted multinational force. At least one major potential troop donor, Pakistan, says it wants an invitation from the Governing Council first.

"We cannot be expected to solicit foreign troops in Iraq," Mr. Chalabi said. "We cannot be expected to do that."

He said some aspects of governance should be handed over immediately.

"They can start by putting Iraqis to be in joint control, with the coalition, of Iraqi finances," he said. "All of these are measures that would demonstrate increasing sovereignty in Iraq." Asked when, he replied, "Right away."

He also sought an immediate role in commanding security forces, saying, "We think that internal security in Iraq cannot be maintained unless Iraqis are far more involved than they are now."

A senior Bush administration official reiterated over the weekend that "we`ll stay on the same schedule" of keeping Iraq under a strong American-British occupation while proceeding with drafting a new Iraqi constitution, to be followed by national elections sometime next year.

The extended debate over sovereignty and the end of the occupation is part of a political struggle that neither side feels it can afford to lose.

For the Bush administration, victories in Iraq and Afghanistan are the core achievements of a first presidential term, to be tested in an election little more than a year away. Gambling on an Iraqi government that was not elected and is run by untested leaders like Mr. Chalabi, whose critics are at least as legion as his admirers, is a risk some of Mr. Bush`s closest aides, especially in the State Department, are counseling him to avoid.

Mr. Bush has opted for a strategy of total control under a tough occupation administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, and a large occupation army that now exceeds 150,000 troops.

For Mr. Chalabi and others on the Governing Council, the United States is slowly losing the good will of the Iraqi people while the strictures of occupation are fueling a guerrilla war that could prove corrosive to American staying power.

Frustrations among Iraqi leaders prompted Iyad Alawi, who will succeed Mr. Chalabi in the rotating presidency next month, to say on Sunday that it was time for "a new political consensus" and a more rapid transfer of political power here. Those were strong words from another longtime American ally whose group, the Iraqi National Accord, received significant C.I.A. backing against Mr. Hussein.

Each day brings greater assertions of independence from Iraq`s interim leaders. Today, the Governing Council issued an expulsion order to the two largest Arab satellite networks operating in Iraq, Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya, accusing them of inciting violence against the new government and challenging its legitimacy, said a council member, Mowaffak al-Rubaie, who said he had helped draft an order that will be made public Tuesday.

Mr. Chalabi`s odyssey to a position of prominence in Iraq spans four decades since his family fled in 1958 with the overthrow of the monarchy. Nothing about his education in mathematics at M.I.T. or his banking career in Jordan — which ended in scandal in the 1980`s — signaled that he would migrate to opposition politics.

Today, many of the aides who mastered Washington ways and contacts with Mr. Chalabi in the heyday of C.I.A. coup plotting against Mr. Hussein remain in his close circle.

When the Iraq war began, over State Department objections, Mr. Chalabi raised a militia of "Free Iraqi Forces" that was trained in Europe by the United States military and flown into northern Iraq to stand ready once Baghdad fell.

But Mr. Chalabi, who was flown to Nasariya in central Iraq by the Pentagon and then brought to Baghdad, has played his most prominent role since the end of the war on the political battlefield.

In early May, Jay Garner, the retired lieutenant general who was the first postwar administrator of Iraq, concluded that it was imperative to put an Iraqi provisional government in place to help stabilize the country.

Later that month, however, Mr. Bush appointed Mr. Bremer, who told the Iraqi leaders — several of them returned exiles like Mr. Chalabi — that he was in charge and that they did not have broad enough support in the country to govern.

Mr. Chalabi`s aides say that was when they began to organize their campaign to reverse the decision.

Throughout the summer, Iraqi leaders said they were being admonished repeatedly by their patrons in Washington to avoid a confrontation with Mr. Bremer. But guerrilla attacks, deteriorating security and, in August, the car bombings that killed more than 140 people have taken their toll on Mr. Bremer`s strategy.

When France intervened this month with a proposal to turn over sovereignty within weeks to the Governing Council, one of Mr. Chalabi`s aides gave voice to the opportunity.

"We don`t want to come out in the open and pick a fight with Bremer," he said, "but the sovereignty issue is coming to a head, and it is pretty clear that a breach is coming pretty soon between the Governing Council and Bremer."

Another aide was more blunt: "We are going to find a place where we can pick a fight."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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September 23, 2003
Plenty of Clues in Iraqi Crimes, but Few Trails
By DAVID JOHNSTON


WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 — Investigators have recovered a severed hand, an Iraqi license plate and vehicle parts bearing a unique identification number from a Russian flatbed truck that carried the tremendous bomb that exploded on Aug. 19 outside the United Nations mission in Baghdad, senior government officials said.

Normally, a rich collection of clues like these is enough to crack just about any criminal case in the United States. This kind of physical evidence enabled investigators to quickly solve the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 and the first World Trade Center attack in 1993.

But the officials said the evidence so far had proven to be of little help in Iraq, where a suicide bomber struck again today at the United Nations mission in Baghdad, killing himself and an Iraqi police officer.

The problem, investigators said, is that classic crime-solving techniques rapidly run into the harsh realities of postwar Iraq, which is almost devoid of police records and motor vehicle registration files, not to speak of more exotic items like databases of fingerprints or DNA. Some investigators have given up writing down confusing Baghdad addresses by street and number, resorting instead to a hand-held Global Positioning System unit.

"There are unique challenges over there," said Larry Mefford, a senior F.B.I. official in charge of counterterrorism investigations. "But we`re making headway, and we`re still in the mode of collecting information to see if we can better understand who is behind the bombings."

The first bombing at the United Nations compound in Baghdad killed 22 people, including 3 Americans and Sergio Vieira de Mello, the top United Nations envoy to Iraq. That and other large attacks, like the assaults on the Jordanian Embassy in Baghdad on Aug. 7 and on the Imam Ali Mosque in Najaf on Aug. 29, have underscored the fragility of the peace in Iraq and the tenacity of the resistance to the American-led occupation. They also point to the futility, to date, of efforts to bring the people behind the bombings to justice.

In the absence of a fully functioning Iraqi police force or national intelligence service, agencies like the Army`s Criminal Investigative Division and the Federal Bureau of Investigation have taken on a larger role. In a few cases in the past, the F.B.I. has taken charge of overseas investigations, like the inquiry into the bombings of the American embassies East Africa in 1998.

American authorities suspect that the bombings may have been carried out by loyalists to Saddam Hussein`s government, possibly aided by followers of Al Qaeda or other terror networks. But so far, investigators have been stymied in establishing with certainty not only who is behind the bombings but also who has been plotting the smaller but often lethal roadside attacks on American troops and Iraqis working with the occupation forces.

There are some intriguing links. Some of the attackers used older Russian military munitions, including bombs, artillery shells, mortar rounds and grenades dating back to the Soviet era. In the case of the United Nations attack, unexploded munitions were found nearly 1,000 yards from the site of the blast.

The source of the explosives suggests that the materials for some of the bombs may have been gathered by someone familiar with the military; possibly, from a single source. But officials said that these explosives were stored in a number of places, often in unsecured locations.

Bomb experts are continuing to study the wiring and firing mechanisms used in the attacks, looking for a telltale signature of who made the bombs. The experts have concluded that only rudimentary technical skills were required to build the bombs, broadening the pool of possible suspects. "There`s no shortage of people in that country who who can create those kinds of bombs and there`s no shortage of the raw materials to do it," said Thomas Fuentes, who until recently led F.B.I. investigations in Iraq.

Some of the bombs are believed to have been detonated by suicide attackers and some by remote control devices, like garage-door opening mechanisms, doorbell ringers or car alarms.

The explosives, packed into a small van parked on the street, were detonated as a vehicle carrying a senior Muslim cleric, Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, passed by.

In the case of the United Nations attack on Aug. 19, investigators traced the truck to a Kamaz truck plant outside Moscow, the officials said. The trucks were not regularly used in commercial hauling operations in Iraq. The vehicle used in the bombing was among a number of trucks purchased by the Iraqi government in 2002 for use by ministries responsible for activities like agriculture, mining and irrigation.

But shortly before the war, apparently on orders from Mr. Hussein, these heavy trucks were reassigned to the fedayeen, the paramilitary forces loyal to the government. It was a possible hint that someone connected to the local militia might have been involved in the attack.

Investigators hoped the truck`s license plate would at least identify the Iraqi ministry that had owned the truck. But records from Iraq`s motor vehicle agency could not be found, the officials said. Employees of the licensing agency took records from their offices before the war, forcing investigators to try to reconstruct them.

Another important clue for investigators was a partially burned human hand found inside the wreckage of the truck`s cab. They hoped that grisly find would lead to the driver of the truck and possibly to the perpetrators of the attack.

Two Army medical experts were in Iraq, but work on the hand proceeded slowly, hampered by the lack of refrigerated morgue facilities in which to conduct forensic examinations of human remains. The hand was flown to the F.B.I.`s laboratory in Quantico, Va., in an effort to retrieve fingerprints by using sophisticated scientific techniques.

But any fingerprints and DNA from the hand are unlikely to be of much use because there is nothing to compare them with. The country has no database of fingerprints or DNA. "The infrastructure is so depleted that it`s not that they lack forensic capability," one investigator said. "It`s that there just isn`t any."



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September 23, 2003
Ashcroft Limiting Prosecutors` Use of Plea Bargains
By ERIC LICHTBLAU


WASHINGTON, Sept. 22 — Attorney General John Ashcroft today made it tougher for federal prosecutors to strike plea bargains with criminal defendants, requiring attorneys to seek the most serious charges possible in almost all cases.

The policy directive issued by Mr. Ashcroft is the latest in a series of steps the Justice Department has taken in recent months to combat what it sees as dangerously lenient practices by some federal prosecutors and judges.

The move also effectively expands to the entire gamut of federal crimes the attorney general`s tough stance on the death penalty, which he has sought in numerous cases over the objections of federal prosecutors.

"The direction I am giving our U.S. attorneys today is direct and emphatic," Mr. Ashcroft said at a speech in Cincinnati. Except in "limited, narrow circumstances," he said, federal prosecutors must seek to bring charges for "the most serious, readily provable offense" that can be supported by the facts of the case.

But critics in the defense bar and some federal prosecutors said the new policy would serve only to further centralize authority in the hands of Washington policymakers, discourage prosecutors from seeking plea bargains and ratchet up sentences in criminal cases that may not warrant them.

"What is driving this," said Gerald D. Lefcourt, past president of the National Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, "is that a tough-on-crime attorney general is pandering to the public, and he knows that this will play well."

Several federal prosecutors said they were deeply concerned about the new policy, which was first reported in The Wall Street Journal.

A West Coast prosecutor who spoke on condition of anonymity said that while it might be difficult for officials in Washington to enforce the new policy, it nonetheless puts significant pressure on prosecutors to explain their actions and will most likely result in fewer plea bargains in many jurisdictions.

"There`s no doubt this could have a real impact on all of us," the prosecutor said.

The policy change is likely to escalate a debate that has become increasingly contentious over how prosecutors and judges mete out justice in the federal courts.

With the backing of many Republicans in Congress, the Justice Department has sought to impose greater uniformity and "accountability" in federal cases.

In addition to the expanded use of the death penalty, Mr. Ashcroft also announced a plan last month to track data on judges who give lighter sentences than federal guidelines prescribe.

But dissenters attacked the monitoring plan as a judicial black list, arguing that denying judges and prosecutors the discretion to analyze the facts of a case is a mistake.

And two Supreme Court justices, Stephen G. Breyer and Anthony M. Kennedy, have given speeches in the last six weeks arguing that Congressionally mandated "minimum" sentences, which also curtail judicial discretion, have created a system in which sentences sometimes are unfair or too long.

A decade ago, Attorney General Janet Reno enacted a policy to give federal prosecutors more discretion over how their cases should be handled by allowing for an "individualized assessment" of the facts and circumstances of the case.

But Mr. Ashcroft`s directive effectively scales back that initiative in an effort to restrict the use of plea bargains and create what the Justice Department said would be more "transparency" in federal prosecutions.

Plea bargains are a popular and powerful tool for prosecutors to secure the cooperation of defendants and to speed cases through the system without devoting additional time and resources to a trial. Some 96 percent of the 60,000 cases handled by federal prosecutors in 2001, the last year for which complete figures were available, resulted in plea bargains, officials said.

But the new policy states that prosecutors must seek the most severe sentence allowed by law unless there are overriding considerations.

Cases that allow for exceptions include the "substantial assistance" of a cooperating defendant, the drain on resources that a trial might cause and the Justice Department`s approval of a "fast-track" program used to expedite prosecutions, like the type used in Southwest border states to prosecute illegal immigrants.

Dan Collins, an associate deputy attorney general, said the new policy sought to ensure that decisions were driven by the facts of a crime and "not the luck of the draw in terms of which prosecutor happens to work on your case or which judge is assigned to it."

Despite the large percentage of cases that result in plea bargains, Justice Department officials said they did not expect the new policy to mean a "significant" reduction in their use, but they added that it was too early to predict the ultimate impact in terms of pleas or length of sentences.

Mr. Lefcourt of the defense lawyers association said Mr. Ashcroft`s directive "is just bad policy" because it requires prosecutors to get the approval of a senior Justice Department official, including an assistant attorney general in Washington or a politically appointed United States attorney or another supervisor, before executing a plea bargain.

"This is taking discretion away from the U.S. attorneys` offices," he said. "The prosecutors on the ground who are most involved in the facts of the cases should be making these decisions. It shouldn`t be dictated to them."



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September 23, 2003
Medals for His Valor, Ashes for His Wife
By STEVEN LEE MYERS


HOLIDAY, Fla. — It was back on April 4 when Birgit Smith last wrote her husband, Sgt. First Class Paul Ray Smith. "Life without you here is just not the same," she wrote in a tight, neat cursive.

She printed out an envelope and stamped it. He was already dead.

Two men in uniform came to the door that night, another sergeant and a chaplain. Of course, she knew what the visit meant, but the timing seemed all wrong. It was too late: 11:30. They were never supposed to come after 10. And they asked for Jessica Smith, her 17-year-old daughter and Sergeant Smith`s adopted stepdaughter.

"I said, `I`m Paul`s wife,` " she said. More than five months later, it remains difficult for her to recall. Sergeant Smith`s mother, Janice Pvirre, continued the story. "She kicked them out of the house," she said.

Sergeant Smith died outside the airport near Baghdad that still bore Saddam Hussein`s name, the morning after the Army`s Third Infantry Division pushed into it on the evening of April 3.

For a reporter traveling with the division`s First Brigade at the time — and bound by Pentagon guidelines that prohibit immediately identifying casualties — the sergeant`s death was another faceless fact of the war`s grim toll, noted amid the thunderous blasts of a battle that was not yet over.

But the dead have faces — and families. The war`s reverberations continue far away from Iraq. The ultimate price of the conflict is still being paid, long after the shot through the neck that killed Sergeant Smith.

"I`m living in a zone — like a zombie," Mrs. Smith said. "I`m hoping I`ll wake up one day and it won`t be true."

Sergeant Smith, 33, was one of 38 soldiers from the Third Infantry Division killed in the war or its aftermath, along with four others from other units who fought with the division.

In his case, the circumstances surrounding his death — a courageous lone stand against Iraqi foes — may earn him the nation`s highest military award, the Medal of Honor. The division`s medal application — which cites his "extraordinary heroism and uncommon valor" — is steadily making its way through the Army`s bureaucracy. It would be the first awarded since two soldiers received it for actions in Somalia in 1993.

Whether this gives Mrs. Smith solace seems to depend on her emotional state, which fluctuates wildly day to day, even hour to hour, from grief and pride to a gnawing emptiness then a fierce determination to keep his memory alive.

"What is the Medal of Honor?" she asked angrily in the dining room of her new home here on the Gulf Coast north of Tampa, the home where his mother and stepfather lived, and where memories of him linger. She was crying now. "What is it to me? What is it to Paul? Maybe it`s something to the kids, but it doesn`t bring my husband back. It`s nothing."

Then, at other times, it is something. She has built a shrine of sorts in her bedroom that includes the Purple Heart and Bronze Star he has already received, posthumously. She has left a place on the black felt for the Medal of Honor.

His cremated ashes rest in a bronze box on the nightstand. His personal belongings — clothes, a CD player, an American flag — are inside a wooden trunk. She lifted his desert cap to her face. "The hat still smells like him," she said. "You just know the smell of your husband."

Mrs. Smith did not even know he was near Baghdad that day. He was a squad leader in the First Brigade`s 11th Engineer Battalion. A combat engineer was what he had always been and wanted to be. He called himself "Sapper 7." It is etched on the window of his old Jeep, which Jessica now drives. It is on Mrs. Smith`s new Florida license plate.

Like most wives and girlfriends, mothers and fathers, siblings and friends left behind, she watched news of the war compulsively. But she assumed that his unit, Company B, was far from the airport when word of its capture dominated the news. "I always say to myself no news from you is good news," she wrote to him in the letter never sent.

Sergeant Smith`s company was in fact in its third straight day of fighting. Traveling with the division`s Second Battalion, Seventh Infantry Regiment, the company had surged through the Karbala Gap, crossed the Euphrates and fought its way around the airport, blocking the main highway into Baghdad itself as remnants of Saddam Hussein`s government still resisted.

On the morning of April 4, Sergeant Smith and others were constructing a holding pen for prisoners in a compound on the north side of the highway — on the battalion`s flank just behind the front lines — when the compound came under attack by an estimated 100 Iraqi soldiers.

"He told me, `We`re in a world of hurt,` " Staff Sgt. Kevin W. Yetter, who was there, said in an interview at Fort Stewart, Ga., the division`s headquarters. "Yeah, I guess we were in a world of hurt."

According to a draft of the medal citation and the company`s soldiers, Sergeant Smith organized the engineers` defense, calling in support from a Bradley fighting vehicle. Under a fusillade of fire from unseen positions, Sergeant Smith threw a grenade over the compound`s wall. He fired an antitank missile at a guard tower.

A mortar round hit an armored engineering vehicle known as an M-113. Sergeant Yetter was inside at that point. The shrapnel temporarily blinded him. It also seriously wounded Sgt. Louis D. Berwald, the gunner on top, and one other soldier. Sergeant Smith helped evacuate the three of them to an aid station, which was suddenly threatened by the attack as well.

He then took over Sergeant Berwald`s .50-caliber machine gun, firing repeatedly and reloading three times before he died. According to the citation, his actions killed 20 to 50 Iraqis, allowed the wounded to be evacuated and saved the aid station and possibly 100 lives.

"His was the final resistance," Lt. Col. Thomas P. Smith, commander of the 11th Engineer Battalion, said in June, when the division was still in Iraq and the medal application began its course. "After that the enemy was unable to attack again."

For Mrs. Smith, the war ended that day. She no longer followed the news — that Sergeant Smith`s replacement, Staff Sgt. Lincoln D. Hollinsaid, whose truck and boat were in her backyard, died three days later; that another soldier from the company, Pfc. Jason M. Meyer, was killed when an American tank mistook him for an Iraqi; that Baghdad fell and the war had been won.

"After Paul was gone there was no more news for me," she said. "There was no war."

The Family

His Letters Home

Were Like Diamonds

Mrs. Smith, 37, is German (her first name is pronounced BEAR-get). She met her husband in 1990 when he was stationed in Germany, a year after joining the Army fresh out of high school in Tampa. She already had her daughter, Jessica, from a broken relationship with another American soldier.

She and a friend spent a weekend in the south German town of Bamberg. They met him at a club called the Green Goose. By the end of the evening, he was kneeling on the street and crooning toward their hotel window. "You`ve lost that loving feeling," he sang, recreating in his own way a scene from one of his favorite movies, "Top Gun."

Soon he left for the first war against Iraq; he did not write, nor phone, and they broke up. His mother, Mrs. Pvirre, said she saw in him then what she saw in the soldiers from the Third Infantry Division when they began to return home to Fort Stewart after this war.

"When you`re old like I am, they`re just babies," she said. "You can see the horror in their eyes."

The couple got back together, and married in 1992. The new Mrs. Smith began her life as an Army wife. She followed him to Fort Riley, Kan., to Fort Benning, Ga., and finally to Fort Stewart as he rose through the enlisted ranks to sergeant first class.

They had a son, David. He is 9 now, tall and lanky like his father, with the same impish grin. When David was born, Sergeant Smith had refused to leave for a deployment — at risk of a reprimand. After the birth, "he only held him for 20 minutes or so," she said. "Boy, was he mad."

In fact, Sergeant Smith spent so much time away from home on deployments, including a six-month stint as a peacekeeper in Kosovo in 2001, that the effect still lingers. "Some days it`s like he`s just deployed and I`m a wife waiting for her soldier to come home," she said.

She last heard from him in March before the war began. It was an abbreviated conversation. They had a routine when he called from a deployment. They always said "I love you" first in case the connection went dead and it was left unsaid.

"It makes me feel better that I know that my last words and his were that we loved each other," she said.

Sergeant Smith rarely wrote letters, but as leader of his squad, he made his soldiers write "last letters." The idea was for the soldiers to say what they had left unsaid, just in case. He wrote one to his parents, but never e-mailed it. They found it on his computer long after he was dead, with the misspellings of a quickly written e-mail.

Mrs. Smith said getting a letter from him was like a getting a diamond ring as a gift, even if a diamond has flaws.

"As I sit here getting ready to head into war once again I realize I have left some things unsed," he wrote in the letter to his parents. "I LOVE YOU and don`t want you to worry. Even though I know you will until the day I am home again. There are two ways to come home, steping off the plain and being carried off the plain. It doesn`t matter how I come home, because I am prepaired to give all that I am to ensure that all my boys make it home."

The Loss

Did He Suffer?

Did He Speak?

During the war, the wives of Company B formed a sort of support network. After Sergeant Smith`s death, his wife felt she was no longer a part of it.

President Bush addressed the division at Fort Stewart on Sept. 12, and met with some of the families of those who had died. But no one invited her until the night before — too late to make the drive north.

"Nobody seems to be 100 percent honest — not telling me the whole story," she said. "I feel left out. I want to know if he suffered. I want to know if there were last words — everything."

She has heard rumors about shortages of food during the war — and ammunition.

"Did they send the guys in there without enough stuff?" she asked. "Did they know what they needed? It just makes me angry. They thought they had it easy. I think Bush thought it`d be easy — in-and-out easy. He was wrong and he knows that now."

She began to cry. "I don`t get it," she said, angrily, the doubts surfacing again. "There was so much shooting and Paul has to stand up and shoot by himself. Maybe if there were others shooting, he wouldn`t have died."

Mrs. Pvirre touched her arm. "This is not our plan," she told her quietly.

"My plan wasn`t to be 37 years old and alone — to raise two children by myself!" Mrs. Smith replied. "Paul made a promise to me that he can`t keep anymore."

Mrs. Smith, in tears, left the dining room and went outside. With her gone, Mrs. Pvirre, a committed Christian, said she wondered how her daughter-in-law endured without religious faith. "I don`t know how anybody can get through this without God," she said.

Sergeant Smith`s death has forged a bond between the two women — his widow and his mother. They turn to each other for support on the days when their loss seems overwhelming.

A Tuesday early in September turned out to be a bad day because a card came offering condolences but only reviving the pain. She often gets letters from soldiers who once served under Sergeant Smith. On Wednesday, Mrs. Smith put on makeup for the first time. On Thursday, Mrs. Pvirre brought photographs from last Christmas at the house, the last time they were together as a family. She had only just developed them. Mrs. Smith put her head in her hand when she saw one of Sergeant Smith with his family.

They watched Mr. Bush`s speech at Fort Stewart on television. Mrs. Smith`s mood was better. "I`m glad he went out of his way to welcome the troops home," she said.

The two women disagree on the war. Mrs. Smith said Saddam Hussein`s government should have been overthrown in 1991. Then, perhaps, her husband would still be alive.

Mrs. Pvirre said that as a Christian, she opposed war "though the Bible tells us there will be war until Kingdom come," but that she supported her son`s devotion to his service.

"I`m so fearful that they`re not going to finish this," she said. "I`m so fearful these people are not liberated. I worry that someone else is going to come along and pull the troops out. That would make my son`s death not count, not mean anything."

The Memories

Ashes, a House

And His Presence

There were two memorial services — one at Fort Stewart and another in Florida. Sergeant Smith wanted to be cremated, his remains spread in the gulf where he and his stepfather used to fish. Mrs. Smith kept some for the box on her nightstand, however. She had silver pendants made with more of the ashes. She wears one around her neck. Mrs. Pvirre refuses to wear hers. Mrs. Smith also tattooed her arm with a heart. It says, "You`re still the 1" — a sort of pledge they shared.

People who have lost a limb often still feel its presence, ghostlike. Mrs. Smith described a sensation like that. Some months ago, she dreamed that he told her to give $5,000 to his parents. Another time she felt his hand in hers. One night she smelled his favorite cologne in the bathroom.

These feelings, as hard as it might seem to believe in them, give her comfort. "I know he`s with me every day," she said.

The Army, she said, has taken good care of her and her children, helping with funeral arrangements and the reams of paperwork that come with death.

With Sergeant Smith`s insurance and pension, she can afford to live well. The state of Florida will pay for the children`s college education. People have provided donations, large and small. Sergeant Smith`s sister, Lisa DeVane, organized a raffle of his Harley.

Mrs. Smith bought the house here in Holiday from his parents. She did not want to stay in Hinesville, outside of Fort Stewart. Mrs. Pvirre said they had wanted to sell the house because she could not stand the thought of living with the memories of her son there; Mrs. Smith wanted it for that reason.

She declined the grief counseling the Army offered. She does take Prozac, though. She still has trouble sleeping some nights. She closes her eyes and sees the uniformed men at the door.

Her son, David, sees a counselor at his new school here. She worries about him. "I haven`t seen the boy cry," she said, "I`m afraid sometimes he doesn`t let it out." Sergeant Smith was like that. She remembered him crying only once. They were watching a documentary on the war in 1991. He never talked about it again.

Mrs. Smith still feels angry at times — at the Army, at President Bush, at life`s cruel twist. Then, suddenly, she feels the opposite.

"I can`t get mad at Bush," she said. "I can`t get mad at the Army. When they thanked me for my husband`s service, I thanked them. He loved the Army. They made his dreams come true."



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September 23, 2003
Troops in Iraq: More Isn`t Better
By DANIELLE PLETKA


BAGHDAD, Iraq — It has become almost an article of faith among Bush administration critics on both the left and right: more troops are needed to straighten out the "mess" in Iraq. Even President Bush is expected to repeat his call for other countries to contribute forces when he appears before the United Nations today. Few proponents, though, have stopped to explain just how flooding the country with more soldiers will fix the problems on the ground, accelerate the transfer of power to an elected Iraqi government, or pave the way for American troops to return home sooner.

The answer is, it won`t.

Those arguing for more troops come from three schools of thought: the "share the burden" school of officials inside the Bush administration who want more troops, so long as they come from other countries; the conservative school of skeptics who are convinced that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld`s stinginess with manpower is harming the Iraq mission; and the school of fervent internationalists, who want to "legitimize" the Iraq occupation by sending in foreign troops to de-Americanize it. None have made the case that more occupying forces will be better.

The two groups calling for deploying more foreign troops in Iraq ignore the obvious risks of an international force, even one under United States command. Muslim peacekeepers from Turkey or Pakistan will be viewed with hostility or contempt in Iraq. The Turks are despised by Kurds and Shiites alike; Pakistanis are identified, with some truth, as Wahhabi Islamist hardliners who will do more harm than good.

Other nationalities present logistical nightmares that could nullify any burden-sharing benefit. Communications among Americans, Poles, Bulgarians and Fijians have already become a nightmare — different languages and rules of engagement and general confusion about responsibilities are par for the course. Worse yet, the United Nations` demand to internationalize the governance of Iraq will only delay the empowerment of Iraqis desperate to arrive at their moment of liberation.

Those who advocate sending more American troops — mostly serious Iraq hawks like Senator John McCain and midlevel military commanders in Iraq — argue that is the only way the United States will be able to stabilize the country enough to move forward with democratization and genuine liberation. That demand rests on a false premise — that the additional troops would be used to battle resurgent Baathists and patch over the gaps in security that exist throughout Iraq. Rather, more Americans will end up doing jobs they ought to hand off, like guarding electrical lines and schools, policing neighborhoods and directing traffic in downtown Baghdad.

It is true that commanders should be able, if they deem it necessary, to maximize the number of men and women hunting down Saddam Hussein and foreign terrorists. But that job is not growing in size: the number of engagements in Iraq have declined from roughly 25 a day in July to about 15 a day today — and each lasts for an average of two or three minutes. The problem American commanders in the field face is not too few troops, but too little intelligence to act upon. And that problem is getting better as well. In the months since the deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein, more Iraqis have been stepping forward with information — leading United States forces to Baathist fugitives and arms caches.

This is the kind of work United States forces need to be doing. The time has come to get American troops back to this core mission, and take them out of the night watchman game. But even if we weren`t winning on the ground, the answer would not be to call up more reservists, but to train more Iraqis to do this kind of work. Indeed, virtually every task that could be done by additional American forces would be better assigned to Iraqis. Iraqis are directly plugged into intelligence. They speak the language, know the local population and are more sensitive to anomalies in behavior, dress and speech that give away bad actors. They are also perfectly capable of painting schools and directing traffic. Most important, a better Iraq will come about only if Iraqis themselves feel a sense of ownership.

This is precisely what Pentagon officials and senior civilians are trying to achieve. Already, some 55,000 Iraqis have been trained and are under arms. According to the Pentagon and commanders in the field, the number should be close to 200,000 by the middle of next year. Five forces are being formed: the police, a border guard, a protection service for facilities (security guards), a national army and a civil defense corps. Recruiting goals for these forces are being exceeded.

Members of Iraq`s Governing Council have argued strenuously against an infusion of additional troops — American or otherwise. Already chafing at the cloying stewardship of the Coalition Provisional Authority, Iraq`s interim government is eager to take more responsibility for security and governance of the country. Unlike United States commanders — who some of Mr. Rumsfeld`s skeptics in Washington say have been stifled by the secretary`s lean transformation dream — the interim government has no vested interest in keeping United States troop levels down.

Making the transition to an Iraqi security force is an imperative for the liberation of the country. But it should not be done cavalierly. Washington`s willingness to grab former Baathists and Saddam Hussein`s security thugs and press them back into service is an enormous mistake, as is the selection of a new "interior minister," Nouri Badran, whose background consists of defending Saddam Hussein`s military. (The Iraqi National Accord, the minister`s original political home, is made up of former Baathists and military nostalgists.)

Clearly, the job in Iraq is not done. But sending in more troops is not the answer. With the number of ground engagements down and the recruitment of Iraqi players up, the solution lies in thinking about the transition from postwar triumph over Saddam Hussein to the empowerment of Iraqis.


Danielle Pletka is vice president of foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterpise Institute.



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September 23, 2003
Caught in the Iraqi Dramatics
By DAVID BROOKS


During the first half of the 90`s, I spent some time on the "Whither NATO?" circuit. I`d sit in stately European palaces with diplomats, parliamentarians and multilateral men who used the word "modality" a lot, and we`d discuss the post-cold-war international order.

There were disquisitions on multipolarity, subsidiarity and post-nation-state sovereignty. I recall a long debate on whether the post-cold-war United States would face east or west, as if we were phototropic.

The people at these conferences tended to be paranoiaphiliacs. They believed there was a secret conspiracy running the world, but they were in favor of it because they thought they were it.

But even as we were ratiocinating in those palaces, the Russians were tossing out Gorbachev, the Ukrainians were breaking away from Russia and the Serbs were massacring their neighbors.

Far from mastering events, the poor souls who attended summits found history moving in unfathomable directions. Their careful negotiations over a new global architecture often had nothing to do with reality. The economic-reform plans they proposed for Russia had nothing to do with a country that was being taken over by mafioso. I recall the dispiriting moment — at a stately manor in Oxfordshire, I believe — when I realized I didn`t really believe in foreign policy. Most problems are domestic policy to the people who matter most.

All of this comes to mind as President Bush goes to the U.N. to discuss a resolution on the reconstruction of Iraq. The U.S. and the Iraqis face a series of tortuous problems together: how to quickly strengthen the Iraqi military, but not in a way that allows it to dwarf Iraqi civilian rule; how to respect the Shiite clergy without allowing clerical domination of education and social policy; how to open the nation up for foreign investment, but not in a way that the locals feel their country is being plundered. Nation-building is too grand a phrase for much of the work that is being done; it`s neighborhood-building in all its granular specificity.

But the talk around the Security Council is 8,000 miles above all that. There are discussions about which flow chart the U.S. administrator Paul Bremer should fit into. There are lofty and vapid formulations about moving from the "logic of occupation" to the "logic of sovereignty." This weekend, Dominique de Villepin published an essay in an Austrian paper in which he (of course!) called for an international conference to supervise the administration of Iraq.

The more you look at the Security Council negotiations, the more they resemble one of those horrible divorces in which the children get ignored because the parents are caught up in the psychodrama of each other`s perfidies. You`ve got the usual Franco-American dramatics. You`ve got the Germans trying to make everyone like them. Meanwhile, the actual needs of actual Iraqis never seem to come in for much discussion.

It`s time to acknowledge that the reconstruction of Iraq is too important to be left to the foreign policy types, who are trained to think too abstractly to grapple with the problems that matter.

The good things that are happening in Iraq are taking place far below the level of grand strategy. On Sunday, 18 bankers and civil servants from 11 central and Eastern European countries came to Iraq to describe the lessons they had learned in moving from tyranny to democracy. Every day, U.N. humanitarian workers, far removed from the marble halls of the Security Council, risk their lives to feed and clothe Iraqis. Every day, U.S. military officers spend millions of dollars building schools and tackling neighborhood issues. That`s the work that gives Iraqis hope. Seventy percent of Iraqis expect their lives to improve over the next five years, and two-thirds want coalition forces to stay for at least a year, according to a recent Zogby poll.

Over the long term, we need to create an apolitical reservist force, made up of of businesspeople, administrators and police officers who have concrete experience in moving societies from dictatorship to democracy. In the meantime, we need to focus on serving the Iraqis first, second and last. We don`t need to get caught up in a distracting round of lofty debates among the world`s Walter Mitty Metternichs, who treat the Iraqi people as pawns in their great game-power struggles.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Es lohnt sich bei der NYT anzumelden und diese Flash Bericht über Alaska zu sehen und zu hören.

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washingtonpost.com
U.S. and France Find Making Up Is Hard to Do


By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 23, 2003; Page A01


The Iraq war was coming and relations between France and the Bush administration were growing colder on Feb. 17, a federal holiday, when French Ambassador Jean-David Levitte made his way through the snow to Vice President Cheney`s house.

Levitte is a close adviser to President Jacques Chirac, who was lobbying hard to prevent the U.N. Security Council from authorizing the United States to use force against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The Bush administration felt betrayed, but Levitte was unprepared for what Cheney asked him.

"Is France an ally or an adversary of the United States?" Cheney demanded to know, according to U.S. officials.

It was an extraordinary question to direct at a putative partner in the transatlantic alliance, a government that dispatched troops in support of U.S. efforts in Afghanistan and the Balkans, and a reliable participant in the anti-terrorism war. Levitte, who protested that France was indeed a partner, was stunned by Cheney`s directness.

Relations between France and the United States, often tense, have rarely been less friendly than this year. Only months after the diplomatic blowup over the invasion of Iraq, which became so personal that French toast on menus on Capitol Hill and Air Force One was renamed freedom toast, the two countries are dueling again, this time over who should control Iraq`s reconstruction.

President Bush and Chirac will meet in New York today in a search for common ground on Iraq`s future. It would be significant if they melded their distinctly different approaches into something workable -- or even agreed to stay out of each other`s way.

"We`re getting mixed noises, but not all negative," said a senior U.S. official who described himself as "very cautious" about the meeting and the overall relationship.

"Chirac is going to have to make some judgment calls as to what he wants," the official said. "There`s a certain point at which people look at the French and say, `What the hell are you doing and how much are you going to contribute other than rhetoric? Either you stand up and kick in or you don`t.` And we`re getting to that point."

In remarks in New York yesterday, Chirac acknowledged tension between France and the United States, saying there is a need for "open and candid" dialogue that is respectful of differences.

A warm reconciliation is not expected. It is no accident that Chirac will have a short meeting at the U.S. diplomatic mission in New York in the same week that Russian President Vladimir Putin will be treated to an overnight visit to the Camp David presidential retreat.

"It`s very hard being on the wrong side," a French official said. "We were painted as strategic enemies of the United States. Any kind of nuance or criticism was not tolerated."

The current irritations of U.S.-French relations owe much to the competing worldviews and ambitions of the nations` leaders. Bush has molded himself into a foreign policy activist who perceives an American mission to spread democracy and free markets. He has strong ideas about how to proceed and insists that countries choose sides.

Chirac preaches his desire to build a counterweight to unilateral U.S. superpower dominance. While seeking to regain for France a measure of influence lost with the ebb of its empire, he fought to slow Bush`s march toward war, a move that had the strong backing of French and European domestic opinion.

"This is about power politics. The French want a multipolar world, and that world doesn`t conform to reality," said John C. Hulsman, a research fellow at the Heritage Foundation. "But some unilateralists in Washington see the world as a tabula rasa to be written on, and that doesn`t correspond to reality, either.

"From an American point of view, we think they`ve been freeloading and carping from the cheap seats for a long time. We see them as a `Wizard of Oz` character that, when push comes to shove, has delusions of grandeur," Hulsman continued. "And they see us as a bully . . . that, although powerful, is also wrong-headed."

Chirac government adviser Francois Heisbourg said the Bush administration, which contends that France is almost pathologically uncooperative, has a curious view of partnership.

"You don`t want allies, you simply want people who are at your beck and call to do your bidding," Heisbourg said from Paris in a telephone interview. "It`s a very strange reading of the word ally."

The dispute has taken some turns that seemed to reflect playground politics as much as statecraft.

When then-Foreign Minister Hubert Vedrine dismissed Bush`s January 2002 axis of evil speech as "simplistic," Secretary of State Colin L. Powell replied that Vedrine was "getting the vapors."

As American protesters dumped French wine, causing exports to drop 17.6 percent in March compared with the previous year, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who dismissed France as a relic of "Old Europe," declined repeated social invitations from Levitte and his wife Marie-Cecile, although they live across the street from him.

The Bush administration chose not to ask France to contribute troops or other personnel to the struggling postwar occupation of Iraq, according to French officials, despite active U.S. efforts to persuade Pakistan, India and Turkey to send large contingents.

"There`s something childish about it," Simon Serfaty, a specialist on France at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said of the administration`s behavior. "This is not the way one does foreign policy when the issues are as serious as they are today."

Serfaty sees reasons for U.S. anger at the French leadership, particularly because Chirac before the war "was being not only obstructive, but was attempting to build a coalition of the unwilling. The Americans overplayed a strong hand. France overplayed a weak hand."

Bush and Chirac met in Evian, France, during a summit of the world`s most industrialized countries in June. The two countries have worked together on such issues as Liberia and Afghanistan and teamed up in the search for terrorism suspects. Their $50 billion in annual trade makes the United States France`s largest trading partner outside the European Union.

Yet, despite professed allegiance to common goals, the U.S. and French governments this month have again taken different sides again on a Security Council resolution. This time, the issue is an attempt by the administration to win a U.N. mandate and more troops and money for Iraq.

The French believe the United States should give more authority over Iraq`s political future to the Iraqi Governing Council and the United Nations. The Americans, unconvinced that the United Nations could do a better job and certain that the Iraqis are not nearly ready for self-rule, are balking.

French diplomats have said they have no intention of vetoing the U.S. resolution, but the sense of déjà vu is strong -- and probably inevitable. A senior U.S. official, who thinks Cheney was right to challenge Levitte, said "The French have always known how far to push their differences. They crossed the line and most of them knew it."

Chirac and Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, however, see nothing to apologize for, said James B. Steinberg, director of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution and deputy national security adviser to President Bill Clinton.

"They are very self-confident about their views of the world," said Steinberg, "and very much in the mode of saying the best way to be a friend to the United States is to be brutally candid about the world and to pull no punches."

The French did get a good piece of news from Washington last week. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) circulated a letter to her House colleagues calling for cafeterias in Congress to return the rightful names to French toast and French fries.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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For Bush`s Iraq Request, Tough Comparisons Loom


By Jonathan Weisman and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Tuesday, September 23, 2003; Page A04


With lights recently blacked out in the mid-Atlantic and wetlands conservation being squeezed, President Bush wants to spend nearly $5.7 billion on Iraq`s electricity system and as much as $100 million next year to restore that nation`s drained marshlands.

Such comparisons are dogging the administration as it formally launches its defense of an $87 billion emergency war spending request, which Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) yesterday labeled "fiscal shock and awe." And they are creating a growing sense of unease among Republicans, who say the president`s war spending will no doubt be used against them in next year`s elections.

"I have no doubt that some people will be angry," said Rep. James C. Greenwood (R-Pa.), "and I have no doubt some people will try to take full political advantage."

L. Paul Bremer, administrator of the Iraqi coalition provisional authority, appeared before the Senate Appropriations Committee yesterday in the first of seven hearings scheduled on the president`s request, comparing the emergency spending bill to the Marshall Plan that followed World War II. The $20.3 billion for Iraqi reconstruction, he said, "bespeak grandeur of vision equal to the one which created the free world."

"Creating a sovereign, democratic, constitutional and prosperous Iraq deals a blow to terrorists," he said. "It gives the lie to those who describe us as the enemies of Islam, enemies of the Arabs or enemies of the poor. That is why the president`s $87 billion request has to be seen as an important element in the global war on terrorism."

But lawmakers from both parties seem anxious. Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) told Bremer he is getting "pointed questions" from his constituents, who are demanding to know why a country with the world`s second-largest oil reserves is not paying for its own reconstruction.

A study to be released today by the House Budget Committee`s Democratic staff concluded that the cost of the Iraq war and occupation could easily reach $417 billion over the next decade, more than the president is seeking for a 10-year prescription drug benefit for Medicare. Even a benign postwar scenario would cost taxpayers $308 billion, the Democrats concluded.

"We need at a minimum to recognize the real costs of our operations in Iraq," said John M. Spratt Jr. (S.C.), the Budget Committee`s ranking Democrat.

The debate has touched the presidential contest, as well. Democratic candidate Howard Dean recently noted that his health care plan would cost about $87 billion, "which happens to be almost exactly the amount the president . . . asked to wage war in Iraq for another year." Given a choice, he said, Americans would choose "health insurance that nobody can take away."

Recent events, natural and political, have conspired to underscore opponents` political charges that Bush is spending more on Iraqis than on his own citizens. The president is seeking $5.7 billion to rebuild and expand Iraq`s electricity generation, transmission and distribution systems, just as millions of Americans are regaining power lost to Hurricane Isabel and Congress is grappling with the causes of August`s blackout in the Northeast.

"Where are we going to find the money to repair our own blackout-prone electricity grid if tax dollars are to be spent overseas at such a profligate pace?" asked Rep. Edward J. Markey (D-Mass.).

Bush wants $856 million to upgrade three Iraqi airports, a seaport, rail lines and communications systems. Another $470 million would go toward repairing roads, bridges and houses in Iraq and rehabilitating Iraqi government buildings. The administration also wants $105 million for Afghanistan, to rebuild a highway between Kandahar and Herat and start laying more than 600 miles of smaller roads.

Yet on the home front, the administration and Congress are at loggerheads over a massive new bill to finance transportation projects. The House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee envisions spending $375 billion over the next six years, while the White House wants $241 billion.

"Most Americans want us to leave Afghanistan and Iraq with a success on our hands rather than with our tail between our legs, but I think it would help a great deal in doing that for the administration to take another look at what we`re doing here in the United States," said Thomas E. Petri (R-Wis.), chairman of the committee`s highways, transit and pipelines subcommittee.

And as Republicans battle among themselves over the cost of seniors` prescription drugs, the White House hopes to spend $878 million on health care in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Look at the needs we have here at home with our own roads, sewers and water projects," said Sen. George V. Voinovich (R-Ohio). "It`s hard to tell people there isn`t money for sewers and water and then send that kind of money to Iraq."

The fine print of the president`s request details how deeply the United States is delving into the workings of Iraqi and Afghan society. One section would provide $35 million in part "for the protection of Afghan President [Hamid] Karzai." Another $37 million would help the Afghan government pay its civil servants.

Democrats and Republicans in Washington may be bickering over domestic education funding, but they are likely to approve $40 million to construct 275 schools and train 10,000 additional teachers in Afghanistan. Another $45 million would build 100 Afghan markets and create a land registry.

In Iraq, $875 million is earmarked, in part, to restore drained marshlands, while at home, the administration has proposed holding wetland conservation programs in the Interior Department and Army Corps of Engineers to 2002 levels, just over $100 million.

Independent experts say the spending measure`s price tag should not be a surprise. On a per capita basis, it corresponds roughly to the amount the international community spent on Bosnia in the 1990s.

This time, however, the United States is paying almost the entire bill; in Bosnia, it paid for 22 percent of the reconstruction costs. James F. Dobbins, director of Rand`s International Security and Defense Policy Center, said lawmakers could have anticipated this commitment when they chose to oust Saddam Hussein without enlisting more allies abroad.

"The Congress . . . by an overwhelming majority voted in favor of this conflict," Dobbins said. "Iraq`s 10 times bigger than Bosnia. All Congress had to do is multiply Bosnia by 10. It`s not rocket science."



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
Clark Tops Democrats, Ties Bush In Poll


By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 23, 2003; Page A10


Retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark, who jumped into the presidential race just a week ago, is leading the nine other Democratic candidates and tied with President Bush in a head-to-head matchup, according to a new CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll.

Clark, who has yet to detail the agenda he will run on, bested Bush 49 to 46 percent in the poll, which is within the survey`s margin of error. The poll was conducted Sept. 19-21, right after Clark launched his campaign in Little Rock. It is the first major poll showing Bush trailing a Democratic candidate.

A newcomer to politics, Clark was greeted with a week`s worth of free national media exposure, which rival campaigns attributed for his dramatic rise in the polls.

Among likely Democratic voters, Clark was the favorite: He led the pack with 22 percent, nine points ahead of his nearest rival, former Vermont governor Howard Dean. Sens. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) rounded out the top five.

While Clark`s surge is troubling to many of the candidates, the poll offered reason for hope for the entire field.

Kerry and Lieberman ran even with Bush in a head-to-head race, and Dean and Gephardt trailed the president by a few points. More broadly, the poll found Bush`s popularity eroding.

His approval rating was 50 percent, the lowest of his presidency; 47 percent disapproved of the job he is doing. More than half of respondents said they disagree with Bush on issues they care most about.

While polls offer only a snapshot of feelings at a given moment, this one reinforced a growing belief among Democrats that Bush is beatable, especially if the economy and the situation in Iraq do not improve in the months ahead.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Hezbollah`s Success


By David Ignatius

Tuesday, September 23, 2003; Page A27


BEIRUT -- Hezbollah is on the Bush administration`s official list of terrorist organizations. But when the group invited me to speak to a conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict here last week, I accepted -- on the theory that it was a chance to learn about the group and that more information, even about alleged terrorists, is better than less.

My only stipulation was that I be free to say what I wanted, even if others attending the gathering disagreed. I`ll get to my speech and the audience`s reaction later, but first I want to explain what I learned from this visit to the lion`s den.

Hezbollah believes that the Islamic forces arrayed against Israel are winning -- thanks to the carnage wrought by suicide bombings. These "martyrdom operations," as Hezbollah prefers to call them, are often seen in the West as a tactic of desperation. But the leaders of this Lebanese Shiite militia view them as a successful weapon that has put Israel on the defensive.

A brochure prepared in English and Arabic for the Beirut conference outlined why Hezbollah regards these bombings as a route to victory. The group argues that "the first harsh defeat" for Israel came in May 2000 when it withdrew its forces unilaterally from southern Lebanon after several years of Hezbollah suicide attacks on Israeli soldiers there.

Palestinian groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad embraced these martyrdom tactics in their "Second Intifada," and Israel ever since "has been passing through its worst days," according to the pamphlet.

"The Zionists do not dare to move in the streets and he who ventures out is not sure he will come back alive," the pamphlet said. In this climate of fear, the Israeli economy has lost more than $5 billion, and Israelis are migrating away from the Jewish state, according to the pamphlet. It predicted that the intifada would defeat Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, just as it did his predecessor, Ehud Barak.

This stark assessment makes clear that suicide bombings are part of a very deliberate strategy. They aren`t driven by poverty, neglect, irrational fanaticism or the other factors Westerners often cite. They are motivated by a belief that killing Israelis will bring military victory.

Said Hasan Nasrallah, the Shiite cleric who leads Hezbollah, explained in a speech why suicide bombings make tactical sense: "Israel has 400 nuclear weapons. What can they do to a young man who wants to blow himself up to recover the dignity of his nation?"

Arab analysts describe Nasrallah as a charismatic leader who is becoming a powerful figure in the Muslim world. After seeing him in action, I understand why people take him seriously. Rather than indulge in flowery rhetoric, Nasrallah is sharply analytical. He can be a rabble-rousing populist one moment, an intellectual the next.

The Hezbollah leader is also a study in political ambiguity. Even as he lauded martyrdom tactics against Israel, he said he is arranging an exchange of prisoners with the Jewish state. The message seemed to be: We are strong enough to negotiate with our enemy.

Many of the Arab media delegates said they have, as one speaker put it, a "patriotic and national duty to support the Palestinian resistance." That certainly is the view of Hezbollah`s television station, Al Manar, which organized the meeting. (Yes, Hezbollah has a TV station -- one that`s widely watched around the Arab world.)

So what did I tell the gathering? I said that a journalist`s duty was to report the truth, not support a cause. I expressed hope that an Arab television crew would someday chronicle life with an Israeli family, just as I had once spent a week living with a Palestinian family in the occupied West Bank for a series of articles I was writing.

"The only thing that worries me about the rise of the Arab media," I said, "is that they sometimes see their job as telling the story from the Arab point of view -- rather than just telling the story. . . . The Arab people deserve to know the truth, even when it hurts."

These comments produced murmurs in the hall and some criticism later from other delegates. But a few people actually seemed to agree.

An Asian delegate asked whether it served the Palestinian cause "to celebrate the blind killing of innocents." An Egyptian said Arabs mistrust what they see in their media because they believe it is biased and controlled by the government. "We should fix ourselves before putting the blame on the enemy," he said.

I wish these critical comments reflected the views of the conference as a whole. But the reality is that most delegates probably agree with Hezbollah`s analysis: Suicide bombings are working. They have enraged and frightened a powerful adversary. Israel`s problem isn`t simply the bombs but the long line of people who want to be bombers.

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Anti-Bush Moderates


By E. J. Dionne Jr.

Tuesday, September 23, 2003; Page A27


You can`t understand an election without understanding the dynamic that underlies it. The dynamic for the 2004 Democratic presidential primaries is, at best, only half understood, and many on the right don`t understand it at all.

A number of conservatives have been writing that Democrats, out of hatred for President Bush, are veering far to the left and that this rendezvous with the wild side will inevitably lead them to electoral catastrophe.

Put aside that this seems an odd critique coming from a movement so consumed by hatred of Bill Clinton that it tried to drive him from office through impeachment. The analytical mistake is to assume that the anti-Bush feeling, which is there, leads straight to the fever swamps of radicalism. In fact, the dislike of Bush among Democrats is more personal and partisan than it is ideological. Democrats are not, in fact, moving to the far left.

This explains why retired Gen. Wesley Clark could jump so quickly in the polls -- witness his top billing in this week`s Newsweek survey of Democrats. Clark has won support from figures as diverse as Michael Moore, the angry, irreverent anti-corporate filmmaker, and Mickey Kantor, the smooth, resolutely pro-business Democratic insider. To beat Bush, they are willing to back a general whose views on many issues are unknown -- and who appears to have voted for Ronald Reagan. Whether they are right or wrong about Clark, pure ideologues don`t do stuff like that. They back Dennis Kucinich.

Nor can former Vermont governor Howard Dean be seen as some kind of leftist. Yes, he won many left-wing hearts by opposing Bush on Iraq. But Dean has been a moderate, even conservative, Democrat on many issues, including Medicare and Social Security. Rep. Dick Gephardt is going at Dean hard on these questions.

If the rebellion in the Democratic Party were primarily ideological, closet centrist Dean would be going nowhere. What Dean understood earlier than his rivals is that Democrats wanted someone who did not seem intimidated by Bush. Iraq became both a substantive issue and a symbol. If Dean was willing to fight Bush on Iraq, many Democrats reasoned that he`d be tough enough to take him on across the board.

Sen. John Kerry`s vote in favor of the Iraq war resolution hurt him relative to Dean, though not because the Massachusetts Democrat`s position was unreasonable. As Clark briefly acknowledged, even a critic of the war might vote "yes" to strengthen the president`s hand in negotiations at the U.N. over what to do about Saddam Hussein.

But Kerry made the wrong political calculation. He assumed that a Democrat would be in a stronger position to criticize Bush in the general election having first given the president a chance to rally the world against Hussein. It turned out that he was looking past the primaries too early. Many Democrats were seeking a stronger voice against Bush -- and all the more so after the bitterness that followed the 2002 electoral campaign.

The critical fact is that the roots of the anti-Bush feeling among Democrats were planted before the war. Democrats are still incensed that even though they strongly backed the president after 9/11, Bush turned around and used issues of national and homeland security (1) to club them in the 2002 elections, and (2) to push through his ideological program, especially more big tax cuts.

Ask a Democrat about 2002 and it won`t take long before the name Max Cleland comes up. Cleland is the former Georgia senator who lost three limbs in Vietnam. Because he favored some union and civil service protections in the homeland security bill, Cleland was attacked in a vicious campaign ad showing pictures of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. Cleland lost, and Democrats are still furious over the treatment of this war hero and political moderate. This is personal, not ideological.

Nor can the Democrats` opposition to Bush`s tax cuts be seen as far-left adventurism. On the contrary, many of the most fervent foes of Bush`s tax policy are resolutely moderate deficit hawks, including the centrists at the Democratic Leadership Council. Last I checked, favoring smaller deficits does not constitute wild-eyed radicalism.

The toughening of the Democrats` stand against Bush has coincided with events to bring down Bush`s popularity. You can`t blame the president`s loyalists for being unhappy, for wishing that Democrats would just shut up and fall in line. But the Democrats` refusal to heed the advice doesn`t make them left wing. It makes them a mainstream opposition party. Bush may well win next year, but it won`t be because he faces a band of Trotskyists, Leninists -- or even McGovernites.

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The Cartoon Graveyard
Just the Cartoons Without the Commentary

Heute wieder mit IQ Warnung weil einige Dünne uns verlassen werden. 57 Cartoons.

IQ Warning: Each issue contains ALL of the day`s cartoons on a single printer-friendly page. If you have a slow mind i.e. regularly watch Fox News it may take several minutes to get the jokes. Please be patient - its worth the wait

http://www.flu-ent.com/graveyard/20030922__057toons.htm

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World Leaders Warn Terror War Abuses Fuel Militants
Mon September 22, 2003 01:22 PM ET




By Irwin Arieff
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - World leaders on Monday called for the war on terrorism to go beyond simply fighting extremists and warned that tactics like torture, assassination and accidental civilian deaths ran the risk of strengthening the militants.

"Terrorism will only be defeated if we act to solve the political disputes and long-standing conflicts which generate support for it. If we do not, we shall find ourselves acting as a recruiting sergeant for the very terrorists we seek to suppress," U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said at the start of a day-long international conference on terrorism.

But America`s representative, Richard Lugar, chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said the world`s top priority must be to prevent militants from obtaining nuclear, biological and chemical arms which they could use in suicide attacks.

"The next 10 years must show how an increasing number of responsible nations work together to make the safe storage, accountability and destruction of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons a fundamental objective of international policy," said the Indiana Republican.

He represented the United States after President (George W.) Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell turned down an invitation to attend.

The conference drew more than 20 world leaders and other senior officials only hours after a second attack in weeks on U.N. headquarters in Baghdad killed a security guard and wounded 19 people.

The first attack on Aug. 19 killed 22 people including Sergio Vieira de Mello, the U.N. mission head in Iraq.

The terrorism summit is being held at a New York hotel on the eve of a two-week 191-nation U.N. General Assembly, expected to focus on terrorism and on post-war Iraq.

Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik said the meeting, launched two years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, aimed to focus on terrorism`s roots in search of a new generation of tools against "this evil."

"The rule of law and respect for human rights are the first and the best way to counter terrorism," the Norwegian said, urging governments to ensure that educators and religious leaders raise children to embrace tolerance and mutual respect rather than hate.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf dismissed the idea of a "militant Islam" as being at the root of the problem, saying, "There are only some `militant Muslims` -- as there are militant Hindus, Christians and Jews."

"Most of the political disputes of our times afflict Islamic peoples and nations," he said. "Religious extremism and militancy have risen because these conflicts have been allowed to fester. There is a feeling in the Muslim world that Islam is being targeted."

To bridge the widening gulf between the West and the Islamic world, the West must reach out to Islam while Muslims must reject extremist laws and practices, he said.

French President Jacques Chirac, without mentioning directly the U.S.-led war in Iraq, which France opposed, said that when a country is under foreign occupation, terrorism "unjustly captures the struggle for freedom for its own ends."

As the fate of the West is bound up with that of the ailing Middle East, wealthy nations must hold out to that region the hope of "development and democracy, modernity, openness to the outside world, and dialogue," he said.

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The Clark Critique
http://www.msnbc.com/news/969671.asp?0cb=-317181785
Exclusive: In an excerpt from his new book, the ex-general argues that Bush is leading us astray in the war on terror

By Gen. Wesley K. Clark
NEWSWEEK

Sept. 29 issue — In the aftermath of the attacks of September 11, many in the Bush administration seemed most focused on a prospective move against Iraq. This was the old idea of “state sponsorship”—even though there was no evidence of Iraqi sponsorship of 9/11 whatsoever—and the opportunity to “roll it all up.” I could imagine the arguments. War to unseat Saddam Hussein promised concrete, visible action.

I WENT BACK through the Pentagon in November 2001, and one of the senior military staff officers had time for a chat. Yes, we were still on track for going against Iraq, he said. But there was more. This was being discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya, Iran, Somalia, and Sudan. So, I thought, this is what they mean when they talk about “draining the swamp.” It was evidence of the Cold War approach: Terrorism must have a “state sponsor,” and it would be much more effective to attack a state than to chase after individuals, nebulous organizations, and shadowy associations.
He said it with reproach—with disbelief, almost—at the breadth of the vision. I moved the conversation away, for this was not something I wanted to hear. And it was not something I wanted to see moving forward, either.
What a mistake! I reflected—as though the terrorism were simply coming from these states. Well, that might be true for Iran, which still supported Hezbollah, and Syria, complicit in aiding Hamas and Hezbollah. But neither Hezbollah nor Hamas were targeting Americans. Why not build international power against Al Qaeda? But if we prioritized the threat against us from any state, surely Iran was at the top of the list, with ongoing chemical and biological warfare programs, clear nuclear aspirations, and an organized, global terrorist arm.

And what about the real sources of terrorists—U.S. allies in the region like Egypt, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia? Wasn’t it the repressive policies of the first, and the corruption and poverty of the second, that were generating many of the angry young men who became terrorists? And what of the radical ideology and direct funding spewing from Saudi Arabia? Wasn’t that what was holding the radical Islamic movement together? What about our NATO allies, whose cities were being used as staging bases and planning headquarters? Why weren’t we putting greater effort into broader preventive measures?
The way to beat terrorists was to take away their popular support. Target their leaders individually, demonstrate their powerlessness, roll up the organizations from the bottom. I thought it would be better to drive them back into one or two states that had given them support, and then focus our efforts there.
And if we wanted to go after states supporting terrorism, why not first go to the United Nations, present the evidence against Al Qaeda, set up a tribunal for prosecuting international terrorism? Why not develop resolutions that would give our counterterrorist efforts the greater force of international law and gain for us more powerful leverage against any state that might support terrorists, then use international law and backed by the evidence to rope in the always nuanced Europeans that still kept open trade with Iran and the others?
I left the Pentagon that afternoon deeply concerned. I hoped the officer was wrong, or that whoever was pushing this would amend his approach.



That did not happen. After the president delivered his 2002 State of the Union address, the policy was locked in concrete. There were no obvious connections between Iraq, Iran, and North Korea—President Bush’s “axis of evil”—beyond the suspicion that they each harbored ambitions to acquire weapons of mass destruction and the means to deliver them. In fact, in proliferation terms, by early 2002 both Iran and North Korea were greater threats compared to Iraq. The president’s use of the term “evil” was also perplexing to many Europeans. Europeans, living on the same continent, were pragmatic, not ideological, in outlook, seeking survival, democracy, and prosperity. The “axis of evil” label seemed to foreshadow a religious-inspired campaign against sovereign states, something that could not only wreck international commerce but also pose domestic problems in European states with large Islamic populations.
And so, barely six months into the war on terror, the direction seemed set. In Afghanistan and later in Iraq, the United States would strike, using its military superiority; it would enlarge the problem, using the strikes on 9/11 to address the larger Middle East concerns; it would attempt to make the strongest case possible in favor of its course, regardless of the nuances of the intelligence; and it would dissipate the huge outpouring of goodwill and sympathy it had received in September 2001 by going it largely alone. And just as the Bush administration suggested, it could last for years.

© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.

[Joerver]

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Psalm of the 43rd

The Bush is my shepherd, I shall lack everything.
He makes me sacrifice for privileged class tax breaks,
He leads me beside the polluted waters,
He restores my lack of faith in humanity.
He guides me in the paths of deception for his family name`s sake.
As the nation walks through the valley of the shadow of terrorism,
I will fear much evil,
for Bush is in command;
His plastic and duct tape, they horrify me.

Bush prepares a table for his cronies before me in the presence of newly established enemies.
Bush anoints his pre-meditated wars with oil;
Halliburton`s cup runneth over.
Surely conflict and hate will follow our country all the days of our lives because of Bush,
And we will dwell in an absolute hell forever. Amen.


A Satire by Loren Adams - Fayetteville AR USA - September 20, 2003
Send comments to: [e-mail]

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COMMENTARY





Bush`s Dangerous Nuclear Double Standard
With the White House pushing for new types of warheads, other nations may not heed the call for nonproliferation.
By Edward M. Kennedy and Dianne Feinstein
Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) is a senior member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is a member of the Select Committee on Intelligence.

September 23, 2003

President Bush is expected to go to the United Nations today and, with Iran and North Korea obviously in mind, make a strong plea for nuclear nonproliferation.

But the president`s words may ring hollow to much of the world because here at home we`re embarking on a new and dangerous plan to develop and build a new generation of nuclear weapons.

The circumstances are hardly auspicious at a moment when our credibility in the world community is tenuous.

Preventing the proliferation of nuclear weapons is one of the greatest challenges facing the U.S. and the world community today. The Bush administration says it strongly supports that goal.

Yet, in a bill awaiting final action in Congress, the administration is asking for $21 million in appropriations for two new types of nuclear weapons, the so-called mini-nukes and what it calls a "robust nuclear earth penetrator," the so-called bunker-buster.

The administration also wants funds for the design and site selection of a facility to produce these nuclear warheads and to expedite testing of them.

Pursuing such weapons is a dangerous new direction in U.S. nuclear policy, with ominous implications for the war on terrorism and the delicate balance of international arms control protections.

How can we ask Iran and North Korea to abandon their nuclear programs when we begin to design, build and test new nuclear weapons of our own?

There is nothing "mini" about a mini-nuke. They are far from the type of benign, surgical-strike weapons that the name implies. One of these weapons, carried by a terrorist in a suitcase, could devastate any city in the U.S. The blast from a 5-kiloton nuclear weapon — the upper threshold of the mini-nukes — would be half the size of the Hiroshima blast.

The bunker-busters supposedly would be used against deeply buried, hardened targets. Current technology will allow a warhead to burrow up to 50 feet into the ground. But detonating even a 1-kiloton nuclear weapon at that depth would produce a crater larger than a football field and spew a million cubic feet of radioactive dust and debris into the atmosphere.

The requests to expedite the ability to test and produce these new weapons leaves no doubt about the administration`s strategy. Basically, it wants to have these weapons available in our arsenal and ready to use as soon as possible.

The White House is asking for a large-scale facility capable of producing up to 500 of these warheads a year.

That level far exceeds what would be needed to maintain our current stockpile of weapons in coming years, especially when we have pledged to reduce our stockpile by more than half in arms control agreements.

The administration`s new direction on nuclear weapons has received far too little attention in policy debates. It threatens to undermine the entire architecture of nuclear arms control that has been put in place with great difficulty over the last half a century.

We know the real dangers we face in the world today. It is wrong to add another one by treating nuclear weapons as just another weapon in the arsenal.

It makes no sense to adopt a policy that makes their use more likely.




Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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COMMENTARY




Family Values Down the Toilet
How can the GOP women endorse Schwarzenegger?
Robert Scheer

September 23, 2003

Last week, the Republican Women`s Caucus in California endorsed a gubernatorial candidate who as recently as July had gloried in the prospect of shoving a woman`s head into a filthy toilet bowl. The GOP women rationalize that Arnold Schwarzenegger "supports family." Mark that endorsement the death knell of Republican claims to represent traditional family values.

Schwarzenegger`s remarks in an interview with Entertainment Weekly cannot be easily discarded as an excess of youth, the commercial need to promote a macho view of bodybuilding or any of the other flip rationalizations Schwarzenegger has offered for his frequent and persistent expressions of misogyny.

No, the statement in question was made by a 55-year-old man who was openly contemplating a gubernatorial campaign. It was not made 26 years ago, when the Oui magazine article mentioning group sex came out, but only two months ago, in July. What it suggests is that the violence and stupidity of his cinema roles may reflect the thinking of the actor.

In all fairness, the statements made on the set of "Terminator 3" to Entertainment Weekly should be evaluated in their entirety, within the context of the article, which reads as follows:

"But nothing in T3 bears Schwarzenegger`s creative stamp more than his epic tussle with the Terminatrix, a battle that begins in a bathroom. The sequence was made longer and more elaborate thanks to the actor`s largess — and his singular imagination.

" `As we were rehearsing, I saw this toilet bowl,` says Schwarzenegger, an impish smile crossing his face. `How many times do you get away with this — to take a woman, grab her upside down, and bury her face in a toilet bowl? I wanted to have something floating in there,` he adds. Apparently, he was vetoed. `They thought it was my typical Schwarzenegger overboard,` he says. `The thing is, you can do it, because in the end, I didn`t do it to a woman — she`s a machine! We could get away with it without being crucified by who-knows-what group.` (Note to California`s Democratic strategists: The soccer-mom set is now yours for the taking!)"

Perhaps the magazine`s reporter was right about the soccer mom vote, but why wouldn`t men also find this blatant expression of hostility toward women deeply offensive?

The issue here is not puritanism, and I am on record as having defended Schwarzenegger in 2001 in this column when Gray Davis` consultant, Garry South, made too much of a largely unsubstantiated and irrelevant Premiere magazine article concerning the actor`s alleged sexist and crude behavior on movie sets.

But the head-in-the-toilet-bowl remarks are in a very different category and raise issues that a political candidate should be expected to answer.

Most important of those is whether Schwarzenegger makes any connection between the incessant depiction of extreme violence in his films and the astonishing violence of our society. If he pushes an "evil" woman`s head in the toilet and laughs, does he bear any responsibility if some guy goes home and does it to his girlfriend the next time he gets angry?

I don`t believe that there is a simple answer to these questions. Yet, from Bob Dole`s run for president to John Ashcroft`s just-launched campaign against violent pornography, such arguments have been a staple of the Republicans` rise to power under the self-righteous "family values" banner.



When Schwarzenegger mocks the "who-knows-what groups" that might have raised objections to his proposed sicko movie scene, he is certainly not just speaking of feminists, since the Christian right would presumably raise strenuous objections to such a scene.

More specifically, does Schwarzenegger, as it appears from this interview, delight in the extreme violence he peddles? And, regardless, why was none of this of interest to Oprah Winfrey, Jay Leno, Larry King or the right-wing talk show hosts whose programs have accounted for the majority of the actor`s obsessively controlled media availability? As governor, Schwarzenegger would be appointing judges whose sensitivities to the civil rights of all groups, including women, is of decisive importance; isn`t this relevant to that process?

In previous elections, the barest hint of a candidate`s hostility toward a group of people could destroy a candidate. But Schwarzenegger has been given a free ride by the media and the GOP on this and other questions arising from his long history as a celebrity. How hypocritical that a man whom the media anointed as the leading candidate from his announcement on "The Tonight Show" solely because of his celebrity should now get away with claiming that anything he said or did as a celebrity is irrelevant to his candidacy.




Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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THE WORLD



Open Investment Policy Looks Like `World Occupation` to Iraq Merchants
By Mark Fineman
Times Staff Writer

September 23, 2003

BAGHDAD — In the marble-floored corporate offices of Al Hafidh General Trading Co., Waleed and Hani Hafidh vented the rage of many Iraqi businessmen Monday over the country`s new wide-open foreign investment policy.

Puffing furiously on imported cigarettes, the brothers asserted that the economic reform package unveiled by Iraq`s recently appointed finance minister in the United Arab Emirates on Sunday will destroy the country`s small yet burgeoning private sector, create a permanent "world occupation" of its economy and render the Iraqi people "immigrants in their own land."

The policy, which won high praise from U.S. officials present, including Treasury Secretary John W. Snow, allows 100% foreign ownership of any non-oil venture in Iraq. It also treats foreign corporations the same as Iraqi companies and permits up to six foreign banks to set up shop with branches throughout Iraq.

That, said the Hafidh brothers, will ruin their banking and importing businesses. If, that is, foreign companies decide to risk investing in the violent country.

Despite months of economic anarchy that has earned the Hafidhs and other businessmen record profits through duty-free sales of imported televisions, air conditioners, washing machines, refrigerators and computers, Iraq`s private sector is utterly unprepared to compete with multinational corporations, the Hafidhs and others say.

"We were very happy when the regime changed. We thought everything would be free," said Waleed, 51. "Now we feel betrayed."

Indeed, for the past three months, Waleed was among a handful of private-sector leaders who pushed for limited economic protections during weekly private meetings with L. Paul Bremer III, the American who heads the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority. The economic initiative was drawn up by the unelected, 25-member Iraqi Governing Council and its U.S. advisors and approved by both the council and Bremer.

Waleed and other Iraqi businessmen had told Bremer that the nation`s investment policy should mirror those of other Persian Gulf nations, which limit foreign ownership of any company based in those countries to 49%.

When the new policy was announced Sunday by Iraqi Finance Minister Kamel Keylani in speeches at this year`s meetings of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank governors, Waleed and his brother were in shock, they said.

"Everything we asked for was thrown onto the trash heap," said Waleed, echoing the thoughts of many businesspeople in the Iraqi capital, some of whom appeared on Arab satellite television Monday to air their grievances.

Other critics argued that the policy was premature, rushed into place to lure corporate investment and hefty contributions from foreign governments to limit the American investment in rebuilding a nation still seen by many as a war zone.

"It`s the wrong approach," said Sam Kubba, who heads the American Iraqi Chamber of Commerce in Washington. "It`s a recipe for disaster because it gives the impression that they`re trying to sell off all the Iraqi resources. They should go about it much more slowly. Start by getting a democracy in place first and letting the people elect a government."

Kubba, who has been encouraging U.S. companies to partner with Iraqis in investment here, said American businesses are also wary of the Governing Council`s legitimacy in implementing such programs.

Still others in Iraq criticized Bremer`s administration for not better explaining the need to open the economy so suddenly and so wide.

"Why won`t Bremer stand up and say how great our needs are?" said Ali Dham Jabburi, who owns a carpet shop. "Then we will know whether to accept such investment policies."

Added Hammam Shamaa, a French-trained economics professor at Baghdad University: "Iraqis have had 35 years of brainwashing about imperialism, about colonialism, so they need a transition period to understand what the free market is.

"We have to put a great effort into explaining to Iraqis how the economic plan will be done and how the Iraqis will have a share in it," Shamaa said. "Right now, the Iraqis understand nothing."

Responding to the torrent of criticism, a member of the Iraqi Cabinet, which was selected by the Governing Council — which itself was appointed in consultation with the Coalition Provisional Authority — conceded that the country was ill-prepared for such radical new policies. But Mohammed Tofiq, the minister of industries and minerals, insisted Monday that Iraq simply had no choice but to rush them into action.

An occupied land where car bombings, firefights and attacks on U.S. troops have become daily affairs, Iraq is desperate to find a way to compete with other countries in the region, he said. Given the country`s security problems, he said, owning the world`s second-largest oil reserves simply isn`t enough in the urgent short term.

"We need foreign investment," Tofiq said. "Our unemployment rate is 60%. We have to create jobs."

Putting Iraqis back to work also will help bring down soaring street crime and may blunt the armed resistance to the occupation by bringing more benefits to the people, he said.

"We now have the most liberal investment law in the region," he added, "so that it would encourage the foreign investors to come here rather than other countries."

International business analyst Sherman Katz also praised Keylani`s proposal, saying that the benefits of rapid economic development outweigh the risk that native Iraqis may take a back seat to foreign investors.

"Investment is the best transmitter of technology, capital, know-how, good jobs and opportunities for countries to work their way up the ladder toward the higher end of beneficiaries of globalization," said Katz, a scholar in international business at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

Under Saddam Hussein, economic policy was grounded in socialism but corrupted by personal whim. Entrepreneurs were allowed to operate but had to pay huge import taxes. The Hafidhs say they used to shell out a $230 duty on a single television. Since the U.S. military drove Hussein from power, duties are gone and the brothers have been able to sell TVs for $280 and make a profit.

Businessmen like the Hafidhs, who operated during the decades of socialism and corruption, insist that jobs created by foreign investors under such conditions would be little more than "slave labor."

"Iraqis through the many years we have suffered are used to earning very little money, so the foreigners will take advantage of this," said Hani, 49. "And when the foreigners come, the prices will soar beyond the means of most Iraqis. If a man is paying $10 a month in rent for his house, the foreigners will come along and offer $100.

"How can we compete with our dinars?"

The brothers also questioned the legality of the new policy since it was approved by an unelected body in an occupied land that has no constitution. "They can only take such a decision if they consider Iraq the 51st state of America, and then the Governing Council must resign," Hani said.

The Hafidhs and others warned that the new economic program ultimately could add to the bitterness that is fueling the insurgency.

With the Americans skittish about investment in the short term, the new policy is likely to first draw well-heeled businessmen from neighboring Kuwait — and even Israelis, they suggested, who are deeply resented by Iraqis. "This could cause serious problems, security problems," Waleed said.

Tofiq, who is from the northern region of Kurdistan and served in an autonomous government there for six years, agreed that is a risk. But he added, "I don`t think Kuwaitis can buy all of Iraq."

Besides, he said, no corporations have been breaking down his door to invest. First, the coalition must "improve the security, fill the vacuum, stabilize the country. Otherwise, nobody will come, not even Iraqis who are living outside."

In the long run, he said, "I think there will be a positive reaction" to the new law. "Right now, people are in the dark. After so many years there is a psychological barrier, and we have to break it."

But even Tofiq conceded that the new law is likely to destroy the nascent Iraqi banking industry, which also would affect the Hafidhs. They`re the largest shareholders in one of the handful of Iraqi banks that has sprouted since the regime`s fall.

When asked what he had to say to those new bankers, Tofiq lamented: "They will disappear."

In the meantime, Hani Hafidh said, the business community is left powerless. There are still no elected representatives or courts to appeal to. "There`s nothing we can do," he said. "Just watch and wait. We are just like an audience that watches our fate unfold before us."


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Times staff writers Edmund Sanders and Warren Vieth in Washington and Alissa J. Rubin in Baghdad contributed to this report.

Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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Published on Tuesday, September 23, 2003 by Reuters
Global Free-For-All
Annan Challenges U.S. Doctrine of Preventive Action

by Evelyn Leopold

UNITED NATIONS - Secretary-General Kofi Annan warned President Bush that his doctrine of preemptive military intervention posed a fundamental challenge to the United Nations and could lead to a global free-for-all.

In a speech to be delivered shortly before Bush addresses the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, Annan declared that the Iraq crisis had brought the United Nations to a "fork in the road" as decisive as 1945 when the world body was founded.


United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan speaks at the opening of the 58th United Nations General Assembly special session on HIV/AIDS at U.N. headquarters in New York, September 22, 2003. Annan warned President Bush that his doctrine of preemptive military intervention posed a fundamental challenge to the United Nations and could lead to a global free-for-all. Photo by Mike Segar/Reuters

Without mentioning the United States by name, Annan spoke as states in the 191-member world body were struggling to heal deep rifts caused by the war on Iraq, in which the United States acted without U.N. Security Council approval.

Annan questioned U.S. arguments that nations have the "right and obligation to use force preemptively" against unconventional weapons systems even while they were still being developed.

"My concern is that, if it were to be adopted, it could set precedents that resulted in a proliferation of the unilateral and lawless use of force, with or without credible justification," Annan warned in a text of his speech released in advance.

He said the U.N. Charter allowed military action for the purpose of self defense.

"But until now it has been understood that when states go beyond that and decide to use force to deal with broader threats to international peace and security, they need the unique legitimacy provided by the United Nations," he said.

"Now some say this understanding is no longer tenable since an `armed attack` with weapons of mass destruction could be launched at any time," Annan said.

"This logic represents a fundamental challenge to the principles, on which, however imperfectly, world peace and stability have rested for the last 58 years," Annan said.

NEW RULES ON WAR?

However, Annan said the 15-member Security Council, in charge of war and peace, might need to consider rewriting the rule book for the use of force.

"Its members may need to begin a discussion on the criteria for an early authorization of coercive measures to address certain types of threats -- for instance, terrorist groups armed with weapons of mass destruction," Annan said.

He said he was establishing a "high-level panel of eminent personalities" to examine current challenges to peace and security and recommend ways the United Nations could reform its institutions.

"Excellencies, we have come to a fork in the road," Annan said. "This may be a moment no less decisive than 1945 itself, when the United Nations was founded."

Annan again berated U.N. members for not being able to agree on an expansion of the Security Council, which has remained nearly the same for 58 years.

"I would respectfully suggest to you, excellencies, that in the eyes of your peoples the difficulties of reaching agreement does not excuse your failure to do so," Annan said.

Jan Kavan, the outgoing assembly president from the Czech Republic said earlier that U.N. ambassadors alone could not resolve Security Council reform after a decade of trying.

"For that, you would need a major political breakthrough in the capitals of certain key member states," he said.

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NEWS ANALYSIS
U.N. feels the heat from Bush`s hard line
He`ll likely win standoff on Iraq despite high risks
Robert Collier, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback


URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/09/23/MN30…


When President Bush speaks to the United Nations today, he will be gambling that his influence over the world body is stronger than ever.

Bush and his aides have spent recent days signaling that he will refuse to compromise with France and other members of the Security Council who have been pleading for the president to cede control over Iraq to the United Nations.

His stand is expected to be much the same as it was during the U.N. debates before the Iraq war -- it`s my way or the highway.

Most diplomats and observers say Bush is likely to win the gamble and get his way. Whether that helps rescue Bush from a steadily worsening quagmire in Iraq, however, is extremely unclear.

At stake is Bush`s plan to coax the United Nations and foreign nations to assume some of the economic and military burden of governing Iraq.

If he can get donations of billions of dollars and thousands of troops, he can bring home some U.S. soldiers and avoid further damage to the deficit- ridden U.S. budget in time for next year`s presidential election.

The resolution the United States intends to submit to the Security Council is expected to call for the United Nations to help write a new Iraqi constitution and organize elections while keeping decision-making power in the hands of the U.S.-led occupation authority.

In the past several days, both German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and French President Jacques Chirac have bent over backward to emphasize their unwillingness to fight with Bush.

Chirac emphasized that France would almost certainly not veto the U.S. resolution.

"We are gliding toward some form of deal at the United Nations," said Steven Everts, an analyst at the Center for European Reform in London. "The differences have narrowed. Everyone agrees on a swift transfer of authority (to Iraqi authorities), and we pay diplomats to fudge the meaning of `swift.`

"Bush and Blair need a deal just as much as Chirac, Schroeder and Putin. The alternative to doing a deal, i.e. the status quo, is too unattractive."

Bush is viewed as guaranteed to get the necessary nine "yes" votes to pass the resolution in the 15-member Security Council, with no vetoes. But if he refuses to compromise with the French position, it`s likely that many nations will join the French in abstaining.

Some diplomats say that only a unanimous 15 votes in favor would send a powerful enough signal to coax foreign leaders to send troops into Iraq in the face of heavy political opposition from their own parliaments and peoples.

"If there is no consensus, do you think the money and the troops will be made available?" asked Jean-David Levitte, France`s ambassador to the United States, in a Chronicle interview.

"Who will offer? Few countries will rush to enter Iraq without a real U.N. mandate. It will be a false victory, because it will not produce any real results."

The Bush administration is hoping that a resolution would pave the way for U.S. troops in Iraq to be substituted by 10,000 to 15,000 troops from Pakistan,

Turkey, Bangladesh, India and the Arab nations. But Turkey is considered the only sure bet.

What some diplomats say they fear most is a resolution that is so vaguely worded and artfully fudged that it causes more turf disputes than ever.

"The problem is practical, not ideological," said Adolfo Aguilar Zinser, Mexico`s ambassador to the United Nations.

He said that while all council members are willing to leave to U.S. generals the operational command of U.N.-authorized troops in Iraq, the overall policy decisions must be in the hands of the United Nations.

"There is a lot of caution (on the Security Council) because the United Nations doesn`t want to commit its presence (in Iraq) without knowing what its risks are and what its role is," Aguilar Zinser said in an interview. "Its responsibilities and mandate cannot be ambiguous. The resolution has to take care of that."

Other analysts, however, say the United Nations is in danger of becoming every terrorist`s favorite soft target.

"The United Nations is increasingly seen in Iraq and throughout the Arab world as a tool of the United States, and that`s a dangerous thing," said Phyllis Bennis, a policy analyst at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington. "If the United Nations is put in a position where its role is indistinguishable from the occupying forces, it could be attacked again and again -- and not just in Iraq."

One U.N. official in Baghdad who asked to remain anonymous said morale among the organization`s staff is plummeting.

"We`re between two fires, and it`s very unsafe," the official said. Our position here is way too politicized, too partisan. We feel like cannon fodder. "

E-mail Robert Collier at [e-mail].

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback

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Ninth Circuit gives green light to Oct. 7 election
Bob Egelko, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tuesday, September 23, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback


URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/09/23/rec…

A federal appeals court gave the go-ahead to California`s Oct. 7 recall election today, rejecting a lawsuit that sought to postpone it until all the state`s counties did away with old-fashioned punch-card balloting.

The ruling by the 11-judge panel of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals was unanimous. The American Civil Liberties Union, which challenged the Oct. 7 election date on the basis that punch-card balloting in sixCalifornia counties could disenfranchise thousands of voters, said it was weighing an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Unless the high court intervenes, Tuesday`s ruling will allow the election to proceed in two weeks on the proposed recall of Gov. Gray Davis and on two state ballot measures.

The ACLU had argued that the impending election was comparable to Florida`s "hanging chad" fiasco during the last presidential election, in which the U.S. Supreme Court intervened to halt the recount of votes in its Bush vs. Gore decision in 2000.

The 11-judge panel upheld a ruling by a District Court judge who refused to delay the vote.

"The District Court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that plaintiffs will suffer no hardship that outweighs the stake of the state of California and its citizens in having this election go forward as planned and as required by the California Constitution," the appeals court said in its ruling Tuesday.

The decision came down one day after an hourlong hearing inSan Francisco that drew hundreds of spectators and live television coverage. The case is the last pending legal challenge to the recall election.

Attorney Mark Rosenbaum of the ACLU, which sued on behalf of the NAACP and other organizations, had told the court during oral arguments that voters in the six counties where punch-card ballots are still used face "unequal access to the political process."

An expert`s study commissioned for the lawsuit concluded that punch cards made 2-1/2 times as many errors as other California voting machines and would invalidate 40,000 votes in the six counties that between them have nearly half the state`s voters: Los Angeles, San Diego, Santa Clara, Sacramento, Mendocino and Solano. The state conceded in legal papers that punch cards are error-prone and has agreed to eliminate them by the March 2004 election.

But several judges observed during Monday`s hearing that no voting machines are error-free, and most seemed dubious about the ACLU`s main legal theory: that the use of a state-condemned voting system in some counties and more modern machines in others violated equal-protection standards set by the Supreme Court in Bush vs. Gore.

Harvard Law Professor Laurence Tribe, one of former Vice President Al Gore`s lawyers in the Florida case, argued the issue for the ACLU on Monday and encountered heavy flak from the bench.

"The Supreme Court seems to recognize that different localities within a state may have different voting systems," said Judge Andrew J. Kleinfeld, noting that the high court objected only to Florida`s varying recount methods.

Judge Alex Kozinski noted that California, unlike Florida, has uniform standards for tallying "hanging chads" and other unclear punch-card votes. "We don`t have a Bush vs. Gore problem," he said.

"It`s a worse problem," replied Tribe, because punch cards have been "deemed deficient by the state itself" in the legal settlement last year that decertified the machines as of next March.

Judge Johnnie B. Rawlinson appeared to agree, saying the Supreme Court had declared in the Floridacase that "we cannot value one person`s vote above another`s," a situation that she suggested was posed by the current case.

Kozinski said later that the ACLU may have a case under the federal Voting Rights Act, which prohibits voting procedures that harm minorities.

One finding in the ACLU`s study by Henry Brady, a UC Berkeley election expert, was that punch-card ballots in the 2000 California elections disqualified the votes of minorities three times as often as the votes of nonminorities in the same county.

Deputy Attorney General Douglas Woods, representing Secretary of State Kevin Shelley, urged the court not to disrupt an election that has already begun, an argument that appeared to hit home with some judges. Shelley`s office said nearly 615,000 absentee votes had been cast as of Monday afternoon.

"You`re essentially asking us to invalidate more than a half million votes," Judge Richard C. Tallman told ACLU lawyers, who said the same votes could be cast again in March.

E-mail Bob Egelko at [e-mail].


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[Joerver]

September 23, 2003

"Did U.S. Forces Allow a Massacre of 3,000 Taliban Prisoners to Occur?" BuzzFlash asks Jamie Doran, Producer-Director of "Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death"

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

This riveting documentary charges that American forces were present at and permitted the massacre of approximately 3,000 Taliban prisoners. Although it has been shown in Europe, "Afghan Massacre: The Convoy of Death" has received virtual little distribution or air time in the United States.

"Afghan Massacre" tells of how American Special Forces took control of the operation, re-directed the containers carrying the living and dead into the desert and stood by as survivors were shot and buried.

And it details how the Pentagon lied to the world in order to cover up its role in the greatest atrocity of the entire Afghan War. This is the documentary they did not want you to see.

"`Afghan Massacre` was produced over ten months in extremely dangerous circumstances: eyewitnesses were threatened and subsequently killed, the film crew were forced into hiding and our researcher was savagely beaten to within an inch of his life. He was recently awarded the 2002 Rory Peck Award for Hard News, The SONY Award and the film has been nominated for a Royal Television Society Award for Current Affairs."

BuzzFlash didn`t want this grim, compelling documentary to become lost in the tidal wave of Bush Administration lies and deception. Worthy of note is also a bizarre interview with Richard Perle who feigns shock at the notion that such a war crime could have occurred, even though Rumsfeld was running around at the time proclaiming that he didn`t care how we got rid of the Taliban.

The documentary can be obtained at (http://www.acftv.com/archive/article.asp?archive_id=1)

Recently, we interviewed Jamie Doran, the European-based
Producer-Director of "Afghan Massacre: The Convoy Of Death"

* * *

BUZZFLASH: There are several events leading up the massacre that our readers should understand before we get into the more troubling issues in your film. Can you give us some history and background in Afghanistan and how you got involved in making a documentary about this tragedy?

JAMIE DORAN: In early December of 2001, I was a news reporter covering the war, or the so-called war, in Afghanistan. In early December, I was at the opening of the Freedom Bridge or Friendship Bridge –- depending on whose interpretation -- between Uzbekistan and Afghanistan. This is a major event because the bridge had been closed for all those years during Taliban rule. And of course, that meant that all the various war lords sent their people to give themselves representation -- you know there’s a kind of territorial approach to everything that happens in Afghanistan.

Anyone who knows Afghanistan knows that the various ethnic groups don`t exactly go out to dinner together. They would probably rather blow each other’s brains out. And what I heard from two different ethnic groups –- two different warlord soldiers -– was that American soldiers had been breaking the necks of Taliban prisoners. Now this obviously was, you know, of interest to me because I thought it needed some investigation. So I began my investigation, first of all, to try and find out was there any basis to it, and secondly, to actually employ a full-time researcher on the job to actually do the work, because I couldn`t spend my whole time in Afghanistan. It ended up that I actually spent an enormous time there, but that was unexpected.

Let’s go through some of the background. 8,000 Taliban soldiers had given themselves up at the siege of Kunduz, when the Northern alliance surrounded the town and Taliban soldiers were effectively stuck inside. Then we know that about 470 soldiers decided not to surrender and had gone off on their own to fight a "last stand" near Mazar-I-Sharif – they were all killed in the battle.

The rest of the surrendered Taliban –- about 7,500 -- were sent to a prison at Kalai Janghi including John Walker Lindh, the American Taliban. Kalai Janghi was an old 19th century fortress that was now being used as a prison. At the Kalai Janghi prison of course the riots broke out.

BUZZFLASH: Right, and that was where Mike Spann, a CIA agent, was killed during the prison uprising. Now the prison uprising at Kalai Janghi lasted three days. But one of the questions I have is how the Taliban were able to not only initiate a prison uprising, but also hold out for three days? The fighting was described as vicious. American and British -– as indicated in your documentary -- were involved in suppressing the insurrection. In fact, there was even a mortar attack from the prisoners that almost killed one of your researchers. How were the prisoners able to get access to arms? Did they find a cache of weapons in the prison?

DORAN: It was utterly bizarre. If you look at Kalai Janghi, you will find there are two main kind of quadrants to the fort. For some wildly crazy, perhaps Afghan reason, they hadn`t considered the fact that they housed the Taliban prisoners in the section -– the quadrant –- where the munitions dump was. Their armory was actually in the same section that the Taliban had been housed in. So when the Taliban broke out, the first thing they did was head for the armory. And of course, there they had a plethora of Kalashnikovs and RPGs -– everything else you can imagine –- and were actually able to put up a hell of a good fight.

BUZZFLASH: General Dostum, a Northern Alliance warlord who was friendly to the U.S. whom we’re going to talk about later, said that he lost 47 men and that 205 were injured, in the documentary.

DORAN: He lost quite a number of his men, but also, crucially, he lost a couple of his very favorite generals. And as a result of that, if you like, revenge got in the air. Once the prison uprising was put down, the media found about the American Taliban, John Walker Lindh.

Everyone, as you know from the film, forgets about the other seven and a half thousand prisoners. The world’s media is obsessed with John Walker Lindh. When he’s captured, they get their interviews or they get their clips, and then off they go, and everyone disappears. No one bothered asking what happened to the other seven and a half thousand Taliban. And this, of course, was the key to my story.

Well those seven and a half thousand Taliban prisoners were first taken to a place called Kalai Zeini -- which was kind of a holding depot. The Taliban prisoners were to be taken to another prison in Sheberghan.

The American Special Forces and CIA had effectively taken control of Sheberghan prison where they could actually screen the prisoners. They have to filter to actually see who was there –- who were the bad guys and where they were from: who was Al-Qaeda, who was simple Taliban, who was heavy Taliban, et cetera, et cetera,?

And so the processing of the prisoners had to happen, but there was no place to put them. You understand? There’s no other major prison in the area. That’s the only prison. Although the Sheberghan prison holds 500 to 600 people, they squeeze in 3,000.

But there’s no room for the other 3,500 to 4,500 remaining surrendered Taliban soldiers. And remember, some of them were sold to their respective security agencies, and Lord knows what happened to them, because these are not the kindest people in the world.

Now the plan is that 7,500 Taliban prisoners were all being taken to Sheberghan Prison. Again, here’s a prison built to take 500 to 600 at most, okay? I was at Sheberghan. I was in Sheberghan a number of times. In fact, when I was there, there was only about 2,000 there. It was crammed. There was no room at the inn, as they say. So when you’re moving seven and a half thousand people into a prison that’s built to take 500 –- you squeeze two to three thousand in there. There isn`t any room at the inn left. What are you going to do with the 3,000 that you can`t squeeze into the prison? And what I’m suggesting to you is that in many ways, in the great Afghan tradition, sadly, this massacre was preplanned. A number of these people who surrendered at Kunduz were never, ever expected to make it alive.

BUZZFLASH: In other words, the implication is well, because these are Taliban soldiers, there’s no room or no place to put them –- no one can trust sending them somewhere else, or no other country wants them, so the last result is to kill them.

DORAN: Absolutely.

BUZZFLASH: And the Taliban fighters that were not from Afghanistan and were sold to their country’s security agencies, the probability is that they were tortured for information?

DORAN: Of course -- automatically. And almost certainly dead.

BUZZFLASH: Okay so let’s recap these events because this is important.

DORAN: --8,000 Taliban surrender at Kunduz.

--470 Taliban break away and end up being killed in a final battle near Mazar.

--At the Kalai Janghi prison where many surrender Taliban are held, an uprising breaks out and CIA agent Mike Spann is killed. The American Taliban John Walker Lindh is discovered. Most journalists go home.

--Okay, the other 7,500 are then processed through Kalai Janghi -– the plan is to take all the prisoners to the Sheberghan prison to be interrogated and to root out which men are Taliban and Al-Qaeda fighters.

--The first 3,000 or so to move on to Sheberghan –- they were the lucky ones. They went transported in open-backed trucks and taken to Sheberghan where they were processed by the American forces on the ground, checking for identity, everything else.

--There’s another 3,500 or so yet to come to Sheberghan.

--Many Taliban fighters from other countries are handed over to the various security agencies.

--But you still have these 3,000 men who have to be processed by the American forces at Sheberghan. There is no room at the inn. The prison is several times beyond capacity. What do you do with them?

BUZZFLASH: And here is where we get to the truly disturbing part of your documentary. Trucks loaded with airtight containers are brought in. And surrendered Taliban soldiers are literally packed into the airtight containers to travel many miles to their destination -– the Sheberghan prison.

DORAN: That’s right. Before long, Northern Alliance soldiers hear pounding inside the containers as the men inside are gasping for air. And there are accounts of soldiers shooting into the containers, even admitting killing soldiers to create ventilation holes.

BUZZFLASH: One soldier who you interviewed saw blood pouring from the containers after he shot into them.

DORAN: The key about the ventilation holes, by the way, is that if they were genuinely just trying to give air, they, of course, like any logical individual, would actually shoot just through the very top of the container, if you like. From a ground position, they would shoot along the top to actually allow air because, you know, their heads don`t come up that high. If you actually see the containers, both in my film and the other ones I saw, they actually shoot sporadically right across the boards – you know, from the bottom through the middle, and up the top.

BUZZFLASH: When the trucks eventually reach Sheberghan prison and people open the containers, witnesses in your film describe a graphic scene. Of course there are these horrific accounts of how many people died in each container. But even more haunting, is that not everyone inside the containers did die according to some of your witnesses. Your film indicates that the 3,000 men that died inside these airtight containers was not a mistake. And those that survived the journey had to be executed, correct? Before all the bodies are buried in a mass grave at Dasht Leile?

DORAN: Well, that’s key to the whole thing, because the most important thing, from the American point of view, was that these people had to be processed -– interrogated by intelligence officials at Sheberghan. They needed to know more than anything else, the identities of the people, okay?

So the reason that this transportation of only 120 kilometers took up to four days was that the containers were actually queuing in long lines outside Sheberghan Prison. The containers were taken into Sheberghan. The living and the dead were poured off the containers. American CIA and Special Forces then searched for identification, along with the Northern Alliance and General Dostum. And then crucially, the living and the dead, many of whom had simply lost consciousness, were then thrown back onto the back of lorries and, under the orders of an American officer, taken out to the dessert. One of my witnesses was told, "Get rid of them. Just get them out of here before satellite pictures can be taken."

BUZZFLASH: You interviewed a Northern Alliance General, Abdul Ramatulah. At one point, your researcher asks him about the containers. And his demeanor changes, and he says, "Oh, you shouldn`t ask me about the containers."

DORAN: That’s right.

BUZZFLASH: Watching the documentary, no one’s overtly suggesting that the American Special Forces who were there and in control, orchestrated the mass murder. The real implication is that -– and I’m not saying that this is any less serious –- that the American Special Forces just let it happen. That U.S. Special Forces watched and stood idly by as some Northern Alliance commanders basically did away with 3,000 surrendered Taliban soldiers. Would you agree with that?

DORAN: I have to tell you I think it’s stronger than that. In fact, I know it to be stronger than that. I don`t know if you ever saw that shocking Newsweek report which they did entirely off the back of my film. And they came to see me and interviewed me. And then they called me up the week before publication for final quotes. And then suddenly, when the piece appears, I’m not mentioned, which is not a problem for me. But amazingly, it’s like an apologist’s piece, suggesting that there was no evidence of American involvement whatsoever.

But again, if you read the article clearly and carefully, you’ll see that there’s a beginning and there’s an end, and there’s nothing in the middle. And what’s the best way of putting this? I understand that there was more information in the original article which –- let’s just say it didn`t make into the magazine.

When I was showing my film at the American University in Washington, one of the Newsweek authors was there –- and this is all on camera, not in the documentary but on camera –- and he admitted that the entire article was based on my film. But then he attempted to defend Newsweek’s approach and was suggesting that American forces were not involved and had no knowledge of the events.

The Newsweek journalist then, after this great attempt at defense -– and believe me, he failed –- just about an hour after that meeting, he called me on my cell phone and said, "Jamie, I didn`t know you had so much information. Can I see the film again? Can I get a copy?"

If you remember Newsweek claimed that only, I think, four or four and a half thousand actually surrendered at Kunduz. And here I was, and the very points you make, with the General at Kalai Janghi admitting to processing over 7,000 prisoners. So Newsweek effectively had simply ignored the existence -- or frankly their failed journalism had not enabled them to actually even understand how many prisoners had been processed in the first place.

BUZZFLASH: There is potentially several levels of concern in regards to American forces. Some would argue that even if the U.S. soldiers weren`t involved, they were in control of the situation. One implication could be that even if they didn`t know about it, they should have known about it. Although some of your witness claim that U.S. soldiers were present when the 3,000 Taliban were buried in a mass grave at Dasht Leile and stood idly by as though Taliban that were killed being transported in the containers were summarily executed.

DORAN: Let me tell you something on that. If I had been in Dasht Leile, I could have stopped the massacre. Any Westerner could have stopped that massacre. I know Afghanistan rather well, and I know the way that Westerners are perceived by the Afghanis. Sometimes I would have 100 to 150 people running along the streets after me and my camera. And I would come and say, "Stop," and they would stop on the spot and not move.

Equally, at one point during the war, I affected 40 Northern Alliance soldiers baying for the blood of the first Taliban prisoner who was captured. And I was lucky enough to interview the guy. I then stopped him being murdered, okay? I turned to them all. I formed every single face in the room, and I said, "You will face war crimes -– a war crimes tribunal -– if anything happens to this man." He’s probably one of the few Taliban who actually made it out alive. But this guy was absolutely scared beyond belief. And these guys clearly were about to murder him. And I’ll bet you he’s still alive today.

And the point I’m making is that when you have fifty-plus American Special Forces in effective command and control of Sheberghan Prison, there is no way they are taking orders from Afghans. They are in charge. And don`t forget one of my witnesses specifically says that an American officer ordered the removal of the bodies -– the living and the dead –- out to the desert.

BUZZFLASH: Your documentary talks about the existence of a smoking gun -- which you haven`t seen -– that implicates U.S. soldiers involvement in the form of a videotape. Allegedly the videotape documents when the containers were ordered out to the desert to dispose of the bodies in a mass grave. Those men that hadn`t yet died were summarily executed. Your researcher, Najibullah Quaraishi, saw part of that videotape and attempted to make a copy of it. While attempting to make a copy he was attacked and beaten. Do you have any idea if the videotape still exists? There’s some implication in your documentary that the Northern Alliance warlord, General Dostum, keeps it as an insurance policy so that if there was ever a war crimes tribunal, Dostum could show American soldiers involved or complicit in the massacre and create an utter military and political disaster for the United States government.

DORAN: It’s pretty obvious that it is an insurance policy. And the answer to your question is I have no idea if the videotape still exists.

BUZZFLASH: What else besides that videotape, or some other videotape or pictures of some kind, could be conclusive enough to essentially force a serious international inquiry into the massacre?

DORAN: That’s actually damned easy to answer, and it’s in the film, in the sense that it is the witnesses. I mean, as you know, normally these massacres -– for instance, Bosnia or whatever –- are not videotaped, okay?

As one professor of international law has said very clearly, instances like this massacre rely on eyewitness testimony. And that the diversity of the witnesses is key to the evidential nature of what we were producing. And we have this diversity of witnesses, I can assure you.

As I said to you at the very beginning, you have to understand that the various ethnic groups do not mix. They simply don`t mix. And when I have people from every single ethnic background, from very different –- I mean, widespread regions of Afghanistan –- the drivers of the containers for example, giving this evidence, then that evidence is easily sufficient to bring about an investigation. As I say to you, it’s not about a videotape of one event or another, because normally these things are not videotaped. It’s about the strength of the witnesses. And this is why some of my witnesses have been murdered.

BUZZFLASH: You interviewed Richard Perle. Perle acknowledged that if your claims in the documentary are true, then there should be an investigation. It does seem to bother him, at least for the sake of the cameras, that there’s an implication that U.S. soldiers may have been involved. Tell me more about your interview with Perle -– what you did not put on the film. And secondly, why hasn`t the Pentagon and the U.S. Administration authorized an inquiry?

DORAN: Well, I’ll answer the second one first, and then go back to Perle. And that is, of course, because they know they’re guilty. They know their men carried out war crimes. They know their men were in command and control of the operation. And they know that their men will, if an open investigation takes place, will face courts martial at the very least.

The American authorities will hide behind this statement that’s been made very clear that their men will not be tried for war crimes abroad. What they don`t seem to recognize is that these are crimes under American military law also. You know that -– was it Lieutenant Calley and My Lai? He was not tried by a Vietnamese Court. He was not tried at the Hague. He was tried by an American military court in the United States.

DORAN: That’s what this is about. These are crimes under American military law. And all I’ve ever asked for is an open investigation. Let’s put all the cards on the table here. Let’s be utterly open. Let’s give security to these incredibly brave witnesses to actually be able to tell what they saw, what they witnessed.

Now going back to Richard Perle. You will notice that I didn`t try and interview what some people would describe as the usual suspects -- i.e., some kind of people with a left-wing agenda, or something like that. I went specifically for people like Robert Fox from the Institute of Strategic Studies, which is a right-wing group in the U.K.

I love one of the phrases of Richard Perle in the film: the U.S. wasn`t particularly keen on having General Dostum as an ally. They would have preferred Mother Teresa, but she wasn`t available. Well, you know, no one would ever describe Richard Perle as Mother Teresa either, but he, in the film, specifically says that, if this evidence is available, then there should be an investigation.

BUZZFLASH: Did you ask him specifically about the fact that there are eyewitness accounts –- that a researcher of yours saw footage of U.S. involvement in the massacre?

DORAN: Let me tell you: Richard Perle was absolutely shocked. Let’s just say that I haven`t given him all the detail I had before the interview. Perle was absolutely shocked by the detail I gave him, and if you look at him in the film, you can actually see the shock in his face. And it was very interesting that, after the interview, I went outside to have a cigarette, as I do after interviews. And Richard came out after me and said specifically, "Jamie, how high does this go?" And my answer to him was that I know at least it goes as high as Rumsfeld’s office. And we’re talking about the cover-up.

BUZZFLASH: There’s no question that if this was ever exposed or could be proven -– if these allegations are true that it would be a crisis to say the least.

DORAN: So many people have lied about this story, so many people have defended the indefensible, that, yes, I mean, heads would roll. I’m talking about people like spokespersons for the Pentagon, who must know that they aren`t reflecting the true facts. And frankly, some of them will appear at a forthcoming inquiry, because, believe me, there will be an inquiry.

BUZZFLASH: Conducted by the Hague?

DORAN: I don`t know if it will be the Hague. I’m certainly hoping that it will be under American military law. I won`t go into too much detail –- far more evidence will come forward on this story and I would be amazed if, coincidentally, it didn`t actually come out at the time of the Guantanamo trials. And thus, if America is trying Taliban prisoners for war crimes -– many of whom, incidentally, were taken from Sheberghan Prison for the great crime of speaking English -– then I think it’s going to be fascinating when further evidence comes out during the Guantanamo trials of war crimes committed by their own men.

BUZZFLASH: Are you trying to get your documentary distributed in the United States? How can people get the film? Is it appearing in different film festivals?

DORAN: I think actually this month alone, it’s being seen at seven different festivals around the world. It’s been seen at countless festivals. I’ve done so many interviews it would bore you, frankly, to every single country you can imagine, including countries like Iran.

I think it was Tehran radio came on and they would say things to me like, you know, "So these American men -– these American soldiers –- they murdered the prisoners in front of these people." And I would say, "No, that’s not true."

Then again, "and so these American soldiers –- they were cutting the neck of Taliban soldiers." No, that’s not true. "So these . . ." and I said, "Look, do you want to hear the truth? Because you know I have no political agenda. If you check my background, I have no affiliations of any kind whatsoever. I have no political affiliations of any kind. And the reality is that the film has now been seen in almost thirty countries worldwide. And why? I have to laugh. Why are the American people being denied the opportunity to make up their own minds on the evidence? Isn`t that democracy: that people can actually make up their own minds? This is the home of press freedom, the world’s largest of all, in fact, apart from India –- certainly the world’s foremost democracy. And yet at the moment, you have this pervasive atmosphere of fear and control through paranoia in your country, whereby broadcasters are frightened to even consider showing such a film.

BUZZFLASH: You mentioned Newsweek. Why is it that American journalists haven`t contacted you? Or have you contacted them about the information in the documentary?

DORAN: Well, American journalists have contacted me, and it’s been rather fascinating. I think I may have mentioned to you before, but if I didn`t , one journalist who’s rather well-published in the NYT, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal –- she was following this story down and couldn`t understand why none of the nationals would touch it. You know, a few regional newspapers took it, but the nationals wouldn`t take her article, which was obviously a very big story. Why wouldn`t they touch it?

Well, one journalist told me that she talked to a high ranking State Department spokesperson and asked him why this was being covered up. "You have to understand we’re in touch with the nationals on a daily basis," he told her. "This story just won`t run, even if it’s true." Now if that doesn`t explain to you why the story isn`t appearing across America –- although I have to say to you now, including your own interview, it’s beginning to happen. It’s coming up. I’m interviewing with a Chicago publication. I had a New York Film Festival on this morning. I’ve been offered a forty or fifty cinema or theatre release across America. I’m supposed to be doing a tour of America in, you know, January-February, to the universities and et cetera. So it’s not going away. That’s the key thing. It’s not going away. And frankly if any of your readers want to get hold of the film, they just go onto the website acftv.com.

BUZZFLASH: We should point out that since you’ve finished the documentary, two eyewitnesses that you interviewed were killed. And several other witnesses -- some involved with your film, some not -- have been arrested, detained and tortured. The people you interviewed are at great risk essentially.

DORAN: They’re at enormous risk. The two men that died, I mean, all the witnesses who took part, were phenomenally brave, beyond belief. And in fact, the terrible sadness, as you know, I disguised their voices and their faces. But the two men who died hadn`t even asked for their faces to be disguised. It was a decision I took myself. And I have to tell you: I’m fantastically angry over their deaths for other reasons. I understand that certain groups knew that they had been taken three weeks before they were finally killed. These men were being tortured for 21-22 days before they were finally killed –- "dispatched" was the phrase, one of the phrases I heard. And what shocked me about that is that I understand the Afghan system, and you should know that we’ve managed to be able to get about five guys who were also arrested, who were taken in –- we’ve managed to get them away.

I openly admit to paying ransoms, to paying this, that and the other thing –- also into many, many thousands of dollars -- to save, to get these guys out of there. I was not given the opportunity even to save these two men. And I still feel, to this day, and would have been willing to do so, I still feel that I could have paid to save their lives. And I was not given that opportunity. And certain Western groups knew that these men had been taken, and did not tell me. And for me, that’s entirely unforgivable. I look after my people. I look after my witnesses. These people knew about this and didn`t tell me. We were specifically keeping a low profile to give them, if you like, space –- not to draw attention to them. When these men were taken, I should have been informed immediately, and this did not happen. And as I said to you, when that happened, we managed then to get five others out. Three others were actually taken in, and I paid money to get them out. One of them -- one of the three, incidentally -- was beaten within an inch of his life.

BUZZFLASH: And you yourself have been threatened, correct?

DORAN: Of course. It goes with the territory. We leave these people there. It’s all my life, you know, from places you cannot imagine. I’ve gone into silly places, and, you know, we think we’re all big tough journalists going into these places, okay? But we’re only there for a week, two weeks, three weeks. We then leave, and we will leave the people whom we were with, fighting on in their way. They’re the ones who are in danger -– not people like me.

I am someone who loathed the Taliban beyond belief. I was fired upon by them on a good number of occasions, because, frankly, unlike the other brave 600 journalists or so in Northern Afghanistan, I paid enough money in bribes to actually live on the front line during the war. And, you know, I got to know these people. And frankly, it’s a bizarre thing, I have to say to you. The Afghans are absolutely beautiful people, they’re beautiful, but the value of life is almost zero. And America got into bed with one devil opposing another devil, and is now trying to, if you like, almost apologize for its association with one devil when their men actually got involved in murder and war crimes.

BUZZFLASH: I know you interviewed at length and relied on a lot of the work of Andrew McEntee, a human rights lawyer whose investigated the mass grave at Dasht Leile. What’s next in terms of what is he doing and how are other people involved in getting the word out about what happened and about "Afghan Massacre"?

DORAN: Well, Andrew McEntee is now the head of Human Rights at the OSCE -– that’s the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe –- based in Belgrade now, and he’s still following his human rights drive. I think the man, more than anyone else we should be talking about, is Najibullah Quaraishi, who was an astonishingly brave man. After his beating, we had to put him into hiding, as you know. And finally we brought him and his family to London, where they are now living. Najibullah would love one day to return to his homeland. He doesn`t want to stay in Britain. He’s an Afghan, and would love one day to return. But that can only be under circumstances where the whole regime has changed.

I understand in recent days that General Dostum has effectively been given control of Northern Afghanistan. Just in the last week and a half, there have been major battles in Northern Afghanistan that no one refers to in the Western press anymore, because they’re still trying to portray Afghanistan as something of a success. Afghanistan is in a bigger mess just now than it ever was before the war.

Albeit, we got rid of the Taliban, but did we? They’re still ruling half the hillsides of Afghanistan. They’re still killing God-knows-how-many people. As I told you before, I have no time for these people whatsoever. But, you know, we replaced one bad bunch with another bunch of warlords. And when Hamid Karzai talks about running the Afghan government, that’s only if the Afghan government remains within the boundaries of Kabul. Outside Kabul, he has no influence.

And the warlords are stronger and richer than they ever were. The amount of money being taken in import duties, bribes and drugs is absolutely mind-boggling. We are now talking billions of dollars. These men have everything at their hands, and, you know, this is called a liberated country.

BUZZFLASH: Jamie Doran, thank you so much for your time. Good luck with your film.

DORAN: Thank you.

A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW

[Joerver]

SPIEGEL ONLINE - 23. September 2003, 15:12
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/politik/ausland/0,1518,266847,00.html
BND-Warnung

Irak wird zur Basis des Terrors

BND-Chef August Hanning befürchtet, der Irak könne für die Amerikaner zu dem Alptraum werden, der Afghanistan für die Russen war. Der oberste Geheimdienstler der Republik warnt vor der Gefahr, dass sich der Irak zu einem neuen Zentrum islamischer Terroristen entwickelt.


AP

Der Terror im Irak nimmt zu


Hamburg - "Das ist die Sorge, die ich habe: dass sich der Irak entwickeln kann zu einem Zentrum des islamischen Extremismus", sagte der Präsident des Bundesnachrichtendienstes (BND) in Berlin. Der Irak könnte eine ähnliche Entwicklung nehmen, wie Afghanistan in den achtziger Jahren, als Mudschahidin gegen die russische Besatzung kämpften. Der Kampf gegen die Russen habe dort zu einem Erstarken islamischer Extremistengruppen geführt.

Hanning wiederholte, dass der BND anders als die Nachrichtendienste in den USA und Großbritannien seinerzeit keine direkte Verbindung zwischen Saddam und al-Qaida gesehen habe. "Wir haben die Situation im Irak anders eingeschätzt als andere Dienste. Wir haben eigentlich vor dem Irak-Krieg keine strukturelle Verbindung gesehen zwischen dem Saddam-Regime und der Qaida-Organisation." Er sehe auch keinen Anlass, diese damalige Sicht des BND zu korrigieren.

Inzwischen sei die Lage im Irak jedoch eine andere. "Jetzt erleben wir, dass der Irak den Kristallisationspunkt des Dschihad bildet", sagte Hanning. Auch mache ihm Sorge, dass Bosnien zunehmend als ein Rekrutierungsfeld dieser Extremisten in den Vordergrund rücke. Darüber hinaus habe sich die Gefährdungslage Afghanistans, vor allem im Osten und Südosten, wegen einer Reorganisation der Taliban verschärft.

Hanning warnte zudem davor, die anhaltende Gefahr von weltweiten Anschlägen durch die Extremistengruppe al-Qaida zu unterschätzen. "Wir glauben, dass al-Qaida nach wie vor ein Rückgrat hat - das Rückgrat ist nicht gebrochen." Bedenklich sei vor allem, dass die Symbolfigur Osama Bin Laden immer noch nicht gefasst ist.

Bin Laden sei weiterhin als Schlüsselfigur im Kampf gegen den internationalen Terrorismus zu betrachten. Dass er noch nicht gefasst worden sei, sei bedenklich. Die Fahndungserfolge gegen al-Qaida-Führer hätten diese Organisation zwar geschwächt, aber das Rückgrat sei ihr noch nicht gebrochen. Solange Bin Laden und andere al-Qaida-Führer noch in Freiheit seien, sei der Kampf gegen den Terrorismus nicht gewonnen. Deren jüngst veröffentlichte Botschaften seien darauf gerichtet, neue Kämpfer zu mobilisieren und den Zusammenhalt in der Gruppe zu stärken.

"Die Gefährdung durch den islamischen Terrorismus hält unverändert an. Die grenzüberschreitenden Strukturen sind existent und funktionsfähig", sagte der BND-Chef. Zunehmend gefährdet seien die so genannten weichen Ziele wie etwa touristische Zentren. "Wir glauben, dass wir in Deutschland gut beraten sind, in unseren Anstrengungen im Kampf gegen den Terrorismus nicht nachzulassen."

Ein Problem des BND im Kampf gegen den Terrorismus ist Hanning zufolge die Flut an Informationen und Hinweisen. "Wir haben eine Fülle von Terrorwarnungen, Tag für Tag", sagte er. Es werde für den BND immer schwieriger, die wichtigen von den unwichtigen Informationen zu trennen.




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© SPIEGEL ONLINE 2003

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Bush: `I Don`t Read Newspapers`

President Bush says his primary news sources are his aides.
The president says he scans headlines -- but admits to rarely reading the stories.

Mr. Bush told Fox Television he feels he gets the most objective information from his own staff.

As for the upcoming presidential election, the president says he`s paying no attention to the ten Democrats trying to unseat him.

On the topic of Iraq, Mr. Bush says progress is good -- and he insists he did not underestimate the post-war violence.

http://www.kyw1060.com/news_story_detail.cfm?newsitemid=3221…

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Iraq Gov`t. Puts Curbs on 2 News Stations


By TAREK AL-ISSAWI
The Associated Press
Tuesday, September 23, 2003; 4:24 PM


BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraq`s U.S.-appointed Governing Council on Tuesday barred journalists from two leading Arab satellite news channels from government buildings and press conferences.

The council said the two-week ban was imposed on Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya - two of the most popular television news stations in the Middle East - because it suspected the stations had violated rules that include not disclosing information about pending attacks on American troops.

A spokesman for Ahmed Chalabi, the current president of the Governing Council, accused the two stations of "inciting violence" against U.S.-led coalition forces and Iraqi officials and said the ban aimed to warn other media not to violate regulations on coverage imposed by the council.

"The two channels were banned because they have invested the most in inciting violence. We hope other channels will draw a lesson from this decision," said the spokesman, Entifadh Qanbar.

Qanbar did not elaborate on what the two stations had none, and the council statement did not mention any specific allegations against the two Arabic broadcasters, except to say that "some" of the rules had been broken.

Both channels have in the past broadcast audio tapes and statements purported to be from Saddam and footage showing alleged resistance fighters vowing to continue attacks on U.S. troops.

"We will not let them broadcast footage of U.S. soldiers being ripped apart," Qanbar told reporters. He said the two channels could face fines.

He called the council decree "a positive step to protect the Iraqi people from the poisons being broadcast by the channels."

Under rules that were listed in the council`s statement Tuesday, Iraqi and foreign media are prohibited from inciting violence or "chaos" or promoting the return of Saddam Hussein`s Baath party. All news organizations are required to inform authorities if they learn of any information terrorist activities.

"The Governing Council expresses its deep concern regarding the irresponsible activities ... of some media groups notably the Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya satellite channels," the statement said.

The Coalition Provisional Authority had no immediate comment.

L. Paul Bremer, the top U.S. administrator in Iraq, is in Washington testifying before Congress about the Bush Administration`s request for $87 billion next year to fund military and reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He said Monday night that he shared the concerns of the Governing Council but was not familiar with their decision.

"I know they`ve expressed concern many times to me - and we share that concern - that a number of Arab television stations tend to run rather inflammatory and misleading and I would say sometimes even inaccurate stories," Bremer said as he left a U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee hearing.

"Freedom of the press is important. On the other hand, it`s also important not to incite violence. One would have to look rather carefully at what they (the council) said."

The Committee to Protect Journalists said it found the sanctions troubling.

"Penalizing news organizations sends the wrong message and raises serious questions about how Iraqi authorities will handle the broadcast of negative news," CPJ Mideast program coordinator Joel Campagna said Tuesday.

"The authorities should be encouraging open media and avoid doling out punishment to news organizations which air material deemed offensive to them."

The Qatar-based Al-Jazeera and Dubai-based Al-Arabiya have given blanket coverage of events in Iraq, often highly critical of the U.S.-led occupation of the country.

Al-Jazeera, which has gained a reputation as an unusually independent voice in a region where many news media are government-controlled, says it only airs messages according to news value.

The station has become accustomed to complaints.

Jordan, Bahrain, Libya, Morocco and Algeria are among the countries that have closed Al-Jazeera`s offices, expelled its correspondents or withdrawn their diplomats from Qatar in protest of the station`s coverage.

President Bush has also complained to Qatari Emir Sheik Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani over Al-Jazeera`s broadcasting of tapes by terror mastermind Osama bin Laden.

Al-Arabiya, on the other hand, had not been criticized since it was launched shortly before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. The channel was started as a new venture of Middle East News, a Dubai-based production company that also runs the Middle East Broadcasting Center. It is owned by the brother-in-law of Saudi Arabia`s King Fahd.

Since its inception, Al-Arabiya has worked to avoid Al-Jazeera`s combative style and often loud criticism of Arab regimes and Western practices.

For the six months it was in operation, it has not received any serious complaints from any Arab country it has covered. That is a proof of the station`s objectivity, said Salah Negm, its editor-in-chief.


© 2003 The Associated Press
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Es wird erzählt der Gallup Poll hat bei den letzten Wahlen immer das Ergebnis genau vorhergesagt. Jedenfalls hat Bush seinen niedrigsten Wert seiner Amtszeit erreicht.

POLL ANALYSES
September 23, 2003
http://www.gallup.com/poll/releases/pr030923.asp

Americans Grow More Doubtful About Iraq War
Bush approval also drops to term low


by Lydia Saad and Frank Newport
GALLUP NEWS SERVICE

PRINCETON, NJ -- A new CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll finds continuing erosion of public support for the U.S. intervention in Iraq, to the point that Americans are now about evenly divided over whether the Iraq situation was worth going to war over. Americans are also divided in their evaluations of the job George W. Bush is doing as president. According to the Sept. 19-21 survey, just 50% of Americans today believe that the situation in Iraq was worth going to war over; 48% disagree. Just 50% approve of the Bush`s overall job performance; 47% disapprove.

Support for the Iraq mission has contracted since late August when 63% felt it was worth the military effort mounted by the United States. That figure fell to 58% in early September before tumbling to 50% in the latest poll. Today`s figure is much lower than the high point of 76% registered on this in April when major combat was still underway. But it is not too different from the level of public support found in January, several months before the war started.
All in all, do you think the situation in Iraq is/was worth going to war over, or not?

The latest decline in support for the Iraq mission is seen mostly among younger men. Since early September, the percentage of 18- to 49-year-old men saying that the situation in Iraq was worth going to war has dropped by 16 points, from 68% to 52%. Among males 50 and older, this support has dropped by only 7 points. And among women, it has dropped by just 4 points. The net result is that men and women are now about even in their views on this issue. Previous surveys since the conclusion of major combat showed men somewhat more supportive than women of the Iraq war.
% Saying Iraq Worth Going to War Over
By Gender

Given the difficulties faced by U.S. forces in Iraq this summer and the continued loss of American life in that conflict, it is not surprising that Americans would perceive the situation differently today than they did just shortly after President Bush triumphantly declared an end to "major combat" in Iraq on May 1. Shortly following that announcement by Bush, 41% of Americans perceived that "for all intents and purposes" the war with Iraq was over. Today, only 10% hold this view.
Is the War With Iraq Over?

Do you think Saddam Hussein was personally involved in the September 11th terrorist attacks, or not

George W. Bush’s Job Approval Rating
January - September 2003

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Iraq: the reality and rhetoric
Rory McCarthy reports from al-Jisr, scene of the killing of three farmers at hands of US troops

Rory McCarthy
Wednesday September 24, 2003
The Guardian

It was the middle of the night when the crack paratroopers from America`s 82nd Airborne Division arrived outside Ali Khalaf`s farmhouse in the parched fields of central Iraq.

Some of the family were asleep on mattresses in the dirt yard outside the single-storey house. Ali`s brother Ahmad lay there with his wife, Hudood, 25, and their two young sons and so they were the first to hear the soldiers as they approached the house at around 2am yesterday.

"We heard voices and so my husband went out to check what was happening. We thought they were thieves," said Hudood. "My husband shouted at them and then immediately they started shooting."

By the family`s account, the troops of the 82nd Airborne - known proudly as the "All American" - opened up a devastating barrage of gunfire lasting for at least an hour. When the shooting stopped, three farmers were dead and three others were injured, including Hudood`s two sons, Tassin, 12, and Hussein, 10.

Yesterday a US military spokesman in Baghdad, Specialist Nicole Thompson, insisted that the troops came under attack from "unknown forces". The "unknown forces" ran into a building, which was surrounded by the troops who then called in an air strike. "I can confirm at least one enemy dead," she said.

The US military has chosen not to count the civilian casualties of the war in Iraq. But while more than 300 US soldiers have now been killed since the invasion to topple Saddam in March, thousands more Iraqis have died.

The US military likes to advertise its achievements: how their patrols in the troubled town of Falluja, a few minutes drive from Ali Khalaf`s farmhouse, hand out colouring books and repaint schools and how elsewhere they repair broken water mains and sewage plants.

Most of the time it matters little. In the heartlands of central Iraq, home to the Sunni Muslim minority, and now too in the Shia-dominated provinces of the south, there is less and less sympathy for the American military and their allies.

The growing wave of frustration comes only in part from the few loyalists who still fight for Saddam Hussein and increasingly from a population affronted and humiliated by the same American tactics employed yesterday.

Though Sunnis, Ali Khalaf`s family can have benefited little from Saddam`s rule. Their homes are humble, with little electricity and only brackish drinking water. Five brothers share a few acres of farmland where they grow just enough wheat and cucumbers to survive.

As mourners gathered in a tent outside the farm yesterday, the family walked through the yard, enclosed by a brick wall and pointed out where the "enemy dead" were killed.

"There was no shooting from the house. It was the soldiers who shot at us," said Hudood. "There was so much firing and shelling we couldn`t even get out of the farm."

Four thin mattresses still lay in the open air, close to the house and stained in blood. Just a few feet away were two large craters caused, the family explained, by missile strikes from the jet fighters called in as air support. The two young boys were injured on the mattresses and then carried bravely inside by Hudood.

Together the family tried to count the number of bullet holes in the wall of the farmhouse that bore the brunt of the attack. There were at least 90, perhaps 100. Outside in the fields lay dozens of the small 5.56mm bullet casings cast out by the US military`s M16 assault rifles.

It was probably one of these bullets which hit Ali Khalaf in the chest. He crawled inside the first room of the farmhouse apparently looking for a strip of cloth to improvise a bandage.

He slumped to the floor just below the shattered glass window and next to an old wooden chest and there he died. A large pool of his blood lay caked to the floor of the room yesterday, chunks of plaster torn off the wall by the gunfire lay close by.

Hudood rushed her children into the second room of the farmhouse. She sat on the ground next to the bed with her children

"I covered my children in my arms and brought them close to my chest. I covered them with blankets, I thought perhaps it would help protect them," Hudood said. "They are just small children. One of them said to me: `Don`t cry mummy. We have got God with us.`"

Next to her on the floor was her cousin Saadi Faqri, 30, who was staying in the house and ran to help her. During the shooting, a rocket or a large piece of shrapnel ripped through the wall of the bedroom, past Hudood and the children, and struck Saadi in the chest. He slumped on the floor and died.

The third man to die, Salem Khalil, 40, was a neighbour who came running to help when he heard the shooting. His body was found lying on the ground outside.

Eventually the shooting stopped, the soldiers pulled back and then they called in the air strike. At least seven missiles were fired but only one hit the house, tearing through the ceiling of an unoccupied storeroom.

Yesterday morning the villagers of al-Jisr gathered to bury their dead in the large graveyard by the main road. At the same time, US military officers arrived at the farmhouse, took photographs, gathered shell casings and, through a translator, briefly apologised to the family. The words meant little.

"My brother was a polite and decent man. He was poor and we had only enough farmland to survive," said Ali Khalaf`s brother Zaidan, who lives nearby.

"None of us are interested in politics, none of us worked in Saddam`s regime. We got nothing from Saddam.

"I swear we don`t have any weapons in our homes and we don`t have any intention to fight the Americans. But the Americans have become a heavy weight on our shoulders. They don`t respect human beings, they humiliate the Iraqi people. They promised freedom and democracy. Is it freedom to kill people, make bloodshed and destroy our house? Is that what they mean by freedom?"


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Baghdad bans Arab TV for broadcasting `poison`
Rory McCarthyin Baghdad
Wednesday September 24, 2003
The Guardian

Iraq`s governing council banned the Arab world`s two leading television channels yesterday from government offices and news conferences, accusing them of broadcasting "poison".

Iraqi officials accused al-Jazeera, the pioneering news channel based in Qatar, and al-Arabiya, based in the United Arab Emirates, of encouraging violence against the US military and Iraqi officials and of promoting sectarian divisions.

Yesterday`s ban was the first against the international press in Iraq but it was a watered-down version of a decision reached in private by the US-appointed council on Monday.

A draft order had been written on Monday night to expel journalists working for the networks from Iraq for a month but it was scaled back without explanation.

Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesman for Ahmad Chalabi, the council`s president, said the ban was "a positive step to protect the Iraqi people from the poisons being broadcast by the channels". He suggested that reporters from the networks were warned about attacks on US convoys. Both companies deny the allegations.

"We will not let them broadcast footage of US soldiers being ripped apart," Mr Qanbar said, warning that fines could follow.

Although the council had voted to expel the networks, only the US and UK would have the authority to carry out such a measure, as the occupying powers in Iraq.

Paul Bremer, the US administrator of Iraq, who was in the US yesterday, can veto all the council`s decisions.

The council issued a statement last night, signed by Iyad Allawi, the acting president. It said the ban was a "warning and temporary measure".

"Correspondents of the two channels will not be permitted to enter the ministries or government buildings for two weeks," it said. "The governing council reserves the right to take additional measures when necessary without prior warning."

Both al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya yesterday strongly defended their coverage of Iraq. The two networks have a large team of correspondents and freelancers based across the country and are frequently several hours ahead of most western media in reporting attacks on the US military. Both have broadcast statements by Saddam Hussein and militant groups, some of which have threatened members of the governing council.

"This is going to be the first real test of the council, a group of people who call themselves democratic," said Amr El-Kahky, an al-Jazeera correspondent in Baghdad who worked for the BBC Arabic Service in London for seven years.

"We don`t have views we just report what is happening on the ground. We are not enemies here, we are not part of the conflict. We try to achieve objectivity and we always will."


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Bush isolated as speech to UN falls flat
Gary Younge in New York
Wednesday September 24, 2003
The Guardian

George Bush was increasingly isolated on the global stage yesterday as he defied intense criticism from a litany of world leaders at the United Nations over the war on Iraq.

Showing no contrition for defying the world body in March or the declining security situation in Iraq, the US president called for the world to set aside past differences and help rebuild the country: "Now the nation of Iraq needs and deserves our aid - and all nations of goodwill should step forward and provide that support," he said.

But the French president, Jacques Chirac, who spoke after Mr Bush, blamed the US-led war for sparking one of the most severe crises in the history of the UN and argued that Mr Bush`s unilateral actions could lead to anarchy.

"No one can act alone in the name of all and no one can accept the anarchy of a society without rules," he said. "The war, launched without the authorisation of the security council, shook the multilateral system. The UN has just been through one of the most grave crises in its history."

Earlier the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, condemned the doctrine of preemptive military intervention, arguing that it could lead to the unjustified "lawless use of force" and posed a "fundamental challenge" to world peace and stability.

"My concern is that, if it were to be adopted, it could set precedents that resulted in a proliferation of the unilateral and lawless use of force, with or without credible justification," said Mr Annan. "This logic represents a fundamental challenge to the principles on which, however imperfectly, world peace and stability have rested for the last 58 years."

The Brazilian president Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who also spoke before Mr Bush, said: "A war can perhaps be won single-handedly. But peace - lasting peace - cannot be secured without the support of all."

Mr Bush`s speech was received with polite applause from the 191-member states, while his critics were given a far warmer reception.

The American president was not just under fire for his decision to wage war without international consent but also for his refusal to move more quickly towards handing control of the country back to the Iraqi people.

Both Mr Chirac and the German chancellor Gerhard Schröder, called for a transition within months, insisting that this was crucial to securing peace. Mr Bush has not laid out a timetable. "This process must unfold according to the needs of Iraqis - neither hurried nor delayed by the voices of other parties," he said.

Mr Bush is under increasing domestic political pressure to outline a strategy to get out of Iraq, where increasing military casualties and growing financial burden on a strained economy are draining support ahead of next year`s presidential election.

Having bypassed the UN to bomb Iraq, America returned to the security council earlier this month asking for military and financial help to assist it with the costs of the occupation. The resolution is currently before the security council, where France has the power of veto.


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UN loses patience with the American way
Gary Younge in New York
Wednesday September 24, 2003
The Guardian

Old transatlantic wounds within the United Nations security council were reopened yesterday, as France condemned American unilateralism and demanded a rapid transition to democracy and the United States defended the war and insisted the move to Iraqi sovereignty would not be rushed.

On the face of it their positions seem to have hardened. "In an open world, no one can isolate themselves, no one can act alone in the name of all, and no one can accept the anarchy of a society without rules," said the French president, Jacques Chirac, in one of his most explicit attacks to date. "There is no alternative to the United Nations."

Meanwhile the US president, George Bush, insisted it had been right to fight the war, even raising the issue of weapons of mass of destruction and linking the former Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, to terrorism.

"The regime of Saddam Hussein cultivated ties to terror while it built weapons of mass destruction. It used those weapons in acts of mass murder, and refused to account for them when confronted by the world," he said.

But behind the rhetoric the battle lines were being drawn. The French were making it clear who was to blame for the mayhem in Iraq. The Americans wanted everyone to know that while they had returned to the UN for help, this was not an admission of guilt.

America has clearly lost the sympathy of an important mediator, the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan. Abandoning his usual bridge-building and fence-sitting language, he delivered a clear critique of preventive action as outlined and practised by the Bush administration, warning that it could lead to "lawlessness" and threaten "stability".

Mr Annan said the UN charter allows military action for the purpose of self-defence, but "until now it has been understood that when states go beyond that and decide to use force to deal with broader threats to international peace and security, they need the unique legitimacy provided by the United Nations.

"Now some say this understanding is no longer tenable since an `armed attack` with weapons of mass destruction could be launched at any time.

"This logic represents a fundamental challenge to the principles on which, however imperfectly, world peace and stability have rested for the last 58 years."

The French have made it clear they have no intention of vetoing the forthcoming resolution. But along with many other security council members, they have argued that if there is to be a multilateral force there must be shared responsibility for decision-making and a greater role for the United Nations.

Mr Bush gave a nod in that direction, insisting America was keen to "expand the UN`s role in Iraq. As in the aftermath of other conflicts, the United Nations should assist in developing a constitution, training civil servants and conducting free and fair elections."

At this stage, this does not appear to be enough for most members of the security council. And central to the debate is the issue of a timetable for the handover of power from the occupation forces to a sovereign Iraqi government.

"This process must unfold according to the needs of Iraqis, neither hurried nor delayed by the voices of other parties," Mr Bush said, giving a diplomatic jab to both the French and the Germans.

Both Mr Chirac and his German counterpart, Gerhard Schröder, believe that the move to Iraqi sovereignty is crucial to restoring security in the country.

"In Iraq, the transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis, who must have sole responsibility for their future, is essential for stability and reconstruction," Mr Chirac said. Both he and Mr Schröder have said they would like to see the transition take place within months.

In all this there is little doubt about who has most to lose. Since Mr Bush`s televised address in which he announced that the bill for rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan would be $87bn, his approval ratings have been in freefall. So long as the number of casualties in Iraq keeps rising and the economy remains stagnant there is little of hope of him rebounding.

More contrition before the international community might have eased the way to a favourable resolution. It would also have amounted to an admission of failure for the foreign policy decision most likely to define his presidency.

Bush: `Iraq needs the help of friends`

· "The regime of Saddam Hussein cultivated ties to terror while it built weapons of mass destruction. It used those weapons in acts of mass murder, and refused to account for them when confronted.

The security council was right to vow serious consequences if Iraq refused to comply. And because there were consequences, because a coalition acted to defend the peace, and the credibility of the UN, Iraq is free, and today we are joined by representatives of a liberated country ...

I recognise that some of the sovereign nations of this assembly disagreed with our actions. Yet there was, and there remains, unity among us on the fundamental principles and objectives of the UN.

We are dedicated to the defence of our collective security, and to the advance of human rights. These commitments call us to great work in the world, work we must do together.

The primary goal of our coalition in Iraq is self-government, reached by orderly and democratic means. This process must unfold according to the needs of Iraqis, neither hurried nor delayed by the wishes of other parties. And the UN can contribute greatly to Iraqi self-government.

America is working with friends and allies on a new security council resolution, which will expand the UN`s role in Iraq. The UN should assist in developing a constitution, training civil servants, and conducting free and fair elections.

Iraq`s new leaders are showing the openness and tolerance that democracy requires, and the courage. Yet every young democracy needs the help of friends. Now Iraq needs and deserves our aid, and all nations of goodwill should step forward."

Annan: `This is a decisive moment`

"We have come to a fork in the road. This may be a moment no less decisive than 1945 itself, when the United Nations was founded.

At that time, a group of far-sighted leaders, led and inspired by President Franklin Roosevelt ... drew up rules to govern international behaviour and founded a network of institutions with the United Nations at its centre, in which the peoples of the world could work together for the common good.

Now we must decide whether it is possible to continue on the basis agreed then or whether radical changes are needed.

Until now it has been understood that when states decide to use force to deal with broader threats to international peace and security, they need the unique legitimacy provided by the United Nations.

Now, some say this understanding is no longer ten able, since an armed attack with weapons of mass destruction could be launched at any time, without warning, or by a clandestine group. Rather than wait for that to happen, they argue, states have the obligation to use force pre-emptively, even on the territory of other states.

This logic represents a fundamental challenge to the principles on which world peace and stability have rested for the last 58 years.

But it is not enough to denounce unilateralism, unless we also face up squarely to the concerns that make some states feel uniquely vulnerable, and thus drive them to take unilateral action. We must show that those concerns can, and will, be addressed effectively through collective action.

History is a harsh judge - it will not forgive us if we let this moment pass."

Chirac: `There is no alternative to the UN`

"The United Nations has just weathered one of its most serious trials in its history ... The war, which was started without the authorisation of the security council, has shaken the multilateral system ...

There is no alternative to the United Nations. But in order to meet today`s challenges, this funda mental choice expressed by the charter requires a far-reaching reform of our organisation ... Multilateralism is crucial because it ensures the participation by all in managing the affairs of the world ...

In Iraq, the transfer of sovereignty to the Iraqis, who must have sole responsibility for their destiny, is essential for stability and reconstruction ...

It is up to the United Nations to lend its legitimacy to that process ... It is also up to the UN to assist with the gradual transfer of administrative and economic responsibilities to the Iraqi institutions ...

We are using force to combat terrorism, but that is not enough. It will re-emerge again and again if we allow extremism and fanaticism to flourish, if we fail to realise that it seeks justification in unresolved conflicts and economic and social imbalances in the world ...

Given the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, we reject the policy of fait accompli.

The United Nations suffers from the current weakness of the general assembly and yet it is here a debate should be organised and where a consensus should be crafted regarding solutions to major problems. A culture of confrontation must give way to a culture of action, aimed at achieving our common goals."


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Why gather intelligence if our leaders deliberately ignore it?
What Hutton reveals is the corruption of the security services

Jonathan Freedland
Wednesday September 24, 2003
The Guardian

One moment of testimony at yesterday`s Hutton inquiry had everyone nodding in agreement. The public were getting bored with the story, recalled the prime minister`s spokesman, Godric Smith, from the witness box. He was casting his mind back to the early summer when the Kelly affair had already dragged on a while: everyone was anxious, he said, to move on.

That prompted a muttered ripple of "hear hears", at least in the marquee set up for the press. Reporters who have sat on folding chairs, staring at screens relaying live pictures from court 73, day after day since mid-August can at last see an end to their ordeal. No more squinting at documents, no more decoding civil servants and their language of mandarin. Tomorrow, Lord Hutton will sum up his inquiry and withdraw to write his report which will be delivered in November.

It will doubtless run to several volumes, the kind of thing Robin Cook can read in an hour-and-a-half, but which most ordinary mortals will barely be able to lift. This group will turn instead to that handiest of crib sheets, the executive summary. What will we read there? Probably an elegantly worded rebuke to both the BBC and the government for allowing their titanic battle to converge on a single human being who could not take the strain.

Hutton may well further reproach the government for the way it named David Kelly, and condemn the BBC for sloppy internal practices. Both sides will step forward, bite their lower lip and insist they have learned their lesson: they will promise an overhaul in the way they do business and a new commitment to listen to their critics. And they will both offer lambs of sacrifice, most likely Geoff Hoon for the one side and Andrew Gilligan for the other.

But what would a more direct, less even-handed Hutton report say? It might begin with a complaint about its remit. Confined to investigating "the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr Kelly", it was logically obliged to become obsessed with the way the weapons expert was shoved out of the shadows and into the public gaze. Hutton and his legal lieutenants had to spend hour after interminable hour on the "naming strategy" because it was his public outing that seems to have placed the psychological pressure on Dr Kelly.

But that inevitably diverted attention and energy from what surely mattered far more, at least to those outside the Kelly family: namely, the original accusation of political manipulation of intelligence. Here, most expect Hutton to let the government off pretty lightly. The conventional wisdom is that, in all the thousands of documents, no evidence has emerged to vindicate Gilligan`s first report on the Today programme. The trouble here - and it was partly of Gilligan`s own making - is that the bar was set too high. True, there has been no smoking email in which Alastair Campbell explicitly orders John Scarlett of the joint intelligence committee to make up a claim about Iraq`s 45-minute capability. But that does not mean that Gilligan was fantasising. On the contrary, Hutton has uncovered much to suggest that, while a couple of details were badly awry, the Today correspondent was on to something serious: that, under this administration, the politicisation of intelligence has indeed reached a new pitch.

The evidence was on show again yesterday. Campbell`s 15-point memo to Scarlett, attached to a list of comments from Blair himself, with its suggested rewrites to the September dossier is proof that No 10`s political advisers were leaning on the spooks to harden up the JIC assessment. Constantly, Campbell is asking for "weak" statements to be replaced by "stronger" ones, for "may" and "might" to become are and will. Even when he calls for some language to be cooled down, it is only for stylistic effect, knowing that a sober intelligence report will always have greater power than florid rhetoric. What was this but political pressure to beef up the dossier?

The commentariat has accepted Scarlett`s defence that these were mere "presentational" matters on which it was perfectly proper for a communications pro like Campbell to advise. But when it comes to intelligence that distinction between language and content is bogus. As Brian Jones, the retired branch head of the defence intelligence analysis staff, told the inquiry, the changes that were being sought "were about language but language is the means by which we communicate an assessment so they were also about the assessment". Put simply, a dossier consists of nothing but words: if you change the words, you change the assessment. And that is what Campbell did.

There is a more basic point. Until Kelly, most people assumed that government security decisions were based on intelligence. Yet Hutton has shown that, in the Iraq case, it was the other way around.

First came the decision - to make war on Iraq - and next came the search for evidence. Why else would Scarlett`s bosses have ordered him to drop his inquiries into North Korea and Iran and focus solely on Baghdad? If they were genuinely interested in assessing the most pressing threat to security, they would have waited to hear which state posed the chief menace. But the government`s mind had already been made up.

The pattern is not confined to Britain. Our coalition partners were up to the same tricks. In the US, too, the working method was conclusions first, evidence later. Democratic presidential candidate and former general Wesley Clark has told how he was phoned on 9/11 by "people around the White House" urging him to blame the attacks on Saddam Hussein. Never mind the lack of proof, it was the end goal that mattered.

If London and Washington had been truly interested in what their intelligence services had to say, they might have drawn very different conclusions. In October 2002 the CIA concluded that Saddam posed little threat - and was only likely to strike at the US if attacked first. Britain`s own intelligence chiefs warned this February that al-Qaida remained the greatest danger to western interests "and that threat would be heightened by military action against Iraq". But neither of these assessments fitted the policy that had already been decided, and so they were ignored.

This is a perverse way for governments to make choices about national security. Hutton might put it like this: what is the point of costly and elaborate intelligence agencies if their advice is to be ignored? Why have them if they are not to be listened to, but used merely as a public relations device, to attach the glamour and gravitas of "intelligence" to what is essentially a political decision?

We learned this week that Colin Powell and even Condoleezza Rice were happily declaring that Iraq posed no threat and had no weapons of destruction as recently as the spring of 2001. But 9/11 came along, the hawks won the upper hand and the decision was taken. One of the steps on the way was the corruption of intelligence. If Hutton wants to deliver one hard-hitting conclusion, let it be that.

· [e-mail]


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Bush`s plea for UN help in Iraq sparks hostile response
By David Usborne in New York
24 September 2003


President George Bush was accused at the United Nations yesterday of undermining the system of multilateral security by going to war in Iraq without authorisation from the Security Council.

The criticism was led by the French President, Jacques Chirac, who used the annual General Assembly of the UN, the first time world leaders had gathered in New York since the invasion of Iraq, to blame Mr Bush for the crisis of confidence facing the world body. By extension his criticism was also directed at Tony Blair, who did not attend.

"The war, launched without the authorisation of the Security Council, shook the multilateral system," M. Chirac said. "The UN has just been through one of the most grave crises in its history."

M. Chirac`s sentiments were echoed by Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, who warned that pre-emptive unilateral military action without the authorisation of the UN risked a move to the law of the jungle.

"My concern is that it could set precedents resulting in a proliferation of the unilateral and lawless use of force, with or without credible justification," Mr Annan told the assembly to sustained applause. He did not mention the United States by name. As a result of the Iraqi crisis, the UN, he said, was at a "fork in the road".

Mr Bush, for his part, defended the war without apology, despite the continuing violence in the country and absence of any evidence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.

Indeed Mr Bush raised the issue of the weapons once again: "The regime of Saddam Hussein cultivated ties to terror while it built weapons of mass destruction. It used those weapons in acts of mass murder, and refused to account for them when confronted by the world."

Tensions over Iraq and the war infused the mood of the Assembly`s opening day. Mr Bush also made an implicit jab at M. Chirac, rejecting French proposals for an immediate transfer of symbolic sovereignty to the Governing Council in Iraq followed by the granting of full authority within nine months.

"The primary goal of our coalition in Iraq is self-government for the people of Iraq, reached by orderly and democratic means ... [the] process must unfold according to the needs of Iraqis - neither hurried nor delayed by the voices of other parties," he said.

While acknowledging that differences remained over Iraq, Mr Bush appealed to other nations to help the reconstruction effort. He also said he was ready to give the UN a greater role in helping to establish democratic rule.

Among those listening in the chamber was Ahmed Chalabi, the holder of the rotating presidency of the Governing Council of Iraq.

Mr Bush said: "As in the aftermath of other conflicts, the UN should assist in developing a constitution, training civil servants and conducting free and fair elections."

Behind the scenes, efforts are still under way to negotiate a new UN resolution, drafted by the US and aimed at getting countries such as India and Pakistan to contribute forces to restoring order in Iraq. Despite the differences between Paris and Washington, President Chirac has signalled that his government will not veto the resolution.

M. Chirac played down his disputes with Mr Bush. But before the full chamber of the assembly, he roundly voiced his complaints about the coalition invasion of Iraq.

"No one should be able to accord himself the right to use force unilaterally and preventatively," M. Chirac proclaimed. "In an open world, no one can isolate themselves, no one can act alone in the name of all and no one can accept the anarchy of a society without rules. There is no alternative but the UN."

Mr Annan said members had to recommit to multilateralism. "This may be a moment no less decisive than 1945 itself, when the UN was founded.

"It is not enough to denounce unilateralism, unless we also face up squarely to the concerns that make some states feel uniquely vulnerable, and thus drive them to take unilateral action.

"We must show that those concerns can, and will, be addressed effectively through collective action."
24 September 2003 09:40



© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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America`s toothless ` interim council` roars like a lion - against the press
Iraqi broadcasters risk being closed if they put Saddam`s voice on air
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp?story=446…

By Robert Fisk in Baghdad
24 September 2003

BAGHDAD - Sewage is coming through the manhole covers, there`s still only 15 hours electricity a day and anarchy grips the streets of Baghdad, but yesterday America`s toothless Iraqi `interim council` roared like a lion, issuing a set of restrictions and threats against - the press, of course.

Aimed primarily at Arab satellite channels `Al-Djazeera` and `Arabia`, which always air Saddam Hussein`s tape recordings, the almost Orwellian rules -- each of which begin with the words `do not` -- mean that Iraqi or foreign press and television news organisations can be closed down if they "advocate the return of the Baath party or issue any statements that represent the Baath directly or indirectly (sic)."

The council, which was appointed by US proconsul Paul Bremer, admitted yesterday that it had consulted Mr. Bremer`s legal advisers before issuing its set of restrictions.

True to the chaos that governs Baghdad, the council`s spokesman, Intefadh Qanbar - Ahmed Chalabi`s man - initially said that `Al-Djazeera` and `Arabia` were to be closed down in Iraq.

Within two hours, it emerged that the two Arabic language channels would be punished for their alleged transgressions by being refused all co-operation by the `interim council` for two weeks - a punishment many journalists here would wish to have inflicted on them.

But the list nevertheless provides an intriguing reflection on the `democracy` which Mr. Bremer-who ordered his legal advisers to draw up censorship rules in the late spring - wishes to bestow on Iraqis.

Some of the restrictions are so self-evident as to be naive.

"Do not incite violence against any person or group," for example, could have been enshrined in any civil law rather than a set of press restrictions.

"Do not incite violence against the authorities or people in a position of responsibility," falls into the same category.

But the references to the Baath party are clearly intended to prevent Iraqis hearing Saddam`s voice.

Both Arab stations have run Saddam`s tapes in full, including his most sinister address with its worrying expression of affection for the people of Baghdad - "I miss you, my dears" - but the rule shows just how fearful the US authorities have now become of Saddam`s sympathisers.

After telling the world that most Iraqis are delighted with their `liberation` and forthcoming `democracy`, the authorities are obviously aware that many Iraqis don`t feel that way at all.

Journalists and others must also inform the authorities of "any acts of sabotage, criminal activity, terrorism or any violent action...before or after an attack takes place."

Journalists - not even `Al-Djazeera`s` - receive advance warning of ambushes but the rule is effectively asking them to become assistants to the occupation authorities.

Many Iraqis would say, with good reason, that the fearful US troops who have killed so many innocent Iraqis before, during or after attacks on their convoys, are just as dangerous to them as the guerrillas assaulting the Americans.

And clearly, the restrictions can be interpreted to embrace just about any reporter in Iraq.

A dispatch quoting Saddam or describing the Americans` sometimes brutal house raids can be deemed to have `represented` the Baath party or incited Iraqis to violence.

There have been instances in the flourishing new Iraqi free press - there are now more than a hundred newspapers in Baghdad alone - of incitement to `jihad` against the occupation authorities and totally false information about the behaviour of US troops.

But the opening of a journalism school would do more good than yesterday`s `do not` list.

As it is, even reporting yesterday`s killing - or killings - near the Sunni city of Falujah by a missile-firing American helicopter - could fall into `incitement to violence`.

US forces say they came under fire from a house in the city and killed "one enemy".

But hospital doctors gave the names of three men killed, all members of the same family: Ali, Saad and Salem al-Jumaili.

One of them was said to be an innocent farmer whose two children were wounded when he was killed.

American troops were later seen taking photographs inside the two buildings that were hit.

Pools of blood lay across the floor.

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September 24, 2003
NEWS ANALYSIS
Audience Unmoved During Bush`s Address at the U.N.
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN


UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 23 — A president who has led his forces to victory, ostensibly on behalf of the United Nations, would in theory deserve a hero`s welcome. But that was not what President Bush encountered in an icy chamber here today, almost five months after he declared an end to major hostilities in Iraq.

Without apology, Mr. Bush declared that the Security Council had been "right to demand that Iraq destroy its illegal weapons and prove that it had done so" and "right to vow serious consequences if Iraq refused to comply." The United States, he said, had not only unseated Saddam Hussein but also defended "the credibility of the United Nations."

But that was not how others, from the secretary general of the United Nations to the French president, saw it. The invasion of Iraq, to them, remained a dangerous act of unilateralism now beset by intractable problems.

The audience of world leaders seemed to perceive an American president weakened by plunging approval ratings at home, facing a tough security situation in Iraq where American soldiers are dying every week, and confronted by the beginnings of a revolt against the American timetable for self-rule by several Iraqi leaders installed by the United States.

Nor did they seem eager to help. If anything, they appeared more skeptical than ever of Mr. Bush`s assertions, including his promise to "reveal the full extent" of illegal weapons programs he says exist in Iraq, and unforthcoming, at least for now, in their response to his appeal for help with the Iraq occupation and reconstruction.

Despite good marks from many for his performance, Mr. Bush did not seem to have advanced his administration toward broadening support for a Security Council resolution to expand the United Nations role in Iraq, a step intended to get more foreign troops and more foreign money for rebuilding.

"He gave a very sincere speech, but I don`t think there was anything new," said a diplomat here. "The situation in Iraq is getting more difficult every day, and so is the atmosphere at the United Nations."

But today it was more obvious than ever that the key to getting troops and money for Iraq was in the hands of nations that, like France, opposed the war or were uneasy about it.

President Jacques Chirac of France, appearing shortly after Mr. Bush at the General Assembly, was no less apologetic opposing the war than Mr. Bush had been in urging it. He called the divisions over the war one of the gravest threats to multilateral institutions like the United Nations in modern times.

There was another grim reality here today. Even if the United States gets the resolution it desires, the money and troops may not be forthcoming in a way that the Bush administration had hoped. If the goal today was to cajole other countries and persuade them to be more forthcoming with their assistance, it failed to produce any immediate results.

A month ago, administration officials said they wanted billions of dollars pledged for Iraq at a meeting of donor nations in Madrid next month. It now appears they will have to settle for a fraction of that, which will complicate efforts to get the rest from Congress.

Increasingly, as well, the nations that have been asked to send forces to Iraq are not coming through. India and Pakistan now seem to be long shots. South Korea says it cannot decide until the end of October.

Turkey is being asked to send 10,000 troops, but "several thousand might be more realistic," a Turkish official said.

Mr. Bush`s performance today seemed to reflect the precarious situation.

Fidgeting in an almost eerily silent hall — where the audience observed a tradition of not applauding before or during a speech and offered only perfunctory applause at the end — the president spoke in an even tone, occasionally smiling but rarely becoming passionate.

In the corridors all day, diplomats were intensely discussing the recent decline in Mr. Bush`s popularity at home and wondering if his troubles would make it easier for countries around the world to oppose the United States on Iraq.

The speech was built around the theme that the war in Iraq was a chapter in the campaign against terrorism being waged to avenge the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, and similar attacks in Mombasa, Kenya; Casablanca, Morocco; Riyadh, Saudi Arabia; Jakarta and Bali in Indonesia; and Jerusalem.

To this list he added the attack on the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad last month that killed the United Nations special envoy in Iraq, Sergio Vieira de Mello, praised by Mr. Bush as "this good and brave man from Brazil."

Without going so far as to say the United States needed the United Nations in Iraq, Mr. Bush said it was the fledgling government in Baghdad that needed United Nations assistance in developing a constitution, democratic institutions, and holding elections.

But Mr. Bush`s vision of the United Nations role continued to be less than the one desired by France, Germany and many others skeptical of the sweeping powers of the American-led occupation, which is called the Coalition Provision Authority. "He said he wanted the United Nations to assist," declared a diplomat here. "But assist what? Assist who? The Coalition Provisional Authority? Please."

A rainstorm lashed the United Nations buildings this morning, while inside another illustration of the tempests over the war emerged in the address by Secretary General Kofi Annan, who deplored the administration doctrine of pre-emptive action epitomized by the Iraqi war.

As if in counterpoint, Mr. Bush defiantly repeated the doctrine, saying that "nations of the world must have the wisdom and the will to stop grave threats before they arrive."

American officials are working to try to broker a compromise on a new resolution that would get French support, but Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, are making clear there will be no early turning over of sovereignty to the Iraqi Governing Council, as France wants.

The main grounds for compromise appear to lie in the possibility of a fixed timetable for the transition to self-rule. Americans said they were cheered by Mr. Chirac`s endorsement of what he said was a "realistic timetable" — words that, to some ears, left room for something taking place over time.

"We will make enough changes in the resolution to get others on board," said an administration official. "If it turns out that France is on board, so be it. But we`re not jumping over hurdles to try to get France into this."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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September 24, 2003
REACTION
Bush`s Remarks Draw Skepticism
By FELICITY BARRINGER


UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 23 — President Bush`s urging that "all nations of good will" should support the reconstruction and political transformation of Iraq met today with a largely skeptical response, laced with some general expressions of approval, in both the General Assembly and in capitals around the world.

By the rough measurement of applause, the appeal of Mr. Bush`s remarks fell well behind those of President Jacques Chirac of France, his chief rival for hearts and minds in the arena of international diplomacy. In his speech, Mr. Chirac declared that multilateralism "is a guarantee of legitimacy and democracy, especially in matters regarding the use of force or laying down universal norms."

In remarks to a Russian television correspondent after the morning session, Moscow`s foreign minister, Igor S. Ivanov, chose not to criticize Mr. Bush directly, falling back instead on a general endorsement of multilateralism. "Every country, small and large, should strictly respect international law," he said. "Only in this way can we tackle such problems as terrorism, organized crime and nonproliferation."

President Pervez Musharraf of Pakistan said Mr. Bush`s speech "was good, very forceful," adding: "It encompassed all the issues that face the world today. It was a very balanced speech." But he remained noncommittal about whether Pakistan could aid the effort in Iraq unless its troops could be part of a Muslim force that was invited to help by Iraqis themselves.

Most diplomats and scholars focused on Mr. Bush`s unapologetic tone on the subject of the war in Iraq. A United Nations official, speaking on condition that he not be identified, said he thought the president`s remarks were tailored "for a domestic audience," because they seemed not to have much resonance among the representatives of 191 nations gathered here for the annual General Assembly.

In her speech this afternoon, President Megawati Sukarnoputri of Indonesia, the world`s most populous Muslim nation, said: "The war has created far many more problems than those it intended to solve. I do believe that a great many lessons can be learned from the Iraq war" — in particular, that unilateralism carries heavy costs.

Some commentators around the world thought the target audience for the Bush speech might have been leaders of nations from which Washington is seeking money or troops.

Prof. Ernst-Otto Czempiel, a leading foreign policy expert at Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Frankfurt, said that given Mr. Bush`s tough tone, and the gulf between Europe and the United States, the main targets of today`s speech might not have been Mr. Chirac or the German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, but leaders of other nations that might offer support in Iraq, like Turkey or India.

He added that Mr. Bush`s message, as he read it, was: "Allies should give some help, but should not expect to co-determine the future of Iraq."

In effect, Professor Czempiel said, the speech could be seen as a barometer of Mr. Bush`s problems in Iraq. "The situation is not so desperate that he needs to make any concessions now," he said. But, he added: "The situation in Iraq is likely to deteriorate further, with more guerrilla fighting and U.S. casualties. If this happens, Bush will be forced to make some concessions."

Guillaume Parmentier, director of the French Center on the United States at the French Institute for International Relations, called Mr. Bush`s speech disappointing, adding: "The president seemed to say a few nice things about the U.N., the idea that the differences during the war should be placed behind us, but on the other hand, didn`t seem to be willing to give very much on the authority of who will determine the future of Iraq. Nor did he say anything about the responsibility of the United States for the security of Iraq which under international law is clearly the responsibility of the occupying power."

Several people commented on the contrast between Mr. Bush`s remarks and those of Secretary General Kofi Annan, who preceded him, and Mr. Chirac, who followed.

Mr. Annan, in a sharp rebuke of the United States` pursuit of war without an explicit Security Council mandate, said the doctrine of pre-emptive action "could set precedents that resulted in a proliferation of the unilateral and lawless use of force, with or without justification."

Menzies Campbell, the foreign affairs spokesman for the Liberal Democrat Party in Britain, a party that has been critical of Britain`s going to war, said the speech would do little to convince skeptics in Europe that they had enough of a stake in Iraq to help out the Anglo-American coalition.

"From the reaction of the U.N. General Assembly," Mr. Campbell said, "President Bush is going to have to go a long way further before he can persuade France and Germany and other countries who were skeptical about the war in Iraq to now take a serious hand in its reconstruction.

"Kofi Annan`s carefully chosen words contained a rebuke of unilateralism and pre-emptive strikes," he added, "and there clearly is a great deal to be done in New York before it can be said that the U.N. has overcome the strains of the last 12 months."

Jean Chrétien, the Canadian prime minister, struck a more conciliatory note at a news conference here this afternoon, saying that despite the significant differences between Washington and Paris, "This is a matter of knowing that there are ways to provide an acceptable solution. Reason will prevail."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

[Joerver]

September 24, 2003
Clinton `History` Doesn`t Repeat Itself in China
By JOSEPH KAHN


BEIJING, Sept. 23 — In her autobiography, "Living History," Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton recounts how China`s imprisonment of a prominent human rights activist, Harry Wu, caused a sensation in the United States and nearly derailed her plans to attend a United Nations women`s conference held in Beijing in 1995.

In the officially licensed Chinese edition of Mrs. Clinton`s book, though, Mr. Wu makes just a cameo appearance. While named, he is otherwise identified only as a person who was "prosecuted for espionage and detained awaiting trial."

Mrs. Clinton`s book has become a major best seller in China, as it has in the United States, and her smiling likeness decorates bookstores and airport shops nationwide. Yilin Press, the government-owned publisher of the mainland version of the book, says it has become the most popular foreign political memoir in Chinese history, with 200,000 copies sold in just over a month.

But nearly everything Mrs. Clinton had to say about China, including descriptions of her own visits here, former President Bill Clinton`s meetings with Chinese leaders and her criticisms of Communist Party social controls and human rights policies, has been shortened or selectively excerpted to remove commentary deemed offensive by Beijing.

The Chinese publisher has acknowledged making changes in the text but said they were "minor, technical" alternations that did not affect the integrity of the book.

Mrs. Clinton and Simon & Schuster, her American publisher, dispute that. "I was amazed and outraged to hear about this," Senator Clinton said in Washington today. "They censored my book, just like they tried to censor me."

In a statement issued today, a day after Mrs. Clinton was alerted to the editing changes by The New York Times, a spokesman for Mrs. Clinton said Simon & Schuster had sent a letter to the Chinese publishing house demanding that it recall the Chinese edition and provide a new translation that faithfully adheres to the original.

Robert Barnett, a lawyer for the Clintons who has overseen the book`s domestic and international release, said the changes had been made without consultation, adding, "The senator will do everything she can to make sure that her readers in China get an accurate translation of her book."

Simon & Schuster prepared a new translation of passages dealing with China and posted them on its Web site today.

China often censors political content in its newspapers, television broadcasts, films, books and many of the arts, as well as the Internet. The authorities also routinely ban the publication or screening of foreign books or films that depict China in a negative light.

But the publication of books like "Living History" is part of an effort to show that China is becoming a more open society. China has been publishing more foreign titles and screening more imported films recently, at least partly fulfilling commitments to loosen media controls that it made as a condition of entering the World Trade Organization.

The heavy promotion of Mrs. Clinton`s book initially seemed to signal new tolerance, given that the English version refers repeatedly, and in some cases pointedly, to Chinese political repression, the status of Tibet and other topics that are not generally discussed here.

In fact, the publisher has advertised the book — titled "Qinli Lishi," which translates to something like "Personal History" — as the most unabridged foreign political memoir in Chinese publishing history.

"In the past, translated books always had some cuts," an official of Yilin Press told the Beijing Evening News after the book`s release last month. "But the Chinese translation of this keeps 99.9 percent of the original`s content."

What the official did not mention is that the other one-tenth of 1 percent, if the edited passages indeed constitute such a tiny fraction of the total, involve most references to China itself.

The manuscript appears to have been combed for even stray mentions of China or its leaders, though the Chinese editors did not mark or otherwise indicate where they had made changes or elisions in the 466-page text.

For example, while Mrs. Clinton`s English text discusses her concerns about China`s treatment of the women`s groups that attended the 1995 United Nations conference on women, the Chinese version leaves that part out. It also deletes a paragraph in which she criticizes the Chinese for not allowing a speech she made to be broadcast, in effect censoring references to censorship.

Though the Chinese edition includes much of Mrs. Clinton`s account of her visit to China in 1998 with President Clinton, it selectively strikes out sensitive passages, including her statement that she was "haunted by the events at Tiananmen," the violent crackdown on a student-led pro-democracy demonstration in 1989.

The Chinese version says Mrs. Clinton attended a Protestant religious service in Beijing but omits a line that religious freedom was still "a right forbidden to many."

Mrs. Clinton`s original version included a lighthearted story that needled the Chinese for making extensive preparations for a visit by foreign dignitaries.

She wrote that before she had stopped for an informal lunch in Shanghai, the police had replaced the staff in nearby stores with "attractive young people wearing Western clothes." That anecdote did not make the cut in the Chinese book.

Mr. Barnett said the changes constituted a breach of contract. The agreement between Simon & Schuster and Yilin Press, he said, allows only modifications that are essential "to achieve a competent and idiomatic translation."

When first asked about the editing, Liu Feng, the deputy editor in chief of Yilin Press, said that any changes were minor and that allegations of a breach of contract were "at the very least inappropriate."

But later today, after Mr. Liu said officials at the company had reviewed a letter from Simon & Schuster complaining about the changes, he described the American publisher`s concerns as understandable.

He said Mrs. Clinton`s book had been translated hurriedly because Yilin as the official publisher had to compete against China`s vigorous black market in unauthorized versions of best-selling books. As such, he said, Yilin had no time to discuss changes with Simon & Schuster.

Despite competition from pirate publishers, Mrs. Clinton`s book appears to have been a financial windfall for Yilin, which paid $20,000 for the publishing rights and has so far sold 200,000 copies at a cover price of $3.60.

Mr. Liu said the changes had been made by Yilin alone, without government consultation. Most state-owned media companies are not subject to advance censorship, though they can be held responsible if they publish something deemed offensive to the leadership.

The same company has already purchased the Chinese rights to sell Mr. Clinton`s forthcoming autobiography. "You can bet that translation will be carefully scrutinized," Mr. Barnett said.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

September 24, 2003
FATALITIES
2 Iraqi Boys, Injured, Tell of a Jet Attack in the Night
By ALEX BERENSON


SICHIR, Iraq, Sept. 23 — Tahseen Ali Khalaf was asleep beside his brother Hussein when the shooting started early this morning outside their ramshackle house in this farming community 40 miles west of Baghdad, he said.

Then a pair of United States fighter jets swooped in, dropping nearly a dozen bombs or missiles — it was not immediately clear which — in a highly unusual strike. Now Tahseen, 12, and Hussein, 10, are lying beside each other again, in the main hospital in nearby Falluja, a center of resistance to the American occupation. The hospital lately has tended to a number of apparently accidental victims of American attacks.

The air attack in Sichir killed three men and wounded another, in addition to Tahseen and Hussein, family members said today. They described an attack that seemingly came out of nowhere just before 2 a.m. An American ground patrol fired on their house, five rooms of dilapidated brick and concrete inside a cinder-block wall, for about 15 minutes, they said.

The patrol retreated for a few minutes, and then jets roared overhead and the ordnance fell, blasting a hole in a room used to store grain and throwing shrapnel and panic everywhere.

Ali Khalaf Muhammad, the father of Tahseen and Hussein, was hit by shrapnel and retreated to a corner of his room. There he tried without luck to staunch the bleeding that killed him, family members said. Salem Khalil Ismael and Sadi Fakhri Faiyadh, who were among the 15 family members sleeping at the house, also died, the family said.

Family members insisted they had offered no resistance to the American patrol. No bullet cartridges or weapons were visible this afternoon at their house, only bomb craters and holes punched in concrete by large-caliber weapons.

"We don`t have any bullets in the house — it`s a safe and quiet area," said Abd Rashid Muhammad, who was injured in the attack, from his hospital bed in Falluja. "Is it logical to attack children, people sleeping in their beds during the night?"

The American military confirmed the incident, including the air attack, but said soldiers had fired only after they had been fired upon.

"Soldiers from the 82nd Airborne were attacked by the enemy," said a spokesman, Specialist Anthony Reinoso. "The attackers fled into a building. Coalition forces pursued them and formed a defensive perimeter. Air support was called in to assist."

Specialist Reinoso said that only one "enemy" had been killed and was unaware of any people injured. No American troops were killed or wounded. He said he had no further information and did not know why the patrol had called in an air assault.

Since Saddam Hussein fell in April, the United States has rarely used warplanes in its battles with guerrillas, although fighters can sometimes be heard over Baghdad.

From a preliminary examination of the scene, it was obvious that a major attack had occurred. Bomb or missile craters dotted the yard of the house, and family members pointed to two places where the ordnance had landed but failed to detonate. Bullet holes punctured steel doors and shattered windows, as well as a picture of Mr. Muhammad that hung in the corner of the room where he died.

For the second time in two weeks, a unit of the 82nd Airborne appeared to have attacked an unresisting group of Iraqis. On Sept. 11, a patrol shot at a convoy of three Iraqi police vehicles on a road a few miles from here, killing at least eight officers and one Jordanian hospital worker.

"We are only peasants here," said Zaidan Khalaf Muhammad, the brother of Ali Muhammad. The American troops "came like terrorists."

Falluja, a city three miles south of Sichir, lies at the heart of the heavily pro-Saddam Sunni Triangle, where Americans have been under nearly constant guerrilla attack. But Zaidan Muhammad and other members of his family said that they were simple farmers who had never wished American troops harm. That may change now, they said.

"They are invaders, mercenaries," said Ghanem Muhammad, a cousin of Ali. "From now on, the war will start."

In keeping with Islamic tradition, which specifies that the dead be buried as quickly as possible, funerals for all three men were held today, the family said. Under a tent not far from the house, the men of the Muhammad family sat quietly in the midday heat, receiving visitors. Inside the house, women chanted and beat themselves in ritual mourning.

At the hospital in Falluja, Tahseen, Hussein and Abd Rashid Muhammad lay beside each other on three low beds in a room filled with flies. A cut ran across Tahseen`s forehead, while two bandages covered the wounds on the face of Hussein, who appeared to be the most seriously wounded of the three.

When the bombs fell, "I thought it was Ali Babas," Tahseen said, using Iraqi slang for thieves. "I didn`t realize it was Americans."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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September 24, 2003
THE MOOD
Bush`s Day at the U.N.: It`s Chilly, Still, There
By DAVID E. SANGER


WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 — George W. Bush got off to a rocky start with the United Nations even before he was elected president, with declarations at the end of the 2000 presidential campaign that the American military should not take part in the sort of "nation building" in the Balkans, or Somalia, for which the United Nations had long been known.

Once he became president, Mr. Bush quickly shifted tone on keeping troops in the Balkans, and indeed American troops are still in Bosnia and Kosovo. But for two and half years now his relationship with the United Nations has been largely one of mutual suspicion and frustration, punctuated by tactical alliances as Mr. Bush picks and chooses when to work with the United Nations — in combating AIDS and nuclear proliferation — and when to walk away.

So it was hardly surprising that there was a distinct chill in the General Assembly this morning as Mr. Bush came full circle, making a plea for the United Nations to take a bigger role in Iraq despite the bitter dispute this year over his decision to topple Saddam Hussein without the United Nations` explicit approval.

If there was any doubt that the breach between Mr. Bush and United Nations remains — wider than ever, by some measures — the evidence came today when Kofi Annan, the secretary general, roundly criticized "pre-emption," a core of Mr. Bush`s national security strategy.

Without naming the United States, Mr. Annan dismissed the argument that "states have the right and obligation to use force pre-emptively, even on the territory of other states and even while the weapon systems that might be used to attack them are still being developed."

Mr. Bush, he suggested, again not naming names, had presented "a fundamental challenge to the principles" on which the United Nations was born, under American leadership, six decades ago.

Once again, the United Nations and Mr. Bush seemed to be talking past each other.

Indeed, no matter how much they act collectively on AIDS, or sex trafficking, the Bush administration and the world organization designed on the principle of collective security may simply never agree on how to handle perceived threats to peace, Mr. Bush`s aides say.

"It`s the classic argument about how much of your nation`s security you can put in the hands of an institution that has often been dysfunctional," a senior Bush advisers said recently. "For George Bush, that`s not a question worth debating."

"For Dick Cheney," the official added, "it`s not even worth raising."

Within the White House, Mr. Bush`s aides insist that the president does not share the innate suspicion of the United Nations that some conservatives in his party have long voiced. They cite his decision a year ago to challenge the United Nations to enforce its own resolutions about Saddam Hussein — a decision that put the issue squarely in the Security Council — as evidence that he was willing to first let the United Nations deal with the issue. They cite his support of United Nations-affiliated institutions, like the International Atomic Energy Agency, as they confront Iran`s nuclear program.

"I actually think he wasn`t as far from the fold as people think," said Richard Haass, who left the top policy-planning job at the State Department this summer, and often argued for greater interaction with the United Nations. "After debate, they have taken the biggest foreign policy issues to the U.N.: post-9/11 Afghanistan and the run-up to the Iraq war."

But Mr. Haass noted that "this administration is also willing to bypass the U.N. when it feels frustrated."

"You are not seeing an unconditional commitment to the U.N. but also not undying hostility," he said.

Perhaps not, but to many in the United Nations it often seems that way.

To diplomats and others engaged in the United Nations, those campaign utterances signaled a new division of labor: the United States would handle showdowns, and others would handle the messy business of rebuilding.

Then came Mr. Bush`s rejection of the Kyoto protocol on global warming, and his withdrawal from the Antiballistic Missile Treaty. Those actions created the impression that given a choice between protecting American interests and working within a global system, Mr. Bush would regularly choose the former.

The Sept. 11 attacks seemed to have changed that. Mr. Bush received a huge outpouring of sympathy — and applause — when he came to the United Nations while the wreckage of the World Trade Center was still smoldering. Even last year`s address, when he challenged the United Nations to prove its relevancy, was well received, and he got the first resolution he sought, warning Mr. Hussein of "serious consequences" if he defied United Nations resolutions demanding disarmament.

But when Mr. Bush gave up on winning approval for military action in mid-March, he put the blame on the United Nations, declaring "the Security Council has not lived up to its responsibilities." He made it clear that he saw only a humanitarian role for the United Nations, not a political one.

Now he speaks of a United Nations role in drafting an Iraqi constitution — "I mean, they are good at that," he said in a television interview the other day — and to help oversee elections.

In the end, some of Mr. Bush`s advisers say, what is needed from the United Nations is legitimacy — for a new government in Iraq, for the American occupation and any new countries that choose to send troops.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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September 24, 2003
Finding a New Path in Iraq

On the surface, President Bush`s speech to the United Nations yesterday seemed a Panglossian report on how well things are going in Iraq with little to draw the broad international assistance he desperately needs. But behind this, there is something closer to a consensus on the goals for Iraq`s future. The international community, Mr. Bush and his allies all want to see the Iraqis become self-governing as soon as possible and to take over their own security operations. There also seems to be agreement that the United States should remain in command of military operations. This is a good starting point.

But there remain substantial differences over how to achieve Iraqi sovereignty. France wants to give power to the Iraqi Governing Council more or less immediately and then let the United Nations sort things out. Mr. Bush wants the handover to be from the United States, and not for at least a year.

Mr. Bush is right to worry that the French timetable is so quick that it could be a recipe for a hasty and irresponsible retreat. But the United Nations must be brought in to take over the political transformation in return for real help in reconstruction and security.

In the interim, the United States should remain in control of the military situation. No other power or international force is capable of doing the job. But the more the forces in Iraq take on a multinational character, the less the transition is likely to founder on the considerable anti-American hostility within the country. Even President Jacques Chirac of France called on the Security Council yesterday to give its blessing to the presence of an international military presence in Iraq — under command of what he called "the main troop contributor," meaning the United States.

The political side is more complicated. The United States has set up a 25-member Governing Council that does a good job of representing the various ethnic, religious and political forces within Iraq, although it has no mandate from the people. The French are pushing for an agreement to turn over power to run the country to the council in a very short period of time, under some sort of United Nations supervision.

The problem with the French timetable is that there is no sign that the Governing Council has really learned to work together, or that it has identified a natural leader. The French may well argue that the American plan is too slow to force the council to rise to the challenge. But their current plan looks too much like a scenario for an abrupt retreat from the responsibilities that Washington and its allies took on when they invaded Iraq. Without a real civil administration and the beginnings of a military and police force, giving any Iraqi body sovereignty would be a largely symbolic — and potentially destructive — gesture.

That does not mean it makes sense for the United States to continue to have sole ownership of the political power in Iraq. Mr. Bush said in yesterday`s speech that the United States invaded Iraq in part to defend the credibility of the United Nations. If we are to take him at his word, then he should continue that effort by allowing the world body to assume responsibility for the civilian nation-building process.

Unfortunately, Mr. Bush`s speech did not grapple with these issues. His address seemed aimed more at a domestic audience than the world community, given how sunny a picture he painted of a situation in which the administration is finding almost nothing as easy as it had hoped.

The United States clearly fears that if the United Nations takes over the job, it will make a mess of things. We are in a mess already. What`s needed now is an international plan for dealing with it.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

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September 24, 2003
The Turkish Card
By WILLIAM SAFIRE


Self government for the people of Iraq," a resolute President Bush told the U.N., would be "reached by orderly and democratic process . . . neither hurried nor delayed by the wishes of other parties." That was America`s answer to those who want to see us fail in rebuilding a free Iraq.

Will nations that refused to help overthrow the dictator now join us to finish the job? Will Iraqis welcome such assistance to end the sabotage and sniping by Saddam`s diehards?

A key to both answers lies in Turkey, the only democracy bordering Iraq. The new Turkish government made the mistake of appearing to put a price tag for its cooperation before the war, to our dismay; now that breach is healing.

I put it directly to Abdullah Gul, Turkey`s foreign minister here for the U.N. meeting: Will his nation answer the Bush request for a substantial force to help bring stability to Iraq? Answer: "Public opinion in Turkey is changing. A peaceful, stable Iraq is in Turkey`s interest. If our government decides to send this recommendation to the Parliament, which meets next week, I believe Parliament will not refuse."

Is another U.N. resolution required? "It would be helpful, as would the invitation of the Iraqi Governing Council," Mr. Gul replied. What say Turkey`s generals, who were silent before the war as Parliament refused transit to U.S. troops? "This time, the army supports going down there."

Mr. Gul, who now strikes me as a real statesman, emphasized that Turkey`s response to requested aid to the new Iraq would not be limited to troops experienced in fighting terrorism. Electric power supply, water purification teams, doctors and medical supplies are part of the package offered. That would help establish a new relationship between the ethnically different peoples of the two Muslim nations.

But that leads to the next question: Will Iraqi leaders we appointed to the Governing Council support the Bush-Blair call for additional foreign troops to restore order until Iraqi police are trained?

As befits a diverse group, the council is split. Those I spoke to would welcome Arabic-speaking Jordanian, Omani or Moroccan peacekeepers. But Muslim identity is not enough; not all Iraqis are eager to see Pakistanis, Indians or Turks joining the coalition forces already on duty.

Some of the council members claim they can police Iraq with local militias, as Iraqi Kurds — protected from Saddam for a decade by our air forces — have done in the north. But that quick-fix notion fits all too well with the demands of France and Russia that we get out hastily, before making certain that no civil war breaks out or new dictator seizes power.

Freed after a generation under a crippling tyranny, some of our appointees to the Governing Council are tempted, in F.D.R.`s phrase, "to throw their crutches at the doctor." That`s understandable, but our selectees have not yet earned the right from fellow Iraqis to walk the democratic walk. First comes the military mop-up; then comes constitutional sovereignty; then elections "neither hurried nor delayed" to bestow legitimacy and set an example for the Arab world.

Reached by cellphone in a New York elevator, Ahmad Chalabi, this month`s council chairman (and longtime Pentagon favorite) expressed fervent gratitude to the U.S., then added, "We will have differences but will not be `at odds.` " He reported that Turkish representatives wisely have been talking to Iraqi community and tribal leaders. "There are open questions: How many Turks? Where will they go? When will they leave?"

We should encourage such Turkish-Iraqi interaction so long as it paves the way to setting an example for the sharing of the responsibilities of temporary occupation. My Iraqi Kurdish friends worry about the Turks, and vice versa. Each has historical reason to suspect the other`s motives, but the late Mullah Mustafa Barzani was shrewd enough to make alliances with the future welfare of the Kurdish people in mind.

"So let us move forward," as Bush told the U.N. Let secular, democratic Turkey join the coalition; let Iraqi politicians curry voter favor by espousing early sovereignty; let local militias develop intelligence leads to Saddamites and hidden weapons; let the U.N. do its vital humanitarian thing. And let the liberators that sacrificed most decide when to declare victory and go home.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Writing in the Daily Mirror, John Pilger reveals that both US Secretary of State Colin Powell and Bush`s closest adviser Condaleeza Rice said, in 2001, that Saddam Hussein was effectively disarmed and no threat - putting the lie to their own propaganda. : Pilger :22 Sep 2003


PILGER FILM REVEALS COLIN POWELL SAID IRAQ WAS NO THREAT

EXACTLY one year ago, Tony Blair told Parliament: "Saddam Hussein`s weapons of mass destruction programme is active, detailed and growing.

"The policy of containment is not working. The weapons of mass destruction programme is not shut down. It is up and running now."

Not only was every word of this false, it was part of a big lie invented in Washington within hours of the attacks of September 11 2001 and used to hoodwink the American public and distract the media from the real reason for attacking Iraq. "It was 95 per cent charade," a former senior CIA analyst told me.

An investigation of files and archive film for my TV documentary Breaking The Silence, together with interviews with former intelligence officers and senior Bush officials have revealed that Bush and Blair knew all along that Saddam Hussein was effectively disarmed.

Both Colin Powell, US Secretary of State, and Condoleezza Rice, President Bush`s closest adviser, made clear before September 11 2001 that Saddam Hussein was no threat - to America, Europe or the Middle East.

In Cairo, on February 24 2001, Powell said: "He (Saddam Hussein) has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbours."

This is the very opposite of what Bush and Blair said in public.

Powell even boasted that it was the US policy of "containment" that had effectively disarmed the Iraqi dictator - again the very opposite of what Blair said time and again. On May 15 2001, Powell went further and said that Saddam Hussein had not been able to "build his military back up or to develop weapons of mass destruction" for "the last 10 years". America, he said, had been successful in keeping him "in a box".

Two months later, Condoleezza Rice also described a weak, divided and militarily defenceless Iraq. "Saddam does not control the northern part of the country," she said. "We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt."

So here were two of Bush`s most important officials putting the lie to their own propaganda, and the Blair government`s propaganda that subsequently provided the justification for an unprovoked, illegal attack on Iraq. The result was the deaths of what reliable studies now put at 50,000 people, civilians and mostly conscript Iraqi soldiers, as well as British and American troops. There is no estimate of the countless thousands of wounded.

In a torrent of propaganda seeking to justify this violence before and during the invasion, there were occasional truths that never made headlines. In April last year, Condoleezza Rice described September 11 2001 as an "enormous opportunity" and said America "must move to take advantage of these new opportunities."

Taking over Iraq, the world`s second biggest oil producer, was the first such opportunity.

At 2.40pm on September 11, according to confidential notes taken by his aides, Donald Rumsfeld, the Defense Secretary, said he wanted to "hit" Iraq - even though not a shred of evidence existed that Saddam Hussein had anything to do with the attacks on New York and Washington. "Go massive," the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying. "Sweep it all up. Things related and not." Iraq was given a brief reprieve when it was decided instead to attack Afghanistan. This was the "softest option" and easiest to explain to the American people - even though not a single September 11 hijacker came from Afghanistan. In the meantime, securing the "big prize", Iraq, became an obsession in both Washington and London.

An Office of Special Plans was hurriedly set up in the Pentagon for the sole purpose of converting "loose" or unsubstantiated intelligence into US policy. This was a source from which Downing Street received much of the "evidence" of weapons of mass destruction we now know to be phoney.

CONTRARY to Blair`s denials at the time, the decision to attack Iraq was set in motion on September 17 2001, just six days after the attacks on New York and Washington.

On that day, Bush signed a top-secret directive, ordering the Pentagon to begin planning "military options" for an invasion of Iraq. In July 2002, Condoleezza Rice told another Bush official who had voiced doubts about invading Iraq: "A decision has been made. Don`t waste your breath."

The ultimate cynicism of this cover-up was expressed by Rumsfeld himself only last week. When asked why he thought most Americans still believed Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks of September 11, he replied: "I`ve not seen any indication that would lead me to believe I could say that."

It is this that makes the Hutton inquiry in London virtually a sham. By setting up an inquiry solely into the death of the weapons expert David Kelly, Blair has ensured there will be no official public investigation into the real reasons he and Bush attacked Iraq and into when exactly they made that decision. He has ensured there will be no headlines about disclosures in email traffic between Downing Street and the White House, only secretive tittle-tattle from Whitehall and the smearing of the messenger of Blair`s misdeeds.

The sheer scale of this cover-up makes almost laughable the forensic cross-examination of the BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan about "anomalies" in the notes of his interview with David Kelly - when the story Gilligan told of government hypocrisy and deception was basically true.

Those pontificating about Gilligan failed to ask one vital question - why has Lord Hutton not recalled Tony Blair for cross-examination? Why is Blair not being asked why British sovereignty has been handed over to a gang in Washington whose extremism is no longer doubted by even the most conservative observers? No one knows the Bush extremists better than Ray McGovern, a former senior CIA officer and personal friend of George Bush senior, the President`s father. In Breaking The Silence, he tells me: "They were referred to in the circles in which I moved when I was briefing at the top policy levels as `the crazies`."

"Who referred to them as `the crazies`?" I asked.

"All of us... in policy circles as well as intelligence circles... There is plenty of documented evidence that they have been planning these attacks for a long time and that 9/11 accelerated their plan. (The weapons of mass destruction issue) was all contrived, so was the connection of Iraq with al Qaeda. It was all PR... Josef Goebbels had this dictum: If you say something often enough, the people will believe it." He added: "I think we ought to be all worried about fascism (in the United States)."

The "crazies" include John Bolton, Under Secretary of State, who has made a personal mission of tearing up missile treaties with the Russians and threatening North Korea, and Douglas Feith, an Under Secretary of Defence, who ran a secret propaganda unit "reworking" intelligence about Iraq`s weapons. I interviewed them both in Washington.

BOLTON boasted to me that the killing of as many as 10,000 Iraqi civilians in the invasion was "quite low if you look at the size of the military operation."

For raising the question of civilian casualties and asking which country America might attack next, I was told: "You must be a member of the Communist Party."

Over at the Pentagon, Feith, No 3 to Rumsfeld, spoke about the "precision" of American weapons and denied that many civilians had been killed. When I pressed him, an army colonel ordered my cameraman: "Stop the tape!" In Washington, the wholesale deaths of Iraqis is unmentionable. They are non-people; the more they resist the Anglo-American occupation, the more they are dismissed as "terrorists".

It is this slaughter in Iraq, a crime by any interpretation of an international law, that makes the Hutton inquiry absurd. While his lordship and the barristers play their semantic games, the spectre of thousands of dead human beings is never mentioned, and witnesses to this great crime are not called.

Jo Wilding, a young law graduate, is one such witness. She was one of a group of human rights observers in Baghdad during the bombing. She and the others lived with Iraqi families as the missiles and cluster bombs exploded around them. Where possible, they would follow the explosions to scenes of civilian casualties and trace the victims to hospitals and mortuaries, interviewing the eyewitnesses and doctors. She kept meticulous notes.

She saw children cut to pieces by shrapnel and screaming because there were no anaesthetics or painkillers. She saw Fatima, a mother stained with the blood of her eight children. She saw streets, mosques and farmhouses bombed by marauding aircraft. "Nothing could explain them," she told me, "other than that it was a deliberate attack on civilians."

As these atrocities were carried out in our name, why are we not hearing such crucial evidence? And why is Blair allowed to make yet more self-serving speeches, and none of them from the dock?

First published in the Daily Mirror - www.mirror.co.uk














http://pilger.carlton.com/print/133099

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It is the responsibility of the patriot to protect his country from its government."

Thomas Paine

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washingtonpost.com
A Vague Pitch Leaves Mostly Puzzlement


By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 24, 2003; Page A01


UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 23 -- In his speech today to the U.N. General Assembly, President Bush tried to walk a fine line between defending a war deeply unpopular in much of the world and looking for help from reluctant countries to rebuild Iraq. The result left diplomats and lawmakers puzzled about his ultimate intentions.

Bush, in fact, sidestepped direct answers to many of the questions that have arisen since the administration said it would seek a Security Council resolution that would expand the United Nations` role in Iraq and call on countries to contribute more troops and money. How quickly would the United States grant sovereignty to the Iraqis? Would the administration grant any decision-making role to the United Nations in exchange for its imprimatur? Or does the administration simply want assistance without giving up much in return?

One reason for the vagueness is that U.S. diplomats have discovered in recent weeks that little help is likely to be forthcoming. Secretary General Kofi Annan, deeply disturbed by the bombing attacks on the U.N. mission in Baghdad, has urged a slow and careful review of the organization`s role in Iraq, U.S. and U.N. officials say. The list of countries willing and able to provide troops appears to have dwindled, not increased, and even financially deep-pocketed countries such as Japan have indicated they would not be able to contribute much to the U.S. enterprise in Iraq, U.S. officials said.

"There is a hell of a case of donor fatigue," a senior administration official said today. "A realistic appraisal [of what a new resolution would bring] is `not much.` "

Bush`s rhetorical maneuvering room was limited in other ways. Faced with the worst approval ratings of his presidency, Bush designed his speech to appeal to a domestic audience. But the president`s conservative base, long skeptical of the United Nations, would not approve of an explicit acknowledgment of a broad U.N. role in Iraq. Bush limited his comments on potential U.N. aid to programs that bring broad bipartisan support, such as UNICEF and the World Food Program.

In Bush`s most direct plea for assistance, he declared, "Every young democracy needs the help of friends. Now the nation of Iraq needs and deserves our aid, and all nations of goodwill should step forward and provide that support."

Democrats on Capitol Hill quickly took note of Bush`s unwillingness to offer a detailed plan for Iraq. "He came before the international community and he could have made the case for more troops, for more resources. He didn`t do that," Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) said. "He hasn`t presented a plan to the United Nations. He hasn`t presented one to this country or to this Congress. It was a missed opportunity, and that`s very disappointing."

In the view of many in attendance here, Iraq is largely a problem of Bush`s making. The Security Council was deeply divided over whether to authorize military action against Iraq -- and Bush withdrew a proposed resolution before the war when it faced certain defeat. Many nations might have been willing to support a war if the administration had been willing to give U.N. weapons inspections a few more weeks, but the administration refused to alter its military timetable. The inability to find proscribed weapons after the war also hurt the administration`s case.

Bush, in defending the war, argued, "Events during the past two years have set before us the clearest of divides: between those who seek order, and those who spread chaos; between those who work for peaceful change, and those who adopt the methods of gangsters."

But in two speeches that bracketed the president`s address, Annan and French President Jacques Chirac suggested that it is the administration`s doctrine of "preemption" -- the promise to strike against emerging threats -- that threatens to spread chaos across the globe. Both men bluntly said that the Bush administration is undermining the collective security arrangements that have governed the world since World War II.

"The United Nations has just weathered one of its most serious trials in its history: respect for the [U.N.] Charter, the use of force, were at the heart of the debate," Chirac said. "The war, which was started without the authorization of the Security Council, has shaken the multilateral system."

Annan said that reserving "the right to act unilaterally or in ad hoc coalitions . . . represents a fundamental challenge to the principles on which, however imperfectly, world peace and stability have rested for the last 58 years. My concern is that if it were to be adopted, it would set precedents that resulted in a proliferation of the unilateral and lawless use of force with or without justification."

The enthusiastic reaction to those speeches in the General Assembly hall, compared to the tepid, almost perfunctory applause for Bush`s presentation, underscored the difficult task ahead for the administration as it tries to build support for the nascent Iraqi government.




© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
In Senate, Kennedy Fuels Sharp Debate
Senator`s Comments on War as `Fraud` Prompt Angry Replies From GOP Colleagues

By Helen Dewar and Vernon Loeb
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, September 24, 2003; Page A25


With scathing criticism of a colleague that is rare in the clubby Senate, Republicans lashed out yesterday at recent comments by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) that depicted President Bush`s decision to go to war in Iraq as a "fraud" aimed at helping Republicans at the polls.

Democrats rose to Kennedy`s defense, and he later took the Senate floor to restate his criticisms of Bush`s Iraq policy. While giving no ground on substance, Kennedy moderated his language somewhat, avoiding words such as "fraud" and "bribery" that infuriated Republicans when he first used them in an interview Thursday with the Associated Press in Boston.

Yesterday`s heated exchanges occurred as Bush defended his Iraq policy before a skeptical United Nations and Democratic presidential candidates sharpened their criticisms of his prewar and postwar decisions. Opinion polls, meanwhile, find waning public confidence in the president`s postwar policies, and many Democratic voters now say the war wasn`t worth the cost

In Thursday`s AP interview, Kennedy said the decision to go to war was "made up in Texas," Bush`s home state, to help the GOP cause. "This whole thing was a fraud," he said. The administration cannot account for billions of dollars in war spending, he said, suggesting it "is being shuffled all around to these political leaders in all parts of the world, bribing them to send in troops."

White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said yesterday that Kennedy`s alleged "bribes" are actually nothing but standard foreign assistance. "As any member of Congress knows or should know, foreign assistance to friends and allies has been a staple of America`s international policy for decades," she said. "Reducing the discourse to this level is a real disservice to the American people."

Yesterday`s Republican attack and Democratic counterattack were unusual because senators usually avoid direct criticisms of one another, preferring instead to make their points in more oblique, old-school ways. But many GOP senators had been simmering over Kennedy`s remarks and wanted to defend the White House.

Bush had called Kennedy`s remarks "uncivil," and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) said Democrats had "spewed more hateful rhetoric at President Bush than they ever did at Saddam Hussein." But, with senators out of town over the weekend, little had been heard on a national level from Senate Republicans.

The GOP response to Kennedy, which occurred just as Bush was addressing the United Nations, was led by Sen. Robert F. Bennett (Utah), the Republicans` chief deputy whip. Bennett cited warnings by President Bill Clinton, among others, that force might have to be used to oust then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. The allegations of fraud cannot be substantiated, he said, suggesting that Kennedy deserved a rebuke for his remarks.

Armed Services Committee Chairman John W. Warner (R-Va.) took the criticism a step further. "Stop to think of the reaction of a young wife surrounded by small children, not knowing from day to day whether her husband will survive another day`s engagement in Afghanistan or Iraq," he said. "And they hear that this whole thing has been a fraud perpetrated upon this family and was made up in Texas. I find that very painful."

Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) said: "I think it was a slur on my home state of Texas."

Senate Democratic Leader Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.), noting that he too has come under fire this year for criticizing Bush`s Iraq policy, decried what he called an "orchestrated" GOP effort to attack anyone who criticizes Bush. Later, at a news conference, Daschle said it was "McCarthyesque" to criticize people who are vocal in their opposition to certain policies.

"It seems like anyone who comes to the floor to express concern or to express his views or her views on Iraq is now the subject of attack, regardless of one`s views," he said.

Kennedy was not in the Senate during the Republicans` speeches but soon entered the chamber to respond. Rather than mentioning the "fraud" charge, he said the "administration`s rationale [for war] was built on a quicksand of false assumptions."

"Many Americans share my views, and I regret that the president considers them uncivil and not in the national interest," he said. "The real action that was not in the American interest was the decision to go to war unilaterally, without the support of our allies and without a plan to win the peace."

There are "valid questions and deep concerns about the administration`s rush to war in Iraq," he said, including "whether there`s a plan for winning the peace, how the money is being spent and when our troops can come home with honor."

To bolster the senator`s assertion that the administration could not account for billions of dollars and was "bribing" nations to send troops to Iraq, his office this week released a list of approved loans, expenditures and spending proposals, beginning with a new $8.5 billion loan package for Turkey.

While the United States has been pressing Turkey to provide 10,000 peacekeeping troops to help stabilize Iraq, Treasury Secretary John W. Snow said Monday the loans were designed to help Turkey recover from economic losses due to the war in Iraq and are not contingent on Turkey`s provision of soldiers. The $8.5 billion in loans for Turkey, according to Kennedy`s spending list, comes on top of $1 billion in economic support funds previously approved in the current fiscal year for that nation.

Jordan, a key Middle East ally that allowed U.S. Special Operations forces to stage operations from its soil, received $700 million in U.S. economic support funds this fiscal year, Kennedy said. Egypt received $300 million in economic support funds plus $2 billion in loan guarantees.

Kennedy`s list included $200 million spent by the administration in airlift and support costs for a multinational division under Polish command that recently replaced a U.S. Marine contingent south of Baghdad. In addition, it said the Bush administration has spent $800 million in the current fiscal year to "reimburse key cooperating nations for providing logistical and military support."

Finally, Kennedy cited a number of spending initiatives included in the administration`s recent $87 billion supplemental spending request to support military operations and reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan, including $1.4 billion to reimburse Jordan, Pakistan and other cooperating nations for logistical, military and other support to U.S. military operations and $200 million in economic support funds for Pakistani debt forgiveness.



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Run? Hillary? Run?
Clinton Is One of the Few Who Say She Won`t

By Mark Leibovich
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 24, 2003; Page C01


There is a school of political thought that sees the 2004 presidential race in its purest form of conventional wisdom: that Wesley Clark, the fresh-faced and thick-necked general who entered the race last week, is the new Democratic front-runner, stealing the fire from Howard Dean (the old front-runner), who stole the fire from John Kerry (the old old front-runner), who himself is suddenly burning brighter than George W. Bush (the Old Inevitable) in a recent poll.

But that calculation ignores a truth held fervently by many Very Savvy (or Very Bored) prognosticators: This is all about Hillary Rodham Clinton.

It`s always about Hillary Rodham Clinton, the proverbial Rorschach test for the nation`s stark divisions and creaky evolutions. Everything else is just annoying subtext.

And rest assured, says this alternative wisdom: Hillary is running for president. In 2004.

Hillary in 2004. It is, once again, a hot notion, being stoked from the hopeful left, the baiting right and the (choose your adjective) media. It doesn`t matter that a spokesman for Sen. Clinton says the New York Democrat will not run for president in 2004.

Or that this echoes similar proclamations from the former first lady herself on at least 138 occasions since the beginning of 2001, according to a database search of U.S. newspapers and magazine stories.

Or that these include such unambiguous denials as "I am absolutely ruling it out" (to the Associated Press on Aug. 29), and "I am absolutely ruling it out" (to the New York Daily News, a day later).

Hillary hysteria doesn`t disappear. It merely subsides, like a cold sore.

There are periodic eruptions, as in recent days. Bill Clinton, the Very Savvy (or Very Bored) former president, gave a hedgy non-denial last week when asked if his wife would run.

"That`s really a decision for her to make," he said. He also was overheard saying that Hillary and Wesley Clark are the only stars of the Democratic Party.

Clark, who is from Arkansas, is a key protagonist in the latest wave of Clinton conspiracy theories. It is obvious, say some Hillary theorists, that Clark, who is being advised by several former Clinton aides, is in the race for no other reason than to slow down Howard Dean. And that will muddle the 10-candidate field, which will lead to the inevitable drafting of Hillary. Who will then reward Clark by making him her running mate.

William Safire advanced a Clark hypothesis in the New York Times on Monday. Rudy Giuliani bought in on Imus. Congressional Quarterly columnist Craig Crawford yakety-yakked the notion on MSNBC and CBS.

Which, in turn, excited Adam Parkhomenko, a student at Northern Virginia Community College, who is organizing one of the several Draft Hillary movements -- and who, in turn, is being flooded with media calls.

"Bush is vulnerable," says Parkhomenko, 17. If a Democrat wins in 2004, Parkhomenko says, Hillary won`t run against him in 2008. By 2012, she will be 65 years old. So 2004, he says, is Hillary`s time. It`s all crystal clear, Parkhomenko says.

As it is to Crawford, who laid out the Wesley Clark as stalking horse scenario in his CQ column last week. Not only will Clark`s candidacy slow down Dean, Crawford wrote, it also will marginalize the first-tier likes of John Kerry, Richard Gephardt and Joe Lieberman. It will win Hillary more time to wriggle out of her promise not to run.

"So, basically, the four-star general is a dupe for the Clintons," says CNN`s Paul Begala, a former Bill Clinton aide, waxing sarcastic. "I think that`s my favorite theory."

But Crawford is insistent. "If Bush looks beatable, I don`t think Hillary can resist running," he said in an interview.

In his column, Crawford compared the belief that Hillary will run in 2004 to a belief in the existence of UFOs. "But on Wednesday," he wrote, "I am sure I saw a UFO flying over the head of Clark as he announced his quest for the presidency." On MSNBC, Crawford put the odds of Clinton running at "better than 50 percent."

Which, in turn, made Adam Parkhomenko even more excited.

Parkhomenko will be selling Hillary for President 2004 bumper stickers, buttons and T-shirts at the Democratic presidential debate in New York tomorrow night. He is going door-to-door, gathering names for a petition that he hopes to present to the former first lady in an effort to persuade her to run. "I`ve read a lot and watched a lot," says Parkhomenko, who is convinced that he will cast his first-ever presidential ballot for Hillary Rodham Clinton in November 2004. "It makes perfect sense to me."



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Democratic Hopefuls Cool on Free Trade
Candidates Seeking Union Support Distance Themselves From a Clinton Legacy

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 24, 2003; Page A06


Several leading Democratic presidential candidates are backing away from Bill Clinton`s free-trade theology -- a hallmark of the former president`s economic legacy -- by demanding tougher protections for U.S. workers as part of current and future agreements with foreign nations.

With the AFL-CIO`s prized endorsement dangling before them, several candidates are sounding a more protectionist note as they side with labor unions in criticizing the North American Free Trade Agreement, which Clinton signed into law in December 1993, and warning that they will oppose future pacts if they do not include stricter and more enforceable labor and environmental standards. Critics warn that such standards could curtail U.S. trade because some nations cannot meet them.

Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) and former Vermont governor Howard Dean, both of whom voiced strong support for NAFTA and other agreements during the Clinton years, are among those now questioning free-trade practices. "The other candidates are either against trade and for protectionism," said Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.), the only Democratic candidate booed by union members for embracing free trade, or, "f they were for trade . . . like Kerry and Dean, they seem very defensive about it."

The shift away from free trade, rhetorically and substantively, reflects twin political imperatives: the candidates` desire to win the AFL-CIO endorsement and to show the growing ranks of unemployed workers, many of whom held union jobs, that the candidates are responding to mounting job losses.

The positions the candidates other than Lieberman are staking out are popular among Democratic activists, union members in particular. In a speech Monday in Michigan, Kerry accused Dean and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) of "pandering" to them by claiming that "America can retreat from the global economy."

"We can`t," Kerry said. "Unfortunately, some in my party -- like Howard Dean and Dick Gephardt -- are telling people just that. Anyone who tells voters they`re going to build a fence high enough to keep out foreign competition isn`t offering an economic strategy, he`s selling a bill of goods." However, Kerry, too, has raised concerns about the trade pacts.

In the general election, anti-trade positions and rhetoric could become problematic, some party strategists say. The public is generally more supportive of trade than unionized workers, who make up about 13 percent of the U.S. workforce.

A Pew Research Poll published in June found that most Americans favored international trade and "globalization." Nearly 80 percent said international trade was "somewhat good" or better for the country. Moreover, Clinton, whom every candidate cites admiringly when talking about the economy, helped cement his image as a new kind of Democrat in large part by supporting unfettered trade.

This helped Clinton appeal not only to swing voters, but also to deep-pocketed business executives. Clinton`s ability to win over some business leaders by promoting his support for free trade cut into the Republicans` biggest source of campaign funds: corporate America. If Democrats are seen as hostile to trade, especially when juxtaposed with a pro-business President Bush, it would be hard for the Democratic nominee to argue that corporations should hedge their bets by supporting him or her, according to some party strategists

"We have got to have a balanced and moderate economic agenda," said Simon B. Rosenberg, president of the New Democrat Network, a centrist, pro-trade group. "First, it must embrace and encourage liberalized trade. I don`t think we get elected . . . if we walk away from that."

That is easier said than done for the 10 Democrats competing to win the party`s nomination. With the race so close, the AFL-CIO`s endorsement would be seen as a huge, perhaps decisive, edge for any of the candidates.

Union members vote -- in 2000, nearly one out of every four voters came from a union household, according to exit polls. Equally important, union leaders spend tens of millions of dollars to help their candidate. This year, the AFL-CIO and some of its biggest member unions are helping bankroll several political operations to run television and radio ads, knock on doors and distribute voter guides on behalf of the Democratic nominee.

As a result, no interest group is playing a more prominent role in shaping the Democratic candidates than organized labor.

Gephardt, for instance, is staking his early campaign almost exclusively on appealing to unions, and is spending the bulk of his time working to win the AFL-CIO endorsement.

He recently aired ads in South Carolina that attacked Dean for backing NAFTA and trade with China, which "cost" South Carolinians tens of thousands of jobs. Gephardt`s health care plan, which would reimburse employers for 60 percent of their health insurance costs, would be a boon to unionized workers. His plan would allow labor leaders to negotiate better pay and benefits for workers because health costs would drop dramatically for their employers. Also, his plan would forbid employers from reducing coverage, a move many companies make during labor negotiations to cut costs.

The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) has been the most vocal and visible labor group, demanding that all the candidates endorse an expansion of the federal government`s role in providing health insurance to every American. "Our first goal was to make sure all had a comprehensive health care plan," SEIU President Andrew L. Stern said. Any such plan would be costly: So far, six of the 10 candidates have detailed plans that meet SEIU`s litmus test; none is projected to cost less than $590 billion over the next decade.

On education, every top-tier candidate other than Lieberman is opposing school voucher programs, meeting the demands of the teachers` unions, which some Democrats consider among the most powerful unions of all.

But it is trade that matters most to many union leaders. The Democratic Party has long been divided over the wisdom of unfettered global trade, with most Democratic members of Congress fighting to attach strong environmental and labor standards to trade deals. But many moderate to conservative Democrats, taking a cue from Clinton, have joined with Republicans to tear down trade barriers with numerous countries around the world. A little more than one-third of House Democrats recently voted for free-trade agreements with Chile and Singapore.

But with so many people out of work, especially in the manufacturing sector, the pendulum is swinging against unfettered trade among the Democratic contenders. "One of the reasons we keep losing ground to Republicans is we are blurring lines" on issues such as trade, Dean said. "The future of the economy is not going to be a bright one if we don`t have [new] standards" in trade deals.

With a free-trade agreement with several Central American nations expected to come up next year, the Democratic nominee is likely to clash with Bush over the labor standards the AFL-CIO is seeking. For the most part, the Democratic hopefuls are rallying behind standards advocated by the International Labor Organization and demanding that pacts include stronger mechanisms to enforce them.

Dean came under fire recently for backing much tougher standards -- U.S. labor standards. Lieberman said the country would fall into the "Dean depression" if that were to happen. Dean, however, quickly clarified that he supports only ILO standards. A Dean aide said the former governor wants every country to meet U.S. standards eventually, but he understands that could be many years or decades down the road.

Retired Gen. Wesley K. Clark, who entered the race last week, has not outlined his position on trade.

Some of the candidates, such as Dean, want to reopen NAFTA and demand higher labor standards, for Mexican companies in particular. Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), who is running as a centrist Democrat from the South, as Clinton did, recently voted in Congress against the agreements with Singapore and Chile. He, too, wants to reopen NAFTA.

Kerry, a strong free trader throughout his career, said he opposes the current effort by the Bush administration to move beyond NAFTA -- which covers U.S. trade with Canada and Mexico -- and create a Free Trade Area of the Americas covering North and South America. He also said that, if elected, he would order a review of all trade agreements to see if tougher labor or environmental requirements are needed.

Gerald McEntee, the head of the AFL-CIO`s political committee, attributed the softening of support for free trade among the candidates in part to labor`s "juice" in making the "political case" that a candidate cannot win if he or she does not stand strong with the unions.



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A Failed Address




Wednesday, September 24, 2003; Page A28


A YEAR AGO this month President Bush delivered a powerful speech to the United Nations challenging it to stand up to the Iraqi dictatorship of Saddam Hussein -- a challenge that, for a time, united the Security Council in demanding Iraqi compliance with U.N. disarmament orders. On his return yesterday, Mr. Bush read an address that conspicuously lacked such passion, determination or vision. His defense of his decision to proceed with an invasion of Iraq without Security Council support was almost perfunctory, as was his acknowledgement that many nations opposed the war. He spoke one sentence about the so-far unsuccessful search for Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and provided no new information to an audience that last year heard him describe at great length the threat posed by those weapons. Most remarkable, Mr. Bush had nothing new to say about the struggle to stabilize Iraq and establish a new government; more of his speech was devoted to the problem of human trafficking than to Iraqi reconstruction. If the president`s intention was to rally international support for a vital cause, the burden of which cannot and should not be borne so disproportionately by the United States, he missed an important opportunity.

It`s been only two weeks since Mr. Bush acknowledged to Americans that the difficulty and cost of managing Iraq would be far greater than the administration had previously said. He promised then to mobilize greater international support through a new U.N. resolution. Yet already the White House appears to have lost its enthusiasm. Many governments, including those most likely to supply fresh troops and funds, have made clear that they will not do so unless the United Nations is granted clear authority in Iraq. But Mr. Bush has not budged from his initial position, which offered some U.N. role in preparing a new constitution and organizing elections but refused to dilute the present monopoly of American power over the occupation administration, the reconstruction program or the contracts that have been awarded almost exclusively to U.S. firms. Not surprisingly, that formula doesn`t appeal to any of the governments that have been discussing possible contributions for Iraq, and one by one they have dropped out.

The U.S. initiative has been complicated by French President Jacques Chirac, who has revived his prewar anti-American coalition behind the irresponsible demand for an immediate transfer of sovereignty to the unelected Iraqi Governing Council. Mr. Chirac must know his proposal is impractical; he makes it only to further complicate the U.S. mission in Iraq and thus advance his own agenda -- which, as he reiterated yesterday in his own speech, is to deter the United States from ever acting again without the explicit approval of the Security Council, where France holds a veto. Mr. Chirac`s troublemaking has borne exotic fruit: His demand has been taken up by the group of former Iraqi exiles long favored by the Pentagon. Holding seats on the Governing Council, these would-be leaders now hope to realize their frustrated ambition to assume power without the consent of Iraqis. In effect, the French president has revived the political scheme once favored by the administration`s most fervent hawks, who themselves dropped the idea after they realized it would never work.

Mr. Chirac hastens to point out that France has no intention of blocking a new U.N. resolution. Of course not: It prefers to allow the Bush administration to checkmate itself by pushing through a plan that fails to mobilize foreign troops or money. The administration can still avoid this trap, but to do so Mr. Bush must at last correct the mistake he has repeatedly made on Iraq. He must be willing to break up the Pentagon`s monopoly and forge a genuine international coalition. The goal of establishing a working Iraqi democracy need not change, and all are prepared to accept continuing U.S. military command. But if the United States is not to bear the burdens of Iraq nearly alone, Mr. Bush must summon the honesty, pragmatism and flexibility that were so absent from his speech yesterday.



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Ships in the Night at the U.N.


By Jim Hoagland

Wednesday, September 24, 2003; Page A29


President Bush and U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan reached out to each other yesterday, but stopped within the limits of their own systems and experiences. Although they groped for common ground, the two leaders ended by describing two different worlds that lie ahead and seemed to talk past each other.

In his speech opening the U.N. General Assembly in New York, Annan sketched a world in which U.S. concern about weapons of mass destruction and terrorism could be accommodated within a reformed and revitalized U.N. system. He was critical, but not dismissive, of the Bush administration`s doctrine of preemption.

"It is not enough to denounce unilateralism," Annan told the annual gathering, which he challenged to address U.S. concerns about surprise biological, chemical or nuclear attacks. It is time "to begin a discussion of early authorization of coercive measures" to be taken by the world body to prevent terror groups from repeating or surpassing 9/11, Annan said.

You could hear the scales being balanced with great care in each sentence uttered by Annan, a consummate diplomat who possesses a profound understanding of the reality that without active American involvement and support, his beloved United Nations would wither into insignificance.

But neither would it survive in any meaningful way were the United States to repeat elsewhere the invasion of Iraq, which Annan portrayed as "a fundamental challenge" to the "unique legitimacy" of the United Nations in matters of war and peace.

Annan has faced intense behind-the-scenes pressure from within his own secretariat to withdraw all U.N. staff from Iraq rather than cooperate with the U.S.-led occupation. Yesterday he chose to offer Bush help instead of placing demands on the administration. The United Nations is ready to play "a full role" in reconstruction if bitter prewar arguments can be put aside, Annan said.

It was on the immediate future of Iraq that Bush seemed to respond with his own conciliatory remarks. He declared his support for a new Security Council resolution that would "expand the U.N. role in Iraq" through involvement in developing a new constitution, helping train civil servants and conducting national elections. Bush also made a point of paying extensive tribute to the late Sergio Vieira de Mello, Annan`s special representative who was killed in the truck-bombing of U.N. headquarters in Baghdad on Aug. 19.

But Bush passed up an opportunity to engage in Annan`s broader, future-oriented appeal for a search for new cooperative methods to fight international terrorism. He left no doubt that in his mind, the world must be protected from a variety of evils primarily by American resolve and American power.

The president challenged other nations to follow the U.S. lead in fighting those "who incite murder and celebrate suicide." He said the United States had been forced to assemble a coalition to invade Iraq in March "to defend the peace and the credibility of the United Nations" when the world body itself would not act. And he recited the horrors that Iraqis had endured under Saddam Hussein, including the use of chemical weapons against civilians.

Bush also seemed to be addressing his domestic audience as much as the world body when he placed heavy emphasis on U.S. determination to end "sexual slavery" and other forms of illegal traffic in human beings. A tone of American moral superiority crept into his remarks on saving Third World and other children from sexual predators.

Bush`s points were all valid. But he seemed unnecessarily unrepentant, and a trifle defensive. He has little if anything to lose in engaging in the kind of rule-changing global dialogue and reflection that Annan proposed.

Terrorism does threaten all countries, rich or poor, as Bush and Annan each said on Tuesday. Finding ways to make the exercise of American power more acceptable to other nations -- and more cost-effective and reliable for Americans -- is worth the time that the effort would take. It would also help Annan resist pressures within the U.N. system to cut and run now.

Before his murder, the enormously talented Vieira de Mello had helped U.S. authorities in planning and working for a smooth end to occupation and a return of the country to Iraqi authority. His presence brought reassurance and hope to Iraq`s beleaguered civilians.

The United Nations owes it to Vieira de Mello to stay engaged in the transition from Iraq`s occupation and help make it work. And the United States must summon and demonstrate fresh commitment to working with the United Nations there and elsewhere. There can be no better tribute to those who have died while trying to help in Iraq.

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Clark`s Balancing Act


By Harold Meyerson

Wednesday, September 24, 2003; Page A29


In the presidential candidacy of Wesley Clark, the Athenian party in American politics may just have found its Spartan.

The meteoric ascent of the former NATO commander is scrambling all the normal alignments within the Democratic Party and some of those without.

Whether Clark can sustain his initial momentum is anybody`s guess; his first week as a candidate was a triumphal parade interrupted by the occasional self-inflicted wound. But for now, many of the longstanding battlements that have divided the Democrats for decades seem to have crumbled before him.

Clark`s legions include Democrats more accustomed to attacking one another than joining in common cause. Satirist and anti-Iraqi war activist Michael Moore has written a testimonial to Clark; so has Iraqi war proponent Jonathan Chait of the New Republic. Naderites of `00 have told me they`re going Clark in `04; so have some Democrats who want to save the party from the specter of Howard Dean.

As Clark`s campaign team begins to take shape, it seems likely that aides to Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe and onetime Clinton and Gore staffers will get many key positions. That Clark`s candidacy is in need of professional management is beyond dispute, but the general runs the risk of losing his insurgent appeal if he permits himself to be cast as the candidate from Party Central. The rifts that have already arisen between the Draft-Clark amateurs and the McAuliffe pros are inevitable and containable.

But if Clark ends up positioned as the anti-Dean candidate, the consequences could prove more severe.

Indeed, the relation of Clark`s campaign to Dean`s bears some resemblances to that of Robert Kennedy`s to Eugene McCarthy`s back in 1968, another year when antiwar sentiment swept the Democratic Party. It was McCarthy who plunged into that race first, when Lyndon Johnson was thought to be unassailable, and McCarthy who caught fire with Democratic liberals increasingly angered by Johnson`s deepening involvement in the Vietnam War.

Only after the Tet offensive and McCarthy`s initial electoral success in New Hampshire did Bobby Kennedy announce that he, too, was running for president on an antiwar platform, arguing that he was a far more electable candidate than McCarthy.

The dynamic between the two campaigns was awkward at best; some McCarthy supporters switched camps, and the bitterness within the McCarthy ranks swelled as Kennedy began winning primaries. Kennedy himself was always cognizant, however, that he`d need the McCarthy volunteers after the primary season ended and calibrated his comments to that end.

Clark now faces a challenge similar to Kennedy`s: how to campaign as a largely antiwar candidate, and the more electable one at that, without estranging the legions of Dean supporters who believe, as Gene McCarthy`s followers once did, that their guy is the genuine article. Whoever wins the Democratic nomination is going to need Dean`s volunteers, and Clark best positions himself to claim them by making the kind of speech he delivered at the Citadel on Monday, affirming an America that welcomes dissent in wartime and understands that unilateralism is a strategic dead end. Having his potential handlers proclaim that he`s the Stop-Dean candidate, by contrast, would undercut his appeal to many of his own supporters, let alone Dean`s.

Clark`s rise in the polls does seem to have stopped some other Democratic candidacies dead in their tracks. The odds that Dick Gephardt will receive the AFL-CIO`s endorsement in October, or at all, have diminished sharply in the past few days. With Clark`s entry, a growing number of union presidents now believe that endorsing Gephardt looks more like a reciprocation of loyalty than a viable political strategy. Similarly, Clark`s entrance eclipsed not only John Edwards`s declaration of candidacy but the raison d`etre for his candidacy -- having a southerner atop the ticket -- as well. The Kerry candidacy`s raison d`etre has been shaken somewhat, too; Kerry and Edwards, with the rest of the gang of nine, are left hoping that Clark turns out to be a flop on the stump.

As a sudden, midlife entrant to the highest levels of electoral politics, however, Clark comes to the race with no political staff of his own. Like Arnold Schwarzenegger, he looks to be surrounding himself with another leader`s entourage -- in Arnold`s case, that of California`s last Republican governor; in Clark`s, that of the last Democratic president. But Pete Wilson`s staffers have served Schwarzenegger poorly; they damaged his prospects with Latino voters by trumpeting his embrace of Wilson`s 1994 anti-immigrant Proposition 187, which Arnold had supported when it was on the ballot but later turned against.

Clark needs to be concerned that the Clinton-McAuliffe insiders don`t turn him into the last, best hope to stop the Dean hordes. The first Democratic candidate in decades to enter the race with support from all quadrants of the party doesn`t need a diversionary conflict within its ranks. And if nothing else, Clark looks like a guy who knows how to pick his wars.

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Bush to World: Drop Dead!
The president lays an egg at the U.N.
By Fred Kaplan
Posted Tuesday, September 23, 2003, at 2:23 PM PT

http://slate.msn.com/id/2088799/#ContinueArticle

Bully on the pulpit

Has an American president ever delivered such a bafflingly impertinent speech before the General Assembly as the one George W. Bush gave this morning?

Here were the world`s foreign ministers and heads of state, anxiously awaiting some sign of an American concession to realism—even the sketchiest outline of a plan to share not just the burden but the power of postwar occupation in Iraq. And Bush gave them nothing, in some ways less than nothing.

In the few seconds he devoted to that subject, he cited only three areas in which the role of the United Nations (or any other nations) should be expanded: writing an Iraqi constitution, training a new corps of civil servants, and supervising elections. None of these notions is new.

Otherwise, Bush`s message can be summarized as follows: The U.S.-led occupation authority is doing good work in Iraq; you should come help us; if you don`t, you`re on the side of the terrorists.

The speech seemed cobbled from the catchphrases of last year`s playbook, as if Bush were trying to replicate the success of his previous appearance before the General Assembly—his September 2002 speech, which roused the Security Council to warn Saddam Hussein of "serious consequences"—without showing the slightest recognition that the old words have grown stale and sour.

Bush dredged out the familiar formula—weapons of mass destruction plus terrorism equals the enemy in Iraq—forgetting, or perhaps not caring, that it didn`t persuade the United Nations back in November, when Saddam was still in power, and couldn`t hope to win backers now.

He described the guerrilla war, still ongoing, as a battle against "terrorists and holdouts of the previous regime"—ignoring a recent finding of the U.S. intelligence community that the main, and most rapidly growing, threat these days comes from ordinary Iraqis, resentful of the occupation.

He laid out the context of the battle as a contest between "those who work for peaceful change and those who adopt the methods of gangsters." Yet it is hard to see how Bush`s pre-emptive-war doctrine fits the former category, and it`s painful to observe that many Iraqis would say the U.S. occupation—whose soldiers have pounded down so many doors in the middle of the night—fits the latter.

He acknowledged no mistakes, either in the intelligence that preceded the war or in the planning (or lack thereof) that followed it.

He did acknowledge that "some of the sovereign nations of this assembly disagreed" with his decision to go to war, but added that it is time to move on. "Every young democracy needs the help of friends," he said. "All nations of goodwill should step forward and provide that support."

He painted the United States as following the true principles of the U.N. charter, which call on all nations to "stand with the people of Afghanistan and Iraq," as they build freedom. As for a timetable for turning over power, he said only that the process should be "neither hurried nor delayed."

"The United States of America is committed to the U.N.," Bush added, "by giving meaning to its ideals"—but not, apparently, by sharing authority with its constituents.

Bush spent the remainder of the speech exhorting his fellow leaders to join forces against nuclear proliferation, AIDS, and the international sex-slave trade. Such sentiments would be inoffensively bromidic in a typical address before the General Assembly. But Bush cheapened the causes by linking them with the unfinished business in Iraq. All of these issues, he said in his conclusion—Iraq, terrorism, and WMD, as well as AIDS and teen sex-slaves—require "urgent attention and moral clarity."

The rest of the world`s leaders, who had remained conspicuously silent throughout the speech, greeted its conclusion with, at best, polite applause, which is the most it deserved. By comparison, the droningly convoluted speech that followed, by French President Jacques Chirac, was a model of perspicacity.

One section of Bush`s speech is worth very serious note. "Success of a free Iraq," he said, "will be watched and noted throughout the region." A free and democratic Iraq would provide a shining example that could transform the Middle East, and "a transformed Middle East would benefit the entire world."

Bush is absolutely right on this point, which is why he needs to get over his hang-ups about France, the Security Council, and the diplomatic disasters of last November, and to get serious about working out a common solution to the much bigger disaster that looms in Iraq. His speech could, and should, have signaled a new opening. Instead, it seemed to close off every option.



Fred Kaplan writes the "War Stories" column for Slate.

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Republicans for Hillary, Part 1
Why does the GOP yearn for the former first lady to run for president?
By Timothy Noah
Posted Monday, September 22, 2003, at 4:00 PM PT

Viele Links:
http://slate.msn.com/id/2088758/


Hillary in `04: A vast right-wing conspiracy?

There`s a powerful political movement afoot to draft Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., for president in 2004. Its partisans are committed almost to the point of fanaticism, and their number is growing by the hour. This thing is an absolute juggernaut. Even so, the Draft Hillary `04 forces probably won`t secure their candidate`s Democratic nomination. Why not? Because they`re all Republicans!

All right, that`s a slight exaggeration. After considerable investigative effort, Chatterbox was able to identify five Democrats who think Hillary Clinton should enter the nomination race. The only one you`ve likely heard of is Mario Cuomo, former governor of New York, who earlier this month told the New York Post, "I would support her in a flash if she came into the race." But Clinton isn`t Cuomo`s first draft choice; last month he was touting Al Gore. And even Cuomo says he doesn`t expect Clinton to run.

Who are the other "Draft Hillary" Democrats? Well, there`s Randy S. Howington, who set up this Web site, apparently as a sideline to his main interest, which is honoring the memory of John Denver. A "Vote Democratic" button on the Hillary site indicates Howington`s party allegiance. A Miami-based gay rights activist named Robert Kunst is taking time away from his presidency of the Oral Majority (slogan: "No More Bushit!") to circulate a "Draft Hillary" petition online. Kunst is a Democrat, too (though in 2000 he ran for Florida governor as an independent). Kunst is allied with Adam Parkhomenko, a freshman at Northern Virginia Community College who earlier this month registered his "Draft Hillary 2004 for President Committee" with the Federal Election Commission. Parkhomenko is a Democrat. Finally, Esme Taylor of Sausalito, Calif., has a Web site, the Hillary Clinton Forum, that advocates a presidential run. Taylor runs the Yellow Pages Superhighway, a search engine for Yellow Pages listings around the country, and, yes, she`s a Democrat.

These scattered grass-roots efforts hardly add up to a significant movement within the Democratic Party. Conceivably, they may someday; many great political campaigns had small beginnings. But the halting progress of the Draft Hillary movement on the left is a joke when compared to the rapid snowballing of the Draft Hillary movement on the right. To conservatives, it`s a mainstream article of faith that Bill Clinton, who in the end could be stopped only by the constitutional limit on presidential terms, will come back to haunt Republicans by installing his wife in the White House. Booga-booga!

Who are the "Draft Hillary" conservatives? You`d do better to ask who isn`t. Here`s a very incomplete sampling:

William Safire wrote about the Clintons` plan for a 2004 Restoration in the Sept. 22 New York Times. According to Safire, Bill Clinton encouraged Wesley Clark`s entry into the race in order to leach support from Howard Dean, John Kerry, Joe Lieberman, and Dick Gephardt:

If Bush stumbles and the Democratic nomination becomes highly valuable, the Clintons probably think they would be able to get Clark to step aside without splintering the party, rewarding his loyalty with second place on the ticket.

In his online column of Sept. 18, Wall Street Journal editorialist John Fund floated the "stalking horse" theory more cautiously before concluding that even if Clark won, the result would be another Clinton presidency:

Should Mr. Clark be elected president, the Clintons would have a strong ally in the Oval Office. If he does well but doesn`t get the nomination, he may be viewed as a suitable running mate for Mrs. Clinton or some other Democratic nominee in the future. … Mr. Clark no doubt is his own man, but with so many old Clinton hands surrounding him, don`t be surprised if Mr. Clinton is occasionally tempted to act as if he were still Mr. Clark`s commander-in-chief.

President Bush`s cousin, John Ellis, envisions a variation on this theme in which Hillary Clinton becomes Clark`s running mate.

Former Clinton wunderkind Dick Morris, who has long made clear his loathing for Hillary Clinton, claimed in a Sept. 21 interview with Monica Crowley on New York`s WABC radio that Hillary and Bill told 150 Democratic Party fat cats dining at their Chappaqua home "not to give money to anybody else." For some reason, Morris had left this detail out of an earlier (Sept. 8) telling of this story on Fox News` The O`Reilly Factor.

Conservative columnist Mark Steyn urged Clinton to run in an Aug. 31 column, describing her in worthy-adversary tones ("The Clintons didn`t get where they are without being bold").

The conservative Washington Times couldn`t contain its excitement in a Sept. 18 story reporting that Bill Clinton had said in a California appearance, in response to a question about whether Hillary would run, "That`s really a decision for her to make." Further down in the story was Hillary`s unambiguous recent statement, "I am absolutely ruling it out."

Carl Limbacher, a right-wing investigative reporter, has published an entire book, titled Hillary`s Scheme, about how Hillary Clinton plans to run in 2004. Its findings have been endorsed by Rush Limbaugh ("There`s no question Hillary Clinton wants to be president") and Sean Hannity ("Of all the books that have been written about [Hillary Clinton], this one is the definitive book that probably the Clintons will fear the most").

Why are all these conservatives desperately committed to the idea that Hillary Clinton will run for president, when most liberals of Chatterbox`s acquaintance either have little interest in this prospect or actively oppose it? Chatterbox will explain this puzzling phenomenon in his next column.
Yesterday, Chatterbox demonstrated that the "Draft Hillary" movement consists almost entirely of conservative Republicans. Liberals are largely indifferent to the idea of Hillary running, and a few oppose it. Chatterbox puts himself in the latter camp. Sen. Clinton plainly lacks experience in elective politics, having served in the world`s greatest deliberative body for a mere 32 months. Her one major foray into government policy-making—the shaping of President Clinton`s ill-fated health-care plan—was a fiasco. Many people deserve some share of the blame. But Berkeley economist Brad DeLong, who served as a deputy assistant secretary of the treasury during the first two years of the Clinton administration and has a natural sympathy for his fellow Democrats, is blistering on the subject of Hillary:

She had neither the grasp of policy substance, the managerial skills, nor the political smarts to do the job she was then given. And she wasn`t smart enough to realize that she was in over her head and had to get out of the Health Care Czar role quickly.

So when senior members of the economic team said that key senators like Daniel Patrick Moynihan would have this-and-that objection, she told them they were disloyal. When junior members of the economic team told her that the Congressional Budget Office would say such-and-such, she told them (wrongly) that her conversations with CBO head Robert Reischauer had already fixed that. When longtime senior Hill staffers told her that she was making a dreadful mistake by fighting with rather than reaching out to John Breaux and Jim Cooper, she told them that they did not understand the wave of popular political support the bill would generate.

The best possible face to put on this is that Sen. Clinton faces a steep learning curve before she can even think about becoming president. Let`s check out her progress in four or eight years.

If there`s no liberal groundswell for Hillary Clinton to enter the race, why is the right so convinced it will happen? Why, indeed, do they want it to happen? Chatterbox has no single explanation, but rather, six explanations.

She brings a divided right together. There are all sorts of interesting fissures these days among conservatives. Neoconservatives are divided about whether to remain faithful to Donald Rumsfeld. Supply-siders (a group that, for convenience` sake, Chatterbox lumps with Paul Krugman`s "Starve-the-Beasters") are mad at the neocons for waging a costly war that makes future tax cuts unthinkable. The military is mad at the Bush White House for stretching its resources too thin (a subject Chatterbox hopes to expand on later this week). Libertarians are mad at the Bush White House for post-9/11 infringements of civil liberties.
How to reunite these warring factions? Imagine an imminent presidential run by Hillary Clinton. Clinton-hating is perhaps the sole unifying principle left in the GOP.
Nostalgia. The longing to re-create Clinton-bashing unity isn`t based solely on political calculation. The right actually misses its halcyon days of concocting insane Clinton conspiracy theories (remember the Mena airport?). Bliss it was in that dawn to be alive! Now that they`re in power, folks like Theodore Olson have to act respectable. It`s mostly worth it, but it`s a lot less fun.
Fund raising. Some of the longing to re-create Clinton-bashing unity is based on political calculation. If the rank and file can be riled up into thinking a Clinton restoration is imminent, they will give generously to Republican candidates and causes.
Belief that American politics is dynastic. For years, Republicans braced themselves for a Kennedy restoration that never happened. With George W. Bush, it did happen. Is this the future pattern of presidential politics? Chatterbox suspects not, but conservatives are temperamentally sympathetic to primogeniture. That`s how Dubya got elected in the first place!
Belief in their own Hillary caricature. The standard Republican view of the former first lady is that she`s a power-grabbing bitch. By pretending that Hillary`s scheming to seize the presidency, conservatives can claim to offer evidence for their view.
A longing to make the 2004 presidential race interesting. Conservative journalists are no less inclined than other journalists to root for developments that will spice up political coverage. A Hillary bid would certainly achieve that.


Timothy Noah writes "Chatterbox" for Slate.

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The Cartoon Graveyard
Just the Cartoons Without the Commentary
Diesmal gibt 111 Mal frische Cartoons

http://www.flu-ent.com/graveyard/20030923__111toons.htm

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Die abweichende Meinung eines Soldaten
Wir blicken dem Tod grundlos ins Auge
von Tom Predmore
The Guardian / ZNet 21.09.2003


In den letzten sechs Monaten war ich an der in meinen Augen größten modernen Lüge beteiligt: Operation Iraqi Freedom. Nach den schrecklichen Ereignissen vom 11. September 2001 und während der Kämpfe in Afghanistan wurde der Boden für die Invasion des Irak bereitet.

"Shock and awe" waren die Worte, die benutzt wurden, um die Zurschaustellung der Macht zu beschreiben, auf die die Welt zu Beginn der Operation Iraqi Freedom blickte. Diese wurde zu einer hautnahen, dramatischen Demonstration militärischer Stärke und hoch entwickelter Technik aus den Arsenalen des amerikanischen und britischen Militärs.

Aber als Soldat, der sich darauf vorbereitete, an der Invasion des Irak teilzunehmen, hallten die Worte "shock and awe" tief in meiner Psyche. Selbst als wir uns auf die Abfahrt vorbereiteten, schien es, dass diese beiden Supermächte im Begriff waren, eben die Regeln zu verletzten, von denen sie erwarteten, das die Anderen sie einhielten. Ohne Zustimmung der Vereinten Nationen und ohne auf die Bitten der eigenen Bürger zu hören, marschierten die USA und Großbritannien in den Irak ein.

"Shock and awe"? Ja, diese Worte beschreiben die emotionale Wirkung, die ich fühlte, als wir an Bord gingen, nicht um für eine gerechte Sache einzutreten, sondern aus Heuchelei.

Von dem Moment, an dem der erste Schuss in diesem so genannten Krieg, der den Irak befreien und die Freiheit bringen sollte, abgefeuert wurde, regierte die Heuchelei.

Nach der Übertragung aufgenommener Bilder von gefangen genommenen und getöteten US-Soldaten im arabischen Fernsehen schworen die politischen Führer aus den USA und Großbritannien Rache und griffen die Fernsehgesellschaften an, weil sie solche anschaulichen Bilder übertrugen. Doch innerhalb weniger Stunden nach dem Tod der Söhne Saddam Husseins strahlte die US-Regierung schreckliche Bilder der beiden toten Brüder aus, die in der gesamten Welt zu sehen waren. Wieder einmal ein widerspruchsvolles Szenario.

Als Soldaten, die im Irak ihren Dienst verrichten, hat man uns gesagt, ist es unser Ziel, den Menschen im Irak zu helfen, indem wir sowohl militärische Unterstützung als auch humanitäre Hilfe leisten. Erzählen Sie mir bitte dann, worin die im kürzlich veröffentlichten Bericht in Stars und Stripes (die Zeitung der US-Armee) Humanität besteht, in dem über zwei kleine Kinder berichtet wird, die von ihrer Mutter in ein US-Militärlager gebracht wurden, weil sie medizinische Hilfe benötigten.

Die beiden Kinder hatten unbewusst mit Militärmunition gespielt, die sie gefunden hatten, und dabei schwere Verbrennungen erlitten. In dem Bericht wird uns mitgeteilt, dass die beiden US-Militärärzte den Kindern nach stundenlangem Warten die nötige Hilfe verweigerten. Ein Soldat beschrieb diesen Vorfall als eine von vielen "Grausamkeiten" seitens des US-Militärs, das er mit eigenen Augen beobachtet habe.

Ich bin dankbar, dass ich persönlich nicht Zeuge einer derartigen Grausamkeit geworden bin - außer natürlich, sie betrachten, so wie ich, diesen Krieg im Irak als die schlimmste Grausamkeit. Welches Ziel verfolgen wir also hier? Geschah diese Invasion wegen der Massenvernichtungswaffen, wie wir oft gehört haben? Falls ja, wo sind sie? Sind wir einmarschiert, um einen Führer und sein Regime loszuwerden, weil sie eng mit Osama bin Laden liiert waren? Falls ja, wo ist der Beweis?

Oder hat unser Eindringen vielleicht mit unseren eigenen ökonomischen Vorteilen zu tun? Die Raffinierung des irakischen Öls geschieht zu einem Preis, der weltweit der günstigste ist. Dies alles sieht nach einem modernen Kreuzzug aus, bei dem es nicht um die Befreiung eines unterdrückten Volks und die Befreiung der Welt von einem dämonischen Diktator geht, der auf grausame Weise seine Eroberungs- und Vorherrschaftsziele verfolgt, sondern um einen Kreuzzug, mit der Absicht, die natürlichen Ressourcen eines anderen Landes unter Kontrolle zu bringen. Zumindest für mich scheint das Öl der Grund für unsere Anwesenheit zu sein.

Es gibt nur eine einzige Wahrheit und die besagt, dass Amerikaner sterben. Es gibt jeden Tag schätzungsweise zehn bis vierzehn Angriffe auf unsere Soldatinnen und Soldaten. Da die Zahl der Toten kontinuierlich wächst, scheint kein sofortiges Ende in Sicht.

Einst glaubte ich für eine gute Sache zu dienen, nämlich "die Verfassung der Vereinigten Staaten aufrechtzuerhalten und zu verteidigen". Daran glaube ich nicht länger; ich habe sowohl meine Überzeugung als auch meine Entschlossenheit verloren. Ich kann meinen Dienst nicht länger auf der Grundlage von - wie ich glaube - Halbwahrheiten und dreisten Lügen rechtfertigen.

Die Weisheit kommt mit dem Alter und mit 36 bin ich nicht länger so naiv, etwas zu glauben, ohne es zu hinterfragen.

Als ich im letzten November im Fort Campbell in Kentucky ankam, hörten wir das Gerede von unserem Einsatz und als dieses Gerede sich als tatsächliche Vorbereitung herausstellte, wurde mir bang ums Herz und meine Zweifel nahmen zu. Meine Zweifel sind nie vergangen, wohl aber meine Entschlossenheit und mein Engagement.

Meine Zeit hier und die vieler anderer, mit denen ich gedient habe, ist fast vorbei. Wir haben ohne jeglichen Grund und ohne jegliche Rechtfertigung dem Tod ins Auge geschaut. Wie viele müssen noch sterben? Wie viele Tränen müssen noch vergossen werden, bevor die Amerikaner erwachen und die Rückkehr der Männer und Frauen verlangen, deren Beruf es ist, sie zu schützen und nicht die Interessen ihrer Führer?

* Tim Predmore ist Angehöriger der US-Armee in der 101st Airborne Division, die in der Nähe von Mosul im Norden des Irak stationiert ist. Eine Fassung dieses Artikels erschien im Peoria Journal Star; Illinois.

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DERRICK Z. JACKSON
Owning up to deceptions on the Iraq war
By Derrick Z. Jackson, 9/24/2003

ON THE ASSUMPTION that America is thoroughly brainwashed, President Bush said with no hint of shame, "We`ve had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in September the 11th." National Security adviser Condoleezza Rice said, "We have never claimed that Saddam Hussein had either . . . direction or control of 9/11." Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said, "I`ve not seen any indication that would lead me to believe I could say" that Saddam Hussein was tied to the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.


These statements were meant to drown out Vice President Dick Cheney. With public support sagging for the Iraq quagmire, Cheney recently tried to restore legitimacy to the invasion and occupation by resurrecting the discounted claim that top 9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta met with an Iraqi intelligence agent five months before the attacks.

Cheney said the invasion "struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11."

Cheney was doing what Bush, Rice, and Rumsfeld did all along. To date, 304 American soldiers and thousands of Iraqi soldiers and civilians are dead because the White House riled up Americans into a rash blurring of the facts until they could no longer distinguish Sept. 11 from Saddam.

Americans believed Bush so thoroughly that 69 percent told a Washington Post poll in August that they found it likely that Saddam was "personally involved" in Sept. 11. Even if that were not true, 82 percent said Saddam provided assistance to Osama bin Laden`s terrorist network. Americans believed the White House so much that 57 percent of Americans in a CNN/USA Today Gallup poll said the invasion of Iraq and the war on terrorism that began after Sept. 11 were the "same war."

Americans saw it as the same war because of statements like these:

September 2002: Rumsfeld said he had five or six sentences of "bulletproof" evidence that "demonstrate that there are in fact Al Qaeda in Iraq."

When a reporter asked if there are linkages between Al Qaeda and Iraq, Rumsfeld answered, "Yes." Asked "Is there any intelligence that Saddam Hussein has any ties to Sept. 11?" Rumsfeld left the question wide open, saying, "you have to recognize that the evidence piles up."

Asked to name senior Al Qaeda members who were in Baghdad, Rumsfeld said, "I could, but I won`t."

In that same month, Rice said that while Saddam was not being accused of directly planning 9/11, "there are clearly links between Iraq and terrorism. . . . Links to terrorism would include Al Qaeda."

In October 2002, President Bush gave a speech in which he said, "We know that Iraq and the Al Qaeda terrorist network share a common enemy -- the United States of America. We know that Iraq and al Qaeda have had high-level contacts that go back a decade.

"We`ve learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gases. And we know that after September the 11th, Saddam Hussein`s regime gleefully celebrated the terrorist attacks on America. . . . Confronting the threat posed by Iraq is crucial to winning the war on terror."

In his February presentation to the United Nations, Secretary of State Colin Powell warned of the "sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al Qaeda terrorist network."

In the most cynical moment of all, after launching the invasion, Bush on March 21 wrote a letter to the heads of the House and the Senate that 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 September 11, 2001."

On May 1, when he announced the end of "major combat operations" (more US soldiers have now died in the occupation than the invasion), Bush proclaimed: "The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001. . . . The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We`ve removed an ally of Al Qaeda. . . . Our war against terror is proceeding according to the principles that I have made clear to all: Any person involved in committing or planning terrorist attacks against the American people becomes an enemy of this country and a target of American justice."

Now Bush comes clean. There is no link between Saddam and 9/11. There is no evidence that Iraq "planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on Sept. 11, 2001." Coming clean only uncovers the dirt. The links were a lie. The invasion was based on no principles whatsoever.

Derrick Z. Jackson`s e-mail address is [e-mail].

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

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SCOT LEHIGH
Clark versus Clark
By Scot Lehigh, 9/24/2003

RETIRED GENERAL Wesley Clark parachuted into the presidential race last week -- and promptly commenced a debate with himself about whether he would have voted for the congressional resolution authorizing force in Iraq. Yes, he probably would have, the newly minted candidate said on Thursday.

No, he would never have voted for this war, the retreating general declared on Friday.

Add to that confusion an AP story from last October that indirectly quotes Clark saying he supported the resolution. Plus an April 10 column in The Times of London, after Baghdad had fallen, in which Clark wrote: "President Bush and Tony Blair should be proud of their resolve in the face of so much doubt."

So where, really, did Clark stand? I heard the former supreme allied commander in Europe speak at the University of Massachusetts at Boston on Oct. 10, the day Congress passed the resolution, then interviewed him afterward.

The issue of Clark`s stand on the resolution never came up (fie on this columnist!), but a review of his comments suggests the general`s initial assessment that he would have supported it was more on point than his subsequent claim to the contrary.

To be sure, Clark was hardly a hawk. In his UMass-Boston speech, he bemoaned the Bush administration`s disdain for multilateralism, saying it had clearly hurt US standing in the world.

But like many others at the time, he thought that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction -- and that the Iraqi dictator was seeking a nuclear bomb. Still, Clark insisted that the United States had time to explore its options carefully before acting. "I don`t think there is an immediacy about this," he said. And he underscored the military view: "Do everything else you can before you use force."

Yet when an audience member asked Clark what could be done when the United States was led by an administration "hellbent for war," Clark had this to say: "In some places diplomacy doesn`t work unless it is backed by the threat of force. It just doesn`t. You can`t make the laws stick unless you are willing to enforce them."

Further, he said, the only hope of getting action from Saddam "is by threatening the use of force." He added: "If international law is going to mean anything, they have to deal with Saddam Hussein`s defiance of international law."

When I interviewed him, Clark drew a parallel between Saddam and former Yugoslav president Slobodan Milosevic. "What we found in the case of Slobodan Milosevic was that he wasn`t going to admit that there was a problem in Kosovo or cease repression . . . unless we threatened him," he said. "I know because I delivered the threat." Threats alone, of course, didn`t deter Milosevic. But asked if it would take a similar threat to get a satisfactory response from Saddam, Clark had a one-word answer: "Absolutely."

However, the general also wanted wide involvement from other countries in confronting Saddam. Praising President Bush for his decision to go to the United Nations, Clark said he was "relatively sanguine" about reaching a unified UN stand on Iraq, but stipulated, in response to a question, that the United States could never give the UN a veto over American foreign policy.

Asked what the United States should do if the UN wouldn`t take a tough approach with Saddam, Clark struck a hawkish note: "You`re going to do what you have to do. And it won`t be an inspection."

Still, though clearly skeptical of past UN inspections, the general did back them as the first step. If Iraq agreed to renewed inspections, would that negate the need for regime change? "I would have to look at how the inspections worked," Clark replied. "I wouldn`t outright say, `OK, you have agreed to inspections, therefore no regime change.`. . . Let`s see how unfettered the inspections were . . . let`s see whether Saddam really wants to give up his weapons. This is about the disarmament of Iraq."

Asked to sum up his (not always consistent) message, Clark did it this way: "Use force only as a last resort. When you use it, use it decisively against a very clear objective. Limit your objective as much as possible to obtain your strategic aim."

That was the general`s thinking on the day Congress passed the resolution.

It`s hardly the picture of the epauletted resolution opponent of Democratic daydreams. But neither was Clark the sort of unilateralist the Democrats abhor.

Rather, he was a career military man ready to countenance the threat of force but cautious about its use. And perhaps, even then, a potential candidate carefully keeping his options open.

Scot Lehigh`s e-mail address is [e-mail].

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/arti…

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http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-unassess…
NEWS ANALYSIS


Enlisting Support on Iraq Still Elusive Goal for Bush
The White House may get passage of a new U.N. resolution but not the contributions of foreign troops or funds it seeks, officials say.
By Robin Wright
Times Staff Writer

September 24, 2003

UNITED NATIONS — The world`s most powerful leaders may be seeking a united strategy on Iraq, but they apparently came to the opening of the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday unwilling to cede major ground to find it.

As a result, the best-case scenario is likely to be eventual passage of a new Security Council resolution that neither brings the world together nor quickly produces large numbers of troops or funds from other countries, American officials and foreign diplomats said.

In other words, the Bush administration might get the language it is seeking on Iraq but little of the substance needed to help secure and rebuild the country.

The worst-case scenario is ongoing diplomatic gridlock. This is a distinct possibility, given that world leaders still seem to be sparring over the past as well as debating the future.

All sides are responsible for failing to bridge the gap, U.S. analysts say.

Facing demands for a greater U.N. role, President Bush did call in his speech to the General Assembly for the world body to help Iraqis write a new constitution and hold elections. But he made it clear that Washington is not willing to cede control of the transition to the U.N. or accelerate the hand-over to Iraqis, as some nations have urged.

"Bush showed a little leg, but very little leg," said Ken Pollack, a former National Security Council staff member in the Clinton and Bush administrations who is now at the Brookings Institution think tank. "He indicated there are some areas where it`s appropriate for the U.N. to participate, but they are minor areas, subordinate to the U.S. role in Iraq."

Added Judith Yaphe, a former CIA analyst who is now at the National Defense University, "The terms are probably not going to be any more acceptable now to the key allies whose help and approval we seek — France, Russia, Turkey, Germany, for example — than they were before the war."

The policy chasm between the U.S. and France, whose positions have defined the global split over Iraq, was reflected at a news conference by French President Jacques Chirac.

He extolled the "deep friendship" between the two nations and expressed his hope that Washington succeeds in Iraq. And in talks with Bush, the French leader indicated that Paris would not veto a Security Council resolution that would put a U.N. imprimatur on efforts to stabilize postwar Iraq and attract wider aid.

Yet Chirac also warned of further deterioration in Iraq if the U.S.-led occupation administration does not soon grant provisional sovereignty to the Iraqi Governing Council, an interim panel whose 25 members were appointed by the coalition.

"We have to shift from one foot to the other, as it were, and say to the Iraqis: You are a major, great people. It is up to you to decide what your fate will be. We want to express this will of ours by a very clear-cut, symbolic gesture, which is the transfer of sovereignty," he told reporters.

Bush and other world leaders are talking past one another, said Henri J. Barkey, a former State Department policy planning staffer on Iraq who is chairman of the international relations department at Lehigh University. "The divide is as wide as before the speeches," he said.

The positions reflect a degree of hypocrisy by both the U.S. and France, analysts added.

"You have to admire the nerve of the French, who at first dismissed the Governing Council as stooges and are now calling on us to hand over power faster," said David L. Mack, a former U.S. diplomat who served twice in Baghdad and is vice president of the Middle East Institute in Washington. "I sense the French want to be involved in Iraq but don`t want to appear to accept the reality that the [Americans] are the senior partners in the effort."

Bush, in turn, was reluctant to admit how much the U.S. needs the world`s help in Iraq.

"There is something deeply ironic about going to the United Nations to seek military help to deal with the aftermath of a war the U.N. asked be delayed, a war the United States fought to deal with a threat that so far does not seem to have existed and a war in which the United States needs military assistance to deal with the aftermath of a major `victory,` " said Anthony H. Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington.

"The fact is that President Bush is going to the U.N. because his administration was misguided in the course it set for postwar Iraq," he added.

Both leaders may be playing in part to their own constituencies. The Bush administration is asking Congress for more than $20 billion for Iraq`s reconstruction, and ceding substantial control of the process to the United Nations could make passage much tougher. Chirac may be influenced by opinion polls showing that the vast majority of his countrymen opposed the war.

"For domestic political reasons, both Bush and Chirac may want to be seen dismissing the other`s position out of hand," even though the two share the goal of stabilizing Iraq, Mack said.

Bush will continue to lobby for additional support in Iraq in talks with world leaders attending the U.N. General Assembly. Today, he will confer with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder and over the weekend he will meet with Russian President Vladimir V. Putin at Camp David.

But because the policy gap lingers, Bush now faces "very long odds" of persuading major powers to help, Barkey said.

"In some ways, Bush was doomed to fail," Barkey said, adding that to win wide support, Bush would have had to remind other nations that the U.S. has come to their aid many times in the past, "and now the U.S. is appealing to the U.N." for assistance. "And that would have admitted defeat."


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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THE WORLD


Republicans Strike Back After Criticism of Bush`s Iraq Policy
With the president`s approval ratings falling, GOP lawmakers try to shift the focus to more positive developments in the Mideast nation.
By Janet Hook
Times Staff Writer

September 24, 2003

WASHINGTON — As President Bush`s approval ratings decline, Republicans in Congress on Tuesday launched a campaign to counter Democratic criticism of the administration`s Iraq policy and to defend U.S. efforts to rebuild the war-scarred nation.

They orchestrated a series of blistering speeches on the Senate floor, lambasting Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) for recently calling Bush`s Iraq policy a politically motivated "fraud."

"There will come a time when Congress as a whole can determine the accountability for these operations, but at this time our focus should be behind our commander in chief, our president," said Sen. John W. Warner (R-Va.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee.

Democrats angrily defended their right to question how Bush will use the billions of dollars he is seeking for combat and reconstruction.

The partisan fireworks obscure an underlying political and legislative reality: Bush is expected to get the full $87 billion he requested, as most Democrats — including about half of those running for president — are loath to take the political risk of voting against it.

Still, polls suggest that Bush might pay a political price for that victory: Public support for his Iraq policy has dropped since midsummer, and recent polls show overall approval of Bush`s performance dipping to its lowest level since he became president.

A recent survey by GOP pollster David Winston found that 49% of respondents approved of the job Bush was doing — the first time Winston had registered Bush`s approval rating below 50%.

A new Gallup/CNN/USA Today poll found that the percentage of people who believed it was "worth going to war over" the situation in Iraq dropped to 50% in mid-September — a fall of 8 percentage points in less than two weeks.

A survey released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press found that 59% of those polled opposed Bush`s request for $87 billion. A new analysis by Democratic staff members of the House Budget Committee concluded that the long-term costs of the Iraq war and occupation will go far beyond that — to as much as $417 billion over 10 years.

GOP officials say they are not worried about the slide in Bush`s approval ratings, arguing that a significant drop was inevitable given the stratospheric ratings he received after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

"What we`re seeing now is not the sky falling," said Christine Iverson, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee. "It is gravity."

Even now, she said, Bush has stronger public support than former presidents Clinton and Reagan did at comparable periods in their first terms.

Others in the GOP are more cautious, saying the public opinion trends reflect a genuine political risk facing Bush and other Republicans.

"President Bush went into Iraq at his own political peril," said Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.). "He`s acting like a leader, not like a politician." But Fitzgerald predicted that Bush will still win reelection because voters will reward him for showing leadership.

To help shape public opinion, GOP congressional leaders are urging rank-and-file members to do more to promote Bush`s policies when they are home with their constituents. "We have 229 megaphones," said a GOP leadership aide, referring to the number of Republicans in the House.

Republicans are trying to do more to tout accomplishments in Iraq — such as infrastructure that has been repaired and regions that have been stabilized — because such positive developments are often overshadowed in the media by reports of casualties and violence.

"The story has not been told," said House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Texas). "We`ve allowed the media just to focus on the bad things instead of telling the whole story."

GOP leaders rose to defend the president with particular vehemence after Kennedy was quoted as saying, in an interview with Associated Press last week, that the decision to go to war was contrived to give Republicans a political boost.

"There was no imminent threat," Kennedy said. "This was made up in Texas, announced in January to the Republican leadership that war was going to take place and was going to be good politically. This whole thing was a fraud."

It was a particularly provocative statement; while many Democrats have criticized Bush`s performance and planning in Iraq, Kennedy struck more personally at the question of Bush`s credibility and his motivation for going to war.

Republicans responded that the charges were reckless and without factual basis. They noted that the policy of seeking regime change in Iraq has its roots not in Texas, but in Clinton`s presidency.

Sen. Robert F. Bennett (R-Utah) said that if Kennedy`s accusation was accurate, the president would deserve a "serious rebuke."

"But if the charge is not accurate, then the senior senator from Massachusetts is deserving of a serious rebuke," he added.

DeLay, who demanded an apology from Kennedy, told reporters: "Criticism is welcome. But you can`t accuse the president of treason without some evidence to back it up."

The Massachusetts Democrat remained unrepentant Tuesday, contending that his critics were attempting to "deflect attention from the administration`s failed policy in Iraq."

"There`s no question that this White House sees political advantage in the war," he said, referring to speeches by political advisor Karl Rove, who once was quoted as telling Republicans, "We can go to the country on this issue [terrorism] because they trust the Republican Party to do a better job of protecting and strengthening America`s military might."

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), who has been castigated by the GOP for his criticism of Bush`s foreign policy, said the attacks on Kennedy were part of a systematic effort to intimidate dissenters by portraying them as unpatriotic.

"There is an orchestrated effort to attack those who criticize," Daschle said.

*


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Times staff writer Richard Simon contributed to this report.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-congres…
EDITORIAL



Hot Potato for Congress
Bush refuses to face reality on Iraq funding, so it`s up to legislators to lead.

September 24, 2003

Congress and the American people are suffering from sticker shock regarding the rising costs for occupying Iraq. Before lawmakers sign on to more debt, they need to get the Bush administration back to practicing diplomacy and dealing in fiscal reality.

President Bush`s address to the United Nations on Tuesday offered no new openings or conciliatory gestures. Instead, Bush scolded the allies about their duty to send money and troops for a campaign they oppose. For someone who has prided himself on pursuing hard-nosed U.S. interests, Bush demands remarkable altruism from the Europeans. He gave neither France nor Germany reason to reverse their peoples` opposition and pitch in — beyond declaring that Iraq "needs and deserves our aid" and that nations of "goodwill should step forward." Those declarations persuaded no one.

Instead, the mess in Iraq is boomeranging even more on the administration. German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who had been reaching out to the United States, is joining with France to insist on something Bush officials oppose — a timetable for a quick transfer of power to Iraqi authorities.

With no sign of major allies` help on the horizon and with the certainty that there would be baleful consequences to a U.S. failure in postwar Iraq, Congress must make the hard, strategic choices that Bush officials spurn or ignore. The most glaring of these is to be candid in calculating the occupation`s cost and what it means to the United States.

Though the administration says it has already spent $80 billion and needs at least $87 billion more for Iraq and Afghanistan, Rep. John M. Spratt Jr. (D-S.C.), the ranking minority member of the House Budget Committee, figures the campaigns may cost as much as $418 billion in the next decade. His early estimate, part of a more extensive analysis, presumes the presence of multinational forces in Iraq and that part of the reconstruction costs will be covered by other nations and international agencies, not to mention Iraq oil revenue.

Camouflaging some of the U.S. spending as loans, as Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) and other lawmakers propose, won`t help. Iraq already owes at least $100 billion to countries such as France, Germany, Russia and Japan. If Bush tried even a little diplomacy with industrialized countries, might he persuade them to forgive some of that debt?

With the administration not budging, it`s up to Congress, with the country facing a $500-billion deficit in 2004, to get Bush officials to justify their request for $87 billion. That`s more than twice the cost of all federal education programs, veterans programs or transportation funding.

What, too, about the once-heralded reforms to make U.S. national elections easy, swift and fair, at a relatively puny $3.9 billion? Americans will need these soon when they get to vote on the politicians who put them in Iraq and in a sea of red ink.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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



More Than Ever, We Need the U.N.
Despite right-wing rhetoric, it remains the best hope in a crisis-ridden world
By Stephen Schlesinger
Stephen Schlesinger is the director of the World Policy Institute at the New School University and author of "Act of Creation: The Founding of the United Nations," just published by Westview Press.

September 24, 2003

"Four times in the modern age," English historian John Keegan has written, "men have sat down to reorder the world — at the Peace of Westphalia in 1648 after the Thirty Years War, at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 after the Napoleonic Wars, in Paris in 1919 after World War I and in San Francisco in 1945 after World War II." Such is the march of human history that all of these events — except for the most recent one — collapsed in disagreements that eventually led to renewed war.

The ultimate outcome of the San Francisco Conference is still not known. However, what happened there that produced the last of these grand compacts, the United Nations, has already had an enormous impact over the last six decades. Indeed, the founding of the U.N. in the age of nuclear weaponry — far more sinister circumstances than any faced by those earlier meetings — is affecting the survival or demise of humanity.

The U.N. and its labors have become the background noise of our global age. It is truly ubiquitous. It has overseen 40 years of decolonization around the planet; sent peacekeepers to places like Cambodia, Cyprus and Sinai; helped end apartheid in South Africa via sanctions. The United Nations` World Health Organization was critical in eradicating smallpox and is on the verge of stamping out polio; its World Food Program feeds hungry people in Africa; its U.N. Development Program sends more multilateral aid dollars abroad than any nation.

People forget that before the U.N.`s founding, there was no truly functioning international organization (except for the creaky, faltering League of Nations). This meant that for many decades there was no place for nations to go in global crises.

Today, after half a century of the U.N., few of us are unaware that this aging experiment in global society exists and has given some modicum of hope to the world — despite a dearth of financial resources and the brickbats tossed at it by American politicians. It has become the world`s geopolitical emergency room. The question is whether it can survive.

Right-wing demagogues in our land have so unremittingly denigrated the organization for so long — calling it bloated, anti-American, a body that wastes time on speechmaking, abdicates its responsibilities and remains out of touch — that leading members of the Senate now routinely dismiss its importance and argue that it unnecessarily limits our sovereignty.

Furthermore, unilateralism is back in fashion. The Bush administration, after the attacks of Sept. 11, has promulgated a doctrine of preventive war that allows the United States to go into battle whenever it decides against whomever it wishes, regardless of whether there is a legitimate provocation. Recently one of Bush`s hard-line appointees, Richard Perle, publicly derided the U.N. as being as ineffectual as the League of Nations. And last spring, the U.S. brazenly bypassed the U.N. Security Council to invade Iraq, relying on its preemptive doctrine. Tuesday, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said this crisis was a "fork in the road" for the organization, as decisive as the U.N.`s founding.

The sad fact is that our country would probably not pass the same U.N. Charter today that the U.S. Senate ratified by an overwhelming vote, 89 to 2, in 1945. Even putting aside its lone-cowboy maneuvers, if Washington had wanted to reinvent the U.N. it would have been virtually impossible to convince the 191 nations of the world again to draft a charter for the security of the Earth because of the sheer number of countries and the profusion of political differences. (Originally, the organization had 50 members.)

As we look back on the U.N.`s creation, we should realize how fortunate we were to get it in the first place. It took a grand vision, formidable planning and brilliant political leadership from two American presidents — Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman — to turn the organization into reality. Having endured the most calamitous war in history, this World War II generation extracted from the human propensity for devastation the right lesson for our time.

If we are to revive the role of the United Nations today as a peacemaker and security guarantor, the United States, as the only superpower on the planet, must again commit itself to the organization. President Bush himself has slowly come to this realization in the Iraq crisis. He is now seeking to reinvolve our fate with the U.N. because it offers political legitimacy for the American occupation of Iraq. And beyond Iraq, the U.N. bestows cover for various other U.S. global missions, allowing Washington to save taxpayers` dollars and the lives of its soldiers.

Instead of taking on international ventures alone, we are able to share the burdens of the work to stop bloodshed, reconstruct societies, police conflicts, train armies, provide legal frameworks, uphold governance standards and promote human rights. The creation of the U. N. is as timely now as it was 58 years ago.



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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Comcast Devours Your Life
Privacy shmivacy. The cable-TV beast knows more about you than your own mother. Be very creeped out
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, September 24, 2003
©2003 SF Gate

URL: http://sfgate.com/columnists/morford/


Occasionally just for fun and to make yourself slightly ill and if you`re for some reason eager to feel all soiled and violated and megacorporate and vituperative and John Ashcroftian, you read the fine print on your cable bill.

Or, rather, you read the little nondescript brochure that came with your Comcast bill called the "Privacy Notice," just to see, just to get a bit of insight as to what the country`s largest and greediest and increasingly scariest cable and Internet provider (they just sucked up AT&T Cable last year) actually does with your personal info, and why, and how much they snicker and gloat and hiss like drunken snakes when they do it.

Name, home address, e-mail and phone number? Ha. Tip of the draconian iceberg, honey. How about your driver`s license number, Social Security number, bank-account number, credit card numbers (note the plural) and "other similar information"? You betcha. They know it all. And they don`t mind sharing.

They know how many TVs you have hooked into the "system." They know what you watch, and how frequently, and for how long, and what features you use the most on your remote control and probably what you wear when you watch and how feverishly you wish mountains of screaming genital warts upon the hosts of QVC, what positions you like best when you finally turn off the god-awful narcotic televised swill and get naked on the couch with a Hitachi or a nicely shaped remote control or a willing spouse. Or, rather, they`d sure as hell like to.

Furthermore, Comcast "may combine personally identifiable information [read: private data that`s none of their damn business] with personally identifiable information from third parties for the purpose of creating an enhanced database to use in marketing and other activities." Gosh you sweet Comcast lizard execs, I bet if you tried really hard, you could sound slightly more draconian and malicious. Oh, do try.

More? You got it. According to the Privacy Notice, Comcast can, without telling you, share all this personal info with their "affiliates" or the aptly named "others." They can toss your file to their "employees, contractors, agents, outside auditors, professional advisors, service providers, potential business-transaction partners, regulators and franchise authorities." With or without your written consent. With or without giving a crap for anything resembling integrity. Within their legal rights but without the slightest winking nod that they know full well they are violating you every day like a neocon assaults environmental legislation.

Comcast will, like any good inbred corporate citizen, share everything they know about you with the government, if asked. They will share it with lawyers and bill collectors and judges and Homeland Security lackeys. They will use your info in surveys and statistical reports and aggregate pie charts.

They will, in short, take this heaping pile of personal data on you and use it in every possible way they can to further their corporate profiteering cause and drown you in more goddamn product, short of coming to your house and nailing your ass to the floorboards and rifling through your desk and cataloguing all your porn and installing hidden cameras in your bathroom, which you just know they`d love to do, if they could.

This is all spelled out in the most abstracted and creepy terms possible, in the Privacy Notice. It`s all there and it`s mostly completely ignored by 99.8 percent of the population, which is exactly how they want it, because hey, who wants to know that just because you watch "Six Feet Under," some corporate hellbitch can use your Social Security number, bank-account number and credit report like poker chips?

Ultimately, the question isn`t what the hell they`re doing with the information they have. They tell you the answer to that right up front: whatever the hell we want whenever we want and there`s not a goddamn thing you can do about it ha ha ha enjoy your endless "Cheers" reruns, sucker.

The question really is, how far will they be allowed to go before the national recoil reflex kicks in, à la the "Do Not Call" telemarketing database? How much more data can they possible mine about you and still keep it a secret, when they already know every piece of numerical information you have, every credit card and license and bank account and address and secret code to the lock on your personal diary wherein you delineate just how goddamn creepy corporate leviathans are and how vile they`ve become and just how much they imperil notions of personal freedom?

Because right now it`s a pro-corporate pro-merger antiregulation antiprivacy Ashcroft-sickened USA Patriot Act Big Brother BushCo world, and it`s getting worse, it`s getting so even 12-year-old girls living in N.Y. housing projects can`t download a copy of the last Beyoncé song without the little litigious wasps at the RIAA suing their prepubescent butts for two grand. God bless America.

Comcast and its ilk, they widen the gap between citizen and capitalist machine. They disenfranchise, alienate, induce deeper and deeper mistrust and then get to shove their own agenda down the nation`s throat à la Wal-Mart cramming its cute pseudo-Christian antichoice values and savage business practices and landfill merchandise down the numbed maw of small-town America. Is anything good coming from all this legal data theft? Sure. Here, have a 10 percent discount on Pay-Per-View flicks in your fave genre. Score!

Comcast is not on your side. This is the bottom line. They represent the latest breed of secretive megacorporate info-glutton, a cross between a Homeland Security soul vacuum and Microsoft and that disturbing guy on Friendster who you`ve never met but who somehow knows your nickname from third grade and wants to buy your underwear.

Of course the good news is, these corporations, like Ashcroft`s flying monkeys, they can know nothing of any true substance. This has never changed. Comcast can`t touch you in any substantive way, can`t possibly genuinely know you or know what you truly value and how you love and with what sort of profound karmic longing you enter the shower every morning. And this fact, of course, drives them insane.

Still, they`re trying. Comcast is able to legally suck more data from you than ever before in the history of corporate America, and toss it around more easily and snidely than ever before and tell you all about it not at all, and call it policy. And they are not alone.

And, what`s worse, there is no real solution. There is no escape. If you want to be in any way connected to the info-media highway, you are in their database. Or DirecTV`s, or AT&T`s or MicrosoftDisneyAOLExxonViacom`s. Of this, you need to be aware. You need, right now, to be subtly empowered by this sinister knowledge. If for no other reason that so when they come knocking, you can have a pitchfork ready. Because sure they only have numbers and raw data and credit card statements. But it`s damn creepy. And, really, isn`t that enough?


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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.

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SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/140937_thomas24.html

A new voice at the White House
Wednesday, September 24, 2003

By HELEN THOMAS
HEARST NEWSPAPERS

WASHINGTON -- Scott McClellan is the new kinder, gentler voice of the White House as he settles in his job as press secretary, succeeding Ari Fleischer.

The appointment of a new spokesman doesn`t mean that the White House has a new information policy. Quite the contrary -- the secrecy that has marked the Bush administration from its inception will continue.

Bush also apparently isn`t willing to have more formal news conferences, which seem too formidable for the president. He has held only nine of them since taking office.

McClellan, 35, says the president will be accessible and will answer questions, but "in different formats" than the traditional question-and-answer period. Those impromptu sessions leave much to be desired because they are limited to a few questions from a select so-called "pool" of reporters.

In an interview, McClellan said one of the most important parts of his job is to nurture "a relationship with a press corps built on trust."

One of the key requirements for the job of press secretary is regular access to the president, free from the manipulative control of the so-called "Palace Guard" -- other senior staffers who jealously control the gates to the Oval Office.

McClellan says "access was never an issue" with him and that he sees the president every day.

"I walk into his office most mornings, to touch base. I also see him at briefings."

McClellan`s style at the podium is less confrontational than was Fleischer`s. But both men have that ability -- essential to all press secretaries -- to keep their cool even when the questions have an edge.

The switch in press secretaries at the White House coincides with a change of tone in the briefing room, scene of the daily jousts.

In the months leading up to the U.S. attack on Iraq in March, reporters softened their questions, apparently out of fear that they might appear "unpatriotic" to TV audiences if they asked the kind of tough questions that should be asked in a democracy.

Now, after the administration`s stated reasons for invading Iraq have crumbled to dust and the administration`s credibility on the war is turning to shambles, White House reporters are sharpening their questions.

The press corps is giving more attention to Bush`s economic policies in light of the rising budget deficit and persistent job losses. The much-touted tax cut for wealthy Americans that Bush fought for is getting more skeptical scrutiny, too. It`s about time.

Despite these changes, McClellan stepped into the job with a big smile on his face.

"I`m enjoying it more than I ever thought I would," he said. "It`s a great experience. I`m in the center of the action of what we`re trying to do ... trying to accomplish. I believe in his agenda."

McClellan joined Bush`s staff in 1999 when the future president was governor of Texas. He grew up in a political family in Austin, Texas, where his ebullient mother, Carole Keeton Strayhorn, served as mayor for three terms, from 1977 to 1983.

Strayhorn was a Democrat once upon a time but became a Republican when she felt her party had moved too far to the left, he said.

McClellan is planning to marry Jill Martinez of Austin in late November. (There might be something about the job of White House press secretary that leads the man to marriage. Fleischer got married during his tenure.)

In his daily briefings, McClellan speaks for the United States as well as the president. For that reason, his credibility is indispensable.

"Would you ever lie?" I asked.

"Not knowingly" he replied.

Good answer, Scott.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Helen Thomas is a columnist for Hearst Newspapers. E-mail: [e-mail]. Copyright 2003 Hearst Newspapers.

© 1998-2003 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

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http://www.newsday.com/news/columnists/ny-nyhen243466866sep2…

At UN, Seeking Signs Of Change
Ellis Henican



September 24, 2003

They don`t serve "freedom fries" in the UN cafeteria.

The signs out in the hallway are still in English and French.

And on the floor of the General Assembly, "unilateral" remains a highly touchy word.

So when George W. Bush walked into this giant cavern of a room yesterday, he was facing an audience that already felt burned by him.

Understandably so.

He`d ridiculed their arms inspector as a bumbling doofus. He`d suggested that America`s oldest allies were the friends of terrorists. He`d questioned the very survival of the UN.

The United Nations, he`d said back in February, risked fading "into history as an ineffective, irrelevant debating society."

Rebuttal, anyone?

What a difference a few months can make!

The famously dismissive American president was back in this chamber again, asking its insulted members to bail him out of the jam they`d tried to save him from.

"Major fighting" has supposedly ended in Iraq. "Mission accomplished," the sign on the aircraft carrier said.

But American soldiers are still dying in daily ambushes. Genuine terrorists are descending on Baghdad as never before. Water, electricity, oil - they`re all still iffy propositions. Even our good friend Ahmad Chalabi is wondering aloud: When do Iraqis get to run their country again? The end of the American occupation is nowhere in sight.

The reasons we had to attack in such a hurry - the weapons of mass destruction, the direct al-Qaida ties, the prospect that peace would soon be spreading clear across the Middle East - have been maddeningly hard to prove. And we all know who is paying the bills. We are. A billion dollars a week and counting, $87 billion for next year alone.

Yes, we sure could use some outside help.

But if Bush was going to win these other countries over, he`d have to concede an argument or two. He`d have to acknowledge that things aren`t going quite as smoothly as Cheney, Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld promised they would. He`d have to admit that maybe, just maybe, France and Germany and Russia and about 100 other nations had a point.

But standing at the podium yesterday and then in private meetings afterward, Bush was as rigid as a Texas fence post, even as he invited the rest of the world to rescue him.

With troops.

With money.

With blessings for this indefinitely long occupation.

The rest of the world responded as you might expect them to.

With blank faces and polite applause.

But no promise of troops.

No promise of money.

And no support for America`s as-long-as-it-takes calendar.

"Let us move forward," Bush told his fellow leaders, simply repeating his old arguments for the war.

"Across the world, nations are more secure because an ally of terror has fallen," he said.

He made no reference to absent weapons, the unproven terror ties or the murky realities on the ground in Iraq. "The regime of Saddam Hussein cultivated ties to terror while it built weapons of mass destruction," Bush said.

And he brushed aside any hope of a swift resolution. "This process must unfold according to the needs of Iraqis, neither hurried nor delayed by the wishes of other parties," he said.

Even as he asked for international help, he made clear he had no intention of sharing authority with any other nation.

Sadly, it was the same old unilateralism as before, a hard sell in February, an impossible sell today.

French President Jacques Chirac put it quite succinctly, reminding his American counterpart why we even bother to have a UN.

"No one can act alone in the name of all, and no one can accept the anarchy of a society without rules," he said.

Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general, spoke directly about this Bush unilateralism and its dangers for the whole world, not to mention its danger for American troops and the American treasury.

"Until now," he said, "it has been understood that when states decide to use force, they needed the unique legitimacy provided by the United Nations," he said.

Until now.

Chirac and Annan, making the oldest case in the biggest chamber.

This isn`t always the fairest test. But you won`t be surprised to hear that both men got far more applause than Bush did yesterday.
Copyright © 2003, Newsday, Inc.

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Give UN Control in Order to Get More Foreign Troops
Public Staggered by Costs But Wants to Stay the Course

Released: September 23, 2003
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=193
Introduction

Concerned by the rising costs and growing casualties of the U.S. military operation in Iraq, Americans are looking to the United Nations to assume a greater role in the country, even if that means ceding some authority over military decisions to the world body.Just over half (51%) believe that the United States should give up some military control to the United Nations in order to get other countries to deploy troops to Iraq.

There is even more support for the U.N. taking on significant responsibility for establishing a stable government in Iraq. Seven-in-ten Americans favor such a role for the U.N., up from 64% in April when major combat was winding down. Americans remain divided over whether the U.S. or the U.N. should have the most say in creating a new government, though a growing number (44%) wants the U.N. take the lead.

Despite the persistent attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, the public remains solidly behind the mission. Nearly two-thirds of Americans (64%) think the U.S. should keep its troops in Iraq until a stable government is formed, while 32% want to withdraw the forces as soon as possible. The percentage of Americans who say the U.S. made the right decision in going to war has held steady at 63% since early August, and perceptions of how well the military operation is going have stabilized as well. However, as in recent months few (15%) believe things are going very well, which was the majority view in April.

At the same time, there is substantial public opposition to the rising cost of the military operation. Nearly six-in-ten Americans (59%) say they oppose President Bush`s request for an additional $87 billion for military and rebuilding costs in Iraq and Afghanistan while just 36% back the request. Notably, this is not just a case of "sticker shock." When a separate sample was asked whether they favor a "large amount" to support U.S. efforts in the two countries, with the total dollar amount not specified, there was nearly as much opposition to the spending (55%).

The latest Pew Research Center national survey of 1,500 adults, conducted Sept. 17-22, finds substantial doubt about whether President Bush has a plan for bringing the situation in Iraq to a successful conclusion. More than half (58%) say the president does not have a clear plan for exiting Iraq, compared with less than a third (32%) who say he does. And many fewer are satisfied with the president`s explanations of the current situation than was the case before the war. Just 30% say the president has "explained clearly" his plans for the end game in Iraq, compared with 49% who said he had explained the reasons for war clearly prior to military engagement.

A growing number of Americans also fault the president for not lining up more allied backing before going to war in Iraq. A narrow majority (53%) still feels Bush was right to order the attack when he did, but 42% say he should have waited for more allied support, up from 28% in April.

Still, Americans accept one of Bush`s central premises for the war ­ that it helps in the struggle against global terrorism. A 54% majority believes the war in Iraq has helped the war on terrorism as opposed to 31% who think the Iraq conflict has hurt the fight against terrorism. But here again, opinions have shifted since spring. In May, Americans by three-to-one (65%-22%) said the war in Iraq helped, not hurt, the war in terrorism.

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Bombs Reportedly Kill Three in Iraq
By CHARLES J. HANLEY
The Associated Press
Wednesday, September 24, 2003; 3:18 PM
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Bombs rocked a teeming quarter of Baghdad and a sex-film theater in the northern city of Mosul on Wednesday, reportedly killing at least three Iraqis and wounding dozens of others, as world leaders worked to find agreement in New York on how to restore stability to Iraq.
In the flashpoint region of Tikrit, U.S. troops aborted one ambush by anti-American forces, killing three Iraqis, and came under fire elsewhere in an exchange that left at least one Iraqi dead, the U.S. military reported.
On the political front, Iraqi Communist leader Hamid Majid Moussa told reporters he and other members of the interim national authority, the U.S.-appointed, 25-seat Iraqi Governing Council, want to move toward national sovereignty "as fast as we can." But council members refused to be drawn into the debate over a specific timetable.
"We don`t want to become involved in fruitless discussions," said Moussa, one of four council representatives at a news conference here in Iraq`s capital.
The debate between the United States and other governments over Iraq`s future moved this week to U.N. headquarters in New York, where President George W. Bush`s U.S. administration seeks a Security Council resolution encouraging other nations to contribute troops to the Iraq security force.
In exchange, France and others, including Germany, want the resolution to give the United Nations a greater voice in the political transition in Iraq, and a speedy move, in "months, not years," to full Iraqi sovereignty - ending the American postwar occupation.
Bush met with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Wednesday in New York, and both said later they would work to resolve those differences. Schroeder renewed Germany`s offer to help train Iraqi police, but reiterated that Germany would send no troops here.
More than five months after the ouster of Saddam Hussein`s government, the troops who are here - almost all Americans - face a daily threat of homemade roadside bombs, mortar attacks and small-arms ambushes.
For the first time Wednesday, U.S. soldiers in central Baghdad were seen deploying bomb-disposal robots, to check a suspicious object in an underpass. That proved harmless, but at about the same time five kilometers (three miles) to the northwest, a bomb meant to catch a passing U.S. motorized patrol exploded instead as two buses rolled by.
The blast, in the old Tigris riverside district of Azamiyah, sent shrapnel ripping through the buses and caused one to crash into a tree. At least one Iraqi was killed and 18 others were wounded, police and hospital officials reported. Five of the injured were in critical condition, hospital officials reported.
In Mosul, a bomb exploded in a movie theater showing foreign sex films, and witnesses said two people were killed and seven injured. Religious and political groups have warned cinema owners against showing such films after censorship ended following the collapse of Saddam`s regime.
The ground clashes occurred near Balad, a town south of Saddam`s hometown of Tikrit.
In one, seven Iraqis attacked an oil pumping station guarded by troops of the U.S. 4th Infantry Division, and the Americans called in an AC-130 gunship, which opened fire on an automobile and killed at least one Iraqi, reported division spokeswoman Maj. Josslyn Aberle.
In a second clash, a U.S. patrol killed three Iraqis waiting in ambush with small arms and rocket-propelled grenades, the military said.
The Americans have been carrying out near-daily raids in the Tikrit area following a coordinated attack by Iraqi resistance fighters on Sept. 19 that killed three American soldiers. The raids have resulted in dozens of arrests and follow-up raids.
American and Iraqi officials blame the anti-U.S. resistance on remnants of Saddam`s regime. Other Iraqis say some countrymen simply resentful of American domination may be joining in the attacks.
In Washington, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, said the Pentagon may be forced within several weeks to alert large numbers of additional National Guard and Reserve soldiers for Iraq duty if other countries don`t soon pledge thousands more troops.
In another development, Iraqi Governing Council members defended their decision announced Tuesday to restrict the newsgathering activities here of satellite television channels Al-Jazeera and Al-Arabiya, for supposedly inciting violence against the Americans and Iraqi officials.
Both stations have broadcast statements purported to be from Saddam and footage showing what were said to be resistance fighters vowing to continue attacks on U.S. troops. "They showed people on TV demanding that members of the council should be killed," council member Iyad Allawi told reporters.
In fact, one council member, career diplomat Aquila al-Hashimi, was shot and badly wounded last Saturday in an assassination attempt in Baghdad. She was reported Wednesday to have taken a turn for the worse at a U.S. military hospital. "She is gravely ill," Alawi said.
© 2003 The Associated Press


Heute keine Aktualisierung

09/24/03 BBC: Blast hits Iraqi cinema in Mosul
An explosion has ripped through a cinema in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, killing two people and injuring up to 20 others.
09/24/03 Reuters: U.S. troops kill nine Iraqi rebels
U.S. troops have killed nine Iraqi guerrillas, the biggest toll for more than a month, in scattered action over northern Iraq in the past 24 hours, a military spokesman says
09/24/03 ABCNews:Bomb Misses U.S. Patrol, Kills Iraqi
A homemade bomb exploded Wednesday along a road in the Iraqi capital, missing a U.S. military patrol but killing at least one Iraqi and injuring 18 others as it destroyed two civilian buses, police and hospital officials said.
09/24/03 Department of Defense
Identifies Army Casualties for Sept. 18 and Sept. 20
09/23/03 Centcom: Soldier dies from non-hostile gunshot
BAGHDAD, Iraq – A 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) soldier died from a non-hostile gunshot wound in an area south of Mosul on Sept. 22.
09/22/03 VOA: Car Bomb Explodes Near UN Headquarters
A suicide bomber has blown up a car outside the already bomb-damaged United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. The blast killed two people and wounded at least eight others
09/21/03 Centcom: One soldier killed
One 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment soldier was killed in an improvised explosive device attack against a military vehicle in Ar Ramadi at approximately 9:30 p.m. on Sep. 20.
09/21/03 Centcom: 2 KIlled, 13 Wounded
Two 205th Military Intelligence Brigade soldiers died and 13 were wounded, when two mortars hit the Abu Ghurayb Prison at approximately 9:54 p.m., Sept. 20.
09/21/03 VOA News:2 US Soldiers Killed Near Baghdad
American military officials in Iraq say two soldiers have been killed and 13 wounded in a mortar attack on a U.S.-run prison west of Baghdad.

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No WMD in Iraq, source claims
No weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq by the group looking for them, according to a Bush administration source who has spoken to the BBC.
This will be the conclusion of the Iraq Survey Group`s interim report, the source told the presenter of BBC television`s Daily Politics show, Andrew Neil.

Downing Street branded the story "speculation about an unfinished draft of an interim report".

Mr Neil said the draft report - which the source said is due to be published next month - concludes that it is highly unlikely that weapons of mass destruction were shipped out of the country to places like Syria before the US-led war on Iraq.


The bottom line is that the team has found no weapons of mass destruction
Andrew Neil

It will also say that Saddam Hussein mounted a huge programme to deceive and hinder the work of United Nations weapons inspectors, he said.

Mr Neil said that according to the source, the report will say its inspectors have not even unearthed "minute amounts of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons material".

They have also not uncovered any laboratories involved in deploying weapons of mass destruction and no delivery systems for the weapons.


IRAQ SURVEY GROUP
Took over WMD hunt from the US military in June
Using intelligence to build picture of Iraqi weapons programmes
Led by US general, but has some UK and Australian staff
1,300 staff include former UN weapons inspectors
But, Mr Neil added, the report would publish computer programmes, files, pictures and paperwork which it says shows that Saddam Hussein`s regime was attempting to develop a weapons of mass destruction programme.
CIA spokesman Bill Harlow told the Reuters news agency he expected the report would "reach no firm conclusions, nor will it rule anything in or out".

Reuters also quoted a senior US official as saying the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) was expected to report finding "documentary evidence" that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons programmes.

"Whether they will find or disclose anything on the weapons themselves, I doubt," said the official.

`Savage blow`

UK Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said: "This is speculation on an as yet unpublished report.

"I await the report eagerly from Mr Kay (head of the survey group), as does the international community."

Mr Straw argued that the whole international community had agreed Iraq`s weapons programmes had posed - the issue had been what to do about it.


People did not need the ISG report for evidence of that threat, he said. It was already shown in volumes of reports from UN inspectors.
A Number 10 spokesman said "we don`t have this text", but asked if the prime minister had seem the report, remarked: "We are not going into details of process."

Mr Neil, a former editor of the Sunday Times, stressed he had not seen the draft report, and was reporting what a single source had said its findings were likely to be.

He said the report was still to be finalised and could undergo some changes, but the source had been told the content of some key passages which were not expected to be substantively altered.

Former Conservative cabinet minister Michael Portillo said if these details of the report were true, it would be a "savage blow" to the prime minister.

`Fake facilities`

The inspectors have uncovered no evidence that any weapons were actually built in the immediate years before the war, the leak of the report suggests.

It is alleged that Saddam Hussein`s programme of deception involved fake facilities and infrastructure to deceive and hinder the work of UN weapons inspectors.


The group may well conclude that Iraq had an elaborate and secret effort to maintain elements of its weapons programmes - in `suspended animation` if you like
Jonathan Marcus
BBC defence correspondent

Documents have been uncovered showing weapons facilities were concealed as commercial buildings, the report is likely to say.

The ISG took over the job of finding WMD from the US military in June.

The survey group, led by David Kay, a former UN weapons inspector and now a special adviser to the CIA, is a largely US operation, although it includes some British and Australian staff.

Its 1,400 personnel are made up of scientists, military and intelligence experts, and its work is shrouded in secrecy.

Its focus is intelligence, using documents and interviews with Iraqi scientists to build up a picture of the secret world of Iraq`s weapons programmes.

The survey group has been under pressure to prove the Bush administration`s case that Iraq`s weapons posed a significant threat.

Gary Samor, of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, recently told the BBC that UN inspection teams should have been sent back into Iraq as there would be much scepticism about the ISG`s findings.


Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/uk_news/politics/31359…

Published: 2003/09/24 19:48:16 GMT

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Verantwortlich für Chaos und Auflehnung

Michaela Simon 24.09.2003
Al-Dschasira und Al-Arabiya dürfen nicht mehr über den irakischen Regierungrat berichten - Gut möglich, dass den beiden Sendern noch drastischere "Strafen" bevorstehen

Der irakische Übergangsrat hat ein Verbot über die Sender Al-Dschasira und Al-Arabiya verhängt: Zwei Wochen dürfen ihre Reporter nicht über den Regierungsrat berichten und sind von allen relevanten Presskonferenzen und Versammlungen des Rats ausgeschlossen.

Die Zwei-Wochen-Sperre ist eine Abmilderung der gestern angekündigten Maßnahme, die Büros der beiden Satellitenkanäle für einen Monat dichtzumachen und dessen Korrespondenten in dieser Zeit auszuweisen. Regierungsratsmitglied Mudhar Schawkat warf den Sendern vor, die religiöse Spaltung im Land zu fördern und das Volk gegen die Demokratisierung aufzuhetzen: "Sie zeigen Bilder von maskierten Männern und bezeichnen sie als Widerstand, obwohl es sich dabei um Kriminelle handelt."

Die Frage, die durch diesen Warnschuss erneut aufgeworfen wird, ist, wie stark die Entscheidungen des irakischen Regierungsrats vom Einfluss der Amerikaner geprägt sind. Ganz einfach ist dies nicht zu beantworten, da Al-Dschasira eine nicht untragische Position innehat, nämlich die, zwischen allen Stühlen zu stehen. Der Sender gerät ständig in Konflikt mit arabischen Staaten: Viele Länder, wie etwa Kuwait, Algerien, Bahrain und Saudi-Arabien boykottieren die in ihren Augen allzu freimütige Berichterstattung des katarischen Senders, der vor allem mit seinen populären hitzigen Debatten und Talk-Shows, bei denen "jeder sagen kann, was er will", für viel Wirbel in arabischen Regierungskreisen und in der breiten Öffentlichkeit gesorgt hat ( Al-Dschasira und die Rache der älteren Schwester).

Das Büro von Al-Dschasira in Kuwait wurde im November geschlossen. Aus dem Land gewiesen wurden Reporter in Jordanien und in Bahrein. Schwierigkeiten gab es schon vor Kriegsbeginn immer wieder mit dem Irak (vgl. Al-Dschasira und die Rache der älteren Schwester). Allerdings hatte sich Al-Dschasira auch bei den USA wiederholt unbeliebt gemacht, als der Sender während des Afghanistan-Krieges frei berichtete und Videos von Bin Ladin zeigte. Vizepräsident Cheney bezeichnete ihn damals als "Propagandaplattform". "Versehentlich" wurde dann das Büro in Kabul durch eine amerikanische Bombe zerstört. Auch während des Irak-Krieges wurde ein Hotel, in dem sich ausschließlich Mitarbeiter von Al-Dschasira aufhielten, "zufällig" beschossen (vgl. Hotel in Basra, in dem sich das Büro von al-Dschasira befindet, wurde beschossen) sowie das Büro des Sender in Bagdad bombardiert, wobei ein Mitarbeiter getötet wurde ( Bombenzensur oder "Kollateralschaden"?). Seit 5. September sitzt der al-Dschasira-Reporter Taisir Aluni in Spanien in Haft; er wird beschuldigt, al-Qaida unterstützt zu haben ( Reporter unter Verdacht).


Al-Dschasira war seit dem ersten Tag seiner Existenz ständig bedroht, und das obwohl der Sender wirklich Meinungsfreiheit, Demokratie und Pressefreiheit praktiziert, eben jene Prinzipien, die offiziell immer hochgehalten werden.
Jihad Balout, Pressesprecher von Al-Dschasira


So dürfte die jetzt verhängte die Sperre in der öffentlichen Meinung der arabischen und muslimischen Länder als Zensur aufgefasst werden, weil dort die Meinung vorherrscht, dass die Amerikaner zwar "freie Meinungsäußerung" propagieren, aber nur soweit es eigenen Interessen dient (vgl. USA vs. Demokratie "Arab Style"). Dazu kommt noch, dass ein neuer arabischer Fernsehkanal, gesponsert mit amerikanischen Geldern (der Kongress hat 30 Millionen Dollar bewilligt) geplant ist, der große Schwierigkeiten haben könnte, einen Platz auf dem vollen Markt zu finden, wenn nicht vorher ein wenig "Platz gemacht wird". Vor dem Hintergrund, dass u.a. Donald Rumsfeld seit Wochen lautstark Al-Dschasira als Sender bezichtigt, der mit der Ausstrahlung von Bin-Laden- oder Saddam Hussein-Bändern Sympathie für Terroristen propagiere, dürfte das Misstrauen der arabischen Öffentlichkeit gegenüber der Unabhängigkeit oder freien Entscheidungsgewalt des Regierungsrat bestärkt werden. Der Druck, den die amerikanische Administration wiederholt auf den Sender ausgeübt hat, um Bänder von Bin Laden zu zensieren, hat die Rhetorik von freier Meinungsäußerung in den Augen der Araber ohnehin schon recht zweifelhaft gemacht.

Al-Arabiya hat übrigens in den sechs Monaten seines Bestehens (vgl. Konkurrenz für Al-Dschasira) fast keinen Ärger gehabt und zeigt sich jetzt besonders überrascht, da man stets bemüht war, stiller und unkritischer als der Pionier Al-Dschasira zu arbeiten. Der Sender war aus dem Middle East Broadcasting Center hervorgegangen, das vor 11 Jahren von einem Schwager des saudischen Königs Fahd gegründet und mit reichlichen Mitteln ausgestattet wurde. Andere Financiers sind die libanesische Hariri-Gruppe sowie Geschäftsleute aus Kuwait und den Golf-Staaten.


Der zweiwöchige Bann soll eine Warnung sein, nicht nur an die beiden betroffenen Sender, sondern auch an andere Stationen, dass sie in Zukunft mit dem "Gift", das sie versprühen, vorsichtiger sein sollen. Man werde, so der Regierungsrat, keine Beiträge mehr dulden, die Gewalt und Chaos provozieren oder in irgendeiner Weise die früher herrschende Baath-Partei rehabilitieren. Auslöser für die Drohgebärde gegen die beiden Sender soll der Anschlag auf ein Mitglied des Rates, Akila al-Haschimi, gewesen sein, die am Wochenende von Unbekannten vor ihrem Haus niedergeschossen wurde. Al-Arabiya hatte Tage vorher Männer gezeigt, die gedroht hatten, den Regierungsrat zu attackieren.

Reporters without borders haben die Sperre als "klaren und unverfrorenen Angriff auf die Pressefreiheit" scharf verurteilt. Die englischsprachige Webseite von Al-Dschasira, seit etwa zwei Wochen wieder gut erreichbar, bietet eine Stellungnahme zu den Ereignissen.

http://www.heise.de/tp/deutsch/special/irak/15702/1.html

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George W. Kowalski? Bush’s Macho Facade Goes Limp

by Maureen Farrell

In February, 2002, President Bush and his national security team posed for celebrity photographer Annie Leibovitz, for the cover of Vanity Fair. The accompanying article, "War and Destiny," depicted George Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Andrew Card, George Tenet and Colin Powell as capable and courageous leaders who would navigate the tumultuous waters of terrorism and deliver us from evil.

Never mind, of course, that promises to catch Osama bin Laden "dead or alive" had already proven hollow, there was still an aura of certainty about these folks, and an insecure nation hungered to believe. "When people feel uncertain, they`d rather have someone who is strong and wrong, than someone who is weak and right," Bill Clinton once said.

The clarity with which most Americans saw George W. Bush before Sept. 11, 2001 perished in the rubble and suddenly, intelligent men and women mistook arrogance for masculinity and hubris for assured sexuality. Before long, it was like attending a wedding where you knew the groom was a boisterous galoot, while, much to your bewilderment, everyone else found his swagger reassuring. While Bush’s machismo might have initially made a wobbly nation feel safer, beyond the illusion, America became little more than a frightened former beauty queen, enduring the outbursts of a deceitful, ill-mannered and intellectually-challenged caricature. Despite Newsweek’s Howard Fineman’s depiction of Bush as the reluctant sheriff in High Noon, the rest of the world, wary of Bush’s bullying, found him to be more Stanley Kowalski than Gary Cooper.

And so, by the time President Kowalski dressed in that flight suit, the country was jettisoned into a wider realm of forced bravado and bad taste, as, horror upon horrors, the presidential package became the center of attention. "Bush`s outfit gave him a very vivid basket," the Village Voice asserted, adding, "This was the first a time a president literally showed his balls." Saying that the "manly exhibition was no accident," the Voice surmised that the bulge was part of a PR stunt. "I can`t prove they gave him a sock job," Richard Goldstein wrote, "but clearly they thought long and hard about the crotch shot." Goldstein went on to argue that Bush’s fly boy garb framed his groin to make his "bulge seem natural," which played upon the imaginations of men and women alike. [LINK]

However contrived, it worked. And so, America endured an embarrassing onslaught of commentary from the coalition of the clueless. "The president has to meet a testosterone standard that appeals to women but does not offend men," Susan Fields wrote in the Washington Times. "George W. Bush succeeds with both and that drives Democrats crazy. They’ve made fools of themselves with their churlish criticism of his landing on the deck of the USS Lincoln, but they can’t let it go. George W. was a hottie in his flight suit. He was the victorious commander, and most of all he looked at home with himself. He glowed with the pride born of authenticity, declaring the war over and thanking all those appreciative sailors on the decks of the Lincoln."

"I turned on the news," Lisa Schiffren wrote in the Wall Street Journal. "And there was the president, landing on the deck of the USS Abraham Lincoln, stepping out of a fighter jet in that amazing uniform, looking--how to put it?--really hot. Also presidential, of course. Not to mention credible as commander in chief. But mostly "hot," as in virile, sexy and powerful." Schiffren also praised Bush for using "overwhelming military force to vanquish a truly evil foe," and for "facing down balking former `allies,`" and implied that it was ridiculous that "he is not taken seriously as a foreign-policy president."

Else Fields, Schiffren and other American Muffies have yet to catch on, the "churlish criticism" of Bush’s aircraft carrier landing did not stem from partisan politics, but from a deep and abiding sense of decency. To recap, yet again: Because Bush went AWOL when he was called to serve and because he sent men and women to their deaths amidst a catalogue of lies, his Mission Accomplished photo-op was repulsive in a way that went well beyond the usual "there`s no accounting for taste." Now that it`s been proven that the "pride born of authenticity" in "declaring the war over" was a case of shameless hubris, the vapid ninnies applauding the president`s showboating are the ones who`ve been made to look foolish.

The October 2003 issue of Vanity Fair (which has returned to earth since featuring the Bush administration as stalwart mannequins) includes James Wolcott’s hilarious commentary on the hubbub over Bush’s basket. Saying that MSNBC’s Chris Matthews "gets as gaga as Andrew Sullivan and frequent guest Peggy Noonan over that hickory-smoked hunk of masculinity, George W. Bush," Wolcott wrote:

"One of the more cringe-inducing TV moments in recent memory was Matthews and G. Gordon Liddy sprouting rhetorical woodies over the spectacle of Bush on the carrier deck in his flight suit, his parachute harness showcasing the presidential bulge -- or, to use Liddy’s inimitable phrase, "his manly characteristic." One guy to another, Liddy put Matthews wise. "You know, all those women who say size doesn’t count, they’re all liars. Check that out."

Matthews: "And I’ve got to say why do the Democrats, as you say, want to keep advertising this guy’s greatest moment?"

Liddy: "Look, he’s coming across as a, well, as women would call in my show saying, what a stud. . ."

"To borrow a line from the late critic Marvin Mudrick, the two of them should take a cold shower, preferably not together."

Of course, the media’s role in manufacturing Bush`s macho mystique began well before that aircraft carrier landing -- and extended to Donald Rumsfeld, as well. The National Review featured the cover story, "The Stud: Donald Rumsfeld, America`s New Pinup," CNN described him as a "virtual rock star" and Fox News` deemed Rummy "a babe magnet for the 70-year old set."

When the war in Afghanistan was well underway, Claudia Rosett of the Wall Street Journal dubbed Rumsfeld a sex symbol for women of all ages, while New York Times fashion reporter Ginia Belafonte argued that "the post-Sept. 11 world has caused a certain kind of woman to re-evaluate what she is looking for in a man . . . She has seen the valiant efforts of rescue workers and remarked to herself that men like Donald Rumsfeld make big, impactive decisions in the time it would take any of her exes to order lunch."

The Washington Post’s Howard Kurtz wrote that "The secretary of defense is hotter than the exhaust fumes on a B-52. Everyone`s genuflecting before the Pentagon powerhouse," while the National Review’s Andrew Stuttaford reported that "with every appearance, some say, [Rumsfeld] is making additional conquests, not of Herat this time, but of hearts, the hearts of women all over America, each beating a little harder at the thought of a man who, these ladies like to believe, doesn`t need the help of a B-52 to make the earth move."

These musing weren’t restricted to Bush and Rumsfeld, however. One got the feeling that the manly man image extended to right wingers in general, or at least the kind of males who existed before feminists ruined everything. Shortly after 911, Peggy Noonan wrote, "A certain style of manliness is once again being honored and celebrated in our country since Sept. 11. You might say it suddenly emerged from the rubble of the past quarter century, and emerged when a certain kind of man came forth to get our great country out of the fix it was in."

Noonan didn’t stop there, though. She suggested that John Wayne himself had emerged from the ruins. "I missed John Wayne," she mused "But now I think . . . he`s back. I think he returned on Sept. 11. I think he ran up the stairs, threw the kid over his back like a sack of potatoes, came back down and shoveled rubble. I think he`s in Afghanistan now, saying, with his slow swagger and simmering silence, "Yer in a whole lotta trouble now, Osama-boy."

Is Peggy Noonan insane? Does she really believe the stuff she writes? Or did she not know that even as she was concocting her fantasies, our erstwhile John Wayne was zigzagging across America in an attempt to save his own hide? "I mean, I was just trying to get out of harm’s way," Bush said.

Finally, in May, 2003, a Time magazine article entitled "Goodbye Soccer Mom, Hello Security Mom," reported that choosy mothers choose macho. "She`s worried, she wants answers and she likes toughness in a President," the article reported. Back then, there was the insinuation that we could only find such firm resolve in men like George W. Bush, whose "bring `em on" bravado, like Kowalski`s "Stellllllllla!" has since been unmasked as mere bluster.

Now that the war in Iraq has become more quagmire than cakewalk, people have finally stopped swooning over our fearless, feckless leader. Even Bush bootlicker Andrew Sullivan recently wrote, "Can we all now agree that [Bush’s aircraft carrier landing] was the dumbest political gesture of the last two years?"

Moreover, there`s a growing impression that the Bush gang is not only incompetent, but impotent. Given Bush`s limp economic strategy and sagging post-Iraq poll numbers, the grand mythos of a testosterone-driven powerhouse is sliding into the propaganda swamp from whence it was hatched. And a recent Washington Post article entitled "Iraq Takes a Toll on Rumsfeld," shows him to be tragically pigheaded, not admirably capable. "Robert McNamara for four years of Vietnam going down the toilet was absolutely convinced with a religious zeal that what he was doing was the right thing," former Army secretary Thomas E. White said. "It wasn`t until 30 years later that it dawned on him that he was dead wrong. And I think you have the same thing with Don Rumsfeld." [LINK]

But even so, the illusion of masculinity and capability was powerful -- and even political veteran David Gergen was fooled. "This will set the standard for advance men for years to come," he said of Bush’s flight suit prance. But anyone outside the missionary position set knows that the Bush cartel was never really a manly bunch -- they were just loutish and rude and dangerous.

"If we`re an arrogant nation, they`ll resent us. If we`re a humble nation but strong, they`ll welcome us," candidate Bush said, many moons ago. But President Kowalski was waiting in the wings. "I’m the commander, see?" he told Bob Woodward. "I do not need to explain why I say things." A few months later, in January, 2003, he told a reporter, "You say we`re headed for war in Iraq. I don`t know why you say that. I`m the person who gets to decide, not you."

Haven’t we had enough of delusional ideologues, cocksure attitudes and puffed chests? We need to ditch the ridiculous he-man mythology and start facing reality. We’re at a breaking point -- as George Orwell warned -- wherein "a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield." Iraq, of course, is that battlefield, with the false belief in Bush’s macho image (and in U.S. invincibility) taking a major hit. As Newsweek’s Charles Dickey explained, "Every day we look weaker. And the worst news of all it that it’s not because of what was done to us by our enemies but because of what we’ve done to ourselves."

And so, little by little, Bush’s macho façade is crumbling as more Americans awaken to the truth. ("I just wake up in the morning and tell myself, `There`s been a military coup`. And then it all makes sense," a State Department official said). We need our leaders to possess integrity, intelligence and competence -- not glossed over guile and bullheaded arrogance. Decisiveness is important, but decisions should be based on real information -- not cooked intelligence and pre-planned agendas.

In other words, America needs real men, not he-men. And as a neutered Bush returns to the "irrelevant" UN, counting on the kindness of strangers, let’s pray that he and his media cheerleaders understand what they have wrought. And let’s pray, in the end, that America won’t pay too dear a price for our arranged unholy marriage to George W. Kowalski.
http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/03/09/23.html

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Maureen Farrell is a writer and media consultant who specializes in helping other writers get television and radio exposure.

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The hunt for weapons of mass destruction yields - nothing
Intelligence claims of huge Iraqi stockpiles were wrong, says report

Julian Borger in Washington, Ewen MacAskill and Patrick Wintour
Thursday September 25, 2003
The Guardian

An intensive six-month search of Iraq for weapons of mass destruction has failed to discover a single trace of an illegal arsenal, according to accounts of a report circulating in Washington and London.

The interim report, compiled by the CIA-led Iraq Survey Group (ISG) of 1,400 weapons experts and support staff, will instead focus on Saddam Hussein`s capacity and intentions to build banned weapons.

A draft of the report has been sent to the White House, the Pentagon and Downing Street, a US intelligence source said. It has caused such disappointment that there is now a debate over whether it should be released to Congress over the next fortnight, as had been widely expected.

"It will mainly be an accounting of programmes and dual-use technologies," said one US intelligence source. "It demonstrates that the main judgments of the national intelligence estimate (NIE) in October 2002, that Saddam had hundreds of tonnes of chemical and biological agents ready, are false."

A BBC report yesterday said that the survey group, which includes British and Australian investigators, had come across no banned weapons, or delivery systems, or laboratories involved in developing such weapons.

According to the BBC, the report will include computer programmes, files, paperwork and pictures suggesting Saddam`s regime was developing a WMD programme.

Both Washington and London are likely to focus on documentary evidence that the Saddam regime was capable of producing weapons of mass destruction, and probably intended to once international scrutiny had faded.

But the report will fall far short of proving Iraq was an "imminent threat" even to its neighbours.

According to accounts of the ISG draft, captured Iraqi scientists gave the investigation, led by a former UN inspector, David Kay, an account of how weapons were destroyed, but those accounts refer to the period immediately after the 1991 Gulf war.

The NIE was put together last year by the CIA and other US intelligence agencies, and claimed that the Iraqi leader had chemical and biological stockpiles, and a continuing nuclear programme that could produce a homemade bomb before the end of the decade.

The NIE became a key document in the propaganda war by President Bush in the runup to the invasion of Iraq in March, although intelligence officials warned that many of the nuances and cautionary notes from original reports had been removed from the final documents.

The timing of this disclosure could hardly be worse for Tony Blair, days before the start of the Labour party conference.

Iraq has dogged the prime minister almost continuously for five months. Downing Street had been hoping for respite after Lord Hutton`s inquiry, which closes today. Mr Blair put forward Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction as the reason for going to war and has repeatedly insisted that the weapons would be found.

He told a sceptical Conservative MP in the Commons on April 30 that he was convinced that Iraq had such weapons and predicted that, when the report was published, "you and others will be eating some of your words".

Although Downing Street last night officially dismissed the leak as speculation, government sources confirmed it was accurate. A No 10 spokesman said: "People should wait. The reports today are speculation about an unfinished draft of an interim re port that has not even been presented yet. And when it comes it will be an interim report. The ISG`s work will go on. He added: "Our clear expectation is that this interim report will not reach firm conclusions about Iraq`s possession of WMD."

The government defence will be to stress that failure to find WMD does not mean that they do not exist.

Last night`s leak will fuel the anti-war sentiment ahead of Saturday`s demonstration in London for withdrawal of US and British troops from Iraq. It will also make it harder for Labour conference organisers to resist grassroots pressure for a debate on Iraq. The in terim report is at present pencilled in for publication next week but Labour, anxious to avoid it landing in the middle of its conference, is trying to get that changed.

In Washington, congressional aides said they still expected to hear from Dr Kay next week. He arrived back from Iraq last Wednesday and since then has been working on the report. The nuclear section of the survey group has also finished its work and left Iraq.

After addressing the Senate in July, Dr Kay claimed "solid evidence" was being gathered and warned journalists to expect "surprises". No such surprises appear to be in the draft.

The CIA took the unusual step of playing down expectations of the report yesterday.

"Dr Kay is still receiving information from the field. It will be just the first progress report, and we expect that it will reach no firm conclusions, nor will it rule anything in or out," the chief agency spokesman, Bill Harlow, said.

An intelligence official added yesterday that the timing of the report`s release "had yet to be determined".

In London, a Foreign Office spokesman said: "It is David Kay`s report. We do not have it. We will comment on it when it is presented. When it comes, it will be an interim report. ISG`s work will continue. The reports are speculation about an unfinished draft of an interim report that has not yet even been presented yet."

David Albright, a former UN weapons inspector, said: "It`s clear that the US and British governments wildly exaggerated the case for going to war."

But he added that the fact that the survey group had not found concrete evidence of weapons did not mean that the Baghdad regime did not have programmes to quickly reconstitute programmes and weapons at short notice. "I`m not surprised, given how incompetent this search has been. They`ve had bad relations with the [Iraqi] scientists from the start because they treated them all as criminals."

Many of the Iraqi scientists and officials who surrendered to US forces have been held in detention for months without contact with their families, despite assurances they would be well treated if they cooperated.

But recently the Bush administration, under mounting pressure to justify the invasion, has been trying to improve the incentives for former Saddam loyalists to provide information.

Reuters quoted a senior US official yesterday as saying that the former defence minister, Sultan Hashim Ahmed, had been given "effective" immunity in the hope he would provide information on Saddam`s weapons programmes.

The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, at the United Nations general assembly, declined to comment on the report. "If people want evidence, they don`t have to wait for Dr Kay`s report. What they can do is look at the volumes of reports from the weapons inspectors going back over a dozen years including the final report from Unmovic on March 7 this year, which set out 29 separate areas of unanswered disarmament questions to Iraq," he said.


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Schröder and Bush mend rift over Iraq
Rory McCarthy in Baghdad and Gary Younge in New York
Thursday September 25, 2003
The Guardian

Two people were killed and 20 were injured in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul yesterday when a hand grenade was thrown into a cinema that was apparently showing foreign pornographic movies.

In a separate incident in Baghdad, at least one Iraqi civilian died and 18 others were injured in the blast from a roadside bomb aimed at a passing US military patrol.

The attacks came as the US president, George Bush, held his first meeting in a year with the German chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, in an attempt to bridge their divide over the Iraq conflict.

More than five months after American troops took control of Iraq, it is still gripped by lawlessness and growing violence.

In Mosul, witnesses said several bodies were carried from the cinema, some seriously injured by shrapnel and glass. There were posters in the cinema advertising Italian and German porn movies.

The sudden flood of foreign films into Iraq has raised the ire of religious hardliners. Cinema owners showing pornographic films have been threatened, and in some towns there have been attacks on alcohol factories and shops selling western clothes for women.

In the attack in Baghdad, a roadside bomb exploded close to a US patrol, destroying two Iraqi buses. No troops were hurt, but one Iraqi was killed and at least five of the injured were reported to be a serious condition.

Iraqi officials also warned that a member of the US-appointed governing council who was shot leaving her home last Saturday was in a worsening condition in hospital. Aqila al-Hashimi, one of the three women on the council, suffered serious bullet wounds to her abdomen.

Entifadh Qanbar, a member of the Iraqi national c ongress, which holds a seat on the council, said her condition had "deteriorated dramatically". A senior American official later admitted that Ms al-Hashimi, who has undergone several operations at a US military hospital in Baghdad, had suffered a "serious decline".

In New York, Mr Bush resumed his diplomatic attempt to persuade other countries at the UN to share the burden for policing Iraq. He claimed that he had patched up his differences with Mr Schröder. He had told the German chancellor: "We have had differences and they are over, and we`re going to work together."

Mr Schröder, for his part, renewed a German offer to train Iraqi police and security personnel. But Berlin stands steadfast against contributing peacekeeping troops. It opposed the war from the outset.

The meeting failed to bridge the gulf between the two leaders on the pace of transition to a sovereign democracy in Iraq, and the degree of political control the UN should have in the near future.

Mr Schröder said: "Only the United Nations can guarantee the legitimacy that is needed to enable the Iraqi population to rapidly rebuild their country under an independent, representative government."

Germany and France would like to see the handover of power to Iraqis take place within months; Washington has refused to set a timetable.

The US has tabled a resolution in the UN security council calling for a multinational force in the area, but Germany, which has a seat on the council, would like the occupying powers to share power if the international community is going to share responsibility.

Mr Schröder said Mr Bush had spoken "very positively" about the UN`s role, adding: `It should be possible to work out a degree of common ground in the next few weeks that makes it possible to achieve a common resolution."

Mr Bush may find some solace in a new Gallup poll which suggests that most Iraqis in Baghdad believe that ousting Saddam Hussein was worth the troubles that have followed the war. About two-thirds of the 1,178 adults questioned said they believed Iraq would be in a better condition in five years time than it was before the US-led invasion.

But they had mixed views on whether the country was in a worse state now than before the war: 47% said they felt Iraq was worse off.



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Iraq has now become the crucible of global politics
The resistance to occupation has already changed the balance of power

Seumas Milne
Thursday September 25, 2003
The Guardian

Is this what they mean by freedom ?" asked Zaidan Khalaf Mohammed on Tuesday after the US 82nd Airborne Division had killed his brother and two other family members in Sichir, central Iraq, in an air and ground assault on their one-storey home. The Americans had come, he said, "like terrorists", while US forces claimed they had only attacked when they came under fire. No evidence was offered and none found.

These killings are after all merely the latest in a string of bloody "mistakes" by US occupation forces, including the repeated shooting of demonstrators, murderous attacks on carloads of civilians at roadblocks and this month`s massacre of members of the US-controlled Iraqi police force. In most countries, any of these incidents would have provoked a national or even an international outcry. But in occupied Iraq, US officials feel under no pressure to offer more than the most desultory explanation for the destruction of expendable Iraqi lives.

Six months after the launch of the invasion, it has become ever clearer that the war was not only a crime of aggression, but a gigantic political blunder for those who ordered it and who are only now beginning to grasp the scale of the political price they may have to pay. While George Bush has squandered his post-September 11 popularity, raising the spectre of electoral defeat next year as American revulsion grows at the cost in blood and dollars, Tony Blair`s leadership has been fatally undermined by the deception and subterfuge used to cajole Britain into a war it didn`t, and once again doesn`t, support.

Every key calculation the pair made - from the response of the UN to the number of troops needed and the likely level of popular support and resistance in Iraq - has proven faulty.

Whatever the formal outcome of the Hutton inquiry and the displacement activity of the government`s row with the BBC over an early-morning radio broadcast, it has unquestionably confirmed that Alastair Campbell and other Downing Street officials did strain every nerve to create the false impression of a chemical and biological weapons threat from Iraq, a threat that it is increasingly obvious did not exist.

Even more damagingly, the inquiry has revealed Blair`s reckless dismissal of the February warning by the joint intelligence committee that an attack on Iraq would increase the threat of terrorism.

Combined with the failure to find any weapons, the admission by the former chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix that he now believes Iraq long ago destroyed them and the discrediting of a litany of propaganda ploys (links with al-Qaida, the forged Niger uranium documents, the 45-minute weapons launch claim), Hutton has helped to strip the last vestige of possible legal cover from the aggression and shift opinion against the war.

So has the chaos and resistance on the ground in Iraq, where guerrilla attacks on US soldiers are running at a dozen a day and US casualties are now over 300 dead and 1,500 wounded. Latest estimates of Iraqi civilian war deaths are close to 10,000, while in the security vacuum hundreds more are now being being killed every week, a point driven home by yesterday`s bomb attacks in Baghdad and Mosul. In Baghdad alone, there has been a 25-fold increase in gun-related killings since the invasion, from 20 to more than 500 last month.

Paul Bremer, the head of the US occupation authority, insists "there is enormous gratitude for what we have done", and the dwindling band of cheerleaders for war have seized on contradictory and questionable Baghdad opinion surveys conducted by western pollsters to back the claim.

But it is not the story told by US defence department officials, who last week conceded that hostility to the occupation and support for armed resistance was growing and spreading well beyond Iraq`s Sunni heartlands. Hence George Bush`s humiliating return to the UN this week. But any attempt to prettify US-led colonial rule in Iraq in the colours of the UN (already the target of armed attacks) is no more likely to work than the League of Nations mandate Britain secured in Iraq in the 1920s. As then, the US and Britain insist in true colonial style that Iraqis "are not ready" to rule themselves, and the hostility to President Chirac`s demand for an early transfer of sovereignty confirms that the US will willingly hand over power only once it is confident of controlling the political outcome.

The real meaning of US promises of freedom and democracy was spelled out this week by two decisions of the US-appointed, and increasingly discredited, Iraqi Governing Council. The first was to put the entire economy, except oil, up for sale to foreign capital, combined with a sweeping free-market shock therapy programme, pre-empting the decisions of any elected Iraqi government. The second was to impose restrictions on the Arabic satellite TV stations al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya for their reports on the resistance to the occupation.

The reality is that the occupation offers no route to democracy, which is unlikely to favour US interests. What is needed is a political decision to end the occupation, a timetable for early withdrawal and the temporary replacement of the invading armies with an acceptable security force, perhaps provided by the Arab League, while free elections are held for a constituent assembly under UN auspices.

But none of that is likely to happen unless the US, the UK and their allies find the burden of occupation greater than that of withdrawal. Unpalatable though it may be, it is the Iraqi resistance that has transformed the balance of power over Iraq in the past six months, as it has frustrated US efforts to impose its will on the country and the US public has begun to grasp the price of military rule over another people.

By demonstrating the potential costs of pre-emptive invasion, the resistance has also reduced the threat of US attacks against other potential targets, such as Iran, North Korea, Syria and Cuba. Bush, Blair and the newly cowed BBC absurdly describe those defending their own country as "terrorists" - as all colonialist and occupation forces have done - and accuse them of being "Saddam loyalists".

In fact, the evidence suggests a much more varied political make-up, but if Bush and Blair have managed to achieve a partial rehabilitation of Ba`athism in Iraq they have only themselves to blame.

There is now a popular majority in Britain against the war and the occupation. Blair has repeatedly emphasised his personal judgment in the decision to join Bush`s war - and that judgment has been shown to be fatally flawed. Iraq has become the crucible of global politics and the testbed for the US drive to global domination. It is in the interests of the security of us all that there is now a political reckoning at home and in the US for that aggression.

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Britain in talks with US on restoring death penalty
Patrick Wintour
Thursday September 25, 2003
The Guardian

The attorney general, Lord Goldsmith, is discussing with the US authorities the reintroduction of the death penalty in Iraq, according Ann Clywd, the Labour MP who is Britain`s human rights envoy to Iraq.

She said that such a step would be seen by the world as an act of revenge on Iraq.

It is almost certain that Britain would veto capital punishment during British stewardship of the country, but it is less clear whether it could continue to maintain the veto in negotiations on a new Iraqi constitution.

Delicate talks are in progress over the degree to which either the UN or the US occupying forces should monitor and endorse the new constitution. Ironically, Britain has been opposing what it regards as too speedy a hand-over, on the grounds it would play into the hands of extremists.

Many Iraqis would love to see the death penalty restored for sabotage, as well as for leaders of the former Ba`athist regime. At the UN the world community is still discussing to what extent the Iraqi people should be freed to draw up their constitution themselves, irrespective of what the UN wants.

As part of the coalition`s provisional authority, Britain was instrumental in withdrawing the death penalty following the invasion in the spring - although the following lawlessness has led to the harshest military action by the authorities. UK officials have said that reintroduction of the death penalty would have to be discussed with the Iraq governing council.


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Wal-Mart may face army of 1.5m in class suit
Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
Thursday September 25, 2003
The Guardian

The largest private employer in the US has been accused of discriminating against women in what may become the biggest class action case in legal history. Up to one-and-a-half million women could join the action against the Wal-Mart chain in a suit being heard in San Francisco this week.

Wal-Mart Stores, based in Bentonville, Arkansas, employs over a million people nation-wide and only the government is a bigger employer.

The company has been the subject of numerous complaints by employees about low pay but the mass claim is potentially the most damaging it has faced. It is resisting the action.

The action alleging sex discrimination was first launched in 2001 by seven female former employees. It claims that women have faced routine bias for years regarding promotion, pay and training, and asserts there was a corporate culture that made it harder for women to advance than men. Also, while women make up 70 per cent of the workforce employed by the hour they fill only 15 per cent of management posts.

One plaintiff, Ramona Scott, who worked in a Florida branch from 1990 to 1998, alleges her manager met her complaints about discrimination by saying: "Men are here for a career and women aren`t. Retail is for housewives who just need extra money."

Wal-Mart says there is no evidence of discrimination, and that the larger percentage of male employees in management reflects how many applications the company receives.

Having one-and-a-half million women on the action would make it an impossible case, the company says.

Other firms with large numbers of women in non-management posts are watching with interest. In 1997, the Home Depot firm settled a sex discrimination action for $104m in a case involving 25,000 women.


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Condom supply to Africa hit by US abortion policy
Sarah Boseley, health editor
Thursday September 25, 2003
The Guardian

The Bush administration`s ban on funds to family planning clinics which offer abortion counselling is adversely affecting the supply of condoms to countries hit by HIV/Aids, it was claimed yesterday.

Clinics have had to close in a number of African countries because the family planning organisations running them refuse to sign a declaration that they will not offer abortions or even discuss them.

Many healthcare workers consider it unethical to refuse help to a pregnant woman who may endanger her life by seeking a backstreet abortion if she is turned away.

Yesterday the biggest international organisations affected by the so-called Mexico City policy, or Global Gag as the activists call it, launched a report quantifying the disaster they say it is visiting on the developing world.

Amy Coen, president of Population Action International, the lead sponsor of the study said: "The policy significantly reduces access to vital family planning and health-related services for some of the world`s poorest women and weakens vital HIV/Aids prevention efforts." The rule was "another example of how the Bush administration is allowing political ideology to trump science".

The report documented the closure of many clinics which are often the only provider of sexual healthcare in their areas because of a cutoff of funds from USAid, the US agency which is the world`s biggest source of development funding. About $430m (£259m) which the administration earmarks for family planning in poor countries can only go to organisations that have signed the anti-abortion pledge.

The policy was introduced by Ronald Reagan, thrown out by Bill Clinton and reinstated on George Bush`s second day in office.

Family planning groups say the policy is damaging the cause that Mr Bush has espoused in a bid to show the compassionate side of his administration, that of HIV/Aids.

USAid is the most important single donor of condoms to the developing world, procuring and delivering more than a third of all donated supplies, worth about $75m a year.

The report said that by 2002, the policy had ended shipments of USAid-donated condoms to 16 developing countries whose family planning associations are affiliated to the International Planned Parenthood Federation and who refused to sign the pledge. They include Swaziland, which has one of the highest HIV rates in the world, Burundi, Chad, Gambia and Mauritius.

USAid`s condom supplies to a further 13 countries have been cut because the main, although not the only, family planning organisation will not sign. They include some with the worst HIV problems in Africa: Uganda, Zambia and Zimbabwe.


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Spy mystery at Guantanamo Bay as Syria denies link to accused US air force worker
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
25 September 2003


Syria has flatly denied having links with the US Air Force translator at the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention camp, who has been charged with trying to hand secret information about the base to the Damascus government.

In the first public comment of the case, Ahmad al-Hassan, the Syrian Information Minister, called the reports "baseless and illogical" yesterday, adding: "Would the CIA fail to find a translator it trusts and had previously trained for a job of such a level of secrecy?"

Court papers claim 24-year-old Senior Airman Ahmad al-Halabi tried to pass to Damascus material including hundreds of notes from prisoners, a map of the base in Cuba and details of its air traffic, plus intelligence documents.

The Syrian-born SA Halabi has been charged on more than 30 counts, including four of espionage and three of aiding the enemy. The documents do not make clear to whom, if anyone, the sensitive information was specifically addressed, or whether it reached its destination. If convicted, he could face the death penalty.

When he was arrested on July 23, SA Halabi was carrying two handwritten notes from prisoners. The court documents claim he was planning to give them to a person travelling to Syria. His laptop computer also contained 180 messages from some of the 660 al-Qa`ida and Taliban suspects held at Guantanamo Bay. These too he was allegedly intending to send to Syria or to the Gulf state of Qatar.

The court papers submitted by the US military authorities also claim SA Halabi took photographs of the camp, had unauthorised contacts with prisoners - including giving them baklava pastries - and had unauthorised contacts with the Syrian embassy. He is also accused of lying to the Air Force by claiming to have been naturalised a US citizen in 2001.

But all talk of espionage is rejected by SA Halabi`s relatives. They agreed he visited the Syrian embassy in Washington, but simply to arrange visits to his native country to move his Syrian-born fiancée to the US. Otherwise, he has no contacts with the government of President Bashar Assad, and has applied for US citizenship, they say.

Whatever the outcome, the case, days after the disclosure of the arrest of a Muslim chaplain at the camp, has shaken the US authorities. It has called into question the security of a remote and supposedly super-safe facility at the heart of President George Bush`s "war on terrorism". The episode has raised fears that al-Qa`ida, far from being on the run in the US, may have penetrated the military that is pursuing it.

Almost certainly SA Halabi and the chaplain, US Army Captain James Yee, knew each other. The charges also suggest SA Halabi did not report unauthorised communications between detainees and other military personnel at Guantanamo Bay, raising the possibility of a wider ring. At least two other people are being investigated, CNN reported yesterday.

Whatever the outcome, the affair will cast a further cloud over ties between America and Syria. Although the two countries maintain diplomatic relations, Washington has long accused Syria of being a sponsor of terrorism, in particular of radical groups operating against Israel. America also says Damascus operates secret chemical and biological weapons programmes. Tensions reached a peak immediately after the overthrow of Saddam Hussein when Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, even hinted at military action against Syria.

He suggested Damascus had offered sanctuary to prominent members of the former Iraqi regime, and accused the Assad government of allowing terrorists and weapons across its borders to aid the resistance opposing the American invasion force.
25 September 2003 10:13



© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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Brutal Reality That Fans The Flames Of Hatred In Iraq

By Robert Fisk in Saqlawiyah, Iraq
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp?story=446…
25 September 2003

If anyone wants to know why Iraqis set bombs for American soldiers, they had only to sit in the two-storey villa in this little farming village and look at the frozen face of Ahmed al-Ham and his angry friends yesterday.

Ahmed`s 50-year-old father, Sabah, was buried just a week ago - 35 days after he died in American hands at the Abu Ghraib prison - and the 17-year-old youth with his small beard and piercing brown eyes blames George Bush for his death. "Pigs," he mutters. Ahmed was a prisoner, too, and his father died in his arms. According to a cousin of Sabah`s, their tragedy began at 3am on 3 August when about 40 US military vehicles arrived in Saqlawiyah, a Sunni village 10 miles from Fallujah, the scene of dozens of fatal attacks on US occupation troops. A framed and undamaged photograph of Saddam Hussein hangs on the wall above us as we talk.

The cousin, a retired farmer with prostate problems who pleads that his name should not be used lest he be rearrested, says that he willingly allowed the Americans to search his home - just as Sabah al-Ham did a hundred metres away - and freely walked across to a group of US officers outside his house when was asked to do so.

"I gave my name and told them who I was and then some military police arrived," he says. "I was asked to walk inside a barbed wire enclosure where about 30 other village men were brought. Ahmed was there with his father, Sabah. We were kept there for seven hours, sitting on the ground. Then they bound our hands and blindfolded us and put us on a truck. That`s when it went bad. The next night, we were kept in an old army base. Each of us was locked inside a toilet cubicle."

None of the men was known to be on any wanted list and Sabah - who had high blood pressure and breathing difficulties - was, his cousin says, a mere "under-officer" in the Iraqi army, equivalent to a second lieutenant.

"We complained about our health problems. I can only urinate through a catheter and Sabah kept saying he needed cold water. We were then taken by lorry to a big hall where we had to spend a day, sitting or ordered to stand with our hands bound and then afterwards taken to the prison camp at Baghdad airport. Here they had just three questions to ask us: `Have you attacked Americans?` `What type of attacks did you stage?` `Do you know any officials of the previous regime?` We all said no.

"That was all the interrogation we had. Sabah was always asking for water but they did nothing else for him though we told them he had very high blood pressure. Then they moved us south to Nasariyah, into a desert camp under tents which was about 55 degrees. Sabah was in a bad way."

After four days, during which an American medical officer administered liquid by tube for dehydration to Sabah, the men were all trucked north again, this time to Abu Ghraib. On the way, according to Ahmed, his father pleaded for cold water but the soldiers would give him only hot water and a tiny piece of ice to put in his mouth. In a tent in the heat again at Abu Ghraib, Sabah quickly lost consciousness.

"We asked again and again for help and they gave him the drip feed again but they wouldn`t send him to hospital or let him go," Ahmed says.

Ahmed held his father as he died in the medical tent. "I washed his body and the prison imam said prayers over him and then they told me his body would be taken to his family village in three days. They said `sorry`." But when, a month later, Ahmedand the others were freed, they returned to Saqlawiyah to find his family asking where he was. The Americans still had his body. "We dared not tell most of his family that he was dead," the cousin says.

Only after they had asked the Red Cross for help did the Ham family trace Sabah`s corpse. It had been stored at Baghdad airport, they were told, and eventually found in a refrigeration area close to the old presidential palace in Baghdad. With much anger - and with guns fired into the air - the village buried Sabah on 17 September. No American offered the family compensation or formally expressed regret to them.

The cousin did say that there was a "good American" at Abu Ghraib who believed all the men were innocent. "He told us how sorry he was when Sabah died. And when we were freed, he came up to each one of us and shook us by the hand. His name was Johnson. He was a good man. The rest were bad."

Meanwhile, the war goes on. In Baghdad yesterday, a roadside bomb blew up shortly after a US patrol had passed - tearing apart a city bus, killing one passenger and wounding 20.

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Bomb Kills 1 at Baghdad Hotel Hosting NBC
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

Filed at 4:00 a.m. ET

BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- A bomb exploded Thursday outside a hotel where NBC has its Baghdad offices, killing a guard, injuring a network soundman and shattering windows, Iraqi police said.

The bomb was placed about three feet from the outside wall of the al-Aike Hotel in a hut that housed the hotel`s generator, police said.

Lt. Col. Salman Kareem said the bomb killed a Somali guard in his sleep and broke glass, but otherwise did little damage to the hotel, which is located in south-central Baghdad. Television footage showed damage to a stairway with its railing.

NBC correspondent Jim Avila said there were no signs on the building indicating NBC had quarters there.

A dozen NBC staffers were inside the building when the explosion occurred, and a Canadian soundman, David Moodie, was slightly injured by flying glass.

``I was awake,`` Moodie said. ``A chest of drawers in the room fell on me. I sleep in the room immediately above the generator, so I guess I was lucky.``

Moodie said he suffered one deep cut from flying glass and would require stitches. He said no other NBC employees were hurt.

``We`ve had no previous warnings. You come to a war zone and being a target is on your mind, but you try not to think about it.``

NBC has been at that hotel for 2 months.

U.S. soldiers at the scene were distributing leaflets urging Iraqis to inform them of ``terrorists making explosives that kill and wound Iraqi children. Those who make explosives don`t care about who they kill. Their only aim is terrorism and oppression.``

Osama Hasan, an employee at Nabil restaurant, adjacent to the hotel, witnessed the blast.

``We heard a powerful explosion and ran outside. I saw heavy smoke and dust and pieces of trash and wood and metal flying in the air. All the glass windows in the restaurant broke,`` he said.

The television network has four security guards, two from a British firm and two Iraqis hired for night duty.



Copyright 2003 The Associated Press

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U.S. Remains Leader in Global Arms Sales, Report Says
By THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON, Sept. 24 — The United States maintained its dominance in the international arms market last year, especially in sales to developing nations, according to a new Congressional report.

The United States was the leader in total worldwide sales in 2002, with about $13.3 billion, or 45.5 percent of global conventional weapons deals, a rise from $12.1 billion in 2001. Of that, $8.6 billion was to developing nations, or about 48.6 percent of conventional arms deals concluded with developing nations last year, according to the report.

Russia was second in sales to the developing world last year, with $5 billion, followed by France with $1 billion.

While the report focuses on sales and deliveries of conventional weapons from the industrialized world to poorer nations, it also offers a glimpse into such issues as missile proliferation by North Korea and foreign weapons transfers to Iraq.

The new report, "Conventional Arms Transfers to Developing Nations, 1995-2002," was sent to the House and Senate this week by the Congressional Research Service, an arm of the Library of Congress. The annual study, written by Richard F. Grimmett, a specialist in national defense at the research service, is considered the most authoritative resource available to the public on worldwide weapons sales.

From 1999 to 2002, there were no deliveries of surface-to-surface missiles to the Middle East from arms makers in the United States, Russia, China or Europe, the report said.

But the study says 60 surface-to-surface missiles were delivered to the Middle East by nations in the category "All Others," which includes such suppliers as Israel, South Africa and North Korea.

United States officials, both military and civilian, said today that North Korea was the source of the surface-to-surface missile deliveries listed in the report, and of 10 anti-ship missiles delivered to the Middle East in that period.

President Bush has increased public pressure on North Korea and Iran over their nuclear programs, and the administration is organizing a number of joint military exercises to train for the interdiction of possible shipments. The goal of these exercises is to make it more difficult to transmit components of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons — and the missiles to deliver them.

But difficulties in halting North Korea`s missile trade were evident in December, when a North Korean cargo vessel that was not flying a flag was halted off the Horn of Africa by two Spanish warships.

A search revealed 15 Scud missiles hidden beneath the cargo. But the vessel was eventually allowed to sail on with the missiles to its destination in Yemen after officials conceded that neither North Korea nor Yemen had violated any treaties.

In addition to the shipment to Yemen, North Korea is suspected of selling missile technology to Iran and others, Pentagon officials said.

The study says that none of the major arms makers delivered weapons to Iraq from 1999 to 2002 — or at least not in amounts of more than $50 million, the lowest sales amount included in the study.

But a category of nations labeled "All Other European," which includes formerly Communist states in Central and Eastern Europe, delivered about $100 million worth of weapons to Iraq from 1999 to 2002, although the report does not specify the source of the deliveries.

Ukraine is believed by American officials to have sold an advanced Kolchuga radar system to Iraq, Pentagon officials said.

Arms deals with developing nations in 2002 totaled $17.7 billion, more than the $16.2 billion for 2001 but the second-lowest total for the years 1995 to 2002. (The report measures sales and deliveries in dollar totals adjusted for inflation, called "constant 2002 dollars.")

"Many developing nations have curtailed their expenditures on weaponry primarily due to their limited financial resources," Mr. Grimmett wrote in the report. "To meet their military requirements, in current circumstances, a number of developing nations have placed a greater emphasis on upgrading existing weapons systems while deferring purchases of new and costlier ones."

Total arms transfer agreements reached nearly $29.2 billion in 2002, a decrease from 2001 and the second year in a row that total arms sales dropped, according to the study.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Rivals Mix Issues and Attacks in Free-for-All Recall Debate
By JOHN M. BRODER and DEAN E. MURPHY

ACRAMENTO, Sept. 24 — The five major candidates vying to replace Gov. Gray Davis met tonight for the first and probably last time, engaging in a spirited, substantive — and sometimes sarcastic and personal — debate over topics including the state`s dismal budget mess and the wisdom of the Oct. 7 recall itself.

The debate, which featured Lt. Gov. Cruz Bustamante, the only big-name Democrat in the race; the actor Arnold Schwarzenegger; State Senator Tom McClintock; Peter Camejo of the Green Party; and the television commentator Arianna Huffington, had been eagerly anticipated by California voters, who quickly put behind them a week of legal uncertainty that had threatened to delay the election.

The debate may well prove pivotal over the final 12 days of the race.

According to a poll released this week, more than 90 percent of voters are following the election closely and two-thirds said the candidates` performances tonight would be a significant factor in their vote.

The candidates sparred over issues like the state`s fiscal condition, its worker`s compensation program and whether taxpayers should pay the cost of health care for children of illegal immigrants. They also tangled over a ballot proposition that would bar the state from collecting data on race and ethnicity. But relatively little time was devoted to the target of the recall itself, Mr. Davis.

The debate began in a relatively sedate manner, with each candidate addressing the question of whether the recall should be held in the first place. Mr. Schwarzenegger called it "a great idea," and Mr. McClintock welcomed it as a means of correcting a mistake made at the ballot box last November when Mr. Davis was re-elected. Mr. Camejo said that recalling the governor was necessary to solve the state`s budget crisis, and Ms. Huffington said the recall provided the only chance to elect an "independent progressive with a simple plurality."

Only Mr. Bustamante objected, calling the recall a "terrible idea" that would lead to an era of perpetual politics in California.

Within five minutes, however, order broke down as the candidates began speaking all at once on the question of the state`s business climate. The moderator, Stan Statham, had to step in to calm the melee.

Much of the debate was dominated by feisty exchanges, with repeated moments of candidates talking over one another and Mr. Statham expressing frustration with the free-for-all. More often than not, Mr. Schwarzenegger was either the instigator or the recipient of the sniping, in which he delivered punchy one-liners that often had the ring of rehearsal.

In one exchange, Ms. Huffington acted offended that Mr. Schwarzenegger had interrupted her, saying: "Let me finish. This is completely impolite. This is the way you treat women, we know that."

Mr. Schwarzenegger, smiling, responded, "I just realized I have a perfect part for you in `Terminator 4.` "

Mr. Statham, trying again to regain control, said resignedly, "This is not Comedy Central, I swear."

Ms. Huffington, who until now has not made an issue of Mr. Schwarzenegger`s comments about women, said after the debate that she had been deeply offended by his treatment of her tonight. She called on women intending to vote for Mr. Schwarzenegger to reconsider.

"I give it as well as I take it, so that is not the problem," Ms. Huffington said at a news conference. "The distinction here was very clear: the only woman on the panel was treated differently by Arnold Schwarzenegger than the men were."

Ms. Huffington and Mr. Camejo, the two outsiders — and underdogs — in the exchange, used the forum to attack Democrats and Republicans alike, insisting that the time was ripe for a new order in Sacramento. Perhaps surprisingly, little of the fireworks occurred between Mr. Schwarzenegger and Mr. McClintock, who are in a fierce fight for Republican votes.

Mr. Schwarzenegger was asked after the debate about Mr. McClintock, a diehard conservative.

"I think he`s a terrific guy," Mr. Schwarzenegger said. "We would make a great team in Sacramento."

He suggested that Mr. McClintock would soon succumb to the pressure from Republicans to withdraw from the race and throw his support to Mr. Schwarzenegger.

"We`ll see where it goes in the next 13 days," Mr. Schwarzenegger said.

Mr. McClintock, speaking to reporters after the debate, said he was not considering dropping out.

"When I entered this race, I made it as clear as I can," he said. "I made a promise to stay in this race until the finish line, and I keep my promises."

One of the evening`s surprises was how little time was spent attacking Mr. Davis, whose record, after all, is the reason for the recall election. Mr. Schwarzenegger and Mr. McClintock referred frequently to the Davis administration`s fiscal and business policies but refrained in general from attacking the governor personally. Mr. Bustamante, who does not have good relations with Mr. Davis, seemed at one point to blame him for steep increases in tuition for the state`s colleges and universities.

Davis allies shrugged off the relatively mild criticism of the governor as further evidence that he should not be recalled. Ann Lewis, a campaign adviser to Mr. Davis, said the only candidate to rise above the ruckus tonight was Mr. Bustamante, who had opened the evening with a strong statement against the recall.

"If you look at this as Team B," Ms. Lewis said, "and say `Is Team B ready to lead,` tonight raises questions in people`s minds."

Under the debate`s free-wheeling format, the candidates — who invariably addressed each other by first name — were free to interrupt one another. Early on, Ms. Huffington was blaming corporate tax loopholes for part of the state`s budget deficit when Mr. Schwarzenegger broke in.

"Arianna, let me say one thing," he interjected. "Your personal income tax is the biggest loophole, I can drive my Hummer through it."

He was referring to the fact that she paid less than $1,000 in personal income taxes over two years.

She responded: "I paid $150,000 in property taxes and payroll taxes. I am a writer. I`m not making $20 million violent movies."

A few minutes later, Mr. Schwarzenegger said the Democrats in Sacramento were guilty of overspending and overtaxing. "You guys have an addiction problem," he said. "You should go to an addiction place."

Ms. Huffington jumped in, saying, "Arnold`s analysis perfectly fits the Bush administration in Washington."

Mr. Schwarzenegger shot back: "You want to campaign against Bush, go to New Hampshire. You`re in the wrong state right now."

As she tried to respond, he said, "You need a little more decaf."

Even with the theatrics — and occasional grandstanding — the candidates were compelled to delve into some of the state`s most vexing problems. Taxation and budget cuts led the early discussion, but the problems of workers` compensation, health insurance, education and the state`s business climate were also debated.

Mr. McClintock, who has made California`s lost dream a focus of his campaign, spoke of disillusioned residents abandoning the state for the deserts of Arizona and Nevada. "We all have friends and family leaving," Mr. McClintock said. He spoke of the "four horsemen of this recession": high workers compensation costs, high taxes on business, excessive litigation and overregulation.

Mr. Schwarzenegger described California as the country`s most unfriendly state for business. But Mr. Bustamante, Ms. Huffington and Mr. Camejo accused the two Republicans of exaggerating the state`s downturn.

"I would really like you to tell the people the truth," she said to Mr. Schwarzenegger.

The debate`s sponsor, the California Broadcasters Association, did not invite other 130 candidates on the recall ballot because it said they had no chance to win. All eyes were on Mr. Schwarzenegger, who has avoided previous debates, saying he wanted to focus on tonight`s widely watched session, which he called the Super Bowl of debates, even though the candidates had been given in advance copies of the 12 questions likely to be asked.

"This could well be the defining moment in the entire election," said Timothy Hodson, executive director of the Center for Governmental Studies at California State University at Sacramento, tonight`s host. "This campaign has been so fluid on so many levels. There are a great many voters who may have told pollsters four weeks ago they had made up their minds who in fact are just making up their minds now."

Mr. Davis took advantage of the lull in coverage before tonight`s debate to take a swipe at Mr. Schwarzenegger after signing a bill on embryonic stem cell research in Davis, about 15 miles west of Sacramento.

"I think it`s kind of ironic that the only debate Schwarzenegger is participating in is the one where you have the questions in advance," he said today at the University of California at Davis Medical Center. "Part of being governor is thinking on your feet, being able to react to unplanned events."

More than 500 reporters, photographers and technicians requested credentials for the debate. It was broadcast live into every corner of the state, carried on national cable networks and broadcast in England and Japan, according to the broadcasters association.

The format of the debate touched off controversy and the threat of a boycott by several of the candidates. They contended that releasing the debate topics in advance gave an advantage to Mr. Schwarzenegger, who has the least experience in unscripted settings.

But Mr. Statham, the moderator and president of the broadcasters association, said the session was not intended to catch candidates in gaffes or misstatements, but to provide a forum for a lively discussion.

"This is a debate and a half," he said. "It`s our opinion that the candidates are already scripted and this format will give them an opportunity to go after each other."

Outside the debate site, the University Union, hundreds of supporters of major and minor candidates, as well as pro- and anti-recall demonstrators, competed for the attention of hundreds of cameras, often in outlandish costume.

And beyond the confines of the college campus, the campaign was taking a decidedly negative turn in a flurry of radio and television advertisements.

Mr. Schwarzenegger is running a new television commercial and a new radio spot criticizing the flood of Indian casino money into the election.

Several big California tribes with gambling interests have given large sums to Mr. Bustamante and are running television commercials praising Mr. McClintock, whose candidacy is cutting into potential support for Mr.

Schwarzenegger. Mr. Davis has also received large donations from California tribes, in this and previous campaigns.

In a radio commercial released today, Mr. Schwarzenegger says of the tribes: "All the major candidates take their money and pander to them. I don`t play that game."

Mr. Schwarzenegger is also running advertisements reminding viewers of what he considers the lowlights of the Davis era, including rolling power blackouts, a hemorrhaging state budget, a 300 percent increase in vehicle registration fees and a law recently signed by the governor granting drivers` licenses to illegal immigrants.

Mr. Bustamante continued a series of negative advertisements focused largely on Mr. Schwarzenegger and financed almost entirely with Indian contributions.

"Arnold doesn`t share our values," the newest commercial says. "He doesn`t live in our world. He lives on Planet Hollywood."

Mr. Davis, meanwhile, is broadcasting a new commercial in San Francisco and the Central Valley that warns that the next governor could be elected with as little as 15 percent of the vote. "Who will finish first?" it asks. "Will they be qualified?" It then urges a no vote on the recall.

Tonight`s debate was seen as particularly critical for Mr.

Schwarzenegger. He said that tonight`s debate was the only one worthy of his presence, causing aides to cringe because it meant that he was setting high expectations for tonight`s performance.

This morning, The Wall Street Journal published an essay on its editorial page by Mr. Schwarzenegger titled "My Economics," in which he said Mr. Davis had created a hostile climate for business in California, treating employers as if they were "enemies of the state."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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The Presidential Bubble

our progressive political groups sued the Bush administration this week, charging that the Secret Service is systematically keeping protesters away from the president`s public appearances. They make a serious point about free speech rights, but they also point out a disturbing aspect of the Bush White House: the country has a chief executive who seems to embrace the presidential bubble.

Security concerns make it inevitable that a modern American president will be somewhat cut off from the country he leads. He cannot insert himself into any part of normal life without a phalanx of security guards.

Protesters cannot be permitted to get close enough to pose a threat, but they ought to be able to get close enough so the president can see that they are there. Sometimes seeing a glimpse of placard-wielding demonstrators is as close as the commander in chief can get to seeing the face of national discontent.

At Mr. Bush`s public appearances, his critics are routinely shunted into "protest zones" as much as a half-mile away. At the Columbia, S.C., airport last year, a protester with a "No War for Oil" sign was ordered to move a half-mile from the area where Mr. Bush`s supporters were allowed to stand. When the protester refused, he was arrested.

Mr. Bush and his aides also seem to go to great lengths to underline the degree to which the president closes himself off from the news media. In an interview with Fox News this week, the president said he learned most of what he needs to know from morning briefings by his national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and his chief of staff, Andrew Card.

As for newspapers, Mr. Bush said, "I glance at the headlines" but "rarely read the stories." The people who brief him on current events encounter many of the newsmakers personally, he said, and in any case "probably read the news themselves."

Some of this may be a pose that is designed to tweak the media by making the news appear to be below the president`s notice. During the Iraqi invasion, when the rest of the nation was glued to TV, Mr. Bush`s spokesman claimed that his boss had barely glanced at the pictures of what was going on.

But it is worrisome when one of the most incurious men ever to occupy the White House takes pains to insist that he gets his information on what the world is saying only in predigested bits from his appointees.

Mr. Bush thinks of himself as a man of the people, but carefully staged contacts with groups of supporters or small children does not constitute getting in touch with the people. It is in Mr. Bush`s interest, as well as the nation`s, for him to burst the bubble he has been inhabiting, and take a hard look at the real world.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Dieser Artikel von Friedman dem letzten Verteidiger Bush`s.

Connect the Dots
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

The U.S. war on terrorism suffered a huge blow last week — not in Baghdad or Kabul, but on the beaches of Cancún.

Cancún was the site of the latest world trade talks, which fell apart largely because the U.S., the E.U. and Japan refused to give up the lavish subsidies they bestow on their farmers, making the prices of their cotton and agriculture so cheap that developing countries can`t compete. This is a disaster because exporting food and textiles is the only way for most developing countries to grow. The Economist quoted a World Bank study that said a Cancún agreement, reducing tariffs and agrisubsidies, could have raised global income by $500 billion a year by 2015 — over 60 percent of which would go to poor countries and pull 144 million people out of poverty.

Sure, poverty doesn`t cause terrorism — no one is killing for a raise. But poverty is great for the terrorism business because poverty creates humiliation and stifled aspirations and forces many people to leave their traditional farms to join the alienated urban poor in the cities — all conditions that spawn terrorists.

I would bet any amount of money, though, that when it came to deciding the Bush team`s position at Cancún, no thought was given to its impact on the war on terrorism. Wouldn`t it have been wise for the U.S. to take the initiative at Cancún, and offer to reduce our farm subsidies and textile tariffs, so some of the poorest countries, like Pakistan and Egypt, could raise their standards of living and sense of dignity, and also become better customers for U.S. goods? Yes, but that would be bad politics. It would mean asking U.S. farmers to sacrifice the ridiculous subsidies they get from our federal government ($3 billion a year for 25,000 cotton farmers) that make it impossible for foreign farmers to sell here.

And one thing we know about this Bush war on terrorism: sacrifice is only for Army reservists and full-time soldiers. For the rest of us, it`s guns and butter. When it comes to the police and military sides of the war on terrorism, the Bushies behave like Viking warriors. But when it comes to the political and economic sacrifices and strategies that are also required to fight this war successfully, they are cowardly wimps. That is why our war on terrorism is so one-dimensional and Pentagon-centric. It`s more like a hobby — something we do only until it runs into the Bush re-election agenda.

"If the sons of American janitors can go die in Iraq to keep us safe," says Robert Wright, author of "Nonzero," a book on global interdependence, "then American cotton farmers, whose average net worth is nearly $1 million, can give up their subsidies to keep us safe. Opening our markets to farm products and textiles would be critical to drawing many nations — including Muslim ones — more deeply into the interdependent web of global capitalism and ultimately democracy."

The U.S. and Europe, argues Clyde Prestowitz, the trade expert and author of "Rogue Nation," should actually shrink their farm subsidies unilaterally, even if developing countries don`t immediately reciprocate.

"Such a move is essential," wrote Mr. Prestowitz on the YaleGlobal Web site, "not only as a matter of providing a badly needed boost to developing countries, but also because the failure [of Cancún] poses a serious threat to the main hope of generating the economic growth necessary to lift developing countries out of poverty."

If only the Bush team connected the dots, it would see what a nutty war on terrorism it is fighting, explains Mr. Prestowitz. Here, he says, is the Bush war on terrorism: Preach free trade, but don`t deliver on it, so Pakistani farmers become more impoverished. Then ask Congress to give a tax break for any American who wants to buy a gas-guzzling Humvee for business use and also ask Congress to resist any efforts to make Detroit increase gasoline mileage in new cars. All this means more U.S. oil imports from Saudi Arabia.

So then the Saudis have more dollars to give to their Wahhabi fundamentalist evangelists, who spend it by building religious schools in Pakistan. The Pakistani farmer we`ve put out of business with our farm subsidies then sends his sons to the Wahhabi school because it is tuition-free and offers a hot lunch. His sons grow up getting only a Koranic education, so they are totally unprepared for modernity, but they are taught one thing: that America is the source of all their troubles. One of the farmer`s sons joins Al Qaeda and is killed in Afghanistan by U.S. Special Forces, and we think we`re winning the war on terrorism.

Fat chance.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Gams to Gladiators
By MAUREEN DOWD

LOS ANGELES — Everybody was watching the big guy last night to see whether his high-priced handlers had managed to mold all that muscly clay into Serious Arnold. The tyro Tyrolean pol had to offer more to California voters than the same message he gave to the distressed Linda Hamilton in "Terminator 2": "Come with me if you want to liff."

Let other reporters poke Mr. S. to see if he can go deep; I wanted to see if he can go light. At a cafe the other night, I asked Arnold if he`s a metrosexual. Puffing on his stogie, he looked uncertain but intrigued.

"A metrosexual," I explained, "is a guy who likes traditionally female activities: facials, manicures, shopping." Unlike most soup-stained politicians, this Republican clearly spends time grooming. In person, he looks a little unreal, like a top-of-the-line Madame Tussaud figure: taut skin, buffed nails, designer shades.

"I love shopping for my wife," he replied excitedly. "Because wherever I go in the world, I think about her and I want to bring something back. So when you go to Europe, they have great stores. So I go and I get jackets, shirts, whole outfits, dresses. Because I know exactly the sizes! Then I have people in the store try on the clothes that I find. Or I go find some woman coming in who is about the same size. Or when I buy jewelry I have them put it on, see what the necklace looks like or the bracelet. And I would say I`m 95 percent on the money. With the size and with the style. Maria loves that. Sometimes I get a little beating because I`ll come home with a jacket that`s a little oversized, and she`ll say, `Do you think really I`m that fat?` And I have a lot of patience to go with her because I like to tell her, `This looks good.` She always says, `Why don`t you go over in the men`s section?` and I say: `No, no. I want to stay here and I want to help you because you`ll find something great.` "

I asked him about an `88 Playboy quote in which he said he didn`t let Maria Shriver wear pants. No Gray Davis pandering; Arnold sticks to his gams. "Skirts look more feminine," he insisted. "I like her more in dresses. She can wear whatever she wants."

Asked about the Britney-Madonna kiss, he takes a P.R. view of it, calling Madonna "very smart": "When they decide the one shot from the whole show that`s going to be in The L.A. Times or The New York Times, is it going to be you, or is it going to be someone else? I can relate to that."

As to his other TV habits, "I have really only time to watch the news, and I haven`t even watched that lately. Or I watch programs about the Roman Empire. I have a huge library of historic things on tape."

Movies? "James Bond movies are fun," he said. "And, you know, I think `Gladiator,` which gives you a little bit of history. In the old days, my idols were always John Wayne, Kirk Douglas, Charles Bronson."

The man who is proud of inspiring the "Hans and Franz" skit on "Saturday Night Live" and posing in boykini for Robert Mapplethorpe, says he has little time for the arts. He might see the Vienna Boys` Choir if it`s in town, and he loves playing Johnny Cash and Garth Brooks in his Hummer (the one that, last night, he threatened to drive through the tax loophole that enriched Arianna). "My father played six instruments," he said.

Books? "Things about electricity. `California Electricity Crisis.` And another one about how the schools work. I`m trying to educate myself and get up to speed with a lot of things that I`ll need for the future. I don`t have the time to go and read novels."

He still peruses bodybuilding magazines and recalls the 70`s, when he was competing, as a much less P.C. time: "It was commonly known that bodybuilders that were black, African-Americans today we call it, had problems with their calves. But by nature they had this incredible waistline with great abs. Where today, if we said that, people would say, `Well, that`s prejudiced.` "

He applies the sport`s "visualization" method to politics: "When you lie down and you put 490 on the bench press, how do you know you can`t do 500 except for trying it?"

Later that night, he called to say he hadn`t given me properly reflective answers. Oh, boy, I thought, here comes the usual pretentious pap pols dish out about reading Winston Churchill and watching foreign indies. "I forgot to tell you," Arnold said eagerly, "my two favorite actresses are Julia Roberts and Meryl Streep. And my idol is Clint Eastwood. And I loved `The Lion King.` "



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

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Workers at the Baghdad South power plant work on water filtration.Valves controlling water flow at Baghdad South power plant


Recruits undergo training for a new Iraqi "power police" force that will seek to prevent looting and sabotage of the country`s electricity infrastructure.
washingtonpost.com
Crossed Wires Deprived Iraqis of Electric Power
War Plans Ignored Worn Infrastructure

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, September 25, 2003; Page A01


BAGHDAD -- When grease-stained technicians at the Baghdad South power plant needed spare parts recently, they first submitted a written request to Bechtel Corp., the engineering firm given more than $1 billion in U.S. government contracts to fix Iraq`s decrepit infrastructure.

Then they went to the junkyard.

They scoured piles of industrial detritus for abandoned items that could be jury-rigged into the geriatric plant, such as the hydraulic pump from a bulldozer that was used to restart a broken water condenser.

"Of course we`d like new parts," sighed Ahmed Ali Shihab, the senior operations engineer. But he said repeated appeals to Bechtel and the U.S. military had not yielded any significant new equipment. "All we have received from them are promises," he said.

Although U.S. officials said the requests for new parts were beyond the scope of Bechtel`s contract, the failure to get much-needed equipment to Baghdad South more than five months after the first reconstruction teams arrived here illustrates the dearth of planning, funding and coordination that has fettered the overall American effort to rehabilitate Iraq.

With new parts, Shihab said, Baghdad South could increase its output by 90 megawatts -- enough to light about 90,000 more homes in the capital, where a severe electricity shortage is causing blackouts every few hours and generating widespread frustration with the U.S. occupation. Instead, the plant limps along, its 1960s-era turbines eking out less than half as much power as they should because of extensive steam and fuel leaks.

The problems at Baghdad South helped to convince the Bush administration this summer that its initial strategy to repair the electric system -- which called for Bechtel to spend $230 million on emergency repairs and international donors to fund the construction of new plants -- was not working. Donors were offering only minimal financial support. Looting and sabotage were rampant. The country`s power plants were in need of far more than $230 million in stopgap work.

With electricity production still below prewar levels -- it is enough to meet only little more than half the national demand -- the administration has shifted gears and asked Congress to devote $5.7 billion to a comprehensive effort to resuscitate Iraq`s power system.

"Restoring Iraq`s electricity is vital to our mission here," said L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civil administrator of Iraq.

"It`s hard to exaggerate the impact of three decades of crippling under-investment by Saddam Hussein in Iraq`s infrastructure," Bremer said in a recent interview. "He spent his nation`s money building palaces and weapons and his army, not funding the things people need to survive."

But several American and Iraqi specialists contend the U.S. occupation authority has been slow to address the problem. Immediately after Hussein`s government fell, they maintain, more money and attention should have been focused on buying spare parts and trucking in large, gas-powered generating units that can each power as many as 40,000 homes. Doing so, they insist, would have reduced the frequency of blackouts and the anger that crystallized toward the occupation.

"If they had recognized the problem sooner and devoted more resources to it, the problem wouldn`t be as bad as it is now," said an American electrical engineer who works with the occupation authority and spoke on condition of anonymity. "Iraqis would have seen a real improvement in their lives."

Instead, he said, "we still have problems like Baghdad South."

Toll of Bombing, Sanctions


Built along the meandering Tigris River in 1959, Baghdad South has been a metaphor for Iraq`s prosperity and poverty.

Its four German-made, steam-powered generating units initially provided more than enough electricity to meet the capital`s needs. As demand increased, Iraq turned in 1965 to the United States, acquiring two additional units from General Electric Co. The plant`s six towering smokestacks were symbols of the country`s oil wealth.

"Back then, we were the most advanced power plant in the Arab world," said Bashir Khallaf, the director of Baghdad South.

In 1983, before Hussein`s war with neighboring Iran had drained the national coffers, the four German generating units were replaced with ones from G.E., handing more business to the United States, which was supporting Iraq in the war. At the time, Khallaf said, the plant never had to operate at its 350-megawatt capacity. The country`s electricity supply was almost double its demand.

All that changed in 1991. The plant sputtered to a halt after being hit by six U.S. bombs during the Persian Gulf War. American bombing during the war damaged about 75 percent of the country`s power-generating capacity, according to U.N. assessments.

But Khallaf and other workers brought Baghdad South back to life four months later using plentiful spare parts in its warehouse.

After the war, U.N. economic sanctions prevented Iraq from ordering new parts from G.E. As equipment broke, it either was not fixed or was replaced with makeshift devices. With power in increasingly short supply, government officials prevented the plant from shutting down for annual maintenance. The once-modern facility gradually became a collection of leaky pipes, broken gauges and ramshackle devices.

In 1996, Iraq struck a deal with the United Nations whereby it could sell its oil and use the revenues for the purchase of humanitarian supplies, including equipment for power plants. But the sanctions effectively prohibited the import of parts that had potential military applications, such as chlorine to purify water going into steam turbine units, further degrading the electricity system.

By this January, Baghdad South was barely able to produce 185 megawatts.

"We were like an old man losing his energy," Khallaf said.

U.S. officials insist that in the months before the Iraq war, the signs of trouble were impossible to see. "This was a closed-off, Stalinist society," one U.S. official here said. "We knew there were repairs that were needed, but we had no idea just how bad things were."

But some Iraqi and American specialists contend the warnings were apparent. The U.N. Development Program -- which oversaw the importation of electrical parts under the oil-for-food program -- produced extensive reports detailing problems in the power sector. One public U.N. document issued last year noted that Iraq`s generating units were "technically and economically obsolete," resulting in a 2,500-megawatt nationwide power shortage and lengthy blackouts.

Estimates from Iraqi exiles participating in a State Department planning program for a post-Hussein government suggested that power-sector repairs would cost as much as $18 billion. Yet the Bush administration`s initial reconstruction plan called for devoting just $230 million of a $680 million Bechtel contract to electricity system repairs. "The telltale signs were there," said the American electrical engineer. "But either because of sheer carelessness or because the [U.S.] government didn`t want to reveal how expensive it would be, there was massive under-planning."

Blackout in Baghdad


Then came the American invasion.

For the first two weeks of the war, the plant chugged along as normal. But at 8 p.m. on April 3, after particularly intense bombing on Baghdad`s outskirts and as columns of U.S. tanks were nearing the airport, the high-voltage lines that are supposed to carry electricity from the plant instead delivered a massive surge, forcing an automatic shutdown, Khallaf said.

The same thing happened to every other plant in central Iraq, plunging the capital into darkness and panic.

For weeks, nobody -- not U.S. military engineers, not Iraq technicians -- had any idea what happened. Did Hussein order the lights out? Did the Americans bomb a power station?

U.S. and Iraqi engineers now believe what happened was that during the fighting around the airport, a loop of high-voltage lines encircling Baghdad was accidentally severed, causing the power grid to become imbalanced and sending surges to every plant on the network.

With no idea what prompted the problem and with fighting raging around the capital, Khallaf and other employees decided to go home. They returned to work April 12, three days after Baghdad fell, to find a contingent of Marines hunkered down at the plant.

A day later, officers from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers arrived at the plant. When they walked around and saw broken pipes, frayed wires and the computer-less control room, where the antiquated dials are the size of wall clocks, they were amazed and worried.

"When I first looked around, I said, `Holy moly. This is not good,` " recalled Lt. Col. John Comparetto, the Army`s chief electrical engineer in Iraq. "I hoped it was an isolated incident. But it wasn`t true. It was typical."

It was then, Comparetto said, that he understood the war planning had been far too optimistic. "We were underestimating how bad it was, no doubt about it," he said.

With no power on the national grid, he and Khallaf realized it would be impossible to quickly restart Baghdad South. Electrical plants, like cars, need power to start. Baghdad South required about 8 megawatts, far more than the capacity of the Army`s largest portable generator.

The Army eventually came up with a solution: Divert power from a hydroelectric station, one of the few generating facilities in operation.

Two weeks later, Baghdad South was running again. But its output would go no higher than 160 megawatts.

Once other plants started, they faced the same problem. The shock of the sudden shutdown, the lack of spring maintenance because of the war and general fatigue made an already ailing system even sicker. Although Iraqi and American engineers turned on as many units as they could, they could not get overall national output above 3,500 megawatts -- well below the 4,400 megawatts produced before the war or the 6,500 megawatts needed to satisfy the nation`s demand.

Andrew Bearpark, the occupation authority`s director of operations, likened the system to a dilapidated car that could no longer reach its top speed. "If you leave it unused for a month, it will drive even slower, or not at all," he said.

A Change in Plans


For three months after Hussein`s government fell, the occupation authority stuck to its prewar power plan.

The Army engineers allowed Iraqi managers and technicians to resume control of their facilities. Bechtel conducted emergency repairs and the renovation of a few generating units around the country. Other needs, such as spare parts for Baghdad South, would have to be purchased by Iraq`s electricity commission, a government body responsible for managing power plants and the transmission network.

Bremer and Bearpark hoped electricity production would gradually increase to prewar levels by the end of July. But as the summer began, it became clear that goal was unattainable and that the occupation authority needed a new plan.

They concluded the $230 million Bechtel had been given was not enough to make the necessary repairs. At Baghdad South, for instance, Bechtel provided chemicals to treat water in the steam turbines because it was deemed an emergency issue, but the company lacked funds to buy spare parts for the plant, even if they would improve performance. That responsibility was subsequently shifted to the country`s electricity commission, which has a tiny budget and no phones to contact foreign suppliers.

More than parts, plants such as Baghdad South needed a full overhaul -- the equivalent of removing a car`s engine, taking it apart and then rebuilding it -- if there was any hope of raising output above 250 megawatts. "We quickly realized that we`d need billions and billions of dollars to fix the system," said Michael Robinson, Bechtel`s operations manager in Iraq. "But we had a very, very limited contract."

By June, looters were toppling dozens of high-voltage towers every week, cutting off cities south and west of Baghdad from the national grid. Closer to the capital, saboteurs began felling towers with explosives; one attack plunged the city into a three-day blackout.

Immediately after Hussein`s government fell, the military counted 13 high-voltage towers that had been toppled. Now, more than 650 towers -- one-third of the national network -- have been knocked over, often by thieves who scavenge for aluminum wire to sell.

"The transmission network was getting worse by the day," Robinson said.

Fuel shortages also compounded the problem. Because the electrical grid could not provide reliable power to oil refineries, they had to cut back production. That, in turn, reduced supplies of diesel and natural gas to generating plants, forcing some of them to reduce output.

New Strategy Needed


By mid-July, Bremer concluded that the prewar strategy would no longer work, according to people familiar with the discussions. As a first step, he urged the U.S. Agency for International Development to issue a new, $350 million contract to Bechtel. Of that money, $275 million was earmarked to fund the installation of prefabricated, gas-powered generating units to provide 400 megawatts of power in and around Baghdad. Such generators can be set up within two months instead of the more than two years it would take to build a large-scale steam-turbine plant.

But the gas units require fuel that is in short supply in Iraq, as well as the installation of pipelines from refineries. "It`s easier said than done," Comparetto said. "But we`re scouring the world for them."

Bremer and other occupation authority officials eventually determined that they needed a much larger infusion of money to rehabilitate the electricity sector, which they regarded as necessary to rebuild the economy, restore security and regain the support of many Iraqis.

"There was finally a conclusion that the only way to solve the problem would be to spend billions of dollars," a U.S. official said.

In the early months of the occupation, the official said, "everyone believed that saying we needed billions of dollars was too politically risky. Now they realize that if they don`t fix the power system quickly, this whole effort will fail -- and that`s a much bigger political risk."

The Bush administration`s $5.7 billion budget request calls for spending $2.9 billion to increase generating capacity through the renovation of existing plants and the construction of new ones, and $2.5 billion to improve high-voltage transmission networks and urban distribution systems. Bearpark said the money should produce an 8,000-megawatt capacity, enough to meet the country`s needs over the next few years.

"It`s a massive, massive project," said Ayham Sameraei, Iraq`s new minister of electricity. "But we need this help if we want to just come back to the standard of a Third World country."

To prevent more towers from being toppled, Sameraei said he has authorized hiring 4,000 "power police" officers, 1,500 of whom have already been hired, and he has told his staff to pay tribal leaders to set up protection squads for the transmission network. He said he also has urged the U.S. military to fly helicopters over power lines and shoot looters on sight. The military has agreed to the first request, but not the second.

Even without the new funding, Bremer has set his sights on reaching prewar electricity production levels by the end of the month -- a goal that may be attainable because demand usually dips in late September. To get there, the occupation authority has deployed military officers to 22 power plants to help direct repair work and take charge of ordering parts.

But at Baghdad South, the equipment Shihab wants still has not arrived. Capt. Roderick Pittman, the officer assigned to Baghdad South, has a simple answer for the delay: It is impossible to find parts for the plant because it is so old. "It`s not like you can find this stuff on the shelf anywhere," he said. "This place is very Stone Age."


© 2003 The Washington Post Company

Jaafer Sahib makes repairs at the Baghdad South power plant.Baghdad South power plant is in need of major repairs.

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President Bush meets with German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. After the meeting, the two leaders announced that they had solved their differences over the war in Iraq, which Germany opposed strongly.
washingtonpost.com
Bush Fails to Gain Pledges on Troops Or Funds for Iraq
National Guard, Reserve May Plug Holes

By Dana Milbank and Colum Lynch
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, September 25, 2003; Page A01


NEW YORK, Sept. 24 -- President Bush ended two days of meetings with foreign leaders today without winning more international troops or funds for Iraq and with a top aide saying it could take months to achieve a new U.N. resolution backing the U.S. occupation.

Bush`s failure to win a promise of fresh soldiers in meetings with the leaders of India and Pakistan -- aides said the president did not even ask -- increased the difficulty the United States will have in assembling another division of foreign troops in Iraq, which senior Pentagon officials say is the minimum needed to relieve overstretched U.S. forces.

In testimony on Capitol Hill today, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said, "We`re not going to get a lot of international troops with or without a U.N. resolution. I think somewhere between zero and 10,000 or 15,000 is probably the ballpark."

And Peter Pace, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned that more National Guard and Reserve forces could be activated if the third foreign division -- 15,000 to 20,000 troops -- is not secured within the next six weeks.

Bush`s empty-handed departure after two days at the United Nations, combined with warnings from the military that it will soon need fresh U.S. troops to relieve those in Iraq, makes it increasingly likely that the U.S. military will have to rely on its own reservists to do the job -- a politically dicey move for Bush, whose domestic support already has declined because of the continuing instability in Iraq.

Compounding the pressure, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan is considering ordering the total withdrawal of U.N. personnel from Iraq, a step recommended by his top political and security advisers after two bombing attacks against the world body in Baghdad over the past month, according to U.N. and U.S. officials. A U.N. pullout would seriously undercut efforts to assign the United Nations a broader role in overseeing Iraq`s political transition.

The White House, when it decided earlier this month to seek a new U.N. resolution, was hoping to quickly pass a measure that would encourage countries such as India, Pakistan and Turkey to send troops and others to provide money to support Iraq`s reconstruction. But the administration discovered that other countries are not willing to commit the needed military power and funding unless the United States relinquishes more control than it is willing to give to the United Nations or the Iraqis.

Today, as leaders from Pakistan and Turkey raised fresh concerns about supplying soldiers, senior administration officials sought to reduce expectations for foreign help and an imminent Security Council resolution.

In a meeting with the 10 non-permanent members of the council, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said he would like to see a resolution adopted by Oct. 23, the scheduled date of an international Iraqi donors conference, according to a senior diplomat present at the meeting.

"Nobody`s in a particular hurry to get this done, because we`re going to do this right," said a senior Bush aide who briefed reporters on condition of anonymity. Asked whether the search for a U.N. resolution backing the U.S. occupation in Iraq could be a months-long process, the official said: "It could be. And I don`t think that there is any concern that that would be a problem."

The official said Bush did not specifically ask for troops from Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Indian Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee, adding, "The president did not come here to ask people for troops." There were also no concrete discussions about financial contributions because the donors` conference planned in Madrid is still a month away, the official said.

Musharraf suggested requirements for Pakistan`s participation in Iraq peacekeeping efforts that would be almost impossible to meet. At a news conference, Musharraf said that the public in his country is "totally opposed to sending troops to Iraq" and that "President Bush does totally understand" his country`s reluctance to commit forces to Iraq. Musharraf said Pakistan would participate only under a U.N. mandate asking for Muslim troops.

Similarly, Turkish Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul told a forum in New York today that more control should be turned over to Iraqis if Turkish troops are going to participate. "We want Iraq to be ruled by Iraqis," Gul said.

That sentiment was echoed at the U.N. General Assembly, where foreign leaders continued to press for an expeditious transfer of authority to Iraqis as part of a new Security Council resolution. Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing called for Iraqi sovereignty "at an early date." Chilean Foreign Minister Soledad Alvear, whose country is also serving on the Security Council, said, "We believe it is essential to set a timetable."

The Bush administration remained adamant in resisting what the Bush official called "artificial timetables" for a transfer of power. "I don`t think anybody wants to compromise on a transfer of sovereignty that might fall apart," the official said. Still, the aide did not rule out a breakthrough, saying there "is more convergence here in view than might be thought."

Powell, in his meeting with foreign ministers, said that he wanted to hear ideas on how to yield greater authority to Iraqis more swiftly, but, according to a diplomat who attended, he cautioned that his "room for maneuvering is not wide."

In another point of contention, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, told Congress today that the United States is opposed to giving up control over the $20 billion in reconstruction funds for Iraq that the administration is seeking. Bremer declined to give details about what tasks the administration is willing to surrender.

In one bright spot for Bush, he and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder announced this morning that they had moved beyond their differences over the war in Iraq, which Germany bitterly opposed. Bush, calling the chancellor "Gerhard," declared after the meeting: "We`ve had differences, and they`re over, and we`re going to work together." The president said the two allies would cooperate on Afghanistan and stabilizing Iraq.

Schroeder, in reply, said, "We very much feel that the differences there have been have been left behind and put aside by now." The two men did not get into specifics on their agreements or differences, although Bush aides said Germany might provide police training.

But the very fact that they had such a public reconciliation -- the White House originally had planned to allow only still photographs of the session, as it has with Bush`s other meetings here -- was noteworthy. Bush did not have a public reconciliation with French President Jacques Chirac, who has led the opposition to U.S. policy in Iraq, after a similar meeting yesterday. Bush aides said the two remain divided on setting what Chirac calls a "reasonable timetable" for giving Iraqis authority. Though France has said it will not veto a resolution, France`s backing for a resolution is important because that could encourage reluctant nations to provide troops and funds.

As U.S. diplomats worked to resolve the dispute, military leaders said they are preparing for the possibility of calling up more reserves. Pace, a Marine general, told a group of defense writers in Washington this morning that if more commitments of foreign troops are not secured, the Pentagon will need to begin in the next four to six weeks alerting National Guard and Reserve forces required to sustain troop levels in Iraq.

"We need to be making decisions about alerting reservists over the next four to six weeks," he said, adding that replacements would be alerted "if we don`t have specificity by then" on commitments to a third multinational division in Iraq.

Under a Pentagon troop rotation plan announced in July requiring 12-month tours for soldiers in Iraq, the third multinational division would replace the 101st Airborne Division in February or March. The two foreign divisions already there are led by Britain and Poland.

Pace also said that the U.S. Marines, who have just relinquished control of their sector south of Baghdad to the Polish-led division and will be leaving Iraq, will be part of all future rotation plans. "The Marines will be deployed at the same rate as the Army," he said.

There are about 144,000 U.S. forces in Iraq and 22,000 from 32 other countries, including 14,000 from Britain.

Pace said the United States has enough forces on its own to maintain security in Iraq, if necessary. But, he added, "that is not our desire for lots and lots of reasons." The general said that it is "not a given" that more Reserve and Guard forces will be needed and that "we have every hope" more foreign troops will come. "But hope is not a plan," he said.

Staff writers Vernon Loeb and Peter Slevin in Washington contributed to this report.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Democratic presidential candidate Wesley K. Clark, center, was surrounded by supporters yesterday after speaking at a news conference in East River Park, N.Y.
washingtonpost.com
Clark Lays Out Economic Plan For Presidency
Reducing Bush Tax Cuts Would Pay for Security

By Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 25, 2003; Page A06


Retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark offered the first domestic plan of his young presidential campaign yesterday, calling for a reduction of the Bush tax cuts for households earning more than $200,000 to pay for new spending on homeland security, state governments and job-creation programs.

One day before his first debate with nine other Democrats running for president, Clark sought to portray himself as a centrist Democrat committed to "fiscal discipline" but equally concerned about helping Americans hit the hardest by unemployment and the lackluster economy. He emphasized his 34 years of military service, including his command of NATO forces in Kosovo, even though the speech focused on the domestic economy.

"I don`t think it penetrates the minds of this administration what it must be like for a factory worker to arrive home to his family with the news that he`s been laid off. . . . What it must be like to be told that tax cuts for the rich are necessary to create jobs for working people, and then to see jobs fall month after month," Clark said in remarks prepared for delivery in New York City, the site of today`s debate. "If that doesn`t break your heart, you don`t have a heart."

Clark said households earning $200,000 or more should forfeit some of their scheduled tax cuts and direct that "money to three job-creating funds": to create jobs for firefighters, customs officials and others tasked with defending the homeland; to help state and local governments meet education, health care and other financial needs; and to provide tax incentives to businesses that hire new employees in 2004 or 2005. Clark said his plan, which draws heavily on ideas offered by other candidates, would cost $100 billion.

Clark`s plan distanced him from former Vermont governor Howard Dean and Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.), both of whom want to repeal all of President Bush`s tax cuts, not just those targeted to wealthier Americans.

Clark, who entered the campaign a week ago, has raced to the head of the pack in national polls and attracted widespread attention from some Democrats who see him as potentially having the ideal profile to defeat Bush: a southern military general with middle-of-the-road political views. Yet little is known about Clark`s specific views on domestic policies, such as the economy, education and health care, which often dominate presidential elections.

Clark, who described himself as "nonpartisan" in yesterday`s speech, is so far running on the broad theme of a "new American patriotism," which asks voters to challenge their political leaders, namely Bush, on how they would lead the country. Clark said he is running because Bush`s policies have failed the country and the president has refused to admit it. "So we have to change the president," he said. "I have the best chance to beat him."

Clark faces his biggest test today at the third televised debate sanctioned by the Democratic National Committee, and he could face tough questions about his commitment to the party and his preparedness to outline domestic policies.

Sen. John F. Kerry (Mass.) criticized Clark yesterday for saying he supported Richard M. Nixon in 1972 and Ronald Reagan in 1980. "It`s for Democrats to judge how they feel about people`s lives and history," Kerry said at a news conference here. "But while [Clark] was voting for Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan, I was fighting against both of their policies."

Kerry`s campaign also criticized Clark for co-opting ideas from other campaigns for his economic program. "Probably no surprise that a newly minted Democrat with no experience in domestic policy would unveil an economic plan that is most notable for its similarity to the plans of others in this race," said Robert Gibbs, Kerry`s spokesman.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Sen. Clinton Denies Backing Clark
New Yorker Hammers Bush, Restates She Will Not Seek Presidency in 2004

By Dan Balz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, September 25, 2003; Page A07


Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) yesterday dismissed reports that she and her husband are the agents behind retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark`s presidential candidacy, reiterated that she will not run in 2004 and pledged to work for the eventual Democratic nominee, saying the reelection of President Bush would be "an overwhelming setback for this country."

The former first lady denied speculation, much of it in Republican circles, that she and former President Bill Clinton had encouraged Clark to join the race in part to act as a stalking-horse for a 2004 candidacy of her own. Referring to an account by New York Times columnist William Safire that had sketched out such a scenario, she said, "That`s an absurd feat of imagination."

During an hour-long breakfast with reporters, Clinton delivered a blistering critique of the Bush`s presidency, saying Bush has promoted "an extremely right-wing agenda" and saying she was "just bewildered by this administration`s priorities and values."

Clinton characterized the administration`s handling of Iraq since the end of major combat operations as "a shocking failure of leadership," said Bush was "incredibly irresponsible" for cutting taxes while launching a war, and accused administration officials of engaging in "happy talk" about the economy in the face of continuing job losses.

She also charged the White House of employing manipulation and "misuse" of scientific data about the environment that had put at risk some of her constituents who live near the Lower Manhattan site of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Clinton, according to one Democrat, sought to use yesterday`s session to tamp down reports that she and her husband are actively rooting for Clark to win the nomination. "She wanted to be clear that she`s not supporting him covertly or overtly but that he`s in the same category as everyone else they`ve given advice to," this Democrat said.

The former president has placed calls to some of the other candidates to assure them that neither he nor his wife is quietly trying to promote Clark`s candidacy, according to this Democrat.

Yesterday, the New York senator declined even to characterize Clark`s attributes as a candidate, but described the field as "very strong and impressive," and said she and her husband have no favorite. "We are not supporting or endorsing any candidate," she said.

Asked directly whether there was still a chance she might run for president in 2004, she said, "I`ve said the same thing now consistently for, I don`t know how many years, I guess four years. I have nothing to add to my continuing position that I`m not running."

Instead, she said, she will work actively for whomever is the Democratic nominee. "I am convinced, totally, that four more years of this administration -- unaccountable, no election at the end -- would be an overwhelming setback for our country, and I will do everything I can to elect whoever emerges from this process."

Clinton sharply criticized the administration`s handling of the post-combat phase of the Iraq war. Declaring herself "bewildered, surprised, disappointed" by the administration`s inability to gather more international support, she said, "To be so poorly prepared is just a shocking failure of leadership."

She also criticized the administration for not providing more money for homeland security when the president is asking for $87 billion for Iraq and Afghanistan. She called that request "a bill for failed leadership."

Clinton, however, stood by her vote last November for the congressional resolution authorizing the war, and carefully distanced herself from recent charges by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) that Bush and his advisers had concocted the war in August 2002 and foisted it upon the country. "Based on what we knew and believed [about the Iraqi threat], it was merited," she said of her vote.

She said she consulted widely before that vote and found that U.S. intelligence "from Bush I to Clinton to Bush II was consistent" in concluding that there was "a continuing presence of biological and chemical weapons programs" in Iraq and that the Iraqis were seeking to develop a nuclear capacity.

But she said the failure to uncover weapons of mass destruction raised troubling questions about U.S. intelligence, particularly for an administration that has invoked the doctrine of preemption to justify going to war last spring. "We cannot expect the American public or, frankly, the world community to be convinced or united if we`re acting on intelligence that has proven to be so wrong," she said.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Iraqi Council Member Dies 5 Days After Ambush



Washington Post staff reports
Thursday, September 25, 2003; 5:20 AM


Akila Hashimi, a member of Iraq`s Governing Council who was seriously wounded in an ambush near her home five days ago, died today, according to a statement released to news organizations by U.S. authorities in Iraq.

"On behalf of the Coalition Provisional Authority and all its members, I offer condolences to her family, her colleagues on the Governing Council and the people of Iraq," L. Paul Bremer, the U.S. civil administrator of Iraq, said in a statement, news services reported today.

Hashimi was a former Iraqi diplomat and member of Saddam Hussein`s Baath Party who became one of three women appointed by the United States to serve on Iraq`s postwar, 25-member Governing Council. Her death, the first assassination of a member of the council appointed by the U.S. occupation authority, was the latest in a series of attacks on people cooperating with U.S. occupation forces. American officials have blamed the attacks on Baathist and foreign fighters who want to disrupt the reconstruction effort, which calls for U.S. troops to leave and hand over power to Iraqis only after a new constitution is written and an elected government is seated.

Hashimi was seriously wounded on Saturday, when her Toyota Land Cruiser was ambushed two blocks from her home in western Baghdad as she was being driven to work. The attack occurred just after 9 a.m. on a quiet residential street when several gunmen in a pickup truck opened fire on Hashimi`s vehicle. Hashimi was shot at least once in the left side of her abdomen. Her driver sped away and a security guard and her brother returned fire, according to witnesses.

Hashimi had been a leading candidate to become Iraq`s representative at the United Nations. On the day she was wounded, the career diplomat was planning to travel to New York with a small delegation of Iraqi leaders to attend the U.N. General Assembly, where members of the Security Council were to discuss a U.S.-sponsored resolution aimed at encouraging more nations to send troops to Iraq.

Hashimi was part of a three-person delegation from the Governing Council that appeared on July 22 before the U.N. Security Council in New York to assure members that the emerging political leadership in Iraq represented the legitimate aspirations of the country`s 26 million people. She also went to Paris earlier this month for talks about a French proposal to accelerate the transfer of power to Iraqis.

Hashimi, a Shiite who had a law degree and a doctorate in French literature, rose through the ranks in Hussein`s Foreign Ministry, eventually assuming responsibility for Iraq`s dealings with the United Nations and other international organizations. She also served as a French interpreter for Tariq Aziz, who was deputy prime minister in the deposed government.

Some Iraqis had criticized Hashimi for her prior involvement with the Baath Party, but U.S. officials said she was never a senior party member.

Ahmed Chalabi, who holds the rotating presidency of the Governing Council, had blamed "remnants of the Baathist regime and Saddam`s assassins" for Hashimi`s shooting. He said in a statement after Saturday`s attack that Hashimi was threatened repeatedly but chose to remain on the council.

Douglas Brand, a British adviser to the Iraqi police, said on Sunday that U.S. and British investigators were conducting an "extensive investigation" into the shooting with Iraqi police officers.

The attack on Hashimi was expected to prompt a review of security procedures for Governing Council members, who are not provided with U.S. bodyguards or police escorts, Iraqi and U.S. officials said after the ambush.

Although the council`s leaders, who head large political organizations, are protected by their militias, independent members are responsible for their own protection. While they are leery of being seen with U.S. guards, several independent members have recently complained about not being given at least an Iraqi security detail.

On Aug. 19, Hashimi had accompanied Bremer, the U.S. civil administrator of Iraq, to the ruins of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad, which was destroyed by a truck bomb earlier that day. "We are shocked but not surprised," Hashimi had said about the bombing. "All the Iraqi people are subject to these kind of cowardly attacks."

Parts of this report are based on previous reporting by Washington Post correspondents Rajiv Chandrasekaran, Anthony Shadid, Daniel Williams and Karl Vick in Baghdad, and by staff writer Colum Lynch at the United Nations in New York. The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
Waiting for Mr. Kay

Thursday, September 25, 2003; Page A32

OVER THE PAST couple of months, the name David Kay has become something of a talisman for President Bush and his senior aides. Every time one of them is asked to explain why no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq, Mr. Kay`s name is invoked, sometimes along with his 1,200-member Iraq Survey Group, and the suggestion is made that he will provide all the answers. Mr. Kay "will . . . over time produce the information that will respond to your question," Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld said this month. "David Kay will find more evidence," promised Vice President Cheney. Mr. Bush himself told the United Nations Tuesday that the Kay group would "reveal the full extent of [Iraq`s] weapons programs and long campaign of deception."

So when can we expect to hear from Mr. Kay? There, it seems, is the catch. Asked this question at a briefing on Monday, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice responded: "David Kay is not going to be done with this for quite some time. And I would not count on reports. I suppose there may be interim reports. I don`t know when those will be, and I don`t know what the public nature of them will be." In other words, the Bush administration seems to be saying, any explanation of the missing weapons will come from Mr. Kay -- but don`t "count on reports." This is an unacceptable dodge.

It`s not that Mr. Kay is an inappropriate authority; he is a former senior U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq, and his team includes many highly qualified experts. Nor do we think it likely that Mr. Kay has nothing to say, though if the stocks of chemical and biological arms the administration said were present in Iraq before the war had been found, we suspect the White House would have let the world know. In one of his few public statements since beginning his mission, Mr. Kay told several reporters in Washington on July 31 that there had been "new discoveries every day." His deputy, U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Keith Dayton, said: "Every week, it is phenomenal what we are finding."

More than seven weeks have passed since those statements, and Mr. Kay, who gave a progress report to the Senate Intelligence Committee behind closed doors the same day he spoke with reporters, had been expected to deliver a more substantial interim report this month. A White House official, expanding on Ms. Rice`s remarks, says the report is not yet ready; when it is complete, he said, it will be delivered to CIA Director George Tenet, and the administration will then decide whether and how to publicize it. Congress is also expected to receive the report. Mr. Kay has said he does not want to issue findings on "a piecemeal basis" or before he has compiled what he considers to be definitive proof. That`s not unreasonable from his point of view. But six months after U.S. troops entered Iraq, President Bush owes the country an update about the threat he identified and what is now known about it. If Mr. Kay is to be delegated to deliver that answer, then he should make his interim report not just to Mr. Tenet and Congress but in public.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Serving Souffle at the U.N.


By Richard Cohen

Thursday, September 25, 2003; Page A33


If there is such a thing as facts on the ground, then there ought to be such a thing as facts in the air. Those, after all, are the ones President Bush offered in his speech to the United Nations -- a series of dubious assertions attempting to show that the world is a better place because America went to war in Iraq. Who can blame him? The facts on the ground are so awful.

By that I don`t mean the sloppy and incredibly expensive occupation of Iraq. That will straighten itself out -- later than we want and at a greater cost in lives and money than we want. In the end, though, Iraq will not be Vietnam, because, above all, most of its people have nothing to gain from anti-American terrorism.

What`s striking about Bush`s speech is that he proceeded as if nothing has changed. He began, as he did a year ago, with the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 and proceeded from there. He was back in the war against terrorism, of which Iraq was going to be the key battle. But it is a year later, Iraq has fallen -- and yet terrorism persists.

Bush pressed on. He mentioned more facts in the air -- Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction, of which not one has been found. He mentioned a Middle East where "people are safer because an unstable aggressor has been removed from power" -- adding, preposterously, that the world is a far better place today "because an ally of terror has fallen." In Jerusalem, in Jakarta -- in any of the places Bush mentioned -- no one can possibly believe that. Maybe even Bush doesn`t.

The facts on the ground reproach him. The Middle East peace plan -- the so-called road map -- has collapsed. The defeat of Iraq has in no way intimidated Hamas, Islamic Jihad or, to hear the Israelis tell it, Yasser Arafat himself.

Iran is believed to be developing a nuclear weapon. North Korea already probably has several and flamboyantly proclaims a determination to have even more. Both countries seem undeterred by the splendid victory in Iraq and the aerated facts Bush cited in his U.N. address. Iraq is free and Hussein is gone. But all the rest is a souffle of wishes and assertions, deflated by reality.

The man who strode to the U.N. rostrum seemed to know that. He appeared empty, leeched of his former passion and conviction. Events have conspired against him. His once infallible aides have turned out to be awfully fallible. They botched the aftermath of the war and they were wrong about weapons of mass destruction and Iraqi links to al Qaeda. They ought to be fired, but Bush would have to admit he was misled -- and he will not do that.

The oddest document in the archives today is the congressional resolution that the White House sought authorizing war in Iraq. It is less than a year old, but already it seems from another era. It is alarmist, written in the most purple of prose, saying of Iraq that it "poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States." It says Iraq is "supporting and harboring terrorist organizations," specifically naming al Qaeda. As a historical document it is rich in irony. As a cause for war, it is a farce.

Bush`s problem is that he has been repeatedly reprimanded by events. Most -- not all, mind you -- of his reasons for the war have proved untrue. Paul Wolfowitz, who ventured to New York earlier in the week, gave three reasons for the war at a forum sponsored by the New Yorker magazine: WMD, links to terrorism and wholesale human rights abuse.

Only the last is true -- and true enough to give war supporters such as myself reason for succor. All the rest is either a mistake or an exaggeration -- the former by intelligence agencies, the latter by imagineers such as Wolfowitz and Dick Cheney.

At the United Nations, Bush said some things worth saying. He reminded the delegates that Saddam Hussein ignored one resolution after another. He reminded them that Hussein was a beast. He might have reminded the French that they were unnecessarily obstructionist, but he kept his tongue.

An American president can always lead, and much of the world must necessarily follow. But the pugnacious arrogance of a year ago -- a bristling unilateralism -- has made Bush`s task harder. His predictions -- WMD discoveries, a new order in the Middle East, humbled rogue nations -- have all proved so far to be false. The facts on the ground contradict the facts in the air -- and Bush runs after them like a child chasing a balloon.

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The Cartoon Graveyard
Just the Cartoons Without the Commentary
Für alle die nie genug kriegen können, heute 69 frische Cartoons.

http://www.flu-ent.com/graveyard/20030924__069toons.htm

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September 20, 2003

http://www.cato.org/dailys/09-20-03.html
Not the Best and Brightest
by Leon Hadar

Leon Hadar is a research fellow in foreign policy studies at the Cato Institute and the Washington correspondent for the Business Times (Singapore).

Recognizing that the United States is gradually sinking into a military quagmire in Iraq, analysts have applied the historical analogy of the American intervention in Vietnam.

They have warned that US leaders are repeating today in the Middle East the policy mistakes that their predecessors made in Southeast Asia 50 years ago. Indeed, as they agonise over the failure of White House and Pentagon officials to anticipate the postwar predicament in Iraq, pundits have compared the architects of the military occupation of Iraq -- including Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, National Security Adviser Condoleeza Rice and other members of the neo-conservative faction -- to the managers of US national security during the 1960s that had steered Presidents Kennedy and Johnson into Vietnam.

Author David Halberstam, in the title of his Pulitzer Prize-winning book, called those planners of the military intervention in Southeast Asia, "The Best and the Brightest." That designation reflected the sense of tragedy that marked the conduct in Vietnam of officials like former Defence Secretary Robert McNamara, his deputy William Bundy and his brother, National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy, and other members of the liberal-internationalist foreign policy establishment of the Cold War.

Graduates of the best universities and men of great intellect and integrity, they were -- indeed, the best and the brightest that America could offer. Yet they had drawn Americans into a costly war that ended in a strategic defeat and produced the terrible political divisions in the country. Of course, Iraq has yet to turn into a Vietnam. But it has all the makings of the same kind of quagmire, in which US leaders are being confronted with the horrible dilemma: If they `run away` from the confrontation, they are perceived as losers, encouraging other `bad guys` to test their will. If they `stay the course`, they end up expanding their commitments to a point where they lose public and international support. But as much as it is tempting and perhaps even useful to draw the lessons of Vietnam in order to reconsider American policy in Iraq, it is important to stress some of the differences between those two military interventions.

First, taking place during the height of the Cold War, in which America confronted a nuclear-armed Soviet Union leading a powerful communist bloc, the decision to come to the aid of the pro-American South Vietnamese made strategic sense. After all, North Vietnam was controlled by a group of ardent communists, many of whom, including Ho Chi Minh, had been trained in the Soviet Union and China, and had strong political and military ties to those regimes.

In retrospect, American critics of the US intervention insist that Washington should have recognized that Ho Chi Minh and his comrades were more nationalists than communists. But in the early 1960s, very few analysts had challenged the argument that South Vietnam`s collapse would strengthen the Soviet Union and its allies in the confrontation with the West. But contrary to some of the earlier suggestions by members of the current `war party` in Washington, who have depicted the intervention in Iraq as an integral part of the war on terrorism, there were no ideological ties or military connection between President Saddam Hussein`s Baath regime and Osama bin Laden`s Al-Qaeda network and its Taleban backers.

In short, while backing South Vietnam was clearly an integral part of the rivalry between the US and the communist bloc, ousting Saddam and invading Iraq had nothing to do with the war on terrorism. In fact, as a result of the US occupation, Iraq has become a magnet for radical Islamic terrorists. Moreover, while the Americans in the 1960s could point to Japan and several other East Asian countries that were gradually moving in the direction of economic and political freedom and that could serve as models for Vietnam, the grand designs to democratise Iraq as part of an American-led crusade for freedom in the Middle East seem to be based on nothing more than wishful thinking.

And just compare the willingness of many elements in South Vietnamese society to ally themselves, and socialise with the Americans troops and civilians, to the attitude that most Iraqis are exhibiting today towards the Americans. Hence, let us not insult the Best and the Brightest of the 1960s with those who accused Saddam of supporting Osama, who had promised to find weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, and who were so sure that Americans would be welcomed as `liberators` in Iraq and succeed in making the country a model of democracy for the entire Middle East. The Dumb and the Dumbest sounds a more appropriate title for the current crew.

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Bush`s Latest UN Visit: More Misleading
09/23/2003 @ 8:56pm
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Once more, George W. Bush has assaulted the truth in front of the United Nations. A year ago, he launched his push for war with a speech before the General Assembly that was filled with distortions to set the stage for the invasion to come. (See here.) This time around, Bush was defending his war against Saddam Hussein and the occupation and again relied on misrepresentations. "The regime of Saddam Hussein," he claimed, "cultivated ties to terror while it built weapons of mass destruction. It used those weapons in acts of mass murder." This is a slippery rendition of what`s known. Hussein may have "cultivated" contacts with terrorists, but the Bush administration has yet to demonstrate he had developed any operational ties to al Qaeda. And built WMDs? Certainly, he did so in the past--before UN inspectors in the mid-1990s reported that they had destroyed most of his WMDs. But there`s no undeniable proof he was manufacturing WMDs more recently. In fact, a classified Defense Intelligence Agency analysis produced in October 2002 noted that there was no reliable evidence that Hussein was n=making chemical weapons.

Before the war, the heart of Bush`s case for war was that Hussein possessed unconventional weapons and could turn them over to his pals in al Qaeda at any moment. At the UN, Bush fuzzed up his depiction of the threat from Hussein. As for Hussein having "used those weapons," that horrific act occurred in 1980s, and afterward the Reagan and Bush I administrations still continued to court Hussein (as a counter-balance to Iran). Prior to the invasion, Bush did not claim the reason for the war was a two-decades-old weapons charge against the dictator. But now it has become front-and-center in his brief against Washington`s former partner.

Bush stretched the truth in his rosy descriptions of present-day Iraq. He noted that Iraq "now has a governing council; the first truly representative institution in that country." But that body was handpicked by the US occupation authorities. How representative is that? He also boasted, "Iraq`s new leaders are showing the opernness and tolerance that democracy requires." Yet the day before, the governing council had booted out of Iraq two Arab satellite networks--Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya--claiming they had incited violence against the new government and challenged its legitimacy. Bush also argued that the United States, by invading Iraq, had "acted to defend...the credibility of the United Nations," falsely suggesting that the UN had been unwilling to take any steps in the face of Iraq`s violations of Security Council resolutions. But the UN was moving toward more intrusive and aggressive inspections when Bush launched the war. It might be that the UN actions would not have happened or might have ended up ineffective, but Bush has repeatedly maintained that there was only one choice: go to war or do nothing. That is a misrepresentation.

Overall, Bush`s speech was not likely to please allies who opposed the war or to rally American public support. He offered nothing in terms of shared authority for the contributions (in cash and troops) he is trying to squeeze out of other nations. No surprise, he made no concessions regarding his prewar assertions. He claimed he only wanted "self-government" for the people, but provided not even a general timetable for a transition to self-rule. (Before such "self-government" is accomplished, the US occupation authority does feel entitled to render critical economic decisions on behalf of the Iraqi people. Days ago it announced it would open up practically all of the nation`s economy--except the oil sector--to foreign investment. or what critics might call "foreign control.")

Bush devoted a good chunk of his speech to calling for an international effort to eradicate the trafficking of humans, particularly in relation to the sex trade. "The American government is committing $50 million to support the good work of organizations that are rescuing women and children from exploitation....I urge other governments to do their part." This was all well and good. But $50 milllion is a modest figure. For comparison`s sake, Bush is expected to raise between $170 million and $200 million for his reelection campaign.

There was no chance that Bush was going to speak candidly about the war and occupation in Iraq. He has tied himself to the mast of his prewar fabrications. He concedes no ground, no problems, no missteps, no miscalculations--even as he looks to the UN and other nations to help bail him out in Iraq. With a pricetag approaching $200 billion and an American public that is becoming restless about the occupation (and its cost), Bush needs assistance from the UN and the allies. He`s just not willing to tell the truth to get it.

COMING SOON: David Corn`s new book, The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception (Crown Publishers, due out September 30). For more information and a sample, check out the book`s official website: www.bushlies.com.
http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=…

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http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-emerald…
COLUMN ONE



Not Yet the Jewel of Asia
The Afghan mountains are rich in emeralds, though it`s finders keepers. The government insists the gems belong to the state.
By Paul Watson
Times Staff Writer

September 25, 2003

KHENJ, Afghanistan — General Manegy`s luck turned one day when he spotted a fallen rock at his feet while watching over his goats on a winding mountain path.

Inside a broken shell of quartz was a small stone glittering green in the sunlight. The goatherd had never seen an emerald before but knew this rock was beautiful, and rare, and that some people paid for such things. So he picked it up, turned his flock around and let his imagination carry him down the steep mountainside.

It was springtime 1974 and Afghanistan was at peace. Perhaps a simple man`s fate could shift as suddenly as an ancient rock split apart by snow and ice. "I thought I was going to be the richest guy in the world," Manegy, 78, said recently. "Of course I dreamed. I still am dreaming that I`ll find some more emeralds. Back then, I thought I`d buy a car and more animals and build several houses.

"I thought of buying the best apartment in Kabul. I even thought of going to Saudi Arabia, to Mecca," Manegy added. "But I never went."

Manegy says it was God`s will that he discovered Panjshir`s emeralds and God`s will that he remained too poor to make the journey for the hajj, the pilgrimage to Mecca required of all Muslims who are able to go to the site of Islam`s holiest shrine.

Much of his life since finding the precious stone has been a lesson in how fickle fortune can be. So, too, has it been for Afghanistan, whose mineral wealth is both a blessing and a curse.

Few Afghans have become rich from the country`s vast reserves of emeralds, rubies and other precious stones, but many have fought and died trying to control the mountains that conceal them.

Afghanistan`s interim government is now interested in the riches. If Kabul could wrest control of the Panjshir region`s mines, and others across a long stretch of Afghanistan, the war-ruined country could earn billions of dollars a year from its minerals, said Mohammed Mahfooz, the acting minister of mines and industries. Some gem mines near Pakistan are funding Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters, Mahfooz added.

The Panjshiris insist that they will fight any efforts to move in by the central government, multinational corporations, the Taliban or terrorists, just as they once fought off Soviet soldiers.

It was in 1979 that the Red Army invaded, and Manegy and his family fled with the rest of the village into the mountains to escape the bombing that leveled entire towns.

The war didn`t end for another decade, and then another war began, and then another. The emerald miners have kept digging through it all, and as with Manegy, most of their dreams were undone by Afghanistan`s harsh reality.

Manegy was never a military man, but friends kept calling him "general," so he took the title as his first name. It suits him well. In a land beaten down by more than 23 years of war, he stands with shoulders back, chin up, as straight and proud as a soldier.

Time couldn`t bow Manegy, but it ate away at his teeth. Making the best of the three he has left, he welcomes a foreign visitor to his small farmhouse with a broad smile and a high honor of Panjshiri hospitality: "I will serve you milk!"

Over cups of milk drawn fresh from the family cow, warmed in a copper kettle and sweetened with teaspoons of sugar, Manegy`s mind drifts back to the day when fate, and his 50 goats, led him to the broken rock.

After trekking down the mountain with what he hoped was a fortune in his pocket, Manegy went to a trusted friend who was an experienced trader.

Straightaway, he informed Manegy that his green stone was a precious emerald. The gem rush was on.

Within three days, villagers were on the mountainside, chipping away with hammers, shovels and steel bars. Almost 30 years later, many of their grown children are still at it, working largely in village consortiums searching for the mother lode.

Manegy got around $160 for his emerald, which seemed a lot to him for a rock.

He would get at least $20,000 for that stone today, said Abdul Mahbood, a local gem trader, who did the math on a solar-powered calculator he carries in a vest pocket. From another, he took out a ball of cellophane crumpled around emeralds, several bigger than sugar cubes.

Mahbood spilled them into his palm, tilting it back and forth so the emeralds could catch the soft afternoon light. They clicked in his hand like a child`s marbles. Mahbood smiled.

It was seven years after Manegy`s discovery before Panjshiris realized they had been selling the precious stones cheap to the steady stream of foreign buyers riding through the mountains on donkeys from neighboring Pakistan, Mahbood said. As demand for Afghan emeralds grew, so did the price, and Panjshiris became more savvy gem dealers.

With his $160, Manegy bought rice, wheat and other supplies. Four days after cashing in his bonanza, he was broke. He kept looking for more emeralds but never found many. He gave up after three years and returned to working 24 acres of terraced fields next to the Darkhenjab River and selling car parts on the side.

"The richest thing I have is my faith," he said. "Even if someone gives us east, west, north and south, we can`t lose our faith."

The Panjshir emerald mines are part of a gem belt stretching hundreds of miles, from the edge of the Himalayas at Afghanistan`s northeastern border with Pakistan to Laghman province, northeast of Kabul, and then to the west of the Panjshir Valley, in Parwan province. International experts say the best of Panjshir`s emeralds are among the world`s finest.

Afghanistan`s government believes that billions of dollars worth of emeralds, rubies, lavender kunzite, violet-blue lapis lazuli and other precious stones are waiting to be extracted from the rock and insists anyone mining them is taking state-owned property.

But Afghanistan hasn`t had an effective central government for at least 24 years, and the miners defying the current government`s ban are applying the age-old rule of finders keepers.

The Hindu Kush mountain range, which runs hundreds of miles southwest from the edge of the Himalayas and has peaks as high as 17,000 feet, is Afghanistan`s treasure chest.

The mountains` serrated peaks and narrow gorges offer outsiders few paths into the Panjshir Valley emerald mines. The tunnel mouths form honeycombs on the mountains anywhere from 7,000 to 14,000 feet up, and the Panjshiris know how to get rid of uninvited visitors.

Heavy bombing opened a route for Soviet troops to seize some of the mines during the occupation, but the moujahedeen fighters with the late Ahmed Shah Massoud always expelled them within a few days.

Massoud, the legendary "Lion of Panjshir," helped fund his guerrilla army with the more than $1 million he earned annually from emeralds. A Soviet tank, embedded in the riverbank where it was blasted off the road, marks the Red Army`s farthest advance into the valley.

When the Taliban tried to invade the valley, Massoud`s guerrillas drove them back too. Massoud was murdered, apparently by Al Qaeda operatives, with a bomb hidden in a TV camera on Sept. 9, 2001. With Massoud gone, about 350,000 Panjshiris living in the valley lost their greatest defender but not their vigilance against intruders

Interim President Hamid Karzai`s government in Kabul is talking with potential foreign investors, including U.S. companies, to take over the emerald mines as partners with the Afghan state. But they will have to find a way past the Panjshiris, who think they own the rock they work — and the gems locked inside.

Mahfooz insists that the miners will have to settle for jobs with the corporations. So far, however, no foreign companies have made offers for joint ventures in mining, he added. Even so, quiet exploration may have begun.

Three months ago, a Frenchman climbed up a mountainside blanketed with blasted rock to reach the mines at Khirskanda, about 8,000 feet above Khenj, a farming village and small trading center in the valley.

He spent three days there, scrutinizing the rock with an electronic device none of the miners had seen before.

"We were all following him around, and wherever he pointed, we found lots of emeralds," said miner Zia Urahman, 22. "When he looked up at the mountain, you could see the emeralds in green on the screen. He also bought $10,000 worth of emeralds. He said they were a gift for his family."

Manegy has little left to offer his family but the labor of an old man`s hands, and his prayers. His second wife is in a Kabul hospital with heart trouble. His first was killed 18 years ago, when a Soviet warplane bombed the mountain cave where she was hiding. A son and daughter died with her.

He is left with one son from his first marriage and a son and two daughters from the second. Mohammed Ghazi, 20, is the only one of them who followed the lure of emeralds up the mountain, but he didn`t stay long.

"Because I`m old, I won`t let him go up there anymore," Manegy said. "He just tends the farm down here with me." The men hammering relentlessly at the mountainside are driven by the same certainty that keeps marathon gamblers going. Today, they tell themselves, is my day.

Mohammed Edrees, 25, tunneled into various sections of the granite for three years — half of his mining career — and found only worthless sludge.

The miners work natural fissures that are supposed to mark the best places to find emeralds, especially the clearest crystalline gems that grow in tiny beds of sand sandwiched between rock. But every yard Edrees and his partners dug deeper into the mountain, and each wheelbarrow-full of muck that they sifted through, yielded nothing.

"We just didn`t have good luck," Edrees said, squatting in the shadows of a sooty hut that he shares with 10 other miners at Khirskanda. "We just kept digging — and prayed."

Edrees and his team would bend over in dark, dripping tunnels from dawn until sunset with two days off each week, just enough time to go down the mountain, wash their clothes, stock up on supplies and climb back up again.

Energized by a sugary cake of compressed mulberries called talkhan and rich Afghan hashish, they worked through bitter winters, when the snow was chest deep and streams running through the tunnels turned to ice. Edrees finally hit pay dirt in the spring of 2001, when he dug out a 500-carat emerald, worth $50,000 on the local market — a king`s ransom in Afghanistan.

The team`s 54 members each got a cut, with the biggest going to a few bosses who paid for the dynamite, the gasoline-powered rock drill that was imported from Japan, the flashlights and other overhead. The miners got several hundred dollars each. They didn`t waste time celebrating. Their competitors were still digging all around them.

About 500 miners, working for approximately 50 groups, are searching for emeralds in the Khirskanda area. For every worker, there are roughly four more shareholders waiting in villages and cities for their piece of the profit.

The tunnels are as deep as 300 yards and connected in warrens of a dozen or more. None have structures to reduce the risk of collapse. One caved in last year, fortunately on a Friday when miners were off work for the Muslim holy day.

Noxious gases that seep out from the mountain`s bowels killed at least four miners two years ago and have knocked many others unconscious. At least six miners have died in blasting accidents in recent years, the workers say.

A green flag on a wooden pole marks the grave of one miner who was buried alive under a rockslide set off by blasting. Farther down the mountainside, a small circle of rocks reminds villagers who trek by that one of their own, a boy, is entombed below.

Not all are unlucky. Abdul Qassar is Afghanistan`s king of emeralds, a man of few words with a sparkle in his eye and a cryptic smile, like someone with a very big secret.

Three years ago, Qassar`s team found an emerald so big that people named it after him, a stone the size of a pocket tape recorder — before it broke in half.

The pieces of that emerald, thought to be the biggest ever found in Afghanistan, are only a small part of his stash. Qassar says he has hidden emeralds weighing a total of almost 10,000 carats and has been patiently waiting for three years for a buyer to show up with $5 million. The clear, crystal emeralds all came from one place, so Qassar wants to sell them as a set. Sold separately, he said, they would earn half that price.

Qassar reached into his vest pocket and untied a torn strip of plastic bag, which covered a scrap of note paper. It unfolded to reveal a piece of toilet paper wrapped around a dark green, uncut emerald as big as a half-smoked cigar.

He held the 30-carat stone up to a window, and with one eye closed, peered through the crystal and breathed a faint sigh.

"Because the circumstances in Afghanistan are not good, big dealers do not come here," Qassar, 40, said in Kabul, where he has a small jewelry shop.

"The other day, I talked to a German dealer on the phone and he said, `If you bring those emeralds, and twice as many, I`ll buy them from you.`

"But I said, `No. I cannot come there. If you want to buy them, come here.` I don`t know the area, so it`s dangerous for me."

Both Manegy and Qassar know that what happened to them is God`s will. Both men know that if God wishes it, they will have nothing. That is why, despite all that might have been, Manegy figures he is a fortunate man.

He has his farm and what`s left of his family. He has beaten the typical Afghan life expectancy by a good 30 years.

"I have been lucky," he said. "I am alive."


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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



U.S.-Iraq Synergy Growing, Official Says
Main issue remains the transfer of sovereignty. Some members of the Governing Council prefer America`s timetable to France`s.
By Robin Wright and Alissa J. Rubin
Times Staff Writers

September 25, 2003

UNITED NATIONS — Responding to the growing debate over the political transition in Iraq, the Bush administration said Wednesday that the United States would intensify its coordination with the Iraqi Governing Council.

Although some top Iraqis said they agreed with the U.S. rather than the French position on the rate of transferring power, discussions over the shape and speed of the transition are complicated by disagreements among the Iraqis themselves, a senior administration official said Wednesday.

"There are 25 members of the Iraqi Governing Council, and what we do not have is a unified view among them," the official told reporters traveling with President Bush.

Key members of the Iraqi council, who plan to take their case to Capitol Hill, are calling for the U.S.-led coalition to turn over greater control of security and physical reconstruction.

The critical policy split between the council and the United States is on the third and most sensitive issue — full control of governing Iraq.

With France pressing hard for an imminent hand-over of power to a "provisional" Iraqi government, the Bush administration has been trying to win wider international support during talks at the opening session of the U.N. General Assembly this week by pledging to give Iraqis more responsibility.

"Iraqis are taking more and more responsibility for the building of Iraq on practically a daily basis," the official said. "More and more decisions are being made — in a collaborative, consultative fashion and that`s going to continue, and it`s probably going to accelerate."

At the United Nations, three top representatives of the Governing Council said they were in agreement with the seven-step process outlined by the U.S.-led coalition — and challenged France`s position.

"The French are being more Iraqi than the Iraqis," Hoshyar Zebari, foreign minister of the Iraqi Governing Council, said after a news conference at the U.N. Adnan Pachachi, Iraq`s former U.N. envoy and now a Sunni representative on the council, said many on it are "not very happy" with the French.

In Baghdad, another prominent Iraqi suggested that the government of French President Jacques Chirac may have ulterior motives.

"The problem with President Chirac and the French is that we don`t know what exactly they`re after. Our fear is that they are using Iraq as a scapegoat to settle their differences with the U.S. and Britain and the rest of the Arabs," said Iyad Allawi, head of the Iraqi National Accord, who is set to assume the rotating Governing Council presidency next month. "We wish they had talked to us before advocating something," he added.

The council is prepared to accept a transition that would include writing a new constitution, conducting a census, holding town hall meetings to explain the process and then a referendum, formation of political parties and finally an election for a new government before the hand-over of power, Pachachi told the joint news conference with Zebari and Ahmad Chalabi.

Pachachi said they hoped to have a constitution completed by May.

"We have no disagreement with the United States government," Chalabi, a Shiite Muslim, told the news conference at the U.N. "We are not at odds with the U.S. We are working to achieve the common objectives."

Chalabi, however, has been the most outspoken in demanding a faster hand-over. Zebari, a Kurd, said he hoped that the entire hand-over could be completed within a year — although he said any timetable would be contingent on security.

Yet there continues to be a debate among Iraqis over the issue of how much responsibility they have in running their country versus how much actual sovereignty they should be granted in weeks rather than months.

In testimony Wednesday before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, L. Paul Bremer III, the U.S. civilian administrator in Baghdad, also conceded that some members of the governing council favor an immediate hand-over of full sovereignty. But he said Iraqis are ill-equipped to take control.

"No appointed government, even one as honest and dedicated as the Iraqi Governing Council, can have the legitimacy necessary today to take on the difficult issues Iraqis face as they write a constitution and elect a government. The only path to full Iraqi sovereignty is through a written constitution, ratified and followed by free, democratic elections," Bremer said.

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Times staff writer Maura Reynolds contributed to this report.



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-debate2…
EDITORIAL


Sacramento Windstorm

September 25, 2003

The televised five-candidate show in Sacramento Wednesday night fell somewhere between a World Wrestling Federation event and a pie fight. Moderator Stan Statham of the California Broadcasters Assn. needed a whistle and a striped shirt. It`s a shame that the probing questions that a real debate would have offered were nowhere to be found. Not one word was uttered about the structural reforms necessary to right the state economically and politically.

The loss was often the candidates`. Arnold Schwarzenegger, by participating only in this debate, needed to come across as knowledgeable about state problems — particularly the budget quandary — and offer a specific program of action. He didn`t do so; this was partly his failure and partly the fault of the freewheeling nature of the 90-minute discussion. It was difficult to declare winners or losers as candidates tossed barbs at their foes, talked — or yelled — over each other, engaged in generalities and sought to win favor with rehearsed laugh lines.

The biggest laughs involved barbed exchanges between Schwarzenegger and independent candidate Arianna Huffington. She made a crack about "the way you treat women." He replied, "I have a perfect part for you in `Terminator 4.` " The laughs were a poor substitute for follow-ups and questions tailored to the candidates. Cruz Bustamante and state Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) got away without criticism of their huge contributions from Indian casino interests, and no one challenged McClintock`s effusive praise of infrastructure construction under Democratic Gov. Pat Brown — spending financed by the taxes that triggered the Proposition 13 tax revolt.

The impending $8-billion budget shortfall, on top of billions in debt barely cloaked in long-term loans, is the most critical immediate problem facing the state. It was one of the triggers of the recall against Gov. Gray Davis, to be decided in the Oct. 7 special election. Schwarzenegger said the governor and legislators were addicted to spending and now just wanted to raise taxes. His only specific proposal was to cap spending.

McClintock was the most specific on the budget and emphatic in his opposition to any more taxes. That has been his favorite theme for 20 years. But he erred in saying the state was now spending more of people`s earnings than at any time in history. The state now collects about $7 for every $100 in income, less than in 1988-89.

Huffington called for reassessment of business properties and closing of various business loopholes. Bustamante and Green Party candidate Peter Camejo called for higher taxes on the wealthy. Both, joined by Huffington, supported allowing illegal immigrants to have driver`s licenses. Schwarzenegger and McClintock were opposed.

Davis was absent, both physically and in the candidates` answers. Considering the low quality of the information the event provided to voters, he should be happy about it. Nothing happened Wednesday night to give Californians reason to replace Davis. A "no" vote on the recall looks better every second.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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Thursday September 25, 4:50 PM
Bush gets lowest-ever approval rating: poll

Fewer than half of US voters approve of President George W. Bush`s job performance, according to a poll by NBC News/Wall Street Journal, his lowest-ever approval rating.

The poll, in which the US president won 49 percent approval, comes four months before Bush`s Democratic rivals launch their first primaries, and marks Bush`s lowest rating since taking office in January 2000

Some 52 percent of those polled said they disapproved of the way Bush is handling the economy -- the highest rate ever, and for the first time above 50 percent, the poll`s authors said.

And while 60 percent of those surveyed said they still support the way Bush is handling the war on terrorism, the figure was the lowest since the question was first asked in April 2002.

The survey questioned 1,007 adults from Saturday through Monday, and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.

The survey results were published as the president returned from the United Nations General Assembly where he sought more international support for reconstruction efforts and troop deployment in Iraq.

The US administration has also been pressing Congress to approve the 87 billion dollars it has requested for post-war Iraq.

Giving their opinions on how the funds should be raised, 56 percent said they would repeal a portion of tax cuts passed by Congress last May, which gave greater benefits to upper-income taxpayers.

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Wednesday, September 24, 2003 - Page updated at 12:00 A.M.

Bruce Ramsey / Times editorial columnist
Let the neo-cons bellow, just bring the troops home

George, here`s what to do in Iraq: Declare victory and bring the troops home.

A senator from Vermont once suggested such a policy during the Vietnam War. It would have meant a defeat. In this case, it might mean chaos, at least for a while, unless you can get more international help.

You asked for help from the U.N. That was good. Get back to them and say, "We`re serious. We`re on a fast track to leave."

To America`s soldiers, you can say: "You`re fighters, not social workers. The fighting`s done, excellent work, and you can start going home."

Thousands of American families will thank you.

To the American people, you can say: "We`ve changed our minds about the occupation of Iraq. We`ll need only part of that $87 billion I asked for. The rest you can keep."

Watch your poll numbers go up.

The warrior intellectuals — the neoconservatives — will bellow. Let them. They don`t have any electoral votes. The American people never bought their "neo-Wilsonian" fantasies of empire. Asserting American dominance was never your argument for war. You said Americans had to depose Saddam Hussein in order to protect themselves.

That`s done.

Our occupation of Iraq is not yet six months old and already Iraqis are making sure that we tire of it. This will not tend to get better. An antiwar feeling has arisen in the United States, and Howard Dean, a nobody from a small state, has ridden it to the head of the pack. Dean says he wouldn`t have gone to war in the first place. Few notice that Dean also says we ought to stay in Iraq to do nation-building.

"Well, Howard," you can say, "I`m bringing the troops home. If you`re elected, you can send them back."

Would America be giving up if we did that? We would be giving up the right to reconstruct Iraq our way. We would not be giving up anything the average American cares about.

Certainly, the American people would accept a change in policy. They have accepted the official story from the start — the weapons of mass destruction, the "link" between Saddam and bin Laden, the "Woman Warrior" story about Pvt. Jessica Lynch. They are not paying much attention to Iraq. They will accept a pullout.

Consider the alternative: Five years of occupation. Maybe 10. Bombs, demonstrations, dead Americans.

Think of the Democrats. In 2002 you beat them by offering to save America from a foreign threat. If you do that in 2004, you`re going to be in trouble. Americans get tired of wars that drag on and on, and tend to toss out the political party that does the dragging. Look up the election of 1952. Also 1968. Ask your dad about the political shelf-life of military victory. It is less than one year.

Think of the economy. Business has been terrible since you became president. The people have been pretty forgiving about that. They know the dot-com bust was not your doing (nor Clinton`s, really). You have given the people a tax cut, and Alan Greenspan has given them rock-bottom interest rates. In normal times, these would produce a snapping recovery. But war sits on business confidence like a fat man on a dog.


Your war, a Republican war, of which the politically profitable part is over. We are now in the losing part. The occupation of Iraq could drag on well past November 2004.

But you can forestall that. Lean on the U.N. for troops. Lean on the Egyptians; they owe us a favor or two for the billions we`ve doled out to them. Speed up the creation of an Iraqi government. You don`t need to wait for elections. That`s Iraq`s business.

Then you can announce that most of the troops will be home by Christmas and you will not be needing all of that $87 billion.

Watch Wall Street jump. The dollar, too.

Nobody expects you to do this. It will shock your friends, but what`s more, it will confound your enemies. It will also steer the Republican Party back toward that nationalistic but "humble" foreign policy you described three years ago, which best suits the interests, and the patience, of those who might vote for you in 2004.

Bruce Ramsey`s column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is [e-mail]
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2001742573_ram…


Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company

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WHY WE HATE BUSH
Wed Sep 24, 8:01 PM ET By Ted Rall

It`s the Stolen Election, Stupid



NEW YORK--"Have the Democrats totally flipped their lids?" asks David Brooks in The Weekly Standard, quasi-official organ of the Bush Administration. "Because every day some Democrat seems to make a manic or totally over-the-top statement about George Bush, the Republican party, and the state of the nation today."


True, Democrats loathe Dubya with greater intensity than any Republican standard-bearer in modern political history. Even the diabolical Richard Nixon--who, after all, created the EPA, went to China and imposed price controls to stop corporate gouging--rates higher in liberal eyes. "It`s mystifying," writes Brooks.


Let me explain.


First but not foremost, Bush`s detractors despise him viscerally, as a man. Where working-class populists see him as a smug, effeminate frat boy who wouldn`t recognize a hard day`s work if it kicked him in his self-satisfied ass, intellectuals see a simian-faced idiot unqualified to mow his own lawn, much less lead the free world. Another group, which includes me, is more patronizing than spiteful. I feel sorry for the dude; he looks so pathetic, so out of his depth, out there under the klieg lights, squinting, searching for nouns and verbs, looking like he`s been snatched from his bed and beamed in, and is still half asleep, not sure where he is. Each speech looks as if Bush had been beamed from his bed fast asleep. And he`s willfully ignorant. On Fox News, Bush admits that he doesn`t even read the newspaper: "I glance at the headlines just to kind of [sic] a flavor for what`s moving. I rarely read the stories, and get briefed by people who are probably read [sic] the news themselves." All these takes on Bush boil down to the same thing: The guy who holds the launch codes isn`t smart enough to know that`s he`s stupid. And that`s scary.


Fear breeds hatred, and Bush`s policies create a lot of both. U.S. citizens like Jose Padilla and Yasser Hamdi disappear into the night, never to be heard from again. A concentration camp rises at Guantánamo. Stasi-like spies tap our phones and read our mail; thanks to the ironically-named Patriot Act, these thugs don`t even need a warrant. As individual rights are trampled, corporate profits are sacrosanct. An aggressive, expansionist military invades other nations "preemptively" to eliminate the threat of non-existent weapons, and American troops die to enrich a company that buys off the Vice President.


Time to dust off the F word. "Whenever people start locking up enemies because of national security without much legal care, you are coming close [to fascism]," warns Robert Paxton, emeritus professor of history at Columbia University and author of the upcoming book "Fascism in Action." We`re supposed to hate fascists--or has that changed because of 9/11?


Bush bashers hate Bush for his personal hypocrisy--the draft-dodger who went AWOL during Vietnam yet sent other young men to die in Afghanistan and Iraq , the philandering cocaine addict who dares to call gays immoral--as well as for his attacks on peace and prosperity. But even that doesn`t explain why we hate him so much.


Bush is guilty of a single irredeemable act so heinous and anti-American that Nixon`s corruption and Reagan`s intellectual inferiority pale by comparison. No matter what he does, Democrats and Republicans who love their country more than their party will never forgive him for it.


Bush stole the presidency.


The United States enjoyed two centuries of uninterrupted democracy before George W. Bush came along. The Brits burned the White House, civil war slaughtered millions and depressions brought economic chaos, yet presidential elections always took place on schedule and the winners always took office. Bush ended all that, suing to stop a ballot count that subsequent newspaper recounts proved he had lost. He had his GOP-run Supreme Court, a federal institution, rule extrajurisdictionally on the disputed election, a matter that under our system of laws falls to the states. Bush`s recount guru, James Baker, went on national TV to threaten to use force to install him as president if Gore didn`t step aside: "If we keep being put in the position of having to respond to recount after recount after recount of the same ballots, then we just can`t sit on our hands, and we will be forced to do what might be in our best personal interest--but not--it would not be in the best interest of our wonderful country."


Bush isn`t president, but he plays one on TV. His presence in the White House is an affront to everything that this country stands for. His fake presidency is treasonous; our passive tolerance for it sad testimony to post-9/11 cowardice. As I wrote in December 2000, "George W. Bush is not the President of the United States of America." And millions of Americans agree.


Two months after 9/11, when Bush`s job approval rating was soaring at 89 percent, 47 percent of Americans told a Gallup poll that he had not won the presidency legitimately. "The election controversy...could make a comeback if Bush`s approval ratings were to fall significantly," predicted Byron York in The National Review. Two years later, 3 million jobs are gone, Bush`s wars have gone sour, and just 50 percent of voters approve of his performance. If York is correct, most Americans now consider Bush to be no more legitimate than Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), who also came to power in a coup d`état.


And that`s why we hate him.


(Ted Rall is the author of the graphic travelogue "To Afghanistan and Back," an award-winning recounting of his experiences covering the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. It is now available in a revised and updated paperback edition containing new material. Ordering information is available at amazon.com.)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=127&ncid=742…

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September 24 - September 30, 2003
Meet the Press

By Brian Morton

Well, it didn`t take long for the "let`s all gang up on Wesley Clark" bandwagon to start up.
Clark is an interesting political creature in the modern era: Rhodes Scholar, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, war hero, and now presidential candidate. And, of course, since we can`t leave it out, he`s never been elected to anything before.

We think it was Mark Twain who once opined that politics is the only career in which it is considered an advantage to have no experience whatsoever. At least, that`s the way all those freshmen Republicans played it when they first ran for Congress as part of Newt Gingrich`s "revolution." Even now, Ah-nold is out in California disparaging the "professional politicians" who supposedly ran the state into the ground, even as he hides his prescriptions for saving the state`s budget like Richard Nixon hid his "secret plan" to end the war in Vietnam.

So the same hacks in the national press who are letting the Austrian wunderkind off the hook regarding his résumé and qualifications to run one of the world`s largest economies are climbing over one another to tear into the man trying to succeed Dwight Eisenhower as the next general to sit in the Oval Office.

Why? Because unlike a man who sat in the relatively powerless chief executive seat of the state of Texas, the man whose whereabouts in the last year of his Alabama National Guard stint are still unaccounted for, Clark is a threat to the conservative cabal.

After a less-than-spectacular media performance by Clark on the weekend political talk shows, Howard Kurtz, the stealth-conservative media columnist for The Washington Post, started Monday by declaring Clark`s honeymoon over. At the same time, Clark ("incredibly," according to Kurtz) led the Democratic candidates in a Newsweek poll in the first week after he announced his candidacy. The only people who care about the Sunday-morning political talk shows are political reporters and Washington`s chattering class (I can barely stand watching the things myself, after seeing Vice President Dick Cheney repeatedly let off the hook by supposed bulldog Tim Russert). But Kurtz says the general is toast because of Clark`s supposedly shifting positions on the Iraq war.

(Not to mention the Newsweek survey was conducted Sept. 18 and 19, and Kurtz`s postmortem came out Monday morning. So it`s "incredible" that Clark is the front-runner when the poll results are released after the weekend talk shows are over? What does it take to get the media columnist`s slot at the nation`s pre-eminent political daily these days?)

We recall the administration`s shifting rationales for the war in Iraq, but we don`t really see any of the Washington Media Heavy Hitters making any hay about it. What we are seeing is an extension of the smear-by-interpretation tactic used against Al Gore during the ramp-up to the 2000 campaign. This is where bored traveling reporters use the Gail Sheehy method of taking the smallest things and making them "indicative of larger problems," just to liven up their horse-race stories.

When John Kerry picked the wrong cheese for his cheese steak in Philly, the nation`s political reporters seized on it like it was some sort of deep-seated psychological problem. When they found out his relatives were more Jewish than Irish, the chorus began, "Does John Kerry know who he is?" Think back to the whole "earth tones" kerfuffle when Gore ran in 2000--this is the stuff that keeps the nation`s political reporters busy in the off-years in between the four-year September/November cycle when regular Americans really pay attention to presidential politics.

Unfortunately, this stuff also demeans and trivializes the important process of picking a president. On the basis of a weekend chat with four reporters, Kurtz says, "All this, of course, followed an 11-minute announcement speech that contained no specifics and even fewer rhetorical flourishes. Now, the underlying journalistic question is, does he have the right stuff for a presidential campaign?"

Let`s see--the most memorable line uttered by the current president was really penned by his former speechwriter David Frum, who promptly quit and spent no amount of time telling the world he was the originator of the term "axis of evil." And we didn`t really get a whole lot of specifics about what we were going to do after Saddam Hussein was ousted from Iraq, either. So as it stands, Clark is standing even with the bar set by the current inhabitant of the White House--but that, of course, will never do.

When a politician is a great orator, like Mario Cuomo, the D.C. pundits rip him for being "an unelectable East Coast liberal." When he`s no great orator but has a spectacular military record and a solid legislative career like Kerry, suddenly he is "stiff and unlikable" (see press accounts under "Gore, Albert"). If he is folksy and handsome, like John Edwards, he`s a "lightweight." If he has a centrist record as an executive, like Howard Dean, he is tarred as a hopeless liberal and derided as "prickly."

Clark is a former general with a lot of serious former Clinton players behind him. He may be the front-runner for now--but this race is hardly over. The bar is set by the current president, no matter who in the press tries to interpret it differently.

http://www.citypaper.com/current/pf/animal_pf.html

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Black Day in Iraq as U.S. Seeks World Help
Thu September 25, 2003 01:37 PM ET


By Ian Simpson and Fiona O`Brien
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The murder of a U.S.-backed Iraqi leader, a bombing at a Baghdad hotel and an attack on U.S. soldiers deepened Washington`s troubles Thursday as it tried to enlist the world`s help to rebuild Iraq.

Concern over security led the United Nations to announce it was scaling back its international staff, dealing a fresh blow to U.S. claims that the situation was under control in Iraq. U.N. offices in Baghdad have twice come under attack.

In another black day for U.S.-led occupying forces and their Iraqi supporters, Akila al-Hashemi, one of three women on Washington`s hand-picked Iraqi Governing Council, died from gunshot wounds after an attack five days ago.

The council announced three days of national mourning. "Today the people of Iraq have lost a courageous champion and pioneer for the cause of freedom and democracy," the U.S. governor of Iraq, Paul Bremer, said in a statement.

Eight soldiers were wounded, three seriously, when their convoy was attacked in the northern city of Mosul, and a Somali security guard was killed at the Baghdad hotel housing journalists from U.S. television network NBC. The network said it would continue covering events in Iraq.

The bomb, left on the sidewalk outside the hotel, shattered windows and sent debris flying.

Guerrillas opposed to the U.S.-led occupation have targeted Westerners and Iraqis cooperating with Bremer`s administration, as well as U.S. and British soldiers. They have also tried to sabotage the sprawling infrastructure of a country that has the second largest oil reserves in the world.

The attacks have killed 79 U.S. soldiers in Iraq since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1. Many more have been wounded.

U.N. SECURITY WORRIES

The United Nations said it was withdrawing 19 of its 105 international staff in Iraq due to concerns over security.

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan has agonized over staff security since an August 19 suicide bomb attack on U.N. Baghdad headquarters killed 22 people, including the head of mission Sergio Vieira de Mello.

The White House said it still wanted the United Nations to play a vital role in Iraq despite the staff withdrawals.

Thursday`s attacks occurred ahead of a report expected to lay Bush open to further criticism over his main justification for launching a preemptive war without the U.N.`s blessing.

As Washington reaches out to the United Nations for help to find countries willing to join its efforts to stabilize and rebuild Iraq, a senior American official said the eagerly awaited U.S. report was expected to say there was no proof Iraq had chemical or biological weapons.

Such a report would provide powerful ammunition for the rising number of critics to attack Bush and his most steadfast ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, over their decision to invade Iraq on the premise that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein`s weapons of mass destruction posed an imminent threat.

American forces have been searching unsuccessfully for chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in Iraq for more than five months.

A senior official said Washington hoped Iraq`s former defense minister, who was given effective immunity from prosecution when he surrendered to U.S. forces last week, may be able to help track down the weapons.

France and Germany, which opposed the war, want a swifter handover of power to Iraqis as a condition for supporting Washington`s efforts. The United States says it would be rash to hurry the process.

In his address to the U.N. General Assembly, Russian President Vladimir Putin avoided the Iraqi dispute, focusing on the need for tougher action to fight terror acts, whether they are in Baghdad or Russia`s rebel Chechnya.

Some Governing Council members have also pressed for a quick return to Iraqi self-rule. Members of Iraq`s delegation at the United Nations denied any rift with the United States. But they said they hoped a new constitution could be ready by May, paving the way for democratic elections and self-government.

Council chairman Ahmad Chalabi blamed Hashemi`s killing on Saddam loyalists but said they could not derail efforts to create a democratic Iraq.

"Saddam Hussein and his gang of thugs continue to inflict terror on the Iraqi people but they will be defeated," Chalabi said in a statement. (Additional reporting by Andrew Gray in Baghdad) ((Writing by Fiona O`Brien, editing by Steve Pagani)

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Wonder Senator Laughs It Off
by Josh Benson



Hillary Clinton’s public life is being dominated by what, for now, remains a fantasy: that she will turn the 2004 Presidential race on its head by becoming a candidate. She has denied it repeatedly, and in varying language, most definitively in late August when she told reporters, "I am absolutely ruling it out." This is not a statement that reflects indecision.

But speculation in the media and elsewhere has been rekindled after each denial, mostly because of such clues as the now-famous e-mails posted by Mrs. Clinton’s staff on her re-election Web site which urged her to run for President, or Bill Clinton’s ostensibly off-the-cuff remarks about how his wife would make a great candidate, or more recently, his "private" discussions — reported recently in Time magazine — about how he really wanted her to run. In the context of polls showing her as the most popular theoretical Democratic candidate, these seemingly small things have suddenly been imbued with great meaning.

In an interview with The Observer about the ongoing speculation, Mrs. Clinton said she just considered it to be a part of the job. "That’s just the nature of how things work," she said. "I don’t think I have a choice. I think that I do my job to the best of my ability, and try to get things done and I feel very good about the coverage and the attention that’s been given."

Mrs. Clinton insisted that she was remaining focused on her legislative priorities, which she classified broadly as "homeland security and economic security," and that the somewhat livelier interest being taken in her designs on the White House were irrelevant. "I just haven’t really had any reason to think it’s had an impact in terms of the work that I do, going to committee meetings, going to vote, going to speak to the press about these issues. Obviously someone will ask me and I’ll say the same thing I’ve always said, and then we’ll talk about Bertie Ahern’s visit to Albany, or what I’m going to do in Rochester on Friday, so it really doesn’t have that much of an impact at all."

Mrs. Clinton was referring to her appearance with Bertie Ahern, the Irish Taoiseach (Prime Minister) at the College of St. Rose in Albany on Sept. 22, where they discussed business and cultural ties between Ireland and America. As the Irish and American press waited, a Clinton press officer wandered out to inform the reporters that Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Ahern would take four questions each. One Irish reporter joked to a colleague, "I’m going to ask Hillary eight times if she’s going to run for President."

It turned out to be not so far off the mark. After meeting privately for about 30 minutes, Mrs. Clinton and Mr. Ahern wandered outside to meet the reporters. The first six queries were, with slight variations, versions of the Big Question. With Mr. Ahern looking on somewhat bemusedly, Mrs. Clinton went into auto-pilot.

Question: "Irish television here—can we get this one out of the way first…. Do you think that perhaps you’ll do what people in the party would like you to do and [run]?"

Answer: "My position is at it has been and that is I have made my decision and I see no reason to change it. I’m going to support whoever emerges from this process..."

Question: "Senator, along those same lines, while you have worked hard to dampen that sort of speculation that you might get in, it is your husband who has been stoking up the interest, saying it’s up to you. Is he on the same page as you are on these questions?"

Answer: "Well, I think he has stated the reality — it is up to me, and I have made a decision."

Question: "Is it absolute? You would refuse a draft?"

Answer: "Well, I have, as many of you know, answered this question over and over again, and I think I’ll leave it at that. It’s the same answer that I’ve given over many months. We’re fortunate to have a world leader here today, and I have nothing to add to that question, so I hope we have some other."

Question: "[Time magazine] reported that the President is pushing for you to run..."

And so on.

The resulting coverage was somewhat mixed, ranging from pretty literal evaluations of what she said about her intentions about the race — the New York Post and the Daily News wrote about her continuing to deny her intention to run, while The New York Sun, ran a piece under the headline "Hillary Turning Evasive On Her Election Plans." Albany’s Times Union and the Associated Press led with Mr. Ahern’s visit.

But the Hillary ’04 speculation clearly isn’t finished.

Some of the most recent theories about a Clinton candidacy are based on speculation about the "real" reason behind the campaign of General Wesley Clark, who jumped into the race on Sept. 17. Mr. Clark is presumed to have strong support from the Clintons, based upon the fact that many of his big donors, supporters and advisors are associated with Clinton allies. This has led to scenarios being espoused, mostly by notable Clinton-loathers like William Safire, Pat Buchanan and Dick Morris, that position Mr. Clark as an instrument of the Clintons, designed somehow to facilitate a way for Mrs. Clinton to escape her commitments to serve a full six-year Senate term and jump into the race.

It is hard to read exactly how Mrs. Clinton herself feels about all this. On one hand, there are far worse things than being talked about as presidential material, as Mrs. Clinton is surely aware. On the other, it can be a distraction, and Mrs. Clinton has appeared to show increasing signs of impatience with the line of inquiry: on a recent conference call with reporters about her opposition to President Bush’s nominee to head the Environmental Protection Agency, for example, she talked at length about air quality in lower Manhattan and the nomination process, but she brought the call to a close soon after a reporter tried to ask a political question.

In her interview with the Observer, she said, "I really try to stay focused on what I can do. I really have no control over what anyone else does or says or asks, and therefore I don’t spend a lot of time thinking about it."

Some of her colleagues don’t believe that. Despite her many denials, they say, there is an element of calculation at work, too. "She thrives on this," said Republican Congressman Peter King of Long Island, who considers himself a friend of the Clintons from their work together on Irish issues. "I’m not saying that critically, but it’s politics at the highest level — a win-win for her. The fact that people are asking her to run for president is certainly seen as a good thing for her, and it can only increase her clout and influence on the national level."

Brooklyn Congressman Anthony Weiner, a Democrat who says he believes Mrs. Clinton will not run in 2004, even sees a deliberate strategy at work in Mr. Clinton’s comments. "Recently it’s been coming from [Bill Clinton], and I think he recognizes that there’s something to the old Oscar Wilde expression that it’s better being talked about than not being talked about."

But Mr. Weiner also sees a downside for Mrs. Clinton in the Presidential chatter. "I think it’s not good at the end of the day," he said. "She’s worked so hard over the last few years to make herself the average hard-working senator for her state. And to whatever extent it might make some New Yorkers proud that their senator is being considered that way, I’m sure there are others, swing voters, who are sensitive to the charge that she’s just ambitious and she’s using New York as a stepping stone. It’s probably best not to give those people fodder."

To judge by appearances, Mrs. Clinton is happy, for now, to be Senator Clinton. During a ceremony inside the main lecture hall at the college, Mr. Ahern spent most of his time praising Mrs. Clinton’s work on behalf of the Irish peace process and to Irish-American cooperation — even though he was the guest of honor and the recipient of an award for his own peace efforts. He even quoted a passage from her book Living History.

It was an impressive demonstration of Mrs. Clinton’s standing, illustrating her unique position among members of Congress as having been a key player for eight years in the White House. The testimonial from Mr. Ahern, as well as the college administrators and several local officials, seemed as good an advertisement for Mrs. Clinton as any political pro could ever dream up.

But it was at the press conference outside that Mr. Ahern was best able to demonstrate the true value of his friendship for Mrs. Clinton.

Asked if he would like to see her run for president, Mr. Ahern leaned into the microphone and said, "I think what the Senator said about running is right."

Mrs. Clinton threw her head back and laughed. "See why he’s so good?"

You may reach Josh Benson via email at: [e-mail]

back to top
This column ran on page 1 in the 9/29/2003 edition of The New York Observer.

http://www.observer.com/pages/frontpage5.asp#

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http://harpers.org/art//revision_thing/revision_thing-subhea…


All text is verbatim from senior Bush Administration officials and advisers. In places, tenses have been changed for clarity.

Once again, we were defending both ourselves and the safety and survival of civilization itself. September 11 signaled the arrival of an entirely different era. We faced perils we had never thought about, perils we had never seen before. For decades, terrorists had waged war against this country. Now, under the leadership of President Bush, America would wage war against them. It was a struggle between good and it was a struggle between evil.

It was absolutely clear that the number-one threat facing America was from Saddam Hussein. We know that Iraq and Al Qaeda had high-level contacts that went back a decade. We learned that Iraq had trained Al Qaeda members in bomb making and deadly gases. The regime had long-standing and continuing ties to terrorist organizations. Iraq and Al Qaeda had discussed safe-haven opportunities in Iraq. Iraqi officials denied accusations of ties with Al Qaeda. These denials simply were not credible. You couldn`t distinguish between Al Qaeda and Saddam when you talked about the war on terror.

The fundamental question was, did Saddam Hussein have a weapons program? And the answer was, absolutely. His regime had large, unaccounted-for stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons--including VX, sarin, cyclosarin, and mustard gas, anthrax, botulism, and possibly smallpox. Our conservative estimate was that Iraq then had a stockpile of between 100 and 500 tons of chemical-weapons agent. That was enough agent to fill 16,000 battlefield rockets. We had sources that told us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons--the very weapons the dictator told the world he did not have. And according to the British government, the Iraqi regime could launch a biological or chemical attack in as little as forty-five minutes after the orders were given. There could be no doubt that Saddam Hussein had biological weapons and the capability to rapidly produce more, many more.

Iraq possessed ballistic missiles with a likely range of hundreds of miles--far enough to strike Saudi Arabia, Israel, Turkey, and other nations. We also discovered through intelligence that Iraq had a growing fleet of manned and unmanned aerial vehicles that could be used to disperse chemical or biological weapons across broad areas. We were concerned that Iraq was exploring ways of using UAVs for missions targeting the United States.

Saddam Hussein was determined to get his hands on a nuclear bomb. We knew he`d been absolutely devoted to trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believed he had, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons. The British government learned that Saddam Hussein had recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Our intelligence sources told us that he had attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear-weapons production. When the inspectors first went into Iraq and were denied-finally denied access, a report came out of the [International Atomic Energy Agency] that they were six months away from developing a weapon. I didn`t know what more evidence we needed.

Facing clear evidence of peril, we could not wait for the final proof that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud. The Iraqi dictator could not be permitted to threaten America and the world with horrible poisons and diseases and gases and atomic weapons. Inspections would not work. We gave him a chance to allow the inspectors in, and he wouldn`t let them in. The burden was on those people who thought he didn`t have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world where they were.

We waged a war to save civilization itself. We did not seek it, but we fought it, and we prevailed. We fought them and imposed our will on them and we captured or, if necessary, killed them until we had imposed law and order. The Iraqi people were well on their way to freedom. The scenes of free Iraqis celebrating in the streets, riding American tanks, tearing down the statues of Saddam Hussein in the center of Baghdad were breathtaking. Watching them, one could not help but think of the fall of the Berlin Wall and the collapse of the Iron Curtain.

It was entirely possible that in Iraq you had the most pro-American population that could be found anywhere in the Arab world. If you were looking for a historical analogy, it was probably closer to post-liberation France. We had the overwhelming support of the Iraqi people. Once we won, we got great support from everywhere.

The people of Iraq knew that every effort was made to spare innocent life, and to help Iraq recover from three decades of totalitarian rule. And plans were in place to provide Iraqis with massive amounts of food, as well as medicine and other essential supplies. The U.S. devoted unprecedented attention to humanitarian relief and the prevention of excessive damage to infrastructure and to unnecessary casualties.

The United States approached its postwar work with a two-part resolve: a commitment to stay and a commitment to leave. The United States had no intention of determining the precise form of Iraq`s new government. That choice belonged to the Iraqi people. We have never been a colonial power. We do not leave behind occupying armies. We leave behind constitutions and parliaments. We don`t take our force and go around the world and try to take other people`s real estate or other people`s resources, their oil. We never have and we never will.

The United States was not interested in the oil in that region. We were intent on ensuring that Iraq`s oil resources remained under national Iraqi control, with the proceeds made available to support Iraqis in all parts of the country. The oil fields belonged to the people of Iraq, the government of Iraq, all of Iraq. We estimated that the potential income to the Iraqi people as a result of their oil could be somewhere in the $20 [billion] to $30 billion a year [range], and obviously, that would be money that would be used for their well-being. In other words, all of Iraq`s oil belonged to all the people of Iraq.

e found the weapons of mass destruction. We found biological laboratories. And we found more weapons as time went on. I never believed that we`d just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country. But for those who said we hadn`t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they were wrong, we found them. We knew where they were.

We changed the regime of Iraq for the good of the Iraqi people. We didn`t want to occupy Iraq. War is a terrible thing. We`ve tried every other means to achieve objectives without a war because we understood what the price of a war can be and what it is. We sought peace. We strove for peace. Nobody, but nobody, was more reluctant to go to war than President Bush.

It is not right to assume that any current problems in Iraq can be attributed to poor planning. The number of U.S. forces in the Persian Gulf region dropped as a result of Operation Iraqi Freedom. This nation acted to a threat from the dictator of Iraq. There is a lot of revisionist history now going on, but one thing is certain--he is no longer a threat to the free world, and the people of Iraq are free. There`s no doubt in my mind when it`s all said and done, the facts will show the world the truth. There is absolutely no doubt in my mind.


From the October 2003 issue of Harper`s Magazine. Copyright © 2002 Harper`s Magazine Foundation. All rights reserved.
http://harpers.org/online/revision_thing/revision_thing.php3…

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washingtonpost.com
Iraq Councilor Succumbs to Ambush Wounds
By ROBERT H. REID
The Associated Press
Thursday, September 25, 2003; 4:33 PM
BAGHDAD, Iraq - A leading figure in Iraq`s Governing Council died Thursday of wounds suffered in an ambush last week, marking the first time Iraq`s violence has claimed the life of a member of the U.S.-appointed administration.
Aquila al-Hashimi`s death came as a bomb damaged a hotel housing the offices of NBC News, raising fears of attacks against international media. A Somali guard was killed and an NBC sound engineer was slightly wounded in the early morning explosion at the small al-Aike Hotel in the city`s fashionable Karrada district.
In the north, eight American soldiers were wounded - three of them seriously - when their convoy was ambushed with roadside bombs and small arms fire in Mosul, Iraq`s third-largest city.
The tenuous security situation prompted U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to order a further reduction in U.N. international staff in Iraq after two bombings at U.N. headquarters, including one on Aug. 19 that killed 22 people.
And the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, warned he would use whatever force necessary to defeat those who attack American soldiers.
Al-Hashimi, one of three women on the 25-member Governing Council and the leading candidate to become Iraq`s ambassador to the United Nations, died in a U.S. military hospital five days after being ambushed by six men in a pickup truck near her Baghdad home. She was to have attended the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly in New York this week.
It was the first attack on a member of the ruling council since it was appointed in July by the U.S. administrator for Iraq, L. Paul Bremer. Al-Hashimi, who will be buried Friday, came from a prominent Shiite Muslim family and served in the Foreign Ministry during Saddam Hussein`s regime.
Al-Hashimi, 50 and unmarried, was the only official of the ousted regime appointed to the new leadership. The current council president, Ahmad Chalabi, blamed the attack on Saddam loyalists; no arrests have been made.
The council declared three days of mourning beginning Thursday and said al-Hashimi "fell as a martyr on the path of freedom and democracy to build this great nation. She died at the hands of a clique of infidels and cunning people who only know darkness."
Arab League spokesman Hisham Youssef said assassinations "will never improve the situation in Iraq or achieve any results."
The explosion at the al-Aike Hotel raised fears that insurgents may also begin targeting international media, although U.S. officials said it was unclear whether NBC was the focus. NBC correspondent Jim Avila said there were no signs on the three-story building indicating NBC had quarters there. A dozen NBC staffers were in the building when the explosion took place.
The bomb exploded about 7 a.m. next to the hotel in a small hut housing the generator, killing the Somali night watchman as he slept and wounding Canadian sound engineer David Moodie.
"I was awake," said Moodie, who received a deep cut from flying glass. "A chest of drawers in the room fell on me. I sleep in the room immediately above the generator, so I guess I was lucky."
None of NBC`s 11 employees in Baghdad was leaving, said David Verdi, executive director of NBC News. The network was searching for a new headquarters Thursday, and will likely land at either the Sheraton or Palestine hotel, he said.
The al-Aike Hotel was a concrete structure, providing protection against gunshots, but close to the street, Verdi said. The Sheraton is more protected but has a lot of glass, he said.
"There are no safe places because everything has something that makes it vulnerable," he said.
An ABC News spokesman, Jeffrey Schneider, said the NBC attack "gives us all grave concern." Nervous about security, ABC wouldn`t say where its staff was located in Baghdad or even how many were there.
Coalition forces toppled the regime in April but have been facing a guerrilla-style insurgency, especially in areas dominated by the minority Sunni Muslim community. President Bush declared an end to major combat on May 1; since then, 85 Americans and 12 Britons have been killed in hostile encounters.
Concern over security was behind Annan`s decision to pare down U.N. staff even as major countries urge a greater role for the world body in Iraq`s reconstruction.
At the time of the Aug. 19 bombing there were about 300 international staff in Baghdad and another 300 elsewhere in Iraq. That figure was reduced to 42 in Baghdad and 44 in the north, and U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said those numbers "can be expected to shrink further in the next few days."
Sanchez, the U.S. commander, said "terrorist elements" were "targeting the international community, targeting the Iraqi people and targeting coalition forces."
Bush is struggling to win international support for a U.N. resolution designed to bring fresh peacekeeping troops and financial support.
Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed some success Thursday in forging a consensus at the United Nations on nation-building in Iraq. "We are seeing some convergence of views," he said after a five-power meeting.
In the days head, Powell said, the Bush administration "will be looking at language" to alter the proposed U.S. resolution, which has been stalemated by objections that the United States was not willing to yield sufficient authority to the United Nations.
Meanwhile, the Pentagon is considering a call-up of more reserves and National Guard units. There are 130,000 American troops in Iraq, supported by several thousand peacekeepers from Britain, Poland and other supporting countries.
In an attempt to ease the burden, the U.S. Central Command announced a plan to give servicemen and women 15 days annual leave if they have a 12-month tour of duty in Iraq. Eligible soldiers will be flown at government expense to Europe or the United States, Central Command said.
© 2003 The Associated Press

Summary
US UK Other* Total Avg Days
306 51 2 359 1.9 189

Latest Military Fatality Date: 9/24/2003
09/25/03 BBC: UK soldier dies in Iraq
A 32-year-old British soldier has died in a firearm incident in Iraq.
09/25/03 MSNBC: 8 U.S. soldiers hurt in north Iraq attack
Eight U.S. soldiers were wounded and their vehicle destroyed when their convoy was attacked in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Thursday
09/25/03 Centcom: Soldier dies in vehicle accident
One 220th Military Police Brigade soldier died and two were injured in a military vehicle accident in Balad; 3:30 p.m. on Sep. 24.
09/24/03 BBC: Blast hits Iraqi cinema in Mosul
An explosion has ripped through a cinema in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, killing two people and injuring up to 20 others.
09/24/03 Reuters: U.S. troops kill nine Iraqi rebels
U.S. troops have killed nine Iraqi guerrillas, the biggest toll for more than a month, in scattered action over northern Iraq in the past 24 hours, a military spokesman says
09/24/03 ABCNews:Bomb Misses U.S. Patrol, Kills Iraqi
A homemade bomb exploded Wednesday along a road in the Iraqi capital, missing a U.S. military patrol but killing at least one Iraqi and injuring 18 others as it destroyed two civilian buses, police and hospital officials said.
09/24/03 Department of Defense
Identifies Army Casualties for Sept. 18 and Sept. 20
09/23/03 Centcom: Soldier dies from non-hostile gunshot
BAGHDAD, Iraq – A 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) soldier died from a non-hostile gunshot wound in an area south of Mosul on Sept. 22.
09/22/03 VOA: Car Bomb Explodes Near UN Headquarters
A suicide bomber has blown up a car outside the already bomb-damaged United Nations headquarters in Baghdad. The blast killed two people and wounded at least eight others

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Posted on Thu, Sep. 25, 2003

How to ruin a great army? See Donald Rumsfeld


WASHINGTON - Armies are fragile institutions, and for all their might, easily broken.

It took the better part of 20 years to rebuild the Army from the wreckage of Vietnam. With the hard work of a generation of young officers, blooded in Vietnam and determined that the mistake would never be repeated, a new Army rose Phoenix-like from the ashes of the old, now perhaps the finest Army in history.

In just over three years, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld and his civilian aides have done just about everything they could to destroy that Army.

How will they explain to history the mistakes that threaten to weaken a great nation even as it seeks ways to win the war on terrorism it has declared?

How do you break an army?

• You can work it to death.

Under Rumsfeld, by next spring 30 of the Army`s 33 combat brigades will either be in Iraq or on their way home from Iraq. Some of them will come home from Iraq and head almost immediately to Afghanistan or Bosnia or South Korea or the Sinai Desert. More than 20,000 Army Reservists and National Guardsmen will be finishing one-year tours in Iraq, and thousands more will be called up to do their year. How many will be willing to re-enlist if they`re faced with endless deployments on thankless missions in the far reaches of empire?

• You can neglect its training and education.

With an operations tempo this high, there`s little time for units to do much more than repair their equipment and send their soldiers home on leave with long-neglected families before it`s time to deploy again.

There`s no time for divisions to rotate to the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, Calif., to maneuver their Abrams tanks and Bradleys and train to win the wars. There`s no time for non-commissioned officers - the sergeants who are the backbone of any great army - to go to the schools they need to get better at their jobs and earn promotions.

• You can politicize the Army promotion system for three- and four-star generals.

Rumsfeld and his civilian aides such as Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith and his military handmaidens have intruded deeply and harmfully into the way the services promote their leaders.

Where once the Army would send up its nominee for a vacant billet, now it must send up two or three candidates who must run the gantlet of personal interviews in the Office of the Secretary of Defense. Not just Rumsfeld, but all of his civilian experts who never wore a uniform. What hoops must the successful one jump through? Will it be the tough, bright candidate who`s unafraid to speak when he sees mistakes being made? Or will it be the buttoned-down, willow-in-the-wind, can-do yes-man? Your basic Oliver North?

• You can decide that you`ve discovered a newer, cheaper way of fighting and winning America`s wars.

Rumsfeld and company have embraced, on the basis of a fleeting success in Afghanistan and a flawed success in Iraq, a theory that all that`s needed to win our wars is air power and small bands of Special Operations troops. Stealth bombers and snake-eaters.

On the strength of this, they`ve refused all pleas for an urgently needed increase in the strength of an Army that has been whittled down to pre-World War II levels of 485,000 soldiers. They still deny that there`s a guerrilla war raging in Iraq, where 130,000 American soldiers are trying to keep the peace in a nation the size of California with 25 million people. Because reinforcement would be an admission that Rumsfeld and company were wrong in their belief that war would end quickly, their hand-picked Iraqi exiles would take over and the soldiers would come home in a few months.

Another defense secretary who could not admit he`d erred was Robert Strange McNamara, who, like Rumsfeld, was recruited from corporate America. By the time he did, it was too late.

Joseph L. Galloway is the senior military correspondent for Knight Ridder Newspapers and co-author of the national best-seller ``We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young.`` Readers may write to him at: Knight Ridder Washington Bureau, 700 National Press Building, Washington, D.C. 20045. His column appears occasionally in the American News.






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© 2003 American News and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.aberdeennews.com

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Hutton inquiry
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Days of judgment
Leader
Friday September 26, 2003
The Guardian

Every so often comes an inquiry or an account that shapes what a whole society knows about an entire subject: examples range from Edwin Chadwick`s research on Victorian factory conditions to Alfred Kinsey`s work on human sexuality and the BBC`s fly-on-the-wall documentary series on the Royal Opera - each a definitive reference point in its way and time. In a very different field, the Hutton inquiry has sometimes offered that level of revelation. It lasted 24 days and laid bare the highest reaches of our government as never before. Lord Hutton opened the door on processes from which the public has always been excluded. We met individuals and heard from office holders whose voices are rarely - and in some cases never before - heard. The hearings have brought us closer to the realities of Whitehall decision making, and to the relations between the great individuals and institutions of state than we shall come again.

The end of the inquiry yesterday - there will be one more session of evidence next week due to the earlier unavailability of a witness - nevertheless raises the question of whether it has done the job that needed to be done. Our view is that it has not. The Iraq war was an event which should have been reviewed as a whole in the public interest - as the Liberal Democrats have continued to insist. The Falklands war, a conflict which largely united the nation, was reviewed by a committee of privy councillors in that way. How much more important that the Iraq war, which divided us, should have been dispassionately assessed too. We still need an ad hoc judicial inquiry into the decision to go to war.

Lord Hutton has presided over an incredibly significant process all the same. His limitation, which was none of his own doing, was that he was charged with looking into the circumstances leading up to the death of Dr David Kelly. Given that essential constraint, Lord Hutton has been true to the pledges that he made at the outset, to set his own rules, to take a generous view of the public interest and to get things done with some urgency. No one who studies the vast range of material now gathered on the inquiry`s exemplary website can doubt that it has laboured mightily.

In one sense, the Hutton inquiry has been one of the most wide-ranging coroner`s inquests ever conducted. But the centrality of Dr Kelly`s death has inescapably meant that the wider public issues - and the public office holders responsible for them - have only been scrutinised in so far as they bear on the lead-up to the Kelly tragedy. The trail has led backwards from Dr Kelly`s death, first to the way that the defence ministry made his name public, then to the war of words between 10 Downing Street and the BBC, from there to the journalism of Andrew Gilligan, and - finally - to the preparation of the September 2002 dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. The war, in other words, has been in the background not the foreground. It should have been the other way around.

In their closing speeches to Lord Hutton yesterday, counsel for the various represented parties each duly tried either to broaden or to narrow the agenda, each according to the interests they represented. Mr Gilligan`s lawyer tried to place the decision to go to war at the centre of the stage. The government`s QC denied that that was a relevant issue for the inquiry. The BBC was more concerned about its independence from No 10 pressure. The Kelly family, meanwhile, drew everything back to the loss of the man who is the reason for whole process. Lord Hutton has a huge task to draw all these threads together. However well he does it, and its publication will rightly be an immense event, his report will still be an unsatisfactory surrogate for the inquiry we should still have into a war we should not have fought.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Das war fast so wie beim ersten Mal, klappt es oder klappt es nicht.

Iraq slips further into turmoil
US appointee dies from bullet wounds | Hotel used by NBC network is bombed | Weapons inspector signs publishing deal

Rory McCarthy in Baghdad
Friday September 26, 2003
The Guardian

America`s attempts to rebuild Iraq suffered a serious blow yesterday when Aqila al-Hashimi, one of the three women on the US-appointed Iraqi governing council, died five days after she was shot outside her Baghdad home.

The death of the respected foreign ministry official serves as a grim warning to any Iraqi seen to be involved in American-led efforts to reshape the country.

While attacks on the US military have become a daily occurrence, militants opposed to the occupation are widening their campaign to strike at softer civilian targets.

Yesterday morning a bomb exploded outside a Baghdad hotel used by the US television network NBC.

It killed a Somali hotel guard and injured two other people, including one of the network`s Canadian sound engineers.

Ms Hashimi, the only member of the council to have worked recently under Saddam Hussein`s regime, had turned away several of the bodyguards she was offered, and refused to travel in armoured cars.

She was attacked just hours before she was due to fly to New York for this week`s UN general assembly. Bullets caused serious injury to her abdomen, and she underwent several operations at a US military hospital.

A governing council statement said that Ms Hashimi "was martyred on the path of struggle for freedom and democracy in [the] building of this great nation. The heinous crime was committed by a godless and evil band known for its oppressions and injustices".

Several members of the council have accused Saddam loyalists of the attack.

Tony Blair issued his own tribute to Ms Hashimi. "Her murderers and those who support them only seek to undermine the Iraqi governing council and destroy the efforts of all those rebuilding the country," he said. "They care nothing for Iraq but they will not win."

In Baghdad yesterday US explosives experts were studying the scene of the attack on the hotel. It is on Arasat Street, which is filled with restaurants, expensive clothes shops and cigar emporiums.

The bomb was placed on the street, between the hotel and a generator. Several windows were shattered by the blast, which injured David Moodie, a soundman.

"I was awake," he said. "A chest of drawers in the room fell on me. I sleep in the room immediately above the generator, so I guess I was lucky."

Although there were no signs on the building advertising NBC`s presence, there was a big white tent on the roof where the network`s correspondents stood for live shots. Al-Aike was widely known locally as a hotel housing American reporters.

In a separate attack yesterday eight US soldiers in a convoy through the northern city of Mosul were wounded in a sophisticated ambush.

Two roadside bombs detonated as the convoy passed, and when the military Humvees stopped men opened fire. Three soldiers suffered serious injuries and a Humvee was destroyed, the military said.

The US military also announced that a unit based in the troubled town of Falluja had been cleared of blame for their accidentally shooting dead eight Iraqi policemen two weeks ago.

Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of US forces in Iraq, said his soldiers acted "within the construct of the military`s rules of engagement". The full details of such investigations are rarely disclosed and US officers never talk about the precise wording of their "rules of engagement".

Gen Sanchez said the shooting lasted only a matter of seconds. "The initial reports were clear. There was initial fire and it was a 30-second engagement. At the end of it, the policemen were dead," he said.

His announcement contradicted the account given by several of the policemen injured in the attack. They said they did not fire on the US position but were attacked as they chased a suspected bandit.

They said they shouted in English to the soldiers that they were policemen, and said the barrage of gunfire continued for 45 minutes. The two police vehicles were destroyed and a nearby hospital was severely damaged by heavy-calibre bullets.

The Ministry of Defence said yesterday that a British Territorial Army soldier had died in a gun accident at a base in Shaiba, near Basra, in southern Iraq. Sergeant John Nightingale, 32, from Leeds, died on Tuesday. His death was being investigated.

In another blow to US efforts to suggest that security is improving, the UN is to further reduce the numbers of its international staff in Iraq, following the second bombing at its headquarters in Baghdad in a month.

It had 600 staff in Iraq until the August 19 bombing which killed 22 people. Kofi Annan then ordered the international staff be cut significantly.

"Today there remain 42 in Baghdad and 44 in the north of the country, and those numbers can be expected to shrink further over the next few days," Fred Eckhard, Mr Annan`s spokesman, said.

On Monday a second bombing at the HQ killed one person.



Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Iraq
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Weapons and the war
Leader
Friday September 26, 2003
The Guardian

Amid all the official inquiries, political recriminations and postwar claims and counter-claims, one basic fact about Iraq now appears incontrovertible. The fact is, at the time the war was launched, Iraq did not possess the non-conventional weapons capability that the US and Britain alleged. It did not, therefore, pose the "serious and current threat" to the UK national interest, to the Middle East region and to the US that was officially claimed. The US-British decision to prevent further UN weapons inspections, override a UN security council majority, and plunge into a lethal, open-ended and expensive conflict was thus rash, unnecessary and mistaken.

This may be seen, generously, as an enormous miscalculation based on erroneous information; or as the inevitable result of a decision that George Bush had already taken, for less creditable motives, that had very little to do with Iraq`s weaponry. Either way, it is beyond question that more time could safely have been allowed for inspections, diplomacy and voluntary Iraqi disarmament. The moment of last resort, meaning urgent, unavoidable use of military force, had not remotely been reached.

It may be said that the initial findings of the Iraq Survey Group are incomplete. But does anybody seriously believe that if the CIA`s team had found any persuasive WMD evidence at all, that evidence would not have been broadcast to the heavens long ago? It is true that WMD could yet be found; but such a turn-up after almost six months of looking is unlikely and would rightly be viewed with suspicion. The last thing we need is another sexed-up report. It may be said that speaking with hindsight is easy. Yet before the war, Britain and the US were warned again and again, by Hans Blix, by previous inspection teams, and by some of their own intelligence experts that firm proof of the existence of the weapons listed in Tony Blair`s notorious dossier was lacking. There were many questions; all agreed those questions should be answered. But that is precisely why inspections should have continued.

It may well be the case that if the US and Britain had backed off last March, Saddam Hussein would have scored a great propaganda victory. But if the policy of containment had not been abandoned in the first place, there would have been no victory for him to claim. It is often said that, but for the war, Saddam would still be in power. But if his overthrow was the aim, why was this not baldly stated? Because, in Britain, it would be deemed illegal. That is why it is now doubly important that the attorney-general`s legal advice be published. This WMD fiasco has brought into question the judgment, competence and candour of the intelligence services and, indeed, of Mr Blair and senior ministers. As a matter of fact, not opinion, Britain went to war on a false premise. It hardly needs to be said how very serious and very damaging a conclusion that is.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Powell Gives Iraq 6 Months to Write New Constitution
By STEVEN R. WEISMAN

ecretary of State Colin L. Powell, responding to demands from France and others for a rapid timetable for self-rule in Iraq, said yesterday that the United States would set a deadline of six months for Iraqi leaders working under the American-led occupation to produce a new constitution for their country.

The constitution, which would spell out whether Iraq should be governed by a presidential or parliamentary system, would clear the way for elections and the installation of a new leadership next year, Mr. Powell said. Not until then, he added, would the United States transfer authority from the American-led occupation to Iraq itself.

"We would like to put a deadline on them," he said in an interview with editorial writers, editors and reporters for The Times, referring to the Iraqi task of writing a constitution. "They`ve got six months. It`ll be a difficult deadline to meet, but we`ve got to get them going."

More security problems today in Iraq, with bombings reported in Baghdad and the north, added to a sense of urgency, and the United Nations decided to remove most of the 86 foreigners it has working there.

Military officers also said they faced a very short deadline — days rather than weeks — before they had to decide whether to call up more National Guard and Reserve troops.

Mr. Powell`s establishment of a deadline, and his tone of urgency in general, came as the United States has tried to satisfy France and other skeptical nations who say that a quick transfer of power to Iraqis must be part of any Security Council resolution expanding United Nations authority in Iraq.

The United States has resisted a transfer within a month or months as suggested by France, arguing that granting authority to an unelected Iraqi government would undercut its legitimacy in the eyes of the world. Yesterday, Mr. Powell went further, saying that remnants of Saddam Hussein`s government and his Baath Party would lead a rebellion against such a government.

"These are ex-Baathists," Mr. Powell said of those carrying out attacks. "They would go after an illegitimate government that does not enjoy the will of the people, just as easily as they would go after us." The Iraqi Governing Council, composed of leading Iraqi politicians, was appointed, not elected.

The idea of a fixed time schedule is unlikely to be incorporated into the resolution, which is being negotiated, Mr. Powell said. But he said the general principle of events like the writing of a constitution, elections and an installation of new leadership might well be in the resolution.

The secretary`s comments at The Times came on another day of intensive negotiations to try to get support on the Council for the resolution, which the United States is seeking as a crucial step to help persuade other countries to send troops and money to secure and rebuild Iraq.

Mr. Powell said he thought the last several days at the United Nations General Assembly had produced some progress on getting the backing of all 15 countries on the Council, including France, the primary critic of the American approach.

The French demand that the transfer to Iraqi control be accomplished in a month, Mr. Powell said, was no longer even being seriously discussed at the Council.

While rejecting the idea of an American-established timetable, Mr. Powell raised the possibility that the Iraqis themselves could set a timetable in the near future, and this itself could widen support for the resolution. The United States has asked the Iraqi leaders to say how long it would take to write a charter and conduct elections, he said.

"Now, if they take forever to give us the answer to that question, then we`ve got a problem," Mr. Powell said. "But I think they`ll give us an answer fairly quickly."

Mr. Powell`s contention that progress had been achieved was echoed by Adnan Pachachi, a former Iraqi foreign minister who is now a member of Iraq`s Governing Council and is serving as its senior envoy.

"Things are coming together," Mr. Pachachi said. "It`s a matter of finding the right words."

With more violence in Iraq, an uncertain situation at the United Nations and a mixed reaction to President Bush`s speech at the General Assembly on Tuesday, Mr. Powell`s interview at The Times was entirely focused on Iraq.

Addressing another demand by France that the United Nations effectively take over responsibility for the American occupation in Baghdad, Mr. Powell said that such a step was not even supported at the United Nations, which yesterday ordered its foreign staff in Iraq to be cut back severely.

"The U.N. is at the moment drawing down because of the security situation," Mr. Powell noted. Many diplomats say that the dangerous situation in Iraq has complicated efforts to reach an agreement on what the United Nations` role should be.

In other comments, Mr. Powell said that he had expected that illegal weapons would have turned up by now, but that even if the weapons themselves were not found, the war against Iraq was justified because Mr. Hussein had the capacity to make the weapons and a record of using them.

"I would have expected something to be found," he said. "But it`s not clear to me yet that we won`t find the evidence we`re looking for that would, once and for all, make the case incontrovertible."

"I think the war will be seen by history to be justified because we removed a regime that did have these weapons and gave us no reason to believe that they had eliminated them," Mr. Powell said. "If you want to believe the claims of Saddam Hussein, be my guest."

He also said the one unanticipated aspect of the postwar occupation was the extent to which the entire structure of Iraqi military and civil society collapsed so completely as the war ended, leaving a vast problem for American troops to handle quickly.

Mr. Powell`s interview came on a day filled with meetings with other envoys in New York for the United Nations General Assembly, the focus of which continued to be the work of the resolution on Iraq, which the United States regards as crucial to getting more troops and more money from other countries to help with rebuilding.

Mr. Powell said he would take all the discussions he had this week and use the comments of others to redraft the American resolution in consultation with Britain and other close allies. A new draft would then be "shopped" to Security Council members. There was no doubt that the United States would get such a resolution passed, he said.

The timetable for self-rule in Iraq has been the main point of discussion at the United Nations all week, with much of the talk focused on comments by some Iraqi leaders, most notably Ahmad Chalabi, the president of the Iraqi Governing Council for this month, that the United States should be moving faster.

But Mr. Powell said he was pleased that, notwithstanding such comments reported earlier in the week, Mr. Chalabi, Mr. Pachachi and others had now come around to the American view.

On the prospect of foreign troops and aid for Iraq, Mr. Powell said contributions would be forthcoming from friends, "but we should not expect that it would rise to the level of what we are asking our Congress."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Inspectors in Iran Find Highly Enriched Uranium at an Electrical Plant
By FELICITY BARRINGER

UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 25 — Inspectors for the International Atomic Energy Agency have found traces of highly enriched uranium at an electrical plant on the outskirts of Tehran, the second site where such evidence of unreported enrichment activities has been discovered in recent months, a Western diplomat with access to the agency`s reports said today.

The finding, the result of environmental sampling at the Kalaye Electric Company plant, further ratcheted up pressure on Iran, which earlier this month was given until Oct. 31 to prove that its nuclear program is intended solely for peaceful purposes.

Speaking to reporters in Washington today, President Bush said, "It is very important for the world to come together to make it very clear to Iran that there will be universal condemnation if they continue with a nuclear weapons program."

Iranian officials have said that the particles of enriched uranium found at the first site, in the central Iranian city of Natanz, arrived on imported centrifuge equipment. The atomic energy agency`s inspectors reported, on Aug. 26, that the enrichment equipment at Natanz — which was assembled at Kalaye, a diplomat said today — could not have been calibrated as finely as it was "without process testing" with uranium enriched beyond the level needed for use in power plants. That suggests clandestine enrichment activity, either by Iran or by the unnamed country that supplied the equipment.

The White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, today said that the finding at the electric plant was "part of a longstanding pattern of evasions and deception to disguise the true nature and purpose of Iran`s nuclear activities."

The White House has been pressing the 35-member governing board of the atomic energy agency to refer the question of Iran`s nuclear program to the United Nations Security Council.

The news of the electric plant finding came as Iran`s foreign minister, Kamal Kharrazi, told reporters in New York that his government was resisting domestic pressure to drop out of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty.

He said that in principle Iran had no problem acceding to the atomic energy agency`s request to allow surprise inspections at nuclear facilities.

What his country wants, he said, is recognition of its right to develop nuclear power plants, a peaceful use explicitly provided for under the treaty. "For sure, we do not have plans to enrich uranium more than that which is needed for producing fuel in our power plants."

Asked about the enriched uranium particles found in Natanz, Mr. Kharrazi, who was in New York for the United Nations General Assembly session, said that that enrichment itself was "not illegal" and had been begun there before the atomic energy agency had formally asked Tehran to stop any enrichment activities.

He also said that Iran`s religious leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has said that nuclear weapons are forbidden under Islamic law.

President Bush said today that he intended to raise the Iranian nuclear issue at his planned Camp David meeting with the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin. Russia has been supplying Iran with the material and expertise to build a nuclear power plant at Bushehr.

Mr. Kharrazi said that domestic pressure to pull out of the nonproliferation treaty was increasing, with a major newspaper and the head of the country`s judiciary publicly making the argument.

If Iran`s nuclear program is referred to the Security Council, as the issue of North Korea was seven months ago, he said, the government of President Muhammad Khatami "would be in a difficult situation, in the middle of two sources of pressure."

He also indicated that Iran could help Washington in its present difficulties in Iraq, especially since, he said, Tehran has good relations with many members of the Iraqi Governing Council, which was set up by allied authorities in Baghdad.

Mr. Kharrazi`s approach — the stern assertion of Iran`s right to pursue its civilian nuclear ambitions, the stated willingness to cooperate and the description of domestic political pressures on the issue — stood in contrast to the more menacing signals sent from Tehran in the last few days.

On Sunday, Iran held a military parade to honor the 23rd anniversary of the start of its war with Iraq and prominently displayed its most modern missile, the Shahab 3, or Shooting Star.

The missile is said to have a range of 810 miles, giving it the capability of reaching Israel, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Turkey.

Inspectors with the atomic energy agency are to visit Tehran shortly. In early August inspectors had found major renovations at the Kalaye electric plant, including a new floor and other structural changes that could have covered over evidence of contamination, a diplomat said today.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Q&A: Lee Feinstein on Bush at the U.N.

From the Council on Foreign Relations, September 25, 2003


The Council`s Lee Feinstein, the former deputy director of the Clinton State Department policy planning staff, participated in a Council-sponsored conference call on September 23, 2003, to brief editorial-page editors at U.S. newspapers. The topic was President Bush`s speech that day to the United Nations. Following is an edited transcript of the call:

What is your take on the president`s speech to the United Nations?

It was a great contrast from last year`s U.N. speech--perhaps the best speech of his presidency--when President Bush challenged the United Nations to live up to its fundamental principles. Today, it was [U.N. Secretary General] Kofi Annan who challenged the United Nations. The president`s speech was less of a rallying cry than a laundry list. That reflects the great hesitancy in Washington to put the full diplomatic weight of the United States behind the effort to internationalize the Iraqi reconstruction and stabilization enterprise. The president`s speech offered very little by way of concessions on an Iraq resolution. It restated the U.S. position on the transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis. It used a different adverb to describe the role of the United Nations in Iraq, and said that the United States was prepared to expand the U.N. role. But it didn`t come anywhere near what other countries have been seeking. In addition, it suggested that the U.S. strategy for getting broader international support for winning the peace is going to be a bilateral one, between Washington and other capitals, but not one focused on the United Nations.

Short of the accelerated timetable that France is demanding for turning sovereignty over to the Iraqis, what might the United States offer to get approval for a Security Council resolution?

I think that the United States probably will get approval for a Security Council resolution without giving up very much. The issue is going to be whether a new resolution will have the desired result, which is broadening international responsibility for dealing with Iraq. Now, to get that, the United States doesn`t necessarily have to accelerate the transfer of authority to the Iraqis. In fact, the administration has the stronger argument on this point; moving too quickly would probably strengthen the extremists. That said, the Afghan model, where there was a shift to a transitional authority which then vested responsibility in other developing Afghan institutions, is one that the United States could consider. It wouldn`t dilute American power or leadership in the region.

The real issue is that the United States wants much greater financial support for reconstruction efforts in Iraq. The thing to do would be to shift responsibility for reconstruction to the United Nations and away from [L. Paul] Bremer [III, the head of the Coalition Provisional Authority]. That`s something that the United States could do without sacrificing its pivotal role in Iraq. But, clearly, that`s something the administration is not prepared to do.

Could the bilateral approach you mentioned round up sufficient money and manpower to help the United States in Iraq?

Clearly, today`s reports of [an $8.5 billion loan] package to Turkey is an example of this approach, where the United States, through bilateral diplomacy, is trying to grease the wheels to attract some troop contributions. There`s nothing wrong with that. That`s an element of a strategy. But I don`t think that approach in and of itself is going to work, because it tends to isolate other countries. It needs to be combined with a major diplomatic push in the United Nations, very much like what President Bush`s father did around the time of the first Gulf War.

If the United States gets a new resolution but not much in the way of troops or money, how is that useful?

It would be of very marginal utility. The interesting thing here is whether administration officials are committed to the idea of internationalizing the Iraq operation. It`s unclear at this time that they are. I think ultimately they will move in that direction, if only because of domestic pressure. But right now, the administration is at war with itself about the degree to which it`s prepared to sacrifice some control in order to share the burden.

Can you be more specific about the types of things over which the United States is unwilling to yield control and issues it might yield control over?

One example is the question of foreign troops. The administration is divided about whether more troops are needed. The secretary of defense [Donald H. Rumsfeld] has made it clear, although he`s been much quieter recently, that more troops won`t work. There was a time when people were talking about getting the French to participate, and soliciting much more NATO participation. But clearly, there`s a lack of enthusiasm in the administration for a greater role for NATO and French forces. I think one of the ways you would enter into negotiations with the French on this issue would be to smoke them out by saying, "If we do this, what are you prepared to give?"

Annan, in his speech, framed the question of pre-emption versus U.N. Security Council joint action, and also said that it`s important to understand why some countries feel the need for pre-emptive action. Aside from framing that question, did he advance the argument?

What Annan did with his speech was to do some of the heavy lifting for Bush. I thought it was very deft. What it will amount to is another question, but he at least asked the jugular question: is the traditional understanding of the rules governing the use of force, the rules on which the United Nations was founded, still applicable? Annan was critical of the doctrine of pre-emption, but he also was at pains to point out that we can`t simply dismiss the concerns that drive countries to take or propose unilateral action and that it`s time we took a serious look at these issues to see if maybe a new doctrine is in order. I think what he was talking about is that the rules against proliferation haven`t worked. The one-size-fits-all approach clearly hasn`t been effective, and treating North Korea as if it were Norway has not worked. I think what Annan was asking was: are there special rules that the international community ought to apply to deal with cases when tyrants and rogue states are contemplating or nearing acquisition of weapons of mass destruction?

Were you surprised that the president did not say more about nonproliferation? His speech lacked any ringing call to action.

I was surprised at how little substance there was, since the main feature [of his nonproliferation initiative] seems to be a call for a new U.N. Security Council resolution to criminalize the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It`s hard to see what if anything is new there. We already have the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, which is signed by virtually every country in the world, and it already criminalizes trade in nuclear weapons materials and technologies.

It seems there will be a new U.N. resolution but few contributions of troops or money from other countries and the United States will insist on maintaining control over political arrangements in Iraq and will seek help through bilateral arrangements. Is that about it?

I think that`s right. Most of the action is going to come from the United States Congress, and from the presidential campaign, when there will be increasing pressure to share the burden and continued criticism of the $87 billion that the administration is asking for to deal with Iraq, Afghanistan, and elsewhere. Those factors will, over time, drive the administration back to the United Nations and transfer of authority to the United Nations. I don`t see that happening now, though.

What are the benefits or dangers if the United States yields control over the political situation to the United Nations?

The benefits greatly outweigh the risks. The United States is going to be the 800-pound gorilla in Iraq, with a preponderance of troops, with a preponderance of money, and with a preponderance of reconstruction assistance--even as responsibility is shifted to the United Nations. I don`t see a big downside in terms of control. I do understand, though, the [administration`s] irritation, particularly with a country like France, which has offered nothing to support reconstruction while throwing wrenches in the works to get a resolution that might bring others on board.

What are the risks of sharing authority with the United Nations?

There are several. First, there is the risk of lack of control. There`s a risk that the United Nations would not be as efficient at doing this as the United States would like. There is the issue of politics intruding. The French, the Russians, and others would like to see some [reconstruction] contracts awarded to their nationals, rather than American nationals. And the United States would be concerned that there would be favoritism and corruption--and certainly there`s a track record of that in dealing with the Oil for Food program in Iraq. But those risks, while real, are manageable, and the benefits outweigh them.

You were involved in a study on enlarging the U.S. role in the United Nations. How does the president`s speech and the current U.S.-U.N. impasse affect that issue?

The Council on Foreign Relations, with Freedom House, did a study called "Enhancing U.S. Leadership at the United Nations." The report concluded that the United States punched under its weight at the United Nations and, as a result, countries that were undemocratic or opposed core U.S. national security interests had an outsized influence. A key finding of the report was that the best way to make the United Nations effective is for the United States, the European Union, and other democracies to work closely together. Absent that winning coalition between the United States and the Europeans, the United Nations cannot be effective. That`s a point President Bush is missing and, frankly, so is President [Jacques] Chirac of France: the main beneficiaries of the failure of the United States and France, or more broadly, the United States and Europe, to cooperate at the United Nations are those who wish our countries ill.



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Some Sharp Exchanges in Democrats` Debate
By ADAM NAGOURNEY

The Democratic presidential candidates squabbled intensely over tax cuts, health care and trade policy yesterday afternoon at a debate in Manhattan, trading often personal attacks. But the newest entrant to the race, Gen. Wesley K. Clark, stood on the sidelines and was largely ignored for much of the first debate of his political career.

The third official debate of the Democratic presidential contest, held at the downtown campus of Pace University, drew more attention because of the general. The reporter contingent alone filled a basement gymnasium, and the candidates — including General Clark — arrived with large numbers of aides and advisers.

But the general`s debut — in which he swiftly sought to affirm his Democratic credentials — was overshadowed by detailed and often sharp disagreements about defining issues like tax cuts among the nine other Democrats for whom this has become a familiar exercise. And it was Howard Dean — not the general — who drew the most fire.

In the sharpest exchange, Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri cited statements Dr. Dean, the former governor of Vermont, made in the mid-1990`s in which Dr. Dean sided with Congressional Republicans as they pushed for cuts in the growth rate of Medicare.

"When I was leading the fight against Newt Gingrich and the Contract With America, he was shutting the government down," said Mr. Gephardt, who is locked in a tough battle with Dr. Dean for support in Iowa. "Howard, you were agreeing with the very plan that Newt Gingrich wanted to pass, which was a $270 billion cut in Medicare. Now, you`ve been saying for many months that you`re the head of the Democratic wing of the Democratic Party. I think you`re just winging it."

Dr. Dean`s face reddened, and he flashed a look in Mr. Gephardt`s direction. "That is flat-out false," he said, "and I`m ashamed that you would compare me with Newt Gingrich. Nobody up here deserves to be compared to Newt Gingrich."

"I did say that Medicare was a dreadful program because it`s administered dreadfully," Dr. Dean continued, adding: "I`ve done more for health insurance, Dick Gephardt, frankly, than you ever have, because I`ve delivered it to a lot of seniors and a lot of young people. And I`ll stake my record on health insurance against anybody up here."

A moment later, Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, who is battling Dr. Dean in New Hampshire, jumped in on Mr. Gephardt`s side, saying: "In defense of Dick Gephardt, I didn`t hear him say he was like Newt Gingrich, I heard him say that he stood with Newt Gingrich when we were struggling to hold on to Medicare. That`s a policy difference."

General Clark, who is retired from the Army, looked crisp and confident throughout the debate. If he was often ignored by the other candidates, the questioners from The Wall Street Journal and CNBC, the debate`s sponsors, did not try to draw him into some of the session`s more detailed policy discussions.

General Clark, a recently registered Democrat, who said he voted for Richard M. Nixon and Ronald Reagan, defended his allegiance to the party after he was asked about favorable statements he had made about Mr. Reagan and President Bush at a Republican dinner in Arkansas in 2001.

"It`s been an incredible journey for me and for this country since early 2001," he said, adding: "I was never partisan in the military. I served under Democratic presidents; I served under Republican presidents. But as I looked at this country and looked which way we were headed, I knew that I needed to speak out. And when I needed to speak out, there was only one party to come to."

And General Clark, whose views on several issues are something of a mystery, even to his supporters, sought to reassure Democrats that he was in line with some of the party`s basic positions.

"I am pro-choice, I am pro-affirmative action, I`m pro-environment, pro-health," he said.

At several points, General Clark noted that he was new to the game. He declined, for example, to offer health care plans to match those that had already been suggested by most of his opponents.

General Clark, like some of his opponents, also declined to say how he would vote on President Bush`s request for $87 billion more to pay for reconstruction and continued military activity in Afghanistan and Iraq. In the process, he made reference to his shifting statements in the days after he announced for president about whether he would have supported the Congressional resolution on war in Iraq.

"If I`ve learned one thing in my nine days in politics, it`s you better be careful with hypothetical questions, and you`ve just asked one," he said in reference to a question on Mr. Bush`s financial package.

The decision by some of the better-known candidates to attack one other and ignore General Clark had the effect, by design or not, of allowing him to appear the way his aides have sought: a fresh face above the fray.

For much of the debate, the rest of the field parried as if General Clark were not even there, showcasing the policy divisions within the party. Mr. Kerry attacked Dr. Dean and Mr. Gephardt for advocating the rollback of all of Mr. Bush`s tax cuts.

Mr. Kerry, along with Senators Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, John Edwards of North Carolina and Bob Graham of Florida, said they supported retaining the tax cuts already in place for middle-class voters. General Clark said he would release his own economic and tax plan within a few weeks, but backed rolling back tax cuts for the wealthy.

Mr. Kerry, addressing Dr. Dean and Mr. Gephardt, said: "We can cut the deficit in half, we can be fiscally responsible, but we don`t have to do it on the backs of the middle class."

Mr. Lieberman said: "Some of my opponents here, including Howard Dean, Dick Gephardt, want to repeal all the taxes. That, as John has said, would mean a middle-class tax increase. Bill Clinton was for a middle-class tax cut."

Dr. Dean said it would be impossible to fulfill the promises the candidates have made — like eliminating the deficit and expanding health care — without eliminating all of the tax cuts Mr. Bush had promoted.

"With all due respect to Senator Kerry and the others from Washington that voted for these tax cuts, this is exactly why the budget is so far out of balance," he said.

Mr. Edwards sought to blur the differences among the candidates on the issue. "Everyone on this stage is against Bush`s tax cuts for the rich," he said, "but there`s something more radical than that going on here. What this president is doing is trying to shift the tax burden in America from wealth to work."

The candidates clashed over trade, highlighting the strain on them as they try to balance the sentiments against expanded free trade in states like Iowa and New Hampshire, against the push by the party under Mr. Clinton to support free trade.

Mr. Gephardt has aggressively pushed the trade issue, seeking the support of union leaders and trying to enhance his position in Iowa. Yesterday afternoon, he recalled trade agreements Congress passed in the 1990`s.

"Most everybody here voted for Nafta, voted for the China agreement," he said, referring to accords that dropped restrictions on trade with Mexico, Canada and China. "I did not. I led the fight against it. That`s the kind of trade policy we need that globalizes with fairness and standards around the world so work, wherever it`s performed, is given a fair wage."

Mr. Kerry attacked Dr. Dean for saying the nation should not trade with foreign partners until they adopted labor and environmental standards equal to those in the United States. "That means we would trade with no countries," he said. "It`s either a policy for shutting the door, if you believe it, or it`s a policy of just telling people what they want to hear."

As the attacks continued, Dr. Dean grew visibly annoyed. "You know, to listen to Senator Lieberman, Senator Kerry, Representative Gephardt, I`m anti-Israel, I`m antitrade, I`m anti-Medicare and I`m anti-Social Security," he said. "I wonder how I ended up in the Democratic Party."

Once again, it fell to the Rev. Al Sharpton to counsel Democrats to stop bickering. "I hope we don`t, in our distinguishing, make George Bush the winner tonight," he said. "I think all of us have disagreed. I think clearly we need to make sure we don`t give George Bush the night by getting too personal, Brother Howard."

After the debate, eight candidates headed to a $3 million fund-raiser for the Democratic National Committee. With 650 attendees each paying $1,000 or more, the rare multicandidate appearance was the committee`s largest event of the year.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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The Failure to Find Iraqi Weapons

This page did not support the war in Iraq, but it never quarreled with one of its basic premises. Like President Bush, we believed that Saddam Hussein was hiding potentially large quantities of chemical and biological weapons and aggressively pursuing nuclear arms. Like the president, we thought those weapons posed a grave danger to the United States and the rest of the world. Now it appears that premise was wrong. We cannot in hindsight blame the administration for its original conclusions. They were based on the best intelligence available, which had led the Clinton administration before it and the governments of allied nations to reach the same conclusion. But even the best intelligence can turn out to be mistaken, and the likelihood that this was the case in Iraq shows why pre-emptive war, the Bush administration`s strategy since 9/11, is so ill conceived as a foundation for security policy. If intelligence and risk assessment are sketchy — and when are they not? — using them as the basis for pre-emptive war poses enormous dangers.

A draft of an interim report by David Kay, the American leading the hunt for banned arms in Iraq, says the team has not found any such weapons after nearly four months of intensively searching and interviewing top Iraqi scientists. There is some evidence of chemicals and equipment that could have been put to illicit use. But, to the chagrin of Mr. Bush`s top lieutenants, there is nothing more.

It remains remotely possible, of course, that something will be found. But Mr. Kay`s draft suggests that the weapons are simply not there. Why Mr. Hussein did not prove that when the United Nations demanded an explanation remains a puzzle. His failure to come clean strengthened the conviction that he had a great deal to hide. His history as a vicious tyrant who had used chemical weapons in war and against his own people lent credence to the fear that he could not be trusted with whatever he was holding and would pose a significant threat.

Before the war, we objected not to the stated goal of disarming Iraq but to the fact that the United States was waging war essentially alone, in defiance of many important allies. We favored using international inspectors to keep Iraq`s destructive programs in check while diplomats forged a United Nations effort to force Mr. Hussein to yield his weapons.

The policy of pre-emption that Mr. Bush pursued instead junked an approach that had served this country and the world well for half a century. That policy, simply stated, was that the United States would respond quickly to aggression but would not be the first to attack.

The world changed on Sept. 11, 2001. Terrorist groups like Al Qaeda are dedicated to inflicting maximum harm on this country. Since such groups rely on suicide bombers and are therefore immune to threats of retaliation, the United States is right to attack a terrorist group first in some circumstances. It was certainly justified in its war in Afghanistan, which had become little more than a government-sponsored training camp for Al Qaeda. It is quite another thing, however, to launch a pre-emptive military campaign against a nation that the United States suspects poses a threat.

Americans and others in the world are glad that Mr. Hussein has been removed from power. If Iraq can be turned into a freer and happier country in coming years, it could become a focal point for the evolution of a more peaceful and democratic Middle East. But it was the fear of weapons of mass destruction placed in the hands of enemy terrorists that made doing something about Iraq seem urgent. If it had seemed unlikely that Mr. Hussein had them, we doubt that Congress or the American people would have endorsed the war.

This is clearly an uncomfortable question for the Bush administration. Yesterday, Secretary of State Colin Powell met with Times editors. Asked whether Americans would have supported this war if weapons of mass destruction had not been at issue, Mr. Powell said the question was too hypothetical to answer. Asked if he, personally, would have supported it, he smiled, thrust his hand out and said, "It was good to meet you."



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Who`s Poor? Don`t Ask the Census Bureau
By JARED BERNSTEIN

WASHINGTON

Today the Census Bureau will release the official poverty rate for 2002. While that figure is likely to indicate that the ranks of the poor have increased, it unfortunately won`t really tell us much of anything about the true extent of poverty in America.

The problem is that the official definition of poverty no longer provides an accurate picture of material deprivation. The current measure was created 40 years ago by a government statistician, Mollie Orshansky, and hasn`t much changed since. "Anyone who thinks we ought to change it is perfectly right," Ms. Orshansky told an interviewer in 2001.

The current procedure takes the 1963 poverty thresholds for each given family size devised by Ms. Orshansky and updates them for inflation. For example, if the income of a family of four with two adults and two children fell below $18,244 last year, they were counted as poor by the bureau. Simple, yes, but there are two basic problems.

First, it fails to capture important changes in consumption patterns since the early 1960`s. The research underlying the original thresholds was based on food expenditures by low-income families in 1955. Since her calculations showed that families then spent about a third of their income on food, Ms. Orshansky multiplied a low-income food budget by three to come up with her poverty line. But even she suspected this method underestimated what it took to meet basic needs, and was thus low-balling the poverty rate.

And that mismeasurement has worsened over time, as food has become less expensive in relation to other needs like housing, health care and transportation, meaning the share of income spent on food by low-income families has fallen further.

The National Academy of Sciences has estimated what the Orshansky measure would look like today if it were updated for changes in consumption patterns, and found the threshold could be as much as 45 percent higher, implying higher poverty rates.

Second, the current measure leaves out some sources of income and some expenditures that weren`t relevant when it was devised. The Census Bureau counts the value of cash transfers, like welfare payments, but it ignores the value of food stamps and health benefits, as well as newer tax credits that can significantly add to the income of low-end working families. Not only would taking these additions into consideration bring down the poverty rate figure, it would also provide a real measure of the effects of these antipoverty programs.

On the other side of the ledger, the current method also ignores important costs to low-income families. For example, these days many more women with young children participate in the labor force, yet the money they spend on child care is not factored into the poverty calculation.

If the Census Bureau`s poverty findings were simply an accounting tool, these failures might not be important to anyone but economists and demographers. But the official figure plays an important role in determining eligibility for the federal and state safety nets: if we`re not getting the measurement right, we`re not providing services to the right people.

There is a better way, but of course it`s a political hot potato. Census Bureau analysts have been working on alternative measures that take into account the changes in family life over the past four decades. The one I consider most reliable, because it factors in child-care costs for working parents, has shown poverty rates that average about 3 percent above the official figure, implying that there may be 9 million more Americans whose incomes are inadequate for their basic needs.

Of course, no administration would want to adopt such a measure on its watch. The Census Bureau, to its credit, says it will release a few of its alternatives to the official measure today (although not one that adequately considers child-care costs), which may help poverty analysts get a more accurate picture. Still, the public and the news media will focus on the outdated official measure.

While this may provide a vague sense that our poverty problem has worsened, it won`t tell people as much as we could or should know about poverty in America.


Jared Bernstein is a senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.



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What`s Good for Russia Is Good for America
By ROBERT McFARLANE

MOSCOW

As President Bush meets with President Vladimir Putin of Russia today and tomorrow at Camp David, he should take the opportunity to chart a new course for Russian-American relations. The logic for such a change is compelling, especially regarding United States interests in Iraq, and it is clear to Russian officials in both government and industry.

This new thinking is the product of several factors involving the common experience of Russia and the United States as victims of terrorism and a common interest in nurturing greater stability in the Middle East. The countries` complementary capacities could accelerate the rebuilding of Iraq and help to end the violence there.

Russia and the United States have had similar experiences with terrorism. Both countries have seen violence in their major cities: the 9/11 attacks on the Pentagon and World Trade Center and the attack by Chechen terrorists on a theater in Moscow a year ago. The shattering impact of these events galvanized in the United States and Russia a determination to counter the terrorist menace.

Russia was — and remains — very helpful in the American campaign against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan. And whatever may have been their differences over how to deal with Saddam Hussein, President Putin agreed with President Bush that Saddam Hussein was a destabilizing influence in the Middle East.

Similarly, both have come to recognize the unacceptable implications of a nuclear-armed Iran. Chastened by the International Atomic Energy Agency`s discovery of traces of enriched uranium at a power plant in Natanz, Iran, Russia has become much more demanding of credible safeguards for the Iranian nuclear program. It is also cooperating with the United States in seeking to deal with the nuclear ambitions of North Korea.

In a larger sense, an inchoate but palpable evolution in Russian thinking has been taking place. President Putin has absorbed a core value of pluralistic governance: nations operating under some measure of popular restraint are less likely to make war.

Mr. Putin has shown himself ready to join the United States in nurturing an evolution in this direction in the Middle East. Talking to reporters last month, he said Russia would support an international force in Iraq — even under United States command — if it were authorized by the United Nations Security Council. Such a statement would have been unthinkable six months ago.

But perhaps the greatest incentive for the United States to bring Russia into a more active role in Iraq is self-interested pragmatism. Russians know a lot more about the Iraqi infrastructure and how to repair it than Americans do (after all, they built much of it), and they are ready to join in the effort to restore power, water and other necessities of daily life. And since Russia has solid relationships with tribal leaders throughout the country, it is better able to gain their help. And it would be far better to get Iraqis involved in guarding their own patrimony than to have to rely on foreign forces.

True, Russia`s motives — like America`s — are not entirely altruistic. In return for its physical and financial involvement in rebuilding Iraq, Russia will want assurance that the oil contracts signed by Russian companies before the war will be honored. The United States should accept this, not least because it has no legal basis for denying these contracts.

Beyond helping to bring stability to the Middle East and revenue to Russian economy, Russian involvement will have benefits for the Russian people. Elevating Russia`s role in dealing with the most daunting problems on the global agenda will have a profound impact on the view of average Russians about themselves, their leaders, their country and their role in world affairs.

The last decade has been traumatic for the Russian people. They lost two-thirds of their per capita income, half of "their" territory and their superpower status. To be once more engaged and contributing to the solution of vital matters will have an incalculable effect on Russia`s sense of place and its commitment to a constructive role in the years ahead.

While it is true that America`s roots are more deeply intertwined with the countries of Western Europe, the United States need not choose between Russia and Europe. It will always be in America`s interest to cooperate with both.


Robert McFarlane, national security adviser from 1983 to 1985, is chairman of an energy and environmental consulting firm in Washington.



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In GOP, Concern Over Iraq Price Tag
Some Doubt Need For $20.3 Billion For Rebuilding

By Jonathan Weisman and Juliet Eilperin
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, September 26, 2003; Page A01


A new curriculum for training an Iraqi army for $164 million. Five hundred experts, at $200,000 each, to investigate crimes against humanity. A witness protection program for $200,000 per Iraqi participant. A computer study for the Iraqi postal service: $54 million.

Such numbers, buried in President Bush`s $20.3 billion request for Iraq`s reconstruction, have made some congressional Republicans nervous, even furious. Although the GOP leadership has tried to unite publicly around its president, cracks are beginning to show.

"President Bush should live up to his recent pledges to restrain spending, by . . . taking a strong stance that the new Iraq can and should pay for its own reconstruction," wrote Rep. Tom Feeney (Fla.), a freshman Republican, and Stephen Moore, a conservative economist, in an editorial for the National Review.

The discontent is relatively contained so far, said Jim Dyer, Republican staff director of the House Appropriations Committee, but that is because few lawmakers have read the proposal`s fine print. As more details seep out, he said, anger is sure to rise.

Those details include $100 million to build seven planned communities with a total of 3,258 houses, plus roads, an elementary school, two high schools, a clinic, a place of worship and a market for each; $10 million to finance 100 prison-building experts for six months, at $100,000 an expert; 40 garbage trucks at $50,000 each; $900 million to import petroleum products such as kerosene and diesel to a country with the world`s second-largest oil reserves; and $20 million for a four-week business course, at $10,000 per student.

"If those are what the costs are, I`m glad Congress is asking questions," said Brian Reidl, a budget analyst at the conservative Heritage Foundation. "If the White House wants to be portrayed as spending tax dollars in Iraq as cost-effectively as they spend [money] anywhere else, they`re going to have to explain this."

Already, the administration`s request for $400 million to build two 4,000-bed prisons at $50,000 a bed has raised enough questions in Congress to force Provisional Authority Administrator L. Paul Bremer to explain that cement must be imported to make concrete.

"We`re not talking sanity here," Dyer said. "The world`s second-largest oil country is importing oil, and a country full of concrete is importing concrete."

Republicans have grown nervous enough about Iraq that Vice President Cheney and White House budget director Joshua B. Bolten traveled to Capitol Hill on Wednesday to meet privately with the agitated ranks and go over the $87 billion emergency war spending request.

"What [lawmakers] really wanted them to do was carefully review it so they can justify to constituents why they voted for it," said a GOP aide who was at the meeting. "You`ve got to be able to go back home and explain why we need to do all this."

In several closed meetings this week, Republicans questioned why the administration is piling more spending atop an ever-expanding federal deficit. Rep. Zach Wamp (R-Tenn.), a member of the House Appropriations Committee, plans to offer an amendment making the package a loan, which the White House adamantly opposes.

"The people of eastern Tennessee want to know why the $20.3 billion couldn`t be repaid by the Iraqi people from the oil revenues," Wamp said.

Rep. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) urged that the administration press nations such as France, Russia and Germany to forgive some of Iraq`s $200 billion foreign debt, which Bremer conceded is now the United States` responsibility. "It`s tough to make a case to give $20 billion outright," Flake said. "There are a lot of us who are still troubled."

Flake and other conservatives also want the administration to offset the reconstruction package with cuts in other areas.

Meanwhile, at a House hearing yesterday, Democrats pressed Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz about whether the administration plans to withdraw troops right before the 2004 presidential election. He said no decisions are being made on political grounds.

"These are national security decisions; they have to be made on that basis," he said. Wolfowitz said that does not mean that "we`re not trying to, in fact, get more Iraqis on the front lines, get them dying for their country so fewer Americans have to."

It is the reconstruction spending, however, that is drawing some conservatives` ire. Moore, who heads the political action committee Club for Growth, called some of the aid request "frivolous" and much of it "preposterous." Pete Sepp, a spokesman for the conservative National Taxpayers Union, said Americans are being misled.

"Many members of the general public are being led to believe this money is just to turn the lights back on in Iraq," Sepp said. "Once word gets out about the nature of some of these projects, it will pose a real dilemma for a number of policymakers who believe U.S. foreign aid is already suffering from administrative problems as well as overambitious goals. These are the kinds of things that radio talk show hosts love to chew up and give to their listeners."

GOP pollster Robert Teeter hinted that congressional Republicans are right to be nervous -- not so much about the military campaign in Iraq, or even the rising U.S. casualties, but about the White House`s spending request. Support for the war remains relatively high, he said, and if elected Republicans can frame the full $87 billion package as the amount it takes to support the troops, they will be fine.

But as soon as the discussion turns to the nuts and bolts of Iraq`s reconstruction, the public`s long-standing antipathy to foreign aid quickly surfaces, Teeter said.

Then, he said, the overwhelming sentiment is, "We need to take care of our own." It is up to Republicans to keep the conversation centered on the troops, while Democrats will try to focus on the reconstruction`s spending details.

Some Democrats want to split the $87 billion bill into a $67 billion military spending measure for quick passage and a separate reconstruction measure. Republican leaders adamantly oppose this, saying the entire proposal is essential and cannot be picked apart.

"The package is a wartime supplemental [spending bill], directly tied to the security and the ultimate withdrawal of United States forces from the region," said White House budget office spokesman Trent Duffy. "It has to be viewed in that context."

Duffy dismissed as "preposterous" Democrats` assertions that the administration is willing to spend more on Iraqis than on its own citizens. The federal government spends $5.9 billion on prisons each year, compared with the $510 million the administration wants for corrections in Iraq next year, he said. Domestic air and ground transportation consumes $64 billion, dwarfing the $753 million the White House wants for Iraq.

For conservatives pushing for less spending in the United States, such comparisons hold little value. It is not the dollar totals but the targets. "A $54 million study for their post office?" asked Dan Mitchell of the Heritage Foundation.

Some Republican aides say the numbers may be more defensible than they sound because the budget is not quite real. They suggest the administration has inflated costs, in part to avoid having to come back next year for a new emergency spending bill, and in part so they can skim some of the money for classified military efforts.

And many congressional Republicans quietly say they will never challenge the president`s request in public. To do so, they say, would risk an intraparty rift that could endanger Bush`s reelection efforts as well as their own.

Democrats, meanwhile, question how long the GOP can remain unified. "Republicans are losing confidence the president can commit these resources in a reasonable way," Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) said.

Senate GOP leaders are rushing to bring the $87 billion request to a vote by the end of next week, prompting Democratic complaints that the measure is not being fully considered. Daschle questioned the need for haste, noting that Bremer told Democrats this week that the money will not be needed until January.

Staff writer Helen Dewar contributed to this report.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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The 10 Democratic candidates for the presidency participate in a televised debate at Pace University in New York. It was the first debate among the party`s contenders involving retired Army Gen. Wesley K. Clark, who was asked, among other things, about his credentials as a member of the Democratic Party.

Auszug siehe auch NYTimes:

The opening question of the debate -- sponsored by CNBC and the Wall Street Journal -- gave Clark an opportunity to answer a fundamental question about his candidacy: Is he a real Democrat? Reminded of his support for former presidents Ronald Reagan and Richard M. Nixon, and some kind words for President Bush, he was asked: "Did you believe it then? Do you believe it now?"

"I think it`s been an incredible journey for me and for this country since 2001," he replied, and quickly launched into an attack on Bush`s record worthy of any long-standing member of the Democratic Party. Then, to burnish his credentials, he added: "When I needed to speak out, there was only one party to come to." He noted that he supports abortion rights, affirmative action, the environment and using force "only as a last resort," adding, "That`s why I`m a proud Democrat."

From there on, it was a matter of holding his own as Clark was asked his views on trade, health care, the future of the New York Stock Exchange and the financial health of the major national mortgage institutions.

He looked comfortable on the stage and in front of the cameras, and came armed with some good lines. Speaking about the economy, Clark said, "I`ve got a better jobs program in eight days than George Bush had in three years." But through much of the debate, he was, like the rest, a bystander to action somewhere else on stage.

Clark often proved more adept at articulating a problem than in providing a solution. In the case of health care, for example, he said that he has not been a candidate long enough to put together a comprehensive plan to expand health insurance to the 41 million without it, instead sketching out ideas that have been offered in some way by his rivals.

That may be a constant problem for Clark, given his late entry into the race. Much of what he said on any issue has been said by another candidate. As one Democrat who watched the debate put it, "He`s going to have to be his profile because he can`t distinguish himself on issues. He has to be who he is."
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Cheney`s Ties to Halliburton
Deferred Compensation Package Counts, Report Indicates

By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, September 26, 2003; Page A07


A Congressional Research Service report released yesterday concluded that federal ethics laws treat Vice President Cheney`s annual deferred compensation checks and unexercised stock options as continuing financial interests in the Halliburton Co.

Democrats have aggressively challenged Cheney`s claim that he has no financial ties to Halliburton, despite those arrangements.

The Houston-based energy conglomerate has been awarded more than $2 billion in contracts for rebuilding Iraq, including one worth $1.22 billion that was awarded on a noncompetitive basis.

The report, from the law division of the congressional research arm of the Library of Congress, said deferred salary or compensation received from a private corporation -- as well as unexercised stock options -- may represent a continuing financial interest as defined by federal ethics laws.

The seven-page report, dated Monday, did not name Cheney or Halliburton, but addressed the general legal question. It was prepared at the request of Sen. Frank Lautenberg (D-N.J.), who said Cheney should "stop dodging the issue with legalese, and acknowledge his continued financial ties with Halliburton to the American people."

Cheney, who was Halliburton`s chairman and chief executive, has disclosed the payments and the 433,333 options. The report suggests no illegality.

Catherine Martin, Cheney`s public affairs director, said: "The vice president has no financial interest in Halliburton. He has no stake in the company. He will in no way benefit from the rise or fall of Halliburton`s stock price or the success or failure of the company."

Cheney said on NBC`s "Meet the Press" on Sept. 14 that he has "no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind and haven`t had now for over three years." His assertion came during a discussion of Halliburton`s contracts in Iraq. Cheney said he had "severed all my ties with the company, gotten rid of all my financial interests."

Democrats disputed that because Cheney received deferred compensation of $147,579 in 2001 and $162,392 in 2002, with payments scheduled to continue for three more years.

In response, Cheney`s office said he had purchased an insurance policy so he would be paid even if Halliburton failed. And his office also has announced he has agreed to donate the after-tax proceeds from his stock options to three charities.

However, the congressional report said that neither the insurance policy nor the charity designation would change the public official`s disclosure obligation.

The continuing controversy over Cheney`s statement puts him in the position of drawing criticism to the White House. In the past, White House officials have considered him a reassuring figure for viewers and voters.

Bush issued what amounted to a correction of another statement Cheney made on "Meet the Press." When asked about the possibility of a connection between former Iraqi president Saddam Hussein and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Cheney said, "We don`t know." Three days later, Bush said in response to a question that the government has no evidence of such a link.

The liberal group American Family Voices has spent more than $300,000 to run ads about Halliburton`s connection to the administration. The group said the commercials are effective for raising money. The ads -- on cable in Washington and on broadcast television in New Hampshire and battleground states of the Midwest -- began last week and will run for at least another week, the group said.



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U.S. Troops Will Get Vacation From Iraq
Thousands Share In R&R Program


Associated Press
Friday, September 26, 2003; Page A25


U.S. troops will get a vacation from the campaign in Iraq under an R&R program being revived for the first time since the war in Vietnam.

A planeload of troops is to arrive today in Baltimore, the first of thousands to be flown out of deployments that have turned out to be longer and tougher than some expected.

"First of all, rest and recuperation . . . is essential just because what they`re being asked to do is pretty darn difficult," said Maj. Pete Mitchell, spokesman for the U.S. Central Command. "But it`s more than that; we also believe rest and recuperation will improve readiness."

The first planeload was en route to Rhein-Main air base in Germany, one of two destinations for those getting leave, Mitchell said yesterday. Others are flying to Baltimore.

Those flights are being paid for by the government; troops continuing from there to their homes or other places will cover the expense of their continuing flights.

The program applies to all troops who have been given one-year tours of duty in Iraq and in supporting roles in neighboring countries. It allows as many as 15 days of leave, half of their annual vacation.

Officials are still working out details of the program, which will depend on developments in Iraq, where daily attacks on coalition forces have slowed stabilization efforts.

The subject of deployment lengths has been a sensitive one in the Iraq campaign, with some active-duty soldiers and their families complaining about delays in their homecoming.





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Remember Chechnya




Friday, September 26, 2003; Page A26


RUSSIAN PRESIDENT Vladimir Putin was a strong opponent of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and now he says he is skeptical of U.S. plans for reconstruction. Any political transition, he insists, must be endorsed by the United Nations and Arab states around Iraq.

So we can only imagine what Mr. Putin`s reaction would be if, during their scheduled meeting at Camp David this week, President Bush were to confide that his official plan to return Iraq to representative government was a mere facade. Mr. Bush might say that Iraq`s constitution actually would be written in Washington so as to permanently require the presence of U.S. troops and political control and that the United States would select a presidential candidate who would be allowed to install his campaign manager as supervisor of all Iraqi media. If any serious challengers dared to take on Washington`s favorite in a U.S.-run election, the White House would simply force them out of the race.

Mr. Bush surely could not sell such a scheme to Mr. Putin or anyone else, yet the Russian president now demands that his "friend George," together with the rest of the world, swallow that solution for the predominantly Muslim republic of Chechnya. Mr. Putin likes to compare the four-year-old Russian war against Chechens seeking independence with the U.S. operations in Iraq and Afghanistan; in a meeting with American journalists last weekend, he questioned whether U.S. forces were violating human rights on the streets of Baghdad. In fact the comparison is obscene. In Chechnya Russian troops have wiped out a democratically elected government, killed tens of thousands of civilians, forced others out of refugee camps and back into the war zone, reduced the capital and every major town to rubble, indiscriminately rounded up the entire male populations of dozens of villages for torture or summary execution and so shattered the country`s civil society that previously marginal Islamic extremists now are a major force.

Having launched the war against Chechnya four years ago in an effort to bolster his own presidential ambitions, Mr. Putin has found himself trapped. Though thousands of Russian soldiers have been killed and Mr. Putin has repeatedly declared the war over, the bloodshed relentlessly goes on. In theory the presidential elections Moscow scheduled for next month offered a way out: If a credible Chechen leader had been chosen to replace the deeply unpopular Kremlin appointee, Akhmad Kadyrov, meaningful negotiations on the republic`s future might have been possible. Instead Mr. Putin chose the Stalinist route of eliminating Mr. Kadyrov`s main opponents -- "a matter of tactics in the pre-election campaign," he told the U.S. correspondents.

Mr. Putin was infuriated that a State Department official, Steven Pifer, reported to a congressional commission last week that the rigged election lacked credibility and could set back rather than advance prospects for a political settlement. Mr. Pifer`s admirably frank statement added that Mr. Putin`s policy in Chechnya had "a deleterious effect on the overall U.S.-Russia relationship" and "will be among the most troubling" of issues at the upcoming summit. Mr. Putin warned the journalists that he would not accept "the mentor tone" from Mr. Bush. Clearly the Russian leader hopes that Mr. Bush, in his eagerness to win Moscow`s cooperation on Iraq and other issues, will avoid mention of Chechnya. But he should not. There is a great difference between trying to replace a brutal dictatorship with a sovereign democracy and suppressing a nation`s aspiration for self-rule through force and fraud. Mr. Bush should not fail to point it out.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Oil Folly


By Michael Kinsley

Friday, September 26, 2003; Page A27


From the way it gets covered in the press, you would think that OPEC was one of those mystifying but harmless international something-or-others like the IMF or the World Economic Forum. It holds meetings periodically, men in foreign-looking garb (Arab robes or European suits) bustle about and make gnomic remarks to reporters about demand in the third quarter of next year, decisions are announced and cautions are issued and everybody seems to be having a jolly time feeling global and important. But no harm done.

This week it`s a sort of stuffy gentlemen`s club or honorific academy of nations, which confers respectability along with membership. You imagine the delegates conversing from deep leather arm chairs. "I see that this new governmental thingy they`re trying to put together in Iraq is up for admission. Uncle Sam says it`s very sound. What say we give the young rascal a shot?"

Meeting in Vienna, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries made two bits of news. First, it welcomed the new Governing Council of Iraq to reoccupy the seat once held by such distinguished predecessors as Saddam Hussein. The Bush administration takes paternal pride in this development, as a father might on "The Sopranos" when his son becomes a "made man" of organized crime. Imagine: not even six months old, and already a member of OPEC!

Second, the members of OPEC agreed to reduce the amount of oil they offer for sale by 900,000 barrels a day. Oil prices immediately shot up by 4 percent, or $1.11 a barrel. The stock market showed its appreciation by taking a dive.

Many opponents of Gulf War II have thought all along that President Bush`s motives must involve oil in some way. It would be silly to suggest that the war has been a secret plot to get Iraq back into OPEC. But it is so insane for the U.S. government to regard this development as an American triumph that paranoid speculation is hard to resist. At the very least, the Bush administration has succumbed to the widespread impression that OPEC is just another acronym on the high-minded diplomatic circuit.

OPEC is a conspiracy to fix prices. It is a textbook example of how to violate the Sherman Antitrust Act. As sovereign nations meeting in faraway luxury hotels, rather than American business executives exchanging furtive messages across state lines, OPEC`s members probably can`t be prosecuted. But we shouldn`t forget the true nature of the organization. And we certainly shouldn`t be legitimizing and strengthening it by nominating members.

This is not just a matter of respecting the principles behind our laws even when the laws can`t be enforced. There`s a reason we`ve made it illegal for competitors to conspire: It costs the rest of us money. And we can do a back-of-the-envelope calculation of how much money this American diplomatic triumph is going to cost.

OPEC controls only about a third of the world oil market. But because a barrel of oil is a barrel of oil, OPEC`s machinations affect the price of all the world`s oil. The United States imports more than 9 billion barrels of oil a year. That $1.11 price-per-barrel increase that followed this week`s announcement of tighter OPEC supply restrictions equals $10 billion a year added to America`s oil-import bill.

When the oil fields and pipelines are restored, Iraq could be pumping as much as 5 million barrels a day. But Iraq`s OPEC quota is traditionally the same as Iran`s, which is currently under 4 million barrels a day. So it is not unreasonable to suppose that Iraq`s rejoining OPEC could reduce oil supply and raise oil prices at least as much as the OPEC supply restrictions announced this week.

And $10 billion a year is just the beginning. Oil is oil: When import prices go up, the price of domestic oil goes up too. America imports about 60 percent of its oil. Consumers would pay American oil producers another $7 billion or so for oil that it won`t cost a penny more to pull out of the ground. And when oil goes up, other energy sources follow. Oil is less than 40 percent of our total energy consumption. So add another $25 billion or so in higher prices for natural gas, coal and so on. We`re up to more than $40 billion a year. And that`s ignoring the effects on the rest of the world -- as we usually do. Despite our best efforts, Americans can`t manage to consume more than a quarter of the world`s energy.

Put it all together, discount heavily for safety, add a dab of tendentiousness and you can easily come up with a figure like, oh, say, $87 billion a year as a modest estimate of what Iraq`s restoration to OPEC could cost. Eighty-seven billion? Why, isn`t that the amount Bush wants for Operation Iraq Et Cetera? Why, yes, it is.

Now, it`s true that America`s interest is not necessarily in the lowest possible short-term energy prices. Higher prices encourage conservation and new sources, which may keep energy costs lower in the long run. It`s a complex and uncertain calculation. But however you figure, America`s interest as a net energy importer and OPEC`s interest as a collection of exporters are diametrically opposed. There is no formula for stability or middle ground that serves both.

What we pay for oil, a dead resource, is like a tax on the productive elements of the economy -- human labor and ingenuity and financial capital. Only this tax goes into the treasury in Riyadh and bank accounts in Houston, instead of the Treasury in Washington. To the Bush folks that makes it better, I guess.



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Please, Lend Us Less


By Robert J. Samuelson

Friday, September 26, 2003; Page A27


Someone recently noticed that foreigners have invested heavily in U.S. Treasury securities -- so much so that their money covers the cost of the war in Iraq and much of the exploding U.S. budget deficit. In the first half of 2003, foreign purchases of U.S. Treasury notes and bonds totaled $265 billion. The cumulative foreign holdings of federal debt amount to about $1.35 trillion, or a hefty 36 percent of the publicly held debt. It appears that Americans can have their cake (high government spending, low taxes) and eat it too. Foreigners will pick up much of the tab.

Well, no. Up to a point, this was true, but we have passed that point. The harsher truth is that foreigners` voracious appetite for U.S. treasuries reflects deeper problems of the world economy that, in turn, harm the American economy. About 60 percent of this year`s foreign purchases of federal securities have come from private buyers (pension funds, insurance companies, corporations, wealthy individuals) and the remainder from government agencies (mainly central banks -- other countries` federal reserves). If you ask why they like U.S. treasuries, you discover more bad news than good.

Start with private investors. One reason they invest here is that they lack good investment opportunities at home. During the 1990s they concentrated on stocks and bonds, contributing to the stock "bubble." Now some funds have skirted into safer Treasury securities. What`s unchanged is that economies abroad, particularly in Japan and Europe, haven`t been sufficiently dynamic to justify investing those funds at home. The appeal of American investments is more an indicator of their weakness than our strength.

The trouble is that their weakness boomerangs on us. Together, Europe and Japan represent almost a third of the global economy, reports the International Monetary Fund. If these economies are feeble, the demand for U.S. exports may be feeble. And so it`s been. From 2001 to 2003, Japan`s economy grew a pitiful 0.5 percent a year; the rate for "euroland" (the countries using the euro) was barely better at 1.1 percent. With stronger economies abroad, the American recovery would have been stronger.

Now turn to central banks. They invest in U.S. Treasuries because they have surplus dollars. They have surplus dollars because, typically, their countries run trade surpluses. To maintain those surpluses, governments intervene in foreign exchange markets; they buy dollars with their own currencies. The purpose: keep their currencies cheap compared with the dollar -- and thereby make their exports more competitive. Asian nations have been especially aggressive in pursuing trade surpluses through this strategy. Since 1996 the foreign exchange reserves (held heavily in dollars) of China, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong and South Korea have leaped from $500 billion to $1.3 trillion. Central banks could invest their dollars in anything -- U.S. stocks, corporate bonds or real estate. But governments favor Treasuries for safety and "liquidity" (they can be bought and sold easily).

Again, the U.S. economy now suffers. The artificially depressed level of many Asian currencies undermines the competitiveness of American exports while making Asian imports cheaper. Pressure increases on U.S. companies to shift production abroad. Economists at Goldman Sachs recently estimated that overseas "outsourcing" of all sorts has cost the U.S. economy 300,000 to 500,000 jobs in the past three years. Unsurprisingly, U.S. manufacturers are screaming for China and other Asian countries to revalue their currencies, and Treasury Secretary John Snow echoes their demands. (Indeed, last weekend Snow pushed again for stronger foreign currencies.)

Concerning the United States, the language of global finance is backward. It is said that we "borrow" abroad and "need to attract foreign capital." In truth, foreigners are eagerly lending to us, mainly for their own reasons. In an accounting sense, their lending covers a big part of the U.S. budget deficit. But in ways that matter more -- in an economic and social sense -- their lending costs us, because it reduces domestic production and employment in the United States. Some Americans gain from inexpensive imports, while others lose through eliminated jobs and reduced profits.

This was not always so. The dollar plays a unique role in the global economy. It serves as the world`s main currency for trade and cross-border investment. The need for dollars -- by foreign companies, banks and governments -- partly explains routine U.S. trade deficits since the early 1980s. This demand has kept the dollar`s exchange rate too high to produce a trade balance. By itself, a modest trade deficit is unthreatening; when the U.S. economy is at "full employment," extra imports may curb inflation. But in recent years, weak foreign economies and conscious currency strategies have held the dollar at excessive levels. The result: Despite a faltering U.S. economy, the broadest U.S. trade deficit (the "current account``) has expanded to 5 percent of gross domestic product. The huge foreign investments in U.S. Treasuries are one outgrowth.

They are more than a freak fact of global finance. They symbolize a dangerous and potentially destabilizing dependency by the rest of the world on the American economy. The threats to stability are plain. If the United States loses too many jobs abroad -- through imports and outsourcing -- then the U.S. economic recovery might stumble. Or if some event shook faith in the United States, foreign owners of U.S. stocks, bonds and Treasury securities might try to unload their American investments, triggering a financial panic. Neither possibility is inevitable; both are conceivable.

Americans would be better off if foreigners lent us less -- and if foreigners could, it would signal a sounder world economy.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Middle East

THE ROVING EYE
Fallujah: A multilayered picture emerges
By Pepe Escobar

FALLUJAH - This is the heart of the Iraqi resistance. Fallujah, with a population of almost 500,000 people, traditionally "the city of mosques", is now called "the city of heroes" as it is at the core of the Sunni triangle (Baghdad-Ramadi-Tikrit) where most of the resistance to the US occupation is taking place.

President George W Bush told the United Nations on Tuesday that he is not willing to give back full sovereignty to Iraq any time soon. US Proconsul L Paul Bremer said last week that Iraqis are not yet capable of ruling themselves. The citizens of Fallujah have other ideas.

The highway from the capital to Fallujah - 43 miles (69 kilometers) west of Baghdad and the scene of one of the fiercest tank battles of the war in April - passes past Abu Ghraeb prison, one of the symbols of Saddam Hussein`s repression which is now the American occupation`s largest prison.

Practically every day in Fallujah there are attacks against the Americans. And the repression is also fierce - all around Fallujah. This Tuesday, for example, the 82nd Airborne intervened with full force in al-Sajr, a village 15 kilometers north of Fallujah, leaving two big craters in the courtyards of two houses.

At the Fallujah hospital, Abed Rashid, a 50-year-old retired civil servant, said that he was sleeping with his family on the roof of his house when he heard Kalashnikov fire. As he ran downstairs, American helicopters started firing what he believed were rockets. Rashid, wounded in the chest and left foot, says, "This is genocide. This is not about overthrowing a government or regime change." Two boys, Hussein, 11, and his brother Tahseen, nine, were also severely wounded. Their father, Ali Khalaf Mohammed, 45, was killed.

The mayor
The mayor of Fallujah, Taha Bdaiwi, officiates in the Qaem Maqameiah - a building that not without irony was the former general security headquarters of the Ba`ath Party. The ante-chamber of his office is a true court of miracles, where an endless stream of citizens wait patiently to express all sorts of grievances. Says a local sheikh, "When the Americans are attacked on the highway, they always come to the nearest villages. And they take many prisoners, without any evidence. There was an attack near a factory: they took all the families living around it, including the women. They are using families as human shields. Some of the arrested are older than 50."

Many people in Fallujah repeat the same story: when American soldiers search houses for guns and find nothing, they take all the cash and gold. Fallujah`s erratic supply of "national electricity", as the locals put it - two hours on, two hours off - is due to resistance attacks: "Last week there was no electricity because of resistance attacks. Electricity depends on loyalty to Americans." A pipeline was bombed twice in one week "because people believe this oil is not benefiting Iraq". But a local branch of Rafidain Bank was never attacked - even if there are always two American soldiers inside: "People know they are protecting their money."

Taha Bdaiwi`s office walls are conspicuously adorened by two military maps of Fallujah, from Fort Stewart, Georgia, one of them a satellite photo, as well as two diplomas offered by the American military for his collaboration. The new chief of police keeps coming in and out. The mayor cannot give any orders without first negotiating with an American military official sitting in the same building. Bdaiwi, already involved in civil administration beforehand, says, "This area is bigger than Tikrit. People complain services are very poor." He spends most of his time in meetings with teams in charge of rebuilding and reconstruction. The money will come from the city`s budget, but mostly from the Americans, who from April to September spent US$1.9 million. The city gets a paltry monthly 360 million dinars (US$1 = roughly 2,200 dinars) from the Ministry of Finance to pay for salaries and services. Anything else has to come from the Americans.

"There are many projects in the pipeline - a water project, a bridge, a hospital, civilian complexes - but no new projects," says the mayor. He is trying to bring energy from Baghdad and Ramadi. "I demanded two big generators, but they have not arrived yet." He bought two generators for water plants, but at present the Americans deliver water for some areas every day. He lists the key popular demands: water, electricity, security and health. The mayor admits indirectly that the real story about the pipelines is that the Americans want Iraqi police to protect them because they don`t want more American casualties. But the mayor is a realist, "We need the Americans to pay. We do everything we can. We can`t do anything without money. We need them."

The sheikh
Sheikh Khaled Saleh, a Sunni cleric in his early 50s, says that "although unorganized and without leadership, the Iraqi resistance is a ball of fire in America`s face that will bring its end in Iraq". His sermons at Friday prayers draw thousands every week to Badawi, one of the main mosques in the "city of mosques". Sheikh Saleh is sure that thousands of young men in Fallujah were and still are influenced by Osama bin Laden and his positioning as an heroic Arab mujahideen. The sheikh is also sure "we have made the Americans dizzy".

Fallujah is littered with graffiti. Some is pro-Saddam. None is pro-bin Laden. All encourage local citizens to harass and kill American soldiers. Posters plastered across the city warn everyone to stay very far from US convoys to avoid being hit. In the kebab shops, people say, "The Americans are cowards. They are now afraid of any gunshot coming from anywhere."

The citizens
A group of prominent citizens of Fallujah got together and agreed to talk to Asia Times Online to explain "the real situation", as they put it. Considering the fact that for the Governing Council in Baghdad and for Bremer, anybody telling the truth about the occupation can be accused of "incitement to violence", their identities should be protected.

This week, the Governing Council`s spokesman, Intefadh Qanbar - a protege of Pentagon protege Ahmad Chalabi - told the media that the offices of television networks al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya in Iraq would be closed. Within two hours, this decision by the council turned into "no cooperation from the council" for two weeks - which for all practical purposes means nothing considering that the council sits in a bunker in Baghdad and is extremely uncooperative anyway.

Bremer`s legal advisers have in fact established press censorship in Iraq. And al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya are prime targets as they remain fierce critics of the occupation. Under the current press censorship laws, even to report about the killing of Iraqi civilians near Fallujah by missiles from American helicopters could fall into "incitement to violence".

For starters, the citizens of Fallujah don`t agree with the usual statistics according to which the Shi`ites make 62 percent of the Iraqi population. After a careful tabulation of the population in the main Iraqi cities, they insist more realistic figures would be 6 million Kurds, 8 million Shi`ites and 8.7 million Sunnis: this would prove their point that Sunnis are woefully under-represented in the Governing Council.

For Fallujah citizens, "The mayor is an honest man. He was one of the most wanted by Saddam`s regime. His family is one of the top five families in the city. Most of the population trust him and chose him." They insist that "people here are as religious as the Shi`ites in Najaf. So the population did not agree with the way the Americans came to Iraq." Unlike Baghdad, no shops in Fallujah sell alcohol or CDs. At least half of the population was satisfied with the fall of Saddam: "We didn`t want Saddam. But after the invasion, with the bad behavior of the Americans, people are saying it was better under Saddam." The citizens are keen to stress that in the first two months after the fall of Baghdad, there was absolutely no resistance.

The resistance officially began on June 28. "A peaceful gathering went to the mayor`s building. There were troops inside. Then it went to a school: there was a military base inside. People were shouting: `We want democracy, electricity, water`. The Americans opened fire, at first in to the air. Then against people. An old woman in her house beside the base was hit, along with her three sons: one was dead, one lost his leg, another lost his kidney. Many people went to hospital to donate blood. There were 73 wounded. They had to wait for more than two hours to be sent to hospital. No car could carry more than one wounded - and one car only every 30 minutes. The next day people went to the cemetery. As is our custom, they opened fire in the air to celebrate the dead. Many American helicopters and convoys then came and opened fire. That`s how it started. There were 21 dead in two days."

The citizens of Fallujah add, "The Americans have no right to invade houses, search our women and also steal gold and money. The Americans played a double game with the Iraqis. They said they would give us democracy. People only understood what they meant when they came. Outside Iraq, they treat dogs better than Iraqis."

The United Nations "is controlled by America. It will never help Iraq. It`s not independent. If the UN comes, it will be attacked. Any foreign forces - Turkish or Pakistani, even Arabs. These forces will do what the Americans want, in an indirect way. No Arab countries will send soldiers, because they support the resistance."

The citizens of Fallujah say that there are no American patrols in the city any more: only convoys coming from and going to Baghdad: "If there are three convoys, at least two will be attacked. Every convoy crossing Fallujah is covered by air support. If there is a patrol, the American soldiers attract children living in the area and use them as human shields. Is that freedom?"

The 25-member, American-appointed Governing Council is considered by everybody in Fallujah "an imported government". With two glaring exceptions: Dr Hashimi, a Shi`ite and a diplomat, who barely escaped an assassination attempt last Saturday (widely condemned in Fallujah); and Mohsen Abdul Hameed, from the Iraqi Islamic Party, actually the Muslim Brotherhood. During the Saddam era, Hameed lived underground building the clandestine Brotherhood base. Ahmad Chalabi, who is the rotating chairman of the council until the end of this month, is regarded as an "Ali Baba" - thief - and the butt of many jokes. It is widely assumed that at least 85 percent of the Iraqi population does not trust the Governing Council.

For the citizens of Fallujah, the Najaf bombing in which Ayatollah Baqr al-Hakim was killed was the work of the Americans, "to split Shi`ites and Sunnis". They are totally convinced that the Americans engineered the bombings of the Jordanian embassy, the UN headquarters and in Najaf so that they could "go ask help for from the UN to get rid of their problems".

The resistance
The citizens of Fallujah are adamant: the resistance is composed of members of families angry with or victims of violent American behavior, as well as former army soldiers and officers. They swear that they have not seen any Arab fedayeen (fighters) - and definitely no al-Qaeda. And there are no Ba`ath Party members in this indigenous resistance: "They are bad people. They have money. If you had money, would you risk your life resisting?" They insist that "the main reason for resisting is loyalty to your own country".

Dr Kamal Aldien Alkisim, born in the ancient city of Heet on the Euphrates, tortured by Saddam`s regime and general secretary of a new political party - the Iraqi National Fraction, which "emphasizes Iraq`s unity and independence on all its land" - supports the struggle in Fallujah. "The resistance here does not have any relation with any groups. It is led by families. The main reason is the bad behavior of the Americans. There is no relationship with Saddam or Islamic groups. These groups are using the name of Fallujah." The locals are adamant that they have never seen anybody from self-described resistance organizations like Owda (Return), led by one Mohammed al-Samidai from Mosul, or Afaa ("Snake"), which sprang up from the Ba`ath Party in Kirkuk, or even an alliance of the Ba`ath with tribal elders coordinated by one Abu Hasan from Hajiwa.
The citizens of Fallujah don`t care about Saddam`s cassettes routinely broadcast by Arab satellite networks: "Saddam is a spy. He sold Iraq. When CDs of Saddam calling for a jihad were distributed, people in Fallujah stopped the resistance for a few days." They insist on a big mistake made by the West is "to think that Saddam is the resistance just because he is a Sunni".

After a lavish lunch, enter Sheikh Abu Bashir, one of the most prominent sheikhs in the region, a high officer in the Iraqi army, wounded in the Iran-Iraq war of the 1980s. The sheikh does not mince his accusations against Jalal Talabani, the leader of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) and member of the Governing Council: he says that he witnessed many episodes of cruelty against villagers in the mid-1980s and accuses Talabani of complicity in the Halabja massacre of Kurds in 1988.

The Sheikh concurs that "the biggest problem for the Americans is when they dissolved the army. "They were trying to damage Iraqi society. So everybody immediately joined the resistance." The sheikh says, "The Americans now demand UN forces because they are in a circle of resistance and they cannot get out. When they started the war, they had no rights from the UN. So they have to leave this country, even by force. This is not just my opinion, our God ordered us to resist them as invasion forces."

These citizens of Fallujah are not part of the armed struggle. They only admit that the stream of attacks against Americans are conducted by very small groups armed with roadside bombs, rocket launchers and Strella anti-aircraft guns. Most are former army officers, with the operations financed by local businessmen ready to donate thousands of dollars. The regimental force is always the tribal chief.

Convincing tools for the young and the restless are multiple: defense of tribal values, defense of the motherland, and most of all defense against the "bad behavior" of the Americans. The mujahideen can count on total popular complicity. When al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya - the nemesis of the Governing Council - show images of American casualties, not only in Fallujah but also in Baghdad, people stop talking and their faces lighten up. The running commentary is inevitable: "We thanked them for our freedom, but they should have left long ago." At least in Fallujah, as far as the American occupation is concerned, the battle for hearts and minds is irretrievably lost.

(Copyright 2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact [e-mail] for information on our sales and syndication policies.)

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Up Your Sock Consciousness
When your lover is a also a diabolical, unrepentant footwear thief. A cautionary tale
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Friday, September 26, 2003
©2003 SF Gate

URL: http://www.sfgate.com/columnists/morford/



I think she eats them. Or vaporizes them. Or performs bizarre gorgeous naked incantation-filled candlelit midnight rituals involving snakes and magic herbs and flammable gasses. I cannot be certain. All I know is, they are never heard from again.

It happens all the time. It happens more than I care to admit. I am awed and embarrassed and more than a little nonplussed. I think it might be a sign. I think it might be the great trickster, winking, smirking, scratching his groin. Or it could be something far, far more diabolical.

My S.O. steals my socks. Not just occasionally, not just when her feet are freezing because she`s been wearing sandals all day and needs to warm up her toes, not when her own socks have worn out and are full or holes or she just needs to borrow a pair in an emergency because she hasn`t done laundry in a month. Would that it were so.

No, she does it mostly because she can. She steals my socks, men`s socks, almost daily, right from my drawer, when I`m in the shower or making breakfast or still sleeping or just not paying sufficient attention, all innocent and humble and unsuspecting I am, and she does so without telling me. Ever.

She wears them without my knowledge and works them into a nice dirty grungy lather, then tosses them not back into the laundry pile, not even back into the drawer, but into teeming chthonic vortex that is her closet. Or under her bed. Or into the big bedside drawer with all the vibrators and slippery substances and the wonderful silicone things. Or into black hole of one of her plethoric backpacks or purses or duffel bags or magic omnipotent sock-eating overnight bags.

I know this happens. I have caught her, now and then, as she undresses, removing a pair of my own socks from her feet and I`m all, hey! And she`s like, what? And I`m like, pointing down at her feet, at a pair of brand-new men`s socks that I hadn`t even worn yet and which I thought I somehow lost weeks ago or left at the store or never bought in the first place and figured I must`ve just dreamt the whole thing in a wine-thick hallucinogenic fog. And she`s like, oh yeah, are these yours? And I`m like, hey!

I know this, further, because my sock drawer empties at a truly astounding rate, just after laundry day. All fresh pairs on Monday, maybe a nice baker`s dozen of lovely clean men`s socks all eager and ready to be worn and ready to last me a good coupla weeks, minimum. Ha. Such wishful thinking. You fool.

And here`s Friday and I`m lucky if there`s two old pairs left, scrunched in the back of the drawer, grungy old emergency socks you keep in case of, you know, flood, or earthquake, or apocalypse Second Coming Rapture. I can only stare into the drawer and sigh heavily. She has struck again.

I am stumped. I am stupefied. She just giggles, shrugs. She knows she steals them. She admits as much. Yet she remains unapologetic, unrepentant. This is the way it is.

I have tried tactics. I have worked to thwart. I have gone so far as to buy her innumerable pairs of socks of her own, in a vain attempt to impede this bizarre habit, this peculiar problem.

I have stopped by Ross DFL and bought her pair after pair of cute little DKNY socklettes and put them in the drawer next to mine, just for her. I have suffered the bleary-eyed soul-sucking consumerist phantasmagoria that is Costco and bought her two dozen pair (that`s 24 pair) of Jockey socklettes and veritably stuffed her own sock drawer to the brim.

It matters not. They vanished. All of them, every single pair, in under a month. She has no idea where. Or how. Or why. Or when. But they are gone. All of them. So of course, she went back to stealing mine.

She remains undaunted. She is blithely apathetic. She believes I am excessively sock conscious, that it is perhaps one of her soul`s duties in this lifetime to raise my sock consciousness to a level whereby I can release my attachment to warm cotton tube-like foot garmentage and let the sock energy roam free, let the socks themselves pass into and out of our lives without constraint, without tying them down, without forcing them into drawers -- and without, even, forcing them to match.

Oh yes. Perhaps I failed to mention. She not only steals them, she steals them individually. Mismatched. I bundle them up together in matched pairs and she unbundles them and grabs two different ones, leaving a drawer of stragglers and loners and stranded orphans, sucking their little sock thumbs off in the corner of the drawer, wondering what happened to all the joy in the world.

She believes this is good for the socks, lets them experience different things, partnerings, uneven feet. I disagree. I tell her I think they belong together. They are sole mates. She thinks my little pun is very cute. She steals them anyway.

She is not alone. I have noticed a parallel. My sister`s husband, a wonderful guy who is of noble character and generous heart whom I love dearly, he steals my sister`s socks. He does. By the drawerful.

Not the little socklettes, but her bigger socks, tube socks and sports socks and even woman-sized dress socks and the like. Steals them and wears them and never tells her and they, too, vanish into the ether, and it drives her nuts and he just laughs, shrugs. What`s the big deal? he asks. Let the socks roam free.

When we gather for functions, when my sister and I get together, questions regarding the sock phenomenon invariably are raised. My brother-in-law and my lovely S.O., they merely pass each other knowing glances, wry grins. They are in on something. They have a secret. They have true sock consciousness. This is the way it is.

So then. I am attempting revenge. I am working my own consciousness raising. I have, of course, begun to steal her thong underwear. Fun for a little while, but I gotta admit, the buzz tends to wear off rather quickly. Man, they do they ever ride up.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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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.

©2003 SF Gate

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The Cartoon Graveyard
Just the Cartoons Without the Commentary
Heute am 1.Tag der neuen Zeitrechnung und in Gedenken an die Verlorengegangenen, besonders wenn es nicht freiwillig geschah, trotzdem 121 neue Cartoons.


http://www.flu-ent.com/graveyard/20030925__121toons.htm

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http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-levi26sep26,1,320667.s…


Levi, an American Icon, to Shut Last Plants in U.S.
By Leslie Earnest
Times Staff Writer

September 26, 2003

Levi Strauss & Co., maker of a jeans brand so all-American that it became ingrained in the nation`s identity, said Thursday that it would close the last of its North American manufacturing plants, laying off almost 2,000 workers.

San Francisco-based Levi, which is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, said it would shutter two plants in San Antonio by the end of the year, displacing 800 workers there and marking the end of its U.S. manufacturing operations. The clothing firm will discontinue its Canadian operations in March, erasing 1,190 jobs at three plants in Alberta and Ontario.

The venerable company has been shifting its production overseas during the last two decades, and today uses about 500 contractors to produce its apparel in 50 countries, including Mexico, China and Bangladesh. Still, switching off the lights at its remaining U.S. factories symbolizes the struggle of an industry that has been battered by the forces of globalization.

Levi`s announcement heaps more pressure on the Bush administration and Congress to do something to help U.S. textile and apparel manufacturers, which say they have lost 2.5 million domestic jobs in recent years.

On Thursday, several manufacturers and labor leaders announced the formation of a group called the Free Trade for America Coalition to lobby for changes in trade policy. That followed the bankruptcy filing Wednesday by Cone Mills Corp. of Greensboro, N.C., the largest U.S. denim-fabric maker.

"There`s a lot of saber rattling going on right now on trade," said Kevin Burke, president of the American Apparel and Footwear Assn., an industry trade group. "Politicians have to answer to constituents who are wondering where the jobs are going."

Last year, 96% of the apparel purchased in the U.S. was made in other countries, up from 93% in 2001, according to Burke`s group. Through June of this year, U.S. apparel imports increased 17%, with much of the clothing coming from Mexico, Central America and China.

The shrinking base of U.S. apparel factory jobs is apparent in Southern California. Clothing makers, which in 1996 employed nearly 104,000 workers in Los Angeles County, accounted for 64,000 jobs as of July.

Levi, for most of its long history, has stood apart from other apparel makers because few, if any, brands have been as linked to the American landscape. Levi`s has been a symbol of a boundless American spirit since prospectors rushed into California 150 years ago and discovered not only gold but also newfangled work pants reinforced with copper rivets.

"As the miners went into the Sierra Nevada to pan for gold, Levi stood the test," said Peter Sealey, adjunct professor of marketing at UC Berkeley and former marketing head of Coca-Cola Co. "That was what created the whole image and history of the company."

The company also became synonymous with ethical business practices. In the 1950s, Levi stood apart from other factory owners when it integrated the workforce at its Virginia plant, refusing to create separate work spaces or accommodations for black employees, despite protests from the local white establishment.

When the privately held jeans maker started to manufacture some of its products overseas, it established strict anti-sweatshop guidelines with its contractors, which the company says it continues to enforce.

Closing down its remaining factories is the end of a long process for the parent of the Levi`s and Dockers brands. In 1996 Levi hit an all-time record of $7.1 billion in sales and employed 37,000 employees worldwide. But since then, the company has seen its business slide.

Over the last seven years, Levi has closed dozens of plants in North America and Europe and slashed thousands of jobs as it struggled to reorganize. Just two weeks ago, the company said it was laying off 350 U.S. workers, mostly at its headquarters.

"We`re in a highly competitive industry where few apparel brands own and operate manufacturing facilities in North America," Chief Executive Phil Marineau said. "In fact, we are one of the last companies to do so."

The jobs lost at Levi plants in North America are likely to shift to Latin America and Asia, the company said. Levi is simply adapting to a reality that many other U.S. apparel makers have had to face, said Burke of the apparel trade group.

"What you`re seeing with Levi is just the economic reality of our industry," Burke said. "American consumers, when shopping for these products look at price and quality, and they don`t necessarily look to where the product is made."

To many consumers, Levi has been a symbol of "confidence, sex, youth, rebellion, freedom, originality and authenticity," said Alex Wipperfuth, partner at Plan B, a San Francisco marketing firm.

"Those are the dimensions of Americana, according to Levi," he said. "I think the key issue is, will any of those fall away once people realize Levi is not produced in the U.S. anymore?"

The company, though it expressed concern about the jobs lost, said the final plant closures were just a continuation of Levi`s shift in direction that began in the late 1990s, when the company decided to transform itself from a domestic manufacturer into a company focused on product design, sales and marketing. The San Antonio plant was producing less than 5% of the product needed for the U.S. market, company spokeswoman Linda Butler said.

"It`s a painful business decision that is made, but it`s made to be competitive and ensure the long-term success for the company," Butler said. "We are and have been for years a global company with a long history and deep American roots. And we still do. We still employ many people in the U.S." Currently, Levi has more than 5,000 workers in the U.S..

Levi has struggled for years to reverse a sales slide that began when the company`s jeans lost favor among fashion-conscious younger shoppers, who buy most of the denim sold. Ultimately, the company found its products sandwiched between lower-cost alternatives sold by Sears, Roebuck & Co. and J.C. Penney Co. and high-priced options from trend-setting designers such as Tommy Hilfiger Corp. and Calvin Klein. Even more expensive choices sprang up, including brands such as Diesel and Seven that sell for more than $100.

The problem intensified as mass merchandisers, such as Target Corp. and Wal-Mart Stores Inc., began grabbing a huge chunk of the jeans market.

Levi struck back this summer, when it began selling a lower-priced Levi Strauss Signature brand in Wal-Mart stores. Today, Levi sells jeans ranging in price from $20 to $220 and still remains one of the top jeans brands among American youth.

Although the company has continued to struggle with intense competition and downward pressure on prices, it recently said it expected improved sales and profit for its fiscal third quarter, which ended Aug. 24.

Still, Levi, which is controlled by the family of founder Levi Strauss, is weighed down by $2.37 billion in debt and faces an Internal Revenue Service probe of some tax issues.

. Levi`s American roots have been an important part of its marketing in the past, said Stephen Walker, president of Headmint Inc., a New York marketing firm. Walker, formerly with the London-based advertising agency Bartle Bogle & Hegarty, helped plan Levi`s European marketing campaign in the mid-to-late 1980s, when the brand was flagging there. He worked on the brand for four or five years, creating ads that capitalized on Levi`s image as an American icon.

The same agency is now creating similar ads for Levi in the U.S., he said.

"They`re using advertising and marketing to perpetuate the myth that they`re buying this authentic, classic American piece of clothing," Walker said. "Ultimately, the question probably will become, `How much does the consumer care that the reality and the image are no longer aligned in any way?` "


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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




To Hear France Tell It, Chirac Scored a KO at the U.N.
The media and experts say their president rallied world opinion on Iraq, isolating Bush.
By Sebastian Rotella
Times Staff Writer

September 26, 2003

PARIS — The aftermath of the latest clash between French President Jacques Chirac and President Bush over Iraq highlights a peculiarity of diplomatic combat: Unlike a boxing match, there are no judges to prevent both sides from declaring victory.

Assessing the debate and the diplomatic footwork at the U.N. General Assembly this week, French leaders and pundits said Thursday that those who pronounced Bush the winner in New York must have been watching a different fight.

And Chirac and his partisans scoffed at assertions by U.S. diplomats that a smiley makeup session Wednesday between Bush and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder had wounded the antiwar alliance that stood against the U.S. in the Security Council this spring.

The French view was that Chirac had hit Bush with a skillful one-two punch at the United Nations: first bringing down the house with a speech denouncing the war, then rallying Germany and Russia behind Chirac`s call for a quick return to Iraqi self-rule and U.N.-led reconstruction.

"So words can overcome muscle!" enthused an editorial in Le Figaro newspaper Thursday. "Suddenly, it`s Bush who is alone while Chirac can count on a large circle of sympathizers."

Those fighting words don`t mean that another dust-up at the U.N. is inevitable. French diplomats insist that, unlike in the spring, they will not threaten a veto to block a U.S. resolution spelling out the international community`s role in Iraq. U.S. officials take the French at their word. An eventual compromise appears more likely this time around.

But Chirac does not look cowed by U.S. efforts to isolate France diplomatically. Bush`s increasing woes — attacks on U.S. forces and their Iraqi allies, no sign of Saddam Hussein`s reputed lethal arsenal, anger in Congress — have reinforced the French conviction that the opposition to the war was justified and that France can spearhead postwar resistance to perceived U.S. unilateralism.

Moreover, the French weren`t the only ones to notice that Chirac got a lot more applause at the U.N. than did Bush, whose speech Tuesday struck European critics as surprisingly defiant.

A French former diplomat said Chirac may have responded by toughening up his prepared text to include pointed criticism of the Bush administration`s treatment of the U.N. and its decision to go to war without the support of the Security Council.

"The intention beforehand was not for Chirac to talk about the war," said Guillaume Parmentier, director of the French Institute of International Relations here. "But he did. I don`t think Bush could have given less in his speech. Essentially, he said, `You have to help us and we can`t give you much.` The situation is not easy for France. But I don`t see many countries coming to the rescue of the United States in Iraq today."

Schroeder certainly seemed to be in a helpful mood Wednesday when the German chancellor and Bush announced that their war-related feud was over. Yet the French interpret the conciliatory move as only a gesture by a leader whose voters, according to recent polls, have soured on Washington and see Paris as a valued partner in Europe.

"My understanding of the German position is it`s very close to the French position," Parmentier said. "They want a fast transition to Iraqi sovereignty under the aegis of the U.N."

Chirac`s feistiness over the war may have soured U.S.-French relations, but it continues to win points around the world and at home. Le Figaro said that his use "of the invisible weapons of the soft power" of diplomacy at the U.N. made him a worthy heir of Gen. Charles de Gaulle, whose foreign policy often collided with U.S. ambitions.

"As in the era of the general, France, despite its small army and big deficits, offers a counter-model," the editorial said.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/asection/la-na-chen… a d v e r t i s e m e n t




New Halliburton Flap Dogs Cheney
A Democratic senator says a congressional report belies the vice president`s insistence he has no financial ties to the energy giant.
By Richard Simon
Times Staff Writer

September 26, 2003

WASHINGTON — A report by the Congressional Research Service has renewed the controversy over Vice President Dick Cheney`s links to Halliburton Co., the energy company he once led and that has received federal money to help rebuild Iraq.

Halliburton has said it did not benefit from connections to Cheney in its dealings with the government, including a controversial no-bid contract it won for postwar reconstruction in Iraq. Democrats say the contract has cost U.S. taxpayers $1.25 billion.

Cheney said this month on NBC`s "Meet the Press" that he severed all ties with Halliburton since leaving the company, and that he has "no financial interest in Halliburton of any kind."

But Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg (D-N.J.) on Thursday said the new Congressional Research Service report "makes clear" that deferred compensation Cheney received from Halliburton, as well as stock options he holds, constitute a "financial interest" in the giant Texas oil services firm.

Without naming Cheney or Halliburton, the report from Congress` research arm said that unexercised stock options and deferred salary are "among those benefits described by the Office of Government Ethics as `retained ties` or `linkages` to one`s former employer "

Lautenberg had requested the report.

Cheney`s office said Thursday that the vice president did not stand to benefit financially from Halliburton`s dealings with the government.

"The vice president does not receive any benefit if Halliburton stock rises or falls or if the company succeeds or goes bankrupt," said Cheney spokeswoman Cathie Martin.

"It`s politics," she added, "and frankly, they are irresponsible, baseless charges."

Martin said Cheney bought an insurance policy that guaranteed his deferred compensation, regardless of how Halliburton performed.

In addition, the vice president "irrevocably" assigned future profits from the sale of his stock options to charities, Martin said.

According to his financial disclosure filings, Cheney reported $205,298 in deferred salary payments from Halliburton in 2001 and $162,392 in 2002. In addition, he reported holding 433,333 in unexercised Halliburton stock options.

Cheney was Halliburton`s chief executive for five years until he resigned in August 2000 to be George W. Bush`s running mate.

Cheney said on "Meet the Press" that he has had "absolutely no influence" in the awarding of any government contracts to Halliburton.

Lautenberg has called on the Senate Governmental Affairs Committee to hold hearings on Halliburton`s no-bid contract.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-truth26…
EDITORIAL



The Daily Flip-Flop on Iraq
The White House should shift once more -- to candor on troops and weapons.

September 26, 2003

The Bush administration is not at risk of damaging its credibility in Iraq; it`s in danger of destroying it. The latest developments on U.S. troop deployments and still-undiscovered Iraqi weapons of mass destruction suggest that the administration either is in total disarray or it actively seeks to mislead the public.

For months, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld stoutly denied that more troops were needed in Iraq, even with U.S. soldiers being killed each day. In a trip to Iraq in early September, he brushed off the idea of more U.S. troop deployments and said of security woes: "It`s a problem that, ultimately, the Iraqi people will deal with, with the help of coalition troops." Electric service was so good, he added, that at night Baghdad looked "like Chicago." But power supplies across Iraq remain fitful.

Now that President Bush has failed to win a promise of new international forces, especially soldiers from India or Pakistan, Iraq continues to deteriorate. Indeed, Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate on Wednesday that the U.S. may need to activate more National Guard and reserve forces if 15,000 to 20,000 foreign troops can`t be mustered soon. Making matters worse, Secretary-General Kofi Annan is pulling back more United Nations personnel from Iraq because of security concerns.

If the administration has been indifferent to the difficulties the regular military deployments have caused, much less the hardship of National Guard and reserve families, it`s been dumbfounding on Iraq`s deadly weapons. Bush officials have urged patience in uncovering them and looked to a forthcoming report from David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey Group and a former U.N. inspector. On Sept. 14, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said, "Dr. Kay will be putting out a report in the very near future, and I look forward to seeing it, as everyone else does." White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Kay had been "compiling massive amounts of documents about Iraq`s history of weapons of mass destruction"

On Monday, however, national security advisor Condoleezza Rice abruptly stated, "I would not count on reports" from Kay. "I suppose there may be interim reports," she said. "I don`t know when those will be, and I don`t know what the public nature of them will be." Why the reversal? Kay reportedly hadn`t found incontrovertible evidence that the Iraqis had active banned-weapons programs. Still, this is no reason for the administration to suppress his work.

Though Bush officials` Iraq pronouncements may shift as quickly as the weather, there`s no escaping that the president told Americans the U.S. had to go to war because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and would use them, imminently. If those weapons don`t exist, the public deserves to see the report saying so. The shame wouldn`t be in dealing with this uncomfortable truth but in denying it and trying to cover it up. With the stakes so high and growing daily, Bush officials have no choice but to shift once more and offer what has been woefully lacking on Iraq: clarity and candor.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-karnow2…
COMMENTARY



Vietnam`s Shadow Lies Across Iraq
By Stanley Karnow
Stanley Karnow covered Vietnam from 1959 to 1975. He is the author of "Vietnam: A History" (Viking, 1983) and a winner of the Pulitzer Prize in history. His most recent book was "Paris in the Fifties"

September 26, 2003

"By God, we`ve kicked the Vietnam syndrome," President George H.W. Bush crowed after his swift triumph in the Gulf War in 1991. His effusive proclamation was meant to suggest that the U.S. public had finally shaken off the memory of the humiliating disaster in the Far East and would henceforth underwrite fresh engagements overseas, without guilt or anxiety.

But he was mistaken. His optimism notwithstanding, Americans remained haunted by the specter of a defeat in some distant realm, and their uneasiness continued as President George W. Bush made his plans to invade Iraq. The younger Bush excoriated pundits who cautioned that we faced a catastrophe there, and at first he seemed to have been proved correct, as Americans witnessed the amazing speed with which our battalions drove into Baghdad. But it has since become apparent that Iraq, if not exactly "another Vietnam," could degenerate into an equally calamitous debacle.

The experiences in Southeast Asia and the Iraq conflict have many differences but are analogous in some respects. As they oozed into the region, Presidents Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy and Johnson each justified his commitment by expounding the "domino theory," the concept that Moscow and Beijing had chosen Vietnam as the key arena in which to pursue their grandiose scheme for world domination. Johnson averred that unless we held the line there, we would be compelled to fight the Communist hordes "on the beaches of Waikiki."

Similarly, Bush — permeated with evangelical fervor — has portrayed himself as a crusader and Saddam Hussein as the evil genius behind international terrorism whose influence reached from Indonesia to Algeria, and further insisted that Hussein was close to possessing a nuclear arsenal. But just as his precursors in the White House failed to prove their case that Vietnam was indispensable to U.S. security, Bush has produced no solid evidence to back his allegations.

We deployed a panoply of sophisticated weaponry in Vietnam — supersonic aircraft, high-tech artillery, napalm and devices that could detect a quivering leaf in the jungle. Yet we were unable to ferret the Viet Cong guerrillas out of their concealed village sanctuaries, and eventually we became frustrated, even paralyzed. In Iraq, our overwhelmingly superior firepower quickly crushed Hussein`s legions, but now we are becoming bogged down as we endeavor to eliminate fedayeen and suicide bombers prepared to sacrifice themselves in a jihad against diabolical infidels seeking to eradicate Islam.

We were bewildered in Vietnam by our inability to distinguish between our friends and foes, both of whom looked like innocent peasants and fishermen. In Iraq, too, it is hard to separate allies from enemies. Our efforts to reconstruct Iraq`s shattered institutions have deteriorated into a nightmare as the nation`s profusion of rival political and religious factions compete to promote their sundry programs, thwarting attempts by our troops to impose law and order.

Perhaps the most striking similarity is this: Those of us who covered Vietnam were regularly inundated by civilian and military bureaucrats with piles of glowing details, charts and statistics devised to show progress. We spoofed their daily briefings in Saigon as the "Five O`Clock Follies" and learned from accompanying U.S. soldiers into battle that they were either distorting the truth or blatantly lying.

Today, as I listen to Bush and his spokesmen deliver euphoric accounts of the headway being made in Iraq, they remind me of the bulletins from Vietnam that reassured us that "victory is just around the corner" and that "we see the light at the end of the tunnel." As the war escalated in Vietnam, members of Congress privately began to oppose what increasingly seemed to be a futile enterprise. But they never failed to vote funds for the venture on the grounds that "we can`t let down our boys." For the same reason, they will grant Bush the $87 billion he has requested.

Former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, one of the prime architects of our involvement in Vietnam, confessed in a lachrymose book published in 1995 that "we were terribly wrong" — cold comfort for the families of the nearly 60,000 Americans and more than 1 million Vietnamese who lost their sons and daughters in the conflagration. If our casualties mount in Iraq, we may ultimately hear a similarly emotional mea culpa from a Bush administration official, perhaps even Donald Rumsfeld.
Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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Thursday, September 25, 2003, 12:00 A.M. Pacific

Permission to reprint or copy this article/photo must be obtained from The Seattle Times. Call 206-464-3113 or e-mail [e-mail] with your request.

A fly on the Oval Office wall

By Chuck Sigars
Special to The Times


KARL Rove walks into the Oval Office.

"Good morning, Mr. President."

"Hey, Karly boy, what`s shakin` besides you?"

Rove laughs politely. "The thing is, sir, I`ve been looking at some... uh, Mr. President?"

"Shoot, Rover. Let me have it."

"Sir, you`re wearing the flight suit again."

"Glad to see you still got that 20/20, KV. You gotta problem with my wardrobe?"

"Uh, no, sir, it`s just that — "

"I`m commander in chief, right?"

"Yes, sir, but — "

"I flew jets in the Air Force, didn`t I?"

"Um, Air National Guard, yes, sir, not to nit — "

"I can wear whatever I want, can`t I?"

"Of course, Mr. President, it`s just that it`s the fourth time this week, and — "

The president snaps his fingers. "Dang it, Karlito, don`t knock it until you`ve tried it. Most comfortable clothes I`ve ever had. Thinking of ordering one for Jeb."

Rove sighs. "Anyway, sir, it`s about the campaign."

"Is that today?"

"No, sir, I mean the 2004 campaign. Wesley Clark has just entered the race, and it`s got me a little worried."

"I thought it was that Jimmy Dean guy from New Hampshire you were fretting about."

"Howard Dean, yes, sir, he`s still ahead in the polls, but our internal numbers show that Clark outpolls everybody on the credibility question."

The president raises an eyebrow. "Even me?"

"We haven`t run those numbers yet, but let me say, sir, that the American people find you very credible. Very credible indeed. It`s just that Clark is sort of impressive. Rhodes scholar, first in his class at West Point — "

"What the hell did he go to West Point for?"

Rove clears his throat. "To, uh, be a soldier, Mr. President. Wesley Clark is a retired Army general."

"You telling me a general in the United States Army is a Democrat?"

"It surprised us, too, sir."

"Boy howdy." The president is silent for a few moments. "What kind of record does he have?"

"Well, sir, he was commander of our forces in Kosovo. And he was a commentator at CNN during the war."

"Iraq?" Rove nods. "For or agin?"

"Well, sir, he did raise some questions — "

"Dang, Karly, what are you worried about, son? Don`t you know the American people were behind my war 110 percent? Haven`t I fixed the economy and given the people their money back? Didn`t I wipe the Taliban and Saddam off the face of the Earth and get revenge for 9-11? Lord, you need to relax."

"Um, those are all good points, sir, very good. It`s just that the American public generally views Republicans as more trustworthy than Democrats when it comes to national security and military issues."

"Damn straight. What`s your point?"

"Well, sir, it`s early yet, but it might be a hard case to make that a four-star general is soft on defense. At least that`s our thinking."

The president sits up straight. "Listen, Karlsbad. How many elections have I lost, huh? Answer me. How many elections have I lost?"

"Well, sir, if you count — "

"Presidential elections, Rover! How many dang presidential elections have I lost?"

Karl takes a deep breath. "Well, sir, in my opinion, none."

"Damn straight. I beat Clinton and I`ll whup this Army dude or John Dean or whoever." The president stands up and walks to the window. "Karlos, the Lord led me here. You believe that, right?"

"Sir — "

"He`s got his hand on my shoulder and a job for me to do. I have faith, K-man, faith with a capital `F,` and you know I don`t use the F-word lightly."

"No, sir."

He goes over and puts his arm around Rove. "What kind of name is Wesley, anyway? That sound like a presidential name to you? Sounds sort of like a sissy. Trust me, we know how to deal with sissies in Texas. Now y`all go crunch some numbers or whatever the hell you do and leave it to me, hear?"

Rove swallows hard, nods, and heads for the door. As he leaves, Donald Rumsfeld enters.

"Good morning, Mr. President."

"Rummy! How`s the world?"

"Right on schedule, sir. By the way, great suit."

"Damn straight."


Chuck Sigars is a freelance writer living in Snohomish County. He can be reached at [e-mail].


http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2001744263_chu…

Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company

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Bomb Destroys The Media`s Illusions

By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

26 September 2003: (The Independent. UK) Arasat is a quiet, uneventful suburb of Baghdad, a place of good restaurants serving moderate Lebanese wine, middle class and educated and absolutely unassociated with violence. So the bomb which stopped the clock of the Christian family across the road from the Aike Hotel - it showed 6.51am - also exploded many illusions. The American NBC television network was based in the pseudo-Greek apartment block, there was only one night-watchman and the reporters felt secure far from the American tanks and armoured personnel carriers that guard the Palestine Hotel and the other targets of opportunity in Baghdad.

In bed yesterday morning, I heard the blast - a very minute increase in air pressure - that took the life of the Somali doorman at the Aike, and by the time I got there, it was the usual blood and bits of metal, the watch timer - found by a journalist - and possibly the battery for the bomb - found by The Independent on the roof of a villa opposite - that was left. A little bomb, left behind the hotel`s generator, in the hope, no doubt, that it would ignite enough fuel to bring down the wretched place. In the event, of course, the dead Somali - remember Black Hawk Down? - played only a bit part in the drama.

The world was told that a Baghdad hotel had been targeted, that staff of an American television network were the intended victims and that there had been "one" Somali dead. He had no name. No one knew his name. But they did know the name of David Moodie, the NBC soundman who received a nasty piece of broken glass in his arm.

"Americans targeted in Baghdad hotel bomb" was on the news wires. Which was, of course, exactly what the nasty little bomber wanted.

You can see how his master`s mind worked. One, attack the Americans. Two, go for a hotel. Three, be sure that it would receive more publicity than the killing of an innocent Iraqi bus passenger.

Lt-Col Peter Jones of "Task Force 1-6" told us it was an "improvised explosive device" and, long after he had left, the FBI and its heavily armed escorts arrived in two 4-by-4s, one of them speaking in a cockney accent, to assess the crime. Too late for the timing mechanism, they did not even spot the clock in the villa opposite and that, I suppose, is the problem when you have to get your "security" escort and arm yourself and find the location long after the attack has taken place. Certainly too late to understand the effect on the Christian family across the road. They stood, professional people - the husband is the Daimler agent in Baghdad - asking who would pay for their broken windows and blasted doors and shredded sofas upon which they were sleeping when the bomb exploded. "At least before all this, I could drink tea on the lawn outside my house," the man said. So what can the Iraqis do? Nothing. What can the Western journalists do? Remain discrete, in undefended hotels like the Aike? Or cluster like rodents around the Palestine Hotel, which is defended by an army of Iraqi policemen and US troops? Arasat was safe - at least, until the NBC lads turned up to live there, along with their "stand-upper" dish and floodlights on the roof.

Many Western journalists in Baghdad were reassessing their safety last night. Was the bomb a warning? Or just a propaganda explosion with a single, poor Somali as the real victim? Needless to say, more attention was paid in Baghdad yesterday afternoon to the death of Aqila al-Hashimi, the ex-Baathist member of the US-appointed Interim Council who was shot and gravely wounded in an assassination attempt on Saturday.

Ambushed with great precision - the road outside her home was blocked by gunmen`s cars as she left - Mrs Hashimi had been operated on for bullet wounds to her abdomen in the Kindi Hospital and then taken to an American medical facility outside the capital. Initially, the former foreign ministry official under Saddam Hussein was reported as being "out of danger". Yesterday, she died from her wounds, the first member of America`s Iraqi "government" to be murdered

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp?story=447…

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AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL
PRESS RELEASE


AI Index: MDE 14/170/2003
News Service No: 222
25 September 2003

Iraq: The rights of Iraqi people must not be sidelined on the altar of political agendas.
While Iraq is the focus of world attention at the UN General Assembly meeting in New York the Iraqi population continues to live in a state of utter insecurity with mounting casualties among the civilian population.
"World leaders gathering in New York must urgently address the continuing spiralling violence in Iraq. Human rights protection must not be sidelined because of disagreements over the political arrangements in Iraq," Amnesty International stressed.

"Whatever the outcome of the ongoing debate on the future of Iraq, the aspirations of the Iraqi people to security, justice and dignity must remain a top priority. Failing to urgently address these legitimate aspirations amounts to a betrayal of all Iraqis."

Five months have now elapsed since the end of the major military operations, but no one feels safe in Iraq now and not a day goes by without more civilians being killed or injured by US soldiers or by armed groups amidst total impunity.

"What is most shocking is that there is no evidence of serious commitment to carry out independent, thorough and impartial investigations into these cases," said Amnesty International.

" US forces are facing direct attacks and a serious law and order emergency, but that can not be justification for a virtual licence to kill."

The organization raised its concerns on human rights violations in Iraq, including civilian deaths, in the report Memorandum on concerns relating to law and order and during meetings with Coalition Provisional Authority ( CPA) officials in July in Baghdad. Among the concerns raised by the organization , continuing use of excessive force by US soldiers, arbitrary arrests, ill-treatment in detention centres, and impunity for past and current human rights violations.

"It is unacceptable that the Coalition forces appear to continue to use excessive force on a wide-scale resulting in civilian deaths. The Iraqi people deserve security and peace not more bloodshed, " said Amnesty International.

Amnesty International calls again on the CPA to ensure that proper mechanisms are in place to carry out competent, impartial and independent investigations into allegations of violations of international human rights and humanitarian law by Coalition forces. Moreover, the outcome of any investigation must be made public and those found responsible brought to justice. The victims or their families must receive full reparation, including compensation.

Background

*On 24 September one Iraqi was killed and 21 injured in a roadside bomb which hit a commuter bus in central Baghdad. The target was reportedly a US military convoy that had passed through minutes earlier.

*`Aqila al-Hashimi, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, was shot and seriously wounded when her car came under fire on 20 September. She died on 25 September. Her body-guards were also wounded.

*On 22 September a suicide car bomber blew himself up near the UN headquarters in Baghdad, killing himself, an Iraqi security guard and injuring 19 people.

* On 23 September early in the morning, three farmers, `Ali Khalaf, Sa`adi Faqri and Salem Khalil were killed and three others injured when US troops opened a barrage of gunfire reportedly lasting for at least an hour in the village of al-Jisr near Fallujah. A US military official stated that the troops came under attack but this was vehemently denied by relatives of the dead who said that they did not have any weapons. Later during the day, US military officials reportedly went to the farmhouse, took photographs and apologized to the family.

* On 23 September a US military official commenting on the killing by a US soldier of Reuters television cameraman, Mazen Dana, stated that "Although this is a regrettable incident, the investigation has concluded U.S. forces personnel acted in accordance with the rules of engagement." He said the U.S. military was not publicly releasing the report of the investigation and refused to give any other details of the findings. Mazen Dana, an award winning cameraman, was killed by a US soldier on a tank on 17 August 2003 near Abu Ghraib prison. He was video-filming the prison. The soldier allegedly mistook the video camera for a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

*On 18 September, Sa`ad Muhammad Sultan, a 35-year-old interpreter and father of two children, was killed with a single shot through the heart when a US soldier fired at the car in which he was travelling between Tikrit and Mosul. Sa`ad was accompanying Italian diplomat Pietro Cordone, cultural adviser to the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA). Their car was shot at from a US military vehicle travelling in the same direction – the soldier who fired apparently did not want to be overtaken. Asked about US soldiers` reaction Mr Cordone commented " ...they continued driving as if nothing had happened..".

*On 17 September a 14-year-old boy was killed and six people were injured when US troops opened fire at a wedding party in Fallujah. The soldiers reportedly believed they were under attack when shots were fired in the air in celebration.

*In the same town, on 12 September, a four-year-old boy, a seven-year-old girl and a man were said to have been injured when US troops reportedly fired at a crowd of people after a US military convoy had ran over two mines.

*Early in September, Farah Fadhil, an 18-year-old girl and high school student, was killed in the town of Mahmudiya when US soldiers raided her family`s apartment at 12.30am. As they kicked the apartment door without warning her younger brother reportedly took a gun and started firing, thinking that thieves had attacked the building. The soldiers responded by overwhelming fire: firing and throwing grenades at the apartment. Outside the apartment block an unarmed man, Marwan, was shot dead as he went out to look for his brother. One eye witness told a journalist of the Observer newspaper "…I looked over the roof and saw a line of soldiers on the path firing weapons wildly towards the building as a helicopter arrived above us." Following the incident, the Observer journalist who attempted to seek clarification from military officials was told that no record of the incident could be located.

http://www.amnestyusa.org/countries/iraq/document.do?id=8025…

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Grenade Attack Kills U.S. Soldier in Iraq
By SAMEER N. YACOUB
The Associated Press
Friday, September 26, 2003; 2:44 PM
BAQOUBA, Iraq - Attackers ambushed a U.S. military vehicle with a rocket-propelled grenade in the northern city of Kirkuk, killing a soldier and wounding two others, officials said Friday. More U.N. employees left Iraq, a day after Secretary-General Kofi Annan slashed the already diminished foreign staff.
In the holy city of Najaf, mourners buried Aquila al-Hashimi, the first member of Iraq`s U.S.-appointed Governing Council to be killed in violence that still rattles the country after more than five months of American occupation.
In Baqouba, a Sunni Muslim city 30 miles north of Baghdad, a mortar shell that exploded in a market Thursday night may have been intended for Americans stationed nearby, a U.S. commander said Friday.
Police Gen. Waleed Khalid put the death toll at nine civilians with 15 wounded. U.S. officials said the wounded numbered 18.
The police official called the attack a "criminal act aimed at hurting Iraqi civilians."
But Col. William Adamson, commander of the 2nd Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division, said he thought the attackers were trying to hit an American base about 300 yards south of the market.
"It appears that this was an Iraqi action that was more than likely directed at our civil-military operations center," Adamson said. "Mortar attacks on our compound are quite frequent."
About 20 U.S. soldiers were at the blast site Friday, providing security and assisting Iraqi police in the investigation.
The U.S. military said one soldier from the 173rd Airborne Brigade was killed and two were wounded in the ambush at Kirkuk, 145 miles northeast of Baghdad, when a rocket-propelled grenade was fired at their vehicle at about 11 p.m. Thursday.
The death raised to 86 the number of U.S. soldiers killed in combat since May 1, when President Bush declared an end to major fighting in Iraq. The military also announced that a soldier from the 4th Infantry Division died and another was injured in a fire Thursday night in an abandoned building in the Tikrit area.
Funeral services for al-Hashimi began Friday with a brief, somber ceremony at the Governing Council headquarters in Baghdad, attended by council members, officials from the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority, diplomats and Iraqi police.
"Aquila, as we all knew her, in her modesty, in her courage, in her creative imagination, in her understanding of the human spirit, in her love of liberty and justice, and in passionate commitment to her family and to her people, represented the full and free potential of the true Iraq," Jeremy Greenstock, British Prime Minister Tony Blair`s envoy to Iraq, said in an eulogy.
After a reception by an Iraqi police honor guard, the casket holding the body was carried into the building by al-Hashimi`s family members, some of them weeping and chanting "Allahu Akbar," or God is great.
The casket was placed in the middle of the hall, surrounded by wreaths as verses from Islam`s holy book the Quran were recited.
Her coffin was then transported to al-Hashimi`s west Baghdad home briefly before being taken on a white pickup truck to Najaf, the holiest Shiite Muslim city in Iraq and al-Hashimi`s birthplace. She was buried there in what is said to be the biggest cemetery in the world.
In Amman, Jordan, a charter plane arrived from Baghdad on Friday carrying U.N. staff, according to a U.N. official in Jordan who spoke on condition of anonymity. The official would not say how many people were aboard. When Annan issued the order Thursday to remove about half of the foreign U.N. workers, there were 42 foreign staffers in Baghdad and 44 in the north of the country.
The cuts in international U.N. staff come as the Bush administration is negotiating a new U.N. resolution seeking to entice more international involvement, including military peacekeepers, to help with the pacification and rebuilding of the country. As part of the plan, Secretary of State Colin Powell said in interviews Thursday that the United States would give Iraqi leaders six months to write a new constitution, opening the way for elections and self-rule.
U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said in New York that the world body`s humanitarian programs would continue with limited international supervision over the 4,233 Iraqis working for the United Nations.
The U.N. headquarters at the Canal Hotel in Baghdad has been attacked twice with bombs.
The first, on Aug. 19, killed 22 people. At that time, there were about 300 international staff in Baghdad and 300 elsewhere in Iraq. The second bomb, earlier this week, killed an Iraqi policeman and wounded 19 other people, mainly local police.
© 2003 The Associated Press


Summary
US UK Other* Total Avg Days
309 51 2 362 1.91 190

Latest Military Fatality Date: 9/25/2003
09/26/03 Department of Defense
DOD announces the death of a third U.S. soldier on Sept. 25th ... an Army National Guardman struck by a forklift at Shuabai Port, Kuwait.
09/26/03 Centcom: 1 soldier killed and 2 wounded
One 173rd Airborne Brigade soldier was killed and two were wounded in a rocket-propelled grenade attack against their military vehicle in Kirkuk at approximately 11 p.m. on Sep. 25.
09/26/03 Centcom:1 soldier died and 1 was injured
One 4th Infantry Division soldier died and one was injured in a fire in an abandoned building in the Tikrit area at approximately 7:15 p.m. on Sep. 25.
09/25/03 BBC: UK soldier dies in Iraq
A 32-year-old British soldier has died in a firearm incident in Iraq.
09/25/03 MSNBC: 8 U.S. soldiers hurt in north Iraq attack
Eight U.S. soldiers were wounded and their vehicle destroyed when their convoy was attacked in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Thursday
09/25/03 Centcom: Soldier dies in vehicle accident
One 220th Military Police Brigade soldier died and two were injured in a military vehicle accident in Balad; 3:30 p.m. on Sep. 24.
09/24/03 BBC: Blast hits Iraqi cinema in Mosul
An explosion has ripped through a cinema in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, killing two people and injuring up to 20 others.
09/24/03 Reuters: U.S. troops kill nine Iraqi rebels
U.S. troops have killed nine Iraqi guerrillas, the biggest toll for more than a month, in scattered action over northern Iraq in the past 24 hours, a military spokesman says
09/24/03 ABCNews:Bomb Misses U.S. Patrol, Kills Iraqi
A homemade bomb exploded Wednesday along a road in the Iraqi capital, missing a U.S. military patrol but killing at least one Iraqi and injuring 18 others as it destroyed two civilian buses, police and hospital officials said.
09/24/03 Department of Defense
Identifies Army Casualties for Sept. 18 and Sept. 20
09/23/03 Centcom: Soldier dies from non-hostile gunshot
BAGHDAD, Iraq – A 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault) soldier died from a non-hostile gunshot wound in an area south of Mosul on Sept. 22.

[Joerver]

Published on Friday, September 26, 2003 by OneWorld.net
Congress Defunds Controversial `Total Information` Program
by Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - Privacy and civil-rights groups have hailed Congress` decision to effectively kill a controversial Pentagon program to construct a powerful computerized surveillance system that critics feared would lead to unprecedented spying into the private lives of U.S. citizens.

The program, whose name was changed from "Total Information Awareness" to "Terrorist Information Awareness after an initial outcry late last year, was the brainchild of ret. Admiral John Poindexter, former President Ronald Reagan`s national security adviser who was convicted of five felony counts of lying to Congress about the Iran-Contra affair in the mid-1980s.



I`ve always said I believe that you can fight terrorism vigorously without cannibalizing civil liberties, and TIA did not meet that test. Time and time again, the Defense Department sought to cross the line on privacy and civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism. The appropriators have wisely chosen to end this program.

Sen. Ron Wyden, who led the fight against TIA
In a bid to save the program, Poindexter resigned his position in the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) last month, but a conference committee of House and Senate members agreed to delete funding for TIA when it met earlier this week to finish reconciling the two houses` versions of the 2004 defense appropriations bill. The conference committee said it was "concerned about the activities of the Information Awareness Office (that had been headed by Poindexter) and directed that the office be terminated immediately." The final bill also banned the government from using the technology envisioned by TIA in any other program.

The House of Representatives voted 407-15 to approve the conference committee`s bill on Wednesday, while the House approved it Thursday by a vote of 95-0.

"Congress has reaffirmed the fundamental privacy rights of all Americans," said Timothy Edgar, legislative counsel for the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) which had lobbied against the TIA since its existence was first exposed by the New York Times one year ago. "This is a resounding victory for individual liberty."

"I`ve always said I believe that you can fight terrorism vigorously without cannibalizing civil liberties, and TIA did not meet that test," said Oregon Sen. Ron Wyden, who led the fight against TIA and related projects in the Senate. "Time and time again, the Defense Department sought to cross the line on privacy and civil liberties in the name of fighting terrorism. The appropriators have wisely chosen to end this program."

Congress` decision came amid increasing concern among a broad spectrum of groups about the 2001 USA Patriot Act and proposals by the administration of President George W. Bush for a new set of counter-terrorism measures that critics say will restrict civil rights even more.

One proposal would grant new authority for federal agents to demand private records and compel testimony without the approval of a judge or even of a federal prosecutor. Backed by a two-year-old coalition that includes such groups People for the American Way on the left and the Eagle Forum on the right, Democratic and some Republican lawmakers have spoken out against the proposals which have yet to be formally introduced.

Recent efforts by Attorney General John Ashcroft to defend the more-controversial provisions of the Patriot Act, as well as the pending proposals, have also not been well-received in the nation`s major media, particularly in newspaper editorials.

Nonetheless, few programs have been as thoroughly panned as Poindexter`s TIA project.

It proposed using the latest data-mining technology to sift through vast amounts of personal data, including credit-card purchases, travel, library, medical and even video-rental records, financial and banking statements, personal internet usage, email correspondence, and other information in hopes of finding "suspicious patterns" that would permit intelligence or law-enforcement agencies to identify likely terrorists.

The project, whose symbol, designed by Poindexter himself, included the all-seeing eye depicted on the U.S. dollar bill, was described as something out of George Orwell`s classic work on totalitarianism, `1984.`

The administration and some conservatives tried to defend it. "The threat of another horrific attack is simply too grave to justify prematurely cutting off such a promising anti-terrorism tool as TIA," said one supporter, Paul Rosenzweig, at the right-wing Heritage Foundation.

But more-libertarian thinkers on the right, such as New York Times columnist William Safire, warned that the plan was a "supersnoop`s dream" and cited the "blessed stupidity" of Pentagon officials in appointing Poindexter to head the project.

Last February, the Senate voted unanimously to adopt an amendment authored by Wyden to immediately suspend all funding for the project pending a thorough review.

Indeed, Poindexter`s involvement in the project actually strengthened the opposition, as noted by Marc Rotenberg of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC), another leading critic of the program. "[P]eople were reacting to the underlying premise that you would gather up this data, and the fact that people like John Poindexter were gathering up this stuff," he told BusinessWeek Online Thursday.

"This was a hugely unpopular program with a mission far outside what most Americans would consider acceptable in our democracy," said the ACLU`s Edgar. "By its very nature, TIA would have--regardless of any checks and balances--invaded our privacy. Our daily lives would have been minutely and accurately inventoried, even though we`d done nothing wrong."

Poindexter, whose criminal convictions were eventually thrown out by a judge who ruled that Congress had granted him immunity from prosecution in exchange for testimony on which the government relied to convict him, defended the scheme until the very end. In a lengthy column published by the New York Times earlier this month, he said TIA had been misunderstood and that the system had never been intended "for use in surveillance against Americans."

The former national security adviser, who was also damaged earlier this summer by revelations about another proposal to set up an online futures markets for betting on developments, such as assassinations of key leaders in the Middle East, said he was the victim of Washington`s "highly-charged political environment."

"I regret we have not been able to make our case clear and reassure the public that we do not intend to spy on them," he wrote in his resignation letter in early August.

Nonetheless, some aspects of the program may endure. The appropriations bill authorizes a classified program for "processing, analysis, and collaboration tools for counter-terrorism foreign intelligence," although it cannot be applied to domestic use against U.S. citizens. No further clarification was available.

Copyright 2003 OneWorld.net

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8 % hat Bush seit dem letzten Fox-Poll verloren.

Bush Job Ratings at Lowest of Presidency

Thursday, September 25, 2003

By Dana Blanton



President Bush’s job rating has dropped to the lowest of his presidency, and he would tie with an unnamed Democratic opponent if the 2004 election were held today, the latest FOX News poll finds.

The combination of growing concerns about Iraq and gloomy views on the economy appear to be reflected in Bush’s declining job performance rating and re-election support.

The national poll of registered voters, conducted September 23-24 by Opinion Dynamics Corporation (search), shows an equal number saying they would vote to re-elect President Bush as saying they would vote for the Democratic nominee (39 percent to 39 percent) if the presidential election were held today, with 15 percent undecided. Three months ago, Bush topped the unnamed Democrat 51 percent to 30 percent (June 2003).

The poll also finds that 50 percent of Americans approve and 40 percent disapprove of the job Bush is doing as president. Early in the president’s term (and prior to the 9/11 terrorist attacks), his approval rating stood at 55 percent, which had been his lowest rating before this most recent poll. The president hit his peak job rating to-date, 88 percent approval, following the 9/11 attacks (November 2001).

“The president`s job approval has been supported by widespread and bipartisan support of his foreign policy — namely the war on terror and the war in Iraq," comments Opinion Dynamics President John Gorman. "Worries about the economy have been a drag on his ratings virtually from the beginning of the administration. Now with doubt growing about the conduct and cost of foreign policy, there is nothing to support the ratings. Furthermore, the growing partisanship surrounding foreign policy is pushing all the numbers back to the 50/50 split that is an underlying reality in our politics."

In a hypothetical matchup between Bush and the newest candidate on the list of Democratic hopefuls, retired Gen. Wesley Clark (search), Bush comes out on top 46 percent to 37 percent. It should be noted that at this point in the race, Clark might just be representing the “generic Democrat” slot for many voters in the horse race question, as fully 65 percent say they don’t know enough or have never heard of him when in a separate question are asked if they have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of the candidate.

With 20 percent support, new entrant Clark tops the list as the Democrats’ choice for their party’s nomination. Clark is followed by former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean (search) (13 percent), Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry (search) (10 percent), Missouri Rep. Dick Gephardt (search) (nine percent) and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman (search) (nine percent). The remaining candidates receive five percent or less.

When asked which Democratic candidate was doing the best job presenting his or her plans for the country and explaining how those plans differ from President Bush’s, voters say Dean is the candidate doing the best at making his case (13 percent), but a plurality says “none” (19 percent) of the candidates are explaining their positions and 35 percent are unsure.

Slim majorities of both men and women think it is unlikely a woman will land on either major party’s 2004 presidential ticket (52 percent unlikely to 43 percent likely). Even so, asked to choose between a Republican ticket of President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney (search) and a Democratic ticket of New York Sen. Hillary Clinton (search) and Gen. Clark, the ticket with a woman garners support from almost four in 10 voters (50 percent for Bush-Cheney to 39 percent for Clinton-Clark).

Growing Concerns About Iraq

Despite continuing violence against U.S. troops in Iraq, most Americans still support having taken military action there and over half think troops should stay until the job is done. Even so, the number thinking that going to war was “worth it” has declined significantly in the last few months.

Today, about two-thirds of Americans (64 percent) say they support the United States having taken military action to disarm Iraq and remove Saddam Hussein from power, including nearly half (47 percent) saying they “strongly support” the action, according to the latest FOX News poll.

These new numbers, while showing there is still support for the war, also show a considerable drop from earlier in the year. As would be expected, support for action against Iraq was much stronger during the major fighting — peaking at 81 percent in early April.

The poll finds that a 54 percent majority thinks U.S. troops should stay in Iraq until the job is done rather than bringing the troops home now (36 percent). The number of Americans who think going to war with Iraq has been worth it dropped from 64 percent in late April to 46 percent today, and opinion of how the situation will ultimately turn out for the United States is decidedly split.

A plurality (44 percent) thinks in the long run the situation with Iraq will turn out well for the United States, while 34 percent think it will turn out badly and nine percent say “mixed.” Either way, a majority of the public, including more than a third of Democrats, disagrees with Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy (search)’s notion that the case for going to war was “a fraud” made up to give Republicans a political boost.

The topic of Iraq is still a popular one at the water cooler, but the other slightly more popular topic people say they are discussing with friends and neighbors right now is the economy. Many Americans continue to rate the condition of the nation’s economy negatively, with less than one in five saying it is in excellent or good shape. In addition, less than half rate their personal financial situation positively, and less than a third say the 2003 tax cuts helped the condition of their family’s finances this year.

Polling was conducted by telephone September 23-24, 2003 in the evenings. The sample is 900 registered voters nationwide with a margin of error of ±3 percentage points. Results are of registered voters, unless otherwise noted. LV = likely voters
Die Zahlen
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,98328,00.html

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`You lied, they died,` US parents tell Bush
Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles
Saturday September 27, 2003
The Guardian

The father of a soldier killed in Iraq accused President George Bush yesterday of being responsible for his son`s death.

Fernando Suarez, whose 20-year-old son, Jesus, was one of the first fatalities, said: "My son died because Bush lied."

Mr Suarez, from Escondido, California, speaking at a press conference to publicise tomorrow`s anti-war demonstrations in eight US cities, said that about 1,300 parents of troops stationed in Iraq were involved in a movement against the oc cupation. "It is time for these troops to come home," said Mr Suarez. "Neither my wife nor my family want more children to die in this illegal war. We are no less patriotic for wanting peace. Bush wants $87bn [£52m] for this war, but what does he give us for our schools?" he asked.

In another sign of the growing protest movement, the father of two soldiers serving in Iraq used a full page advertisement in yesterday`s New York Times to demand the sacking of the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld.

The ad accused President Bush and his administration of misleading the public about weapons of mass destruction.

"Donald Rumsfeld Betrayed My Sons and Our Nation. It`s Time For Him to Go," said the headline of the ad, which was signed by Larry Syverson from Richmond, Virginia.

The ad was paid for by MoveOn.org, an internet-based organisation in San Francisco, and the Win Without War coalition. It is not known how much they paid for the ad, but the market rate is $139,000 (£83,700).

Mr Syverson wrote that one son, Branden, is a master gun ner near Tikrit and another son, Bryce, is a gunner based in Baghdad.

"I`m in awe at the courage of my sons and the honourable service that they give," he wrote. "But the leaders they serve have not acted honourably. They have failed my sons. They have failed all of us. At the very least, secretary Donald Rumsfeld must go."

The ad coincides with a fall in President Bush`s approval ratings, which have slipped below 50% for the first time since September 11 2001.

Clark takes lead, page 18



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Comment
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Patriots and invaders
Iraqi resistance to foreign occupation enjoys great popular support

Sami Ramadani
Saturday September 27, 2003
The Guardian

It was my first and brutally abrupt realisation that Baghdad, the city of my childhood, is now occupied territory. It was also my first encounter with a potent symbol of Iraqi hostility to the occupation forces. Sitting in the front seat of the taxi that brought us from Amman, I suddenly realised that a heavy machine gun was pointing at us from only a few metres away. It was an American soldier aboard an armoured vehicle in front of us, stuck in a traffic jam on the outskirts of Baghdad. He gestured disapprovingly towards our driver for approaching with some speed, then looked to his left and angrily stuck out a middle finger. I followed his gaze and there was a child of no more than eight or nine sitting in a chair in front of the open gates leading to the garden of his house. He was shouting angrily, with a clenched fist of defiance, cutting the air with swift and furious right hooks.

Two weeks later, and after talking to scores of people and touring much of Baghdad, it dawned on me that that child`s rebellious, free spirit was a moving and powerful symbol of how most people in Baghdad felt towards the occupation forces. It is precisely this indomitable spirit which survived the decades of Saddam`s brutal regime, the numerous wars and the murderous 13 years of sanctions. And it is precisely this spirit that Bush and Blair did not take on board when they decided to invade and occupy Iraq. They chose instead to listen to the echo of their own voices bouncing back at them from some of the Iraqi opposition groups, nurtured, financed and trained by the Pentagon and the CIA. Some of these Iraqi voices are now members of the US-appointed Iraqi governing council.

A recent report in the Washington Post backs up the rumours I heard in Baghdad that the Iraqi resistance to occupation is so strong that the authorities are now actively recruiting some of the brutal officers of the security and armed forces that Saddam himself used to suppress the people. If true, the US administration, in the name of fighting the so-called remnants of Saddam`s regime, is now busy trying to rebuild the shattered edifice of Saddam`s tyrannical state - a tyranny which they had backed and armed with WMD for many years. One of the popular sayings I repeatedly heard in Baghdad, describing the relations between the US and Saddam`s regime, is "Rah el sani`, ija el ussta" - "gone is the apprentice, in comes the master."

The governing council is not so much hated as ridiculed, and attacked for having its members chosen along sectarian lines. Most of the people I talked to think that it is a powerless body: it has no army, no police, and no national budget, but boasts nine rotating presidents. One of the jokes circulating in Baghdad was that no sooner had you brought down Saddam`s picture than you were being asked to pin up nine new ones.

Support for the council is largely confined to some activists of the organisations that belong to it. Indeed, it could be argued that most supporters of the more credible organisations belonging to the council are opposed to membership of the US-appointed body. The leaders of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (Sciri), for example, are finding it increasingly hard to convince these supporters that cooperation with the invaders is still a possible route to independence and democracy. The same goes for another smaller but equally credible party, the Islamic Da`wa, which experienced a split and serious haemorrhaging of membership following its decision to join the council.

The now small organisation that enjoyed majority support in Iraq in the late 50s, the Iraqi Communist party (ICP), was opposed to the invasion and the council, but decided to join it at the eleventh hour. Most of its supporters opposed the move. One, a poor truck driver, described it as being even worse than the 1972 ICP leadership decision to join Saddam`s government. That policy collapsed in a pool of blood when Saddam turned on the party`s members, killing, jailing and forcing into exile thousands of them. The truck driver described the council as "the devil`s lump of iron": a saying which refers to the superstitious practice of keeping a small piece of metal in the house to ward off the devil.

The gulf between popular sentiment and membership of the council was clear after the murder of the leader of Sciri, Ayatolla Mohammed Baqir Al Hakim. The slogans chanted by the hundreds of thousands who marched in the three-day funeral processions in Baghdad and Najaf - "Death to America, Death to Saddam" and "There is no god but Allah; America is the enemy of Allah; Saddam is the enemy of Allah" - were very much in tune with what I witnessed in Baghdad. They revealed the strength of anti-US feeling in Baghdad and the south.

The one area where America has had relative success is Iraqi Kurdistan. The political situation in this region is complex. Most Kurds believed that the no-fly zone during Saddam`s reign protected them from his chemical weapons, and it is evident that the sanctions did not hurt Kurdistan as much as it did the rest of Iraq. In the lead-up to the war, most Kurds accepted the tactical notion of being protected against Saddam and the hated Turkish forces. But despite this, it is likely that American plans in Kurdistan will face popular opposition once the realities of US interests and the regional contradictions reassert themselves. Meanwhile, the historic political unity between Arabs and Kurds in Iraq is unlikely to be broken.

What of the armed resistance? And why is it much more evident in some parts of Iraq than others? There is no doubt that armed resistance directed against the US forces enjoys wide popular support and is mostly carried out by politically diverse, locally based organisations. However, I also met many in Baghdad who, though supportive of the "patriots" who resist the "invaders", believe that such actions are "premature". One should, they argue, first exhaust all peaceful means, mobilising the people in mass organisations before confronting the occupation forces in armed struggle. Popular sentiment can be gleaned from the conspiracy theories circulating in Baghdad. People routinely blame the US or Israel or Kuwait for attacks on civilian rather than military targets.

But you do not need to be a conspiracy theorist to suspect that the main reason for the high intensity of armed conflict in areas of central Iraq and Mosul is that the US itself decided to make these areas the arena for a showdown that they thought they could win more easily, thereby establishing a bridgehead from which they could subdue Baghdad and the south. They provoked conflict by killing civilians in cold blood in Falluja, Mosul, Ramadi and elsewhere long before any armed resistance in those areas.

The occupying forces quickly discovered that the slightest provocation in the labyrinthine working-class districts of Baghdad, and most cities of the south, was being met by massive shows of popular strength on the streets. The US military command are surely aware that Iraqis in these areas are heavily armed, well-trained and better organised.

The US authority`s nonsense about a "Sunni triangle" and "Shi`ite Baghdad and south" is a smokescreen which has so far failed to divide the Iraqi people or drive them into internecine conflict. The only people who now believe that the US will back a democratic path in Iraq are the few who have still not fully grasped America`s role in Iraq`s modern history, the strategic significance of Iraq, or the nature of US foreign policy today.

Leaving the city on the road back to Amman, when our car passed by the house of that precocious child, I realised why my love for Baghdad remained undiminished despite 34 years in exile.

· Sami Ramadani was a political refugee from Saddam`s regime and is a senior lecturer in sociology at London Metropolitan University

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Do mention the war
Tony Blair has lost the argument over Iraq, and now seeks to evade the issue. But today`s protest will hold him to account

Andrew Murray
Saturday September 27, 2003
The Guardian

Today the voice of Britain`s anti-war majority will be heard on the streets of London once more. Next week in Bournemouth it will be muffled if Labour party conference organisers get their way and prevent a debate on Iraq.

There is the nub of Tony Blair`s crisis. He has lost the argument over the lawless attack on Iraq and with it the confidence of the country, as this week`s opinion poll shows, and can now only seek to evade it.

The Iraq issue has become a rock Blair cannot crawl from under, leaving him entirely bereft of the command of the agenda that a premier with a vast parliamentary majority should enjoy. "Don`t mention the war" may seem to him like the only plausible policy, but it is a curious start for the prime minister`s new "listening" strategy and it will not calm the vast movement of opposition to the war and to the lies which have attended it.

That movement, marching again today, has proved remarkably robust and resilient. Trade unionists, Muslims, socialists, pacifists, liberals, school students and many others will be there, representing the views of the majority of the country.

Will another demonstration make a difference? Around 2 million marched in February, only to be ignored by a prime minister who placed a higher value on his private pact with George Bush than on the views of the people he represents. However, British politics still lives in the shadow of that movement.

Without the mobilisation of public opinion against the war, there would have been no Hutton inquiry - Dr Kelly`s tragic death would have been a matter for the local coroner`s court alone. Alastair Campbell would still be at his desk, Geoff Hoon would not be a household name and Blair himself would not be having to endure the daily exposure of Downing Street`s inner workings. The mass movement of February and March made evasion of the consequences of the war impossible.

The intensity of opposition to the conflict articulated through the Stop the War Coalition and its allies (primarily CND and the Muslim Association of Britain) has also rendered it almost - although not quite - inconceivable that Britain could again be committed to join in the next US-led war over a prayer meeting on a Texas ranch. If following Bush to Iraq was a near-death experience for the prime minister, a repeat performance over Iran or North Korea would finish him off.

The US president faces growing domestic discontent because of the occupation of Iraq, which is costing hundreds of US lives without any end in sight. This - rather than any conversion to multilateralism - drives his desire to embroil the UN in the occupation. Indian soldiers dying in blue helmets under US command would not put swing states in the midwest at risk in the same way.

Blair`s problem is somewhat different. It stems from the perception that he deliberately misled the country about the reasons for attacking Iraq, dragging us into a war few supported. Every bit of news this week has reinforced that view. It is now semi-acknowledged that the fabled "weapons of mass destruction" are not going to be found in Iraq. Instead, the justification for the war has shrivelled to a search for a plan to begin a programme to develop the absent weapons.

We are told that Downing Street`s defence will hinge on the argument that just because WMDs are nowhere to be seen, it does not mean they are not there - a logic familiar to any parent who has tried to maintain a toddler`s belief in Father Christmas.

Meanwhile, the Hutton inquiry has finally prised out of Downing Street the truth that intelligence head John Scarlett rewrote parts of the dossier on those weapons to bump up the threat from Saddam on orders from Blair`s chief of staff, Jonathan Powell.

All this cries out for the government to be held to account in a way that Lord Hutton alone, with his narrow focus on the death of Dr Kelly, is unlikely to be able to do. Perhaps those MPs who supported the war, but pledged they would think again if no WMDs were discovered, will indeed find their voice. The Brent East byelection result may have helped concentrate a few minds. Not only is direct opposition to the war policy a growing factor in voting intentions, but Blair`s inability to put the issue behind him makes it doubly difficult for the government to grapple with any other issue.

What should be done? A change in policy is more important than any change in personnel, but if every British prime minister were henceforward aware that embarking on an illegal aggressive war in defiance of public opinion would cost them their job, that would not be such a bad thing.

· Andrew Murray is chairman of the Stop the War Coalition and one of the organisers of today`s "No more War, No more Lies" demonstration

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Battery operated bugle boys
Alexander Chancellor
Saturday September 27, 2003
The Guardian

In Britain we may not have enough soldiers and sailors and air crews to police the world, but at least we have enough buglers to lay them to rest. By contrast, the American military suffers from a serious bugler shortage. The crisis was revealed last week in the New York Times, which said that there were only 500 buglers in the American armed forces, while 1,800 military veterans, most of them entitled to burial with military honours, were dying every day.

How many buglers does Britain have? "We don`t keep a record of that," said a spokeswoman for the Ministry of Defence, "but I can tell you that there is no shortage." That`s good to know, though one of the reasons why we have enough buglers is that, in all matters, we are less generous to our veterans than the Americans are, including in the matter of granting military funerals. Serving members of the British military are entitled to such funerals, but veterans are not.

The problem in the US is set to get worse. With the second-world-war generation now entering their 80s, it is estimated that more than 650,000 veterans will die in the coming year, and that this number will rise annually until 2008. So what is to be done? Well, in America no problem defies solution, and the bugler crisis is no exception: the Pentagon has come up with a bugle that can play the last post automatically. "It is a bugle discreetly fitted with a battery-operated conical insert that plays the 24 notes of taps at the flick of a switch," explained the New York Times. "It is all digital, with no human talent or breath required. All you do is hold it up, turn it on, and try to look like a bugler."

When I told the MoD spokeswoman about it, she sounded just a little patronising about this new American vulgarity. "I don`t think we would ever want such a thing in Britain," she said, sniffily. The Pentagon, on the other hand, recently decreed that the "ceremonial bugle" (as the digital instrument is officially called) could now be used at American military funerals across the world whenever there wasn`t a human bugler available.

The decision followed an enthusiastic response to six months of trials in which "ceremonial bugles" were played at more than 1,000 funerals in the state of Missouri. Veterans` organisations were pleased. They said mourners would far rather hear an electronic bugle "played" by a person in uniform than listen to the last post relayed over a loudspeaker. "It`s not perfect, but it`s certainly more aesthetically pleasing and more dignified than a boombox," said a spokesman for the American Legion.

But others responded with outrage to Pentagon claims that the device was "virtually indistinguishable from a live bugler". It was too perfect, they said. And it sounded fainter and less crisp than a live instrument. Nothing can recreate the emotion that human buglers convey with their breathing, their crescendos and even their mistakes, the traditionalists say. When an army bugler missed the high note at President Kennedy`s funeral in 1963, the mistake, they point out, came to be seen as a symbol of the nation`s grief.

The bugle, as a military instrument, dates from the middle of the 18th century, when the Hanoverian light infantry adopted the German flugelhorn that was used in the hunt. The English light infantry followed suit, giving the flugelhorn the name "bugle". The first official list of bugle calls was published in 1798, and many of the most familiar ones, such as reveille and the last post, have stayed virtually unchanged since 1815. But it appears to be only for funerals that the "ceremonial bugle" has been called into service by the Pentagon.

What about reveille, the wake-up call so dreaded by servicemen that in 1918 Irving Berlin wrote a song about it, Oh! How I Hate To Get Up In The Morning? Nobody suggests that a digital sound could ever match up to the ear-splitting horror of the sound used by live buglers to get soldiers out of bed.

Someday I`m going to murder the bugler [goes the song]
Someday they`re going to find him dead
I`ll amputate his reveille, and stomp upon it heavily
And spend the rest of my life in bed!

But Irving Berlin failed to address the question of how the last post was going to be played at the bugler`s funeral. If anyone was ever worried about that, there is no need for him to worry any more.


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US elections
US voters will go to the polls on November 2 2004 to choose a president, hopefully more smoothly than last time. Sarah Left explains how

Sarah Left
Tuesday September 16, 2003
The Guardian

Who`s running?


Short of unforeseen disaster, George Bush will certainly be the Republican candidate, with Dick Cheney once again the vice-presidential nominee. The Democratic field is crowded at the moment with ten candidates, but that will thin quickly once the primary elections and caucuses begin in January.

Who are the Democratic candidates?


Bob Graham, current senator for - and former governor of - Florida.


Joseph Lieberman, senator for Connecticut. Lieberman ran alongside Al Gore in the 2000 election.

Richard Gephardt, representative for Missouri and former House minority leader. He ran for the party`s presidential nomination in 1988, but lost out to Michael Dukakis.

Howard Dean, the former governor of Vermont.

Carol Moseley Braun, former senator for Illinois and the first African American woman ever elected to the Senate.

Dennis Kucinich, representative from Ohio.

John Kerry, senator for Massachusetts.

John Edwards, senator for North Carolina.

Al Sharpton, civil rights activist.

Wesley Clark, retired general and former Nato commander.

Will Hillary Clinton run for president?


The senator for New York has stated repeatedly that she will not join in the race, however recent rumours have her considering a bid.

And apart from the Democrats and Republicans?


The Green party came in a very distant third in the 2000 race. If the Democrats look hopelessly weak and lean too far to the right, the Greens could gain a bit. But US presidential elections are essentially a two-party race, and no other party gets much of a look in on the national scene.

Because a given candidate may meet election criteria only in certain states, it`s perfectly possible to have one set of candidates in, say, Idaho, and a different set in Texas.

Can anyone run for president?


All candidates must be "natural-born" citizens (meaning born within the US, Guam, Puerto Rico or the US Virgin Islands, or to American parents abroad), resident within the United States for at least 14 years, and at least 35 years old.

Is the vice president elected separately?


No. The president and vice president are a package deal, no mixing and matching allowed.

What other offices are up for grabs?


The whole of the House of Representatives and one third of the 100-member senate are elected every two years, so all those seats will be contested. In addition, 11 states will hold elections for governor.

How are the final Democratic and Republican candidates chosen?

Between January and September 2004, states hold either primary elections or caucuses to determine which candidate goes forward for election in November.

Most states hold direct first-round elections, or primaries. In most cases, voters can select primary candidates only from the political party they registered with, so Democrats choose from a list of Democratic candidates, Republicans from a Republican list, and so on. Unlike being a member of a political party in Britain, in the US joining a party is a simple matter of ticking a box on a voter registration form, and every voter is free to change affiliation as often as desired, or refuse to disclose it at all. Non-affiliated voters cannot take part in these so-called closed primaries.

However, a few states hold open primaries, where voters can choose any candidate, no matter the party affiliation.

Only a small minority of states hold caucuses, or meetings in which party members choose the state`s winning candidates. A caucus requires the party member to be present at the state`s meeting - thus investing far more time and money than simply turning up to the nearest polling station - so their popularity has waned.

What happens to the winners of the primaries and caucuses?

Candidates accrue delegates - or people who will represent them at the national party conferences - as they win state primaries and caucuses. The idea is to come out with the most delegates by the time the national conference rolls around in mid or late summer.

The job of the delegates is to choose the official party candidate at the Democratic or Republican national conventions. In practice, delegates simply ratify the person chosen by voters in the primaries and caucuses.

Any candidate who looks unlikely to last the course will drop out well before the national convention, sometimes before some of the biggest states have voted. Most simply cannot afford to keep running after early losses. Drop-outs can continue to influence the process by throwing support behind one of the remaining candidates.

What happens at the national conventions?

These enormous, expensive, back-slapping meetings are organised by the national committees from the respective parties.

As there is no question about the Republican candidate, this year`s Republican convention - scheduled to begin on August 30, 2004 in New York City - will be a political celebration of George Bush`s presidency.

Over at the Democratic convention in Boston, the last remaining candidates will gather on July 26, 2004, and will look on as each state calls out the number of delegates it will award to individual candidates. Then, under a heavy shower of red, white and blue balloons, the Democrats will announce their official contender for president.

How much does it cost?


According to the Centre for Responsive Politics, the Bush-Cheney campaign spent $186m (£118m) on the 2000 race, while the Gore-Lieberman campaign spent $120m.

"Soft money" donations from corporations, unions and individuals were outlawed after the 2002 mid-term election by the McCain-Feingold law. That`s good news for the Republicans, who have traditionally been better at raising smaller amounts from more individuals. The cap on individual contributions is now set at $2,000.

Why does it take so long?


Spreading out the primaries and caucuses, though time-consuming, allows candidates to make personal campaign appearances in what is, after all, a very large country with a devotion to states` rights. This also explains why a run for the presidency is so expensive. Anyone seriously expecting to win will have to rack up a mind-numbing amount of frequent flier miles.

You could argue - and people have - that in an age of internet access and 24-hour television, a politician should be able to make his or her point to the nation from the comfort of a network news studio, and cut out all that expensive cross-country baby-kissing.

What went wrong in 2000?


Winning the most votes does not guarantee you the presidency. Al Gore won the popular vote by about half a million ballots. But without Florida, neither he nor George Bush had the necessary majority of votes in the electoral college.

The shenanigans in Florida - hanging chads, butterfly ballots, de-listed black voters - meant the supreme court finally stepped in to put an end to the matter, awarding the state`s electoral votes to George Bush.

What is the electoral college?


Established by the constitution, the electoral college meets after the general election and officially elects the president. Its members are chosen by the states, and they are meant to ratify the choice of the plurality of a state`s voters.

Almost all the states operate a winner-take-all electoral system, thus giving winners a much larger margin of victory than they would have through the popular vote.

The constitution actually allows electors to cast their vote for any candidates they please, theoretically rendering the whole general election meaningless. Cases of "faithless electors" are rare, however, and there is great pressure on them to represent the choice of the people.

Each state is allocated one electoral vote for each member of the House of Representatives, and one for each of its two senators. The District of Columbia is awarded three electors.

Why not get rid of the electoral college?


The electoral college is condescending - the founding fathers did not entirely trust the people to elect their leader directly - but it also ensures a minimum voice for states with small populations. Without the electoral college, its supporters argue, the sheer volume of voters in California, New York, Texas and Florida would routinely choose the president, swamping the choices of tiny states like Rhode Island. Just seven states have 45% of the country`s population.

The system does under-represent larger states: California has just over 12% of the US population, but its 55 electoral votes for 2004 represent only 10.22% of the total. In contrast, the least populated state, Wyoming, has only 0.18% of the population, but its 3 electoral votes (the minimum) represent 0.56% of the total.

Perhaps blaming the electoral college for the 2000 disaster is looking in the wrong direction. Had Florida not single-handedly made the case for international election observers with its shoddy practices, either Al Gore or George Bush could have emerged as the clear winner without the need for a court date.

I`ve won! When do I take office?


Inauguration always takes place on January 20.


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Clark dodges skirmishes during first week in Democrat front line
Former general emerges as the favourite to take on Bush

Julian Borger in Washington
Saturday September 27, 2003
The Guardian

Everyone knows that a week is a long time in politics, but for Wesley Clark it has been a political age.

In little more than seven days, the former Nato commander has launched a presidential bid, rocketed to the front of the Democratic nomination race, suffered intense scrutiny of his past, and just about survived his first debate.

In fact, Gen Clark got off lightly in Thursday afternoon`s exchange of views. Luckily for him, the debate quickly turned into a squabble over Democratic credentials between the leading radical, Howard Dean - the former Vermont governor - and the party stalwarts from Congress, Dick Gephardt and John Kerry.

The sniping allowed Gen Clark to project a good-natured serenity, and he was able to fire off a few compact sentences addressing the biggest question about his candidacy: what was a soldier who voted for Nixon and Reagan, and expressed admiration for the Bush foreign policy team in 2001, doing there in the first place?

"I was never partisan in the military," Gen Clark said. "I served under Democratic presidents; I served under Republican presidents. But as I looked at this country and looked which way we were headed, I knew that I needed to speak out. And when I needed to speak out, there was only one party to come to."

"I am pro-choice, I am pro-affirmative action, I am pro-environment, pro-health," he said, hitting the four of the party`s hottest buttons in a single soundbite.

Despite a pallid make-up job that left his neatly chiselled features looking like a puppet from Gerry Anderson`s Thunderbirds, the former Nato supreme commander looked at ease alongside the other nine candidates. Most reviewers yesterday agreed that he had held his own.

Gen Clark, the commander of the Kosovo campaign, is far behind when it comes to raising money, but he has already amassed close to $1m (£600,000) from a standing start.

Polls conducted before Thursday`s debate had him either beating or coming close to George Bush in a head-to-head contest, and performing significantly better than the other Democratic contenders.

Like most of the rest of the Democratic field, he said yesterday he would reverse most if not all of the Bush tax cuts. He promised to cut defence spending (he says the Pentagon is a "want machine" which needs to be curbed), and he advocated expanding public health insurance, working towards universal coverage.

But it is the issue that was deliberately ignored in the domestic policy debate that has propelled Clark to the top of the Democratic polls: Iraq.

The Bush administration`s decision to go to war, and the bloody mess of the occupation, have paved the way for Gen Clark`s relatively late entrance into the race for the Democratic nomination. Democrats believe Mr Bush is vulnerable, but with the country feeling it is involved in a ceaseless "war on terror", the party is looking for a candidate with impeccable national security creden tials to carry its flag. Who better than a general?

Howard Dean, the other frontrunner, comes from a wealthy New York background, and was given exemption from service in Vietnam because of a bad back. That did not, however, prevent him from skiing in the Rockies while the young Wes Clark was in combat.

Gen Clark was shot four times, and many Democrats who never envisaged voting for a latter-day Eisenhower-style general/politician are relishing his encounters with President Bush. The latter famously dressed up in combat gear to declare victory in Iraq, but also avoided Vietnam by finding a place in the relatively safe Texas Air National Guard - almost certainly with the help of his wealthy father`s friends.

But the Iraq issue also presents Gen Clark with his most serious problem so far - one which is almost entirely of his own making. On Thursday last week, he told journalists that he would "probably" have voted for the Congressional resolution in late 2002 authorising the president to wage war in Iraq. Almost immediately, however, he backpedalled, claiming he would have vigorously opposed the invasion.

It was left to his aides to explain. The candidate would have backed the congressional mandate in order to provide leverage to force Iraq into a UN-based solution, they said. But he would never have supported going to war in the circumstances of March, when the inspectors were still at work.

The explanations failed to fend off the criticisms of apparent indecision over a vital defence issue.

Mr Kerry is in the same awkward position. He voted for the war resolution, but argues that he did not support the war itself. Both men are vulnerable to questioning from more consistent opponents of the war such as Mr Dean.

Nevertheless, Dean/Clark would be dream ticket in the eyes of many rank-and-file Democrats. The two actually met in Los Angeles at the beginning of the month - and according to some reports, Mr Dean offered Gen Clark the vice-presidential slot.

The claim is denied by both camps. For now, the war hero aims to follow in General Eisenhower`s footsteps.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Mortar kills nine Iraqis as US sets self-rule deadline for Iraq
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington
27 September 2003



New violence erupted in Iraq yesterday when a mortar shell, which may have been aimed at American soldiers stationed nearby, killed nine civilians and injured more than 12 others in the city of Baqouba 30 miles north of the Iraqi capital yesterday.

The attack at an outdoor market was described by Waleed Khalid, the local Iraqi police chief, as "a criminal act aimed at hurting Iraqi civilians". But other local Iraqis said they believed the mortar bomb may have exploded prematurely before it reached its intended target of a government building about 250 yards away, where US soldiers are based.

Hours before the explosion, the Bush administration set a first timetable for self-rule in Iraq, saying the provisional council should come up with a new constitution for the country within six months.

The demand, outlined by Colin Powell, the Secretary of State, represents a clear gesture by the US to critics at home and abroad demanding a much quicker handover to Iraqis than Washington has thus far been contemplating.

"It`ll be a difficult deadline to meet, but we`ve got to get them started," General Powell told the New York Times.

Once a constitution is in place, setting out whether the country should have a presidential or parliamentary system, elections could be held and a new leader take power within a year. At that point, the US might be able to start withdrawing its forces, scaling back the cost of a war and occupation for which the administration requested an additional $87bn (£52bn) earlier this month.

The immediate White House calculation, however, is that - by drawing up a more precise timetable for self rule, it will quieten the mounting criticism in Congress, among Republicans as well as Democrats, of its conduct of post-war Iraq.

It hopes, too, that General Powell`s words will increase the chances of a UN resolution authorising a multilateral force for Iraq, that takes some of the military and financial weight of occupation off US shoulders.

Though the US has circulated various drafts, the White House had been resigned to weeks of hard bargaining before agreement. President Bush is seeking the support of Russia, a leading Security Council opponent of the war, at a Camp David summit with Vladimir Putin this weekend.

But yesterday`s mortar bombing will do nothing to make other countries readier to send troops of their own into a violent and dangerous place.

Separately, yesterday an American soldier was killed in an ambush in the northern city of Kirkuk, while three others were wounded in an attack in Tikrit. Since Mr Bush declared an end to major combat operations on 1 May, 86 US servicemen have been killed by fighters in Iraq, more than died during the war proper.

Despite the violence, General Powell argued a swifter handover to an unelected Iraqi Government, as demanded most vocally by France would merely reduce its legitimacy in the eyes of the world and increase the likelihood of violent attacks by what he called "ex-Baathists." The inability of the US-led coalition to stabilise Iraq has led Kofi Annan, the UN secretary general to order a further reduction of UN international staff in Iraq.

It was unclear how many of the non-Iraqi UN personnel would leave. But Mr Annan`s order came days after the second bombing outside UN headquarters in Baghdad on Monday which killed an Iraqi policeman and injured 19 others. The first, on 19 August, killed 22 people, at a time when UN staff in the country numbered about 600.
27 September 2003 10:34



© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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Edward Kessler: The time for decisions on Israel has arrived for British Jews
At Jewish New Year we have a duty to examine our recent sins. That means asking if we have kept faith with both biblical and Zionist ideals
27 September 2003


The Jewish New Year, Rosh ha-Shana, which began last night, is traditionally a time when Jews look back over the last year, reflect on our sins and resolve not to transgress again. The events of 5763, the year just ending, appear to demonstrate the victory of violence over dialogue in many parts of the world. We think not only of the violence in Israel and Palestine and elsewhere in the Middle East, but also in Africa, Asia and in parts of Europe. The Baal Shem Tov, the founder of Hasidism, a strictly observant Jewish charismatic movement, taught that we see or experience evil so that we can learn of our own guilt and repent for what is shown to us is also within us.

What should we learn from this evil? How should we respond to today`s violence? Until the middle of the 20th century, the traditional and most common Jewish response to violence had been based on Jeremiah xxix,4-7:

Thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel, unto all the captivity, whom I have caused to be carried away captive from Jerusalem unto Babylon: Build ye houses, and dwell in them, and plant gardens, and eat the fruit of them; take ye wives, and beget sons and daughters . . . and seek the peace of the city . . . and pray unto the Lord for it; for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace.

This yielding to outside force, and accepting the violence that sometimes followed, was the strategy that contributed to the survival and success of Jewish life. By relinquishing desire for sovereignty, Jews were able to gain maximum autonomy in regulating their lives. Under the motto "The law of the land is the law", the Jewish community based its existence on the law of a particular host society. As a rabbinic saying has it, "A person must be at all times yielding like a reed and not unbending like a cedar."

This was fine, as long as the regime played by the rules. When this changed, it was disastrous policy - as exemplified by the Nazi period. After the passiveness of the rabbinic model, with its acceptance of pogroms and massacres, Jews desired to take control in their own hands and, in the second half of the 19th century, the Jewish goal for self-determination in the Land of Israel became a key objective. The rabbinic model did not work any more.

The response of Zionism to anti-Semitism was to build up a Jewish army in Israel like biblical times in order to establish a protection against enemies who also had a military force. But mainstream Zionism has traditionally rejected the genocidal approach pursued by the ancient Israelites who, under Joshua`s command, slaughtered "all the inhabitants" of his enemies` cities. Rather, the goal of the mainstream Zionists was to defend Israel and build a Jewish society based on compromise, partition and self-restraint.

Over the year now past it has become more and more evident that the decision to use military force sparingly has changed. Today in Israel military force and violence are being used aggressively as well as defensively, for conquest as well as for self-defence. The government of Israel has chosen the path of the gentile nations by building tanks, aircraft and bombs, and now fences and walls.

Whilst there are many valid and justified reasons for relying on military prowess to survive, it seems unlikely that a small people can wage an ethical military effort and carry on a decent society at the same time. Not even the Soviet Union, a continental superstate, could shoulder this burden. It is not altogether clear that even the richest society in the history of the world, the United States, can for generations wage continuous war - even "a war against terror" - and remain or create a decent society at home. The chances that Israel can do so are very small. Pursued to its logical fulfilment, this reversion to the biblical path leads to a dead end. And I do mean a dead end.

One of the Israeli leaders opposing Ariel Sharon`s policy is Avraham Burg, who was Speaker of the Knesset from 1999 to 2003. He has also acknowledged the dead end towards which Israel is moving. Burg has courageously called for a change of course. There is not much time, he warns. The time for decisions has arrived. "We love the entire land of our forefathers and in some other time we would have wanted to live here alone. But that will not happen. The Arabs, too, have dreams and needs."

Burg calls on Diaspora Jews, for whom Israel is one pillar of their identity, to be bold and speak out. There is no better time than Rosh ha-Shana. As a friend of Israel I do not believe that Israel can do no wrong; rather, as a friend and admirer of Herzl`s and Ben-Gurion`s vision of Zionism I criticise it with care. Even whilst its own people are suffering, Israel must help move the peace process forward in negotiation and eventually in partnership with the Palestinian people.

As we Jews celebrate the New Year, I will join in the prayer for the peace of Jerusalem with added fervour but will pray that Israel takes the difficult but necessary steps towards that peace.

Edward Kessler is Director of the Centre for Jewish-Christian Relations, Cambridge
27 September 2003 10:38



© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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More Americans in Poverty in 2002, Census Study Says
By LYNETTE CLEMETSON

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 — The number of Americans living in poverty increased by 1.7 million last year, and the median household income declined by 1.1 percent, the Census Bureau reported today. The worsening economic conditions fell heaviest on Midwesterners and nonwhites.

It was the second straight year of adverse changes in both poverty and income, the first two-year downturn since the early 1990`s.

The data, results of the Census Bureau`s annual Current Population Survey, the official barometer for measuring income and poverty rates, showed that lingering negative effects of the recent recession cut across a broad swath of the population.

The official poverty rate rose to 12.1 percent in 2002 from 11.7 percent the year before, bringing to total number of people living below the poverty line to 34.6 million.

The median household earned income fell $500 over the same period to $42,400. Per capita income declined by 1.8 in 2002 to $22,794, the first decline since 1991.

Daniel H. Weinberg, chief of the Census Bureau`s Housing and Household Economic Statistics Division, said the findings were consistent with the bureau`s expectations.

"If you look at the historical timeline trend, there is a lag with poverty rates," Mr. Weinberg said. "Low points in poverty and income seem to come the year after a recession ends."

The most recent recession lasted from March 2001 through November 2001, though job losses have continued at high rates this year.

Asked about the census data, Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said, "The actions that we`ve taken to boost the economy and to create jobs are essential to turn this around."

At his daily press briefing, Mr. McClellan, rather than focusing on the census data, pointed instead to newly released figures from the Commerce Department that showed a larger-than-expected rise in the gross domestic product.

A 3.3 percent increase in G.D.P. in the second quarter of this year, Mr. McClellan suggested, indicates that the economy is moving in a positive direction.

Gross domestic product is considered a leading economic indicator, while poverty is seen as a lagging indicator.

Within hours of the morning release of the data, Democrats seized on the figures to criticize Bush administration policies in a flurry of faxed press releases, e-mailed statements and news conferences.

"This is sad news that the Bush administration is trying to sweep under the rug," said Senator John Edwards of North Carolina, a Democratic presidential candidate. "I`d like to hear President Bush explain to all the single mothers with kids living in poverty how his tax breaks for the rich are helping them."

Gen. Wesley K. Clark, the newest Democratic candidate, said of Mr. Bush, "With a record like this he shouldn`t be running for president, he should be running for the hills."

In general, poverty rates over the last two years have not been as severe as in the aftermath of past recessions, a point several conservative analysts pointed out.

"As recessions go this is extremely good news," said Robert E. Rector, a senior research fellow with the Heritage Foundation. "This shows that this has been a shallow recession that has been mild in its impact, and it also shows the positive impact of welfare reform which has kept more women in the work force."

The Midwest was the only area of the country to have a significant increase in poverty rates, rising to 10.3 percent from 9.4 percent a year earlier. Real median income declined 2 percent in the region, with drops in important battleground states in next year`s presidential election, including Illinois, Michigan, Missouri and Ohio.

Among racial groups African-Americans suffered the worst increases in poverty, after several years of economic progress in the 1990`s. The poverty rate among blacks rose to 24.1 percent from 22.7 percent a year earlier. Median income for blacks fell 3 percent.

Other racial and ethnic groups also saw significant decreases in median income, which declined 4.5 percent for Asians, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders and 2.9 percent for Hispanics, a group that Mr. Bush has been courting.

And though rates of poverty did not change significantly from 2001 for those under age 18 and over age 65, staying afloat was harder last year for people aged 18 to 64, the bulk of the work force.

The poverty threshold for a family of four is $18,392. For individuals the amount is $9,183. The percentage of people in severe poverty, those with incomes below half of the poverty threshold, increased to 14.1 million from 13.4 million.

Liberal economists took the position that any increase in poverty was too high, given the relative prosperity of the country. Many also criticized policy shifts, which they said reduced the social safety net for the poor, like reductions in child care assistance and reduced unemployment insurance benefits.

"We would all expect poverty go up some in an economic downturn," said Robert Greenstein, executive director for the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a liberal research group. "But misplaced priorities by Congress and the president are making the increase in poverty larger than it needs to be."

As controversial as the data was the timing of its release. Typically the results of the annual survey have been released on a Tuesday in late September at the National Press Club in downtown Washington.

This year the bureau scheduled the release for a Friday, the first time it has done so, and moved the news conference from the centrally located press club to the bureau`s suburban headquarters in Suitland, Md. The switch prompted some advocates and lawmakers to speculate that the government agency had been pressured by the administration to move the date and place so that that the results, which most people expected to be worse than they were last year, would generate less attention in the weekend news cycle.

The effect of the move meant that the figures on poverty and income were released on the same day as the data on G.D.P., data that many economists expected to be more positive.

Census officials maintained that the delayed release had to do with nothing more than a work backlog.

"We were running into technical problems getting it all done; we were running behind," Mr. Weinberg said. "So we decided, hey, how about some more time."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

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Mourners in Najaf at the funeral for Akila al-Hashimi, a member of Iraq`s Governing Council who died on Thursday after she was shot in Baghdad last week. A mortar killed at least seven Iraqis on Thursday in Baquba.
Iraq Leaders Seek Greater Role Now in Running Nation
By PATRICK E. TYLER

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 26 — With an advanced degree in engineering and a high technology career behind him in Britain, Hayder Awad Aabadi, Iraq`s new minister of communications, smiles when asked whether Iraqis are ready to run their country again.

He will get the telephones working in Baghdad by the end of November, he says. He will build a state-owned mobile telephone network by piggybacking on existing infrastructure. He will thwart saboteurs who have been cutting the fiber optic lines around the capital.

"Iraqis are a very proud people," Mr. Aabadi said in an interview in his spare office, which is situated away from the front of the building to protect him from car bombs. "They will not be motivated in a situation where things are run by a foreign occupying power."

Impatience is beginning to grow here as Iraqi officials chafe at the strictures of an American occupation, which, they say, has in some cases slowed reconstruction because power is centralized in the hands of the military commander in Iraq, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, and the civilian occupation administrator, L. Paul Bremer III.

While Mr. Bremer makes the rounds in Washington, contracts for a cellular phone network await his signature. Mr. Aabadi asserted that he could have had a network running 30 days after major hostilities ended, a claim supported by other telecommunications executives in the region.

American officials are aware of the problem. "The reality of foreign troops on the streets is starting to chafe," Mr. Bremer said this week in Washington. "Some Iraqis are beginning to regard us as occupiers and not as liberators."

But at the same time, the United States is convinced that the Iraqi Governing Council, an appointed rather than an elected body, is not ready to take control of an unstable and still violent country.

Such a transfer of power may take at least a year, American officials say, a process that the French government argues is too dilatory and therefore dangerous.

Iraq — its electricity intermittent, its communications irregular, its army in the first stages of formation, its police in training, its roads often insecure — is a hard place for anyone to govern. But with competent officials beginning to return to ministries and national pride stirring in opposition to occupation, the question of when to give power to Iraqis has become central.

President Bush has proposed that in Iraq, the United States make the largest reconstruction commitment since the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe after World War II. Administration officials say it goes without saying that such a commitment must be organized under American supervision.

The problem with the allied plan is that the 23 million Iraqis may not be willing to wait.

Opinion polls show that a majority in Baghdad say the current violence and other problems are a price worth paying for the removal of Saddam Hussein, but most Iraqis regard Mr. Bush and the Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain with distrust.

American and British officials have been running the country for five months, but security is far from being restored, Iraqi officials say. And Mr. Bremer`s Coalition Provisional Authority has failed to stabilize electricity supplies, end water shortages or even return normal traffic patterns in the capital.

"When you in are someone else`s house, the person who built that house and maintained it is the person you should look to," said one Iraqi security chief. American officials counter that they have already given considerable authority to Iraqis who are, for instance, laying down the laws that will govern Iraq`s future economy.

Mr. Aabadi cites an example of how his work as communications minister is complicated by the occupation. Every day, he sends out armed security teams to repair fiber optic cables that saboteurs have been cutting. His men, he says, are often disarmed, abused and humiliated by American soldiers who patrol the capital.

The United States military says it is carrying out orders to disarm Iraqis who do not have permits or police authority, though many Iraqis violate the rules for self-protection.

"You cannot blame anyone," Mr. Aabadi says. "The soldiers are doing their job. The workers are doing their jobs. But you can`t run a country with a professional army in the streets."

But to whom exactly could the United States cede power? Many European officials cite the Afghan model, where Hamid Karzai quickly took control of the country after the war, while the United Nations retained an important role and international troops provided security.

But no figure with the authority of Mr. Karzai has yet emerged in Iraq. Rather, a host of former Iraqi opposition leaders who helped persuade the Bush administration to topple Mr. Hussein are jostling for position as this country of many religious and ethnic groups ponders its future governance.

These leaders include Massoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, the Kurdish chieftains of northern Iraq; Ahmad Chalabi and Iyad Alawi, the secular Shiite leaders who have strong backing in Washington; and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, the brother of Ayatollah Muhammad Bakr al-Hakim, who died in a car bomb attack on Aug. 29 in Najaf.

All are on the Governing Council formed in July. All are pushing for a strategy that would reduce Mr. Bremer`s authority and strengthen the interim government. But few of them are in any agreement on what sort of constitution should govern the country or which one of them should emerge as Iraq`s new leader.

That, however, does not stop them from complaining about Mr. Bremer. When the Governing Council formed in July, he pledged that it would have a major role in finance, security and foreign affairs.

The council members asked him to put it in writing, which he did, saying he would "consult the Governing Council on all major decisions and questions of policy." Only in "exceptional circumstances," he said, "would the coalition act without the support of the council."

But last week, five Iraqi leaders resolved to tell Mr. Bremer that it was time to fulfill those pledges by giving them real access to Iraq`s budget and finances, and to give the new ministry of interior a security role that would allow the American Army to pull back to bases. Mr. Bremer has yet to respond to them.

"Bremer wants to do everything himself — I mean they call him king over there," said Mudhar Shawkat, a senior member of Mr. Chalabi`s Iraqi National Congress. "He has done a lot, but he has yet to consider Iraqis as his partners and treats them as his subjects."

Underlying the clash of approaches are American and British concerns that Iraq could implode if power is transferred too quickly.

Iraqi political leaders argue that the proof of their ability to govern lies in the fact that they have been doing so since the Governing Council was formed in July.

They have appointed a cabinet to supervise the tens of thousands of Iraqi experts and technocrats returning to ministries. They have passed laws on foreign direct investment, a customs and income tax system, and a nationalities law to end discrimination. They have also worked closely with the occupation authority on security and finance policies.

But there are other unspoken concerns.

Some senior American and British officials say privately that they are concerned that if an election was held today, a Shiite muslim cleric might well dominate the polling on the strength of the 60 percent Shiite share of the population.

Many Iraqis today say such concerns are exaggerated, that Shiites are divided along secular and religious lines and are unlikely to vote as a bloc unless they perceive a threat that they will be disenfranchised as they were in 1932, when the British withdrawal and Sunni duplicity excluded them from political power.

Still, senior American officials say they are hoping that six months to a year of constitution writing and preparations for national elections will provide a process from which a moderate and secular Shiite leader will emerge to head the first democratic government here, one that would have the independence and self-assurance to avoid tilting toward the conservative Islamists of Iran.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Hiermit müßte es für jeden möglich sein ein aussagefähiges Posting zu Stande zu bringen.

verboten
Gefunden an der Pinnwand der Redaktion:

Tabuwörter für alletaz-Redakteure


Blutbad

Endkampf

mission impossible

schrödern

sexy

Deal

Deutschland sucht …

… sterben wie die Fliegen

Gutmenschen

hochkochen

Herr, schmeiß Hirn vom Himmel

Hossa

Jubel kennt keine Grenzen

Kadi

Objekt der Begierde

Erdrutschsieg

schwere Schlappe

strahlender Sieger

Schwanz (in allen Aggregatzuständen)

anglo-amerikanische …

auf den Punkt bringen

Sex, Lügen …

den Geldhahn zudrehen

die Luft wird dünn

für Wirbel sorgen (außer beim Wetter)

die Mutter aller …

die Nerven liegen blank

die Stadt, der Müll und …

etwas überschatten

Ein Herz für …

fieberhaft

hochspannend

Gesprächsmarathon

grünes Licht

Hausaufgaben machen

Ikone

im Visier

Klinke in die Hand geben

Knackpunkt

lähmendes Entsetzen

Paradebeispiel

schaler (und ähnlicher) Beigeschmack

schillernde Persönlichkeit

schallende Ohrfeige

Schimäre

Schlapphüte

Unkenrufe

Säbelrasseln

Tauziehen

letzte Hand anlegen

schlussendlich

Licht am Ende des Tunnels

WEHRdienstverweigerung (richtig: Kriegs- …)


Wir meinen: Tabu Nr. 13 ist ab 100.000 Abos wieder erlaubt.

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taz muss sein: Was ist Ihnen die Internetausgabe der taz wert? Sie helfen uns, wenn Sie diesen Betrag überweisen auf: taz-Verlag Berlin, Postbank Berlin (BLZ 100 100 10), Konto-Nr. 39316-106

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washingtonpost.com
Study Finds Net Gain From Pollution Rules
OMB Overturns Past Findings on Benefits
http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/inforeg/2003_cost-ben_final_rp…
By Eric Pianin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 27, 2003; Page A01


A new White House study concludes that environmental regulations are well worth the costs they impose on industry and consumers, resulting in significant public health improvements and other benefits to society. The findings overturn a previous report that officials now say was defective.

The report, issued this month by the Office of Management and Budget, concludes that the health and social benefits of enforcing tough new clean-air regulations during the past decade were five to seven times greater in economic terms than were the costs of complying with the rules. The value of reductions in hospitalization and emergency room visits, premature deaths and lost workdays resulting from improved air quality were estimated between $120 billion and $193 billion from October 1992 to September 2002.

By comparison, industry, states and municipalities spent an estimated $23 billion to $26 billion to retrofit plants and facilities and make other changes to comply with new clean-air standards, which are designed to sharply reduce sulfur dioxide, fine-particle emissions and other health-threatening pollutants.

The report provides the most comprehensive federal study ever of the cost and benefits of regulatory decision-making. It has pleasantly surprised some environmentalists who doubted the Bush administration would champion the benefits of government regulations, and fueled arguments that the White House should continue pushing clean-air standards rather than trying to weaken some.

"I`m sure the true believers in the Bush administration will brand this report as true heresy because it defies the stereotype of burdensome, worthless regulations," Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) said yesterday. "They clearly don`t understand that the government regulations are there to protect you -- and they work."

John D. Graham, director of OMB`s Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, which produced the study, said: "Our role at OMB is to report the best available estimates of benefits and costs, regardless of whether the information favors one advocacy group or another. In this case the data show that the Environmental Protection Agency`s clean-air office has issued some highly beneficial rules."

But an industry official said the report may have greatly understated the costs associated with environmental regulations. Jeffrey Marks, a clean-air policy expert with the National Association of Manufacturers, said EPA "has traditionally underestimated the costs of regulations on industry. . . . The tendency to choose benefit numbers to correspond to favorable policy choices is strong within the agency."

The findings are more startling because a similar OMB report last year concluded that the cost of compliance with a given set of regulations was roughly comparable to the public benefits. OMB now says it had erred last year by vastly understating the benefits of EPA`s rules establishing national ambient air quality standards for ozone and for particulate matter -- a major factor in upper respiratory, heart and lung disorders. Also, last year`s report covered the previous six years and did not account for the beneficial effects of the 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act that sharply reduced the problem of acid rain.

Many environmentalists had initially expressed fears that Graham, founder of a Harvard University-based risk analysis institute, would lead a Bush administration assault on regulatory safeguards. But Graham has sided with environmentalists on several key issues, including new rules to sharply reduce diesel engine emissions and the fine airborne particles that contribute to asthma and other serious respiratory ailments. The activists were quick to embrace this month`s report.

"The bottom line is that the benefits from major environmental rules over the past 10 years were [five to seven] times greater than the costs," said Kevin Curtis of the National Environmental Trust. "And that`s a number that can`t be ignored, even by an administration that has blamed `excessive` environmental regulations for everything from the California energy crisis to last month`s blackout to job losses to the failing economy."

Environmental groups and some lawmakers assert that the administration has begun to chip away at clean-air regulations and safeguards just when the country is beginning to see the fruits of decades of tough enforcement efforts. Earlier this month, the EPA issued its annual air trends report showing that, since 1970, emissions of the six principal air pollutants have declined by 48 percent. At the same time, EPA officials put the finishing touches on a "New Source Review" rule change that will enable utilities to extend the lifespan of older, dirtier power plants without installing new anti-air pollution equipment.

But White House officials and Republicans say the administration deserves credit for some of the improvement. They noted that the EPA has approved the new diesel emission standards affecting trucks, buses and off-road machinery in the coming years.

The OMB is required to report annually to Congress on the costs and benefits of federal regulations and unfunded mandates on states and American Indian tribes. This year`s report provided cost-benefit analysis on 107 major federal rules approved during the past decade dealing with agriculture, education, energy, health and human services, housing, labor, transportation and the environment. In all cases, the benefits far exceeded the costs of implementing the rule. But the most dramatic showing involved environmental protection.

Previous reports have been controversial because of the unavoidably imprecise methodology used to assess the costs and benefits of a variety of government regulations. In the absence of solid data or documentation, analysts often must rely on educated guesses or long-term impact projections that were prepared when the rules were put into effect.

"The data is prospective rather than retrospective," said Gary Bass of OMB Watch, a watchdog organization. "We don`t have an adequate data set. My guess is that if we did, the benefits would exceed the cost in a wider spread than the OMB report shows."



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
A Break From the Fighting
First Troops Arrive Home From Iraq for 2-Week Furlough

By Steve Vogel
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, September 27, 2003; Page A01


Six months have passed since Army Pvt. 1st Class Emma Merriel laid eyes on her 2-year-old son, Sam. Yesterday, with barely six hours to wait before she would see him for a short visit, Merriel could barely hold back her tears.

She was on holiday from a war zone.

Merriel, 21, arrived on a military charter flight that brought her and 191 other soldiers out of Iraq for a two-week break. She still doesn`t know why she was chosen for the first plane headed home.

"Just lucky, I guess," she said, her eyes welling up as she waited at Baltimore-Washington International Airport for her connecting flight to Spokane, Wash. "I never thought they`d give us leave."

In the first large-scale home leave program since the Vietnam War, service members on 12-month combat tours are being allowed to return home for two-weeks of R&R -- rest and recuperation. As the occupation of Iraq has developed into a bloody and prolonged affair and servicemen and women have seen their tours of duty there lengthened far beyond what they anticipated, military commanders approved the program to boost morale.

Still, there are concerns among families and psychotherapists that the short visits could cause difficulties, both for the troops left behind and those who return home only to have to say goodbye to their families again in two weeks.

The first planeload of soldiers, still wearing pungent desert camouflage battle-dress uniforms and carrying backpacks, arrived early yesterday at Baltimore-Washington International Airport, the vanguard for the many thousands who will be coming through the airport from Iraq and back.

A few soldiers arrived to find family members waiting there and were hustled toward cars. Some jumped into vans to take free showers at a nearby motel. Another contingent ran to computers in the USO lounge to look up sports scores on the ESPN Web site. The airport Burger King quickly filled with soldiers, many of them waiting for connecting flights.

Spec. Adrian Dupree, 24, an Army Reservist from Baltimore, went looking for his mother, who works for Frontier Airlines at BWI. Sharon Whittington had no idea her son was coming home until she saw him standing in front of the ticket counter.

"I looked up to my right, saw him standing there and my knees just got totally weak," Whittington told the Associated Press. "And then I flew over the counter and just hugged my child for all I was worth."

Similarly, Spec. Joey Clark, 22, a ground surveillance operator attached to the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Kirkuk, had not called his wife, Brandy, to let her know he was coming home. Waiting for a connecting flight to New York, Clark was planning to show up at the door and surprise her, and catch his first glimpse of his son, Colin, born four months ago.

An Army officer, hearing Clark explain his plans, ordered him to a telephone. "You call your wife before you get there," the officer said sternly. Wives, he told Clark, don`t like that kind of surprise.

Sgt. Jerry Ice, 36, an engineer with the Army`s 10th Mountain Division, had two goals upon his return to the United States. The first was to take a bath with some kind of disinfectant. The second was to eat strawberry ice cream. In pursuit of the second objective, Ice and Clark searched the airport until they found some.

The woman behind the counter told Ice there would be no charge. "Lady, you don`t have to do that," he said.

"Yeah, I do," she told him.

Wandering through the airport, in the land of plenty, soldiers admitted to suffering from culture shock after months of hard living in Iraq. In the hours since their plane had left Iraq, another soldier had been killed in an ambush, one of 170 U.S. military members who have died since President Bush declared the end of major combat operations May 1.

At that time, the Army hoped to send many of its troops back to the States quickly. But as attacks on U.S. forces have continued, the Pentagon has been forced to extend tours, damaging morale in some units and stoking anxiety among families at home.

Military leaders hope the home visits will ease both problems.

Many were given barely any warning that they were going home. Spec. Jared Burton, 21, a combat engineer who accompanied the 3rd Infantry Division on its march to Baghdad, was given 25 minutes to pack his bags and catch a ride. "I crammed some stuff in a bag and said, `I`ll go,` " Burton said. "It wasn`t hard to make a decision. I thought they were joking. I didn`t think they`d give us any leave."

For now, 270 troops a day will be flown out of Kuwait, and officials with U.S. Central Command expect the numbers to increase significantly in coming weeks. Commanders of individual units decide who goes; some are choosing troops who have been wounded, while others are considering family needs or a soldier`s performance.

BWI is the gateway to the United States for the troops, though the military probably will add flights to other cities as well. From the gateway airports, troops have to pay their own way home. Bracing for big numbers of troops, officials recently made $100,000 worth of security upgrades to the USO lounge at BWI to protect against the terrorist threat.

During the Vietnam War, service members took midterm leave, usually in Southeast Asia or Hawaii. The new program is bringing them back to the continental United States, and that concerns some in the Army and some outside experts. E.C. Hurley, a family therapist near Fort Campbell, Ky., home of the 101st Airborne Division, said it would be less disruptive to families, and disturbing to children, for the soldiers to take leave in some "neutral meeting place" in Europe.

"The soldier returns home for 10 to 14 days, and the pain of having him leave home again is going to be tremendous," Hurley said, adding that some military wives have told him that they would prefer that their husbands not come home but that feel they can`t say so publicly.

Some wives of 101st Airborne soldiers who already have "rotated" home to Fort Campbell have said they are seeing some signs of adjustment problems, such as anxiety while in crowds.

The soldiers at BWI said they were willing to chance the disruptions. Burton pondered what it will be like two weeks from now, when he has to say goodbye to his family in Ogden, Utah, and return to Iraq. "That`ll be hard. That will definitely be hard," he said, then paused. "But it`s definitely worth it."

Ice, headed for Fort Drum, N.Y., was not worried. "Mrs. Ice and the kids know I`m a soldier," he said. "I don`t put any drama behind it, but they know sometimes I`ve got to go."

Staff writer Thomas E. Ricks contributed to this report.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Uzbekistan President Islam Karimov, a U.S. ally, has been harshly criticized by human rights groups.
washingtonpost.com
Renewed Militancy Seen in Uzbekistan
Government Crackdown Threatens to Radicalize Previously Non-Violent Groups

By Peter Baker
Washington Post Foreign Service
Saturday, September 27, 2003; Page A19


NAMANGAN, Uzbekistan -- He belongs to a five-member cell of a secretive Islamic group pursuing the overthrow of secular governments. His organization historically has promoted peaceful means to that revolutionary end. But he has grown fed up of living underground and is ready to pick up a gun.

"Our authorities are so strict, it can force us to resort to violent ways of reaching our goals," said the 30-year-old member of the outlawed Hizb ut-Tahrir, or Party of Liberation. "Islam doesn`t prohibit use of armed violence when you are attacked." He said he would prefer the peaceful establishment of an Islamic state as his group preaches. But "if an uprising happens first, I`ll join that," said the man, who spoke on condition he not be identified.

In Uzbekistan, a new season of Islamic militancy may be opening, the result of harsh government crackdowns by President Islam Karimov, who has become an ally of the United States. Rather than smother militancy, Karimov`s campaign threatens to radicalize some of those Muslims who previously eschewed violence, according to an array of Islamic activists, scholars, human rights workers and foreign diplomats.

"Even the Koran says take such arms as your enemy possesses," said a 55-year-old man who belongs to the openly violent Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU) , which has cooperated with al Qaeda. "Karimov and the authorities are pushing people into becoming armed. Such a hard situation in Uzbekistan can bring civil war," said the man, who also declined to be identified.

The potential for renewed Islamic militancy in Central Asia worries policymakers in Washington. The State Department issued an alert in April warning that the IMU might be regrouping in Uzbekistan after being scattered in 2001 during the war in Afghanistan. The department issued a similar alert a month later about Islamic terrorists possibly planning attacks in neighboring Kyrgyzstan. Uzbek intelligence reports suggest the IMU is trying to reconstitute itself as the Islamic Movement of Central Asia.

While President Bush has embraced Karimov, hosting him in Washington, the U.S. administration has had little success pressuring the Uzbek leader into easing his policies.

A few half steps by Karimov last year, including the amnesty of 900 Muslims held in prison and the registration of a few human rights groups, have been dismissed by human rights groups as cosmetic moves intended to placate the United States. Uzbekistan continues to hold more than 6,000 other Muslims behind bars because of their beliefs, according to human rights activists who say they are still harassed for speaking out. Torture remains common; last year two prisoners were killed by boiling water, according to human rights organizations.

"Repression hasn`t lessened," said Sotiboldiev Kuchkar, director of the Namangan office of Freedom House, a human rights organization funded by the U.S. government and private groups. "It`s just changed tactics. . . . They`re trying to chase [Muslims] in other ways."

"Nothing has changed," said Mutabar Akhmedova, a 61-year-old Islamic activist in the capital Tashkent, who once called Karimov a killer to his face and has been arrested numerous times. "They started repression against Islam in `92, and it continues until now." If official arrest numbers have fallen, she added, it simply means they had "nobody left to detain because everybody was already in prison."

In the last few weeks alone, a prominent human rights activist was convicted on charges of homosexuality and his lawyer was subsequently kidnapped by masked men on a street in Tashkent at midday and beaten. A representative of the International Crisis Group, a private organization that reports on Uzbekistan, fled the country after threatening visits by government agents.

Uzbek leaders play down such incidents as aberrations or justifiable law enforcement. In their contacts with U.S. officials, they stress that they understand the danger of provoking Islamic radicalism with too heavy a hand and have committed to democratic and economic reforms.

"It`s not cosmetic change here," Foreign Minister Sodiq Safayev, an eloquent English-speaking former ambassador to Washington, said in an interview at his headquarters in Tashkent. "There are still some incidents, and we know about them and will continue to tackle them. However, I think some important institutional changes are happening here."

The rise of militant Islam in Central Asia has its roots in the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991, when Muslims long prevented from practicing their faith suddenly began doing so. Radical preachers from Arab countries flocked in to school neophytes in more militant variants of Islam, particularly here in the Fergana Valley, which straddles the borders of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Feeling threatened, Karimov began cracking down, jailing many men simply for wearing a beard, a traditional sign of Muslim piety.

Starting in 1999, the newly formed IMU under the leadership of a pair of radicals, Juma Namangani and Tahir Yuldash, took aim at Karimov. Vowing to oust him from office, they staged attacks and bombings, including a simultaneous series of blasts in Tashkent that killed 16 people on Feb. 16, 1999. Later, the group moved to Afghanistan and linked up with al Qaeda and the Taliban.

In May 2001, just months before the Sept. 11 attacks, Osama bin Laden named Namangani head of a brigade of foreign guerrillas called Livo that encompassed Uzbeks, Turks, Uighurs, Pakistanis and some Arabs. But U.S. bombers smashed Livo and the IMU during the Afghanistan campaign that fall, reportedly killing Namangani. Yuldash fled to Pakistan, where he remains with scores of followers, according to former IMU members and Uzbek intelligence officers.

"All he has left are women and old people and injured fighters," said Khasanboy Sotimov, 27, a former bodyguard for Yuldash, who escaped with the help of his father and returned to his home near here, where he was granted amnesty. "The IMU`s back has been broken. The rest have left him. There is no unity like there used to be."

But as some analysts and intelligence experts are concerned that the IMU is regrouping in neighboring Tajikistan, many others have turned their attention to the Hizb ut-Tahrir as the next potential threat. With an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 members in Central Asia, it has become by far the largest radical Islamic organization in the region.

It was founded in 1952 in the Middle East to reestablish the caliphate, or the Islamic state envisioned by the prophet Mohammed. It would be governed by the strict Islamic law that would virtually segregate women, return to the gold standard and declare a constant state of war against Israel and jihad against non-believers. In the group`s philosophy, even the conservative states of Iran and Saudi Arabia fail to live up to Islamic principles. And while it espouses non-violence, many people who have studied the group say that it supported coups in the Middle East in the 1960s and `70s.

Western governments are divided on Hizb ut-Tahrir. Both Germany and Russia banned it this year, but the United States has declined to put the group on a list of terrorist organizations, on the grounds that it has not been linked to violent actions. The party`s leader, Abdul Qadeem Zalloom, died in April, according to the group`s Web site, and was succeeded by Palestinian Ata Abu-i-Rushta.

The party first attracted recruits in Central Asia about five years ago and has grown, particularly since the demise of the IMU.

Uzbek intelligence officers said that while Hizb ut-Tahrir has never been linked to violent events, it could easily turn in that direction, or splinter off into smaller groups that would be violent. "Recent events show they`ve stepped away from ideological work and they`re openly propagandizing for an armed struggle," said Rustam Yockubdjanov, an Uzbek intelligence official. "Their consolidation with the IMU can be a threat not just for Uzbekistan but for other states."

The Tashkent government said it would continue to target Hizb ut-Tahrir despite U.S. pressure to back off. "The only option is to destroy them," said Ilya Pyagai, deputy director of counter-terrorism at the Uzbek Interior Ministry, which controls the national police force. "Let`s first bring things in order. Then we`ll talk about democracy and human rights."

But critics say they have it backwards. Without human rights, they say, there will be no order. "If they allowed freedom to study orthodox Islam, Hizb ut-Tahrir would not exist," said Mohammad Sadik Mohammad Yusuf, the country`s most prominent Islamic scholar, who returned from exile in 2001 and remains an outspoken critic of both Karimov and Hizb ut-Tahrir. "If they organized full-fledged Islamic education in the correct way, then people would find answers to all the questions they have . . . and they would discover that everything Hizb ut-Tahrir says is nonsense."

Instead, more Muslims here in the Fergana Valley are becoming intrigued by the group. "The forbidden fruit is sweeter," said Akhmad Madmarov, 59, an activist with the Independent Human Rights Organization of Uzbekistan. "We know from history that any movement forbidden by the state will be the center of attention and more people will join it."

Madmarov also knows it from his own family`s history. Over the years, three of his sons have been arrested, accused of being members of Hizb ut-Tahrir. None of them was at the time, he said. However, "now they are all real Hizb ut-Tahrir in prison."



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
Let the Arabs Help Build Iraq


By Adrian Karatnycky

Saturday, September 27, 2003; Page A25


So far discussion of the United Nations` role in Iraq has been dominated by the pressing matters of repairing U.S. relations with estranged allies, establishing a mandate for broader participation by international peacekeepers and expanded burden-sharing in the recovery effort. Currently it is focused on the insistence of France and others on a rapid transfer of power to Iraqi authority.

Lost in the shuffle of high politics and international rivalries has been any intelligent discussion of how best to advance Iraq`s democratic transition. The diplomatic jostling has failed to produce any practical consideration of specific ways the United Nations can best contribute to the goal of a free and democratic Iraq. Diplomats have thus far failed to give practical consideration to the most effective ways of harnessing the United Nations` knowledge, experience and credibility.

Perhaps the most glaring example of this failure has been the absence of any effort to engage the team of U.N. personnel that produced the world body`s influential Arab Development Report. A little more than a year ago, some 30 leading Arab scholars and policy analysts, operating under the aegis of the U.N. Development Program, issued a sweeping indictment of economic and political backwardness in the Arab world. The U.N. Arab Development Report documented the education deficit in the Arab world, including the narrow skills imparted to the young by religious and state schools. It lamented the denial of fundamental rights to women, which undermines economic development, and it focused attention on the absence of free media and democratic processes in Arab states.

This report outlined a coherent blueprint for addressing these problems through comprehensive educational reform that expands opportunities for higher education and through education free of ideological distortions. The report emphasized the need to move away from traditional approaches that emphasize learning by repetition in favor of creative reasoning and problem-solving. The report also articulated an agenda for empowering and educating women and called on government and private sector initiatives that would offer women significant opportunities to contribute to economic development. As importantly, the report focused on the need for information and media free of ideological control. In short, it addressed many of the specific challenges that confront postwar Iraq.

Because the analysis was prepared by Arabs, the report`s findings had wide resonance in the Arab and Islamic worlds, stimulating debate among Arab educators and intellectuals and earning the analytic team a high degree of credibility and legitimacy in the Arab world.

The United States and the other countries on the U.N. Security Council now have an opportunity to give these experts and analysts a role in rebuilding Iraq and constructing a viable democratic state. No group of outside experts is better equipped to understand the challenges that now confront Iraq. No group of outside experts is more likely to be listened to and accepted by their Iraqi counterparts and by the Iraqi people.

A prominent role for a reform-minded Arab team to interact with and advise Iraqis, U.N. personnel, and the U.S. and British "occupying powers" would help take some of the edge off Arab fears of encroaching Western neocolonialism, which extremist demagogues are exploiting in an effort to block reform. Were such an Arab-led reform effort launched, it could have significant impact on the rest of the Arab world. There would be great pride among Arabs and Muslims throughout the world that a blueprint for reform designed by Arabs for Arabs is being implemented. And success in Iraq would certainly increase the pressure on the Arab world`s most backward and oppressive regimes to begin a similar process of real political and economic liberalization.

It`s high time that the debate at the United Nations turned away from recrimination and the settling of diplomatic scores and began to address the needs of the Iraqi people.

The writer is counselor and senior scholar at Freedom House, an organization that monitors political rights and civil liberties around the world.




© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
Democracy Denied Redux


By Colbert I. King

Saturday, September 27, 2003; Page A25


Iraqi Governing Council

Baghdad, Iraq

Dear Iraqi council members:

As a native Washingtonian and longtime resident of our nation`s capital, I can`t help but notice that you have been having a bit of trouble convincing the White House that Iraqis are capable of governing their own country according to an Iraqi timetable. We citizens of the District of Columbia understand what you`re up against. We`ve been trying for the better part of 130 years to convince Washington that we are up to determining our own priorities without federal supervision. But apparently the powers that be in this city think that we, like you, are not ready. So from one group of self-rule hopefuls to another, welcome to the colony.

Truth be told, when it comes to handing out political rights, Washington -- despite all the full-throated rhetoric about freedom and democracy -- can be downright tight, as in stingy and piddling. Not to cry on your shoulders, since you have loads of troubles of your own, but did you know that citizens of Washington, D.C., have no voice or vote in the Senate and have only a nonvoting delegate in the House of Representatives?

Bet you didn`t know that we are taxed without our consent or that we are sent off to fight and die in foreign lands -- as one of our young National Guardsmen did recently in your country -- without having had a chance to be represented in the voting on the congressional resolution authorizing the president to take actions such as invading your country. And guess what: All major governmental decisions affecting our lives are ultimately approved by people elected from other parts of the United States.

But why should you know those things? After all, this isn`t your country. Besides, there are other aspects that make us different.

Washingtonians are under the federal thumb because Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution puts the District of Columbia under the control of Congress. Of course, the Constitution doesn`t prevent Congress from delegating a great deal more authority to us to manage our own affairs. We should have budget autonomy and the ability to spend our own locally raised tax dollars without congressional approval -- but we don`t. We should have the ability to appoint our own judges and chief prosecutor -- but we don`t. We should have voting representation in Congress -- but we don`t. Congress is in a position to grant all those conditions -- but it won`t. The Constitution does not require members of Congress to behave this way -- but they do.

Congress is not your overseer. Last I checked, you were still a foreign nation. That`s a big difference. Our laws don`t reach you. Our planes, ships and troops do, however. And that apparently gives Washington and coalition forces exclusive control over you and your land. Which also means that all major governmental decisions affecting Iraqi lives will be ultimately made and sanctioned by non-Iraqis sent by Washington. And soon your federal overseers -- should Congress agree -- will come bearing billions to build up your land to their own liking.

Which gets me to the significance to Iraq of Washington`s Golden Rule, which is: Them That`s Got the Gold, Rule.

Sorry to break the bad news to you, Iraqi Governing Council, but your participation in major financial decisions affecting your nation will be token. In accordance with this Golden Rule, the major voice in your country`s destiny will be that of the American official with the checkbook, Ambassador L. Paul Bremer. That said, I have to confess that we in the real Washington can`t help but feel a little envious about what`s coming your way.

We read where you`re going to get billions to upgrade your electric power generation, millions to create a countrywide phone system with area codes and the like, $400 million for prisons, $240 million to build roads and bridges, $165 million for airports, $2.1 billion for your oil industry, $303 million for railroads, $50 million on irrigation culverts, $8 billion on safe drinking water, $10 million for 100 experts to help prison reconstruction for six months at $100,000 each, etc.

Makes the head swim.

Why the envy? Here`s a little news that may not have reached Baghdad. Everybody back here doesn`t live like Bremer, Colin Powell, President Bush and Condoleezza Rice. It`s nice to know the Bush administration wants to get your phone system up and running across Iraq. Did you know there are 2,570,705 U.S. households with no telephone service? We`re going to send money and experts to get your plumbing up to speed. But we have 670,000 homes in this country that lack complete plumbing facilities and another 716,000 that lack complete kitchen facilities.

Meanwhile, I read where $100 million in tax dollars of working Americans is going to Iraq to build seven communities, complete with 3,258 houses, roads, an elementary school, two high schools, a clinic, a place of worship and a market.

Cool.

But believe me, life isn`t a bed of roses for lots of Americans, either. Yesterday our Census Bureau reported that poverty rose in our country last year. Nearly 35 million people live in poverty in the United States. Here in the nation`s capital, nearly 18 percent of city residents are making less than the poverty line -- that means they are earning less than $18,556 a year for a family of four.

But you`re lucky. Bush and company seem to care about you. Maybe that`s because, as they say in real estate, location, location, location is everything. You happen to occupy real estate and have a neighbor in a region that Washington cares about.

And the District? Our nonvoting representative in the House, Eleanor Holmes Norton, observed in a statement yesterday: "The District last week buried 21-year-old D.C. Army National Guard Specialist Darryl Thomas Dent. His 547th unit was told that they would be home in August, then in October, then in November." Norton noted that as Dent has proved, we in the District are prepared to do whatever it takes, adding that the only question is whether there are any limits on what the country is "willing to ask" of us.

Voteless and politically powerless, Washingtonians are the gift to America that keeps on giving.

Welcome, Baghdad, to the club.

[e-mail]



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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The Cartoon Graveyard
Just the Cartoons Without the Commentary
Lachen ist gesund, deshalb nicht ärgern und dafür 86 frische Cartoons.


http://www.flu-ent.com/graveyard/20030926__086toons.htm

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September 26, 2003

Bush at the UN
American Psycho
By JOHN CHUCKMAN

No, I did not read the book, but what words more perfectly describe George Bush making one of the oddest speeches ever made at the UN? There he was--with his designer suit, costly watch, and constantly-manicured haircut--stone-faced and unrepentant for the violent destruction he caused, for his obvious lying, and for his rage against the thoughtful objections of others. Actually, unrepentant seems an inadequate description, unaware or uninterested being closer to the mark.

The matter and manner of Bush`s speaking are always an ordeal for thinking people. He seems convinced that every audience deserves the same approach given the pathologically credulous at a revival tent meeting.

But he outdid himself this time. His description of anti-social behavior on a global scale as support for the world community must have provided a sophisticated audience interesting dinner topics. One can imagine the bons mots around the subject of the world`s most incorrigible, obvious liar claiming he defends UN credibility. As with Dostoevsky`s Father Karamazov, it was as though all his recent vicious and disturbing behavior had simply never happened.

Of course, he sees the UN as good for a big handout towards the financial and human cost of rebuilding the waste he made of Iraq. This may seem odd for one of those "we ain`t a gonna pay no damn UN dues" types, but, remember, psychopaths are complete narcissists.

But a handout is not Bush`s critical need. Facing an election, he is looking for ways to deflect growing criticism and doubt from American voters. Americans have been remarkably quiescent over the dirty wars in Afghanistan and Iraq because they cost so few American lives and provided a reassuring sense of the nation`s vast capacity for revenge, even if they killed mostly innocent people and few or any of those associated with 9/11.

But night after night of car bombs and dead American soldiers on television have a way of changing perceptions. America`s press, "embedded" with the Pentagon long before the term was invented for the Iraq war, often poorly reports around foreign policy, but it simply cannot resist blood-and-ambulances stuff with real American victims. With this continuing week after week, it is likely more Americans will see the Iraq war for what it was--nothing to do with justice or democracy or rights or even terror--but one more kill-a-commie-for-Christ campaign, only on a vast scale with high-technology killing and no commies. And, as with all previous such holy wars, it just happens to serve the interests of America`s utterly selfish foreign policy.

The UN is widely misunderstood in America, a circumstance people of Bush`s leaning have always diligently cultivated, and its involvement on any appreciable scale gives Bush something external and vaguely-disliked to manipulate in explaining all the violence and confusion yet to come as a people revolt against conquest, occupation, and misery.

International involvement gives room for maneuver, wiggle room, and can be twisted with words to serve many purposes, including the claim that it vindicates Bush`s wisdom, all those do-nothing, effete foreigners finally coming to recognize the threat of terror--and, yes, he once again with unblinking dishonesty linked terror with Iraq during his UN performance, terror being, with the bitterest irony, Bush`s best ally in garnering votes. Iraqis fighting back with limited means against the world`s military and technological Frankenstein naturally has to be called something else, so it is called terror, just as violent resistance to endless occupation and abuse in Gaza and the West Bank is.

Psychopathy likely is one of those many glitches in the gene pool, an evolutionary trial-and-error that served a useful purpose before modern urban society, psychopathic warriors being valued for their ability at defending early human settlements and terrifying potential enemies. Probably most of our legends of monsters such as vampires or ghouls derive from human experience with all-too-real psychopathic personalities.

Psychopaths are valued to this day as torturers for secret police, assassins, and dirty-tricks operatives for intelligence services. Police and prison-guard services who are careful about their hiring screen out such people with tests (there are extremely reliable ones), since psychopaths are naturally drawn to work where others will be at their mercy.

As with many mental disorders, from depression to schizophrenia, there appears to be degrees of psychopathy. The father of the late Jeffrey Dahmer, a man who killed, consumed and memorialized portions of his victims in his Milwaukee apartment, wrote a courageous book after the discovery of his son`s horrific deeds. He recognized in retrospect signs from his son`s childhood that something unusual was developing. He also, very importantly, recognized that there were uncomfortable thoughts he had had as a young man which now might be understood as a milder inclination in the same direction.

Politics with the power of elected office and the glow of press attention surely is a draw for at least the more moderately afflicted. There is reason to believe that psychopathy helps explain the careers of some horrible and bizarre politicians. The example that leaps to mind is the late Senator McCarthy. Yes, he was a nasty drunk, but lots of drunks function in politics without becoming destroyers of others` lives. The great Winston Churchill, for example, couldn`t get through a day without his brandy.

How do you get rid of a political psychopath like Bush? Well, I hope the Democratic party doesn`t see its only option as simply running another one. The Democratic contenders include at least a couple characters who might well qualify as having the disorder.

The armed forces have always been natural repositories for these dark creatures, the work of killing and the skill of being able to do it with relish making good fits. We have a general who suddenly discovered at nearly sixty years of age that he is a Democrat. What that means in the context of the general`s military experience, which includes probable war crimes and extremely hazardous judgments in Serbia, is not clear.

We have a Senator who always smilingly supports death, whether as part of American foreign policy, Israeli foreign policy, or in prisons.

Maybe that`s just how it has to be in a vast bloated empire that pretends it represents principle. After all, you need to keep all those disagreeable foreigners in line. Statesmen and humanitarian leaders aren`t very good material for the job.

John Chuckman lives in Canada. He can be reached at: [e-mail]

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"Marshall Plan to Bush Iraqi Plan: No Comparison"
t r u t h o u t | Statement
West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd

Wednesday 24 September 2003

Opening remarks to the Senate Appropriations Committee considering Bush Administration request for 87B additional dollars in funding for the Iraqi occupation.

The American people want to know more about what the Administration has planned for Iraq, and it is the responsibility of Congress to help inform our public. But rather than explanations of the Administration`s long-term plan for Iraq, we only hear comparisons to the Marshall Plan.

I can understand the Administration`s desire to equate in the minds of the American public Saddam Hussein`s Iraq to Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan. World War II invokes images of the "Greatest Generation" -- the entire country united to defeat the Axis powers, and then, after victory, stayed behind to rebuild the cities of their conquered foes.

But with World War II, Japan had attacked us. The Axis Powers had declared war on us. The U.S. occupation of Germany and Japan took place in the wake of a widely supported defensive war, under a commitment to internationalism and multilateralism.

We`re seeing none of this in Iraq. For one, the war in Iraq was not defensive. It was a preemptive attack. Secondly, we have alienated most of the international community in fighting the war. Third, the Germans and Japanese did not resist the U.S. occupation through sabotage, assassinations, and guerilla warfare.

The Marshall Plan was not a huge bill presented to Congress for its rubber-stamp approval. It was a comprehensive strategy to provide $13.3 billion to 16 countries over four years to aid in reconstruction. In current dollars, the U.S. share would be about $88.2 billion spread over four years - very nearly the same amount that has been requested by the President for one country for a period of mere months. Moreover, the total amount of aid that the President will ultimately request for Iraq is anyone`s guess.

When the Congress considered the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, the Foreign Relations Committee held one-month of hearings, from January 8 to February 5, 1948, with the Chairman calling ninety witnesses to testify. After the Foreign Relations Committee reported legislation, the Senate further debated it for an additional two weeks. Senator Arthur Vandenberg, the Republican Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, called the aid plan reported by his committee "the final product of eight months of more intensive study by more devoted minds than I have ever known to concentrate upon any one objective in all my twenty years in Congress." The Congressional Research Service states that the Marshall Plan was opened to "perhaps the most thorough examination prior to launching of any program." If only we had the patience and desire to hold more hearings and devote more study to this huge spending request for Iraq before we rush to approve it. If only this Administration would be more open to working with Congress before committing vast sums for foreign aid, as was done half a century ago.

The reconstruction of Europe was undertaken in the context of spirit of internationalism, multilaterialism, and collective security that led to the formation of the United Nations, NATO, the World Bank, and the International Monetary Fund. The same can hardly be said today.

And who received aid under the Marshall Plan? West Germany managed to rebuild its economy and restore its once-functioning democracy with $9.2 billion in inflation-adjusted dollars; or just 10.6 percent of all Marshall Plan funds. Great Britain, with undeniable cultural and political similarities to America, alone received 24.7 percent of the Marshall Plan funds over the course of four years, the equivalent of $21.1 billion in 1997 dollars.

Yet today, we are asked to appropriate $20.3 billion for the reconstruction of Iraq for the next year alone. Moreover, these funds are not just for rebuilding bridges, but an attempt to transform a political culture very different from our own into a democracy - a form of government never before seen in those ancient lands. At least one of our intelligence agencies has grave doubts about democratizing Iraq, stating in one unclassified report, "Western-style democracy will be difficult to achieve."

The $87 billion package that the President is seeking has little in common with the Marshall Plan. We should not learn our history through sound bites. Congress has an obligation to understand what this $87 billion is supposed to do for Iraq, and whether those goals can ever be achieved.

We need to retain the support of the people as we face the harsh realities of post-war Iraq. Let us ask ourselves: years in the future, will the people look back and applaud the rush to pass this funding package? Perhaps the answer lies in another question: do the people, today, curse the memory of Senator Vandenburg and others for acting with such deliberation half a century ago?

The President`s $87 billion request is larger than the Gross Domestic Product of 166 nations. It is the beginning of a potentially enormous commitment to Iraq. We have the duty to understand the enormity of the potential consequences before we act.

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http://truthout.org/docs_03/092603E.shtml

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http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-na-income2…
THE NATION


Middle, Lower Classes Feel Pinch
Bush could be hurt by new figures showing income rates down and poverty rates up.
By Peter G. Gosselin
Times Staff Writer

September 27, 2003

WASHINGTON — The annual income of middle-class Americans fell by about $500 each last year, and the number of people in poverty rose by 1.7 million, the Census Bureau reported Friday, showing the lingering effects of the country`s long economic downturn and suggesting the political trouble that may lie ahead for President Bush.

The census data marked the second straight year of such discouraging trends after nearly a decade of continuous improvement. The rise in those classified as living in poverty suggested that the damage of the 2001 recession was finally beginning to reach low-income groups, which had been surprisingly resistant to its ill effects.

Separately, the government said Friday that the U.S. economy grew at a 3.3% annual rate from April through June, slightly faster than the 3.1% rate it had previously estimated and its fastest pace since last fall. Higher growth usually increases income and reduces poverty, but with employers still slashing payrolls, it is unlikely that has happened yet.

There were 3 million more poor people last year than in 2000, shortly before the economy slipped into recession, according to the Census Bureau. Nationally, a family of four earning less than $18,244 a year is classified as living in poverty.

And, at $42,409 after adjusting for inflation, median income was 3.3% below where it had been two years earlier, census figures showed. Half of all Americans earn more than the median income, while half earn less.

Analysts said the income and poverty trends have very likely deteriorated further this year. The recession officially began in March 2001 and continued through November of that year, but economic growth since then has been on again, off again.

"We`re in the midst of an economic downdraft and there`s more bad news to come," predicted Syracuse University economist Timothy M. Smeeding. "My guess is that the numbers for this year are going to be worse than they were for last year."

In California, census figures show that last year`s median income decline appeared more pronounced than for the nation as a whole, dropping $725, or 1.5%. But census officials cautioned that the agency measures state trends slightly differently from national ones, so the two figures are not directly comparable.

Officials also pointed out that at $47,724, the state`s median income was higher than the nation`s, so its decline did not represent quite as substantial an economic setback.

In terms of poverty, the California rate climbed two-tenths of a percentage point to 12.8%, according to the Census Bureau. The national poverty rate rose four-tenths of a percentage point, to 12.1%. Some 34.6 million Americans were counted as poor in 2002, up from 32.9 million in 2001.

As with incomes, the state and national poverty rates are measured slightly differently.

The latest income and poverty trends might spell political trouble for any president. But they may prove particularly troublesome for Bush, because the sharpest setbacks have come in swing states, especially in the Midwest. Some are states he either narrowly won or lost in the 2000 election and is thought to need in order to win reelection.

"This is a very serious threat," said Bill Schneider, a veteran political analyst with the American Enterprise Institute, a generally conservative Washington think tank, and a commentator for CNN News.

"Bush`s biggest problem right now is the loss of manufacturing jobs, and these numbers show how concentrated the damage is in the middle of the country."

The White House offered an upbeat assessment of the president`s ability to revive growth and reverse the latest trends.

"The poverty rate reflects the economic slowdown and the unemployment situation," said spokeswoman Clare Buchan. "The president has a vigorous agenda aimed at helping everyone achieve the American dream and participate in an ownership society," she said.

Democratic presidential contenders, meanwhile, heaped scorn on the president`s performance.

"Another sign of the Bush administration`s disastrous record of failed economic policies," said former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.

"With a record like this, he shouldn`t be running for president, he should be running for the hills," added newly announced challenger Wesley Clark.

With the presidential election season approaching, census officials offered 15 different ways to measure income and 10 to gauge poverty — one apparently for almost any political taste. But virtually all the measures pointed in the same direction — down in the case of income and up in the case of poverty.

The only one of the alternative measures to jump out was that for after-tax median income, which slid 0.8% last year. The decline was considerably less than the drop in pre-tax income and suggested that the steady stream of tax cuts pushed by the administration has helped cushion the income fall for many Americans.

But the latest income and poverty numbers indicated that a cushion of another sort — an egalitarian sharing of economic pain among the nation`s income classes and racial and ethnic groups, which had been apparent in the 2001 numbers — is fading fast.

Among other things, the 2001 numbers showed the poverty rate for whites was climbing at a faster pace between 2000 and 2001 than it did for blacks, Latinos or Asian Americans. And the minorities` income appeared to hold up better than in the past.

In most recessions, minority groups are the first and most severe casualties. But the latest census figures, covering 2002, suggest that this unusual burden-sharing is coming to an end.

While the median income of white households slipped between 0.3% and 0.6% last year, that for blacks fell between 2.5% and 3%, for Latinos 2.9% and for Asians and Pacific Islanders between 4% and 4.5%.

The poverty rate among whites rose between three- and four-tenths of a point, but poverty among blacks rose between 1.2 and 1.4 percentage points. (In contrast to the past, the census last year permitted household members to identify themselves as belonging to several racial groups, making it difficult to give precise figures for most groups.)

"A lot of us were puzzled but pleased [in 2001] when it looked like blacks, single-parent households and other disadvantaged groups were resisting the normal poverty-increasing effects of economic downturns," said Northwestern University economist Greg Duncan.

"It doesn`t look like they are able to resist anymore," he said.

"It looks like the 2001 recession was tough on everybody, even white-collar, highly educated workers, but the recovery has been tough on minorities," said Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute, a generally liberal Washington think tank.

Even with these recent changes, several economists, both liberal and conservative, said that the current economic weakness is causing less poverty than in similar periods in the past. They said that almost two years out from the November 2001 end of the most recent recession, poverty among children has risen only about a half of a point. By contrast, at similar stages in the three previous downturns, child poverty had risen between 2 and 3.4 percentage points.

"There`s no way to put a positive spin on the income decline," said Gary Burtless, an economist with the generally liberal Brookings Institution. But he said the difference in recent poverty figures shows that "the labor market is not turning against low-skilled people the way it did during most of the last 20 years."

The latest numbers show "this has been a very unusual recession," according to Robert Rector, an economist with the conservative, Washington-based Heritage Foundation. "It`s been a long one, but a very shallow one."



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-iraq27s…


With Each Attack, U.S. Image in Iraq Erodes
Residents of Baqubah express their disdain after a market blast that left nine dead.
By Alissa J. Rubin
Times Staff Writer

September 27, 2003

BAQUBAH, Iraq — The attack came not long after darkness fell, a time when the air is balmy after the heat of the day and people linger to exchange news, gossip and run a last errand before curfew.

In this peaceful scene, a mortar shell exploded with extraordinary force, its shrapnel flying for hundreds of feet and leaving nine Iraqi civilians dead and at least 18 wounded Thursday at a busy market in this turbulent town northeast of Baghdad.

On Friday, all that was left was a broad, shallow crater in the road, suspicions about who was responsible and disdain for the Americans` ability to stop such acts.

"These were innocent people who were killed," said Dhamid Salih, 47, who owns a small kebab restaurant a few feet from where the shell hit. "There are a lot of people who don`t like the idea that Iraq is stabilizing. They are doing this to create chaos. The Americans should do something."

The attackers probably were aiming for a U.S. military compound several hundred yards away, Iraqi police and U.S. military officials said.

More than six months after the war began, loyalists to the former regime of Saddam Hussein have found a multitude of ways to create a sense of insecurity in Iraq, despite the efforts by U.S.-led coalition forces and civilian workers to stabilize the situation.

The loyalists have assassinated politicians, most recently Aqila Hashimi, a member of the Iraqi Governing Council who died Thursday of her gunshot wounds. They are believed to have been involved in suicide bombings, including one at the United Nations` Baghdad headquarters last month that killed chief envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello and 21 others.

They have kept up a daily drumbeat of attacks on coalition forces — one American was killed Friday in a rocket-propelled grenade attack in the northern city of Kirkuk, and another died in a fire in Tikrit, Hussein`s hometown. The deaths bring the U.S. military toll to 308, more than half of those since President Bush declared major combat over May 1.

A climate of apprehension pervades many areas of the country. Those Iraqis who work with the U.S.-led coalition routinely receive threats; every day, U.S. forces are targeted by attacks that injure if not kill; and everyone living in Iraq is regularly hamstrung by sabotage of power stations and oil pipelines.

Though the Americans are not necessarily blamed for specific attacks, many Iraqis hold them responsible for the instability.

"I feel anxious all the time because of the lack of security and because the acts of sabotage are getting more violent," said Maher Jamal Abid, 35, who runs a small private hospital in Baqubah where some of the injured from Thursday`s blast were being treated.

Abid, who has not been a target of violence, said his solution would be to have Hussein come back. "But I would like that he only do security," he said.

An earnest man who apologized that his hospital was not more modern, he added that if "Saddam gave one speech, security would be improved."

"We would like to see action from the Americans," he said.

The now-widespread availability of satellite TV has meant that people all over the country see the attacks or their aftermath, and that reinforces the sense of precariousness. Such news routinely displaces information about improvements in the country, leaving many Iraqis with the overall feeling that their situation is no better or even worse than it was before the war.

That sense of impotence in the face of continuing violence was felt Friday in Baqubah, about 30 miles from the capital. It is a place where there is still open support for the former regime. Graffiti in many places throughout the city proclaims: "Long live the hero. Long live Saddam."

"I was talking with friends about my ambition to find a job and we were talking about security and how actually in recent days we felt there was an improvement," said Hussein Abdulrida, 42, whose hand was so badly damaged by shrapnel from the market blast that he may lose his index finger.

The scene of carnage shocked the U.S. military police who arrived at the scene in minutes, and it overwhelmed the local public hospital.

"We had seen individual injuries like these, but suddenly the emergency room was completely full and covered in blood," said Saad Mahmoud, a doctor who works in several Baqubah hospitals and was on duty at the public hospital when the casualties came in.

Abdulrida said the only solution was to have Iraqis take care of law enforcement.

"The Americans want to apply their laws to us. They are too soft," he said. "There is something inside ourselves that we do not like, but we need a strong central authority."

But he doesn`t blame the Americans for the attack, as some in Baqubah do.

"Maybe it was people from the past regime," he said. "Because they thought he [Hussein] was the only one who could rule Iraq."

Others seemed reluctant to blame Hussein loyalists and instead accused "outsiders" from Iran or Saudi Arabia.

American military sources said they were nearly certain that the assault was the work of former regime supporters, perhaps the paramilitary group Fedayeen Saddam.

It appears that the attackers fired a Soviet-made 120-millimeter mortar round, an exceptionally large size, probably from a truck, said Army Capt. Josh Felker, spokesman for the 4th Infantry Division`s 2nd Brigade.

He added that although the brigade`s main base is hit by mortar rounds several times a week, the rounds are almost always 60 or 80 millimeters.

The larger round requires considerable skill to aim correctly; it can land anywhere within a 500-yard radius. During warfare, a forward spotter usually watches where the first mortar round lands and then radios back to the soldier firing to make adjustments, Felker said.

Iraqi and U.S. police investigators believe that Thursday`s attackers were firing at the Civilian Military Affairs Company, which is involved in building projects on behalf of Iraqis, and that the attackers were unperturbed at the prospect of missing because they assumed the violence would be attributed to the U.S. military and undermine its authority and credibility.

U.S. and Iraqi officials blame Hussein loyalists for the assassination of Hashimi, the Governing Council member.

In Kadhimiya, a majority Shiite neighborhood of Baghdad where Hashimi`s body had been expected to be brought for prayers Friday before being taken to the holy Shiite city of Najaf, the mood was bleak — and fatalistic about the ability of Iraqis to stand up to the destabilizing forces.

Hashimi`s funeral procession ultimately skipped the Kadhimiya stop because of security concerns.

"Her assassination will have no echo. No one will do anything because we got used to losing such dear people as she was," said Mushtaq Talib, 33, the owner of a religious bookstore. "We lost them over and over under the old regime, so we have learned to keep quiet on such occasions If we express our sorrow, we will be killed. Even now we do not touch freedom."


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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Versus die Presse
von Robert Fisk
New Zealand Herald / ZNet 24.09.2003


BAGDAD. Abwasser dringt aus den Kanaldeckeln, und immer noch gibt es nur 15 Stunden am Tag Strom, Anarchie hält die Straßen Bagdads im Griff. Aber am gestrigen Tag brüllte der zahnlose amerikanische Irak-’Interimsrat’ wie ein Löwe und gab eine Reihe Restriktionen und Drohungen bekannt - natürlich gegen die Presse gerichtet. In erster Linie gemeint waren die arabischen Satellitensender ‘Al Dschasiera’ und ‘Arabia’, die alle Bandaufzeichnungen Saddam Husseins senden. Die (neuerlassenen) Regeln erinnern fast schon an Orwell. Jede Regel beginnt mit den Worten: “Do not...”, soll heißen, jede ausländische oder irakische Nachrichten- Presse oder Nachrichten-TV-Organisation kann geschlossen werden, sollte sie “sich für die Rückkehr der Bath-Partei einsetzen oder irgendeine die Bath direkt oder indirekt repräsentierende Erklärung” herausgeben (!)

Der Rat, eingesetzt vom amerikanischen Prokonsul Paul Bremer, gab gestern zu, man habe sich mit Bremers Rechtsberatern konsultiert, bevor man die Restriktionen herausgab. Typisch für das Chaos, das in Bagdad derzeit herrscht: Zunächst hatte der Sprecher des Interimsrats, Intefadh Qanbar - ein Mann Ahmed Chalabis - verlautet, ‘Al-Dschasierah’ und ‘Arabia’ werden im Irak geschlossen. Nach zwei Stunden war klar, bei der Strafe (für die angeblichen Vergehen) der beiden arabisch-sprachigen Sender geht es (nur) darum, dass ihnen der ‘Interimsrat’ für zwei Wochen jede Kooperation verweigert - eine Strafe, die sich so mancher Journalist hier sogar wünschen würde. Dennoch reflektiert die Liste auf kompromittierende Weise, welche Art von ‘Demokratie’ Bremer dem Irak schenken will. Immerhin hat Bremer schon Ende Frühjahr von seinen Rechtsberatern Zensurregeln erarbeiten lassen.

Einige der Restriktionen sind so selbstverständlich, dass man sie schon als naiv bezeichnen muss:

“Rufen Sie nicht zur Gewalt gegen irgendeine Person oder Gruppe auf”. Eine Regel wie diese könnte in jedem bürgerlichen Gesetzbuch stehen, dazu braucht es keine Liste mit Presse-Restriktionen. “Rufen Sie nicht zur Gewalt gegen Behörden oder gegen Personen in verantwortlicher Position auf” - fällt in dieselbe Kategorie. Geht es hingegen um die Bath-Partei, wird die Absicht deutlich, die Iraker daran zu hindern, Saddams Stimme zu vernehmen. Beide arabischen Stationen haben Saddams Bänder ja in voller Länge ausgestrahlt - einschließlich seines sehr, sehr düsteren Grußes inklusive einer beklemmenden Liebeserklärung an das Bagdader Volk: “Ich vermisse Euch, meine Lieben”. Die (diesbezügliche) Regel beweist andererseits, wie sehr sich die US-Behörden inzwischen vor Saddams Sympathisanten fürchten. Nachdem man der Welt erzählt hat, die meisten Irakis seien über ihre ‘Befreiung’ entzückt bzw. über die sich entwickelnde ‘Demokratie’, ist den Behörden nun wohl offensichtlich klar, viele Iraker fühlen ganz und gar nicht so.

Zudem werden Journalisten und andere dazu aufgefordert, die Behörden über “jeden Akt der Sabotage, über kriminelle Aktivitäten, über Terrorismus oder jede Gewaltaktion zu informieren... vor oder nach einem Angriff”. Aber kein Journalist - auch keiner von Al Dschasiera - weiß im voraus über Anschläge Bescheid. Im Endeffekt verlangt die Richtlinie also, dass Journalisten zu Assistenten der Besatzungsbehörden werden. Viele Irakis würden mit gutem Grund behaupten, dass die schreckhaften US-Truppen, die schon so viele unschuldige Iraker - vor, während oder nach Anschlägen auf ihre Konvois - getötet haben, für sie eine ebenso große Gefahr darstellen wie die Guerillas, die Amerikaner angreifen. Ganz klar, die Restriktionen betreffen jeden Reporter im Irak - wenigstens kann man sie so interpretieren. Ein Bericht, in dem Saddam zitiert wird oder der die manchmal brutalen Hausrazzien der Amerikaner beschreibt, könnte so als “Repräsentierung” der Bath-Partei bzw. als Aufruf zur Gewalt an die Irakis gewertet werden. Die blühende, freie, neue irakische Presse - mittlerweile gibt es allein in Bagdad über hundert Zeitungen-, kennt durchaus Beispiele, wo zum ‘Dschihad’ gegen die Besatzungsbehörden aufgerufen wird bzw. wo komplett falsch über das Verhalten von US-Soldaten informiert wird. In dieser Hinsicht würde allerdings die Eröffnung einer Journalistenschule wesentlich mehr helfen als die gestrige ‘Verbotsliste’. Und so wie die Dinge liegen, dürfte selbst die Berichterstattung über die gestrige Tötung - respektive Tötungen - nahe der sunnitischen Stadt Falludschah, durch Raketenfeuer eines amerikanischen Helikopters, in die Kategorie ‘Aufruf zur Gewalt’ fallen. Das US-Militär behauptet, es sei von einem Haus in der Stadt aus unter Feuer genommen worden und hätte “einen Feind” getötet. Aber Krankenhausärzte gaben die Namen von 3 getöteten Männern bekannt - alle aus derselben Familie: Ali, Saad u. Salem al-Jumaili. Von einem (der Getöteten) wird gesagt, es handle um einen unschuldigen Bauern; auch zwei seiner Kinder sind bei dem tödlichen Vorfall verletzt worden. Später hat man amerikanische Soldaten dabei beobachtet, wie sie in den beiden getroffenen Häusern Fotos schossen. Überall auf dem Fußboden Blutlachen.





[ Übersetzt von: Andrea Noll | Orginalartikel: "Against the Press" ]

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Projectiles Hit Baghdad Hotel Housing U.S. Officers
Attacks Comes Hours After U.S. Soliders Kill 2 Iraqis in Fallujah
The Associated Press
Saturday, September 27, 2003; 12:25 PM
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- Three missiles or rocket-propelled grenades slammed into Baghdad`s al-Rashid Hotel, home to U.S. officers and their civilian staff, on Saturday just hours after American soldiers killed at least two Iraqis at a checkpoint in Fallujah.
James Smith, a spokesman for the U.S.-run coalition, said the projectiles struck the hotel at about 6:30 a.m., although there were conflicting reports about what exactly was fired. No casualties and only minor damage were reported.
The al-Rashid, once one of Baghdad`s best hotels, was taken over by the military after Saddam Hussein was toppled by coalition forces in April. It sits inside a heavily guarded compound that also houses the Baghdad Convention Center, where the military has its press office. The U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council also has its headquarters in the complex.
Residents of the Salhiya neighborhood just west of the complex said the projectiles were fired from the middle of the street and the launcher was left behind as the attackers fled.
Mohammed Mohanad, an Iraqi policeman at the station across the street from Al-Rashid, said he heard the blasts while on his way to work and that he counted four rounds.
In the area around the al-Rashid, reporters were shown a one-story private home where the fourth projectile struck, leaving a three-foot-wide hole in the wall.
"I was sleeping on the roof of my house when a very large boom woke me," said Esther Shaoul, a neighbor.
The attack came as residents and Iraqi police in Fallujah, a hotspot of anti-U.S. resistance west of Baghdad, reported that U.S. troops fired on two vehicles at a checkpoint Friday night, killing four Iraqis and wounding at least three others, including a child.
The American military in Baghdad said soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division fired on an Iraqi vehicle as it ran a checkpoint in Fallujah about 10:30 p.m. Friday. Spec. Nicole Thompson said two people were killed and four were wounded.
Saturday afternoon, Fallujah police Col. Jalal Sabri said one of the wounded had died, bringing the death toll to five.
Iraqi policeman Sinan Najam Fahd said U.S. troops fired at a car and a pickup truck but gave no reason why. Police and ambulances rushed the victims to Fallujah General Hospital. They included one girl who appeared to be about 10 years old and who suffered a leg wound.
Fallujah, located in the so-called "Sunni Triangle," is one of the major flashpoints of tension between U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians.
On Sept. 12, U.S. soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division killed eight Iraqi policemen and a Jordanian hospital guard near Fallujah. The police were chasing a car known to have been involved in highway banditry.
In April, soldiers from the division fired on protesters on two successive days, killing 18 and wounding 78. U.S. troops had withdrawn to a base outside the city in July and had been turning over security duties to local police. The U.S. military at the time said the troops were fired at first in the April incident, but Iraqi witnesses denied this.
U.S. forces are struggling to maintain order in Iraq five months after the fall of Saddam Hussein`s government.
Also Saturday in Fallujah, a 22-pound bomb was found planted between the wall of the mayor`s office and an adjacent house. The mayor`s office was evacuated except for a few Iraqi policemen and U.S. soldiers while they waited for Iraqi civil defense forces to disarm the bomb.
Mayor Taha Bedawi has been cooperating with U.S. forces, making him a possible target for insurgents who have been attacking both American soldiers and Iraqis who work with them.
U.S. troops in Baghdad arrested 16 Iraqi policemen Saturday on corruption charges, an American officer said on condition of anonymity. The allegations included accepting bribes from thieves to allow them to steal from guarded sites and stealing from the sites themselves.
In one case a boy who couldn`t pay the shakedown money was raped by police, the officer said.
Mourners on Friday buried Aquila al-Hashimi, a member of Iraq`s U.S.-appointed Governing Council who was assassinated, apparently by Saddam loyalists.
Meanwhile, more U.N. employees left Iraq after Secretary-General Kofi Annan slashed the already diminished foreign staff.
U.N. spokesman Fred Eckhard said that over the previous 24 hours, the international staff in Iraq was reduced by 10. But he said that figure included three U.N. workers who entered Iraq during that time. When Annan issued the order Thursday to remove about half of the foreign U.N. workers, 42 foreign staffers were in Baghdad and 44 were in the north.
Eckhard said the world body`s humanitarian programs would continue with limited international supervision over the 4,233 Iraqis working for the United Nations.
© 2003 The Associated Press


Heute keine Aktualisierung

09/27/03 Northwestern: Oshkosh soldier hurt in Iraq
A 24-year-old Oshkosh soldier is on the mend after being wounded during a patrol in Iraq.
09/27/03 VOA News: US Fire Killed 4 Civilians
Iraqis in the town of Fallujah say U.S. troops have killed four civilians after opening fire on two cars at a checkpoint.
09/27/03 CNN: Rocket attack on Baghdad hotel
At least one rocket-propelled grenade hit a Baghdad hotel housing U.S. military officers and civilian support staff on Saturday morning, but there were no reports of casualties
09/26/03 Department of Defense
DOD announces the death of a third U.S. soldier on Sept. 25th ... an Army National Guardman struck by a forklift at Shuabai Port, Kuwait.
09/26/03 Centcom: 1 soldier killed and 2 wounded
One 173rd Airborne Brigade soldier was killed and two were wounded in a rocket-propelled grenade attack against their military vehicle in Kirkuk at approximately 11 p.m. on Sep. 25.
09/26/03 Centcom:1 soldier died and 1 was injured
One 4th Infantry Division soldier died and one was injured in a fire in an abandoned building in the Tikrit area at approximately 7:15 p.m. on Sep. 25.
09/25/03 BBC: UK soldier dies in Iraq
A 32-year-old British soldier has died in a firearm incident in Iraq.
09/25/03 MSNBC: 8 U.S. soldiers hurt in north Iraq attack
Eight U.S. soldiers were wounded and their vehicle destroyed when their convoy was attacked in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Thursday
09/25/03 Centcom: Soldier dies in vehicle accident
One 220th Military Police Brigade soldier died and two were injured in a military vehicle accident in Balad; 3:30 p.m. on Sep. 24.
09/24/03 BBC: Blast hits Iraqi cinema in Mosul
An explosion has ripped through a cinema in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, killing two people and injuring up to 20 others.
09/24/03 Reuters: U.S. troops kill nine Iraqi rebels
U.S. troops have killed nine Iraqi guerrillas, the biggest toll for more than a month, in scattered action over northern Iraq in the past 24 hours, a military spokesman says
09/24/03 ABCNews:Bomb Misses U.S. Patrol, Kills Iraqi
A homemade bomb exploded Wednesday along a road in the Iraqi capital, missing a U.S. military patrol but killing at least one Iraqi and injuring 18 others as it destroyed two civilian buses, police and hospital officials said.
09/24/03 Department of Defense
Identifies Army Casualties for Sept. 18 and Sept. 20

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WASHINGTON (IWR Satire) -- According to a poll released today, President Bush`s approval rating plummeted to 50%, which is the lowest level of his presidency. The same poll also showed Bush running behind the Bert the Muppet in the 2004 presidential race.

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Even traditional conservatives outraged by radicalism of the right
By Clyde Prestowitz, 8/10/2003

For a moment during the spring, neoconservatives associated with the Bush administration thought they had died and gone to heaven. The quicker than expected fall of Saddam Hussein seemed to justify their vision of a new America that would reshape world politics. The United States would use its overwhelming military power to crush tyrannical regimes, they declared, and establish American-style capitalist democracies in their place. Domestically, the neocons’ only question was whether the tax cuts aimed at reshaping American society would be merely big or gigantic. As time passes, however, it has become increasingly clear that this course is neither neo nor conservative and that it may lead more quickly to hell than to heaven.

This was not the foreign policy agenda traditional conservatives like myself voted for in 2000. Concerned about growing anti-American feeling around the world, we were pleased when candidate Bush spoke of adopting a humbler attitude in foreign policy and of reducing US overstretch abroad.We also anticipated that a new Bush administration would embrace long-standing conservative objectives such as smaller government, fiscal responsibility, tax cuts crafted with a goal of balancing budgets, strong protection of individual rights, and support for healthy state and local governments. There

was certainly no mention in Bush’s campaign of revolutionary schemes to transform the world.

So imagine our surprise when instead of a new humility, the fledgling Bush administration embraced a new arrogance. Traditional conservatives were no fans of the Kyoto agreement on global warming—many thought it unfair to US interests. But why so loudly reject a treaty that could have been left in limbo without any meaningful effect on the United States? Why make enemies so needlessly? Domestically, the initial Bush tax cut proposals seemed surprisingly large. But traditional conservatives held their fire. The cuts did seem to provide stimulus at a time when the economy was sinking dangerously, and the forecasters said we could maintain a balanced budget even with the cuts.

The events of Sept. 11 strengthened the president’s hand, giving him a moral authority that had been lacking after the election. It also allowed a small group of selfstyled neoconservatives in his administration to turn the ship of state onto a dramatically new course.

In foreign affairs, this meant ditching America’s ‘‘no first strike’’ commitment to deterrence in favor of preventive war. Out too were long-term alliances in favor of temporary ‘‘coalitions of the willing.’’ Suddenly America’s ‘‘mission’’ was to recast the world in the American democratic capitalist mold.Neoconservatives have openly called this strategy imperialistic.

Domestically, the administration’s new direction has been even more dramatic and, for traditional conservatives, alarming. Far from being reduced, the size of government has grown larger as spending has been significantly increased to support our imperialist strategy. Passage of the Patriot Act has imposed the greatest constraint on individual American freedoms since the internment of Japanese-Americans during WorldWar II. In the face of budget projections now deep in the red, further tax cuts may cripple all but the most basic of government functions.

Will traditional conservatives sit still for this? The dawning realization that the aftermath of war is likely to be long, painful, and costly, coupled with the absence of any significant weapons of mass destruction, has begun to refocus attention on the viability of the preventive war doctrine and the new imperialism.

Conservatives like formerNational Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft have noted that despite its great power America still needs help. Yet its efforts to get that help have been undermined by global resistance to the new US strategy and by our government’s loss of credibility. Indeed, the new doctrine is seen by many as being not only ineffective but also dangerous. Resistance is also growing on the domestic front. Maine’s Republican Senator Olympia Snowe, a member of the traditionally conservative Main Street Coalition, played a key role in capping the most recent tax cut at $350 billion. Even more significant has been the revolt of Republicans in the House against the recent changes in FCC rules regarding the consolidation of media companies. This, quickly followed by a House vote supporting US sales of inexpensive imported drugs, again in defiance of the White House, indicates that traditional conservatives are waking up to an important discovery.

There is nothing neo about imperialism. It is just as un-American today as it was in 1776. And there is nothing conservative about gigantic military establishments, endless oceans of red ink, and crumbling state and local governments burdened by unfunded obligations passed on by an irresponsible federal government. Far from conservatism, this is radicalism of the right, and it is unsustainable because it is at odds with fundamental—and truly conservative—American values.

Clyde Prestowitz is president of the Economic Strategy Institute and author of ‘‘Rogue Nation: American Unilateralism and the Failure of Good Intentions.’’

© Copyright 2003 Globe Newspaper Company.

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Published on Saturday, September 27, 2003 by Reuters
Another 15,000 U.S. Troops Told to Prepare for Iraq
by Charles Aldinger

WASHINGTON - The United States on Friday activated 10,000 National Guard troops for service in Iraq and put another 5,000 on alert for likely call-up after its appeal for foreign military help met no immediate response.



Families of some of the part-time force members have expressed concern about disruptions to their lives. The Pentagon has already said National Guard and reservists now in Iraq and nearby would have to serve there up to a full year, as regular troops do.


The 30th Infantry Brigade from North Carolina and the 39th Infantry Brigade from Arkansas, each with 5,000 soldiers, were ordered to join the active duty force on Oct. 1 and Oct. 12 respectively. They will undergo about three months of training before going to Iraq early next year for a full year.

The Army also put the 5,000-strong 81st National Guard Brigade from Washington State on notice for a likely call to active duty in Iraq.

The call-up of the part-time solders from North Carolina and Arkansas for duty in Iraq -- where the United States already has 130,000 troops -- was expected because they had earlier been alerted for probable duty.

The new alert order for the Washington State brigade followed statements by top U.S. officers this week that more National Guard and Reserve troops would likely be needed because of reluctance on the part of other countries to answer President Bush`s call for help in stabilizing the country.

Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff and the nation`s second-ranking officer, said on Wednesday that additional call-ups would depend on whether other nations responded to Bush`s appeal for troops and on the speed with which Iraqi forces could be trained to help shoulder the burden.

"I would think that by around the end of October, the beginning of November, we should be alerting those (U.S.) forces that may need to be called up ... to relieve or be prepared to relieve if we don`t have specificity by then on a third coalition division," the general said.

There are currently two other multinational divisions in Iraq headed by Britain and Poland. The United States is pressing for volunteers to form a third multinational division, but so far they have not come forward.

Reserve and Guard troops are supporting regular U.S. forces in deployments to Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, which have put a strain on America`s armed forces. Some 20,000 of the "weekend warriors" are in Iraq and in nearby states.

Families of some of the part-time force members have expressed concern about disruptions to their lives. The Pentagon has already said National Guard and reservists now in Iraq and nearby would have to serve there up to a full year, as regular troops do.

The two brigades called to active duty on Friday will serve for a total of 18 months, 12 of them in Iraq. They will be trained and equipped during a three-month period before moving and then come home for three months of demobilization.

The Washington State brigade is unlikely to be called to active duty until November under a new Pentagon plan to put more predictability in the lives of part-time troops, who work in civilian jobs and train on weekends and during the summer.

U.S. Army Gen. John Abizaid, head of the U.S. Central Command and commander of the U.S. military operation in Iraq, said he could not rule out calling up additional troops.

"There are many countries out there talking about it (contributing troops), and we have every hope that that will happen," Pace told reporters earlier in the day. "But hope is not a plan."

Copyright 2003 Reuters

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Published on Friday, September 26, 2003 by the Arizona Republic
Just a Third of Arizonans Give Thumbs Up to Bush Second Term
by Jon Kamman

Barely one-third of Arizona voters say they would give President Bush a second term, a statewide poll revealed Thursday.

The 34 percent support for his re-election, with 44 percent preferring someone else and 22 percent undecided, reflects a dramatic plunge in popularity for Bush. In 2000, he beat Al Gore in Arizona by a margin of 6 percentage points, or nearly 100,000 votes of 1.5 million cast.

State Democratic Chairman Jim Pederson said the poll results are evidence that Arizonans are "increasingly frustrated with the Bush administration`s performance on both the foreign and domestic fronts."

But Bob Fannin, state Republican chairman, said Bush enjoyed unsustainably high ratings earlier this year, and party leaders had predicted a decline. The drop fits a pattern seen at this point in the first terms of both Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton, he said.

Fannin also dismissed the poll results as an abstraction, because the election is more than 13 months away and no opponent has been chosen.

Both parties` interpretations are valid, said Bruce Merrill, the Arizona State University journalism professor who conducted the poll for Channel 8 (KAET-TV) and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication.

"Polls measure opinions at a particular point in time," he said, "and things can change virtually instantly."

Still, the results show that "in the short term, he (Bush) is in a difficult situation, and parallels with his father are real." After the 1991 Gulf War, the elder Bush`s ratings soared, but an eroding economy led to his defeat in 1992.

The poll also found that slightly more than half (52 percent) of respondents opposed providing $87 billion, as Bush has requested, for continued military presence and reconstruction in Iraq. Forty-two percent supported the request, and 6 percent were undecided.

A total of 390 registered voters were surveyed statewide. Results have a sampling error of plus or minus 5 percentage points.

Merrill said polls in Arizona often turn out to be within 2 or 3 percentage points of findings in nationwide polls.

Copyright 2003, azcentral.com

http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0925bush-poll-ON.html

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UK troops in Iraq warned of `inevitable` terror attack
Jason Burke and Paul Harris, New York
Sunday September 28, 2003
The Observer

A major terrorist strike against British forces in Iraq is `inevitable`, according to senior government sources in Iraq and intelligence officers in Britain and the Middle East. Any such attack would cause massive casualties and further destabilise the current US-led occupation government.

A member of the Iraqi governing council told The Observer that a major bombing aimed at UK forces in southern Iraq was `a matter of time` and that intelligence indicated a number of different groups had been making preparations for such an attack.

`There are people in the British sector who have the means and the will to strike and are just waiting for the right opportunity,` the council member said. Intelligence officers believe that a wave of attacks is being planned to coincide with the Muslim holy month of Ramadan which starts at the end of next month.

The exact composition of the various groups resisting US and British troops is still unclear. Paul Bremer, the top American civilian official in Baghdad, said last week that the United States was holding at least 19 members of `al-Qaeda` in custody in Iraq. Though experts doubt that the militants imprisoned by the Americans are in fact members of Osama bin Laden`s organisation, Bremer`s statement was the first public mention of the detention of Islamic militants.

Bremer said he did not know the nationalities of those detained, but suggested they were among the 248 foreign fighters currently held in Iraq, including 123 from Syria, and said the 19 detainees` links to al-Qaeda had been determined by `interrogations or in documentation`. British intelligence experts believe that the Islamic militants are joining up with former Baathist elements.

The insurgents are increasingly gaining support among Iraqi people who, though they welcomed the fall of Saddam Hussein, are angry at the continuing lack of basic utilities and security in Iraq, Many have also been enraged by heavy-handed US tactics.

Senior British Army officers blame part of the threat on the slow pace of reconstruction in Iraq and have complained to their counterparts in the Foreign Office and the Department for International Development. The military believe that the continuing problems in bringing aid into Iraq is turning local people against coalition forces. Some senior officers and Ministry of Defence officials attribute some of the delays to the slower, methodical pace at which their counterparts in other departments are used to working.

Aid and reconstruction in Iraq suffered a further blow last week when the United Nations with drew many of its staff, citing security concerns.

Serving British soldiers have told The Observer that they are increasingly resentful of the demands being made on them. `The blokes are just getting hacked off with it,` one NCO in an elite infantry regiment said. `There does not seem to be much light at the end of a pretty unpleasant tunnel.` The increasing demands on British troops have focused soldiers` anger on long-standing grievances.

The British-run sector has been relatively quiet. Only 20 of the more than 500 attacks on allied forces recorded in Iraq last month took place there. However recent weeks have seen death threats to Westerners in hotels and a strike on a police station that left seven injured. According to one report, a six-strong group linked to al-Qaeda was arrested recently in the Basra region. Eighteen British soldiers have now been killed since President Bush declared combat operations over on 1 May.

British and American troops have been trying to shift some of the burden of maintaining security onto local forces. The US army turned over a 210-mile stretch of the border separating Iraq from Iran to a local border police force yesterday, for the first time relinquishing control of a sensitive frontier area.

Washington is increasingly anxious to limit the number of American troops deployed in Iraq as polls show increasing domestic discontent at the continuing failure to stabilise the country and the huge cost of the campaign in men and materiel.

The Bush administration is now looking ahead to next year`s presidential election. Bush`s approval rating stands at 50 per cent, the lowest of his presidency.

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his close Pentagon officials have seen their influence in Washington diminish. `Rumsfeld has taken a terrible beating,` said Mel Goodman, a former CIA analyst and now senior fellow at the Centre for International Policy think-tank.

As Rumsfeld has suffered, Colin Powell, the less hawkish Secretary of State, has become stronger. Last week it was Powell who announced that Iraq would have six months to draft a new constitution and who appeared on television as the public face of the administration.

The White House is reworking draft proposals that would give UN authorisation to a multinational force under US leadership to get more troops and money into Iraq. An early draft asks the unelected Iraqi Governing Council to draw up a schedule for a new constitution and elections.

France wants a rapid transfer to Iraqi self-rule, but Washington wants to take the time to make sure Iraq has functioning institutions. Washington hopes that Turkey, Pakistan and India - as well as European powers - may eventually be persuaded to send troops. However none is likely to commit itself soon.

Officials at the Pentagon are now braced for the release of an interim report by the Iraq Survey Group, the body tasked with finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which is believed to have discovered nothing more than documents and plans.

Some Pentagon officials say the current low-level insurgency situation in Iraq will act as a `fly paper`, luring Islamic militants to where they can be killed. But such an optimistic gloss - which depends on there being a finite number of al-Qaeda fighters - has been given short shrift by experts. `It just doesn`t make a lot of sense. If you kill 1,000 al-Qaeda in Iraq, then I just don`t believe the worldwide level of al-Qaeda is going to go down by 1,000. We are seeing lots of new recruits because of Iraq,` said Professor Richard Stoll, a political scientist at Rice University, Texas.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Farah tried to plead with the US troops but she was killed anyway
The death of two innocent Iraqis was thought so unremarkable the US military did not even report it, but Peter Beaumont says it reflects an increasingly callous disregard of civilian lives in coalition operations

Sunday September 7, 2003
The Observer

Farah Fadhil was only 18 when she was killed. An American soldier threw a grenade through the window of her apartment. Her death, early last Monday, was slow and agonising. Her legs had been shredded, her hands burnt and punctured by splinters of metal, suggesting that the bright high-school student had covered her face to shield it from the explosion.

She had been walking to the window to try to calm an escalating situation; to use her smattering of English to plead with the soldiers who were spraying her apartment building with bullets.

But then a grenade was thrown and Farah died. So did Marwan Hassan who, according to neighbours, was caught in the crossfire as he went looking for his brother when the shooting began.

What is perhaps most shocking about their deaths is that the coalition troops who killed them did not even bother to record details of the raid with the coalition military press office. The killings were that unremarkable. What happened in Mahmudiya last week should not be forgotten, for the story of this raid is also the story of the dark side of the US-led occupation of Iraq, of the violent and sometimes lethal raids carried out apparently beyond any accountability.

For while the media are encouraged to count each US death, the Iraqi civilians who have died at American hands since the fall of Saddam`s regime have been as uncounted as their names have been unacknowledged.

Mahmudiya is typical of the satellite towns that ring Baghdad, and the apartment block where Farah died was typical of the blocks to be found there - five storeys or so high, set among dusty paths lined with palms and stunted trees. In Saddam`s time, the people who lived here were reasonably well-off - junior technicians for the nearby factories run by the Ministry of Military Industrialisation. These are not the poorest, but they are by no stretch of the imagination well-off.

When the Americans arrived, say neighbours, the residents of this cluster of blocks liked the young GIs. They say there were no problems and that their children played with the troops, while residents would give them food as the patrols passed by.

But all that came to a sudden bloody end at 12.30am last Monday, when soldiers arrived outside the apartment block where Farah and her family lived. What happened in a few minutes, and in the chaos of the hours that followed, is written across its walls. The bullet marks that pock the walls are spread in arcs right across the front of the apartment house, so widely spaced in places that the only conclusion you can draw is that a line of men stood here and sprayed the building wildly.

I stood inside and looked to where the men must have been standing, towards the apartment houses the other way. I could not find impacts on the concrete paths or on the facing walls that would suggest that there was a two-way firefight here. Whatever happened here was one-sided, a wall of fire unleashed at a building packed with sleeping families. Further examination shows powder burns where door locks had been shot off and splintered wood where the doors had been kicked in. All the evidence was that this was a raid that - like so many before it - went horribly wrong.

This is what the residents, and local police, told us had happened. Inside the apartment with Farah were her mother and a brother, Haroon, 13. As the soldiers started smashing doors, they began to kick in Farah`s door with no warning. Panicking, and thinking that thieves were breaking into the apartment, Haroon grabbed a gun owned by his father and fired some shots to scare them off. The soldiers outside responded by shooting up the building and throwing grenades into Farah`s apartment.

The randomness of that firing is revealed by a visit to the apartments. Windows are drilled with bullet holes; ceilings in kitchens and bedrooms and living areas are scarred where the rounds smashed in. Hodhbain Tohma was on the roof, fiddling with his new satellite dish to make it work, when the soldiers came. `I heard the shooting first, then an explosion. Then I heard women screaming. I looked over the roof and saw a line of soldiers on the path firing weapons wildly towards the building as a helicopter arrived above us. The shooting all seemed to me to be on one side.`

Abdul Ali Hussein was in the apartment next door to Farah`s when the shooting began. `I was asleep when we heard the shooting, and then an explosion blew open my door and filled my apartment with smoke. I grabbed my family and took them to another room and covered them with my body.

`I went to see if anyone needed my help next door. I went into three rooms, saw Farah lying in the kitchen near the window. She was injured and burnt, but still alive. I ran to get cotton wrapping and bandages to try and treat her. We didn`t have enough and so tore up a head-cloth to try and stop the bleeding. The soldier shouted at me: "Where are the fedayeen ?" They told me to leave her because she was dead.`

As we were talking, a weeping man in a head-cloth arrived - Qasam Hassan, the brother of the second fatality, Marwan. Qasam told us how Marwan died. `When I heard the heavy shooting, I was in another apartment building visiting friends. My brother was worried, so he went out to look for me. He was not carrying any arms. He could not find me, and as he came back to the building the Americans shot him. He ran and fell behind the building and died. Among all of them they only had one translator. How could people know what was going on?`

What is most curious about this story is that, when I called the US military press office in Baghdad, it said it could find no record of the raid or of the deaths. It is curious because the police in Mahmudiya have told us how US military policemen delivered the bodies to their station the next morning; how the local commander had expressed his commiserations; how the same Iraqi police had complained that the new troops from the 82nd Airborne Division, who arrived fresh from the US last month, had apparently reversed the policy of the previous US unit in the town to take local police on raids.

It became less puzzling when I spoke to Nada Doumani, spokeswoman for the International Committee for the Red Cross, who confirmed what she has said before - that despite repeated requests from the Red Cross, it can neither get information nor figures on civilian deaths during raids.

What happened at Mahmudiya would be disturbing enough if it was unique, but it is not. It is part of a pattern that points not to a deliberate policy but perhaps to something equally worrying, an institutional lack of care among many in the US military for whether civilians are killed in their operations. It is not enough to say, as some defenders of the US military in Iraq do, that its soldiers are tired, frightened and under pressure from the simmering guerrilla attacks directed against them. For it is the impression that the US military gives of not caring about those innocent Iraqis that they kill that is stoking resentment.

Iraqis have been killed at vehicle checkpoints and killed in their homes in night-time raids. Policemen have been shot down doing what US forces have asked them to do, trying to keep the peace. Indeed, the allegations that US soldiers are too `trigger happy` even led to complaints, in mid-August from Ibrahim al-Jaffri - then holding the rotating presidency of the Iraqi provisional government - urging US troops to exercise more care before firing.

`All we want are answers,` said Qassam Hassan. `All we are asking for is justice.`

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Four steps to peace in Iraq
America must share the burden

Leader
Sunday September 7, 2003
The Observer

No one, except a few hawks in Washington, expected it to be easy. Now the difficulties in restoring security to Iraq and setting the country on the road to peace and prosperity are becoming clear. The coming days and weeks will be crucial. Failure in Iraq is unthinkable. Afghanistan was allowed to slide into chaos in the early Nineties and, almost exactly two years after 11 September, it is useful to remember where that led. And, notwithstanding our own security interests, we owe a duty to the Iraq people. Having liberated them, we cannot now abandon them.

The Americans` application to the United Nations for more assistance from the international community last week is an implicit admission that Plan A has failed. Though most Iraqi people have yet to take up arms against their occupiers, the security situation in the country is fast deteriorating. With militants, whether Sunni extremists, Baathist diehards, Muslim Mujahideen or a combination of all three, apparently able to strike at will, that failure is now manifest. We need a Plan B.

Washington`s confession of weakness has provoked unhelpful `I told you so` smugness. There is an irony in a bullishly unilateral American administration asking for the aid of the nations and an institution it belittled so recently. But no one should indulge in point-scoring. The worst thing that could happen would be for the US, sick of a $3 billion-a-month price tag and mounting casualties, to pull out entirely. We need America`s manpower, financial resources and its can-do attitude.

And, for once, the US needs the rest of the world. This offers an opportunity to Washington to begin to repair the damage done to international relations in recent months. Tony Blair, with his much vaunted special relationship with President Bush, is in an especially strong position to help broker an agreement that smooths over old disputes.

The basis of this agreement - this Plan B - must be an acknowledgment that, if Western Europe and states such as Russia, Turkey, India and Pakistan contribute troops, they have a significant stake in policy in Iraq. The Americans are wrong to resist power-sharing.

First, Paul Bremer, America`s proconsul in Iraq, should go. His autocratic rule has become a symbol of all that is wrong with the administration of the country. He should be replaced by a figure, sanctioned by the UN, who has the backing of the international community and who will have a chance to win over the Iraqi people. No civil administration headed by an American is going to be viewed with anything but suspicion.

Second, Bremer`s huge error in disbanding the Iraqi army should be reversed as soon as possible. The obvious place to look for more troops is Iraq itself. Most Iraqi soldiers would be proud to serve their country again. If some are former Baathists, then so be it.

Third, reconstruction contracts must be distributed more broadly. At the moment, US firms have a virtual monopoly. Somewhere between $30bn and $100bn worth of work is needed. This huge pot of cash should be used to reward states which put their soldiers at risk.

Finally, any administration must be far clearer about the timetable for a transition to genuine Iraqi democratic rule. Earlier this month, Lateef Rashid, a Kurdish politician, called in these pages for the international community to stop treating Iraqis `like children`. We should heed his words. Plan A failed. Plan B must succeed. There will be no chance for a Plan C.


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Comment
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When should Tony Blair go?
If no WMD are found in Iraq a year after the start of the war next March, the PM must resign

Henry Porter
Sunday September 28, 2003
The Observer

At the end of his Newsnight interview with Jeremy Paxman last February, the Prime Minister said: `I may be wrong but that is what I believe.` There is very little doubt now that Tony Blair was spectacularly wrong: the evidence he offered to support the war on Iraq was wrong; binding British interests to an insanely hazardous American enterprise was wrong; and the failure to have a clear plan of action after the war was wrong. In sum, Tony Blair has made one of the gravest mistakes of any Prime Minister in the last hundred years.

And yet he sits at Chequers this weekend polishing his conference speech for Tuesday, troubled neither by his own conscience nor the slightest sign of moral outrage in his own party. His confidence is undented, his control over the Government unchallenged and he is now able after a few days of earnest drafting and consultation with Peter Mandelson back at his side to refocus the nation`s attention on the domestic agenda, leaving behind him what one party loyalist described in the Guardian as the `trivia of Hutton`.

That is one of the more chilling phrases to have emerged, and it is very telling of the Government`s arrogance and utter lack of contrition. To Blair (and one must suppose Mandelson, for that phrase sounds very much like his) the Hutton inquiry though inconvenient none the less achieved the semi-humiliation of the BBC and, more important, distracted the public from the growing certainty that there are no WMD. Hutton gave us the illusion that the September dossier was being fully investigated and although it is now clear that the Joint Intelligence Committee chairman John Scarlett bent over backwards to supply Blair with a highly-charged political document, there`s still a lot more to learn about the actual intelligence which led us to war.

For the moment Blair has escaped serious exposure on the issue of WMD in Hutton but the pressure has been building elsewhere. The Intelligence and Security Committee report showed he went to war having been advised by SIS that it would increase al-Qaeda activity - the very opposite of what the war was intended to achieve, by his own account to Paxman. The political journalist, John Kampfner, revealed that the Prime Minister ignored last-minute counsel from his own Foreign Secretary that war might be catastrophic and we could easily sit this one out. And last week the draft report by the CIA-led Iraq Survey Group, consisting of 1,400 weapons inspectors, admitted that it could not find single trace of WMD in Iraq.

Each one of these would in normal circumstance punch a hole below the Prime Ministerial waterline, but in the case of Blair nothing seems to shake his sense that he has a divine right to remain in Number 10 and pursue the never wholly successful reforms in services and institutions. The Christian conscience we believed impelled his political life may have been sedated by the habits of office and the privileged intimacy with the supreme power on the planet.

The whole business in Iraq dates back to the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when Blair offered unqualified support to Bush in War Against Terror. This was more than a gesture of solidarity. He quite properly saw an opportunity to plug into the frenzied policy making of the new era and influence it to both Europe`s and Britain`s good. It was the right thing to do and he moved adeptly to capture Bush`s ear. The problem came six months later when the neo-conservatives in the Bush administration alchemised the agenda from War Against Terror to a war against Saddam, a deranged confusion of categories.

At the Camp David summit in spring 2002 it became clear they had just a year to act and it was from this moment that the headlong rush began - to compile a dossier that would convince the British public and the Labour Party, to prepare Britain`s military, to argue the case in the UN and EU, to get a vote through the Commons, to tour the TV studios and square the press - because Bush feared the big heat of the summer in Iraq and wanted hostilities to end by the start of the election year.

I don`t doubt Blair`s good intentions at the start of this process but it is odd that at no stage between March 2002 and March 2003, while he was running to Bush`s timetable, did it occur to him that far from influencing American policy he was about to become its useful and unrewarded servant. And it may instructive of the kind of government he runs that no one else thought to raise this with him.

Even now Blair steadfastly clings to the notion that Saddam was an imminent danger and - perhaps honourably - does not seek to adjust the main pretext for war to the liberation of Iraq, which at least on the level of human rights is a viable argument. But the fact remains that he took us to war on WMD and there are no WMD on Iraq.

What happens now? How does Britain atone for this monumental gaff? We are all to some extent responsible and it`s no use simply to blame Blair. For example, the Opposition gave the Government its unconditional backing before the Commons vote. It is difficult to know why. Perhaps in the belief that bashing some `raghead` tyrant in the Middle East was a part of the Conservative heritage. At any rate, their pre-emptive support meant the Opposition lost the power to speak convincingly on the matter.

The media (with a few notable exceptions) did not do as much as it could to question the wisdom of defying the UN or the intelligence in the September dossier. We accepted Blair`s word on WMD - I did, though I was against action without a second resolution - and we look fools for it.

Even now the press cannot quite bring itself to grasp the awful magnitude of Britain`s mistake. Perhaps in the Campbell era we got used to making judgments which paralleled those made by politicians. Instead of asking what is right, we seek to predict the likely outcome of events and become embroiled in all sorts of unworthy political calculations - about Blair`s likely successor, the effect on Iain Duncan Smith`s leadership and so forth. We should ask what is right more often without feeling naïve and self-conscious about it.

There are no honours in Whitehall either. As the Hutton inquiry showed, the Civil Service did not maintain the proper distance from the needs of the politicians either in the writing of the September dossier or their dealings with David Kelly.

So what should happen now? Tony Blair must consider his position. The question is when? Lord Hutton will report in late November or early December but the issue of WMD will be obscured by criticism of the BBC, Campbell, Geoff Hoon and various civil servants. The better date is March 2004, the anniversary of the invasion of Iraq. If no WMD are found by then, Blair should be prepared to make the trip to Buckingham Palace. This issue is too important, the damage done to the Western alliance far too serious, for everything to be forgotten in a flurry of domestic initiatives.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Gerhard says he is still Tony`s Freund
German leader tells Michael Cockerell war has not cut ties

Sunday September 28, 2003
The Observer

German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder has a neat way of avoiding reporters` questions. When he came to address the Labour Party conference two years ago, a young woman from ITN tried to doorstep him. The Chancellor stopped and stroked her cheek, said nothing and was gone.

He had been invited by Tony Blair, who likes to sprinkle a little stardust on the conference by calling in one of his big-name pals. But there would have been no chance of a repeat invitation for this year. Schröder, who has never given an interview to British television, agreed to talk in the modernist Federal Chancellery in Berlin.

He claimed that despite their differences over Iraq, Blair remained the world leader with whom he got on best and trusted the most. But the Chancellor was very pointed when he drew the distinction between his own approach to Iraq and the Prime Minister`s.

`I think it is a very good thing for a democratically elected government to have to listen to its own people and convince them by a mass of arguments of the case for going to war,` said Schröder.

`It is very good that the German people would have made it very difficult for my government to say we want to go to war. Now that hasn`t always been the case in Germany. In the past we had a kind of "hooray patriotism" about going to war. But now Germany treads very, very carefully about military intervention - and I don`t think that is a handicap at all for me as its leader.`

It had all started so well. In 1998 Schröder had ousted Helmut Kohl, using some of the campaigning techniques and rhetoric that brought Blair to power. Blair was exultant.

The Chancellor`s frequent references to `mein Freund Tony`, led the German press to dub Schröder `Herr Blair`. Schröder matched Blair`s interventionist instincts abroad when he became the first post-Second World War chancellor to send German troops into action, alongside British peacekeepers in Afghanistan and Kosovo.

But things changed in last year`s German elections when Schröder came out strongly against an American- and British-led war on Iraq. Sir Christopher Meyer, former British ambassador to Germany, said: `This was German electoral politics.The Chancellor needed to win an election.`

Schröder does not accept the charge: `It is certainly not wrong for a government to be in agreement with 80 per cent of its population.

`But it is plainly wrong to claim I only took this stance for electoral reasons - otherwise I would have changed my position after the election. But I didn`t do that, because it was a deeply held conviction`.

Schröder said: `Our position was and still is that we thought one could manage the situation by means of the weapons inspectors in Iraq. We were convinced that the inspectors could clarify the questions about weapons of mass destruction, without going to war over it.

`But there hasn`t been a bad word spoken between Prime Minister Blair and myself. We have agreed to disagree over Iraq and that hasn`t broken our friendship`.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Die Ahnold-Story. 2 Teile

Judgement day

Arnold Schwarzenegger`s next role could be his biggest yet - California governor. But in the zany world of west coast politics, the plot is full of twists. Robert McCrum joins the terminator as he makes the leap from box office to ballot box
Read part two of `Judgement day` here

Sunday September 28, 2003
The Observer

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/magazine/story/0,11913,105082…

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"Our Great President Will Stop The UN Sex Slaves!"
September 27, 2003
By Bob Boudelang, Angry American Patriot

http://www.democraticunderground.com/bob/03/87.html

All right, you LIEberal Socialists! Even you will have to admit that if any of the so-called Democrap candidates had gone to the United Nations to demand that they help in the war in Iraq which is not a quagmire in any way, they would not of mentioned the problem of sex slaves! But Our Great President did, and the world can only wonder about his mind!

I guess the other countries can rest easy that Our Great President will soon clear up that sex slave problem the way he had "Mission Accomplished" in Iraq and Afghanistan. Which by the way, he also never said but just implied, get that straight!

And was it not clever that the week after George W. said there was no evidence about Iraq and 9/11 that he spent so much time talking about 9/11 in his speech about Iraq? After all, Americans have been fooled, so why should the joke not be on the U of N too? At least I think that is what he was thinking, if anything.

All in all, this has been about the most triumphy week since George W. was too elected, if you don’t count votes, and was not the dismal failure that many uninformed people who are ignorant and do not know anything say it was.

For one thing, who was not excited and inspired by the prime time interview of Our Great President on Fox TV this week? Well, I was not, but it was not my fault because they would only put the football game on the television at the Red Bear Lounge where I am too aloud in but just chose to loiter and watch through the window out front.

Fortunately I found the actual transept on the internet, and I was inspired by George W.’s clear grasp of events. And yes, Brett Hume did have to remind him that he was talking about Yessir Arafat twice while he was talking about Yessir Arafat, but so what? The man is only human, if not more so.

Meanwile what could show the bigoted nature of DemoncRATS than them making fun of Arnold Swatzenabor in Califrornia instead of just laying down and letting him be governor?

Ah-nuld came to this country as just Mr. Universe and made himself into a rich and successful millionaire, but I guess the Democraps have no room for someone like that. Thank God (which the DemoncRats would of outlawed) that the Republicans have room in our big circus tent for rich people of every race, no matter whose head they put in a toilet bowl.

I told Mrs. Brown Rosenfeld that and she said "Especially the master race," and then refused to explain what she meant. Instead she started ranting about Our Great Next Governor of California knocking down people’s chimneys to get rich. How unfair it is to use what people said and did against them!

But that is all that the Liberal Socialists are about these days, being uncivil and unfair like that fat ugly drunk Teddy Kennedy. How dare he call Our Great President’s Great War in Iraq a fraud cooked up in Texas? Yes, there were no weapons of mass destraction, and yes, Saddam had nothing to do with the September 11 attacks, but Kennedy has no proof anything happened IN Texas.

So there is no reason to investigate how much money Our Great Vice President is getting from Halliburton even though he denied he was, and no reason to look into the new company that Joe Allbaugh has in Iraq. Joe was Our Great President’s director of Emergency Management who was not fired but resigned with honor and he was also the chief of staff when Our Great President was Our Great Governor of Texas.

And there is no reason to complain that Colon Powell said in Febuary, 2001 that Sodom Husane had no weapons of mass distraction and was not a threat, but then told the UN later that Sodom Husane had weapons of mass distraction and was a threat last year. Like he said, a lot had changed in between, and George W. had gotten lucky with his trifecta. That’s all. Besides he said that in Egypt and nobody here was suppose to hear it.

Why are we wasting time on these endless witch humps and not on matters of importance like John Kerry’s cheese?

Just last month John Kerry asked for different cheese on his sandwich in public.

Imagine, an American asking for different cheese on a sandwich. Out loud. In public. Is that why our forefathers fought and died at Little Big Horn? So French-looking presidential candidates could demand different cheese?

Our Great President isn’t that kind of a man! George W. Bush is the kind of two-fisted red-blooded man who’ll put whatever cheese they give him right in his mouth without asking questions! He won’t even wait to see if it IS cheese!

Enclosing, just remember Bush and cheese when you go into the voting booth this November. Then the Supreme Court can name Our Great President Our Great President once again and things will remain as they are, or even more so.

P.S.: I got an email from Our Great President himself!

It says:


Dear Bob,

Marc Racicot told me he offered to send you your Bush Cheney Charter Member card and asked for your financial support of my reelection campaign.

Please activate your Bush Cheney Charter Member card today by sending a gift of $2,000, $1,000, $500, $250, or even $100 or $50 today at: http://www.GeorgeWBush.com/CharterMember." target="_blank" rel="nofollow ugc noopener">http://www.GeorgeWBush.com/CharterMember. If you said "yes", then thank you. It means a great deal to know you`re in my corner as Dick Cheney and I get ready for what could be a close, hard-fought race. But if you received Marc`s letter and haven`t yet decided to join my campaign team, I ask for your help today by making a contribution at:

http://www.GeorgeWBush.com/CharterMember

As Marc told you, the Democratic candidates are already on the attack, using super-charged rhetoric. In doing so, they are helping to make the stakes and vast differences of the 2004 election very clear.

I will use America`s power to lead the world to greater security and peace. We must win the war on terrorism and promote freedom around the globe if our children are to live in a more peaceful world.

I have acted to strengthen our economy by cutting taxes and restraining government spending. Our economy has suffered a series of shocks: we cut taxes at just the right time to pull us out of recession. Raising taxes now would be bad for American families, American jobs and America`s economy.

I will work for a more compassionate society where no child is left behind and where people know they are responsible for their actions, for the children they bring into the world, and for loving a neighbor like they`d like to be loved themselves.

These are clear choices. If you agree they are important, then please activate your Bush Cheney Charter Member card today by sending a gift of $2,000, $1,000, $500, $250, or even $100 or $50 today at:

http://www.GeorgeWBush.com/CharterMember

I need your help now to put in place the campaign I need to win a second term.

I am honored to serve as your President. If you agree with my leadership and values, then I hope you will support me today.

Sincerely,

George W. Bush

Not Sent at Taxpayers` Expense

Paid for by Bush-Cheney `04 Inc.

Contributions to Bush Cheney `04, Inc. are not tax deductible for federal income tax purposes. Bush-Cheney `04, Inc. will post the name, city, state, occupation, employer and donation amounts of everyone who contributes $1 or more to President Bush`s re-election efforts on GeorgeWBush.com as provided to us. Federal law requires us to obtain and report the mailing address, occupation and name of the individuals whose contributions exceed $200 per election cycle. An individual`s contribution limit to Bush-Cheney `04, Inc. is $2000.00. Funds received in response to this solicitation will be subject to federal contribution limits. Contributions from corporations, government contractors, foreign nationals without a "green card," and minors (individuals under the age of 18) are prohibited."

Imagine him taking the time to write to me even though he is thinking about sex slaves! However, I suspect the real reason Marc Racicot, whoever he is, brought my name up to Our Great President is because a certain individual is about to be fired whose initials are Secretary of Defensive Donald Rumfilled and they will need a replacement. We shall see!

In the meantime I am going to use some super rhetoric charges of my own to defend Our Great President who is not a dismal failure as even he admits, and also more slander and treason than Ann Colter, too. Just you watch! The blood of patriot guns cries out for vengeance, as Thomas Jefferson should of said, and I also will find out who threw those eggs at me which was not funny. Or else!


Bob Boudelang is a Republican team leader who gets personal e-mails from Our Great President himself at [e-mail], and they should not of thrown Secret Service Agent Brown out of the library for laughing in delight when I showed it to him.

[Joerver]

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NEEDLESS DEATHS, IN A UNLESS WAR, BASED ON LIES AND SPIN

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Low pay row threatens to scupper Blair`s relaunch
By Andy McSmith, Political Editor, and Jo Dillon, Deputy Political Editor
28 September 2003


Every new Government policy is to be put through a "fairness test", Tony Blair will tell his party this week. The Prime Minister sees the phrase as key to his drive to relaunch his Government and restore morale after months of damaging controversy over the Iraq war.

Yesterday an upbeat Mr Blair brushed aside all talk that he might be thinking of quitting. He even hinted that he will spend more years in 10 Downing Street than Margaret Thatcher, carrying on until the general election after next.

"If you stand, that`s what you do, and I`ve said I want to carry on doing the job until the job is done," he said.

He said that "fairness" and social justice would be the main themes of Tuesday`s speech to the annual Labour Party conference.

But behind the scenes, the new "fairness" is already under threat because Mr Blair`s closest allies cannot agree over a proposed deal that could affect the working lives of hundreds of thousands of Britain`s lowest-paid employees.

As the Prime Minister arrived in Bournemouth yesterday, braced for the most testing conference of his nine years as Labour leader, delegates and party managers were locked into an argument over whether they will be allowed to vote on the Iraq war. If they do, they will almost certainly condemn his decision to involve the UK in a conflict that did not have United Nations backing.

Party managers were also resigned to defeat over the proposal to create foundation hospitals, and were privately thanking their lucky stars that none of the big trade unions is forcing a vote on the equally controversial plan to allow some universities to charge higher fees than others.

But another, less well-known, source of friction between the Government and the public sector unions is likely to erupt in open disagreement. Last week, the Cabinet Office called a private meeting of officials and advisers from five Government departments to try to resolve the issue of the so-called "two-tier workforce", but it ended in disagreement.

Unions representing hundreds of thousands of employees in the NHS, universities and the defence industries are demanding the protection of the same code of practice that applies to council employees. The code bars private firms from taking over part of a council workforce and then hiring new people to do the same work under worse pay and conditions.

Stephen Byers and Alan Milburn, the former Cabinet ministers who have been advising Tony Blair on his relaunch, have both suggested that outlawing "two- tier" workforces in the NHS and other parts of the public sector would be a practical way of applying a "fairness test" without harming the interests of people who use public services. Mr Byers negotiated the code of practice when he was in charge of local government, and Mr Milburn, as health secretary, negotiated the improved pay and conditions that now apply to NHS employees but not in private firms working within the NHS.

But John Reid, the Secretary of State for Health, fears that if the code is applied across the board in the health service, it will jeopardise his plans to involve more private companies, particularly at new diagnostic and treatment centres. According to one insider, Mr Reid`s political adviser Paul Corrigan fought a fierce "rearguard action" at last week`s meeting to delay any agreement to end two-tier workforces.

Dave Prentis, leader of Britain`s biggest union, Unison, warned yesterday: "This doesn`t augur well for the party conference. It`s really all about trust and fairness ­ trusting the Government to deliver its promises, and fairness to health service workers."
28 September 2003 10:12



© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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Party managers try to block debate on Iraq
By Jo Dillon, Deputy Political Editor
28 September 2003


"Don`t mention the war" will be one of the big themes of Labour`s annual conference this week, if party managers are able to keep control of rebellious delegates.

The committee that controls the conference agenda will decide today whether to allow a vote on Iraq, or block it on the grounds that it is not "contemporary".

A large number of constituency Labour Parties have called for a chance to vote on whether Tony Blair was right to take the UK to war - a vote the Prime Minister would probably lose.

But even if they decide to allow an Iraq debate, the Conference Arrangements Committee is likely to table a resolution that will ignore what happened in March, referring only to the need to rebuild Iraq and end the violence there, to minimise any embarrassment it might cause the Government.

Meanwhile, Mr Blair`s speech on Tuesday, in which the party leader normally gives a summary of the big political issues of the day, will make no reference to the death of Dr David Kelly or the Hutton inquiry, which has dominated the news all summer.

"He [Mr Blair] will not speak on that subject because it is a matter for the judge, and he is not going to comment at all on the Hutton inquiry beyond what he said about it when he himself participated," Mr Blair`s director of communications stressed yesterday.

He added: "The Prime Minister will say he still believes it was right to do what he did and it was right to take the action that was taken, and now the important thing is to move towards improvement in Iraq and improvement of security in Iraq."

While the tone of Mr Blair`s speech will be conciliatory, there will be little comfort for his critics. His director of communications made it clear: "There must be greater consultation, taking people with you more and making sure that they understand why changes need to be made. At the same time, we will not be backing off the fact that there are hard choices to be made."

Outlining four key themes for the week ahead, the party chairman, Ian McCartney, said the leadership aimed to ensure that it was "in touch with implementing our values", and all policies would be judged by a fairness test.

In addition, Mr Blair and his senior lieutenants want to "recapture the campaigning zeal" of party members and give the party more of a chance to be consulted on the policy decisions and direction of the Government.

The rather defensive approach of the leadership comes after several polls and surveys yesterday, which called into question the continued enthusiasm among Labour`s grassroots and the public for a Government led by Mr Blair.

A Mori poll for the Financial Times found that half the public thought that Mr Blair should step down, as their trust in him appeared to be fading following the Iraq war.

Though the Labour Party would still win an election with a nine-point lead over the Tories if a general election were fought with Mr Blair in charge, that rose to 15 points when people were asked how they would vote were Chancellor Gordon Brown the Labour leader.

A YouGov poll for The Daily Telegraph put the Tories on 32 per cent of the vote (down five on last month), Labour on 31 per cent (down four) and the Liberal Democrats on 30 per cent (up 10).

The Prime Minister`s director of communications dismissed the idea that the polls spelt gloomy news for Mr Blair`s leadership.

"Mori said we are six-and-a-half years into a Labour government and the Labour government has a nine per cent lead. In that sense, it is a bizarre discussion to say that there is some serious doubt over the leadership and the future leadership of the Prime Minister who at the moment has that sort of lead.

"Although there is a lot of dissent out there, there is still palpably a wish for the Prime Minister and this Government to succeed."

Challenged that the conference appeared to be defensive in tone, he said, "low key and lacklustre are not the words that I would use".
28 September 2003 10:13

© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

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The Rashid Hotel, a compound for Americans in downtown Baghdad, was hit on Saturday by three projectiles. They caused little damage.
U.S. Compound in Baghdad Is Hit in Attack
By IAN FISHER

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 27 — Three projectiles penetrated the concrete and barbed-wire cocoon of security around the main compound for Americans in downtown Baghdad today, hitting the 14th floor of the Rashid Hotel inside the compound but causing little damage and no injuries.

"It woke us up with a bang, but there was really no further impact than that," said Charles Heatley, a spokesman for the American-led governing authority.

But after several weeks of high-profile attacks and beefed-up security around Baghdad, the strike seemed a message that Americans would be a target no matter how much they sought to protect themselves. This was not news to at least one United States soldier in the compound, which is sealed off from the rest of Baghdad with a huge concrete wall and heaps of concrete and barbed wire.

"I`ve never felt safe here," the soldier said.

In Falluja, west of Baghdad and a hot spot for attacks against United States forces, the American military reported today that it had killed two Iraqis late Friday night; other reports put the death toll as high as five. A military spokeswoman said soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division had returned fire from a car that tried to run a checkpoint about 10:30 p.m.

Relations between American troops and people in Falluja have been bad from the start of the American-led occupation here — and the incident on Friday night raises the possibility of further revenge attacks against troops there.

Over two days in April, American soldiers killed about 18 Iraqis in protests. The soldiers said they had been fired on first, though Iraqis say otherwise. Tensions increased again on Sept. 12, when American soldiers killed 10 Iraqi police officers and a Jordanian hospital worker. The United States Army later apologized for the incident.

A protest in Baghdad at the Ministry of Higher Education today involving hundreds of students from the University of Baghdad briefly turned violent, although no one was hurt.

Nearly 200 students, gathered outside the ministry this morning to protest the replacement of Sami Abdul Mahdi, who was elected university dean after the Iraqi president, Saddam Hussein, was toppled this spring.

The protest turned to chaos just after 10 a.m., when a sport utility vehicle carrying Ziad Abdul Razzaq, the new education minister, arrived at the ministry`s gates and was surrounded by students. Guards at the ministry fired dozens of warning shots into the air.

No protesters were injured, and Mr. Razzaq entered the ministry unharmed. After several tense minutes, the protest continued, and the Iraqi police and American soldiers eventually arrived.

The protest reflected the simmering political concerns of many Shiite Muslims, who make up a majority of Iraqis. They were largely disenfranchised under Mr. Hussein and are eager to gain power. Mr. Hussein and most of his top officials were Sunni Muslims, the dominant Muslim sect worldwide but a minority in Iraq.

Last week, Mr. Razzaq, a Sunni, fired Mr. Mahdi, a Shiite. The protesters, most of them Shiite, said he was removed in favor of a new dean who had been a member of Mr. Hussein`s Baathist Party.

Sadrq al-Qasi, a former university employee, said Mr. Mahdi should not have been dismissed.

"This man came according to democratic experience," Mr. Qasi said. "He should stay."

The attack today on the Rashid Hotel was the latest in a series of strikes by anti-American forces that seem to be systematically aimed at American installations, Iraqis perceived as working with them and other foreigners.

Since last month, suicide bombers attacked the embassy of Jordan, a strong American ally, and the main United Nations compound twice. A police chief and a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, Akila al-Hashimi, have been killed. This week, the hotel where NBC, the American television network, has an office was also bombed.

Lt. Col. George Krivo, a United States military spokesman, said today that there had been no increase in the number of daily attacks, which he said ranged steadily from about 10 to 20. He acknowledged an apparent change of tactics recently in favor of higher-profile targets, though he played down its significance.

"There have been attacks in the past," he said, "and we continue to say there will be attacks in the future."

He said it was unclear exactly what had hit the hotel this morning, though the best guesses were rocket-propelled grenades or mortar shells fired from the west.

One local resident, Kadhim Muhammad al-Khafaji, 39, said he ran from his house after hearing the explosions at 6:30 a.m. and saw what he believed to be the weapon: a home-made rack of four pipes welded in a row to serve as launchers, and two missiles with fins. He said one round had gone astray and hit an Iraqi home but did not hurt anyone.

Staff Sgt. Jose Ojeda, 38, said he had been walking from checkpoint duty just outside the compound to eat breakfast at the Rashid when the first explosion went off.

"It was a really loud boom," he said.

He said he was looking for a place to take cover when the next two rounds hit in quick succession.

"I looked up and it was like a flash, a boom and smoke," he said.

He said he quickly turned around toward the convention center, across the street. "My instinct told me to turn around and get the hell out of there," he said.

This appears to be the first attack inside the main compound area in downtown Baghdad, the headquarters of the American-appointed administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, his staff and perhaps thousands of troops. (Mr. Bremer, who was in Washington for the week, remained out of the country today.)

The area has been heavily fortified and is considered in military parlance a green zone, a place as safe as possible.

"You do feel safe because it is considered a green zone," Sergeant Ojeda said. But, he added, "To me, this was too close for comfort."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
A Practice as Old as Justice Itself
By GEORGE FISHER

STANFORD, Calif.

On Jan. 20, 1844, a newspaper in Massachusetts published a report of "a grave charge of official misconduct against the able and distinguished District Attorney." An investigating committee of the state legislature alleged that the prosecutor had taken "less than might have been required on the discharge of indictments found and not tried."

Then the committee heard the prosecutor`s defense. Thoroughly won over, it absolved him of all wrongdoing. Plea bargaining, the committee declared, tended "more than any other course . . . to attain the just end of all punishment."

Seven years later, when the legislature changed its mind and tried to ban plea bargaining, it only drove the practice underground. Prosecutors devised ingenious new plea-bargaining techniques. By the end of the century, 87 percent of all cases adjudicated in the Massachusetts felony courts ended with guilty pleas.

Fast forward to last Monday, when Attorney General John Ashcroft issued new rules to limit plea bargaining by federal prosecutors. If history holds true, the rules are not so much misguided as pointless.

There are good reasons to dislike plea bargains. Justice is dealt behind closed doors rather than in the open air of a courtroom. Prosecutors can hijack sentencing authority from judges, and criminals can get off with less than they deserve.

Just as it survived the Massachusetts legislature, however, plea bargaining will survive Mr. Ashcroft. Most prosecutors like plea bargaining; a sound bargain means an easy victory and more time to prosecute the next serious case.

Prosecutors have known this for a long time. In one Massachusetts jurisdiction, the first county prosecutor took office in 1807 and struck his first plea bargain in 1808. It was a fairly sophisticated deal. He overcharged on the indictment to build leverage against the defendant and then selectively eliminated charges to win a guilty plea. Plea bargaining, it appears, emerged almost hand in glove with public prosecution.

Today the entire criminal justice system depends for its survival on plea bargaining. Last year 95 percent of criminal cases adjudicated in federal courts ended with pleas of guilty or no contest. To try even one-quarter of all cases would mean five times as many trials, with a comparable increase in public expense. One wonders if Mr. Ashcroft wishes to preside over such an expansion.

It`s hardly likely. His new policy claiming to clamp down on plea bargains leaves lots of bargaining room. The six "limited exceptions" to the new rule include deals for defendants who supply "substantial assistance" to the government and (amazingly) deals aimed at sparing "particularly over-burdened" federal prosecutors` offices.

And even if Mr. Ashcroft actually tries to limit plea bargaining, many judges will conspire with prosecutors to evade the rules. Judges know that the hundreds of new appointees needed to preside over an avalanche of new trials won`t take the bench for years, if ever. Moreover, many judges resent the rigidity of the federal sentencing guidelines and will gladly help undermine them. Defense lawyers will also help elude the policy. Private counsel often demand full payment up front and enjoy a rich payday when a case ends in an effortless plea bargain. Public defenders have limited resources and know they cannot try all or most cases.

Still, Mr. Ashcroft`s new rule, while pointless as policy, makes good politics. To many, less plea bargaining sounds like more justice. But don`t be fooled. Once everyone in the system finds the loopholes, plea bargaining will march on the same as before.


George Fisher, professor at Stanford Law School, is author of ‘‘Plea Bargaining’s Triumph: A History of Plea Bargaining in America.’’



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Verlassen die Ratten das sinkende Schiff? Absetzbewegungen.

OP-ED COLUMNIST
2 Servings of Reality, Please
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN

he American public got a real tutorial in diplomacy last week, one that I suspect it could have done without. It was introduced to two concepts: the free rider and the war of choice. How the U.S. public digests these two concepts is going to have a huge impact on our next presidential election.

The free rider lesson was administered by all of America`s friends, allies and rivals at the United Nations. President Bush went up there last week, hat in hand, looking for financial and military support for the war he chose to launch in Iraq. I would summarize the collective response of the U.N. to Mr. Bush as follows:

"You talkin` to us? This is your war, pal. We told you before about Iraq: You break it alone, you own it alone. Well, you broke it, now you own it. We`ve got you over a barrel, because you and your taxpayers have no choice but to see this through, so why should we pay? If you make Iraq a success, we`ll all enjoy the security benefits. We`ll all get a free ride. And if you make a mess in Iraq, all the wrath will be directed at you and you alone will foot the bill. There is a fine line between being Churchill and being a chump, and we`ll let history decide who you are. In the meantime, don`t expect us to pay to watch. We were all born at night — but not last night."

Oh, I suspect if the U.S. manages to secure some new U.N. resolution giving more cover to the U.S. reconstruction of Iraq, we will scrounge up a few Indian or Turkish soldiers and maybe a few dollars, but nothing that will make a real dent in the $87 billion price tag the Bush team has presented to the American people.

Sorry folks, we broke it, we own it, and the worst thing we could do now is start shortchanging ourselves. There is a move in Congress to fully finance that part of the $87 billion for U.S. troops in Iraq, but to slash the $20 billion for Iraqi schools and reconstruction. That would be a big mistake. It is that $20 billion that is the key to getting out and leaving behind a reasonably stable, self-governing Iraq.

As if this weren`t enough for one week, the U.S. public also got a lesson in wars of choice. It was administered by David Kay, the former U.N. weapons inspector who has been leading the U.S. team searching for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. Last week Mr. Kay gave an interim report indicating that in four months of searching in Iraq he has found none of the W.M.D. that President Bush cited as his principal reason for going to war.

What this means for the American people is this: The war to oust Saddam Hussein was always a war of choice (a good choice, I believe). But democracies don`t like to fight wars of choice, and, if they do, they want them to be quick sprints, like Bosnia, Kosovo or Grenada — not marathons. Knowing this, the Bush team tried to turn Iraq into a war of necessity by hyping the threat Saddam may have posed with W.M.D.

With Mr. Kay`s interim report, it is now becoming clear that this was not a war of necessity at all, it was a war of choice, and, on top of it all, it was a war of choice that is going to be a marathon, not a sprint. And, because the Bush team chose to start this marathon largely alone, the free-riding world is going to let us finish it, and pay for it, largely alone.

This is the cold, hard reality and U.S. politics will now be about how we manage it. So far, notes Jeff Garten, dean of the Yale School of Management, "the politics of the day, whether by Republicans or Democrats, has not been up to the magnitude of the task. There is disparity between the words people use to describe the challenge and any honest appraisal of what it`s going to take to succeed."

President Bush is deeply morally unserious when he tells Americans that we can succeed in this marathon and still have radical tax cuts for the rich and a soaring deficit, and the only people who will have to sacrifice are reservists and soldiers. And the Democrats had better decide: What is their party going to be about? Wallowing in the mess, endlessly criticizing how we got into Iraq, or articulating a broader, more realistic vision for successful nation-building there?

The lessons learned this week, and their implications, are gigantic. They will shape America`s role in the world, its perception of itself and its ability to grapple with both foreign and domestic problems for years to come. I think the American people will see this through, but they want a pragmatic, strategically optimistic, morally serious plan to get behind. The leader who presents that will be the next president — I hope.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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OP-ED COLUMNIST
Drunk on Rummy
By MAUREEN DOWD

WASHINGTON

There are many disturbing passages in the soon-to-be-published book "Rumsfeld: A Personal Portrait," by Midge Decter.

Ms. Decter is doyenne of the neocon movement, wife of the neocon patriarch Norman Podhoretz; mother of John Podhoretz, the neocon Iraqi war cheerleader and new "West Wing" adviser; and friend of the neocon clan of the über-hawk Bill Kristol.

Her son wrote in his New York Post column last February that those who worried that the Bush team had no postwar vision were "pathetic" sophists: "No one has thought more deeply or seriously about what a post-Saddam Middle East could or should look like than Bush`s foreign-policy team. The question has been a near-obsession for conservative foreign-policy intellectuals for more than a decade."

Now Mom has written a love ode to the 71-year-old "studmuffin" defense secretary so palpitating it recalls the clip of a teenage Judy Garland singing "You Made Me Love You" to a picture of Clark Gable.

Others may be wondering whether the Bush administration had a testosterone explosion that sent America a cropper in Iraq, alienating the allies and infuriating the Iraqis, building up hate and debt.

Others may be demanding Donald Rumsfeld`s McNamara-slick head, as John Kerry did on CNN: "He rushed this to war. He has not listened to the military personnel. Our military is weaker today. They`re overextended. He and Mr. Wolfowitz proceeded with false assumptions."

Teddy is spoiling for a fight with Rummy. "The tragedy," Senator Kennedy said on the Senate floor Friday, "is that our troops are paying with their lives because the administration failed to prepare a plan to win the peace."

But swelling problems in Iraq have not impeded Ms. Decter`s swooning prose. The chapter on invading Iraq is called "Push Comes to Shove." (Shouldn`t it be called "Bush Comes to Shove"?) The author avers that Rummy`s manly Midwestern aura will prove a more potent legacy than his changes in the military.

"The consensus among many of Rumsfeld`s friends is that the role he has come to play is somehow connected to his qualities and experiences as a wrestler," she writes. The book is replete with hubba-hubba photos of Rummy wrestling, playing polo, skiing, on a tractor. The one in his Navy flight suit features the caption, "On duty to self and country." (World domination to follow.)

The word to describe Rummy, she says in Helen Gurley Brown italics, is manliness. (I would describe him as the man who trashed two countries, spent hundreds of billions, exhausted our troops, but still hasn`t found Osama, Saddam or W.M.D.)

Democrats are melting over the heroic manliness of their general, but Midge and Rummy have a back story. In 1997, they were both co-signers, along with Norman Podhoretz, Paul Wolfowitz, Dick Cheney and Mr. Cheney`s future chief of staff, Scooter Libby, of the Project for the New American Century`s manifesto, which became a blueprint for the wrestle-the-world-to-the-mat pre-emptive foreign policy that would become the Bush doctrine, once Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby installed it in President Bush`s head.

As riveting as Midge finds Rummy, it is her description of Paul Wolfowitz as a "former mathematician" that riveted me. The whole attitude of Rummy and Wolfie at Congressional hearings was "Barbie hates math." They couldn`t come up with a concrete number for anything.

Skeptical, I checked and discovered that Wolfie`s father was a mathematician from Cornell who specialized in probability and statistics; he hoped his son would follow in his footsteps, considering political science on a par with astrology.

Instead, his son chose the field of obscuring probability and statistics, refusing to cooperate with lawmakers to add up how much the war was going to cost in dollars and troops and years, or to multiply the probable exponential problems of remaking the Middle East, or even to subtract the billions that were never coming from snubbed allies.

I guess Wolfie never calculated the division in America his omissions would cause when we finally got a load of the bill — including $100 million to hide the families of 100 Iraqis in the witness protection program, $19 million for post office Wi-Fi, $50 million for traffic cops and $9 million for ZIP codes. At these prices, the Baghdad ZIP better be 90210.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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U.S. Uses Terror Law to Pursue Crimes From Drugs to Swindling
By ERIC LICHTBLAU

WASHINGTON, Sept. 27 — The Bush administration, which calls the USA Patriot Act perhaps its most essential tool in fighting terrorists, has begun using the law with increasing frequency in many criminal investigations that have little or no connection to terrorism.

The government is using its expanded authority under the far-reaching law to investigate suspected drug traffickers, white-collar criminals, blackmailers, child pornographers, money launderers, spies and even corrupt foreign leaders, federal officials said.

Justice Department officials say they are simply using all the tools now available to them to pursue criminals — terrorists or otherwise. But critics of the administration`s antiterrorism tactics assert that such use of the law is evidence the administration is using terrorism as a guise to pursue a broader law enforcement agenda.

Justice Department officials point out that they have employed their newfound powers in many instances against suspected terrorists. With the new law breaking down the wall between intelligence and criminal investigations, the Justice Department in February was able to bring terrorism-related charges against a Florida professor, for example, and it has used its expanded surveillance powers to move against several suspected terrorist cells.

But a new Justice Department report, given to members of Congress this month, also cites more than a dozen cases that are not directly related to terrorism in which federal authorities have used their expanded power to investigate individuals, initiate wiretaps and other surveillance, or seize millions in tainted assets.

For instance, the ability to secure nationwide warrants to obtain e-mail and electronic evidence "has proved invaluable in several sensitive nonterrorism investigations," including the tracking of an unidentified fugitive and an investigation into a computer hacker who stole a company`s trade secrets, the report said.

Justice Department officials said the cases cited in the report represent only a small sampling of the many hundreds of nonterrorism cases pursued under the law.

The authorities have also used toughened penalties under the law to press charges against a lovesick 20-year-old woman from Orange County, Calif., who planted threatening notes aboard a Hawaii-bound cruise ship she was traveling on with her family in May. The woman, who said she made the threats to try to return home to her boyfriend, was sentenced this week to two years in federal prison because of a provision in the Patriot Act on the threat of terrorism against mass transportation systems.

And officials said they had used their expanded authority to track private Internet communications in order to investigate a major drug distributor, a four-time killer, an identity thief and a fugitive who fled on the eve of trial by using a fake passport.

In one case, an e-mail provider disclosed information that allowed federal authorities to apprehend two suspects who had threatened to kill executives at a foreign corporation unless they were paid a hefty ransom, officials said. Previously, they said, gray areas in the law made it difficult to get such global Internet and computer data.

The law passed by Congress just five weeks after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, has proved a particularly powerful tool in pursuing financial crimes.

Officials with the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement have seen a sharp spike in investigations as a result of their expanded powers, officials said in interviews.

A senior official said investigators in the last two years had seized about $35 million at American borders in undeclared cash, checks and currency being smuggled out of the country. That was a significant increase over the past few years, the official said. While the authorities say they suspect that large amounts of the smuggled cash may have been intended to finance Middle Eastern terrorists, much of it involved drug smuggling, corporate fraud and other crimes not directly related to terrorism.

The terrorism law allows the authorities to investigate cash smuggling cases more aggressively and to seek stiffer penalties by elevating them from what had been mere reporting failures.

Customs officials say they have used their expanded authority to open at least nine investigations into Latin American officials suspected of laundering money in the United States, and to seize millions of dollars from overseas bank accounts in many cases unrelated to terrorism.

In one instance, agents citing the new law seized $1.7 million from United States bank accounts that were linked to a former Illinois investor who fled to Belize after he was accused of bilking clients out of millions, federal officials said.

Publicly, Attorney General John Ashcroft and senior Justice Department officials have portrayed their expanded power almost exclusively as a means of fighting terrorists, with little or no mention of other criminal uses.

"We have used these tools to prevent terrorists from unleashing more death and destruction on our soil," Mr. Ashcroft said last month in a speech in Washington, one of more than two dozen he has given in defense of the law, which has come under growing attack. "We have used these tools to save innocent American lives."

Internally, however, Justice Department officials have emphasized a much broader mandate.

A guide to a Justice Department employee seminar last year on financial crimes, for instance, said: "We all know that the USA Patriot Act provided weapons for the war on terrorism. But do you know how it affects the war on crime as well?"

Elliot Mincberg, legal director for People for the American Way, a liberal group that has been critical of Mr. Ashcroft, said the Justice Department`s public assertions had struck him as misleading and perhaps dishonest.

"What the Justice Department has really done," he said, "is to get things put into the law that have been on prosecutors` wish lists for years. They`ve used terrorism as a guise to expand law enforcement powers in areas that are totally unrelated to terrorism."

A study in January by the General Accounting Office, the investigative arm of Congress, concluded that while the number of terrorism investigations at the Justice Department soared after the Sept. 11 attacks, 75 percent of the convictions that the department classified as "international terrorism" were wrongly labeled. Many dealt with more common crimes like document forgery.

The terrorism law has already drawn sharp opposition from those who believe it gives the government too much power to intrude on people`s privacy in pursuit of terrorists.

Anthony Romero, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union, said, "Once the American public understands that many of the powers granted to the federal government apply to much more than just terrorism, I think the opposition will gain momentum."

Senator Patrick J. Leahy of Vermont, the ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said members of Congress expected some of the new powers granted to law enforcement to be used for nonterrorism investigations. But he said the Justice Department`s secrecy and lack of cooperation in putting the legislation into effect made him question whether "the government is taking shortcuts around the criminal laws" by invoking intelligence powers — with differing standards of evidence — to conduct surveillance operations and demand access to records.

"We did not intend for the government to shed the traditional tools of criminal investigation, such as grand jury subpoenas governed by well-established precedent and wiretaps strictly monitored" by federal judges, he said.

Justice Department officials say such criticism has not deterred them. "There are many provisions in the Patriot Act that can be used in the general criminal law," Mark Corallo, a department spokesman, said. "And I think any reasonable person would agree that we have an obligation to do everything we can to protect the lives and liberties of Americans from attack, whether it`s from terrorists or garden-variety criminals."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Sheik Yousif Sayel, patriarch of a clan in Alemiya, Iraq, says his family has "a dynasty to preserve."

Diese Erkenntnisse hätte die USA auch billiger haben können.

Iraqi Family Ties Complicate American Efforts for Change
By JOHN TIERNEY

ALEMIYA, Iraq, Sept. 27 — Iqbal Muhammad does not recall her first glimpse of her future husband, because they were both newborns at the time, but she remembers precisely when she knew he was the one. It was the afternoon her uncle walked over from his house next door and proposed that she marry his son Muhammad.

"I was a little surprised, but I knew right away it was a wise choice," she said, recalling that afternoon nine years ago, when she and Muhammad were 22. "It is safer to marry a cousin than a stranger."

Her reaction was typical in a country where nearly half of marriages are between first or second cousins, a statistic that is one of the more important and least understood differences between Iraq and America. The extraordinarily strong family bonds complicate virtually everything Americans are trying to do here, from finding Saddam Hussein to changing women`s status to creating a liberal democracy.

"Americans just don`t understand what a different world Iraq is because of these highly unusual cousin marriages," said Robin Fox of Rutgers University, the author of "Kinship and Marriage," a widely used anthropology textbook. "Liberal democracy is based on the Western idea of autonomous individuals committed to a public good, but that`s not how members of these tight and bounded kin groups see the world. Their world is divided into two groups: kin and strangers."

Iraqis frequently describe nepotism not as a civic problem but as a moral duty. The notion that Iraq`s next leader would put public service ahead of family obligations drew a smile from Iqbal`s uncle and father-in-law, Sheik Yousif Sayel, the patriarch in charge of the clan`s farm on the Tigris River south of Baghdad.

"In this country, whoever is in power will bring his relatives in from the village and give them important positions," Sheik Yousif said, sitting in the garden surrounded by some of his 21 children and 83 grandchildren. "That is what Saddam did, and now those relatives are fulfilling their obligation to protect him from the Americans."

Saddam Hussein married a first cousin who grew up in the same house as he did, and he ordered most of his children to marry their cousins. Sheik Yousif said he never forced any of his children to marry anyone, but more than half of the ones to marry have wed cousins. The patriarch was often the one who first suggested the match, as he did with his son Muhammad nine years ago.

"My father said that I was old enough to get married, and I agreed," Muhammad recalled. "He and my mother recommended Iqbal. I respected their wishes. It was my desire, too. We knew each other. It was much simpler to marry within the family."

A month later, after the wedding, Iqbal moved next door to the home of Sheik Yousif. Moving in with the in-laws might be an American bride`s nightmare, but Iqbal said her toughest adjustment occurred five years later, when Sheik Yousif decided that she and Muhammad were ready to live by themselves in a new home he provided just behind his own.

"I felt a little lonely at first when we moved into the house by ourselves," Iqbal said. Muhammad said he, too, felt lonely in the new house, and he expressed pity for American parents and children living thousands of miles from each other.

Sheik Yousif, who is 82, said he could not imagine how the elderly in America coped in their homes alone. "I could not bear to go a week without seeing my children," he said. Some of his daughters have married outsiders and moved into other patriarchal clans, but the rest of the children are never far away.

Muhammad and three other sons live on the farm with him, helping to supervise the harvesting of barley, wheat and oranges, and the dates from the palm trees on their land. The other six sons have moved 15 miles away to Baghdad, but they come back often for meals and in hard times. During the war in the spring, almost the whole clan took refuge at the farm.

Next to the family, the sons` social priority is the tribe, Sadah, which has several thousand members in the area and is led by Sheik Yousif. He and his children see their neighbors when praying at Sunni mosques, but none belong to the kind of civic professional groups that are so common in America, the pillars of civil society that observers since de Tocqueville have been crediting for the promotion of democracy.

"I told my children not to participate in any outside groups or clubs," Sheik Yousif said. "We don`t want distractions. We have a dynasty to preserve." To make his point, he told his sons to unroll the family tree, a scroll 70 feet long with lots of cousins intertwined in the branches.

Cousin marriage was once the norm throughout the world, but it became taboo in Europe after a long campaign by the Roman Catholic Church. Theologians like St. Augustine and St. Thomas argued that the practice promoted family loyalties at the expense of universal love and social harmony. Eliminating it was seen as a way to reduce clan warfare and promote loyalty to larger social institutions — like the church.

The practice became rare in the West, especially after evidence emerged of genetic risks to offspring, but it has persisted in some places, notably the Middle East, which is exceptional because of both the high prevalence and the restrictive form it takes. In other societies, a woman typically weds a cousin outside her social group, like a maternal cousin living in a clan led by a different patriarch. But in Iraq the ideal is for the woman to remain within the clan by marrying the son of her father`s brother, as Iqbal did.

The families resulting from these marriages have made nation-building a frustrating process in the Middle East, as King Faisal and T. E. Lawrence both complained after efforts to unite Arab tribes.

"The tribes were convinced that they had made a free and Arab Government, and that each of them was It," Lawrence wrote in "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" in 1926. "They were independent and would enjoy themselves a conviction and resolution which might have led to anarchy, if they had not made more stringent the family tie, and the bonds of kin-responsibility. But this entailed a negation of central power."

That dichotomy remains today, said Ihsan M. al-Hassan, a sociologist at the University of Baghdad. At the local level, the clan traditions provide more support and stability than Western institutions, he said, noting that the divorce rate among married cousins is only 2 percent in Iraq, versus 30 percent for other Iraqi couples. But the local ties create national complications.

"The traditional Iraqis who marry their cousins are very suspicious of outsiders," Dr. Hassan said. "In a modern state a citizen`s allegiance is to the state, but theirs is to their clan and their tribe. If one person in your clan does something wrong, you favor him anyway, and you expect others to treat their relatives the same way."

The more educated and urbanized Iraqis have become, Dr. Hassan said, the more they are likely to marry outsiders and adopt Western values. But the clan traditions have hardly disappeared in the cities, as is evident by the just-married cousins who parade Thursday evenings into the Babylon Hotel in Baghdad. Surveys in Baghdad and other Arab cities in the past two decades have found that close to half of marriages are between first or second cousins.

The prevalence of cousin marriage did not get much attention before the war from Republicans in the United States who expected a quick, orderly transition to democracy in Iraq. But one writer who investigated the practice warned fellow conservatives to stop expecting postwar Iraq to resemble postwar Germany or Japan.

"The deep social structure of Iraq is the complete opposite of those two true nation-states, with their highly patriotic, cooperative, and (not surprisingly) outbred peoples," Steve Sailer wrote in The American Conservative magazine in January. "The Iraqis, in contrast, more closely resemble the Hatfields and the McCoys."

The skeptics have local history on their side, because Middle Eastern countries have tended toward either internecine conflict or authoritarian government dominated by kin, cronies and religious leaders. Elsewhere, though, democracy has coexisted with strong kinship systems.

"Japan and India have managed to blend traditional social structures with modern democracy, and Iraq could do the same," said Stanley Kurtz, an anthropologist at the Hoover Institution. But it will take time and finesse, he said, along with respect for traditions like women wearing the veil.

"A key purpose of veiling is to prevent outsiders from competing with a woman`s cousins for marriage," Dr. Kurtz said. "Attack veiling, and you are attacking the core of the Middle Eastern social system."

Sheik Yousif and his sons said they put no faith in American promises of democracy — or any other promises, for that matter.

"Do you know why Saddam Hussein has not been captured?" asked Saleh, the oldest son of Sheik Yousif. "Because his own family will never turn him in, and no one else trusts the Americans to pay the reward." Saleh dismissed the reports that Americans had given $30 million and safe passage out of Iraq to the informant who turned in Mr. Hussein`s sons.

"I assure you that never happened," Saleh said. "The American soldiers brought out a camera and gave him the money in front of a witness, and then they took him toward the Turkish border. Near the border they killed him and buried him in a valley. They wanted the money for their own families."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

washingtonpost.com
Reluctance to Share Control in Iraq Leaves U.S. on Its Own


By Peter Slevin
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 28, 2003; Page A27


NEW YORK -- To rebuild Iraq after the ouster of Saddam Hussein, the Bush administration wanted control and it wanted international help on U.S. terms. A difficult few days of personal diplomacy at the United Nations last week confirmed that President Bush cannot have both, so he has settled for control.

Neither the United Nations nor the Iraqi Governing Council will have much authority over events in Iraq anytime soon, the White House has decided. Policymakers consider the Iraqi overhaul too complex and the stakes too high to risk surrendering enough responsibility to win significant amounts of fresh international assistance.

That calculation, rooted in the politics of Iraq and Iowa alike, leaves Bush and his key aides largely where they were on the war`s opening night: calling the shots, essentially alone.

"They`re on their own," a U.N. official said. "It`s just between them and the American taxpayer."

Six months into the most ambitious U.S. nation-building effort since post-World War II Germany and Japan, the reconstruction of Iraq is predominantly an American project, with lesser roles being played by other countries and officials under U.S. command. The Bush administration has been forced to lower its expectations for contributions of troops and money amid security worries, opposition to the U.S.-led occupation and its early results, and frustration at the American unwillingness to share power and contracts.

That helps explain why the White House is asking Congress for more than $87 billion as the next installment for the anti-terrorism war, the vast majority destined for Iraq, including $20 billion for reconstruction. Bush and his lieutenants working the U.N.`s diplomatic corridors said Congress would be less likely to deliver the money if the United States were not in control of Iraq, sources reported.

Some diplomats, anticipating a strong U.S. effort to attract backing for a postwar effort far more violent and expensive than the White House had anticipated, were struck by how little the administration was prepared to yield in return for international partnership.

"Every young democracy needs the help of friends," Bush said in Tuesday`s speech to the U.N. General Assembly. "Now the nation of Iraq needs and deserves our aid. And all nations of good will should step forward and provide that support."

"What surprised us was his attitude in his speech and the meeting," said a senior diplomat familiar with one of Bush`s private sessions in New York. "It was, `We`re going to go ahead and do what we need to. You`re welcome to come along. It`s up to you.` " A respected Republican foreign policy veteran said he has found the president`s chilly approach to the United Nations and important allies "baffling." The former official -- who, like many interviewed for this story, would speak only on background -- described it as consistent with dominant themes in the Bush administration`s overall approach to international affairs.

"It`s unilateral by design," said the former official, who described a White House and Pentagon that do not reach out or listen very well. Influential figures believe, he said, that "if we pay attention to others, they`ll just hogtie us. We`ll be Gulliver and the Lilliputians."

Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, said, "a strong case can be made that there could and should have been a larger international role from the outset." But he believes the opportunity is gone, leaving the administration little choice but to run the country.

"I don`t see where you gain a lot by bringing in a new crowd of outsiders and having them get up to speed," said Haass, who recently departed as the State Department`s director of policy planning.

Leading up to the war, the Bush administration`s strongest voices believed the postwar period would be relatively smooth. The White House and Pentagon viewed the United Nations and an array of other potential partners more as a hindrance than a help in postwar management. The oft-repeated "vital role" assigned to the world body was largely confined to U.N. agencies designed to handle such issues as refugees, food distribution and children`s health.

Now, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell is leading the effort to win more foreign contributions, but the U.N.`s future role in Iraq`s politics and economics is less clear than ever.

U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan ordered much of the remaining U.N. staff to evacuate last week after a second bombing near the organization`s Baghdad headquarters. An Aug. 19 bombing killed more than 20 people and shook the organization`s confidence.

Security fears, coupled with the uncertainty about what role the Bush administration will permit, mean that no significant U.N. presence is likely for weeks -- or longer -- said senior U.N. officials and Security Council diplomats.

On the positive side, a European diplomat in New York said Bush administration emissaries made progress in convincing their counterparts that the U.S. government does not want to remain an occupying power. What remains, however, is "a competition of ideas on how to reach the common object of a democratic, stable Iraq."

Diplomats said they received conflicting signals from the Americans about the shape a new draft Security Council resolution will take, likely reflecting unresolved aspects of the Washington policy debate. The administration is seeking a council mandate that could make it easier for governments to contribute personnel.

One U.N. diplomat said he was told to expect few significant changes from an initial draft that French and German diplomats, among others, criticized as offering too paltry a role to Iraqis and the United Nations. Diplomats and high-ranking U.S. officials say the Americans have enough votes to pass a resolution, but remain doubtful that it will seriously ease the U.S. burden.

Yet officials from among the 10 elected members of the U.N. Security Council took heart from a give-and-take with Powell, who said he had limited maneuvering room but wanted to explore all possibilities before the Bush administration returns with a new proposal.

Powell asked his counterparts to react, for example, to the idea of creating a provisional government backed by Iraq`s 1958 constitution. The provisional government, an option favored by Ahmed Chalabi, a senior member of the Iraqi Governing Council, would presumably be stronger than the existing body appointed by U.S. civilian coordinator L. Paul Bremer.

Annan lobbied visiting dignitaries to support the provisional government idea, shifting the proposed U.S. sequence to grant a measure of sovereignty to Iraqis before elections are held. He said it would eliminate the U.S. occupation opposed by many Iraqis and prevent a rush to complete a constitution and vote before Iraqis are ready.

"It`s highly questionable whether they can complete a plausible and credible constitutional process before next April," a U.N. official said. "Why rush it?"

Chalabi angered the administration by declaring the Governing Council ready to take significant responsibility in Iraq. Although he later tempered his comments, he continued to tell diplomats in private that the Iraqis deserve more authority.

One foreign official who spoke with him summed up Chalabi`s pitch this way: "We are not in a mood to wait. We think we can do a lot of this ourselves better than the Americans can. We can do this better than Bremer."

The Bush administration strongly disagrees, and has said so.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Robert Allan Hale, also known as Papa Pilgrim, with daughters Psalms, 6, Lamb, 5, and Elizabeth, 28, the eldest child, in the kitchen of the Pilgrim house.
washingtonpost.com
Road Leads to Alaska-Size Standoff
It`s Hillbilly Heaven vs. Park Service

By Blaine Harden
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 28, 2003; Page A01


WRANGELL-ST. ELIAS NATIONAL PARK, Alaska -- Psalms sat on Papa Pilgrim`s right knee and Lamb perched on his left. Thirteen more of his children -- all of them with names from the Bible, several of them packing pistols -- crowded around. So did his exhausted-looking wife, Country Rose.

It was a late summer`s evening in Hillbilly Heaven, a 410-acre ranch in the high country of eastern Alaska. Outside, the temperature dipped below freezing and the encircling mountains had a fresh dusting of snow. Inside the family cabin, potato soup was steaming on the stove and apple pies bubbled in a wood-burning oven. Supper, though, was on hold.

Papa was talking about the abuses heaped upon his family by the National Park Service. His children and wife listened in worshipful silence. No one dared eat.

Pilgrim, 62, whose legal name is Robert Allan Hale and whose past in the U.S. Southwest is as fairy-tale strange as his present in the Alaskan outback, explained how it came to pass last winter that he drove a bulldozer 14 miles across the national park that encircles his land. The Lord, Pilgrim said, told him that clearing a derelict mining road through the park was a loving thing to do.

"In order for me to love my children, I have to be a provider," Pilgrim said. "With great reluctance, I took the bulldozer and used the road. I had no idea what was in store."

Pilgrim`s passage on the Caterpillar D4 has resulted in an edgy standoff between his well-armed family and
Robert Allan Hale, also known as Papa Pilgrim, his wife, Country Rose, and their 15 children.
the federal government. The National Park Service has shut down the bulldozed road to his property, dispatched armed rangers to assess park damage and is pursuing criminal and civil cases against him and members of his family.

The brouhaha over the bulldozer -- a drama still unfolding inside the largest U.S. park -- has made the Pilgrims actors in a national dispute over private access to federal land. National environmental groups are demanding that the Park Service prosecute the Pilgrims to the fullest extent of the law, while land-rights activists have embraced them as heroic victims of overzealous federal bureaucrats.

Papa Pilgrim seems to relish the mismatch between the National Park Service, with its helicopters and bulletproof vests, and his "simple family that never knew anything but how to live in the wilderness."

"If the government doesn`t let us use that road with a bulldozer, then all they are trying to do is starve us out," Pilgrim said. "It is like the Alamo."

Park Service officials say the last thing they want is violence and that they are worried about another Ruby Ridge standoff or another Waco. They are determined, they say, not to use force in a way that would lead to bloodshed or embarrassing media coverage.

"Our challenge is to avoid confrontation," said Gary Candelaria, superintendent of Wrangell-St. Elias, which is six times larger than Yellowstone National Park. Still, Park Service rangers admit that they are fed up with the Pilgrims, especially with the boys who carry revolvers and rifles.

"What they tend to do is surround you," said Hunter Sharp, chief ranger in the park. "When they do that, cops get nervous. We have had it. We are not going to back off. We represent the people of the United States."

Bulldozing a Right of Way


In a sense, Pilgrim drove the bulldozer through a bureaucratic gap opened by the Bush administration. Over objections from environmentalists, the Interior Department published a rule in January that opened federal land to motorized access in places where roads once existed.

The rule -- a reassertion of an obscure 1866 mining law known as RS-2477 -- has since inspired right-of-way claims on old roads across federal land in the red rock country of southern Utah and across the Mojave National Preserve in California.

Alaska, though, is where the big claims are.

The old mining road that Pilgrim cleared with the bulldozer appears on a list of routes that the state of Alaska could claim as a right of way.

Pilgrim, though, fired up his bulldozer before the state made a claim to that road or any road in a national park in Alaska. Neither the Bush administration nor Gov. Frank H. Murkowski (R), who is a champion of opening rights of way to create jobs, has since said anything supportive of Pilgrim`s vigilante romp.

Land-rights activists, however, see the Pilgrim case as a public relations windfall.

"We are going to make the Pilgrims poster children for abuse of federal power," said Chuck Cushman, executive director of the American Land Rights Association, a group based in Washington state that supports claims of private landowners in disputes with federal agencies.

"This is a good family that simply does not know how to deal with bureaucracy," said Cushman, whose group is helping Pilgrim pay for a lawyer and is publicizing his legal problems on its Web site. "They did not knowingly break the law. You have to look into people`s hearts."

Environmental groups have been watching the Pilgrims in pained disbelief.

"You just can`t take the law into your hands with a bulldozer," said Jim Stratton, Alaska regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association, a nonprofit advocacy group that monitors the parks. "What I am most afraid of is other people who share the Pilgrims` outlook on federal and state law and who are watching this case."

For most of the past year, the Park Service has been playing a careful game of cat-and-mouse with the Pilgrims.

Both sides seem media savvy. When they encounter each other, park rangers and the Pilgrims monitor each other with video cameras.

After months of negotiations, Candelaria, the park superintendent, said he has become convinced that "the Pilgrims are not what they appear." The family wears homemade clothes, tans its own leather, never watches TV and reads only the Bible. "They will give you this simple, homespun, Christian, living-off-the-land act," he said. "But it doesn`t ring true."

A Checkered Past


Robert Hale grew up in affluent circumstances in Fort Worth, Tex.

His father was I.B. Hale, an All-American tackle at Texas Christian who in 1939 was the first-round draft pick of the Washington Redskins. I.B. became an FBI agent and later worked for General Dynamics, the defense contractor in Fort Worth.

When he was still in high school, Bobby Hale, as everyone called him then, eloped to Florida with Kathleen Connally. She was 16 and the daughter of John B. Connally, later to become the Texas governor wounded in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy.

Shortly after the elopement in 1958, Kathleen died of a gunshot wound. A Florida deputy sheriff told Connally, as he wrote in his autobiography, "there may have been a suicide pact, and Bobby backed out."

Asked about Connally`s book, Pilgrim denied any suicide pact and said Kathleen`s death was an accident. He said he was in the hotel room when she died, but declined to give details about how she supposedly fired a shotgun into her face.

Five years after Kathleen`s death, Bobby turned up in Southern California and insinuated himself into the life of another well-known figure from the Kennedy era, according to Seymour M. Hersh`s book "The Dark Side of Camelot."

Citing unreleased FBI documents, Hersh writes that Bobby joined his twin brother, Billy, in breaking into the Los Angeles apartment of Judith Exner, a woman who later acknowledged having an affair with Kennedy. An FBI agent observed the break-in on Aug. 7, 1962, but made no attempt to arrest the Hale brothers, according to Hersh.

In the book, Hersh speculates that the break-in was part of a successful attempt by the Hales` father, I.B., then chief of security at General Dynamics, to blackmail Kennedy into giving the company a major defense contract.

"That is ridiculous," said Pilgrim, when asked about the Hersh book. "I wasn`t there, and neither was my brother. Mr. Hersh is a liar."

Through the 1960s and into the `70s, Bobby Hale called himself "Sunstar." He lived in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, worked on a commune in Oregon and says that he "rode a horse across South America on my quest to find the answer."

While camping out in the Southern California desert, he met Kurina Rose Bresler, a 16-year-old from suburban Los Angeles. She would become the mother of the 15 children now living with him in Alaska. (Pilgrim has three other children from two previous marriages.) "My daughter was running around with friends, and they were into drugs at the time -- that`s when she met Bobby," said Kurina`s mother, Betty Freeman, an actress and singer who lives in Sherman Oaks, Calif. She is married to producer Joel Freeman, whose movies include "Shaft."

Reborn and Renamed


After Bobby and Kurina had had their first two children together, whom they named Butterfly and Nava Sunstar, they became born-again Christians. They renamed themselves Papa Pilgrim and Country Rose, renamed their eldest children Elizabeth and Joseph, and began naming newborn children after characters, places and other designations in the Bible.

They moved to the Sangre de Cristo mountains in northern New Mexico, setting up a subsistence farm on land owned by Jack Nicholson, the actor. Permission to live there was granted after Country Rose`s mother made a personal appeal to Nicholson`s business manager, Bob Colbert.

For more than 20 years on Nicholson`s land, the family tanned leather, raised sheep and bred dogs. They made some money playing bluegrass music at state fairs and festivals. But they also got into frequent scraps with neighbors, according to Mike Francis, retired deputy chief of the New Mexico state police.

"We would get calls in regards to him and his family that they were stealing chickens and eggs, and that hay was disappearing," Francis said, adding that criminal charges were never filed. "Neighbors were afraid of Bob, and they didn`t want to prosecute."

Pilgrim says he and his family never took anything from anyone. Friction with neighbors, he said, was over religion.

"They called me Preacher Bob, and they didn`t want to hear the gospel from me," he said. "People for no reason created stupid rumors about us."

While the family lived in New Mexico, Country Rose cut off all contact with her mother in Los Angeles, as did her children. "He won`t let me talk to my daughter directly," said Freeman, referring to her son-in-law. "If I want to talk to her, I have to talk to him. The children have been taught that the devil is in me."

Pilgrim objects to questions about his past, and he especially resents criticism from his mother-in-law.

"My past is gone and that is not who I am," he said. "My mother-in-law has been trying to break our family up since the very beginning.

"If you start talking about Jack Nicholson and Seymour Hersh, John Connally and cults, then people are going to forget about the real Pilgrim family and the life we live now in Alaska. My family represents something that is not a problem."

`Alaska Provides`


As Pilgrim explains it, the reason his family moved north is because "Alaska provides."

He was referring to good fishing and hunting, but also to the permanent fund dividend, an annual payment to all state residents. It comes from taxes on North Slope oil and last year was worth $1,541 to each state resident. For a big family, the money adds up. Since they moved to Alaska in 1998, the dividend has provided the Pilgrims with nearly $30,000 a year in tax-free income.

"That is more money than we ever had in our entire life," Pilgrim said. "And we went around looking for a place to spend it."

Two years ago, they bought the ranch they now call Hillbilly Heaven, which is about 14 miles north of the small town of McCarthy. They bought it from a retired miner for $450,000 and first visited it by snowmobile.

Pilgrim said he was only vaguely aware, then, that his property was surrounded by a national park. This summer, after a land survey paid for by the Park Service, he learned that two-thirds of his cabin rests on federal property. "When we saw this land and decided it would be our home, I didn`t know what the National Park Service was," Pilgrim said.

By act of Congress, national parks in Alaska are supposed to be different from those in the Lower 48. The 1980 law that created 104 million acres of parks and refuges in the state guaranteed that in-holders, meaning people who own property in the parks, could pursue traditional livelihoods while having "reasonable and feasible" access to their land.

For most of the past 23 years, however, a group of highly vocal Alaskan in-holders has complained that the Park Service has been flouting the will of Congress and trying to squeeze them off their land. They see a conspiracy of city people from the Lower 48, environmental zealots and narrow-minded federal bureaucrats who are trying to strip Alaska of its rural culture and replace it with a depopulated wilderness.

Without quite realizing what they were doing, the Pilgrims bulldozed their way into this ideological land war, and, in recent months, they have become its featured attraction.

Rick Kenyon, publisher of a virulently anti-Park Service newspaper called the Wrangell St. Elias News, has published a series of hagiographic stories that describe the Pilgrims as simple folk bedeviled by heavily armed federal agents.

"I think if George Bush found out about this, he would be very unhappy," Kenyon said. "There is no question but that the Park Service has tunnel vision. They are trying to break the Pilgrims and destroy them financially."

Park officials say that is nonsense.

"None of this had to happen," said Candelaria, the park superintendent. "If Pilgrim had come to us before he got on the bulldozer, we probably could have given him some access. Some people may not like it, but this is a national park. Before you get on a bulldozer, you need to get a permit."

Later this year, the Park Service will ask the U.S. attorney in Alaska to start civil proceedings against the Pilgrims. Candelaria said they would probably be sued to pay for bulldozer damage along the road and around their land. Criminal charges have also been filed against the family for operating a horse-tour business in the park without a license and for damaging public property.

After refusing for months to speak with Candelaria or local rangers, Pilgrim says he has now decided to try to cooperate with the park. He made a written request on Sept. 14 for a permit that would allow him vehicular access to the disputed road. He wants to use a bulldozer, with its blade up, to haul in food, fuel and other supplies for winter.

The request, though, was hardly conciliatory. It said that if the Park Service doesn`t take advantage of this "wonderful opportunity" to work with his family, then its inaction would be proof of its "selfish, greedy and hateful attitude."

"This is progress, I guess," said Candelaria, who said he is considering the request. But he said the Park Service must make an environmental assessment before allowing passage. The road the Pilgrims want to use with a bulldozer crosses a creek 13 times, and there are trout in the creek that the Park Service believes could be harmed.

Out at Hillbilly Heaven, Pilgrim says winter is closing in fast and the family`s supply of diesel fuel is running low. When snowfall covers the fields that surround his house, horses that now transport the family to and from town will have no feed.

"We are already cold up here, and we don`t have enough blankets," Pilgrim said.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
House Probers Conclude Iraq War Data Was Weak


By Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, September 28, 2003; Page A01


Leaders of the House intelligence committee have criticized the U.S. intelligence community for using largely outdated, "circumstantial" and "fragmentary" information with "too many uncertainties" to conclude that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al Qaeda.

Top members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, which spent four months combing through 19 volumes of classified material used by the Bush administration to make its case for the war on Iraq, found "significant deficiencies" in the community`s ability to collect fresh intelligence on Iraq, and said it had to rely on "past assessments" dating to when U.N. inspectors left Iraq in 1998 and on "some new `piecemeal` intelligence," both of which "were not challenged as a routine matter."

"The absence of proof that chemical and biological weapons and their related development programs had been destroyed was considered proof that they continued to exist," the two committee members said in a letter Thursday to CIA Director George J. Tenet. The Washington Post obtained a copy this weekend.

The letter constitutes a significant criticism of the U.S. intelligence community from a source that does not take such matters lightly. The committee, like all congressional panels, is controlled by Republicans, and its chairman, Rep. Porter J. Goss (R-Fla.), is a former CIA agent and a longtime supporter of Tenet and the intelligence agencies. Goss and the committee`s ranking Democrat, Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), signed the letter. Neither was available for comment yesterday. The full committee has not voted on the letter`s conclusions.

The CIA, through spokesman Bill Harlow, disputed the conclusions and accused the panel of not conducting "a detailed inquiry on this study."

"The notion that our community does not challenge standing judgments is absurd."

"To attempt to make such a determination so quickly and without all the facts is premature and wrong," Harlow said. "Iraq was an intractable and difficult subject. The tradecraft of intelligence rarely has the luxury of having black-and-white facts. The judgments reached, and the tradecraft used, were honest and professional -- based on many years of effort and experience."

The committee`s letter said the buildup to the war in Iraq amounted to "a case study" of the CIA`s and other agencies` inability to gather credible intelligence from informants in Iraq or to employ technologies to detect weapons programs.

"Lack of specific intelligence on regime plans and intentions, WMD, and Iraq`s support to terrorist groups appears to have hampered the IC`s [intelligence community`s] ability to provide a better assessment to policymakers from 1998 through 2003," the letter said.

The administration based its argument for going to war on the dangers allegedly posed by Iraq`s chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs and its supposed ties to al Qaeda. The Goss-Harman letter may give ammunition to critics who say the administration overstated the threat posed by then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

The committee became concerned about the underlying intelligence on Iraq when U.S. forces failed to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and when President Bush admitted he should not have used discredited intelligence in January`s State of the Union speech to suggest that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from an African nation.

The committee reviewed the underlying information used by U.S. intelligence agencies to write a classified October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq. The NIE was the most comprehensive assessment of Iraq available to lawmakers before the war, and many based their approval of Bush`s war resolution on it.

The letter acknowledges one sharp difference between the two committee leaders. Harman, the letter indicated, believes the NIE judgments "were deficient with regard to the analysis and presentation." Goss believes the judgments were not deficient and were properly couched to reflect the incomplete nature of the intelligence. A congressional source said Goss "does not believe that [the intelligence] community`s judgments were inaccurate."

As to Iraq`s ties to terrorists, the committee scrutinized three volumes of data and found "substantial gaps" in credible information from human sources that would have allowed U.S. intelligence agencies "to give policymakers a clear understanding of the nature of the relationship." Instead, the agencies had a "low threshold" or "no threshold" on using information the intelligence community obtained on Iraq`s alleged ties to al Qaeda.

"As a result, intelligence reports that might have been screened out by a more rigorous vetting process made their way to the analysts` desks, providing ample room for vagary to intrude," the letter states. The agencies did not clarify which of their reports "were from sources that were credible and which were from sources that would otherwise be dismissed in the absence of any other corroborating intelligence."

Goss and Harman were particularly critical of the underlying intelligence used to conclude that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program.

"Our examination has identified the relatively fragile nature of this information," the letter states. It notes internal intelligence agency disputes about whether Iraq attempted to buy high-strength aluminum tubes that could be used in nuclear weapons manufacture, and points out the dual-use nature of equipment in other attempted purchases cited in the NIE.

Moreover, Goss and Harman dispelled the assertion, made frequently by administration officials, that they possess more concrete information about Iraq`s nuclear intention but are unable to disclose it because it remains classified. "We have not found any information in the assessments that are still classified that was any more definitive," the two wrote Tenet.

On this point, the letter said the committee "had reviewed extensively the allegations that there was a disconnect between public statements by administration officials and the underlying intelligence."

The letter continued: "We do believe . . . that if public officials cite intelligence incorrectly, the IC [intelligence community] has a responsibility to go back to that policymaker and make clear that the public statement mischaracterized the available intelligence." It does not say whether Tenet fulfilled that responsibility.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
Bush Administration Is Focus of Inquiry
CIA Agent`s Identity Was Leaked to Media

By Mike Allen and Dana Priest
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, September 28, 2003; Page A01


At CIA Director George J. Tenet`s request, the Justice Department is looking into an allegation that administration officials leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer to a journalist, government sources said yesterday.

The operative`s identity was published in July after her husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly challenged President Bush`s claim that Iraq had tried to buy "yellowcake" uranium ore from Africa for possible use in nuclear weapons. Bush later backed away from the claim.

The intentional disclosure of a covert operative`s identity is a violation of federal law.

The officer`s name was disclosed on July 14 in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak, who said his sources were two senior administration officials.

Yesterday, a senior administration official said that before Novak`s column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson`s wife. Wilson had just revealed that the CIA had sent him to Niger last year to look into the uranium claim and that he had found no evidence to back up the charge. Wilson`s account touched off a political fracas over Bush`s use of intelligence as he made the case for attacking Iraq.

"Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the senior official said of the alleged leak.

Sources familiar with the conversations said the leakers were seeking to undercut Wilson`s credibility. They alleged that Wilson, who was not a CIA employee, was selected for the Niger mission partly because his wife had recommended him. Wilson said in an interview yesterday that a reporter had told him that the leaker said, "The real issue is Wilson and his wife."

A source said reporters quoted a leaker as describing Wilson`s wife as "fair game."

The official would not name the leakers for the record and would not name the journalists. The official said there was no indication that Bush knew about the calls.

It is rare for one Bush administration official to turn on another. Asked about the motive for describing the leaks, the senior official said the leaks were "wrong and a huge miscalculation, because they were irrelevant and did nothing to diminish Wilson`s credibility."

Wilson, while refusing to confirm his wife`s occupation, has suggested publicly that he believes Bush`s senior adviser, Karl C. Rove, broke her cover. Wilson said Aug. 21 at a public forum in suburban Seattle that it is of keen interest to him "to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs."

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said yesterday that he knows of no leaks about Wilson`s wife. "That is not the way this White House operates, and no one would be authorized to do such a thing," McClellan said. "I don`t have any information beyond an anonymous source in a media report to suggest there is anything to this. If someone has information of this nature, then he or she should report it to the Department of Justice."

McClellan, who Rove had speak for him, said of Wilson`s comments: "It is a ridiculous suggestion, and it is simply not true." McClellan was asked about Wilson`s charge at a White House briefing Sept. 16 and said the accusation is "totally ridiculous."

Administration officials said Tenet sent a memo to the Justice Department raising a series of questions about whether a leaker had broken federal law by disclosing the identity of an undercover officer. The CIA request was reported Friday night by MSNBC.com. Administration sources familiar with the matter said the Justice Department is determining whether a formal investigation is warranted.

An intelligence official said Tenet "doesn`t like leaks."

The CIA request could reopen the rift between the White House and the intelligence community that emerged this summer when Bush and his senior aides blamed Tenet for the inclusion of the now-discredited uranium claim -- the so-called "16 words" -- in the State of the Union address in January.

Tenet issued a statement taking responsibility for the CIA`s approval of the address before it was delivered, but made clear the CIA had earlier warned the White House not to use the allegations about uranium ore. After an ensuing rush of leaks over White House handling of intelligence, Bush`s aides said they believed in retrospect it had been a political mistake to blame Tenet.

The Intelligence Protection Act, passed in 1982, imposes maximum penalties of 10 years in prison and $50,000 in fines for unauthorized disclosure by government employees with access to classified information.

Members of the administration, especially Vice President Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, have been harshly critical of unauthorized leakers, and White House spokesmen are often dismissive of questions about news reports based on unnamed sources. The FBI is investigating senators for possibly leaking intercept information about Osama bin Laden.

The only recipient of a leak about the identity of Wilson`s wife who went public with it was Novak, the conservative columnist, who wrote in The Washington Post and other newspapers that Wilson`s wife, Valerie Plame, "is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." He added, "Two senior administration officials told me that Wilson`s wife suggested sending him to Niger."

When Novak told a CIA spokesman he was going to write a column about Wilson`s wife, the spokesman urged him not to print her name "for security reasons," according to one CIA official. Intelligence officials said they believed Novak understood there were reasons other than Plame`s personal security not to use her name, even though the CIA has declined to confirm whether she was undercover.

Novak said in an interview last night that the request came at the end of a conversation about Wilson`s trip to Niger and his wife`s role in it. "They said it`s doubtful she`ll ever again have a foreign assignment," he said. "They said if her name was printed, it might be difficult if she was traveling abroad, and they said they would prefer I didn`t use her name. It was a very weak request. If it was put on a stronger basis, I would have considered it."

After the column ran, the CIA began a damage assessment of whether any foreign contacts Plame had made over the years could be in danger. The assessment continues, sources said.

The CIA occasionally asks news organizations to withhold the names of undercover agents, and news organizations usually comply. An intelligence official told The Post yesterday that no further harm would come from repeating Plame`s name.

Wilson was acting U.S. ambassador to Iraq during the run-up to the Persian Gulf War of 1991. He was in the diplomatic service from 1976 until 1998, and was the Clinton administration`s senior director of African affairs on the National Security Council. He is now an international business consultant. Wilson said the mission to Niger was unpaid except for expenses.

Wilson said he believes an inquiry from Cheney`s office launched his eight-day mission to Niger in February 2002 to check the uranium claim, which turned out to be based at least partly on forged documents. "The way it was briefed to me was that the office of the vice president had expressed an interest in a report covering uranium purchases by Iraq from Niger," Wilson said in a telephone interview yesterday.

He said that if Novak`s account is accurate, the leak was part of "a deliberate attempt on the part of the White House to intimidate others and make them think twice about coming forward."

Sources said that some of the other journalists who received the leak did not use the information because they were uncomfortable with unmasking an undercover agent or because they did not consider the information relevant to Wilson`s report about Niger.

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who has been pushing the FBI to investigate the disclosure since July, said yesterday that it "not only put an agent`s life in danger, but many of that agent`s sources and contacts."

Staff writer Richard Leiby contributed to this report.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
Rebuilding Iraq




Sunday, September 28, 2003; Page B06


THE DEBATE OVER President Bush`s request for $87 billion in emergency spending for Iraq and Afghanistan is threatening to take a dangerously irresponsible turn. Democrats and, to an extent that is rattling the Bush administration, some Republicans are drawing a distinction between the $66 billion requested for military spending and the $21 billion devoted to reconstruction, almost all of it in Iraq. The first pot of money is considered politically untouchable; indeed, the first words out of nearly every lawmaker`s mouth are to pledge devotion to spending whatever is needed to support "our troops." The reconstruction spending, though, has produced considerable dissent, with a number of lawmakers questioning whether U.S. taxpayers ought to bear that burden.

Distinguishing between spending on troops and spending on reconstruction is a false and counterproductive dichotomy. Whatever one`s position on the war, it would be foolish now to withhold the resources needed to enable the enterprise to succeed. Getting the infrastructure -- electricity, water, schools, hospitals -- to the point of adequate functioning is a necessary step toward that aim. Five billion dollars of the reconstruction money would go to desperately needed security measures such as training the Iraqi army and building up the police force. As L. Paul Bremer, the chief of the occupation authority, told the Senate Armed Services Committee last week, failing to pay for reconstruction would be not only contrary to the interest of the Iraqi people but also "contrary to our interest, because it would create a situation of much greater insecurity." Some of those complaining most loudly are the very people who have faulted the administration for failing to do enough for reconstruction in Afghanistan.

The administration can blame much of the resistance on itself. President Bush refused, both before and after hostilities commenced, to be straightforward about the magnitude of the undertaking. Instead, administration officials dismissed legitimate questions about its postwar plans and the eventual costs by insisting that it was all too uncertain and by flinging around overly optimistic predictions about the availability of Iraqi oil revenue. They continue to be maddeningly coy about costs down the road. It`s disappointing that other nations are balking at making significant financial contributions, but a good deal of the responsibility for that, too, lies with Mr. Bush`s ham-handed diplomacy.

Nor do we think the administration is automatically entitled to its request on its terms. Congress is right to ask searching questions before it cuts a check and to demand accountability afterward. Though this isn`t likely, Congress ought to help pay for the new spending by reconsidering the latest round of tax cuts and suspending those for the wealthiest Americans.

Still, much of the furor surrounding the spending request is sheer political mischief. The notion that any spending on the Iraqi infrastructure should be matched dollar for dollar with investments back home may play well with voters who worry, and rightly so, about the U.S. electric grid or drinking water. But to pile spending on spending and further increase the deficit is not a responsible solution. And while it might be appealing to make loans rather than grants to Iraq, that, too, would be an unwise course. Iraq already faces $200 billion in debt. There isn`t any government empowered to make a binding repayment commitment, and an American claim on future oil revenue would play into the hands of those who viewed the war all along as a bid for Iraqi resources. As Mr. Bremer noted last week, Iraq ought to have enough leftover oil money by 2005 to begin paying for some reconstruction itself. To get there, though, it needs U.S. help now.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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No Bump for Bush
A new Newsweek poll shows a nation deeply divided as the political campaign heats up

By Laura Fording
NEWSWEEK WEB EXCLUSIVE


Sept. 27 — President George W. Bush’s approval ratings were essentially unchanged by his speech last week to the United Nations Security Council , though his ranking on homeland security moved forward four points, to 70 percent from the previous week, according to a new Newsweek poll.
THE PRESIDENT’S OVERALL JOB performance rating now stands at 52%, up a point from last week. Bush’s rating for his handling of handling the situation in Iraq, however, remains below the 50-percent mark (47%) essentially unchanged from last week (46%).
Click here to take the poll and see how your opinion measures up

The NEWSWEEK poll was conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates, which interviewed a total of 1,004 adults by telephone on Sept. 25 and 26. The margin of error is plus or minus 3 percentage points overall.
According to the poll, the public overwhelmingly prefers that the United States work closely with major allies through international organizations to achieve foreign policy goals (78%) rather than going it alone (15%). In the case of postwar Iraq, 72 percent say some authority for rebuilding Iraq should be given to the United Nations as a way to encourage other countries to contribute money and troops. The number of Americans who think the Bush administration doesn’t do enough to involve major allies and organizations in trying to achieve foreign policy goals has increased significantly since the Iraq war and its aftermath (41% now vs. 29% in March.)
Meanwhile, the majority of those polled—55 percent—disapprove of how Bush is handling the economy. Only four in 10 Americans now say they approve of way Bush is handling the economy (37%) and taxes (40%). And despite the current administration’s focus on terrorism, the economy weighs heaviest on American minds in determining whom to choose for president, with 50 percent saying it’s the most important issue.
On the political front, retired general Wesley Clark remained in the lead as first choice for the Democratic nominee for president in the wake of the debate this week among all 10 declared Democratic candidates. Clark has support from 16 percent of Democrats and democratic leaners (up 2 points from last week’s poll). He is followed by former Vermont governor Howard Dean (holding at 12 percent) and Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry (holding at 10 percent). Missouri Congressman Dick Gephardt is now in fourth place at 10 percent (up 2 points from a week ago), while Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman has slipped 3 points, to 9 percent.
Among registered voters, Clark continues to beat the other Democratic Party candidates in how he would fare in an election against President Bush, although all of the candidates—Clark included, would lose to the incumbent. This week Clark polls at 43 percent to Bush’s 49 percent (a 6 point gap), while Kerry polls at 42 percent to Bush’s 50 percent (an 8 point gap). Dean and Gephardt fared worst, with Bush beating them each by 14 points.
Voters are closely divided on whether George W. Bush should be re-elected. While 46% of voters would like to see him returned to office, 47% would not.

© 2003 Newsweek, Inc.

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The Cartoon Graveyard
Just the Cartoons Without the Commentary
Weil heute Sonntag ist 56 neue Cartoos

http://www.flu-ent.com/graveyard/20030928__056toons.htm

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Wednesday, September 24, 2003, 12:00 A.M. Pacific

Permission to reprint or copy this article/photo must be obtained from The Seattle Times. Call 206-464-3113 or e-mail [e-mail] with your request.

Let the neo-cons bellow, just bring the troops home


George, here`s what to do in Iraq: Declare victory and bring the troops home.

A senator from Vermont once suggested such a policy during the Vietnam War. It would have meant a defeat. In this case, it might mean chaos, at least for a while, unless you can get more international help.

You asked for help from the U.N. That was good. Get back to them and say, "We`re serious. We`re on a fast track to leave."

To America`s soldiers, you can say: "You`re fighters, not social workers. The fighting`s done, excellent work, and you can start going home."

Thousands of American families will thank you.

To the American people, you can say: "We`ve changed our minds about the occupation of Iraq. We`ll need only part of that $87 billion I asked for. The rest you can keep."

Watch your poll numbers go up.

The warrior intellectuals — the neoconservatives — will bellow. Let them. They don`t have any electoral votes. The American people never bought their "neo-Wilsonian" fantasies of empire. Asserting American dominance was never your argument for war. You said Americans had to depose Saddam Hussein in order to protect themselves.

That`s done.

Our occupation of Iraq is not yet six months old and already Iraqis are making sure that we tire of it. This will not tend to get better. An antiwar feeling has arisen in the United States, and Howard Dean, a nobody from a small state, has ridden it to the head of the pack. Dean says he wouldn`t have gone to war in the first place. Few notice that Dean also says we ought to stay in Iraq to do nation-building.

"Well, Howard," you can say, "I`m bringing the troops home. If you`re elected, you can send them back."

Would America be giving up if we did that? We would be giving up the right to reconstruct Iraq our way. We would not be giving up anything the average American cares about.

Certainly, the American people would accept a change in policy. They have accepted the official story from the start — the weapons of mass destruction, the "link" between Saddam and bin Laden, the "Woman Warrior" story about Pvt. Jessica Lynch. They are not paying much attention to Iraq. They will accept a pullout.

Consider the alternative: Five years of occupation. Maybe 10. Bombs, demonstrations, dead Americans.

Think of the Democrats. In 2002 you beat them by offering to save America from a foreign threat. If you do that in 2004, you`re going to be in trouble. Americans get tired of wars that drag on and on, and tend to toss out the political party that does the dragging. Look up the election of 1952. Also 1968. Ask your dad about the political shelf-life of military victory. It is less than one year.

Think of the economy. Business has been terrible since you became president. The people have been pretty forgiving about that. They know the dot-com bust was not your doing (nor Clinton`s, really). You have given the people a tax cut, and Alan Greenspan has given them rock-bottom interest rates. In normal times, these would produce a snapping recovery. But war sits on business confidence like a fat man on a dog.


Your war, a Republican war, of which the politically profitable part is over. We are now in the losing part. The occupation of Iraq could drag on well past November 2004.

But you can forestall that. Lean on the U.N. for troops. Lean on the Egyptians; they owe us a favor or two for the billions we`ve doled out to them. Speed up the creation of an Iraqi government. You don`t need to wait for elections. That`s Iraq`s business.

Then you can announce that most of the troops will be home by Christmas and you will not be needing all of that $87 billion.

Watch Wall Street jump. The dollar, too.

Nobody expects you to do this. It will shock your friends, but what`s more, it will confound your enemies. It will also steer the Republican Party back toward that nationalistic but "humble" foreign policy you described three years ago, which best suits the interests, and the patience, of those who might vote for you in 2004.

Bruce Ramsey`s column appears regularly on editorial pages of The Times. His e-mail address is [e-mail]




Copyright © 2003 The Seattle Times Company

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W`s Double Quagmires and a Return of the American Dream


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

By: Mike Hersh - 09/27/03



Pick your quagmire - foreign or domestic. Economic malaise as a weak, jobless recovery gives way to a lay-off driven W-dip recession. Increasing costs and casualties as events expose Bush`s lies and mistakes and his "easy" war turns into an Iraqmire. Bush`s slick spinsters claim his falling popularity reflects left-wing "hate", but the truth is much worse for the Republicans. As the AP reports Americans endure more gloom under Bush`s failed economic policies:

Poverty rose and income levels declined in 2002 for the second straight year as the nation`s economy continued struggling after the first recession in a decade, the Census Bureau reported Friday. The poverty rate was 12.1 percent last year, up from 11.7 percent in 2001. Nearly 34.6 million people lived in poverty, about 1.7 million more than the previous year.

Median household income declined 1.1 percent between 2001 and 2002 to $42,409, after accounting for inflation. That means half of all households earned more than that amount, and half earned less. The poverty rate rose again after having fallen for nearly a decade to 11.3 percent in 2000, its lowest level in more than 25 years. Income levels increased through most of the 1990s, then were flat in 2000 and fell the last two years.

See: Poverty rate up, income down for 2nd year, Index rose to 12.1% last year after declining for a decade, Census Bureau says, Genaro C. Armas, The Associated Press, September 26, 2003: http://www.sunspot.net/business/bal-poverty0926,0,1320966.st… -business-headlines

Democrats see an opening. Bush not only looks beatable, he may face the risk of a major Democratic landslide. A recent DNC email message outlines several Republican bungles and bad Bush policies just in recent weeks including:

They supported a proposal to leave six million low-income seniors out of a Medicare prescription drug benefit.

President Bush visited one of the nation`s dirtiest polluting power plants and showed it as an example of why he should gut the Clean Air Act.

Vice President Cheney continued to mislead America about a link between Saddam Hussein and the September 11 attacks.

Cheney continued to fight the release of information about his secret Energy Task Force meetings.

Bush`s borrow-and-spend policies are putting us $87 billion more in debt every 51 days -- that`s a $52,000 burden for a family of four over the next 6 years.

It`s no coincidence the Democrats picked that number. After squandering well over $100 billion on the invasion of Iraq, Bush asked Americans to cough up another $87 billion - ostensibly to support out troops and "nation build" in Iraq. Bush and his top officials admitted their justifications for war rested on misleading Americans.

Close scrutiny reveals Bush is lying to us again. His appropriations request includes $billions in bribes to maintain Bush`s "coalition of the willing" hidden in this latest demand to spend more money we don`t have. This after Bush sent his Dept. Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz to assure Congress the Iraq invasion would "pay for itself" when Bush`s big money contributors began exploiting Iraqi oil.

A massive $billion boondoggle will "pay for itself." Where have we heard that neo-con come on before? Ah yes! Those huge tax cuts, mainly for the very wealthy. Bush told us each of his giant tax cuts would stimulate growth, create great jobs, and "pay for itself."

So where is the growth? Where are the jobs? Three million jobs lost since Bush repudiated sound Clintonomics. As for self-funding tax cuts, they should join Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny in the fiction section.

Despite the accommodating Federal Reserve Board`s monetary policy - miniscule interest rates for the fat cats, high credit card rates for the rest - and hyper Keynesian deficits, we`re not seeing a robust recovery. With the deficit exploding toward $500 billion or more, past any previous record the economy fails to produce even a single net new job or show any signs the million jobs-per-year hemorrhaging will stop.

Democrats point out serious inequities and deficiencies in Bush`s tax policies:

Working families face enormous new debts that vastly outweigh the benefits of the Bush tax cuts, thanks to President Bush`s fiscal irresponsibility. A new study from Citizens for Tax Justice shows that average Americans` share of new debt from Bush`s failed economic policies is six times greater than their share of the Bush tax cuts.

According to the study, the middle 20 percent of Americans ranked by income will receive $3,791 in tax cuts for the six years between 2001 and 2006. In the same time, their share of the federal debt will grow by $24,859 thanks to Bush`s policies.

"The government is basically borrowing $1,000 in your name and then handing you $250 of it," said Robert McIntyre, director of CTJ. "The net effect is to leave you deeper and deeper in debt."

See New Study: Average Americans Pay Dearly for Bush Tax Cuts, Sep 23,
2003 http://www.democrats.org/news/200309230001.html

Bush`s reckless unfair tax cuts and profligate borrowing and spending threaten to double his father`s high red ink mark for irresponsibility - the once-unthinkable $290 billion deficit. All Bush`s borrowing and spending isn`t helping the economy today any more than his father`s did ten years ago.

Republicans predict a strong recovery, but there`s little ground for optimism. The pedal is already to the metal. The problem isn`t the accelerator or the American people. The transmission is busted as Bush`s failure to make the right decisions and his stubborn refusal to undo the wrong ones he`s already made.

Bush`s exploding debt crowds out private sector capital investment, not corrected by his tax cuts for Enron and other corrupt business. This runaway borrowing puts inflationary pressures on the ailing economy which will force the Fed to jack up interest rates again. That will crush this anemic "jobless" recovery. Soon, US taxpayers must start paying back every dime Bush is borrowing today, plus an increasing rate of interest.

Bush`s failures speak for themselves. This is not a matter of conflicting philosophies or a clash of economic opinions. The GOP Congress` own budget office, the CBO shows massive deficits as far as the eye can see. The Bush Census Bureau, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and Commerce Department all concede the poverty level, bankruptcies and unemployment have soared under Bush`s policies.

August alone saw 134,000 more layoffs - more people not paying income taxes but drawing unemployment insurance instead. "Growth" leaders like Wal-Mart and defense contractors lay off even more hard working Americans. As these people drop out of the economy, they stop earning and cut back on spending. This leads to runaway recession, not the rosy recovery Bush promises.

Bush cannot blame these economic catastrophes on anyone but himself. With a lock-step loyal Republican Congress rubber-stamping his borrow and spend budgets, Bush cannot blame Democrats for a dime of these deficits. Rebuilding after 9/11 actually added to GDP, so he cannot blame terrorism for economic stagnation. His foolishness and failures in Iraq already added $160 billion to the debt and continue to add another $billion a week. That`s not even including the additional $87 Billion Bush says he needs to clean up the messes he made in the Middle East.

The news for Bush is bad and getting worse. Recent opinion polls show Bush behind named Democratic rivals in head-to-head tests. He is trailing an unnamed "generic" Democrat, as well. Even this hides Bush`s weakness in critical swing states as it reflects lingering high levels of support for Bush in his base, concentrated in a few dozen states.

Rabidly pro-Bush FOX News/Opinion Dynamics Poll of registered voters nationwide asked, "If the 2004 presidential election were held today, do you think you would be more likely to vote to reelect President Bush OR for the Democratic candidate?" The results: 39% for Bush, 39% for any Democrat, 15% Depends and 7% undecided. Bush fares even worse in other polls, with little hope for improving his chances. See: http://www.pollingreport.com/wh04gen.htm

Bush`s brain trust imagined his war on Iraq would lift his popularity, and it did, for a time. Bush as professor of history Robert Dallek wrote in the Washington Post:

The American public also is showing impatience with the Bush administration`s calls for more time and money to reshape Iraq. The president`s request for an additional $87 billion to meet the unrelenting challenges in Iraq has struck a sour note with millions of Americans. Dead soldiers can be wrapped in the flag, but the unheroic and unredeeming nature of the appropriations request somehow scraped the gloss off the war and made people think about all its costs.

Virtually overnight, Mr. Bush`s approval ratings have slipped to 50 percent, the lowest of his presidency; 47 percent disapproved of the job he is doing, according to a CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll last week. More than half of respondents said they disagree with Bush on issues they care most about. Unhappiness with his Iraq policies registered more clearly in polls showing a drop in support for the war to 50 percent; 48 percent currently think the war was a poor idea.

Dallek explains that American animosity toward Bush and his Iraq policies are well-grounded and based on failed promises and fraudulent rationale, with potentially fatal political consequences for Bush:

The administration`s unilateral policies have been a serious error. Entering a war in Iraq without a genuine coalition of nations prepared to sacrifice lives and commit money to postwar reconstruction was a fundamental mistake that might yet be rectified with skillful diplomacy. Given the administration`s track record, however, it is difficult to have much confidence that it will rise to the challenge. But if it doesn`t, it will be watching from the outside after 2004 as a new U.S. government works to alter the course in Iraq and repair the damage done to America`s reputation by an unwise and unsuccessful war to remake the Middle East.

See: The Challenge of Planting the Seed of Democracy in Iraq, Robert Dallek, the Washington Post, September 26, 2003: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5337-2003Sep2…

As economic misery continues and increases, Bush`s support evaporates. As Bush spills more American blood and $billions in Iraq, where is the possibility millions of voters will look more kindly on Bush`s lack of compassion or competence than they do today?

If anything, these poll rankings are too kind to Bush and will only continue downward. The question is not "Can anyone beat Bush." Almost anyone can. The question is, "Who could still support Bush after all his lies and failures?"

Most Americans haven`t begun paying attention to politics. They`re trying to pay their bills, enjoy their lives, and spending time with their loved ones. Many are watching pennant races, college football, and reality TV shows.

Bush should be rolling up a huge cushion to protect against inevitable up-ticks as voters get to know the Democratic contenders. People will learn the names and faces of a strong Democratic ticket, and begin to pay attention as the Democrats use the spotlight to expose Bush`s failures.

As the Presidential Race heats up - first next January as the Primary Season beings, then during the Party Conventions, and leading up to November 3, voters will regard Bush with open eyes. It doesn`t matter than most voters won`t know the worst parts of Bush`s record due to impotent, craven media complicity.

Most Americans already see their prospects dimmed, their income falling, their lives worse, and their children`s` future uncertain due to Bush`s mismanagement. Almost no one feels safer or better off today than the day Bush stole into the White House. Even if many still like Bush personally, most understand we cannot afford four more years of this.

Most Americans don`t know or don`t remember the ways Bush left us open to attack. Bush did this when he disparaged our military as "not ready for duty, sir" in his 2000 acceptance speech. He made us vulnerable by ordering our FBI and CIA to "back off" investigations of suspected terrorists including Osama bin Laden`s brothers Omar and Abdullah to spare the feelings of Saudi Petrol-Princes.

Bush opened the door to attack when he played footsie with the Taliban hoping to get a pipeline deal for his rich friends by calling back the nuclear submarines President Clinton deployed readied for a chance to kill bin Laden and to keep watch on the terrorists. Our enemies watched Bush, saw weakness, and struck.

As Bush accepts his party`s nomination in the shadow of ground zero, most voters don`t have to know that the Bush administration ignored dire warnings from the bipartisan Hart-Rudman Commission or that Dick Cheney shirked his duty as Chairman of the Anti-terrorism Task Force, never even meeting once to address the threat from al Qaeda, but found time to collaborate with Enron on a secret energy policy which itself failed miserably.

As the Republicans dance and sing at their party`s convention near ground zero, just days before the anniversary of the most horrendous attack against America, the media will not report the irony. Most Americans may never understand the gross hypocrisy of these Republicans shamelessly exploiting the deaths of thousands in a cheap partisan political photo-op. The media helped elevate Bush, an unqualified unelected fraud who failed in every business, and his dark-hearted henchmen into power. So be it.

After their failure and lies about Iraq, their economic failure and lies about tax cuts for billionaires helping regular Americans, who would actually vote for Bush and Cheney? Not many other than their blindly fanatical base. Considering this unbroken string of lies and failures, all but the 35% - 40% of Americans, the hard-core Republicans will reject Bush and choose the Democrat. Any Democrat.

As it stands now, any Democratic nominee will carry all of the Gore states, and it just takes just one more to send Bush back to Texas. Bush needed victories in battlegrounds like Arizona, West Virginia, New Hampshire, Nevada, Arkansas, Missouri and Colorado to keep the election close enough to steal in 2000. He may not carry a single one of those states in 2004. Typically, "Barely one-third of Arizona voters say they would give President Bush a second term, a statewide poll revealed Thursday," according to a recent Arizona Republic report:

The 34 percent support for his re-election, with 44 percent preferring someone else and 22 percent undecided, reflects a dramatic plunge in popularity for Bush. In 2000, he beat Al Gore in Arizona by a margin of 6 percentage points, or nearly 100,000 votes of 1.5 million cast. State Democratic Chairman Jim Pederson said the poll results are evidence that Arizonans are "increasingly frustrated with the Bush administration`s performance on both the foreign and domestic fronts."

See: Just a third of Arizonans give thumbs up to Bush second term, Jon Kamman, The Arizona Republic Sept. 25, 2003, http://www.azcentral.com/news/articles/0925bush-poll-ON.html

This trend appears in several other swing states, because Bush`s policies polarize voters. He may do better in stronghold states like Texas, Idaho, and Oklahoma, while losing support among moderate voters in states he needs to win. Unfortunately for Bush, situations both domestic and foreign show only larger and continued deterioration and failure on the horizon.

Aware that most Americans didn`t support Bush`s policies even before they failed so miserably, Republicans long ago planned to manipulate fear of terrorism and gimmick the election again. Bush supporter and vote machine-maker Diebold CEO Walden O`Dell promised to rig the Ohio vote for the Republicans, as the Cleveland Plain Dealer reports:

The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

The Aug. 14 letter from Walden O`Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc. - who has become active in the re-election effort of President Bush - prompted Democrats this week to question the propriety of allowing O`Dell`s company to calculate votes in the 2004 presidential election.

O`Dell attended a strategy pow-wow with wealthy Bush benefactors - known as Rangers and Pioneers - at the president`s Crawford, Texas, ranch earlier this month. The next week, he penned invitations to a $1,000-a-plate fund-raiser to benefit the Ohio Republican Party`s federal campaign fund - partially benefiting Bush - at his mansion in the Columbus suburb of Upper Arlington.

The letter went out the day before Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell, also a Republican, was set to qualify Diebold as one of three firms eligible to sell upgraded electronic voting machines to Ohio counties in time for the 2004 election.

See: Voting machine controversy, Julie Carr Smyth, Plain Dealer Bureau, 08/28/03: http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/ne…

Outmoded voting machines already throw out millions of working class, poor and minority votes. Diebold and other "black box" vote riggers pledge to cheat for Bush in 2004. These astonishing admissions of an alleged conspiracy to commit voting fraud should spark a firestorm of protest against the criminal Republicans, but so far it hasn`t, raising Karl Rove`s hopes a Republican Governor in California and a weeklong photo-op exploiting 9/11 in New York will let Bush carry one or both of those states.

Rove believes legal if unethical schemes combined with crimes and trickery will propel Bush to victory. This remains extremely unlikely. Even if brother Jeb throws out another 100,000 or so Black votes to fix Florida, and even Diebold and other Republican vote machine corporations rig elections as promised, Bush will still lose the Electoral College to any Democrat. And that`s if Iraq and the economy improve.

Even with the prospects of all these tricks, crimes and cheating, Bush is looking like a sure loser as he was in 2000, but this time without hope for help from the right wing five on the US Supreme Court short circuiting the election to sneak Bush into power again. Bush should lose, but that`s not enough. It`s not enough to let Republicans cheat and fail and call it even.

The Republican Party - rotten from the head to the core - deserves a strong, stinging rebuke from sane Americans who care about their country. Their anti-Americanism from McCarthyism, Watergate, the trumped up impeachment, stolen election, vote tampering, sneaky recalls and racist re-redistricting constitute a sustained hostility and crimes against our Constitution. We must punish these Republican assaults against our republic.

It`s time to take back our country, and work for a break-out election to expel right wing rubber-stamp Republicans from Congress, governorships, and state legislatures. All across the board, no Republican deserves to hold office at any level of government. They all actively supported or approved every criminal plan and abuse of power. They share the guilt for the stolen election, dirty tricks, crimes and failures. They all must go.

We must work now for a smashing victory and prepare to follow up with rapid action. We need to clean up the massive messes Bush and his reckless Republicans made of America. It`s time to shift focus away from their crimes and corruption to the dream we can recreate. The rebirth of our American Dream rests within our grasp.

Envision our singing hearts and voices rejoicing when we excise these Bush-led criminals like the cancer they are. Imagine the veil of darkness, deceit and depression lifting on the glorious day we remove these corrupt malign Republicans from power. The parades. The joy. The relief and laughter once we flush Bush and his co-conspirators from power. We can bring about that new dawn, that brighter day, that wonderful future. We can do it, if we come together in triumph. We can and we will. Now, let`s get to work.



Mike Hersh is a contributing writer for Liberal Slant
www.mikehersh.com

http://fp.enter.net/~haney/mh092703.htm

[Joerver]

[Joerver]

The Top 11 captions for the video of Bush picking their noses at a Rangers game:



http://www.toostupidtobepresident.com/shockwave/nosepick.htm

[Joerver]

DER SPIEGEL 40/2003 - 29. September 2003
URL: http://www.spiegel.de/spiegel/0,1518,267505,00.html
Interview

"Europa ist kein Gegengewicht"

Washingtons ehemalige Außenministerin Madeleine Albright über den transatlantischen Bruderzwist, Alleingänge der US-Regierung und die Versäumnisse der Europäer.

SPIEGEL: Madam Secretary, Sie sind Europäerin von Geburt und haben es als Amerikanerin zur Außenministerin gebracht. Nun hat der Irak-Krieg einen tiefen Riss in der atlantischen Allianz hervorgerufen. Verstehen Sie beide Seiten?

Madeleine Albright
wurde am 15. Mai 1937 als Marie Jana Körbelova in Prag geboren. Ihr Vater, ein zum Katholizismus konvertierter Diplomat jüdischer Herkunft, floh mit seiner Familie 1939 nach dem Einmarsch der Deutschen nach London. 1948 erhielten die Körbels Asyl in den USA. Dass drei Großeltern in Vernichtungslagern umgekommen waren, erfuhr Albright erst 1997. Seit dem Amtsantritt Jimmy Carters 1977 beriet die Politologin, die bei Sicherheitsberater Zbigniew Brzezinski studiert hatte, alle demokratischen Präsidenten und Präsidentschaftskandidaten. Bill Clinton ernannte sie erst zur Uno-Botschafterin, 1996 zur Außenministerin.



Albright: Sicher, deswegen schmerzt es mich auch so, was hier in den USA, aber auch in Europa geschehen ist. Es hat immer Zeiten gegeben, in denen sich anti-europäische Stimmungen in den Vereinigten Staaten und antiamerikanische Gefühle in Europa ausbreiteten. Wenn aber beide Trends gleichzeitig auftreten, ergibt sich ein Teufelskreis. Genau das ist jetzt geschehen. Es ist abstoßend zu sehen, wenn Europäer ihre Schadenfreude über das Chaos im Irak oder etwa über den jüngsten Stromausfall in den USA zeigen. Sollen wir uns umgekehrt freuen, wenn 10 000 Franzosen in der sommerlichen Hitzewelle sterben? Immerhin: Die Streithähne reden wieder miteinander, aber dafür, dass es so weit kommen konnte, tragen beide Seiten die Verantwortung ...

SPIEGEL: ... die wir bitte gern ein bisschen genauer aufgeteilt hätten.

Albright: Ich bin sehr unglücklich über die Politik der Regierung Bush. Sie hat von Anfang an Fehler gemacht, zum Teil auch, weil sie aus Prinzip alles anders machen wollte als die Vorgängerregierung unter Bill Clinton. Nehmen Sie das Emissionsabkommen von Kyoto oder den Internationalen Strafgerichtshof - alles Themen, mit denen auch wir Schwierigkeiten hatten. Nur: Man hätte weiter verhandeln müssen.

SPIEGEL: Gilt Ähnliches auch für den Krieg gegen den Irak?

Albright: Die Abneigung der Regierung gegen Saddam habe ich immer geteilt. Saddam war nun mal ein schrecklicher Diktator. Dagegen habe ich nie die Eile verstanden, mit der alles geschehen musste. Saddam stellte keine unmittelbare Bedrohung dar, wir hatten ihn unter Kuratel. Und das Chaos, das jetzt im Irak herrscht, begreife ich ganz und gar nicht.

SPIEGEL: Was haben die Europäer falsch gemacht?

Albright: Da gab es schon einige, die eine gänzlich andere Vorgehensweise gegenüber Saddam bevorzugten. Im Sicherheitsrat hat es viele Versuche gegeben, vor allem von Seiten Frankreichs, das Sanktionsregime gegen den Irak zu lockern. Schon allein das komplizierte das Verhältnis zu Europa ...

SPIEGEL: ... erklärt aber noch nicht das tiefe Zerwürfnis.

Albright: Kanzler Schröder hätte durchaus etwas eleganter seine Wiederwahl betreiben können - nicht ausschließlich auf Kosten der USA. Und Präsident Chirac hat die Lage unglaublich kompliziert gemacht. In Wahrheit haben beide Seiten vor dem Krieg eine wichtige Rolle der Uno verhindert - Präsident Bush, weil er immer gesagt hat: "Es ist mir egal, was die da reden." Und Präsident Chirac, weil er gesagt hat: "Ich werde in jedem Fall mein Veto einlegen."

Beide haben zum Bedeutungsschwund der Uno beigetragen.

SPIEGEL: Worum ging es in diesem Krieg eigentlich: um einen Regimewechsel, um mehr Einfluss in der Region? Sollte der ganze Nahe Osten neu geordnet werden?

Albright: Ich habe nicht die geringste Ahnung. Das war doch gerade das Problem, dass die Begründungen für diesen Krieg laufend wechselten.

SPIEGEL: Waren Sie für diesen Krieg? Schließlich war es die Clinton-Regierung, die als erste das Schlagwort vom notwendigen Regimewechsel aufbrachte.

Albright: Richtig. Aber wir haben nie von einer Invasion gesprochen. Natürlich glaubten wir, dass die Iraker besser dran wären ohne Saddam. Wir haben auf einen Aufstand gehofft ...

SPIEGEL: ... den Sie dann auch finanziell unterstützt haben.

Albright: Ja, wir haben beispielsweise den Irakischen Nationalkongress unterstützt, aber an eine Invasion haben wir nie gedacht.

SPIEGEL: In der Erinnerung vieler Europäer nehmen die Clinton-Jahre geradezu verklärte Züge an. In Ihren Memoiren fällt aber auf, dass Sie häufig ähnlich argumentieren wie der Hardliner Bush**. Sie halten die USA für eine "unverzichtbare Nation". Auch Sie hatten offensichtlich manchmal die Nase voll von quälend langen Verhandlungen mit den Alliierten.

Albright: Immerhin gibt es da grundsätzliche Unterschiede. Ich habe die Nato stets für eine funktionierende Allianz gehalten, für mich war es immer wichtig, die Verbündeten zu konsultieren. Ich habe aber mein ganzes Leben lang gesehen, warum die Vereinigten Staaten einfach unverzichtbar sind. Schon als Kind war mir das klar. Wenn die USA sich nicht einmischten, konnte etwas geschehen wie das Münchner Abkommen 1938 zwischen Hitler und Chamberlain. Mischten sich dagegen die USA in den Weltkrieg ein, haben wir auch gewonnen.

SPIEGEL: Solche Lebenserfahrung gilt auch heute noch?

Albright: Was glauben Sie wohl, wie meine Erfahrungen als Diplomatin in der Uno aussahen? Viele Länder haben doch immer abgewartet, bis klar war, was die USA machten. Schon allein auf Grund unserer Größe und unserer Macht mussten wir eine Führungsrolle übernehmen. Ich habe getan, was ich konnte, um in einem multilateralen Rahmen zu bleiben, aber wir konnten eben nicht immer auf ein Uno-Mandat warten, bevor wir handelten.

SPIEGEL: Warum eigentlich nicht?

Albright: Nehmen Sie doch den Balkan. Die Europäer hatten in Bosnien ein heilloses Desaster zugelassen, und deswegen war es wichtig für uns einzugreifen, aber eben nicht allein. Den Europäern kann man es manchmal schwer recht machen. Übernehmen die USA eine zu starke Rolle, werden wir kritisiert; wenn wir nichts tun, vernachlässigen wir unsere Verpflichtungen. Es ist zuweilen gar nicht einfach, die Vereinigten Staaten zu sein.



SPIEGEL: Die Lösung des Kosovo-Konflikts scheint für Sie ein Modell zu sein, nach dem auch der Irak-Konflikt hätte gelöst werden können.

Albright: Die Krise im Kosovo hat einerseits gezeigt, dass Europäer und Amerikaner wegen ihrer unterschiedlichen Auffassung eine lange Zeit mit Konsultationen verbracht haben. Ich brauche in meinem Buch allein drei Kapitel, in denen ich all die Telefonate beschreibe, die nötig waren, um die Nato an Bord zu holen und den Konflikt zu beenden. Aber es war auch ein Paradebeispiel dafür, wie man einen Konflikt internationalisieren kann.

SPIEGEL: Bush hatte im Irak-Krieg auch Helfer.

Albright: Ich halte nichts von Ad-hoc-Koalitionen. Ich halte die Allianz für wichtig und habe immer versucht, mich ihrer zu bedienen. Sehen Sie, für die Bombardierung Jugoslawiens hatten wir kein Uno-Mandat, da reichte uns die Nato. Aber unmittelbar nach den Bombardierungen wurde in Köln ein Abkommen geschlossen, mit dem wir die Uno-Unterstützung für den Friedensteil der Kosovo-Lösung erhalten haben. Und so ähnlich - kein Konflikt gleicht einem anderen vollständig - hätte es im Irak auch laufen können.

SPIEGEL: Ist Europa - in amerikanischen Augen - überhaupt noch wichtig?

Albright: Natürlich haben die Vereinigten Staaten derzeit mehr Macht als jedes andere Land in der Geschichte der Menschheit. Das bringt Verantwortung mit sich, wir müssen die Kontrolle über uns selbst behalten. Europa ist kein Gegengewicht zu uns.

SPIEGEL: Und Selbstkontrolle ist die schwierigste Aufgabe in der Politik?

Albright: Wohl wahr.

SPIEGEL: Besonders nach dem 11. September 2001? Waren die Anschläge wirklich ein Wendepunkt der Geschichte, oder wollte die Regierung Bush sie so sehen?

Albright: Ein wenig von beidem. In diesem Punkt unterscheide ich mich von anderen Amerikanern meines Alters. Ich habe den Krieg erlebt, die meisten Amerikaner hatten sich dagegen vor den Terroranschlägen unverwundbar gefühlt. Deshalb hat der 11. September die Psyche Amerikas tief berührt.

Aber natürlich hat das Datum nicht alles verändert. Letztlich leben die Amerikaner noch immer in einer sicheren Welt. Das ist auch der Grund, warum ich der Regierung nicht nur ihren Hang zu Alleingängen vorwerfe, sondern auch ihre Neigung, alles aus einem militärischen Blickwinkel zu betrachten. Dabei gibt es genügend Bereiche, die vom Terrorismus unberührt blieben und die nur in internationaler Zusammenarbeit zu lösen sind, etwa die Erderwärmung, der Kampf gegen Armut und Krankheit oder Handelsprobleme.

SPIEGEL: Als ehemalige Uno-Botschafterin Ihres Landes wird Sie die jüngste Hinwendung der Bush-Regierung zur Uno sicherlich freuen.

Albright: Es wird wohl noch dauern, bis diese Administration begreift, dass sie auf die Uno angewiesen ist, und, zugegeben, die Zusammenarbeit ist ja auch keineswegs einfach. Ich sage immer: Einige Amerikaner haben die Uno noch nie gemocht, weil es dort so viele Ausländer gibt. Es ist aber doch auch klar, dass wir jetzt den Frieden gewinnen müssen. Und dafür muss die Lage internationalisiert werden.

SPIEGEL: Was Sie in Ihren Memoiren über Massenvernichtungswaffen schreiben, klingt fast genauso wie die Argumente der Bush-Regierung. Ein Zufall?

Albright: Wohl nicht. Die Verbreitung von Massenvernichtungswaffen und das Wachstum des internationalen Terrorismus sowie eine Kombination dieser beiden Faktoren sind die größte Herausforderung, der wir uns gegenübersehen. Das betrifft uns alle, nicht nur die Vereinigten Staaten.

SPIEGEL: Ist das denn eine reale Gefahr? Im Fall des Irak hat Bush diese Argumentation doch nur als Vorwand benutzt, um ...

Albright: Nein, es ist eine reale Gefahr. Sicher, ich habe nie an eine Verbindung zwischen al-Qaida und dem Irak geglaubt. Jetzt allerdings, nach dem Krieg, ist der Irak zu einem Tummelplatz für alle geworden, die den Westen und die USA hassen. Es gibt einfach zu viel gefährliches Zeug zu kaufen. Und ich bin überzeugt, dass es noch viele weitere Gruppen gibt, die uns Böses wollen. Daraus ergibt sich zwangsläufig die Kombination von Terror und Massenvernichtungswaffen.

SPIEGEL: Und was kann man da tun?

Albright: Das ist doch gerade der Punkt, warum ich laufend predige, dass die Vereinigten Staaten, so mächtig sie auch sind, nicht alles allein machen können. Wir müssen zusammenarbeiten, um die Terroristen einzufangen, Kontrolle über gefährliche Waffen zu erlangen und ihre Weitergabe aufzuhalten.

SPIEGEL: Unter Ihren Kollegen scheinen Sie ein besonderes Vertrauensverhältnis zu Joschka Fischer gehabt zu haben. Das Flüchtlingskind und der einstige Straßenkämpfer - wie ging das zusammen?

Albright: Ich hatte vor unserer Begegnung über ihn gelesen, und dann schneite dieser angebliche Revoluzzer in einem Dreiteiler herein. Es war sehr interessant zu beobachten, wie er mit der Macht der Nato umging, die er ja in seiner Vergangenheit nicht besonders geschätzt hatte. Wir haben unglaublich viel Zeit miteinander verbracht ...

SPIEGEL: ... eine vorbildliche deutsch-amerikanische Beziehung also.

Albright: Sehen Sie, für mich war Deutschland immer faszinierend. Ich wurde in der Tschechoslowakei geboren. Als wir nach London geflohen waren, wusste ich, dass die Bomben, die um mich herum fielen, deutsche Bomben waren. Von daher hatte ich natürlich sehr negative Eindrücke von Deutschland. Aber in jeder Unterhaltung mit Joschka Fischer spürte ich, dass ihm die deutsche Verantwortung für die Vergangenheit sehr bewusst war. Wenn wir über den Kosovo-Konflikt sprachen und darüber, wie Intellektuelle aus Pristina abgeführt wurden, dann sagte er: "Ja, das ist genau das, was bei den Nazis passiert ist." Ich habe ihn mehr als einmal nach seiner Zeit als Straßenkämpfer gefragt. Er antwortete nur: "Wissen Sie, Madeleine, Sie hätten dasselbe gemacht, wenn Sie buchstäblich jede Autoritätsfigur um Sie herum, den Polizisten, den Arzt, den Lehrer, verdächtigen müssten, die Nazis unterstützt zu haben."

SPIEGEL: Der ehemalige tschechische Präsident Václav Havel hätte Sie gern zu seiner Nachfolgerin gemacht. Bedauern Sie, abgelehnt zu haben?

Albright: Überhaupt nicht. Das klingt jetzt vielleicht ein wenig seltsam, aber ich bin Amerikanerin aus Überzeugung, und das ist für mich das Wichtigste.

SPIEGEL: Madam Secretary, wir danken Ihnen für dieses Gespräch.


Das Gespräch führten die Redakteure Hans Hoyng und Gerhard Spörl.




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* Madeleine Albright: "Die Autobiographie". Aus dem Amerikanischen von Holger Fliessbach und Angela Schumitz; C. Bertelsmann Verlag, München; 672 Seiten; 24,90 Euro.









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© DER SPIEGEL 40/2003

[Joerver]

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/front/la-fg-cash28s…

Cutting Money Flow to Terrorists Proves Difficult
Nations at the heart of Al Qaeda`s network lack financial safeguards, and the global alliance is weaker. Cells are now deeper underground.
By Josh Meyer
Times Staff Writer

September 28, 2003

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates — A U.S.-led campaign to eradicate terror networks by choking off their sources of money is running into roadblocks in many countries that will make it difficult, if not impossible, to prevent the groups from financing attacks, U.S. and other officials say.

Two years after Al Qaeda paymasters helped fund the Sept. 11 attacks from Dubai, one senior U.S. Treasury Department counter-terrorism official says this modern financial crossroads of the Middle East, Africa and Asia remains "a central switching station" of banks, money changers and gold and diamond traders through which terror organizations move cash.

Many countries believed to be at the epicenter of Al Qaeda`s re-emerging network — including Afghanistan, Yemen and Somalia — are, at best, years away from establishing the financial and legal infrastructures needed to freeze terrorist assets or gain intelligence on how cells are raising, moving and spending money, say U.S. officials and their counterparts in other countries.

Away from the front lines, the effort to build a global coalition to staunch the flow of funds has suffered political, legal, cultural and technical setbacks so serious that some authorities fear it could fall apart. Many Middle Eastern and European countries, including Germany and France, have disagreed with the Bush administration over such basic questions as the definition of terrorism and what constitutes the financing of terrorism.

Nearly all of those who were identified by the U.S. government in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks as suspected senior financiers of Al Qaeda remain free, without ever having been detained or charged by foreign governments, and off limits to U.S. officials who want to question or arrest them.

Many other suspected financiers of Al Qaeda, other groups designated by the United States as terrorist organizations, such as Hamas and Hezbollah, and dozens of regional affiliates have simply gone deeper underground or changed to tactics such as using human and animal couriers to move large volumes of cash, officials say. Others have flocked to "soft spots," or countries and cities they have identified as having little scrutiny over their front companies, charities, relief organizations and banks, officials said.

"Two years after we started all this, we don`t have a clue, really, as to how they raise their money, how they move it or where it goes," one U.S. official said of Al Qaeda, Hamas and Hezbollah.

Despite the massive crackdown launched in the weeks after the Sept. 11 attacks, cells are still believed to be operating in the United States and as many as 100 other countries, sending messages and money back and forth, recent intelligence shows.

"It is pervasive," said a second senior counter-terrorism official with the Treasury Department. "It is everywhere."

There have been many successes since President Bush signed Executive Order 13224 on Sept. 23, 2001, authorizing sweeping new powers for the Treasury Department and other agencies.

A few senior Al Qaeda paymasters have been killed, and others have been captured. One of those captured, Mustafa Hawsawi, has provided a wealth of information about the network.

U.S. officials have designated 321 individuals and entities as terrorists or terrorist supporters, and more than $136.8 million has been frozen around the world.

Working together and with the United Nations, thousands of officials of the Treasury, Justice and State departments, the Pentagon and National Security Council have crisscrossed the globe, identifying charities, relief organizations and front companies that they believe are being used to finance terror organizations.

Many of those investigations remain open, authorities said. More than a dozen other groups and individuals have been tried in criminal cases.

By one recent Treasury Department estimate, Al Qaeda`s cash flow has been dispersed and reduced by two-thirds.

Initially, there were signs that a global coalition would coalesce behind the United States and the U.N. Soon after Bush`s order, the Security Council enacted measures to require all U.N. members to freeze assets and outlaw terrorist financing worldwide.

"Jump teams" of U.S. experts were dispatched to more than 20 countries to help them find and freeze suspected terrorist assets. After that, they began an effort to help central bankers, finance ministries and the private sector in those countries build laws and financial mechanisms to prevent their financial systems from being corrupted.

The Treasury Department says that to date, 173 nations have executed blocking orders of some kind, more than 100 have introduced legislation to fight terrorist financing and 84 have established financial intelligence units to investigate suspicious activity and share information.

But nearly all of the asset freezes occurred in the first few months, a sign, officials say, that the money has shifted elsewhere and that many countries have overlooked or refused to freeze suspected terrorist funds. Now, senior U.S. officials acknowledge, other complications have arisen.

Many U.S. officials maintain that they have begun to lay the groundwork for more successes in a long and grueling campaign.

"Have we solved the problem? No. I wouldn`t pretend that we have. We haven`t stopped all the money flows by any means," U.S. Treasury Secretary John W. Snow said in an interview here. "But we really have come a long way in the past two years. The world is a different place than it was two years ago, with respect to how we`re dealing with this issue."

This month, Snow and his entourage spent a week hopscotching across the Middle East and South Asia, assessing progress from Israel to Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates, and pressing political and financial leaders for more action.

Publicly, Snow and his hosts were enthusiastic about their progress. But in private discussions, the talk often turned to the roadblocks they encountered, participants said.

In Saudi Arabia, Crown Prince Abdullah griped that most other nations "don`t feel the urgency to fight" terrorism since they have not been attacked themselves. The de facto Saudi leader said only a global coalition would be successful in tracing the threads of terrorist money.

"The two of us can`t do it alone," Abdullah told Snow. "We are beginning to see complacency in some parts of the world."

Senior U.S. authorities say Saudi officials have done much to combat terrorism, but only after coming under attack themselves in May, when nine suicide bombers killed 26 people in simultaneous attacks at three residential compounds.

`Jidda Merchants`

As Snow`s motorcade zoomed through the downtown business center of Jidda, it passed the many shops and banks owned by a group of men known as "the Jidda Merchants."

At least seven members of the informal group have been identified by various counter-terrorism authorities as among the top financial supporters of Al Qaeda, friends of Osama bin Laden whose multibillion-dollar fortunes helped bankroll the terror network for years through a web of bank accounts, charities, front companies and relief organizations.

Two of them, Wael Hamza Julaidan and Yasin Qadi, were among the first suspected financiers targeted by U.S. Treasury officials to have their assets in the United States frozen. A third merchant, Adel Abdul Jalil Batterjee, has been identified in U.S. court documents as the former president of Benevolence International, an Illinois-based Islamic charity that authorities allege was used as a conduit to raise and funnel millions of dollars to Al Qaeda. Batterjee`s longtime associate, Enaam Arnaout, was sentenced to 11 years in prison for his leading role in the charity, after agreeing to plead guilty and to cooperate in an investigation.

Batterjee was identified as an unindicted co-conspirator and has never been charged. Like Julaidan and Qadi, he is believed to be in Saudi Arabia. None of the three could be reached for comment, but they have said publicly that they are innocent of any wrongdoing.

U.S. officials confirm that they are still investigating those three men and others, and that they hope to gain access to them now that Saudi officials have allowed a few dozen FBI and Treasury agents into the country to investigate cases. Officials say that to date, however, they don`t know whether Saudi officials ever seized any assets of the men or investigated them for potential terrorist activity.

"These are multimillionaires, billionaires who, like Qadi and Julaidan, used parts of their businesses and operations to directly help Bin Laden throughout the 1990s," one of the senior Treasury Department officials said.

U.S. officials also say Saudi Arabia for years did virtually nothing to staunch the flow of hundreds of millions of dollars to Al Qaeda and Hamas through charities and relief agencies. They now believe Saudis have given as much as $50 million to Hamas and other Palestinian groups designated by the U.S. as terrorist organizations.

The activities of organizations such as Hamas and Hezbollah look far different to many people in the Middle East than they do to the U.S. government. People here focus on the political and charity work of such organizations, and often regard bombings and shootings targeting Israelis as a legitimate form of resistance.

Saudi officials insisted for months that they had implemented sweeping reform measures when they had not, a top Treasury official, David Aufhauser, testified last week at a congressional hearing. He said that Hamas has been able to raise "enormous amounts of money" in Saudi Arabia, and that Saudis now account for 50% of the group`s operating budget.

Despite U.S. pleas, Saudi officials have not prohibited individual donors from giving money to the group, going so far as to allow Hamas to raise funds during the annual hajj pilgrimage, Aufhauser said.

U.S. officials have aggressively pushed for a worldwide designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization. But Saudi officials — like many other governments and, until two weeks ago the European Union — officially differentiate between the military wing of Hamas and its political arm, as they do with Hezbollah.

Aufhauser said Saudi officials had taken some positive steps such as establishing a joint operational counter-terrorism task force with the FBI and a similar one for terrorist financing with Treasury officials.

"But by no means have we crossed the bridge of the issue of terrorist financing emanating from Saudi Arabia," Aufhauser said.

Pakistan Earns Praise

In Pakistan, Snow praised the government`s efforts to establish stringent controls over banks and informal money transfer points known as hawalas.

But Finance Minister Shaukat Aziz said the global effort so far was too disjointed and anemic to have any chance of success.

"I think we need more coordinated efforts," Aziz said at a news conference with Snow at his side. "If money comes from country A through country B to country C, all three have to sing the same tune and that is not happening today."

Aufhauser, the outgoing chief of enforcement and general counsel for the Treasury Department, shared similar frustrations last week with several congressional committees. He said stopping the money flow is arguably the world`s best hope of preventing terrorist attacks.

"That is a dramatic statement, but it is not possible to overstate the importance of the campaign against terrorist financing," Aufhauser testified before a House banking subcommittee. "That being said, it is unwise to understate the difficulty of this endeavor.

"Our economies are deliberately open and porous. The ways to game restrictions on the flow of capital are nearly infinite. Moreover, the challenge is worldwide in scope," Aufhauser said. "The overwhelming bulk of the assets we seek to freeze, the cash flow that we hope to strangle, and the records we aspire to exploit are beyond the oceans that surround us here in North America. To act alone in this endeavor would justly invite critique, and be ultimately ineffective."

Aufhauser took aim at Saudi Arabia and a handful of European countries for their refusal to designate Hamas a terrorist organization and go after its assets. Some progress has been made in shutting off the money flow to Hamas, he said, but many more countries need to join the effort.

Actions against Hamas, like Al Qaeda and other global networks, "have dramatic impact only when we can convince the rest of the world to act with us," Aufhauser said. "It has been an uphill road with Hamas."

European countries, in particular, have objected not only to designating groups such as Hamas and Hezbollah as terrorist organizations, but to what they describe as an unfair and overly aggressive campaign by the Bush administration. U.S. officials can designate individuals and entities as terrorists without judicial oversight, or evidence that the target knowingly conspired to help fund terrorism.

Some countries, such as Jordan, have taken steps to go after suspected terrorist groups only to back down because of internal pressure. Others are so cowed by internal resistance that they have done little more than offer promises of cooperation, U.S. officials say.

Many other problems stem from countries` internal problems.

Afghanistan is working to institute a central banking system, and hopes to someday soon have money laundering laws, a financial intelligence unit and even regulations imposing stringent conditions on hawalas.

By doing so, Afghanistan would no longer be a destination point for terrorists and heroin traffickers who enjoy the anonymity provided by hawalas and their "no-questions-asked" way of sending and receiving large sums of cash, said Abdul Q. Fitrat, the first deputy governor of Afghanistan`s central bank.

"We will definitely not let them go unbridled," Fitrat said of the hundreds of hawalas in Kabul alone. "It is a very serious issue for Afghanistan."

Fitrat, who used to work in Washington for the International Monetary Fund, acknowledged that such reforms could take years.

Even with regulations, those seeking anonymity could simply opt for the special underground hawalas that cater to such people, Fitrat said. He cited the case of a man he identified as Haji Abdul Bari, "a very close associate of [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden, who got a lot of funds" by acting as a hawala dealer for the men in the ungovernable border area of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Afghanistan`s general lawlessness will make things even harder. Snow`s delegation insisted on staying in Kabul only during daylight hours, and even then they were escorted by 50 Secret Service officers, a special deployment of Navy SEALs, private security contractors and a few Humvees with machine gunners perched on top.

Establishing such financial mechanisms in the vast swaths of Afghanistan that remain under the control of warlords will essentially be impossible, Fitrat said.

Similar obstacles confront U.S. authorities in Yemen and Somalia. Recent intelligence shows large numbers of Al Qaeda operatives massing in those countries, and while electronic eavesdropping and remote surveillance can help gauge their numbers, it is almost futile to try to track money flows in and out of such places. Usually, transactions involve the exchange of cash, gold and diamonds by couriers.

Authorities cite the case of Ahmed Nur Ali Jimale, a Somali, who they say is a longtime associate of Bin Laden — a charge Jimale`s associates deny.

In November 2001, U.S. officials froze the assets of Jimale`s money transfer company, Al Barakaat, alleging that he and his associates siphoned tens of millions of dollars from the vast pipeline of money sent by Somalis through the company`s Dubai headquarters to outlets around the world. Much of that money, they allege, was then knowingly diverted to Al Qaeda.

Two years later, Jimale and about other 35 alleged Al Barakaat associates remain under investigation, and subject to blocking orders by the Treasury and U.N., U.S. officials say. The company is essentially out of business, but U.S. counter-terrorism officials suspect the money pipeline is still functioning.

"We shut down the network, but as is always the case, there are residual elements there [in Somalia] that want to continue to operate," one of the senior Treasury officials said. "But without a government or [legal and financial] institutions, the business elements scatter, and following them and any related money trails is very difficult."

The difficulty of following the money trail also remains in Dubai.

The city gained worldwide notoriety as the place from which Al Qaeda paymaster Hawsawi wired tens of thousands of dollars to the hijackers in the United States. Some of the hijackers also had bank accounts in the city, and even sent Hawsawi some of the money back in the hours before the hijackings, U.S. officials allege.

Since then, Dubai officials have instituted a host of reforms aimed at increasing oversight of banks and hawalas.

Two weeks ago, the governor of the UAE Central Bank publicly criticized the United States and other Western nations, saying they had failed to build the necessary global coalition by not sharing information, offering enough financial and technical assistance to developing nations and by not taking "tough action" against countries that aid and abet terrorists and drug traffickers.

Call for Unity

"Defeating these criminals requires a united approach from every element of the international community," Sultan bin Nasser Suwaidi told reporters during the annual meeting of the IMF and World Bank here. "The campaign on global money laundering is only as strong as the weakest link."

One senior U.S. counter-terrorism official responded that despite Dubai`s promises to reform, it remains a favorite place for terrorists to move their money.

A few hours spent in the open-air bazaars of Dubai provides ample evidence that dozens of money changers and gold and gem merchants are willing to buy and sell their wares for cash, or exchange and transfer money, with no questions asked.

"It`s still a central switching station for a lot of money that ends up in the hands of terrorists," the senior counter-terrorism official said. "What have they done to stop this? It`s a `Star Wars` bar for terrorists and terrorist financing. I`m not convinced there`s been any change. Everybody says yes, they`ll do something. But they don`t."

A risk manager for one of Dubai`s most prominent banks said that she and all of her colleagues had spent days in training on how to fight money laundering, and are now required to scrutinize potential customers far more carefully.

But, she said of terrorist organizations: "If they really want to do something, they`re going to find a way, aren`t they?"



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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Iraqi Force Patrols in the East
From Associated Press

September 28, 2003

MUNTHERIA BORDER CROSSING, Iraq — The U.S. Army for the first time Saturday gave Iraq`s provisional government responsibility for patrolling a stretch of the country`s borders — a sensitive 210-mile region of forbidding desert frontier between Iraq and Iran.

The transfer comes as the U.S.-led coalition faces pressure to give Iraqis more control over their affairs. And security here is crucial: The border is a popular illegal crossing point for Iranian pilgrims en route to Shiite holy sites, raising fears that Al Qaeda or other terrorists could enter.

Calling it an "important day for the Iraqi people," Col. Michael Moody, commander of the 4th Infantry`s 4th Brigade, formally handed patrol duties in the area to Iraqi Col. Nazim Shareef Mohammed.

Mohammed`s 1,178-strong force is made up of Arabs, Kurds and Turks.

"We are unique," said Mohammed, a Kurd. "This is an important day for us because we officially take over this highly sensitive border."

U.S. soldiers started training the Iraqi border forces in May, in sessions that touched on human rights of detainees as well as searches for Islamic militants or suicide bombers trying to blend in with pilgrims.

With no diplomatic relations between Iran and Iraq, many Iranians try to cross at a point about 75 miles east of Baghdad on their way to Najaf and Karbala — the most sacred cities for Shiites after Mecca and Medina.

Lt. Col. Reggie Allen, commanding officer of the 4th Infantry Division`s 1st Squadron, 10th Cavalry, said his forces, equipped with armored vehicles and scout helicopters, have stopped more than 14,000 illegal pilgrims since the end of August.

Saturday`s switch was part of an American drive to ease the burden on thinly stretched U.S. soldiers. The American occupation forces now have only an advisory role there.

The frontier includes a mountainous region, and temperatures often surpass 120 degrees.

It runs from the edges of Kurdish-controlled territory in northern Iraq to a point just southeast of Baghdad.
Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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THE NATION


Small Towns Struggle to Find Dentists
In some areas, people must wait months for appointments or travel long distances. Some Medicaid families can`t get treated at all.
By David Crary
Associated Press Writer

September 28, 2003



BERLIN, N.H. — Every few days, an agonized child or adult shows up at the emergency room of this mill town`s lone hospital, seeking relief from a pain that should have been treated elsewhere.

They have an abscess or a toothache, long-festering and suddenly unbearable. They turn to ER doctors, who can do little beyond supplying antibiotics, because Berlin — like hundreds of communities nationwide — has too few dentists.

Home to 10,600 people — just two of them dentists — in far-northern New Hampshire, Berlin is one of 1,480 areas in the United States designated by federal authorities as suffering from a dentist shortage. That number has nearly doubled since 1990.

In some areas, even patients with private dental insurance have to wait months for an appointment or travel long distances to a dentist with an open slot. Many low-income families have it worse: Their Medicaid coverage often isn`t enough to gain access to already busy dentists.

Loretta Morrissette, who runs an oral health program in Berlin`s public schools, sees the damage close-up in children whose parents can`t afford dental visits or can`t find a dentist who accepts new patients. She cited one mother who called 22 dental offices in one morning, many of them in distant towns, without getting an appointment for her child.

"If the children had early intervention, they could be helped before they get to the point of pain," said Morrissette, a dental hygienist with Coos County Family Health Services. "They end up with an abscess two years down the road and a four-surface filling instead of one little one. It`s traumatic."

Morrissette`s program tries to help children in kindergarten through third grade get dental treatment, although more than 70 students with cavities had to be placed on a slow-moving waiting list this year.

"I get an unbelievable amount of calls from parents wanting services, hoping for something that I can`t offer," she said. "If they have a child in second grade and one in sixth, it`s very hard to tell them there`s no access for that older one."

Dr. William Kassler, New Hampshire`s state medical director, said nearly 20% of the state`s 1.2 million residents live in communities with too few dentists. Many of those towns, Berlin among them, have unfluoridated water, causing higher cavity rates among children who then lack ready access to treatment.

As one of 16 states with no dental school, New Hampshire struggles to recruit newcomers to serve needy towns or replace the many dentists nearing retirement. The dentists who do come — like their peers elsewhere — generally prefer relatively well-to-do communities, not rural areas and poor urban neighborhoods with the most need.

Like many other states, New Hampshire is trying to ease the shortages by offering to repay the student loans of young dentists willing to work in underserved areas. Under another new program, the state will pay the malpractice insurance and license fees of retired dentists willing to donate at least 100 hours a year to treat needy patients.

"All states are struggling with these issues," said Kassler, whose own family had to wait nine months for dental appointments after moving to New Hampshire five years ago. "It`s something that cries out for national policy intervention."

Nationwide, there are about 152,000 active dentists, more than one-third of them over age 55, according to the American Dental Assn. Experts estimate that dentists` ranks will begin to decline in about 10 years as the number of dental school graduates — now about 4,000 annually — falls below the number of dentists leaving the work force due to retirement or other reasons.

To reverse the trend, dental schools would need to graduate more students. But many of the nation`s 56 dental schools are struggling to maintain current operations; there are more than 350 vacant faculty positions because of an exodus of teachers into better-paying private practice.

Even now, there are severe shortages of dentists in certain regions — a huge swath of the Great Plains, southern Texas, much of Nevada, northern Maine and poor, rural counties in many other states. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services says more than 31 million people live in shortage areas; officials estimate that 4,650 dentists would be needed to provide the proper level of service.

Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) drew attention to the dentist shortage while touring his home state last month. "I`ve heard horror stories from South Dakotans who were forced to travel more than 100 miles for a simple dental procedure," he said.

A recent South Dakota Dental Assn. survey projected that the number of practicing dentists in the state under age 65 could drop from 308 now to 217 by 2020.

Many of the nation`s problem areas have large minority populations, yet only 3.4% of the nation`s dentists are black and 3.3% are Latino.

Dr. Eugene Kruysman, one of the two practicing dentists in Berlin, has hired a headhunter agency to recruit an associate to help him with his overbooked practice. He is unable to take on new patients and even his regulars sometimes have to wait several months for a routine visit.

Kruysman, 49, has been practicing profitably in Berlin for 22 years; he raves about the appreciative attitude of his patients and the outdoor attractions of the surrounding White Mountains. But he knows that it won`t be easy to lure an associate to an economically struggling town several hours` drive from the nearest big cities.

"It`s tough to draw someone up here," he said. "The problem only worsens the more remote the location."

He serves on a local dental-care task force and pitches in by treating some low-income emergency patients. His regulars include some Medicaid-covered families. But he knows that many children and adults in the area are suffering from lack of dental care.

"I don`t have an answer," he said. "I see no solution to this shortage anywhere on the horizon."

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PRESIDENTIAL RACE



With Clark on Fire, Calls of Liar, Liar
By Joshua Micah Marshall
Joshua Micah Marshall covers politics and foreign affairs. He publishes talkingpointsmemo.com

September 28, 2003

WASHINGTON -- Is retired Gen. Wesley Clark, the former NATO supreme allied commander, an erratic liar? He is if you believe the spin coming out of the conservative hit machines that cranked into action as soon as Clark announced his intention to run for president as a Democrat.

Success in politics sometimes comes down to which side can tell the most compelling story — and, even more important, which side can tell it first.

That simple truth has triggered a manic, win-at-all-costs drive to "define" Clark in the worst terms possible so that he won`t be able to knock the president out of the White House next November. In his newsletter last week, Washington`s highly respected political handicapper Charlie Cook correctly noted that "for the White House, it is particularly important that Clark`s credibility be impeached as soon as possible." The White House and its media allies clearly agree.

Before Clark`s entry into the race a little more than a week ago, there were nine other candidates in the Democratic field. But none had garnered even a fraction of the invective Clark is now receiving — not even former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, a front-running candidate whose politics put him decidedly at odds with President Bush.

Why are conservatives so hot and bothered? The answer — and the threat Clark poses — couldn`t be clearer. For the last two years the White House has been able to maintain high rates of public approval even in the face of a rocky economy at home and a breakdown in the country`s key alliances abroad.

A key factor in Bush`s popularity was the public`s trust that he was the right man to keep the country strong abroad and safe from future terrorist attacks at home. That perception allowed Republicans to defy historical precedent and a soft economy to win the 2002 midterm elections handily.

Since July, however, a mix of economic woes and rising doubts about the operation in Iraq has battered the president`s standing in the polls — he now stands at about 50%, the break-even point in public approval ratings. The one big advantage President Bush still has working for him is the simple fact that a great many Americans trust Republicans more than Democrats to keep the country safe in dangerous times.

But make the Democratic standard-bearer a retired four-star general who helped keep the fractious NATO alliance together while conducting a successful war in the Balkans and that could all change rapidly. That means Clark has to be destroyed now, before he gets a chance to make his own first impression. And thus the fusillade streaming out of talk radio, Drudge, Fox News and various other media outlets with a conservative bent.

One of the main attacks began last week in the mainstream press when Howard Fineman, Newsweek`s chief political correspondent, led an article on Clark with the claim that the retired general had decided to become a Democrat only after being rebuffed in his efforts to enter the Bush administration. According to Colorado`s Republican governor, Bill Owens, and one of his cronies, Marc Holtzman, Clark told them during a chance encounter at a January conference in Davos, Switzerland, that he had wanted to become a Republican but had decided against it when White House strategist Karl Rove snubbed him.

"I would have been a Republican," Owens and Holtzman say Clark told them, "if Karl Rove had returned my phone calls." When asked, Clark told Fineman that the remark was meant in jest. But Holtzman assured Fineman that Clark was in deadly earnest: "Clark wasn`t joking. We were really shocked." Who knows what Clark said in this exchange? But it doesn`t take a leap of imagination to see that two high-profile Republicans — both of whom have close ties to the president and his chief political advisor, Rove — might have some reason to frame the exchange in the most unflattering light possible.

But it didn`t end there.

Almost immediately, the conservative Weekly Standard picked up the ball and got an unprecedented bit of assistance from the White House. At the Standard`s request, the White House completed a quick audit of Rove`s phone logs for the last two years and found that Clark had never placed any calls to Rove`s White House office.

Now, for those keeping score, the fact that Clark apparently never tried to contact Rove could be seen as strengthening his point to Fineman that the whole thing was a joking remark that Owens and Holtzman are warping out of context for political gain. But no matter. The Standard dutifully added the canard to what they call Clark`s growing list of "whoppers" and statements that "bear little resemblance to reality." And, true to form, the next day the ever-present and always "fair and balanced" Fox News — which, like the Standard, is owned by Rupert Murdoch`s News Corp. — was blaring the news that "White House phone logs suggest Wesley Clark is telling tales once again." Before long, a secondhand account of a brief conversation from an interested party had been bundled up into evidence that Clark was a congenital liar.

In the coming weeks we`ll see more and more of this. And along the way we`ll learn the answers to two questions, both of which may have a profound effect on the outcome of next year`s election.

The first is: Who will define Clark first? Clark`s opponents and his own nascent campaign are moving as fast as they can to answer that question in their favor. But will Clark be able to staff his campaign in time to offer any sustained rebuttal to the attacks? This is a candidate, after all, who reportedly didn`t decide to enter the race till 48 hours before his announcement. And Clark has already made some of the kinds of mistakes common to first-time campaigners, storming out onto political minefields without knowing where the lethal charges are buried. So he may end up doing some of his opponents` job for them.

The other question is this: Will the mainstream media — networks, major metropolitan dailies and news magazines — be carried along for the ride? In 1999 and 2000 a steady drumbeat of conservative attacks on then-Vice President Al Gore, accusing him of being a serial fibber, wended their way into the mainstream media and became a mainstay of coverage during the campaign. The Bush campaign mounted a similar attack on Sen. John McCain`s emotional stability during the primaries. Both had a real effect. With Newsweek`s report on Clark, it appears that the general could have an uphill battle.

To the White House, it doesn`t really matter whether people believe that an Al Gore or a Wes Clark is a liar. If a question is asked often enough, the truth becomes a secondary matter. That`s what the White House is hoping will happen with Clark. That`s how the game is played. And the race is on.

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Lost in Translation
During WWII, the U.S. taught Japanese to thousands. Why wasn`t a similar program put in place for Iraq?
By Frank Gibney
Frank Gibney, professor of politics at Pomona College, is president of the Pacific Basin Institute and author of "The Pacific Century" and other works on Asia.

September 28, 2003

SANTA BARBARA — When my children used to ask me, "What did you do in the war, Daddy?" my answer was terse and occupationally disappointing: "I spoke Japanese." No daring fighter pilot. No inspiring platoon leader. No crack submarine commander.

Still, I did a lot in World War II. As a Navy intelligence officer, I interrogated Japanese prisoners of war. I elicited much military information, both tactical and strategic, and translated it. After August 1945, I spent more than a year in Japan doing liaison work, interpreting and translating U.S. occupation directives and policy. I was a small human bridge between Gen. Douglas MacArthur`s conquering army and a puzzled but receptive Japanese public.

I was not alone. Some 1,100 young Americans hurriedly learned Japanese at U.S. naval schools, while approximately 9,000 officers and men, most of them Japanese Americans, received Japanese language instruction from the U.S. Army. Language programs in both services were in place by November 1941, as relations with Japan neared a breaking point. By late 1942, when I joined up, a huge language-recruitment program was underway. The objective was to train a generation of bilingual communicators not merely for wartime intelligence but also for the occupation of Japan, being planned long before the war`s end.

A crash program it surely was. Army and Navy language specialists canvassed colleges looking for young Americans with Asian backgrounds (typically from oil-business or missionary families) or classics majors, the latter on the plausible ground that anyone foolish enough to spend their college education studying Latin and Greek could handle Japanese. Other recruiters enlisted young Japanese American volunteers from the internment camps into which their families had been unjustly confined. When I was sworn in as a yeoman second class, I had finished two years plus at Yale and could quote Plato ad infinitum. My only knowledge of Japan was derived from the daily scare headlines in the newspapers and from my recollection of the Mr. Moto detective stories in the Saturday Evening Post.

We learned about Japan in a hurry. After 14 months of reading, writing and speaking Japanese — topped off by a few weeks` study at the Advanced Naval Intelligence School (unfortunately, we missed the elementary course) — we were on our own in the Pacific Theater trying to win the war. In the process, we learned a lot about the enemy`s way of life. Most of us would go on to help in the occupation and played key roles in its reform programs.

The Japanese had been propagandized and cut off from the rest of the world for almost two decades. They were fearful and upset in the backwash of total defeat. The presence of a few thousand Americans who spoke the language did much to ease the shock of occupation.

The sudden and peaceful cultural exchange also profoundly affected the occupiers. Some of us became journalists. John Rich joined NBC News. I became Time-Life Tokyo bureau chief. Marshall Green, Dick Sneider and Dave Osborn became distinguished ambassadors. Otis Cary, Donald Keene, Marius Jansen and Ted de Bary expanded postwar Japanese and Asian studies at universities. It`s no exaggeration to say that the wartime language-school graduates helped recast the old U.S. relationship with Japan into a new and permanent partnership. This was export democracy in action.

When plans for the Bush administration`s invasion of Iraq first surfaced, many of us worried abut the obvious shortage of qualified American Arabic speakers, as we had earlier worried about the too few proficient in Pushtu and Persian. In May 2002, I wrote Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld to thank him for his help in honoring the surviving World War II Japanese American language teachers. I also asked him whether the government would consider an Arabic version of the wartime crash language programs. Six months later, I got an answer from Assistant Secretary Peter W. Rodman. He confidently assured me that programs had long been in place (well before the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks) to facilitate university instruction in "less widely taught languages and cultures," Islamic included. So much for a crash program.

A look at the situation in Iraq and Afghanistan today tells a vastly different story. Estimates vary, but everyone agrees that very few of the more than 130,000 U.S. soldiers on duty in Iraq are in any sense Arabic-speaking, far fewer certainly than the 850 originally planned. There is a similar shortage of Iraqi Americans working with the U.S.-led occupation. Senior U.S. administrators in Iraq are frantically seeking more. Yet according to a 2002 General Accounting Office report, almost half the Defense Department positions for speakers of difficult languages (Korean, Chinese, Persian and Russian, along with Arabic) still remained unfilled.

The State Department has barely 40 competent Arabists — not all of them are in Iraq — and perhaps 50 learning the language. Other agencies, notably the FBI, are scurrying for Arabic-speaking recruits. But supplying them is not easy. A minimum of 18 months is needed to acquire a basic knowledge of this highly difficult language. Moreover, to be effective as an interpreter/translator in what is becoming a long-term occupation of Iraq, students should also learn Arab and Islamic history and customs. All this takes time, at least two years.

As things now stand in Iraq, occupation forces rely on a patchwork of outsourcing contracts with various private translation agencies, local Iraqis who speak English (beware of the superficially smiling interpreter) and, worst of all, machine translators capable (one hopes) of repeating preselected English phrases in Arabic, or vice versa. There is nothing remotely resembling the corps of translators and interpreters we had in World War II. Small wonder there are daily collisions and firefights between Americans and Iraqis who do not understand what the other is saying.

Few people in Iraq speak English. Fewer remotely comprehend the Anglo-Saxon concepts of law and democratic governance. To transform Iraq into a bastion of democracy in the Middle East, as President Bush and his ambitious neocon retainers have resolved to do, would require a mammoth job of cultural and political translation. (By comparison, democratizing the failed nation-states of Japan and Germany a half-century ago seems easy.) For starters, we might have trained a new generation of Arabic speakers to explain our unfamiliar words and concepts in a language the locals in Baghdad could understand.

With our occupation forces on the ground and under fire, it is late — very late — to begin.


Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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Coffin makers adapt to fit oversize clients
Warren St. John, New York Times
Sunday, September 28, 2003
©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback


URL: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/09/…


Perhaps nowhere is the issue of obesity in America more vividly illustrated than at Goliath Casket of Lynn, Ind., specialty manufacturers of oversize coffins.

There, one can see a triple-wide coffin -- 44 inches across, compared with 24 inches for a standard model. With extra bracing, reinforced hinges and handles, the triple-wide is designed to handle 700 pounds without losing what the euphemism-happy funeral industry calls its "integrity."

When Keith and Julane Davis started Goliath Casket in the late 1980s, they sold just one triple-wide, their largest model, each year. But times, along with waistlines, have changed; the Davises now ship four or five triple-wide models a month, and sales at the company have been increasing around 20 percent annually. The Davises say they base their design specifications not on demographic studies so much as on simple observations of the world around them.

"It`s just going to local restaurants or walking in a normal Wal-Mart," Davis said. "People are getting wider, and they`re getting thicker."

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that 20 percent of American adults are obese, up from 12.5 percent in 1991. Of those 70 and older -- the demographic that most interests the funeral industry -- 17 percent are obese. Despite the numbers, nearly every aspect of the funeral industry, from the size of coffins to vaults, graves, hearses and even the standardized scoop on the front-end loaders that cemeteries use for grave-digging is based on outdated estimates about individual size.

"Many people in this country no longer fit in the standard-size casket," said David Hazelett, president of Astral Industries, a coffin builder in Indiana. "The standard-size casket is meant to go in the standard-size vault, and the standard-size vault is meant to go into the standard-size cemetery plot."

"It`s not exactly rocket science that people have been getting larger; that`s been well known for 30 years," said Allen Steadham, the executive director of the International Size-Acceptance Association, an advocacy group for the obese.

©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback

[Joerver]

Posted on Sat, Sep. 27, 2003

Is Rumsfeld annoying?
By Tracy Warner
Journal entry

Does Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld have an annoying habit of making his point by asking his own question, then answering it?
Yes, he does.

Is Rumsfeld having a conversation with himself?

No, not really.

Is he doing it as a way of sounding as if he is responsive to the public while he is really dodging the big issues?

You bet.

For example, does Rumsfeld always successfully turn questions about the lingering Iraqi occupation into ones about how genuine the Bush administration`s effort is? And does he always manage to use the question to lower expectations?

No, he`s not perfect, he doesn`t always succeed, but he`s trying his best, and it fools some of the people some of the time.

Isn`t this self-interview technique even more distracting and artificial sounding than Bob Dole`s habit during the 1996 campaign of constantly referring to himself in the third person?

Tracy Warner thinks it is. Tracy Warner can hardly even stand to hear Rumsfeld speak.

If Rumsfeld asks the questions, why have reporters?

Because reporters are supposed to make him address the real issues that he dodges.

Are they successful?

No one is perfect, but they`re trying.

Did I steal the idea for this column from a recent series of Doonesbury cartoons?

No, but those cartoons did help me notice that Rumsfeld`s real-life habit is just as bad as the parody.

Are cartoon strips an appropriate place to get ideas for pieces of commentary?

Ask the Iraqi people. Ask them if they think the U.S. secretary of defense really wants to talk about how well the war went. Ask them if he knows how to avoid the hard questions.

Do I think Rumsfeld should resign because of this agonizing habit?

No, I think he should resign because he has no credibility and badly misjudged the level of force needed for the occupation.

Yes, if he keeps it up. Could he start losing track and answer the questions before he asks them, as in "Jeopardy!"?

- Tracy Warner

http://www.fortwayne.com/mld/journalgazette/6875854.htm

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Published on Saturday, September 27, 2003 by the Hearst Newspapers
Hussein Link Was Sales Job
by Helen Thomas

Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, according to President Bush.

But don`t blame Americans for thinking otherwise.

When reporters asked him last week, Bush said: ``We`ve had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with September the 11th.``

Poof! In an instant, the president knocked the stuffing from one of his stated reasons for leading the United States to war against Iraq. Earlier casualties in the administration`s sell-the-war campaign were Hussein`s weapons of mass destruction (still missing despite five months of searching by U.S. troops) and Iraq`s nuclear arsenal (cancelled out earlier this month by Vice President Cheney.)

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., says that the administration`s case for attacking Iraq was a fraud, ``made up in Texas,`` to help Republicans in next year`s election. After all, a war-time president is by definition a popular president.

Kennedy says that the administration`s sales job was based on ``distortion, misrepresentation, a selection of intelligence.``

The record shows that Kennedy is right on target. A stream of administration rhetoric has skillfully linked Hussein with 9/11 as part of its two-year sales campaign. Some samples:

• In a televised speech earlier this month, Bush cited Iraq as the ``central front`` in the war on terrorism. Bush frequently refers to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in the same paragraph denouncing Hussein.

• Cheney said on NBC-TV`s ``Meet the Press`` recently that the war in Iraq enables the United States to strike a major blow at the ``geographic base of the terrorists who have us under assault for many years, but most especially on 9/11.``

• National security adviser Condoleezza Rice recently said on ABC`s Nightline that one of the reasons why Bush went to war against Hussein was because he posed a threat ``in a region from which the 9/11 threat emerged.``

• Secretary of State Colin Powell pulled out all the stops at his Feb. 5 sales pitch at the United Nations where he described a ``potentially . . . sinister nexus between Iraq and the al Qaeda terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder.``

These careful, clever associations are worthy of Madison Avenue marketers trying to sell us a brand of toothpaste on the basis that it would help us get a pay raise.

The administration`s phony sales job has been very effective, up until now. A Washington Post poll last month found that 69 percent of Americans thought Hussein had a role in the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.

No substantive link

The president`s astonishing acknowledgement that there was no 9/11 link with Iraq came just days after a respected former CIA official made the same point during sworn testimony before Congress.

Vincent Cannistraro, formerly director of the CIA`s counter-terrorism operations and analysis, testified at a Senate hearing that there was ``no substantive intelligence information linking Saddam to international terrorism before the war.`` But with U.S. troops now in Iraq, terrorists are gathering there to work their evil.

``Now,`` Cannistraro said, ``we have created the conditions that have made Iraq the place to come to attack Americans.``

Reality is having an effect on some administration officials, now busy backtracking.

• Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz confessed in an ABC-TV interview that he should have been ``more precise`` in saying that Hussein had contact with ``a great many`` bin Laden loyalists when he meant one man.

• Cheney now says that he ``misspoke`` when he warned before the war about Hussein`s nuclear capability. The new version from the veep: ``We never had any evidence that (Hussein) had acquired any nuclear weapons.``

It was the vice president who clinched the award for keeping a straight face on national television when he could have signaled an exultant high five.

Asked about the poll that showed Americans overwhelmingly believed that Hussein had a role in the 9/11 terrorist attacks, Cheney replied with his well-practiced deadpan: ``It`s not surprising people make that connection`` between Hussein and the terrorist attacks.

Well, yes, Mr. Vice President. Wasn`t that your aim all along?

A 180-degree switch

We shouldn`t take Bush`s 180degree switch on Hussein and al Qaeda as evidence of an administration-wide confessional. At his U.N. speech earlier this week, the president returned to his old selfimpeached arguments for war, carefully picking his words so that he can imprint the American public with his argument that Iraq`s fingerprints are all over the Sept. 11 attacks, but without saying those exact words.

Trying to defend the unilateral U.S. attack and to enlist global financial support for the flagging reconstruction of Iraq, Bush explained that ``the regime of Saddam Hussein cultivated ties to terror while it built weapons of mass destruction.``

Initial news accounts show that the U.N. audience was unimpressed and still awaits the evidence. More and more Americans are coming to the same conclusion.

Copyright 2003 Hearst Newspapers

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Published on Saturday, September 27, 2003 by The Nation
Is Bush`s War in Iraq A "Brain Fart"?
by David Corn

Did retired General Anthony Zinni really call George W. Bush`s war in Iraq a "brain fart"? That seems to be the case. But first, some background.

On Thursday night, Zinni, the former commander of the U.S. Central Command, was interviewed by Ted Koppel on Nightline. And he was rather sharp in his assessment of George W. Bush`s policy in Iraq. Before the war, Zinni, who had been an envoy for Bush in the Middle East, opposed a U.S. invasion of Iraq, arguing that Saddam Hussein did not pose an imminent threat. On Nightline, Zinni compared Bush`s push for the war with the Gulf of Tonkin incident--an infamous episode in which President Lyndon Johnson misrepresented an attack on two U.S. Navy destroyers in order to win congressional approval of the war in Vietnam--and he challenged "the credibility behind" Bush`s prewar assertions concerning Iraq`s possession of weapons of mass destruction and its association with anti-American terrorists. "I`m suggesting," Zinni said, "that either the [prewar] intelligence was so bad and flawed--and if that`s the case, then somebody`s head ought to roll for that--or the intelligence was exaggerated or twisted in a way to make a more convenient case to the American people." Zinni said he believed that Hussein had maintained "the framework for a weapons of mass destruction program that could be quickly activated once sanctions were lifted" and that such a program, while worrisome, did not immediately endanger the United States.

Zinni raised the issue that Bush might have purposefully misled the public and not shared with it the true reason for the war: "If there`s a strategic decision for taking down Iraq, if it`s the so-called neoconservative idea that taking apart Iraq and creating a model democracy, or whatever it is, will change the equation in the Middle East, then make the [public] case based on that strategic decision....I think it`s a flawed--like the domino theory--it`s a flawed strategic thought or concept....But if that`s the reason for going in, that`s the case the American people ought to hear. They ought to make their judgment and determine their support based on what the motivation is for the attack."

Zinni was, in a way, being polite. Earlier in the month, he addressed a forum sponsored by the U.S. Naval Institute and the Marine Corps Association. There he let loose. Reflecting the views of high-ranking U.S. military officials who were dubious about launching a war against Iraq and skeptical about the occupation that would follow, Zinni accused the Bush crowd of having not been ready for the challenges to come after defeating the Iraqi army. "We`re in danger of failing," he noted, because the Bush administration had not readied itself for what would follow the initial military engagement. "We fought one idiot here [in Iraq], just now," he said. "Ohio State beat Slippery Rock 62 to 0. No shit! You know! But we weren`t ready for that team that came onto the field at the end of that three-week victory." He went on:

"Right now, in a place like Iraq, you`re dealing with Jihadists that are coming in to raise hell, crime on the streets that`s rampant, ex-Ba`athists that still running around, and the potential now for this country to fragment: Shi`ia on Shi`ia, Shi`ia on Sunni, Kurd on Turkomen. It`s a powder keg. I just got back from Jordan. I talked to a number of Iraqis there. And what I hear scares me even more that what I read in the newspaper. Resources are needed, a strategy is needed, a plan. This is a different kind of conflict. War fighting is one element of it."

Zinni displayed little confidence in Bush and his aides. He said that their Iraq endeavor has landed the United States into the middle of assorted "culture wars" in the Middle East. "We don`t understand that culture," he remarked. "I`ve spent the last 15 years of my life in this part of the world. And I`ll tell you, every time I hear...one of the dilettantes back here speak about this region of the world, they don`t have a clue. They don`t understand what makes them tick. They don`t understand where they are in their own history. They don`t understand what our role is....We are great at dealing with the tactical problems--the killing and the breaking. We are lousy at solving the strategic problems; having a strategic plan, understanding about regional and global security and what it takes to weld that and to shape it and to move forward."

Do you think Zinni is angry over the war? He did get worked up as he ended his speech:

"We should be...extremely proud of what our people did out there....It kills me when I hear of the continuing casualties and the sacrifice that`s being made. It also kills me when I hear someone say that, well, each one of those is a personal tragedy, but in the overall scheme of things, they`re insignificant statistically." (Perhaps he had in mind the comment Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld made in June, when he played down attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq by saying, "You`ve got to remember that if Washington, D.C., were the size of Baghdad, we would be having something like 215 murders a month; there`s going to be violence in a big city.") Zinni continued: "When we put [our enlisted men and women] in harm`s way, it had better count for something, It can`t be because some policy wonk back here has a brain fart of an idea of a strategy that isn`t thought out."

Brain fart? That`s not quite a military term. But those are fighting words. And Zinni practically counseled his audience to rebel against the Bush administration. U.S. troops, he said, "should never be put on a battlefield without a strategic plan, not only for the fighting--our generals will take care of that--but for the aftermath and winning that war. Where are we, the American people, if we accept this, if we accept this level of sacrifice without that level of planning? Almost everyone in this room, of my contemporaries--our feelings and our sensitivities were forged on the battlefields of Vietnam, where we heard the garbage and lies, and we saw the sacrifice. We swore never again would we do that. We swore never again would we allow it to happen. And I ask you, is it happening again? And you`re going to have to answer that question, just like the American people are."

Brain fart. Garbage and lies. Never again. This was harsher rhetoric than Zinni deployed on Nightline, though his message was essentially the same. With such talk, he is in sync with Senator Ted Kennedy, who was blasted by Republicans for calling the war a "fraud." Note to Kennedy and other critics of the war: Fire away. If a Republican counter-attacks, you can always reply, at least I didn`t say Bush is asking Americans to give their lives for a war based on mental flatulence.

COMING SOON: David Corn`s new book, The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception (Crown Publishers, due out September 30). For more information and a sample, check out the book`s official website: www.bushlies.com.

Copyright © 2003 The Nation

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Lies, Mischief And The Myth Of Western Intelligence Services

By Robert Fisk
28 September 2003: (The Independent. UK)

They were at it again last week, the liars of our Western "intelligence" community. John Bolton, the US under-secretary of state for arms control and one of Donald Rumsfeld`s cabal of pro-Israeli neo-conservatives, was giving testimony before the decidedly pro-Israeli sponsors of the Syria Accountability Act.

Mr Bolton, who once ludicrously claimed that Cuba had a biological weapons programme, accused Syria of maintaining a stockpile of sarin and of working on VX and biological weapons. And Congressmen Eliot Engel announced that "it wouldn`t surprise me if those weapons of mass destruction that we cannot find in Iraq wound up and are today in Syria". For Baghdad, read Damascus.

Some, indeed much, of this nonsense comes from the myth-making intelligence service of Israel, which really does have weapons of mass destruction, although Engel`s imaginative intervention probably had its roots in the claim of a US intelligence officer in Baghdad last April. He went on insisting Iraq had transferred its non-existent WMD to Syria by rail - before being shown a map that proved the only railway line from Iraq to Syria passed through Turkey.

But why, oh why, do we go on accepting this trash? Why do we even listen to the so-called intelligence services when they have so routinely - and bloodily - got it wrong? Among the last of the Hutton inquiry confrontations was the debate over whether Iraqi chemical weapons were fitted to missiles - the famous "45 minute" warning in Tony Blair`s meretricious "dossier" - or were, as the snobbish John Scarlett informed us, "battlefield" weapons. While it was perfectly clear that Mr Scarlett allowed Downing Street to fiddle with the text so that it suggested the former, the reality is that both versions were totally untrue. Not only did Iraq have no WMD - it didn`t even have a battlefield version.

Yet we let these dumbos get away with it. Nobody interrupted Mr Blair, for example, when he arrived in Iraq in the summer and said we could not say there were no WMD because we "should wait until the 1,400 US, British and Australian investigators sent in to search for Iraq`s weapons had finished work". But why, for heaven`s sake, couldn`t he have been patient enough to let the extremely competent UN inspectors finish their work before his illegal invasion? Only now, it seems, do we have to be patient - and we`re going to have to go on being patient because the Iraq survey team in whom Mr Blair desperately placed his hopes is about to say it has found no WMD.

The liars in the intelligence services, of course, have been getting it wrong from the start. Remember all those bombs we dropped on innocent people in the hope that we might - just might - kill Saddam? This started back in 1991 when we sent a missile into a hardened air-raid shelter at Amariya in Baghdad and killed upwards of 400 civilians. The Americans were trying to assassinate Saddam but he wasn`t there - and never had been. We have never apologised for this atrocity and I wasn`t surprised that the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell, chose to visit Halabja, the scene of Saddam`s massacre by chemicals of 8,000 Kurds, on his trip to Iraq this month and miss out on the Amariya shelter. In fact, the only interest the Americans have shown in this grisly shrine in Baghdad was to search it for weapons.

At the end of this year`s invasion of Iraq, the Americans announced that they had bombed a building in the Mansour district of Baghdad because Saddam may have been there. Again, he wasn`t. Sixteen civilians, including a baby under a year old, were killed. Again, we have never apologised for this outrage. Donald Rumsfeld, it has now been revealed, had to give special approval if any air strike was thought likely to result in the deaths of more than 30 civilians. In fact, more than 50 such strikes were proposed - and Mr Rumsfeld approved every one of them.

And still it goes on. Only last week, the Americans used two jets to strike - at night - a house in Fallujah and claimed they killed a gunman. In fact, it`s now clear that they killed three members of a perfectly innocent family. This happened scarcely three miles from the spot where soldiers of the supposedly elite 82nd Airborne gunned down eight of their own Iraqi policemen on a darkened roadway, an act which has still not been explained and which was only grudgingly acknowledged two days after the killings.

And all the while, the myth-making continues. Iraq is getting better, safer, more democratic. All untrue. Still the neo-cons in Washington follow the rubbish churned out by the Wall Street Journal last February, that "the path to a calmer Mideast now lies not through Jerusalem but through Baghdad". Down at the American Enterprise Institute, one of the nastiest of the "tink thanks" - as I like to call them - where the neo-cons hang out, a former CIA covert operator, Reuel Marc, was able to announce in February that "the tougher Sharon becomes, the stronger our image will be in the Middle East".

Fed on such fantasies, we went to war. Just as the Russians went to war in Chechnya. Now Mr Blair regularly peddles the line that the battle between Russia`s drunken and rapacious soldiers and the brutal warlords of Chechnya must be "seen in the context of the fight against international terrorism". Back in June he even tried to smarmy up to that grand old KGB spymaster, Vladimir Putin, by saying that some of the toughest fighters against US and UK forces in Iraq "were Chechen". This was a lie. No Chechen fighters have been found in Iraq. Indeed, Iraqis were stunned to hear that such exotic folk had turned up here - Chechens don`t even look like Arabs and would not speak Arabic. But Mr Blair got away with it.

No, I don`t think we`re going to invade Syria. For starters, it hasn`t got enough oil to make it worth invading. But we`ve been fed so much of this tosh about WMD that I don`t think anyone - other than the Blairs and Bushes and their idiotic spooks - really believes it. As for the "intelligence community", maybe this is the moment to close it down.


http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/story.jsp?story=447…

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September 28, 2003
No wonder America has so many enemies
By ERIC MARGOLIS -- Contributing Foreign Editor
President Bill Clinton was impeached by a Republican-controlled Congress for lying about sex. President George W. Bush and aides lied the United States into a stupid, unnecessary colonial war that has so far killed more than 305 Americans and seriously wounded more than 1,400. It has also cost many thousands of Iraqi dead, and $1 billion US weekly.

Lying about sex is an impeachable offence; lying the nation into war apparently is not.

I was no Clinton fan, but give me his iffy morals any day over Bush`s Mussolini-like strutting. Sen. Edward Kennedy is absolutely correct when he calls Bush`s Iraq war a "fraud" concocted to win the next elections.

A fraud and an epic blunder.

Last week, Bush received a glacial and scornful reception at the United Nations that symbolized the world`s contempt and disgust for his administration. Not since Nikita Khrushchev pounded his shoe on the speaker`s rostrum has a major leader so embarrassed himself and his nation before the world body.

In his UN speech, Bush again claimed Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and "ties" to terrorism. Days later, U.S. intelligence teams that scoured Iraq for four months reported no traces of weapons or terrorism links - the pretext used by Bush and his neo-conservative handlers for unprovoked war against Saddam Hussein.

The White House was left choking on its own grotesque lies.

Incredibly, VP Dick Cheney, a prime architect of the Iraq war, actually claimed recently that Iraq still had mobile germ labs, though U.S. and British inspectors debunked this claim last June. The "special" intelligence network created by neo-conservatives is still apparently feeding disinformation to America`s leadership.

This latest humiliation came only days after Bush finally admitted Iraq was not, as most Americans were misled into believing, behind the 9/11 attacks.

No wonder world leaders gave Bush the cold shoulder, and even usually timid UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned against "dangerous acts of unilateralism" - a pointed reference to the bellicose Bush administration.

Unfortunately, many Americans still do not understand how gravely the Bush White House has damaged and sullied their nation`s once noble reputation.

Dangerous aggressor

Recent polls show that even among traditional friends abroad, America is no longer regarded as a champion of freedom, democracy and human rights, but increasingly as a dangerous aggressor bent on imperial domination and exploitation.

America`s most precious and proudest asset, its moral reputation, has been gravely damaged by the Bush White House. The only positive note: rising anti-Americanism is largely associated in the eyes of non-Americans with the persona of George Bush, a man who projects almost all the negative stereotypes foreigners hold of Americans.

Bush`s blinkered core supporters in middle America simply don`t understand or don`t care what the rest of the world thinks of their nation, which, since 9/11, has wrapped itself in a cocoon of xenophobia and self-righteous rage.

The White House`s mouthpiece media, led by Fox News, have simply blanked out world opinion and endlessly chorused administration war propaganda.

A fascinating March study of network TV news by New York`s Fairness and Accuracy in Media shows how Americans were misled into war by outrageously biased programming on Iraq.

The analysis found: a) 76% of all commentators about Iraq on TV were present or former government officials; b) only 6% of commentators expressed skepticism regarding the need for war - when 61% of the public supported more time for diplomacy and inspections; c) on the four TV networks, less than 1% of sources were identified with anti-war groups.

And more than two-thirds of commentators were from the U.S., 75% either present or former government or military officials. The small number of foreign commentators mostly came from nations like Britain and Israel which were backing Bush`s war policy.

In short, the major networks, under White House prompting, beat the war drums and blatantly excluded commentators with contrary views, giving Americans a badly warped view of world events.

No wonder so few Americans understand what is going on abroad, how the outside world really sees them, or why America has so many enemies overseas. Small wonder many Americans are turning for balanced news to the CBC, BBC and the Internet.

Citizens of the old Soviet Union suffered the same information isolation. Like Americans since 9/11, they were force-fed agitprop and patriotic pap disguised as news, and deprived of all knowledge of the real world around them.

Back to reality. Bush`s UN speech was another attempt to mislead Americans into believing the horrid mess in Iraq - entirely the creation of Bush and the neo-cons - is somehow the fault of the UN.

French President Jacques Chirac proposed the U.S. hand Iraq over to UN control. But Bush, still lusting for Iraqi oil and fearful his family foe, Saddam Hussein, would return to thumb his nose at him, foolishly scorned this wise proposal.

Bush is praying his hit teams will assassinate Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein before next year`s elections. But even that may not save him from the growing anger of defrauded Americans who are slowly realizing that his Iraq war was a political version of the giant Enron swindle.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eric can be reached by e-mail at [e-mail].
Letters to the editor should be sent to [e-mail] or visit his home page.

http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/margolis_sep28.html

[Joerver]

washingtonpost.com
Congress Members Visit Iraq Before Vote
By KATARINA KRATOVAC
The Associated Press
Sunday, September 28, 2003; 4:15 PM
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Members of Congress took a tour of Iraq`s dilapidated infrastructure Sunday, getting a firsthand look at the daunting task of rebuilding the nation before they vote on President Bush`s $87 billion funding request.
Meanwhile, Iraqi police and U.S. forces seized weapons in Baghdad and the north of the country after a small but symbolic rocket attack on a U.S. compound in the Iraqi capital.
Rep. Jim Walsh, a New York Republican and one of the 17-member congressional delegation visiting Iraq, said at the end of the daylong tour that the lawmakers were convinced Iraq has "tremendous potential" despite the "tremendous amount of damage done to the country by Saddam Hussein."
"But it becomes very clear that the American public needs to be very patient with Iraq, there is along way to go," Walsh said.
Meanwhile, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, British Prime Minister Tony Blair`s envoy to Iraq, said in a radio interview that elections in Iraq and the handover of power to a new government would not take place until well into next year.
"It needs the controlling American presence to produce the conditions for elections. So we need a few months to write the constitution and get it accepted, then we need some time to campaign for and hold elections," he told BBC Radio 4. "So you can see a period stretching out in front of you that goes well into 2004."
In France, Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin praised a U.S. proposal for Iraqis to draw up a constitution within six months as a "step forward."
De Villepin, speaking on French radio, also said Paris believed an eventual transfer of power from the U.S.-led occupation to a sovereign Iraqi government could take place by the end of the year.
"The situation in Iraq is not good - it`s bad. There`s a spiral of violence and terror and everything must be done to stop it," he said on Europe-1 radio. "The solution lies in a transfer of sovereignty."
"I think the Americans understand" the French position, he said, adding that Germany and Russia share a similar approach on the matter to France`s.
Also Sunday, the American-led Coalition Provisional Authority in Iraq said the first U.S.-trained battalion of a new Iraqi army - 700 men - would be graduated Saturday from basic training at Kirkush in northeastern Iraq.
"We look forward to the graduation of the 1st Battalion joining the fight of all Iraqis against those who are seeking to destabilize this country and push back the progress," said Charles Heatley, spokesman for the coalition.
The U.S. lawmakers appealed to Iraqis to help establish security and work closely with the Coalition forces.
"We are not going to be able to make this country safe without the help of Iraqi people, in every village, in every area of the country" said Rep. Todd Tiahrt, a Kansas Republican.
After visiting Baghdad, the delegation flew to the northern city of Mosul, where Rep. Jerry Lewis, R-Calif., told reporters he expected most of his colleagues to support the administration`s $87 billion spending request despite reservations in both the House and Senate.
As the U.S. military continues efforts to pacify the country five months after Bush declared an end to major combat, a spokesman said soldiers had conducted nine raids and 1,517 patrols and detained 74 Iraqis in the previous 24 hours.
"As far as the people detained in the raids, obviously we would have a strong suspicion they might be involved in attacks, given what we found in the venues that we raided," Lt. Col. George Krivo said.
Updating information on Saturday morning`s attack on the American-occupied al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad, Krivo said three makeshift rockets were fired at the hotel - one hitting and superficially damaging part of its 14th floor, another landing in a courtyard, and a third damaging a private house nearby. No one was injured. He said he knew of no arrests.
A weapons cache found Saturday near Saddam Hussein`s hometown Tikrit included 23 Russian-made surface-to-air missiles, 1,000 pounds of plastic explosives, grenades, grenade launchers, rockets, a mortar and mortar rounds. It was among the largest caches found there since American troops arrived in April, according to Maj. Mike Rauhut of the 4th Infantry Division.
U.S. officials said troops also detained "a former high-ranking regime loyalist" but gave no further details.
Later Saturday near the northern city of Kirkuk, soldiers of the 4th Infantry Division found eight SA-7 surface to air missiles, seven mortar tubes, and "a substantial number of electrical switches" used to make homemade bombs, division spokeswoman Maj. Josslyn Aberle said Sunday.
In Baghdad, Iraqi police found a much smaller cache late Saturday, recovering about a dozen small rockets, grenades and mortar rounds. The warheads had been removed from the rockets, suggesting they were to have been used in fabricating small roadside bombs that have caused casualties among U.S. troops and Iraqi civilians.
Police Gen. Ahmed Kadhim Ibrahim said the weapons were found after a tip from an informant. He said the weapons had been brought to Baghdad from the southern port of Basra after being smuggled in from a neighboring country that he would not identify.
Elsewhere, the Polish military reported Sunday that one Iraqi was killed and a second was detained after a gunbattle with a Polish patrol near the city of Hilla.
It was the first fatality suffered in a clash involving the Poles, who took over control of a sector in south-central Iraq on Sept. 3.
Poland commands some 9,500 peacekeepers from 21 nations and contributed about 2,400 of its own troops to the force.
© 2003 The Associated Press

Summary
US UK Other* Total Avg Days
310 51 2 363 1.89 192
Latest Military Fatality Date: 9/26/2003

09/27/03 Department of Defense
DOD announces death of Army Reservist, struck by car in U.S. while on leave from Iraq.
09/27/03 Northwestern: Oshkosh soldier hurt in Iraq
A 24-year-old Oshkosh soldier is on the mend after being wounded during a patrol in Iraq.
09/27/03 VOA News: US Fire Killed 4 Civilians
Iraqis in the town of Fallujah say U.S. troops have killed four civilians after opening fire on two cars at a checkpoint.
09/27/03 CNN: Rocket attack on Baghdad hotel
At least one rocket-propelled grenade hit a Baghdad hotel housing U.S. military officers and civilian support staff on Saturday morning, but there were no reports of casualties
09/26/03 Department of Defense
DOD announces the death of a third U.S. soldier on Sept. 25th ... an Army National Guardman struck by a forklift at Shuabai Port, Kuwait.
09/26/03 Centcom: 1 soldier killed and 2 wounded
One 173rd Airborne Brigade soldier was killed and two were wounded in a rocket-propelled grenade attack against their military vehicle in Kirkuk at approximately 11 p.m. on Sep. 25.
09/26/03 Centcom:1 soldier died and 1 was injured
One 4th Infantry Division soldier died and one was injured in a fire in an abandoned building in the Tikrit area at approximately 7:15 p.m. on Sep. 25.
09/25/03 BBC: UK soldier dies in Iraq
A 32-year-old British soldier has died in a firearm incident in Iraq.
09/25/03 MSNBC: 8 U.S. soldiers hurt in north Iraq attack
Eight U.S. soldiers were wounded and their vehicle destroyed when their convoy was attacked in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul on Thursday
09/25/03 Centcom: Soldier dies in vehicle accident
One 220th Military Police Brigade soldier died and two were injured in a military vehicle accident in Balad; 3:30 p.m. on Sep. 24.

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Can`t we manage?
When Boston`s supercop Paul Evans arrives to take up his new job as the government`s policing tsar, he shouldn`t feel homesick - Americans already occupy many of Britain`s top business and public sector jobs. But why do so many organisations look west for management talent? And are the imports worth their sizeable pay cheques? Nils Pratley investigates

Nils Pratley
Monday September 29, 2003
The Guardian

Need somebody to lead the British bid for the Olympics? How about a new head for the Home Office`s police standards unit to uphold the great traditions of the British bobby? Or a new chief executive for Vodafone, the one world-class company created in Britain in the past decade? Or a boss to shake up Lloyds TSB, a British banking giant fallen on hard times?

The answer, it seems, is to send for an American. In the past few months, Americans have been appointed to all these posts. For the optimists, there is nothing to worry about: it`s all part of globalisation, an international market in talented executives and a refreshing absence of pointless patriotism. After all, hasn`t the Swede in charge of the English football team done a better job than the bewildered Kevin Keegan, the last Englishman to have a go? And the fact that an Australian is running British Airways is just an illustration of how corporate Britain is meritocratic and open; the old-fashioned French would never tolerate a non-Frenchman running Air France.

The alternative view is that the British are suffering from an almighty inferiority complex. We might call it junior-partner syndrome, the vague sense that we are playing the same game, but that a heavy-hitting foreigner, usually an American, is the only person to recruit when there is a big job to be done. American capitalism gave us cooked books and greedy chief executives in the form of WorldCom, Enron and Tyco, but that has not scotched the idea that they do management better over there.

Roger Parry, a Brit running the international division of Clear Channel, America`s largest radio company, and who has just published a book on business leadership, thinks there is something different about American executives - a purer competitive instinct. "As a generalisation, Americans are more energetic," he says. "They take business more seriously. They regard it as a contact sport, whereas some Brits regard business as an interesting amateur athletic event."

Bob Kiley, the American appointed by Ken Livingstone as London`s commissioner for transport, agrees that US managers deserve their hard-nosed reputation. "Americans will lose patience with individuals who don`t seem to be moving aggressively to solve problems, and then they`ll make changes. There`s more patience in Britain. But a problem that`s allowed to fester is going to be a worse problem six or 12 months later."

Eight members of the FTSE 100 index have American chief executives: Vodafone, Cadbury Schweppes, Lloyds TSB, Pearson, Reuters, Amvescap, Wolseley and Shire Pharmaceuticals. In total, a quarter of the 100 companies have foreigners at the helm, from a Canadian at Barclays, to an Italian at Cable & Wireless and an Argentinian running Safeway. Many of these CEOs made their reputations in the US market. And the number of Brits at the top of American Fortune 500 companies? Zero.

One of the FTSE 100 Americans, Charlie Banks of Wolseley, which owns Plumb Center and other building-materials businesses across Europe and the US, is full of polite praise for his British colleagues, but talks of a problem with ambition. "American business culture pays people for achievement and encourages people to take the risk," he says. "British managers are high quality and very professional, but they do tend to view the glass as half-empty."

The odd part is that the record of Americans at the top of British organisations is hardly electrifying. Margaret Thatcher, in the most excruciating episode of her early years in power, recruited the American businessman John De Lorean to build sports cars in Belfast. Some £70m of taxpayers` money went missing and the project was an embarrassment from the outset.

Americans have disappointed in some of the biggest British boardrooms. Dick Brown walked out of Cable & Wireless in 1998 after only two years in the job, his wife apparently homesick. He lasted longer than Mike O`Neill, the former US marine, who was recruited on a £10m three-year deal to run Barclays; he quit on his first day, his medical revealing an irregular heartbeat.

There was Ernie Mario of Glaxo, who was given the top job after running the group`s American division. Super Mario was a disaster: his culture of excess, which saw the company`s top four executives enjoy the use of corporate jets, alarmed the City and he rowed with the chairman and fellow executives over strategy and style. He was gone within three years and Glaxo turned instead to Sir Richard Sykes, the grumpy Yorkshire scientist whom the City had thought was not up to the job: Glaxo immediately enjoyed some of its best years.

Indeed, if you take the genuinely striking success stories among Britain`s top 30 companies over the past decade - BP, HSBC, Vodafone, Tesco, BSkyB, Diageo and Royal Bank of Scotland - it is notable that all seven firms were led by Brits during their best periods.

There have been some undoubted American successes, too. Barbara Cassani, now heading London`s Olympic bid, launched British Airways` budget airline Go in 1997 and did a textbook job. Rose Marie Bravo, fresh from Saks Fifth Avenue, has made Burberrys` checks deeply fashionable. Deanne Julius, the Iowa-born economist, served with distinction on the Bank of England`s monetary policy committee, which sets interest rates.

It is, however, not a long list. Lord Hanson, whose British-based Hanson empire in the 1980s ran the slogan "a company from over here that`s doing rather well over there", says part of its success lay in keeping management local. It had a deliberate policy of not cross-fertilising management between the US and the UK. "For the most part, you are better off with Americans for American companies and Brits for British companies," says Hanson. His view is surprising since he believes that, generally, Americans are more effective at running companies because they drive them harder.

"We didn`t move people around because it is difficult for them to adapt to a different ethos," he explains. "If you are looking for the reasons why many Americans have not succeeded at British companies, it is probably because they are not sufficiently aware of what is needed over here."

Noreen Doyle, the New Yorker who is first vice-president of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, believes American managers can be agents of change in the UK. "If you are in a competitive market - and today even the public sector is a competitive market - you can make changes more quickly with a US boss who will be less emotionally connected to the organisation."

The downside, according to Philip Augar, author of The Death of Gentlemanly Capitalism, is that the values that mediate commercial life are changing too - we are adopting the US obsession with "shareholder value". "The US was first with the belief that business should be run for shareholders and on the basis of shareholder value," he says. "Before that, in the UK we had been managing for each other and for our fellow employees. It was all much more gentlemanly, more clubby."

Augar argues that Americans are often employed as hitmen (or women), but Doyle thinks that stereotype is outdated. "That may have been true 20 years ago, but I don`t think it applies now. You have plenty of people who have come to build businesses. Most CEOs are identified to deal with the challenge of the moment. It`s a misperception to think that all of them are like Chainsaw Al [the demon downsizer Al Dunlap]."

Marjorie Scardino, chief executive of Pearson, who now has dual British-American nationality, argues that the increasing number of American managers reflects the internationalisation of British companies. She does admit, though, that her background created expectations in her staff. "I think they thought I would expect more of them - get to work earlier, stay later and not take `no` for an answer. Actually, I think people found it more astounding that I was a Texan than an American and they were worried about the lengths I was prepared to go."

"You Brits are so self-hating," says Richard Sennett, the Chicago-born professor of sociology at the London School of Economics. "The sport of self-accusation gives Brits deep pleasure. But there`s a reason why people are coming here and it doesn`t have to do with the fact that you can`t do it. People want to come here - there`s a high quality of life."

Self-hating or not, some in the UK have been anxious to wage war on the incomers. The appointments of Beverly Malone as general secretary of the Royal College of Nursing, Cassani as head of London`s Olympic bid, and now Paul Evans at the police standards unit all met with criticism. When Evans was appointed earlier this month, Kevin Morris, the president of the Police Superintendents` Association of England and Wales, complained that the Home Secretary was "fixated" with American methods. "America is not a panacea for all things policing," he argued.

Malone, the plain-speaking former Clinton adviser who was appointed head of the RCN in 2001, has had a tough couple of years, battling with her own ruling council, other staff members and a negative press. "I would get flak no matter where I was," she says. "But I got special flak because I`m from the States. But leadership is about getting flak."

If New York was pitching for the Olympics, could a Brit conceivably be head of the team? Sennett thinks it is - after all, he says, Tina Brown edited the New Yorker. But Kiley is less convinced. "I find it hard to imagine that," he drawls.

There is an additional problem with Americans: they can be expensive. Salaries and bonuses tend to be higher in America, and Americans do not expect to suffer for their move to Britain. Reuters, for example, pays the £230,000-a-year rent on chief executive Tom Glocer`s west London pad - that`s in addition to the £816,000 salary and £612,000 bonus that Glocer took home last year, one in which the company slumped to a loss of almost £500m.

Much of Malone`s early trouble at the RCN stemmed from her £200,000 salary, thought by some to be inappropriate for the representative of lowly paid nurses. Even Kiley, who is critical of the vast gulf in pay between CEOs and workforce, enjoys the use of a £2m home in Belgravia.

Whether better or worse as managers, Americans are certainly a breed apart. It is hard to imagine a Brit talking almost evangelically about "leadership" in the way Malone does. Kiley, a US-style politicised bureaucrat, is about as far removed from an old-style British civil servant as you could imagine. The highly paid American CEOs in the private sector pride themselves on playing hardball: no gentlemanly capitalism for them. We haven`t yet worked out how to respond: do we admire their chutzpah or resent their presence? David Blaine isn`t the only high-profile American who makes us wonder whether we should embrace his effrontery or chuck eggs.

· Nils Pratley is the Guardian`s associate City editor. Additional reporting by Stephen Moss.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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The other one`s in trouble too
President Bush`s ratings in the US opinion polls are at an all-time low

Peter Preston
Monday September 29, 2003
The Guardian

Oh, he`s got trouble. No, not him: the other one. Public opinion polls, as scoffing politicians always say, aren`t the real thing: but, in a country where elections of any meaningful kind only happen every two years, they`re the next best thing. And too many terrible polling results can give a case of the shakes far beyond Bournemouth.

Watch George Bush`s hand, for instance, as he does his courtly grovel for the Queen in November. A tremor here? A clenched fist there? Nobody should be surprised if the latest sets of American polls carry on heading south at their current rate. Smile a rictus smile and examine a sampling from the last few days.

A USA Today/CNN/Gallup poll finds that only 50% now approve of the overall job Bush is doing - down from this year`s high of 71% in April. That`s the president`s lowest rating since he took office. Match him against a Democratic challenger without a name or a face - just Mr Watch-this-space - on the Zogby poll and he loses 45% to 41%.

Fox News (Rupert`s finest) produces a poll split 39% to 39% if an election were held today. June set those figures at 51% to 30%. NBC and Wall Street Journal pollsters currently find only 49% backing George - another all-time low on that index. And if you prefer to investigate individual state results, the evidence seems chilling enough. An Arizona Republic poll reports that a mere 34% of deep west voters are backing the Texas cowboy for re-election in a state which he won easily by six points in 2000.The rot is wide and the rot is deep.

Remember those 90% ratings after 9/11? You can forget them now, probably for ever. Of course they were phoney, puffed by fear and pride: but they`re only one benchmark in charting decline. A much more relevant one is the way, month by month through this torrid summer, Bush`s ratings have sunk, and sunk again.

It`s not disastrous yet. He has a world-record war chest and a rich party betting everything on a second triumph. The economy - stubbornly refusing to see jobless figures falling - could perk up soon. Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden could row into Guantanamo Bay waving white hankies on sticks. Jacques Chirac could eat humble croissant at the UN. Events, great and small, can make a huge difference. But there are still good Republican reasons to grow pensive.

One, curiously, is the enfeebled state of the Democratic party. Two debates in and we`re no better placed to guess who`ll make it through the long night of the primaries. Howard Dean is leading by miles in New Hampshire, which will give him a lift. Chaps from North Carolina are doing well in South Carolina. Wesley Clark, the ex-Nato commander in Kosovo and CNN Iraq analyst, is actually ahead of the pack on some polls (though only, as the Wall Street Journal notes acidly, when voters are reminded that he`s "General" Wesley Clark: put on a cap with braid and half of America still salutes automatically).

A field too weak to provide a winner? Perhaps. Opposition challenges always look lacklustre before the voters start to sort them out. But these, remember, are the generic Democrats, the watch-this-spaces handing Bush a drubbing on most polls. They`re misty going on non-existent, but they can still give George a fright. Their weakness mirrors his fundamental weakness.

Worse, none of the big issues are working for the White House. When Fox asks whether tax cuts have helped family finances this year, a full 61% says no. The number of Americans who think the Iraq war was worth it has slumped from 64% in April to 46% today. And the underlying currents of three years ago keep swirling along. America was divided then, riven down the middle with no more than a few hanging chads to make a difference - and it is divided again now.

The aftermath of 9/11 produced the illusion of unity. Its fading reveals that the basic splits in American opinion are as stark as ever in this half and half society. What do the papers say? Take a brisk weekend spin around Texas.

The Dallas Morning News, by some distance the state`s lone journalistic star, leads with a poignant story on the families of the 19 soldiers from Fort Hood, Texas, who`ve died in Iraq. "So much more than statistics". The Houston Chronicle has a brusque editorial taking the Bush boys to task over the WMDs that will probably "never be found". Not only will the administration not admit the truth, it snarls, "it repeats claims demonstrably proved false and recanted by the president, as if patriotism had no need of facts". And if you want to wade through the gathering storm involving Dick Cheney, his old Halliburton corporation and its billions of contracts in Iraq, then welcome to the Fort Worth Star-Telegram.

These issues - issues of violent death, confusion and alleged corruption - aren`t like, say, foundation hospitals. They are simple and inferential. They grind away, even in Mr Bush`s own ranch backyard. They presage 13 rough, raw months to come. They should also, in prospect, give us pause.

We`ve become too glibly used, over the last couple of years, to lumping American policy and this American president together in a bumper bundle called "anti-Americanism", leader and country coated in identical opprobrium. It was always simplistic rubbish. It stands exposed as such now. There are many Americas and many churnings to its democracy. There are also many facets of specialness to any relationship. Maybe we didn`t remember that when we plunged heedlessly into supportive action last spring. But what goes around comes around: and those polls are right around this morning, jogging an open wound of memory.

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US intelligence on Iraqi weapons `flawed`
Leaked letter criticises circumstantial evidence

Gary Younge, New York
Monday September 29, 2003
The Guardian

America`s intelligence community used outdated, "circumstantial" and "fragmentary" information with "too many uncertainties" to conclude that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and ties to al-Qaida, according to the intelligence committee of the US House of Representatives.

After four months of poring over 19 volumes of classified material used by the White House to justify its case for war, senior members of the committee concluded that there were "significant deficiencies" in the community`s ability to collect fresh intelligence on Iraq. They said it had to rely on past assessments, dating to when UN inspectors left Iraq in 1998, and on "some new `piecemeal` intelligence", both of which "were not challenged as a routine matter".

In a letter to the CIA director, George Tenet, that was leaked to the Washington Post, two committee members claimed: "The absence of proof that chemical and biological weapons and their related development programs had been destroyed was considered proof that they continued to exist. The assessment that Iraq continued to pursue chemical and biological weapons remained constant and static over the past 10 years."

The letter is all the more damaging because it comes from a committee controlled by Republicans and is signed by the committee chairman, Congressman Porter Goss, a Republican from Florida who is a former CIA agent and a long-time supporter of Mr Tenet and the intelligence agencies.

Their findings echoed claims made by the United Nations chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, two weeks ago that most of Iraq`s weapons of mass destruction were destroyed 10 years ago.

"I`m certainly more and more to the conclusion that Iraq has, as they maintained, destroyed all, almost, of what they had in the summer of 1991," said Mr Blix. "The more time that has passed, the more I think it`s unlikely that anything will be found."

The committee`s conclusions also have striking parallels in much of the evidence that has emerged from the Hutton inquiry in London, that the intelligence agencies came up with evidence to support the political demands the government to go to war.

Regarding Iraq`s alleged ties to al-Qaida, the letter argues that the agencies had a "low threshold" or "no threshold" on using the information they gathered.

"As a result, intelligence reports that might have been screened out by a more rigorous vetting process made their way to the analysts` desks, providing ample room for vagary to intrude," the letter states. "The agencies did not clarify which of their reports were from sources that were credible and which were from sources that would otherwise be dismissed in the absence of any other corroborating intelligence."

"To attempt to make such a determination so quickly and without all the facts is premature and wrong," Bill Harlow, an agency spokesman, told the Washington Post. "Iraq was an intractable and difficult subject. The tradecraft of intelligence rarely has the luxury of having black-and-white facts. The judgments reached, and the tradecraft used, were honest and professional - based on many years of effort and experience."

The national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, yesterday also disputed the claims. She told Fox News Sunday: "There was enrichment of the intelligence from 1998 over the period leading up to the war. And nothing pointed to a reversal of Saddam Hussein`s very active efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction ... it was very clear that this continued, and it was a gathering danger."

News of the criticism comes at a difficult time for President George Bush, who came away from a week of trying to persuade foreign leaders to give financial and military assistance to maintain security in Iraq empty handed and with his approval ratings plummeting.

The first lady, Laura Bush, set out to soften America`s image abroad this week with a European tour to France and Russia. "There`s a great benefit for our country if we can really let people around the world know what we are really like and what our values are really like," she said yesterday.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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Missiles Strike At Heart Of US Occupation

By Robert Fisk in Baghdad

28 September 2003: (The Independent. UK) The man with the missiles was driving a white Toyota and pulled up in the leafy Baghdad suburb of Salhaya at 6.35 yesterday morning. Those who saw him said he climbed very calmly out of the car and placed a large battery on the road. Then he took seven rockets from the back seat and laid them on the tarmac. Using the battery as a ramp, he fired the first missile at the Rashid Hotel, fortress home to many of the senior American officials of the occupation authorities.

Rocket number one smashed into the bedroom of an Iraqi house on the corner of the street, showering the building in concrete but leaving its occupants without injuries. Rockets two and three, however, swished off towards the Rashid and exploded in the garden of the former five-star hotel whose perimeter is now surrounded by 20ft-high concrete walls, miles of barbed wire and several Bradley armoured vehicles.

Later reports suggested that the man had fired mortars rather than rockets but one eyewitness described how - after firing the third rocket - the man left four more missiles lying on the road and then drove away as slowly and calmly as he arrived. Dozens of American troops arrived in the street minutes later but their attacker was gone, his missiles killing no one but making headlines round the world. The message was obvious: now even the very centre of the US occupation, the most fortified compound in Iraq with the Rashid, the former Presidential Palace - now home to US proconsul, Paul Bremer - and a conference centre, is unsafe.

From outside Baghdad, meanwhile, from the Sunni town of Fallujah came a familiar story. The US army announced it had killed two Iraqis who failed to stop at a checkpoint during the night. Local hospital doctors said the Americans had killed four innocent men. Fallujah is the town where US troops gunned down 16 Iraqi demonstrators in April and eight Iraqi policeman and a Jordanian hospital guard earlier this month.

* US-led occupation troops should leave Iraq and be replaced by an international force charged with protecting the country, the president of Iraq`s Governing Council said yesterday. Ahmad Chalabi also told the London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat that a UN resolution to send peace-keepers would signal the end to Iraq`s occupation.

"We do not want an occupation force in Iraq," he said. "But we want an international force to remain in order to protect Iraq from any external dangers, the same as happens in several Arab countries."

Mr Chalabi added that US officials had told him privately that America wanted to withdraw its forces from Iraq as soon as 2004.

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Die Time Cover-Story:
So, What Went Wrong?
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101031006/story.html

Eine weitere Story über den Irak und die WMD`s:

Chasing a Mirage

The U.S. was sure Saddam had WMD, but Iraqi scientists tell TIME the weapons were destroyed long before the war

By Nancy Gibbs and Michael Ware | Baghdad

http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101031006/wwmd.html


Posted Sunday, September 28, 2003
The trader was actually sitting at home in Baghdad, waiting. He knew it was only a matter of time before the Americans came. It was just after curfew on the night of June 22, ten weeks after Saddam Hussein`s fall, when he heard a helicopter overhead, the humvees in the street outside, the knock at the door. U.S. soldiers came rushing into the house, broke his bed, searched everywhere, then put a blindfold on him and drove him away.

He knew they would come because he knew what they were looking for. He had worked for the import section of Iraq`s powerful Military Industrialization Commission (MIC), essentially the state`s weapons-making organ, which owned hundreds of factories, research centers—everything you needed if you wanted to build an arsenal of chemical or biological weapons. He spent much of his time in the 1980s buying tons of growth medium, which scientists use to cultivate germs. "We were like traders." he says. "The scientists would tell us what they wanted, and we got it." After Gulf War I, he entertained a steady stream of U.N. weapons inspectors wanting to know what had happened to all that growth medium, how had it been used, what was left.

But there wasn`t much he could tell them, not that he could prove, at least. Just before the war, he recalls, the chiefs at the MIC had told people like him involved in the weapons program to hand over some of their documents and burn the rest. "They didn`t realize at that time the Americans would insist on every single document," he says. "They thought the (U.S.) attacks would come and that would be it." When in the years after the war U.N. inspectors kept demanding a paper trail, the superiors got nervous. They "started asking us for the documents they had told us to destroy. They were desperate. They even offered to buy any documents we may have hidden."

Ten years and another war later, a new set of interrogators is wondering what happened to Iraq`s bioweapons program. On the night of his arrest, the Americans took him to a detention center at the airport, where he was kept in a cell alone, given plenty of water and military rations. Two pairs of Western interrogators took turns asking questions, sometimes through a translator, sometimes directly in English or Arabic. "They asked me about the importation of things like chemicals and about people sent abroad for special missions. The essence of it was, Are there any WMD?" They particularly focused on the period after 1998, when U.N. inspectors left Iraq. "Could any trade have happened without my knowledge within the MIC, not just my section?" The buyer says he had nothing of interest to tell the interrogators; his group, he insists, had long ago quit the weapons-of-mass-destruction business. As they pressed him about what he purchased and for whom, it seemed to him that "it was just like the blind man clutching for someone`s hand to hold." After three days he was blindfolded, taken back into the city and released.

The trader`s story offers a glimpse into the challenges faced by David Kay, a co-head of the Iraq Survey Group, charged by the CIA with finding the WMD the Bush Administration insists Iraq has. Kay is expected to release a status report on his findings soon, possibly this week. While stressing that the account will not be the Survey Group`s final word, CIA spokesman Bill Harlow allows that it "won`t rule anything in or out." That remark seems a tacit acknowledgment that the U.S., after nearly six months of searching, has yet to find definitive evidence that Saddam truly posed the kind of threat the White House described in selling the war.

Bush Administration officials never anticipated this predicament. They expected that WMD arsenals would be uncovered quickly once the U.S. occupied Iraq. Since then, Iraq has been scoured, and nearly every top weapons scientist has been captured or interviewed. That the investigators have found no hidden stockpiles of VX gas or anthrax or intact gas centrifuges suggests that it may be time to at least entertain the possibility that Iraqi officials all along were telling the truth when they said they no longer had a WMD program.
Over the past three months, TIME has interviewed Iraqi weapons scientists, middlemen and former government officials. Saddam`s henchmen all make essentially the same claim: that Iraq`s once massive unconventional-weapons program was destroyed or dismantled in the 1990s and never rebuilt; that officials destroyed or never kept the documents that would prove it; that the shell games Saddam played with U.N. inspectors were designed to conceal his progress on conventional weapons systems—missiles, air defenses, radar—not biological or chemical programs; and that even Saddam, a sucker for a new gadget or invention or toxin, may not have known what he actually had or, more to the point, didn`t have. It would be an irony almost too much to bear to consider that he doomed his country to war because he was intent on protecting weapons systems that didn`t exist in the first place.

These tales are tempting to dismiss as scripts recited by practiced liars who had been deceiving the world community for years. These sources may still be too frightened of the possibility of Saddam`s return to power to tell his secrets. Or it could be that Saddam reconstituted an illicit weapons program with such secrecy that those who knew of past efforts were left out of the loop. But the unanimity of these sources` accounts can`t be easily dismissed and at the very least underscores the difficulty the U.S. has in proving its case that Saddam was hoarding unconventional arms.

Iraqi engineering professor Nabil al-Rawi remembers being at a conference in Beirut on Feb. 5 and watching on TV as U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell made a presentation to the U.N. laying out the U.S. case that Iraq was pressing ahead with its weapons programs. Conference participants from other Arab countries grilled al-Rawi whether Powell`s charges were true. An exasperated al-Rawi tried to reassure his counterparts that he and his teams had abandoned their illegal programs years earlier. Did they believe him? "I don`t think so," he says.

Al-Rawi contends that he had been around long enough to know what was what. He had worked on the Iraqi nuclear program before the 1991 war and until the fall of the regime was a senior member of the mic. He and a nuclear engineer whom TIME interviewed claim that the nuclear-weapons program was not resumed after the plants were destroyed by the U.S. in Gulf War I. In his more recent work at the MIC, al-Rawi had a perspective on the biological and chemical programs as well. Those too, he insists, were shut down in the early 1990s; the scientists transferred to conventional military projects or civilian work. Last November, al-Rawi says, he was asked by Abd al-Tawab Mullah Huweish, head of the Ministry of Industry and Military Industrialization, to give a seminar—essentially career counseling—to MIC scientists "on ways to attract funding for and shape new research projects because there was no weapons work for them."

Sa`ad Abd al-Kahar al-Rawi, a relation of Nabil`s, also thinks he would have known had Baghdad revived its WMD efforts. A professor of economics, he was a top financial adviser to the regime and knew the government books well. He says he would have known if money was disappearing into a black hole created by a special weapons project. Similarly, Iraqi scientists note that their community is small and tightly knit; most of them studied together and worked together. If a new, secret WMD program had started up, they argue, certain core players who held the necessary expertise would have had to be involved. Several scientists told TIME that all their cohort is accounted for; no one went underground. Iraq`s premier scientists, according to Nabil al-Rawi, moved on to other things—teaching, water and power projects, producing generic Viagra.

Many did continue developing military technology. After 1991 Nabil al-Rawi worked on electrical controls for unmanned drones and, most recently, Stealth bomber-detection radar. Such projects were meant to be hidden from U.N. inspectors, who, the Iraqis have long asserted, were riddled with American spies. The Furat facility just south of Baghdad was a known nuclear site before the first Gulf War. Last fall the White House released satellite photos showing a new building at the site and suggested it was designed for covert nuclear research. But al-Rawi claims it was rebuilt to produce radar and antiaircraft systems. When TIME visited the plant this summer, there were signs of heavy bombing, but the new building was intact—and carpeted inside with documents in French, Russian, Arabic and English, all having to do with radar equipment, frequencies and trajectories.

In his U.N. presentation, Powell asserted that the Tariq State Establishment in Fallujah was designed to develop chemical weapons. When TIME visited the site, it was empty. U.N. inspectors visited the facility six times from December 2002 to January 2003 and reported that the chlorine plant that so concerned the Americans "is currently inoperative." Nabil al-Rawi says the hundreds of scientists who worked there are now "doing other things."

Another site mentioned by the allies in the walk-up to the war was the Amiriyah Serum and Vaccine Institute, which both British intelligence and the CIA suspected was part of a biological-warfare program.

TIME visited the site in July to see the two recently built warehouses that had raised those concerns. One had been bombed, its door cascading with a mountain of debris made up of burned and broken empty vials. The intact other building was packed to the rafters with boxes full of glassware and beakers. Pigeons roost in the ceiling, their droppings and feathers—some of it inches thick—caking the cardboard towers. Nothing appears to have been moved in a long time. U.S. intelligence officials declined to tell TIME about Washington`s postwar assessment of the site.

So, why all the hide and seek if suspect facilities did not contain incriminating evidence? The former Minister of Industry and Minerals, Muyassar Raja Shalah, cites national security: "The U.N.`s accusations about hiding things were true," he says, recalling charges that Iraqis hustled evidence out the back door even as U.N. inspectors entered through the front. "This was Iraq`s right, because the U.N. was searching for WMD in a lot of military facilities, and of course we held a lot of military secrets relating to the national security of Iraq in these places. It was impossible to let a foreigner have a look at these secrets."

Some analysts suspect that Saddam`s game was a sly form of deterrence: keep the U.S. and his neighbors guessing about the extent of his arsenal to prevent a pre-emptive attack. A bluff like that had worked for him before: in 1991, during an uprising among Iraqi Kurds in Kirkuk, soldiers inside helicopters dropped a harmless white powder onto the rebels below, terrifying them into thinking it was a chemical attack. The Kurds retreated, and the uprising collapsed. Hans Blix, head of the U.N. inspection team that entered Iraq last November and left just before the war, told Australian national radio two weeks ago that "you can put up a sign on your door, beware of the dog, without having a dog."

Pentagon officials were so certain before Gulf War II that the Iraqis had outfitted their forces with chemical weapons that U.S. soldiers storming toward Baghdad wore their hot, heavy chemical weapons gear, just in case. But a captain in Iraq`s Special Security Organization, the agency that was responsible for, among other things, the security of weapons sites, says no such arms were available. "Trust me," he says, his eyes narrowed, as he sits in a back-alley teahouse in Tikrit, "if we had them, we would have used them, especially in the battle for the airport. We wanted them but didn`t have any."
Colonel Ali Jaffar Hussan al-Duri, a Republican Guard armored-corps commander who fought in the Iran-Iraq war and in both Gulf Wars, remembers the time when Iraq`s Chemical Corps was fear inspiring. "We were much better at it than the Iranians," he says, who are thought to have suffered as many as 80,000 casualties in chemical attacks. But after Gulf War I, Saddam`s son-in-law Hussein Kamal, who headed the MIC, took the most talented Chemical Corps officers with him, according to Hussan. After that, he claims, the unit became a joke. "It should have been a sensitive unit—it once was—but in the end that`s where we dumped our worst soldiers." Comments a Republican Guard major of the Corps: "It had nothing."

If that`s true, what happened to the banned weapons Iraq once possessed? In the inspections regime that lasted from 1991 to 1998, the U.N. oversaw the destruction of large stores of illicit arms. Some documented inventories, however, were never satisfactorily accounted for; these included tons of chemical agents as well as stores of anthrax and VX poison. The Iraqis eventually owned up to producing these supplies but insisted that they had disposed of much of them in 1991 when no one was looking and had kept no records of the destruction. That made Blix wonder. In an interview with TIME in February, he described Iraq as "one of the best-organized regimes in the Arab world" and noted "when they have had need of something to show, then they have been able to do so."

A former MIC official insists that this view is mistaken. "In Iraq we don`t write everything," he says. The claim that Saddam would destroy his most dangerous weapons of his own accord and not retain the means to prove it seems a stretch. But a captain in the Mukhabarat, the main Iraqi intelligence service, says he was a witness to just such an exercise. In July 1991, he says, he traveled into the Nibai desert in a caravan of trucks carrying 25 missiles loaded with biological agents. First the bulldozers took a week to bury them. It took three more weeks to evacuate the area. Then the missiles were exploded. No one kept any kind of documentation, the captain says. "We just did it." This meant that when weapons inspectors came demanding verification, the Iraqis could not prove what or how much had been destroyed.

Sa`ad al-Rawi contends that the men who carried out such missions were junior level, sergeants and first sergeants. "They are not educated men," he says. "You order them to do something, they do it. When we had to try to account for this, we tried to recall them in 1997, but many had of course left the army and were hard to find. And the ones we did find certainly couldn`t remember exactly how many missiles were buried, nor what was in each of them."

That still leaves unanswered why the Iraqis would have unilaterally destroyed their most potent arms. One theory, advanced by the U.N., is that the regime used these exercises as a cover for retaining a fraction of their stores. The idea is that they would destroy quantities of weapons (creating a disposal site and eyewitnesses, if not written records) and claim to have got rid of everything yet actually hold on to some of it. The Mukhabarat captain concedes that scientists kept small amounts of VX and mustard gas for future experiments. "I saw it myself, several times," he says.

Samir, a chemicals expert who worked for a branch of the MIC called the National Monitoring Directorate, says he knows of a case in which 14 artillery shells filled with mustard gas were preserved out of a batch of 250 slated for destruction. The main purpose of keeping them, he says, was to test their deterioration over time. The Iraqis handed over the shells to the U.N. in 1997, claiming that they had been mis-stored and recently discovered, an explanation Samir says was a ruse. When four of the shells were unsealed, tests found their contents to be 97% pure. "The gas was perfect," says Samir.

Even if the Iraqis did destroy most of their illegal weaponry in 1991, that does not mean they didn`t build up new stores. The notion that the bioweapons program wound down in the 1990s is flatly rejected by Richard Spertzel, who led the U.N. hunt for biological weapons inside Iraq from 1994 to 1998. "We were developing pretty good evidence of a continuing program in `97 and `98," he says. Some U.N. inspectors, disagree, saying they believe that there was no further production after 1991. Spertzel says an Iraqi scientist phoned him just this past April and told him an "edict" went out from Saddam shortly before the war ordering his biological-weapons teams to destroy any remaining germ stockpiles.

That Saddam would have continued feverishly pursuing weapons of every kind seems more in keeping with his character than the idea that he gave up on them. The Iraqi dictator was crazy for weapons, fascinated by every new invention—and as a result was easily conned by salesmen and officials offering the latest device. Saddam apparently had high hopes for a bogus product called red mercury, touted as an ingredient for a handheld nuclear device. Large quantities of the gelatinous red liquid were looted from Iraqi stores after the war and are now being offered on the black market.

Saddam`s underlings appear to have invented weapons programs and fabricated experiments to keep the funding coming. The Mukhabarat captain says the scamming went all the way to the top of the MIC to its director, Huweish, who would appease Saddam with every report, never telling him the truth about failures or production levels and meanwhile siphoning money from projects. "He would tell the President he had invented a new missile for Stealth bombers but hadn`t. So Saddam would say, `Make 20 missiles.` He would make one and put the rest in his pocket," says the captain. Colonel Hussan al-Duri, who spent several years in the 1990s as an air-defense inspector, saw similar cons. "Some projects were just stealing money," he says. A scientist or officer would say he needed $10 million to build a special weapon. "They would produce great reports, but there was never anything behind them."

If Saddam may not have known the true nature of his own arsenal, it is no wonder that Western intelligence services were picking up so many clues about so many weapons systems. But it helps answer one logical argument that the Administration has been making ever since the weapons failed to appear after the war ended: why, if Saddam had nothing to hide, did he endure billions of dollars in sanctions and ultimately prompt his own destruction? Perhaps because even he was mistaken about what was really at stake in this fight.

Whether the Iraqis had actual stores of unconventional weapons, Spertzel argues, is beside the point. He finds it credible that Iraq converted many of its weapons factories to civilian uses. Baghdad`s official policy from 1995, he notes, was that facilities that were not building weapons had to be self-supporting. But, he adds, "they would be available when called upon" to return to armsmaking. Spertzel thinks the focus on finding a 55-gal. drum of poison is misplaced. "The concern that many of us always had was not that they were producing great quantities of stuff but that the program was continuing—they were refining techniques and making a better product. That`s all part of an offensive program." Absent a smoking gun, the Administration may have to fall back on means and motive. That`s always, however, a tougher case to prove.

—With reporting by Mark Thompson and Timothy J. Burger/Washington

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Chalabi und Konsorten alles Luftbuchungen.

Agency Belittles Information Given by Iraq Defectors
By DOUGLAS JEHL

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 — An internal assessment by the Defense Intelligence Agency has concluded that most of the information provided by Iraqi defectors who were made available by the Iraqi National Congress was of little or no value, according to federal officials briefed on the arrangement.

In addition, several Iraqi defectors introduced to American intelligence agents by the exile organization and its leader, Ahmad Chalabi, invented or exaggerated their credentials as people with direct knowledge of the Iraqi government and its suspected unconventional weapons program, the officials said.

The arrangement, paid for with taxpayer funds supplied to the exile group under the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998, involved extensive debriefing of at least half a dozen defectors by defense intelligence agents in European capitals and at a base in the northern Iraqi city of Erbil in late 2002 and early 2003, the officials said. But a review early this year by the defense agency concluded that no more than one-third of the information was potentially useful, and efforts to explore those leads since have generally failed to pan out, the officials said.

Mr. Chalabi has defended the arrangement, saying that his organization had helped just three defectors provide information to American intelligence about Iraq`s suspected weapons program, and that two of them had been judged to be credible.

But several federal officials said the arrangement had wasted more than $1 million in taxpayers` money and had prompted them to question the credibility of Mr. Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress. Both have enjoyed powerful backing from civilian officials at the Pentagon and are playing a significant role in the provisional government in Baghdad.

Intelligence provided by the defectors that could not be substantiated included information about Iraq`s suspected program for nuclear, chemical and biological weapons as well as other information about the Iraqi government, the officials said. They said they would not speculate on whether the defectors had knowingly provided false information and, if so, what their motivation might have been. One Defense Department official said that some of the people were not who they said they were and that the money for the program could have been better spent.

Two other Defense Department officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, defended the arrangement. While the credibility of the Iraqi defectors debriefed under the program had been low, they said, it had been roughly on par with that of most human intelligence about Iraq. The officials also said the Defense Intelligence Agency had been generally skeptical of the defectors from the start, on the ground that they were motivated more by the money and the desire to stir up sentiment against Saddam Hussein than by a desire to provide accurate information.

A Defense Department official who defended the arrangement said that even most of the useful information provided by the defectors included "a lot of stuff that we already knew or thought we knew." But the official said that information had "improved our situational awareness" by "making us more confident about our assessments."

The Defense Intelligence Agency`s conclusions about the value of the intelligence provided as part of the arrangement are believed to have been included in a broader, classified report sent this month to Stephen Cambone, the under secretary of defense for intelligence, the officials said. That report focused on lessons learned by intelligence agents during the war in Iraq, they said.

The Iraqi National Congress had made some of these defectors available to several news organizations, including The New York Times, which reported their allegations about prisoners and the country`s weapons program.

The Iraqi National Congress, a London-based umbrella group, was formed with American help in 1992 and received millions of dollars under the Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. In a stance that angered the dissidents and some Pentagon officials, the State Department and the Central Intelligence Agency had long been skeptical of the information from defectors that Mr. Chalabi`s organization had brought out of Iraq. Among that group of defectors was Khadhir Hamza, the most senior Iraqi official ever to defect from Mr. Hussein`s nuclear program, who complained about the seeming lack of interest of American intelligence organizations in hearing what he had to say.

The partnership between the Iraqi exiles and the American government was initially run by the State Department, with millions of dollars provided to the Iraqi National Congress under the Iraq Liberation Act, whose declared purpose was to promote a transition to democracy in Iraq. One element was intended to collect information about Iraq in order to promote public awareness about the failings of Mr. Hussein`s government.

Instead, State Department officials involved in the program said, the Iraqi exiles used most of the money to recruit defectors who claimed to have sensitive intelligence information. Until 2002, the State Department handed over those defectors to the Central Intelligence Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation for debriefing. Federal officials said that very few of them had been judged to be credible, but that they knew of no specific assessment of their credibility.

After internal State Department reviews in 2001 and 2002 concluded that much of the $4 million allocated for the program had not been properly accounted for and that the intelligence-gathering program was not part of the department`s mission, oversight was transferred to the Defense Department in 2002.

The Defense Intelligence Agency then took the lead in debriefing the defectors, Defense Department officials said. The officials said they believed that the review of the defectors` credibility overed only the period in which the defense agency had run the program.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Bush `04 Readying for One Democrat, Not 10
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON and ADAM NAGOURNEY

WASHINGTON, Sept. 28 — President Bush`s political advisers have set in motion an aggressive re-election machine, building a national network of get-out-the-vote workers and amassing a pile of cash for a blanket advertising campaign expected to begin around the time Democrats settle on their candidate early next year, party officials said.

Mr. Bush`s senior advisers, in interviews last week, repeatedly described the Democratic field as unusually weak and divided, providing an important if temporary cushion for Mr. Bush.

Still, they said the recent sharp drop in the president`s approval ratings, the continued loss of jobs in the economy and the problems plaguing the American occupation of Iraq only made the political outlook more uncertain in an election that they have long thought could be as tightly contested as the one in 2000.

"We expect it to be a hard-fought, close election in a country narrowly divided," said Karl Rove, Mr. Bush`s senior adviser. "When a Democratic nominee is finally selected, our expectation is that it could be a close and hard-fought race."

The decision to delay the start of advertising until about the time the Democrats settle on a nominee is a rejection of what had been a central element of President Bill Clinton`s re-election campaign. Mr. Clinton began advertising 16 months before Election Day, in an effort to define the election before the Republicans chose an opponent.

Republicans said that would be a waste of money, given the battle taking place among the Democrats. Instead, aides to Mr. Bush said, their campaign would begin spending when a Democratic nominee starts to emerge from the primary battle, probably battered and very likely almost broke.

In what Republicans said was a pre-emptive effort to nullify Democratic attacks that are likely to gain more attention in the weeks ahead, Mr. Bush`s political operation, using elected officials and party leaders, has begun to try to cast the Democratic candidates as excessively negative in their attacks on a personally popular president.

The headline on a Republican National Committee statement attacking the Democratic presidential debate of last Thursday night read: "Democrats So Desperate to Attack President Bush, They Will Say Just About Anything!"

As Senator George Allen of Virginia, chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, put it in an interview: "The president is focused on doing his job, and the Democrats can focus on having their debates and who can be the most shrill."

The strategy is reminiscent of what Mr. Bush`s advisers did in 2000, when they sought early on to raise questions about Al Gore`s credibility as a way of undercutting any attack Mr. Gore sought to make as the campaign progressed.

The Bush campaign has churned ahead in raising money to finance what Republicans said would be a television advertising and get-out-the-vote operation unparalleled in presidential campaigns. Campaign officials said they are likely to report in the next few weeks that more than $80 million has been taken in since the start of re-election fund-raising in late June, roughly $50 million of it in the third quarter, which ends Tuesday.

Advisers to Mr. Bush said they expected the campaign to hit its fund-raising target of $170 million by the end of the winter. That would leave the president flush with cash and free from the need to spend so much time doing fund-raising events as he enters into a head-to-head matchup with whichever Democrat captures the nomination. That would mean that Mr. Bush would be able to avoid overtly partisan fund-raising appearances that might undermine his effort to portray himself as above the fray and tending to the business of the White House.

Against this backdrop, Republican officials were disdainful of the 10 Democrats seeking to challenge Mr. Bush. Their harsh characterization of the field was challenged by Democrats and independent observers as bluster, though it seems to have fed confidence bordering on hubris in Mr. Bush`s camp when polls might suggest reason for worry.

"Each of them has relative strengths and weaknesses, but happily for us, in each case the relative weaknesses outweigh the relative strengths," said Ed Gillespie, the chairman of the Republican National Committee. "They`re all Howard Dean now. They have adopted harsh, bitter, personal attacks as their approach. They are a party of protest and pessimism and offer no positive agenda of their own."

Like the Democrats, the Bush campaign is convinced that the election of 2004 could turn on a relative handful of votes in key states, as the election of 2000 did.

On Oct. 4, the campaign will bring together about 500 volunteers in Atlanta to train them in how to organize precincts, canvass voters and get them to the polls in Georgia. Similar events will eventually take place across the country as the campaign moves to place organizers on the ground in virtually every precinct in the nation.

Mindful that Mr. Bush drew under 50 percent of the vote last time — and that there may be no third-party candidate to drain support from the Democrats this time — Mr. Bush`s advisers have been moving to expand their appeal among Hispanics, women and independent-minded suburbanites, and then turn those voters out at the polls.

They also have their eyes on more narrowly defined groups, like the estimated four million evangelical Christians who, they say, did not vote in 2000 and are considered almost certain to support Mr. Bush.

"This is the first time I know of that an incumbent president has undertaken a true grass-roots effort that penetrates precincts and neighborhoods instead of relying entirely on image and media," said Ralph Reed, chairman of the state Republican Party in Georgia and an adviser to the Bush campaign.

The campaign continues to hire new staff members. It recently settled on Terry Holt, a veteran Congressional aide and Republican operative, as the campaign spokesman.

Members of the president`s political team said they were not overly worried about signs of deterioration in his standing. Mr. Bush is still in a stronger position now in the polls, they said, than either Ronald Reagan or Mr. Clinton was at this point in his first term.

In addition, the Democratic attacks on Mr. Bush in the last few weeks have to a large extent gone unanswered, one price of Mr. Bush`s effort to present himself as unconcerned about what the Democrats are doing. And the political calendar means that Mr. Bush can capitalize on an enviable platform to rebut the Democrats in January: His State of the Union Message is expected to be delivered right around the time of the Iowa caucuses and the New Hampshire primary.

Still, uncertain about how events might shape the race over the next year, and always remembering the fall from political grace experienced by Mr. Bush`s father, campaign officials said they were taking nothing for granted.

"The country is closely divided, we`ll have an opponent who will run an aggressive campaign and who will be well funded," said Ken Mehlman, Mr. Bush`s campaign manager.

In a fund-raising letter last week, Mr. Mehlman asked potential donors for money to offset what he said was more than $400 million in commitments by donors to liberal interest groups, a counterpoint to criticism that Mr. Bush`s fund-raising is overkill.

To a large extent, though, this is a confident campaign, and its assuredness reflects its assessment that the Democrats have produced a weak field. Mr. Gillespie ticked through the candidates in an interview, offering an often disdainful critique.

He suggested that Gen. Wesley K. Clark`s popularity would be fleeting. "We know his signature issue was the Iraq war, and he`s flopping all over the deck on that right now," Mr. Gillespie said.

He played down the chances of Dr. Dean in a general election and said of Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri: "Every time I see him it feels like the 1980`s."

Senator John Edwards of North Carolina has "shown himself to be fairly light as a candidate," Mr. Gillespie said, and he was equally dismissive of Senator Bob Graham of Florida.

He said Senator John Kerry had been "pretty wishy-washy; it`s hard to tell what his policies are."

But citing the closely divided electorate and acknowledging the potential political appeal of the leading Democrats, Mr. Gillespie added: "Anyone who emerges as the Democratic nominee is a viable candidate. They`ll have emerged from a group of 10 so they`ll have to have done something right"

If Mr. Bush`s team is guarding against hubris, it is not without reason. Mr. Rove underestimated the strength of Senator John McCain of Arizona in the New Hampshire primary in 2000, contributing to Mr. Bush`s defeat there and forcing him to scramble to save the nomination. Mr. Bush regularly tells audiences at his fund-raisers around the country that he is "loosening up" for the campaign but that for now he remains focused on keeping the country safe and restoring prosperity. He still has no regular meetings with his campaign staff, his advisers say, only quick discussions at fund-raisers.

But Mr. Bush is acting like a candidate. He is flying around the country, usually twice a week, largely at taxpayer expense, for official events in states that are strategically important to him. He typically tacks a fund-raiser onto the trip, requiring the campaign to pick up part of the travel tab under a formula applied to political travel by presidents.

And his travel schedule has already given a strong indication of the states that the White House believes will be pivotal next year. Those include contested states he wishes to keep in his column, like Ohio and Florida, as well as those he most wants to wrest away from the Democrats, like Pennsylvania and Michigan.

His advisers said they also intended to broaden the map, competing in states that they believe are within their reach — in particular Oregon, Minnesota, New Mexico and Iowa.

At the moment, Mr. Bush is running well in the states he won in 2000, freeing him to spend time and money in the states that Mr. Gore won narrowly. There were nine states that Mr. Gore carried by particularly thin margins, and they represent 92 electoral votes next year. Since becoming president, Mr. Bush has traveled to the biggest prize among them, Pennsylvania, 22 times, more than any other state, while visiting another, Michigan, 11 times.

"We are much more likely to pick their pockets than they are to pick ours," Mr. Gillespie said.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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New Criticism on Prewar Use of Intelligence
By CARL HULSE and DAVID E. SANGER

ASHINGTON, Sept. 28 — The Bush administration, which has been laboring to build domestic and international support for its Iraq policies, is facing renewed criticism about how it managed intelligence before the war, and internal tensions over the leak of a C.I.A. agent`s identity.

The debate over the rationale for the war was reopened by leaders of the House Intelligence Committee, who have delivered a critical interim assessment of how intelligence agencies concluded that Iraq had forbidden weapons and ties to Al Qaeda.

There were "too many uncertainties" in the outdated and inadequate information underlying a National Intelligence Estimate that the administration used to justify the war, the senior Republican and the senior Democrat on the panel said in a newly disclosed letter to George J. Tenet, director of central intelligence.

At the same time, officials confirmed that Mr. Tenet had asked the Justice Department to look into whether one or more administration officials had leaked information to the news media disclosing the identity of a covert C.I.A. agent. Mr. Tenet`s request was first reported by NBC News.

The agent is the wife of Joseph C. Wilson 4th, a former ambassador to Gabon. It was Mr. Wilson who, more than a year and a half ago, concluded in a report to the C.I.A. that there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium ore in Niger in an effort to build nuclear arms. But his report was ignored, and Ambassador Wilson has been highly critical of how the administration handled intelligence claims regarding Iraq`s nuclear weapons programs, suggesting that Mr. Bush`s aides and Vice President Dick Cheney`s office tried to inflate the threat.

The very fact that Mr. Tenet referred the matter to the Justice Department comes as a major political embarrassment to a White House that is famously tight-lipped, and a president who has repeatedly vowed that his administration would never leak classified information. White House officials said today that they would cooperate in an investigation if the Justice Department decided that one was merited.

The national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, was questioned persistently today about the House Intelligence Committee letter, which was first reported today by The Washington Post. She held to the White House position that its prewar intelligence about Iraq was as solid as it could be, given the difficulties of piercing the secrecy around Mr. Hussein`s authoritarian government.

"The president believes that he had very good intelligence going into the war, and stands behind what the director of central intelligence told him going into the war," she said on the television program "Fox News Sunday." "Obviously, this was the accumulation of evidence about Saddam Hussein`s weapons of mass destruction over a 12-year period, information that was relied on by three administrations, several different intelligence services, and indeed the United Nations itself."

The new questions come at a particularly uncomfortable moment for Mr. Bush. Only last week, the administration`s chief investigator into Iraq`s arms programs sent back a preliminary report that sketched out very little evidence supporting the administration`s case for going to war. That has put the administration on the defensive as it is trying to persuade Congress to provide $87 billion for the military stabilization and reconstruction of Iraq and Afghanistan, and to persuade other nations to contribute troops and cash.

Several of the Democratic presidential aspirants seized on the investigations today to try to chip away at what had been, until the war, Mr. Bush`s biggest political asset: his credibility with Americans, which grew after the Sept. 11 attacks. A statement from Howard Dean, a leading contender, was typical of the comments. "President Bush came into office promising to bring honor and integrity to the White House," he said. "No more promises. It`s time for accountability."

White House advisers are clearly concerned that the F.B.I. may conclude there is reason to investigate the intelligence leak. Ms. Rice said repeatedly today that the facts were not yet known, and Attorney General John Ashcroft has not yet acted on the C.I.A.`s formal referral of the matter to the Justice Department.

But the mere charge may itself gain some political currency. "There is blood in the water, and there are people all over Washington who want to take advantage of that," one senior official said.

Senator Charles E. Schumer, a New York Democrat who had called earlier for an investigation into the disclosure of the agent`s name, said the inquiry should be "thorough, complete and fearless."

"This was a despicable act," he said today. "Whoever did it should go to jail."

The Sept. 25 letter to Mr. Tenet from the House committee leaders could carry added weight because Representative Porter J. Goss of Florida, the Republican committee chairman and a former C.I.A. agent, is typically a supporter of the agency and the White House.

The letter does note that Mr. Goss has a "fundamental disagreement" with Representative Jane Harman of California, the committee`s top Democrat, on whether the overall intelligence analysis was "deficient."

But the letter, arising from the panel`s ongoing inquiry, cited serious shortcomings in the intelligence on Iraq`s programs to develop illegal weapons and its ties to Al Qaeda, two central justifications for the war.

"The intelligence available to the U.S. on Iraq`s possession of W.M.D. and its programs and capabilities relating to such weapons after 1998, and its links to Al Qaeda, was fragmentary and sporadic," it said.

A spokesman for the C.I.A. responded today, saying that the lawmakers were wrong and that they had not done the work necessary to reach such sweeping conclusions.

"The letter tries to give the impression that they have done a whole lot of due diligence on this subject, but in fact they have not really had significant hearings or briefings," said the spokesman, Bill Harlow.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, in a television appearance today, noted that the Iraqi leader threw weapons inspectors out in 1998, making it more difficult for intelligence agencies to get hard information.

"From 1998 until we went in earlier this year, there was a period where we didn`t have benefit of U.N. inspectors actually on the ground, and our intelligence community had to do the best they could," Mr. Powell said on the ABC News program "This Week." "And I think they did a pretty good job."

In an interview this evening, Mr. Goss said that the letter was intended to seek a C.I.A. response as the House inquiry moved ahead and that it did not represent final conclusions. He said it was his view that the intelligence problems cited in the letter resulted from not having enough human sources of solid intelligence to resolve uncertainties and inconsistencies in the information collected. "There were not enough assets on the ground," he said.

The letter points to a "dearth" of underlying intelligence about Iraq after 1998 and says intelligence experts held to longstanding assessments about Iraq`s capability. "The absence of proof that chemical and biological weapons and their related development programs had been destroyed was considered as proof that they continued to exist," it said.

The letter said that the committee extensively reviewed allegations that administration officials had distorted intelligence findings in making their public case for the invasion but that the panel had no authority over articulating foreign policy.

However, the letter said, if public officials misstate intelligence, agencies have "a responsibility to go back to that policymaker and make clear that the public statement mischaracterized the available intelligence."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Mask of Warka
By WILLIAM SAFIRE

WASHINGTON — A tip from an Iraqi led to a frightened boy, then to a smuggler, finally to a farm where — wrapped in rags under six inches of dirt — Iraqi police and U.S. troops recently found the priceless Mask of Warka, "the Mona Lisa of Mesopotamia," the face sculpted 5,500 years ago and stolen during the liberation of Baghdad.

Acting on another tip, searchers were directed to a garden near Tikrit, where they found a buried cache of weapons, including 23 missiles capable of shooting down aircraft.

Intelligence is the tool we need to find out where to dig. Those now so gleefully certain we will find no weapons of mass destruction may be surprised if — someday — an Iraqi technician, no longer terrified of reprisal or eager for reward, directs us to an easily hidden sack of deadly germs.

Such a find would be treated with suspicion by the legion with a stake in failure. Planted by the C.I.A., they`d say; or, old viruses left over from a previous era. Nothing that helps justify our overthrow of this generation`s bloodiest tyrant — not human rights, not even a major victory in the war on terror — will they find acceptable.

Evidence of that deep-seated denial is the reaction to the most significant and extensive poll conducted this year by the Gallup organization.

The startling finding: despite all the hardships — the early looting, the explosions and killings afterward, the publicized lack of power and worry about water, fear of the bands of criminals that Saddam released and of terrorists that Syria and Iran exported — despite it all, two out of three residents of Baghdad believe that they are better off today under occupation than they were in the "orderly" times when Saddam was butchering his opposition.

That is the opposite of the impression created by pictures of explosions and angry shouters. The Gallup results that get the news lead are those showing a slip in President Bush`s approval rating. But when the newsworthy measurement of Iraqi pro-overthrow opinion is even reported, a secondary finding is emphasized: the popularity of Jacques Chirac.

How should Bush and Tony Blair react to such failuremongering in the face of strategic success? They acted on the best information and logical evaluation, took no chances in stopping a proven sociopath and — as Bush coolly reminded grumpy U.N. politicians who had vacillated for a decade — "the world is safer today."

Realistically we should expect political campaigning, not gratitude, from the temporary leadership we appointed. As night follows day, members of the Iraqi Governing Council will outdo one another in demanding more authority quickly — thereby currying favor with potential voters and future European customers — while secretly hoping our coalition sticks around to make the country governable.

We should take full advantage of the Franco-German-Russian shortsighted unwillingness to take part in Iraq`s reconstruction. For example, that means the $10 billion claim on Iraq`s empty treasury to pay for Saddam`s arms should be paid by New Iraq on the day Vladimir Putin redeems the czarist debt, including interest, and not a day sooner.

We should also take the $21 billion portion of the $87 billion budget that Bush earmarked for rebuilding Iraq`s infrastructure and make that an obligation of an Iraq Reconstruction Finance Corporation. It is right for America to pay the military costs of regime change because it was clearly in our (and the free-riding world`s) anti-terror interest. But New Iraq`s huge oil reserves should be collateral for our low-interest loans to pay for the rebuilding of that nation`s economy.

The Iraq we ultimately leave behind will be happy to be rid of all occupiers. It will belong to the Arab League and OPEC. But it will not sponsor terror nor threaten its Kurds and Shiites with genocide. New Iraq has a good chance of showing its oppressed, downtrodden neighbors what freedom and enterprise can do for Arab peoples.

The happily recovered mask of Warka, with its mysterious oval face and darkened eyes — relic of the Sumerian civilization that invented writing — is a suitable symbol of the reborn nation. She may look a little like Hillary Clinton wearing sunglasses, but I think I can detect a smile.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

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washingtonpost.com
Ethnic and Religious Fissures Deepen in Iraqi Society
Tensions Escalating Over Land, Power and Loyalties

By Rajiv Chandrasekaran and Anthony Shadid
Washington Post Foreign Service
Monday, September 29, 2003; Page A01


HAIFA, Iraq -- The Kurds who descended upon this hardscrabble Arab village in northern Iraq 11 days ago were so confident they would be able to evict everyone and seize the surrounding farmland that they brought along three tractors.

But instead of responding by fleeing, as thousands of other Arab villagers in northern Iraq have done when confronted with similar Kurdish demands, the residents of Haifa refused to budge. "Our people went to them and said, `What the hell are you doing here? This area doesn`t belong to you,` " recalled Kadhim Hani Jubbouri, the village sheik.

Words were exchanged. Threats were hurled. When the Kurds began tilling a field lined with golden flecks of harvested hay, gunfire erupted.

Arabs contend the Kurds shot first. Kurds maintain it was the Arabs who opened fire. Both agree, however, that the 15-minute firefight was one of the clearest signs of the growing fissures between Iraq`s two dominant ethnic groups -- its Arab majority and its Kurdish minority -- since the fall of former president Saddam Hussein`s government.

At the same time, in central and southern Iraq, fault lines have widened between the country`s two principal religious communities: Shiite Muslims, who are a majority of the country`s approximately 24 million people, and Sunni Muslims, Iraq`s traditional rulers and Hussein`s principal supporters.

Although a rift between Sunnis and Shiites is relentlessly discouraged by leaders of both communities, tensions have escalated in recent weeks, raising new prospects of strife. Small bombs have been planted at a handful of mosques in Baghdad. In Khaldiya, a Sunni-dominated town west of Baghdad, unknown assailants ransacked the green-domed shrine of a Shiite saint and set off an explosive last month that damaged his brick tomb. In Basra, Iraq`s second-largest city, some residents suspect that recent killings of former Baath Party members are inspired by religious zeal, and leaders of Shiite religious parties openly argue that vengeance is warranted against officials of a government that subjugated Shiites, particularly in its last decade of rule.

Hussein`s Baath Party, which was in power for 35 years, was dominated by Sunni Arabs and treated Shiite Arabs, Kurds and ethnic Turkmens as second-class citizens. Although Hussein`s ethnic and religious favoritism fostered animosity, those feelings and past grievances were largely kept in check by his iron-fisted rule. When he was deposed, Iraqis suddenly found themselves with the freedom to redress old grudges -- and many have sought to right what they regard as injustices of the past.

The deepening divisions between Iraq`s principal ethnic and religious groups have unsettled many Iraqis, who generally oppose the idea of their country breaking apart. They contend that U.S. and British occupation forces have played down or ignored many warning signs of a larger conflict that have bubbled forth in the tumult of postwar Iraq.

Many of the confrontations have taken place not in large cities where U.S. reconstruction specialists have their offices, but in tiny villages such as Haifa where there are no soldiers or prominent Iraqi leaders to defuse tensions. "I am sure," Jubbouri said, "the Americans have no idea what is happening here."

"Relations in our country have become very tense," said Anwar Assi Hussein Obeidi, a Sunni Arab who is a leader of the Obeidi tribe, one of Iraq`s largest. "If the Americans don`t resolve these problems soon, the people will start killing each other."

In the North, Whose Land?


The problem in Haifa is all about land.

Hassan Abid, a farmer with a weathered face and gray-streaked hair, said he moved to Haifa in 1974 along with dozens of other Shiite Arabs fleeing a drought in Diwaniyah, their ancestral home in southern Iraq.

"It was a wonderful new home," he said as walked through Haifa, a village of mud-brick houses and dirt streets 20 miles northwest of Kirkuk, a city in northeastern Iraq known for its oil fields.

To Kurds, however, the steppe around Kirkuk is Kurdish territory. Tens of thousands of Kurds had lived in the area until Hussein`s government, in a campaign against a group he deemed subversive, pushed many of them out and resettled the area with Arabs.

But Abid contends Haifa was open land until the Arabs arrived. "There was nobody here before us," he said. "We did not displace the Kurds."

He noted that the Arabs of Haifa arrived in 1974, before Hussein`s forced relocations began. And, he said, the villagers are Shiites, while those moved under the Hussein government were typically Sunnis.

"There should be no dispute here," he said.

After Hussein`s government collapsed in April, thousands of Kurds moved down from the northernmost regions of Iraq, where they had lived in an autonomous enclave since 1991. They came to reclaim property they deemed to be theirs. Entire villages were commandeered by armed Kurds, who sent scores of Arabs fleeing.

On April 19, Arabs said, a band of armed Kurds arrived in Haifa. Panicked residents initially fled on foot and settled on the plain a few miles away, where they set up a tent camp.

The Arabs returned in May, when the Kurds had moved on for reasons that are not clear. As the Kurds left, the Arabs said, they ransacked the village, peeling off roofs, ripping out doors and windows and looting whatever else they could.

Then the Kurds came back Sept. 18. This time, the Arabs resolved they would not leave again. The land was theirs, they insisted. "This village belongs to us," said Mohammed Nafad Jabara, an 80-year-old retiree. He pointed to a grove of towering date palms which were planted, he claimed, upon his arrival in 1974, as proof of his residency.

Armed with that conviction and dozens of AK-47 rifles, the men of Haifa took positions in a trench between the village and the fields where the Kurds had arrived with their tractors and two pickup trucks mounted with machine guns. As the bullets whizzed by, recalled Mohammed Kadhim, "it felt like we were fighting a war."

After a 15-minute firefight, residents said, the Kurds drove away.

Nobody was killed or seriously wounded, a fact that amazes people who participated in the skirmish.

Arabs in Haifa view the firefight as the opening skirmish of an impending battle. "We`re expecting them to come back," Abid said. "And we`ll be ready for them. We`ll greet them with bullets."

Who Should Control Tuz Khurmatu?


Kurdish militiamen swooped into the town of Tuz Khurmatu on April 9, the day before Kirkuk fell. Their mission, according to Kurdish leaders, was to protect the town from looters and Hussein`s loyalists.

The militiamen, known as pesh merga, seized government buildings and deployed along the town`s main streets. "We came to care for Tuz," said Karim Shukor, the local director of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, one of Iraq`s two largest Kurdish political parties.

Tuz Khurmatu, built in the shadow of rolling brown hills about 110 miles north of Baghdad, is a nondescript way station of stucco buildings on the road connecting the capital to Kirkuk.

Kurds contend that it used to be an entirely Kurdish area. Ethnic Turkmens, who migrated south from present-day Turkey hundreds of years ago, insist that the village was exclusively Turkmen until 1975.

The Turkmens in Tuz Khurmatu viewed the arrival of the Kurdish militia as a power grab. The jobs of mayor and police chief, formerly held by Hussein-appointed Arabs, were claimed by Kurds. So were other powerful government posts. "They came with arms and took everything," complained Ali Hashem Mukhtar, the local director of the Iraqi Turkmen Front, a coalition of Turkmen political parties.

The dispute in Tuz Khurmatu is about political power, not land. Both Kurds and Turkmens believe they are in the majority in this area of about 70,000 people.

Shukor argued that records from Hussein`s Baath Party, which repressed both groups, lists Kurds at 52 percent of the population and Turkmens at 32 percent. Mukhtar insisted those figures include outlying villages. Within the town, he said, Turkmens are in the majority.

Turkmens argue that Kurds are trying to expand the area under their control so towns such as Tuz Khurmatu will be deemed part of a future Kurdish state in a federal Iraq. Kurds, in turn, claim that the Turkmens are agitating at the behest of neighboring Turkey, which opposes Kurdish aspirations for autonomy in the north.

Although U.S. forces in the area attempted to quell the tension by creating a town council with equal numbers of Kurds and Turkmens, the powerful posts of mayor and police chief were given to Kurds, leading Turkmens to complain that the Americans were favoring the Kurds in return for their help during the war.

As spring turned into summer, the animosity on both sides escalated. Finally, in late August, the town erupted.

The spark was the destruction of green-domed Shiite shrine in the khaki-colored hills east of town. The shrine, which had been destroyed during the Hussein era and recently rebuilt, is venerated by the town`s predominantly Shiite Turkmen population. In the early hours of Aug. 22, the shrine was blown to rubble with explosives.

Turkmens blame the Kurds. The Kurds deny responsibility for the attack. The precise reasons for the blast are not known but Kurds, who are Sunnis, insist that the conflict with the Turkmens is about politics, not religion.

Later that morning, hundreds of angry Turkmens flocked to the town`s main Shiite mosque for a demonstration that turned into a protest march through the main market.

A video now sold at the market shows what happened as the protesters made their way through the town: Amid the shouts of "God is great," shots rang out. It is not clear from where.

Turkmens claim that the first shots were fired from Kurdish party offices. Kurds contend their security forces started shooting after Turkmen mobs began hunting down Kurds in the street.

A battle ensued, with both sides shooting from rooftops and behind corners. U.S. soldiers in the town also began firing, in an attempt to halt the violence. Five Turkmens and three Kurds were killed. It was the worst ethnic clash since the end of the war.

Now, Tuz Khurmatu is a town on the brink. There is open talk of revenge. And Turkmens who once welcomed Americans as liberators said they now regard U.S. forces as the enemy because of their perceived favoritism toward the Kurds.

"After the war, I was so happy I was ready to put up a picture of [President] Bush in my house," said Muzhir Kassim Jaffar, a pharmacist whose 21-year-old son, Ashraf, was killed in the protest -- by what he believes were bullets from U.S. soldiers. "If I see Americans now, I will try to kill them," he said. "I only care about revenge."

He is equally bitter about the Kurds. "Five months of them," he said, "is worse than 35 years of Saddam."

Near Basra, the Muslim Divide


The trouble began in the hamlet of Hamdan on Sept. 14, just as southern Iraq`s summer heat was wilting. Along dusty roads lined with adobe huts and the palm groves for which the region is famous, hundreds of Sunni mourners marched, armed and angry, according to Shiite residents. Hamdan is a village about a half-hour`s drive south of Basra, where the Shatt al Arab river flows into the Persian Gulf. It is the only city in Iraq`s Shiite south where Sunnis make up a substantial minority.

The Sunnis were marching in a procession to bury five men they believed had been killed a week earlier by members of the Dawa party, a Shiite Muslim movement.

In a 15-minute rampage at the local Dawa headquarters, the Sunni mourners ransacked the building, a former schoolhouse. They shot up the cream-colored stucco walls and tossed a grenade inside. They tore down pictures of Shiite clergymen from the entrance, stomped on them, then carted them away. Fires were lit in the mostly vacant rooms and, residents recalled, shots were fired randomly at the concrete and mud-brick houses that line Hamdan`s parched groves and farmlands.

The residents, who stayed indoors, still recall the insults: Shiites are cowards -- and worse. And they still recall the chants.

"There is no god but God," the Sunni mourners cried. "The Dawa party is the enemy of God."

Residents call the trouble in Hamdan over that week in September fitna, a resonant word in Arabic that translates as strife, but suggests anarchy. In Islamic lore, fitna and the chaos it brings will precede the Day of Judgment.

"Hundred percent, there will be more fitna," said Sayyid Murtada Hussein, a Shiite farmer who witnessed the rampage.

In Hamdan and its nearby hamlets, the population is split almost in half between Shiite and Sunni residents, some of their neighborhoods separated by centuries-old canals that snake along farms. Now, a gulf of fear, suspicion and resentment divides them.

As Hussein walked through the looted party headquarters, he acknowledged the deaths of the five Sunnis, but said the village had nothing to do with it. He blamed Wahhabis -- members of an austere Sunni sect dominant in Saudi Arabia and a term often used as code for any militant Sunni -- for inflaming the anger. He contended that a majority of the Sunnis in Hamdan and nearby villages follow the Wahhabi sect. Given the history of enmity between Shiites and Wahhabis, a feud that dates to the 19th century when Wahhabi tribesmen from Saudi Arabia regularly attacked and pillaged southern Iraq, Hussein predicted more troubles in hamlets where government exists in name only and police keep to themselves.

"We can recognize them in the streets. They have long beards and dirty faces," said Hussein, a 46-year-old wearing a white gown and thumbing black worry beads. "If they return," he warned, "it will be a bloody fight. It will be killing."

`This Will Bring Trouble`


A 10-minute drive away, in the neighboring village of Abu al Khasib, Asad Shihab sat in his mud house, its roof built with trunks of palm trees and dried fronds. Green water collected in a metal bin. A rusted door leaned at the entrance.

"If you say we are taking money, look at my roof, look at my water tank," he said. "What`s your impression?"

It was the death of Shihab`s relatives that prompted the funeral march and rampage in Hamdan. Shihab blamed Sayyid Salman Sayyid Talib, the local representative of the Dawa party, one of Basra`s largest Shiite political groups. The Dawa party acknowledges that Talib is a member, but denies having ordered him to take any action. Talib is now in hiding.

On Sept. 7, Shihab said, Talib captured Shihab`s uncle and two brothers in a nearby village after evening prayers. Then, escorted by 30 armed men, Talib headed down a dirt path, past okra plants and a pile of harvested dates, to arrive at Shihab`s house, shrouded in dark by a blackout. Two white pickups were parked outside. Talib`s men blocked escape routes.

"They claimed that there were armed Wahhabis in the house," Shihab said.

Shihab hid. But his father and 12-year-old brother were taken away. Two days later, police found two brothers in a busy street in Basra with gunshot wounds to the head, Shihab said. His father and the two others were tortured and killed by throwing acid on them, he said, their bodies dumped in a cesspool of engine oil and stagnant water near a fertilizer plant. He pulled pictures out of a black plastic bag, showing the bloated corpses in a row before the police station. Some had blindfolds; others had their legs bound.

"Those people are trying to ignite sectarian fitna between the people," he said, wearing the long beard of religious devotion and a face grim with smoldering anger. "These are not good tidings. This will bring trouble."

Shihab said he took part in the funeral procession on Sept. 14. While he denied shooting up the Shiite neighborhood in Hamdan, he acknowledged the damage done to the party headquarters. They were angry, he said, and they deserved vengeance.

"You found five people who were killed. They were innocent, and they were killed in a terrible way," he said.

"Sayyid Salman," he added, "should die."

In conversations in Hamdan and Abu Khasib, the degree of mutual suspicion is matched by the divide in how they remember the past and how they envision their future.

Shiites in Hamdan celebrate their majority status, and insist that Sunnis should understand they are the minority. While Sunnis in the villages insist they were treated no differently by Hussein, Shiites there point out they were deprived of jobs, promotions and land rights. Sunnis are reluctant to talk about religious divisions; they are all Muslims, they insist. The presence of Wahhabis, they say, is a myth fabricated by the most militant Shiites to further their own agendas.

The British who occupy Basra say religious differences are under control. The deaths and the protest that followed probably had "something to do with a tribal dispute," said Maj. Charlie Mayo, a military spokesman.

As for sectarian strife, "I`d say the lid is on it at the moment," he said.

Shihab`s grandfather, Ahmed Ismail, said he was not so sure. Sitting on a rickety porch, he said fitna had already arrived.

"We are Sunni, we pray in the mosque, and they hate us," the 76-year-old said. "We don`t know why they hate us."

Chandrasekaran reported from Haifa and Tuz Khurmatu. Shadid reported from Hamdan and Abu al Khasib.



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Bush Aides Say They`ll Cooperate With Probe Into Intelligence Leak


By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 29, 2003; Page A01


President Bush`s aides promised yesterday to cooperate with a Justice Department inquiry into an administration leak that exposed the identity of a CIA operative, but Democrats charged that the administration cannot credibly investigate itself and called for an independent probe.

White House officials said they would turn over phone logs if the Justice Department asked them to. But the aides said Bush has no plans to ask his staff members whether they played a role in revealing the name of an undercover officer who is married to former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, one of the most visible critics of Bush`s handling of intelligence about Iraq.

An administration official told The Washington Post on Saturday that two White House officials leaked the information to selected journalists to discredit Wilson. The leak could constitute a federal crime, and intelligence officials said it might have endangered confidential sources who had aided the operative throughout her career. CIA Director George J. Tenet has asked the Justice Department to investigate how the leak occurred.

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice said on "Fox News Sunday" that she knew "nothing of any such White House effort to reveal any of this, and it certainly would not be the way that the president would expect his White House to operate."

She also said the White House would leave the probe in the hands of the Justice Department, calling it the "appropriate channels now."

White House press secretary Scott McClellan said the Justice Department has requested no information so far. "Of course, we would always cooperate with the Department of Justice in a matter like this," he said.

Asked about the possibility of an internal White House investigation, McClellan said, "I`m not aware of any information that has come to our attention beyond the anonymous media sources to suggest there`s anything to White House involvement."

The controversy erupted over the weekend, when administration officials reported that Tenet sent the Justice Department a letter raising questions about whether federal law was broken when the operative, Valerie Plame, was exposed. She was named in a column by Robert D. Novak that ran July 14 in The Post and other newspapers.

CIA officials approached the Justice Department about a possible investigation within a week of the column`s publication. Tenet`s letter was delivered more recently.

The department is determining whether a formal investigation is warranted, officials said. The officials said they did not know how long that would take.

Democratic lawmakers and presidential candidates seized on the investigation as a new vulnerability for Bush. Sen. Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), who has been pushing the FBI to pursue the matter for two months, said that if "something this sensitive is done under the wing of any direct appointees, at the very minimum, it`s not going to have the appearance of fairness and thoroughness."

From the presidential campaign trail in New Hampshire, Rep. Richard A. Gephardt (Mo.) called it "a natural conflict of interest" for Justice Department appointees to investigate their superiors, and said congressional committees should step in to try to determine what happened.

Former Vermont governor Howard Dean said Attorney General John D. Ashcroft should play no role in the investigation and should turn it over to the Justice Department`s inspector general, who operates independently of political appointees. "President Bush came into office promising to bring honor and integrity to the White House," Dean said. "It`s time for accountability."

Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (Conn.) said the investigation "must be conducted by an independent, nonpartisan counsel."

Although the Independent Counsel Act, created after the Watergate abuses, expired in 1999, the attorney general can appoint a special counsel to investigate the president and other top government officials. Special counsels have less independence from the attorney general, but proponents of the system said that makes them more accountable.

More specific details about the controversy emerged yesterday. Wilson said in a telephone interview that four reporters from three television networks called him in July and told him that White House officials had contacted them to encourage stories that would include his wife`s identity.

Novak attributed his account to "two senior administration officials." An administration aide told The Post on Saturday that the two White House officials had cold-called at least six Washington journalists and identified Wilson`s wife.

She is a case officer in the CIA`s clandestine service and works as an analyst on weapons of mass destruction. Novak published her maiden name, Plame, which she had used overseas and has not been using publicly. Intelligence sources said top officials at the agency were very concerned about the disclosure because it could allow foreign intelligence services to track down some of her former contacts and lead to the exposure of agents.

The disclosure could have broken more than one law. In addition to the federal law prohibiting the identification of a covert officer, officials with high-level national security clearance sign nondisclosure agreements, with penalties for revealing classified information.

Wilson had touched off perhaps the most searing controversy of this administration by saying he had determined on a mission to Niger last year that there was no clear evidence that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy "yellowcake" uranium ore for possible use in a nuclear weapon.

His statement led to a retraction by the White House, and bolstered Democrats` contention that Bush had exaggerated intelligence to build a case against Iraq. The yellowcake allegation became known as "the 16 words" after Bush said in his State of the Union address in January that the British government had learned that Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

An administration official said the leaks were "simply for revenge" for the trouble Wilson had caused Bush.

Wilson said that in the week after the Novak column appeared, several journalists told him that the White House was trying to call attention to his wife, apparently hoping to undermine his credibility by implying he had received the Niger assignment only because his wife had suggested the mission and recommended him for the job.

"Each of the reporters quoted the White House official as using some variation on, `The real story isn`t the 16 words. The real story is Wilson and his wife,` " Wilson said. "The time frame led me to deduce that the White House was continuing to try to push this story."

Wilson identified one of the reporters as Andrea Mitchell of NBC News. Mitchell did not respond to requests for comment.

Wilson has suggested publicly that Bush`s senior adviser, Karl Rove, was the one who broke his wife`s cover. McClellan has called that "totally ridiculous" and "not true."

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said on ABC`s "This Week" program: "The CIA has an obligation, when they believe somebody who is undercover was outed, so to speak, has an obligation to ask the Justice Department to look into it. But other than that, I don`t know anything about the matter."

Democrats also questioned why Bush`s aides had seemed to show little interest in the disclosure before the CIA request was made public. McClellan was asked about the Novak column during briefings on July 22 and Sept. 16. He replied that no one in the White House would have been authorized to reveal the operative`s name and that he had no information to suggest White House involvement.

Democrats e-mailed a quotation from former president George H.W. Bush, a former CIA director, who said in 1999 at the dedication of the agency`s new headquarters that those who expose the names of intelligence sources are "the most insidious of traitors."

Staff writer Walter Pincus contributed to this report.



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Data Reveal Inaccuracies in Portrayal of Iraqis


By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, September 29, 2003; Page A14


Top Bush administration officials in the past weeks have been citing a pair of public opinion polls to demonstrate that Iraqis have a positive view of the U.S. occupation. But an examination of those polls indicates Iraqis have a less enthusiastic view than the administration has portrayed.

For example, in testimony before Congress, L. Paul Bremer III, the U.S. administrator in Iraq, and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz both cited a recent Gallup Poll that found that almost two-thirds of those polled in Baghdad said it was worth the hardships suffered since the U.S.-led invasion ousted Saddam Hussein. Bremer also told Congress that 67 percent thought that in five years they would be better off, and only 11 percent thought they would be worse off.

That same poll, however, found that, countrywide, only 33 percent thought they were better off than they were before the invasion and 47 percent said they were worse off. And 94 percent said that Baghdad was a more dangerous place for them to live, a finding the administration officials did not discuss.

The poll also found that 29 percent of Baghdad residents had a favorable view of the United States, while 44 percent had a negative view. By comparison, 55 percent had a favorable view of France.

Similarly, half of Baghdad residents had a negative view of President Bush, while 29 percent had a favorable view of him. In contrast, French President Jacques Chirac drew a 42 percent favorable rating.

Earlier, on Sept. 14, Vice President Cheney on NBC`s "Meet the Press" discussed findings from a Zogby International poll of 600 Iraqis done in August in conjunction with American Enterprise magazine. He described the poll as "carefully done" and said it found "very positive news in it in terms of the numbers it shows with respect to the attitudes to what Americans have done."

"The U.S. wins hands down," Cheney said, when Iraqis were asked what model of government they would prefer among five choices. Cheney`s information, according to an aide, came from the American Enterprise essay on the poll that said 37 percent of respondents chose the United States, and 28 percent selected Saudi Arabia.

But a look at the raw data from the poll on the magazine`s Web site revealed different figures. According to the data, only 21.5 percent chose the United States, while 20 percent refused to select any model, and 16 percent selected the Saudi government.

Cheney also said, "If you want to ask them do they want an Islamic government established, by two-to-one margins they say no, including the Shia population." He said that when asked how long they want the Americans to stay, "over 60 percent of the people polled said they want the U.S. to stay for at least another year."

But the poll also found that half of respondents said Western democracy would not work well in Iraq, while 40 percent said it would. Asked whether the United States would help or hurt Iraq over the next five years, 35 percent said the U.S. would help but half said it would hurt Iraq. Also, on the question of an Islamic government, the alternative offered was "or instead let all people practice their own religion," which implied that could not be done under the former.



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Iraqis Can Do More


By Jessica Mathews

Monday, September 29, 2003; Page A19


To visit Iraq today is to be forcibly reminded of the obvious: There is no military solution to politically inspired violence by locals against foreigners. What was true for the French in Algeria, the British in Northern Ireland, the Russians in Chechnya and the Israelis in the West Bank is proving true for the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq. Notwithstanding a huge and impressive military effort, the security situation, at least for now, is worsening. A delegation of which I was a member was told at the U.S. support base in Kuwait last week that ambushes on supply convoys are "increasing in frequency and effectiveness." At Baghdad headquarters we learned that the average number of daily attacks nationwide has climbed over recent weeks from 13 to 22. According to CPA officials, foreign terrorists are a "burgeoning problem." And the "biggest concern," in the opinion of the commander of coalition forces, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, is "an overlap of FRLs [former regime loyalists] and foreigners [that] has emerged in the last 30 days." Another commander called it the "coming together of Sunnis and terrorists."

U.S. military leaders insist that the answer is not more troops. As one noted dryly, "More people are more targets." The one exception is on the borders, where some combination of more people and more technology is needed. Rather, the answers to the security situation in Iraq are political. The most urgent is to address the feeling among Iraq`s Sunnis that they have no future.

Beginning with the decision to send the Iraqi army home without pay, and reinforced by "de-Baathification" and other decisions, the message has been inadvertently sent that the United States considers Sunnis, Baathists and Saddam Hussein loyalists to be one and the same. They are not. With no political party and what many feel to be no voice in the present government, Sunnis feel disenfranchised. It is no coincidence that the worst violence is in Sunni regions. This is not an issue that can wait.

Equally important is to reconsider the decision to avoid any form of interim or provisional government and to proceed in a linear manner from U.S. sovereignty to an Iraqi constitution to national elections to Iraqi sovereignty. This plan forces a completely unrealistic pace of constitution-writing in order to meet the pressures in Iraq, at the United Nations and at home to turn over sovereignty as quickly as possible.

The value of a constitution, however, is not the document but the process of coming to agreement on fundamental political choices and tradeoffs. It took the United States more than seven years. The notion that in a country with Iraq`s history, demographics and recent experience "these deals could be struck quickly," as the CPA official in charge repeatedly insisted to us, is laughable. A document can be forced down Iraqi throats to meet our deadline (as Secretary of State Colin Powell put it: "They`ve got six months"), but it would be a piece of paper with little meaning, seeded with political land mines that would explode soon after we were gone, perhaps into civil war.

There is an alternative and, oddly, the United States is implementing it with one hand while ruling it out with the other. It is to put in place an interim government, sovereign in name. Currently, Iraq is divided into six regions under military command, each encompassing several Iraqi provinces. Commanders have chosen local leaders in the provinces in proportion to ethnic and religious numbers to attend delegate conventions. These have met, and they have chosen interim councils of 25 or 30 persons, which in turn elect governors and local officials. The process is obviously not democracy and the results are not uniformly welcomed, but it has put in place governments of Iraqis that are doing things and can do more.

At the national level, where the process can`t be quite so rough and ready, the analog would be to adopt a straightforward election law and under it hold elections to choose members of a provisional assembly empowered to hold office for a few years. The assembly would choose an interim cabinet and write a constitution. Like everything else we are doing in Iraq this course would be risky, but it would have great advantages in popular legitimacy and time available. It would also provide a natural basis for compromise at the United Nations. Ambassador Paul Bremer acknowledged last week that "some Iraqis are beginning to regard us as occupiers and not as liberators." At about the same time, Sanchez was saying to us that a U.N. role under a new resolution would ease Iraqis` sense of foreign occupation, providing a security bonus regardless of how many troops are forthcoming.

On the economic front, too, coalition actions seem to be more on the right track in the regions than at CPA headquarters. Military commanders are doling out money through hundreds of small projects, decentralized down to the battalion level. They are removing trash, restoring buildings, repairing telephone systems and water treatment plants, painting lines on roads and, in at least one case, restarting factories. At CPA planners are deep into nearly every crevice of national government, from the postal service to tax policy, from finance to telling Iraqi teachers how they could teach better. A lot of this could be and should be left to Iraqis to decide eventually, even if we`re convinced that we know better. Our delegation was told of the need for "unified command and control at the political/economic level." We should know better.

CPA is also letting the best be the enemy of the better-than-Saddam, employing U.S. contractors in needlessly expensive projects that strive for U.S.-level technology. U.S. contractors can`t fix 1960s technology. They have to replace it. Iraqis, with a fraction of the money and sometimes with help from their original suppliers, could make it go. The benefit would be cost savings for us, employment and a priceless sense of ownership for them.

It is, after all, their country. The sooner we can convince Iraqis and the rest of the world that we understand this, and the sooner we can add the legitimacy conferred by a U.N. political role, the greater our still slim chances of success. We will need all the help we can get.

The writer is president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.




© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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washingtonpost.com
Still Losing at Diplomacy


By Jackson Diehl

Monday, September 29, 2003; Page A19


President Bush, his aides argue, came out better than it looked in last week`s diplomatic scrum. True, French President Jacques Chirac got many more cheers at the United Nations for his attacks on the "unilateralism" of the United States than Bush did for his tepid appeal for multilateral support for Iraq. But the president`s public make-up with Germany`s Gerhard Schroeder may open the way for a broader transatlantic reconciliation.

Yes, Bush got no new commitments for foreign troops in Iraq, making it more likely that more American reservists will be called up to fill the breach. But the administration nevertheless got a couple of steps closer to mending the alliance with Turkey, which could still decide in the next couple of weeks to deliver the bulk of a fresh division to spell American forces.

All true -- and perhaps true, too, that the administration`s long-beleaguered multilateralists are gaining more strength in the endless internal feuding. Yet if last week offered a broad measure of how well Bush has done in repairing the damage to U.S. global influence brought about by the Iraq war, the discouraging conclusion must be that the harm has proved enduring -- even in those relationships that seem to be getting warmer.

As before the war, the real measure of the administration`s failure can be found not in the antics of France and Russia -- which have been trying since the end of the Cold War to limit or counter American power -- but in the behavior of countries that have traditionally been close friends. Not just Pakistan but Canada still declines to provide troops to help Americans keep the peace in Baghdad. Not just Vladimir Putin but Vicente Fox, president of Mexico and once Bush`s best foreign friend, used his U.N. assembly speech to scold the United States.

Then there are Germany and Turkey, the two countries at the forefront of the administration`s effort at damage control. Together, they hold the keys to the internationalization of Iraq. If Schroeder were to wholeheartedly support a U.S. plan for reconstruction, Chirac would be neutralized and many countries now on the sidelines might join in. If Turkey committed 10,000 troops, the full division the Pentagon needs might be stitched together with help from South Korea or Japan or Bangladesh.

That`s why the administration`s incremental progress with Berlin and Ankara last week looks discouraging on closer examination. While it`s true that things are better, sources on both sides of the relationships say that the trust and political will that would be needed to deliver the help the United States really needs are still lacking.

The Bush-Schroeder reconciliation has been in the works for months. Germany`s foreign policy and defense elite, who were particularly appalled by the split, drew up plans for potentially bold steps to support the postwar mission in Iraq -- including even the dispatch of troops, possibly in conjunction with France or under NATO command.

In the end, say sources familiar with the talks, Schroeder and his influential foreign minister, Joschka Fischer, settled on the most modest of packages -- an offer to train Iraqi police, coupled to a middle-ground position between Washington and Paris on the text of a new U.N. resolution. Fischer believed that his standing in Washington was still too weak to justify a larger German role; he worries that his principal interlocutor, Secretary of State Colin Powell, can`t deliver on his promises, while Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who can, still isn`t speaking to him.

Schroeder, for his part, remains focused on German public opinion, which is still overwhelmingly hostile to Bush. "I can`t send troops," Schroeder told Bush bluntly at last week`s meeting.

A similar dynamic drives the U.S.-Turkey negotiations. In private, officials around Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan have been telling U.S. envoys that Turkey almost entirely shares the U.S. strategy and goals for Iraq; in particular the Turks support the U.S. opposition to handing power quickly to an unelected group of Iraqis. With the announcement last week by Treasury Secretary John Snow of a painstakingly negotiated $8 billion U.S. loan to Turkey`s struggling economy, the stage was presumably set for striking a deal on troops.

Yet both American and Turkish officials privately say that the chances are still no better than 50-50 that Erdogan`s government will seek the necessary parliamentary approval. U.S. officials say Erdogan is deeply reluctant to take the political risk of joining the American occupation. Turks can easily explain why: Polls show that more than 70 percent of the public is opposed.

In Turkey as in Germany, the bureaucrats and the elites want to save the U.S. alliance -- but politicians remain restrained by a tide of public opinion, and a continuing sense that this American administration is too hard to work with. Those are problems that bilateral meetings and U.N. resolutions can`t easily overcome.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

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The Cartoon Graveyard
Just the Cartoons Without the Commentary
Trotzdem heute Montag ist, 78 frische Cartoons:

http://www.flu-ent.com/graveyard/20030929__078toons.htm

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Bush on path to ruin U.S. legacy of prosperity and liberty





Robyn Blumner
ST. PETERSBURG TIMES

For a man who has benefited so greatly through legacy and inheritance, President Bush seems determined to deprive future generations of Americans of their own.
The birthright of Americans goes well beyond the promise of a new crop of reality TV every fall. We have a national inheritance that has been cultivated through generations and which our leaders are responsible for stewarding. This includes: widely enjoyed prosperity and unalienable guarantees of liberty.
But Bush and his neocon cronies have set a course to undo our legacy. Bush is raiding the corpus of the trust and by the time he`s finished, all principal -- and principles -- will have been depleted.
Bush got to be a rich, successful man thanks to his family connections. All along the way, from his admission to Andover and Yale, to the rescue of his foundering oil business, to the Texas Rangers deal, to his move into politics, Bush was able to rely on paisans to come out ahead.
Now it is payback and he`s protecting his own.
Bush has taken to heart the "three generations from shirtsleeves to shirtsleeves" warning attributed to Andrew Carnegie. His huge tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and, particularly, the progressive elimination of estate taxes, are extra insurance that those born with silver spoons in their mouths will exhale an entire English tea service with their dying breath.
But as concerned as he is with protecting the stockpiles of the rich, he is profligate with the resources of the rest of us. Under his direction, what had been revenue surpluses as far as the eye could see have been transformed into record deficits and crushing debt.
The Congressional Budget Office says this year $401 billion will be added to the national debt and next year add another $540 billion. Projections to 2011 are jaw-dropping. Expect a cumulative deficit of $2.3 trillion, using the most optimistic of scenarios. Then, make the Bush tax cuts permanent, as he seeks to do, and include another $1.6 trillion of debt by 2013.
Bush`s tax cuts are not the entire cause of this ocean of red ink, but they are a significant contributing factor, as is the Iraq war. On this path, Bush will saddle future generations of Americans with enough debt to turn back the nation`s prosperity and undermine the promises made to America`s workers that they would be cared for in old age.
But this is not the worst of it. It is only money, after all. The real damage Bush and his corps are doing is to the American character. In Bush`s pursuit of greater unilateral power, he has assaulted those parts of America that make it historically unique and valued.
Our nation is great because we are committed to the separation of powers, individual rights, the rule of law, the separation of church and state and transparency.
Those are also the principles for which Bush has demonstrated the deepest contempt.
One need not do anything more than mention Vice President Dick Cheney`s clandestine energy policy meetings with industry executives to illustrate this administration`s obsession with secrecy and its disregard for the oversight role of Congress. But the posture is also summed up in a 2001 directive from Attorney General John Ashcroft that encourages all departments of government to resist Freedom of Information Act requests.
Bush doesn`t believe in open, answerable government; he believes in government as Clint Eastwood movie -- hunker-down, zip your lip, and maybe the varmints will go away.
Our born-again president also denies that the Constitution separates church and state, by using the federal treasury to underwrite countless faith-based initiatives.
And, as to rule of law, it is only followed when convenient. For a while, the administration actually claimed that the federal courts had no jurisdiction to review Bush`s decision to hold Americans as enemy combatants, incommunicado and indefinitely.
On the eve of the second anniversary of the September 11 attacks, the moment when a true leader would seek to unite the nation, Bush chose to divide us. He essentially called for an expansion of the USA Patriot Act just at a time when many Americans are calling for a rollback of the act -- to date, more than 160 communities have passed protest resolutions over the law`s excesses.
So much for individual rights.
In the best traditions of a banana republic, Bush is actively concentrating power and wealth. Friends of Bill walked away with nothing compared with the Friends of Bush. They are being given everything they want on a platter -- silver, of course -- and the spoils include what has been promised to you, me and future generations of Americans.


http://www.sltrib.com/2003/Sep/09262003/commenta/95905.asp



© Copyright 2003, The Salt Lake Tribune.
All material found on Utah OnLine is copyrighted The Salt Lake Tribune and associated news services. No material may be reproduced or reused without explicit permission from The Salt Lake Tribune.

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WASHINGTON (IWR Satire) -- President Bush on Monday told a joint session of Congress that in order to balance the budget we will need to start outsourcing government programs and agencies like NASA to third world countries.
"To pay for the exploding costs of the war in Iraq and to keep the rest of the government operating without interruption, we have to find a way to save some money to balance the ballooning federal deficit.

Karl tells me that this could help my reelection chances. Ha. Ha.

And you know, the last thing I want to do is raise taxes on my corporate patrons. That`s not why they bought the 2000 election after all is it? Hell they`d drop me in a minute and appoint old Cheney here to replace me if I did that!

Luckily, Dick still works as a paid consultant for Halliburton, and he told me they got this great new gimmick called outsourcing.

I hear it`s strictly on the up and up.

You see the middle class professional people of this country have always been viewed as expensive deadwood overhead by big business.

So why not, at a fraction of the cost, outsource these high wage jobs to the lowest bidder in India, the Philippines or China?

It makes a lot of sense to me, anyway.

Just imagine the professional middle class as a rather large labor union, get the picture?

Anyway, the first thing that I want to outsource is NASA. I mean who cares what happens to a bunch of pointy headed engineers, technicians, scientists? Karl says they don`t vote for me anyway. Ha. Ha.

Hell, India will run our whole damn space program for a third of the cost! Think about it. No health care benefits. No workman`s compensation. No labor unions. It`s like a dream come true.

Sure some poor slobs in this country will lose their jobs and health benefits, but shoot, there are plenty of minimum wage jobs out there for everybody.

For example, do you know how hard it is for a Republican millionaire to find an English speaking gardener or maid these days? And don`t forget, there is always Amway," said the president to a standing ovation from the Republican site of the aisle.

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



Select or Elect? Iraqis Split on Constitution Delegates
Governing Council is to decide how writers of the key political charter are chosen in the first of several stages prior to a transfer of full power.
By Alissa J. Rubin
Times Staff Writer

September 29, 2003

BAGHDAD — A committee that is debating how to draft a new constitution is leaving the crucial question of how to choose constitutional convention delegates to the 24-member Iraqi Governing Council, all but assuring that it will be a month or two before the process even begins.

At stake in deciding how to choose the drafters of the constitution is the amount of influence Iraq`s most radical religious elements are likely to have. The two best-organized groups in Iraq now are clerics and former members of Saddam Hussein`s Baath Party. Other than Baathists, secular political figures have yet to gain a national following.

The committee, which will submit its report to the Governing Council today or Tuesday, could suggest as many as seven options, according to council members and Western diplomats close to the process. They will range from holding an election to choose the 100 to 150 people who will draft the constitution to appointing delegates from experts around the country. There will also be recommendations for combining the two options, electing some members and appointing others. And there may be an option for a temporary or interim constitution.

It is expected that once the drafters are chosen, they will take about six months to write the constitution, which will then be put to a national referendum. After that, there will be a political campaign for the country`s elective offices and then the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority would transfer full power to the Iraqis.

The writing of the constitution "will be like a battle," said Saad Shakir, a deputy to Governing Council member Adnan Pachachi. If an election is held now for drafters of the constitution, he added, "we will have an Islamic republic immediately."

"There is a degree of polarization on the council about whether to elect or select," agreed Samir Shakir Mahmoud Sumaiday, a council member who is firmly in the "select" camp.

The council chose the 24-member committee, made up primarily of judges, lawyers and other legal experts, to travel around the country for several weeks to hear what procedures Iraqis want to follow to draft their constitution. The panel`s chairman is a prominent Kurd, Fouad Massum.

Those who write the constitution will be faced with trying to accommodate an array of religious and ethnic groups on questions that include the role of Islamic law and the extent to which the country`s federal states will be configured along ethnic lines. Also in question is the government`s structure. Among the options are a parliamentary system, a constitutional monarchy and a U.S.-style republic.

For the last 23 years, Hussein and the Revolutionary Command Council that he chaired had the final word.

The main supporters of an election for delegates are devout Shiites. That sect, which is thought to constitute at least 60% of the population, is far from monolithic, but its members respect the edicts of prominent Shiite ayatollahs, most notably Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, who issued a religious ruling earlier this summer that the drafters of the constitution must be elected.

The U.S.-led occupation authority has avoided making direct recommendations to the Iraqis, but diplomats believe that it would be impossible to hold fair elections now. They are particularly worried that if an election were held now, imams would tell their congregations whom to vote for, several senior officials said. They added that election experts estimate that it would take nine to 12 months to organize an election that would meet international standards.

If some corners were cut, it might be possible to do it in six months, but that would still mean delaying the election of an Iraqi government into 2005.

Many Shiites say U.S. officials exaggerate the potential delay and underestimate the enormous credibility gained by having an election.

"Elections are the best way to choose the people [drafting the constitution], even if we are criticized because of some negative aspects; there would still be much more criticism if the people were appointed," said Adil Mehdi, a representative of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, whose leader, Abdelaziz Hakim, is a key member of the Governing Council.

"Certainly it`s more representative to have an election than not to have it," Mehdi said.

One view is that Sistani issued his edict to ensure that Shiites had a majority hand in writing the constitution, but it is also true that Iraqis are worried that Americans will hijack the process of writing the constitution.

Sumaiday, who opposes electing the delegates, argues that there is no way to conduct such a process so that it will be perceived as fair. He ticks off half a dozen problems, including the absence of electoral and voter registration laws and an inadequate voter list.

About 4 million Iraqis live outside the country, and most inside the nation believe the exiles should take part in the elections. Many live in Britain, and large numbers of Iraqi Kurds live in Iran. Figuring out who should vote is a big job.

The lack of security is another potential obstacle.

"It is not inconceivable that there would be some effort to intimidate people into voting one way or another or not voting at all," Sumaiday said. "I would not put it past the remnants of the Baathists and others working against the current regime to intervene Unless we have a way of dealing with such excesses, we cannot say our elections reflect the will of the people."



Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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



A Question of Justice: Whose?
As Iraqis prepare to try cases of crimes against humanity, experts wonder whether they are impartial enough. The U.S. says yes.
By Tracy Wilkinson
Times Staff Writer

September 29, 2003

BAGHDAD — The charges are mass murder, torture and the destruction of entire villages.

The court is in this traumatized nation with fresh wounds and raw hatreds.

The accused is to be judged by a panel of his peers.

Can Ali Hassan Majid, known notoriously as "Chemical Ali" for his alleged use of chemical weapons against Iraqi Kurds, or any of the several dozen other Iraqis who will face similar charges, expect a fair trial here, under these circumstances?

In one of its first acts, the Iraqi Governing Council, an interim body appointed by U.S. occupation authorities, announced it would establish a special tribunal to hear such cases, the initial step in an ambitious project to overhaul the Iraqi judicial system.

Emerging from decades of repression and fear, Iraqis want to see former rulers punished, and they want to know what happened to thousands of relatives who disappeared in prison or in the homicidal campaigns that Saddam Hussein launched against his perceived opponents.

The question, however, is whether the U.S.-backed plan for the tribunal is the best way to achieve those goals. American advisors say they are confident that the court, which will be presided over by an Iraqi judge or panel of judges, can mete out justice. But international human rights experts argue that the tribunal can have neither the impartiality nor the competence required for such a delicate task.

And, they add, jurists who are handpicked by U.S. occupiers are not likely to have great credibility among many Iraqis or the world community.

Many critics charge that the United States` opposition to the U.N.-established International Criminal Court is now coloring the advice it gives the Iraqis, with the Americans resistant to any effort to internationalize Iraq`s pursuit of justice. The United States has steadfastly opposed the U.N. court, fearful that its own soldiers and leaders would be held to account on politically motivated charges.

The Iraqis` new tribunal will not be able to prosecute American soldiers or other foreigners. The head of the U.S. occupation authority, L. Paul Bremer III, handed down a decree in June that strictly forbids any Iraqi court to sit in judgment of non-Iraqi military and civilian personnel assigned to the occupation authority.

Throughout history, the handling of postwar justice has been a delicate task. Pressed too quickly or without suitable controls, any process of judgment risks appearing to be victor`s justice, or raw revenge.

Some societies, such as South Africa and several Latin American countries, have chosen a form of "truth and reconciliation" commission that airs the past but doesn`t prosecute. Others, such as Bosnia-Herzegovina and the rest of the former Yugoslavia, were given a U.N.-appointed tribunal, the war crimes court at The Hague.

Several Iraqi officials said they want to see trials held, soon, inside Iraq and with Iraqis sitting in judgment.

"Why not?" said Dara Nooreddine, one of 24 members of the Governing Council. "The documents we have proving the crimes of members of the former regime are so numerous, if you put them side by side they stretch [7 1/2 miles] in distance."

Nooreddine, a Kurd and a former judge on the Iraqi Appellate Court who was imprisoned by Hussein for ruling against the regime, is especially eager to see Chemical Ali brought before Iraqi judges. Any other form of handling his case is unthinkable, Nooreddine said.

"A man who buries people alive, who uses chemical weapons to kill thousands of men, old men, women and children — men who commit genocide, do they deserve reconciliation?" Nooreddine said.

International experts in human rights and justice warn that the Iraqi approach runs the risk of producing show trials with little credibility.

"Weakened and compromised by decades of Baath Party rule, [the Iraqi judiciary] lacks the capacity, experience and independence to provide fair trials for the abuses of the past," New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a recent statement.

The human rights group said the Governing Council must be willing to incorporate international experts, prosecutors and judges who are familiar with the complexities of trying leadership figures facing charges of genocide, crimes against humanity or war crimes.

"The judicial system was weakened first by rampant corruption, and then by being sidelined by a parallel system operating within Iraqi intelligence, special police and military, where due process rights were completely flouted," said Hanny Megally, until recently with Human Rights Watch and now head of the Middle East program of the International Center for Transitional Justice in New York.

While it may be possible to find untainted jurists, he said, "it is unlikely they will have the experience or the skills to conduct major trials involving charges including genocide and crimes against humanity.

"They will need outside expertise to help them if justice will be done — and be seen to be done," Megally said.

Iraqi officials said they are ready and eager to do it themselves.

"We have 5,000 years of civilization and tradition. We are capable of putting on a trial," said Muhyi Alkateeb, secretary- general of the Governing Council. He said the international war crimes tribunal at The Hague, where former Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic sits in the dock, is a bad example for Iraq.

"We can`t spend $150 million and take seven years to try 18 people," he said. "These [former Iraqi leaders] are well-known criminals. They themselves documented their crimes. We don`t need to waste a lot of time."

The Iraqis` senior U.S. advisor for transitional justice, David Hodgkinson, said members of the Governing Council are "almost unanimous" in desiring a national, not international, tribunal. He said that foreign consultants would be welcome but might be reluctant if the Iraqis enact the death penalty.

Hodgkinson, whose office is part of the occupation`s Coalition Provisional Authority, said the search is on for judges, prosecutors and defense attorneys untainted by the past regime`s abuses who are both competent and brave. They will be vetted by the Americans.

Hodgkinson said that for the Iraqis to try someone at the level of Chemical Ali, who is in U.S. custody, the Governing Council would have to petition the U.S. authorities for jurisdiction. None of this can happen as quickly as many Iraqis desire, he said.

"The community at large will want vengeance, and rightly so. We are hoping to come up with a rule of law that protects the integrity of the system," he said. "It`s not a rush-to-justice philosophy as far as we are concerned."

Many Iraqis complained bitterly when Hussein`s sons Uday and Qusai were killed by U.S. troops this summer. The widely reviled men should have been made to stand trial to satisfy Iraqis, the argument went.

Similarly, Hussein himself must face his entire nation of accusers, say many Iraqis — even though numerous U.S. officials make no secret of preferring he be killed rather than captured and tried.

*


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wilkinson was recently on assignment in Iraq.

Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-turley2…
COMMENTARY



Full Metal Jacket
Why must Americans in Iraq face death because of outmoded body armor?
By Jonathan Turley

September 29, 2003

Suzanne Werfelman is a mother and a teacher who has been shopping for individual body armor. This is not in response to threats from her elementary-class students in Sciota, Pa.; it`s a desperate attempt to protect her son in Iraq.

Like many other U.S. service members in Iraq, her son was given a Vietnam-era flak jacket that cannot stop the type of weapons used today. It appears that parents across the country are now purchasers of body armor because of the failure of the military to supply soldiers with modern vests.

Werfelman`s son, Army Spc. Richard Murphy, is a military policeman in Iraq. He was also one of my law students last year before being sent off for a 20-month stint. Upon their arrival, members of Murphy`s unit were shocked to learn that they would be given the old Vietnam-era vests rather than the modern Interceptor vest. (They were also given unarmored Humvees, which are vulnerable to even small-arms fire.) Military officials admit that the standard flak jacket could not reliably stop a bullet, including AK-47 ammunition, used in Iraq and the most common ammunition in the world.

Developed in the late 1990s, the Interceptor vest is made of layered sheets of Kevlar with pockets in front and back for ceramic plates to protect vital organs. These vests — one-third lighter than the old ones — have stopped machine-gun bullets, shrapnel and other ordnance.

They can mean the difference between living and dying, which was made all too clear to Sgt. Zachariah Byrd, a soldier with the 3rd Armored Cavalry Regiment, who was shot four times with AK-47 bullets (twice in the chest and twice in his arms) when his unit was ambushed. The vest protected his chest and he survived. Byrd had been issued a standard flak jacket and, if he had been wearing it during the attack, he`d probably be dead. However, at the beginning of the patrol, his buddy who was driving that night gave his Interceptor vest to Byrd — a passing kindness that saved Byrd`s life.

Others don`t have the Interceptor option — including some of the soldiers in Murphy`s unit who are still wearing flak jackets. Congress has received reports of soldiers killed while wearing the old flak jackets. One from a mother related how three soldiers in her son`s unit were killed while wearing the outmoded vests. The unit reportedly had only 30 modern vests for 120 men. Army Staff Sgt. Dave Harris wrote a letter to Stars and Stripes that related how his friend, Mike Quinn, was killed in Fallouja. Quinn`s unit didn`t have enough vests, so he gave his to a young soldier. The decision saved the young soldier`s life, but resulted in Quinn`s death when he was shot.

The greatest shortfall in vests and plates appear to be National Guard and reserve units, though full-time soldiers like Byrd also have reported shortages. Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, confirmed last week that it would not be until December before there were enough plates for all of our people in Iraq.

Murphy`s reserve unit, which initially had no modern jackets, was eventually given some Interceptor vests weeks after they arrived in Iraq, but even then the new vests were missing the essential ceramic plates. That is when Werfelman went out and bought some plates for $650 — more than her weekly salary — and sent them to her son so he`d have basic protection. Workers at one armor company she called said that they had been deluged with calls from parents trying to buy vests and plates for their sons and daughters overseas.

Of course, many soldiers do not have even empty Interceptors. When they have received plates from home, they have reportedly used duct tape to attach them to the backs of their flak jackets.

This is a dangerous practice, according to William "Butch" Hancock, who recently retired from the Army after 30 years and currently consults for Point Blank, a body armor manufacturer. He says that some of these plates are designed for front pockets and will not work in such circumstances.

In speeches, President Bush has attributed the record federal budget deficit, in part, to his insistence that U.S. soldiers have the resources they need: "My attitude is, any time we put one of our soldiers in harm`s way, we`re going to spend whatever is necessary to make sure they have the best training, the best support and the best possible equipment." When Bush later taunted gunmen in Iraq to "bring it on," many GIs must have nervously tugged at their obsolete flak jackets.

For many GIs, Iraq appears to be a strictly BYOB war — Bring Your Own Bulletproofs.

The shortages come down to money and priorities. In 1998, Interceptors were available and issued to armies around the world. However, the U.S. military treats the replacement of body armor as any other "general-issue item." Thus, five years ago the military brass decided to implement a one-for-one exchange of new-for-old vests over a 10-year period. The military recently moved to increase production. The belated priority given to replacing the vests is particularly shocking considering their performance in Afghanistan, where they are credited with saving the lives of 29 soldiers. This is why American mothers are mailing armored plates rather than the traditional baked goods.

It is unclear how we got into this predicament, but it is worthy of a congressional investigation — particularly when it comes to the failure to equip all military units with the modern vests before the Iraq war. After all, the military brass appears to be spending in other areas.

For example, the Air Force announced that it had cut a deal with Boeing to lease airplane tankers for billions more than it would cost to buy them outright. According to the Congressional Research Service, the Air Force will waste almost $6 billion by leasing the planes rather than buying them. Congress is looking into the deal. By comparison, outfitting all of the 150,000 soldiers in Iraq with Interceptor vest plates would cost less than $97 million at retail prices. Because many have already been outfitted, the actual cost would be a small fraction of this amount. Congress should insist that body armor be designated a "sensitive item" and that every soldier be given an Interceptor with plates without delay.

One approach might guarantee results. Any member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff who does not secure such vests for his service should be required to sit at an outdoor cafe in Tikrit and drink a cup of tea while wearing an old flak jacket. That might focus the general staff on the problem more concretely.

Once the government makes sure all our soldiers receive vests, only one thing would remain: Someone should send Suzanne Werfelman $650 and an apology.


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Jonathan Turley is a professor at George Washington Law School.

Copyright 2003 Los Angeles Times

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SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/141335_quagmire28.html

P-I Focus: The problem in Iraq is that we`re still us
Sunday, September 28, 2003

By PHILIP GOLD
GUEST COLUMNIST

And while the future`s there for anyone to change,

Still, you know, it seems

It would be easier sometimes

To change the past.

--Jackson Browne,

"Fountain of Sorrow"

It was inevitable -- so depleted has our political vocabulary become, and so sterile our debates -- that the word "quagmire" would recycle from its Nam-era usage. And it was inevitable -- so great our perplexity across the generations with that torment -- that Iraq should come to be cast as "another Vietnam." It isn`t, of course. Iraq isn`t Vietnam. Iraq is Iraq.

But we`re still us. And perhaps that`s where the real parallels are to be found. A friend now serving in Iraq, an Air Force colonel who flew with distinction in the `91 war, recently e-mailed me the old Pogo refrain by Walt Kelly: "We have met the enemy and he is us."

Yes, we`re still us. And we would do well to pause a moment before this particular fountain of sorrow that is our endless attempt to make the world more like us, and try to understand what it is that makes us do it.

Now the things that I remember seem so distant, so small

Though it hasn`t really been that long a time.

What I was seeing, wasn`t what was happening at all,

Although for a while our path did seem to climb.

But first, about the quagmire.

There are significant resemblances between Vietnam and Iraq, as well as major differences (no Soviet Union, no China to constrain us).

We entered both wars under more-or-less false pretenses. We now know that the Tonkin Gulf Resolution of August 1964, by which Congress played Pilate with the blood of millions, was a "fill-in-the-blanks" White House document, drafted months before. We now know that the second Tonkin Gulf incident, which LBJ used to justify the war and, en passant, neutralize Vietnam as a `64 campaign issue, never happened. And he knew it. (The American destroyers were tracking and firing on friendly commando boats, a fascinating tale in itself.)

As for Saddam Hussein`s alleged links to al-Qaida and his world-threatening weapons of mass destruction and his imminent hostile intentions toward us, suffice it to say that a lot of little questions about the administration`s rationale are starting to add up to One Big Question.

LBJ lied repeatedly about the extent of our planned involvement, the necessary duration of that involvement and the ultimate cost. No JFK-style "Pay any price, bear any burden" rhetorician, he oft proclaimed that he wanted history to say of him, "He stuck it out." ("We chopped it off," we of draft age later proclaimed.)

After President Bush`s recent "$87 billion, please" speech, who doubts that we`re back in that prattle again? Certainly not Vice President Dick Cheney and his hints that, not to worry, next year we`ll be back for more.

We face in Iraq, as we did in Vietnam, a classic guerrilla campaign. Four basic tactics.


Make us bleed. Attacks and casualties daily, plus occasional spectaculars.


Radicalize the population against us by forcing us to stern repressive measures and to make mistakes.


Kill and intimidate those who would work with us.


Destroy what we build; steal what we donate; use it against us.

Whom are we fighting? Apparently, a very loose alliance of Saddamniks, disgruntled sects and foreigners streaming in by the thousands from safe havens beyond Iraq`s borders: Jihadi, America-haters, rich, bored young men and poor, desperate young men.

And once again, it appears, we`re increasingly unable to turn military success into political success. This is because Iraq, like Vietnam, is a "mixed" war: part international, part civil, part regional, part political, part ideological/religious. We cannot triumph over all the parts.

And once again, it appears, the troops don`t matter. No draftee expendables this time around, but an equivalent lack of concern. Arbitrarily extended tours (especially for reservists), lack of proper support in the field, even the administration`s shoddy attempt to cut combat, hardship and family separation pay (and billing wounded soldiers $8.10 a day for hospital meals). Bush and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld can sing paeans to the troops every time they get behind a microphone. But they can`t fool them. And there`s a price to be paid for trying.

So that`s a few of the easier quagmire parallels -- along with an intelligence community whose findings were over-hyped when congenial and disregarded when not ... and an American people who never asked for this war, and who will "support" it (LBJ began the practice of legitimizing war by opinion polls) only until it starts to hurt.

Which brings us to us.

But when you see through love`s illusions, there lies the danger,

And your perfect lover just looks like a perfect fool ...

Perhaps the vital Vietnam analogy, the one about us, may be found, not in the latter `60s, but earlier. When the United States assumed responsibility for South Vietnam after the French pullout, we intended far more than keeping it from the commies. We were going to build them a nice, shiny new country with a nice shiny new government, a democracy of sorts that we`d be proud to show off to the world. Ngo Dinh Diem would be, in LBJ`s not-entirely-cynical characterization, "the Churchill of Southeast Asia." And presumably (as we`re hearing now about Iraq), the dominos might work in reverse. A prosperous, democratic South Vietnam would be as a City on a Hill, shining forth by example.

Just like us.

In short, we assigned South Vietnam a role to play within our Cold War context. Vietnam mattered so greatly because, and only because, we said it did, whether we were teaching them civics or rice growing or demonstrating our resolve to demonstrate our resolve. We fell in love with the nation we would create, and the show we would put on there.

How often and how easily we fall in love this way. And how often and at what terrible cost, we`re disabused.

So you go running off in search of a perfect stranger ...

And once again, within the context of another global struggle, we`re assigning a country its role to play. Iraq is vital because we say it is. Therefore, Iraq must become like us, in order to serve as a beacon, just like us, for others of its kind who (we presume), deep down, also want to be like us.

But the loneliness seems to spring from your life,

Like a fountain from a pool.

We -- or, more correctly, the administration and the neoconservatives -- are indeed creating a new Iraq. They`re creating it within their own minds and in our media. They`ll decorate their creation with all the real-world appurtenances of secular progress: schools, infrastructure, consumer goodies, maybe even sufficient "Baywatch" reruns and harder-core porn to distract the less-than-hard-core America despisers. America will build them a fine-looking new constabulary, a competent but non-aggressive new army, a high-minded intelligence service or two. America will help them write a constitution, hold free elections and sustain a (Dare we use the words?) "fair and balanced" media, or at least take calculated comfort in the proliferation of lunatic outlets. America will teach tribal sheikhs the virtues of tolerance; warlords will learn to celebrate diversity.

And when America`s done, in a year or five or 10, the rest of the Arab world will want to be more like them.

Which means, of course, more like us.

And that`s why we did it, and do it, and will do it again. Because, deep down and across all our generations, we cannot resist the temptation to imitate the Creator of Genesis, and Make Man in Our Image.

Bible scholars place the Garden of Eden in present-day Iraq. Adam and Eve learned their limits there. Will we? Again?

Or, to ask it differently: Can the United States create a democratic Iraq capable of withstanding the worst that its foreign and domestic enemies may do, once we leave? And if a democratic Iraq survives to inspire and incite the rest of the Arab world, to what might such inspiration and incitement lead? History teaches that imposing democratic ways on nations not ready for them or interested in them, more often than not, empowers only democracy`s enemies.

Fountain of sorrow, Fountain of life

You`ve known that hollow sound of your own steps in flight ....

We didn`t lose in Vietnam. We weren`t there to lose. By every conventional military standard, we won. Yet we fled. We fled from our own creation, when we could no longer deny its horror and its ugliness. And we fled from ourselves, when we realized that what we`d fallen in love with was a monster of our own creation, an unintended monster, but a monster nonetheless. And how fitting it is that, when we face the marble of The Wall, we see our faces reflected on the names.

We won`t lose in Iraq. We won`t be there to lose. And someday, when the time comes to design the Iraq Memorial, I`d hope for a fountain, a fountain and a pool, in front of The Wall.

So we can see them reflected there, too.



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Philip Gold is president of Aretéa, a Seattle-based public and cultural affairs center.

© 1998-2003 Seattle Post-Intelligencer

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Don`t Mention The Oil. Or Ask About The Victims

Robert Fisk

29 September 2003: (The Independent. UK) "The right thing ... a magnificent job ... heroes ... pride". So off Tony went again yesterday on Breakfast With Frost, spinning and spinning about Iraq.

I wonder what he`d think of the city morgue downtown from here when they bring the gunshot victims in every morning. Or down in the Basra area where the British rule and where, in the past few weeks, 38 corpses have been found, hands and feet tied, each neatly executed with a shot through the back of the neck. Baath party officials, we`re told. Killed, quite possibly, by the Shia Badr Brigade. Yup, things are getting better and better in "New Iraq".

And as for those weapons of mass destruction?

"We know perfectly well he had these weapons, he had these programmes." But is there anyone who doesn`t see through this obfuscation? For when Tony says: "We know perfectly well he had those weapons", he is, of course, referring to the chemical weapons Saddam had more than 10 years ago and which have not existed for years. The "programmes", which we still haven`t discovered, are what Tony hopes the Iraq Survey Group will come up with when they admit in a few days` time that there weren`t any weapons of mass destruction.

No mention of course that when Saddam had these terrible things, the British and American government were happily doing business with Saddam. Why not talk about weapons of mass deception?

Then we have my favourite line. "We were getting rid of one of the most terrible, repressive regimes in the world`s history." Well, I`ve seen the mass graves and I`ve met the torture victims and I`ve been to Halabja and I was denouncing Saddam`s wickedness when the Foreign Office were telling a former editor of mine that I was being too harsh on Saddam. But as for one of the most terrible, repressive regimes in the "world`s history ..." Well, we`ll just forget the Roman Empire with its system of mass slavery and crucifixion and we`ll pass on Ghengis Khan and all the Goths, Ostrogoths, Visigoths, the Inquisition, the anti-semitic Tsars, Mussolini`s Fascist Italy, Stalin`s Soviet Union and that little man with the moustache who caused a wee problem between 1939 and 1945.

I`m afraid that even by Saddam`s demented values, he doesn`t come close to the latter. But in the wheel of historical fortune in which our Tony lives, it doesn`t matter a damn. Actually, I rather prefer Thomas Friedman`s depiction in The New York Times of Saddam as a cross between Don Corleone and Donald Duck. But you can`t bang your fist on your heart and clang your armour for such a creature. And how are the victors really faring? Well in Baghdad today, there are more roads blocked by the occupation authorities than there were under Saddam. There`s a grey concrete wall along the Tigris river bank three miles in length and 20 feet high to protect the occupiers and another one of two miles to protect the so-called Interim Council and there are walls around the Baghdad Hotel where the CIA lads stay and there are soldiers on Humvees on every road pointing rifles at the Iraqis they came to liberate and there is a ruthless resistance movement increasing in size by the day.

The Americans are keen to have some "rules of engagement" for their occupation soldiers and they`ve just received them - at Washington`s request - from, wait for it, the Israeli Defence Force. So stand by, I suppose for yet more shooting at demonstrators and stone throwers and more brutal night raids with innocents killed. But according to Tony, it was all a jolly successful war.

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Iraqi Insurgents Ambush U.S. Convoys
By TAREK AL-ISSAWI
The Associated Press
Monday, September 29, 2003; 3:13 PM
KHALDIYAH, Iraq - Iraqi insurgents ambushed U.S. convoys with roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades Monday, triggering an eight-hour battle in which the American military sent in fighter jets, bombers, helicopters and tanks. One U.S. soldier was killed and three were wounded.
And in northern Iraq, U.S. soldiers launched two dozen raids, arresting 92 people and seizing weapons and ammunition. One of the raids involved the largest joint operation between U.S. military police and American-trained Iraqi police; about 200 Iraqi officers took part.
The two ambushes hit U.S. military convoys about 9 a.m. in the Sunni Muslim towns of Habaniyah and Khaldiyah, six miles apart along the Euphrates River and about 50 miles west of the Baghdad.
As the major firefight raged in Khaldiyah, it seemed as though the Americans were pinned down, with the insurgents opening fire each time the U.S. patrol tried to withdraw. Eventually commanders called in jet fighters, A-10 Thunderbolt attack aircraft, helicopters and tanks.
The attackers apparently hid in trees and shrubs lining the dirt road where the roadside bombs left four big craters.
Reporters saw four badly damaged farm compounds in the al-Qurtan neighborhood on the north side of Khaldiyah, scene of several previous firefights between the U.S. military and guerrilla fighters. Angry residents cursed at reporters who entered the fire zone after the battle.
Civilians, including women and children, fled. One Iraqi man, running away with his wife, three other women, a nephew and five children, said many homes were damaged. He refused to give his name.
"Is this the freedom that we were promised?" he asked. "I had to get my family out. ... The helicopters were firing almost nonstop. My 7-year-old is too young to hate but how can he not hate them (the Americans) after this?"
Lt. Col. Jeff Swisher, of the 1st Infantry Division, defended the use of force.
"American forces are here to provide security for the Iraqi people. If we are attacked, we are a well-trained and disciplined force, and we will respond," Swisher said.
"At 9 this morning an American patrol was ambushed by IEDs (roadside bombs), RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) and small arms fire. The patrol returned fire and support was called in," Swisher said.
He said two soldiers were wounded and a civilian was hurt in the battle, from which U.S. forces did not begin withdrawing until about 5:30 p.m.
About 10 minutes after the ambush in Khaldiyah, a homemade bomb exploded as a U.S. convoy passed in Habaniyah, killing one soldier and wounding another, said U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. George Krivo.
Six soldiers from the 82nd Airborne Division were wounded Sunday in nearby Fallujah in another roadside bombing, U.S. officials said.
Meanwhile, soldiers of the 4th Infantry Division launched two dozen raids in Saddam Hussein`s hometown of Tikrit, 120 miles north of Baghdad, and other areas in the north of the country, arresting 92 people and seizing weapons and ammunition.
The operations, which ended Monday morning, were designed to "break the back of the Fedayeen," said Lt. Col. David Poirier, who commands the 720th Military Police Battalion based in Fort Hood, Texas.
"The people we went after are the trigger-pullers attacking the coalition," Poirier said. "We want to send the message that if you pull the trigger on the coalition, we will get you."
Of the 92 arrested, four were taken into custody in the joint U.S.-Iraqi raid.
Raids in the 4th Division sector have intensified after Iraqi resistance fighters shot and killed three Americans in an ambush two weeks ago just outside Tikrit. In a coordinated series of attacks and ambushes against U.S. forces last week, nine Iraqi fighters also were killed.
In another incident, 4th ID troops late Sunday killed one Iraqi and captured three others in a shootout nine miles south of Balad, U.S. officials said. In the car, troops found two M-16 rifles that belonged to two American soldiers who were abducted and killed in June, officials said.
In a village near Kirkuk, 145 miles northeast of Baghdad, U.S. troops were dispatched when 200 people marched on a government building, according to Maj. Gordon Tate of the 4th Infantry Division.
Arab satellite broadcaster Al-Jazeera reported U.S. troops fired on the crowd, killing a 10-year-old boy. Tate said American forces did not shoot although someone in the crowd did fire. The Americans said they did not know how the boy was killed.
As the fighting raged and the number of soldiers to die in Iraq since the war rose to 305, European foreign ministers called for the United States to cede power to an independent, sovereign Iraqi government "as soon as feasible."
At their monthly meeting, the 15 European Union foreign ministers said a new U.N. Security Council resolution was essential to formalize a transfer of power from the U.S.-appointed Iraqi Governing Council and that the United Nations "should play a vital role" in Iraq`s reconstruction. The ministers were unable to agree on a timetable, however.
© 2003 The Associated Press


Summary
US UK Other* Total Avg Days
310 51 2 363 1.88 193

Latest Military Fatality Date: 9/29/2003

09/29/03 Boston.com(AP): Polish Soldier Killed
On Sunday, the Polish military reported that one Iraqi was killed and a second was detained after a gunbattle with a Polish patrol near the city of Hilla
09/29/03 Yahoo(Reuters): US soldier killed in Iraqi attack
A US soldier has been killed when guerrillas used a bomb planted on a road and gunfire to attack a military convoy west of Baghdad
09/29/03 CNN: At least 6 US soldiers wounded in Iraq attack
At least six U.S. soldiers have been wounded in a bomb attack in the city of Fallujah, west of the Iraqi capital
09/29/03 Yahoo(Reuters): U.S. forces attacked near Baghdad
U.S. military convoys have been attacked in a restive area west of Baghdad and residents report at least one U.S. casualty.
09/27/03 Department of Defense
DOD announces death of Army Reservist, struck by car in U.S. while on leave from Iraq.
09/27/03 Northwestern: Oshkosh soldier hurt in Iraq
A 24-year-old Oshkosh soldier is on the mend after being wounded during a patrol in Iraq.
09/27/03 VOA News: US Fire Killed 4 Civilians
Iraqis in the town of Fallujah say U.S. troops have killed four civilians after opening fire on two cars at a checkpoint.
09/27/03 CNN: Rocket attack on Baghdad hotel
At least one rocket-propelled grenade hit a Baghdad hotel housing U.S. military officers and civilian support staff on Saturday morning, but there were no reports of casualties
09/26/03 Department of Defense
DOD announces the death of a third U.S. soldier on Sept. 25th ... an Army National Guardman struck by a forklift at Shuabai Port, Kuwait.
09/26/03 Centcom: 1 soldier killed and 2 wounded
One 173rd Airborne Brigade soldier was killed and two were wounded in a rocket-propelled grenade attack against their military vehicle in Kirkuk at approximately 11 p.m. on Sep. 25.
09/26/03 Centcom:1 soldier died and 1 was injured
One 4th Infantry Division soldier died and one was injured in a fire in an abandoned building in the Tikrit area at approximately 7:15 p.m. on Sep. 25.
http://www.pigstye.net/iraq/index.php?display=new

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Ein offener Brief an Soldaten, die an der Besatzung des Irak teilnehmen
von Guy Grossman u. James Skelly
ZNet 26.09.2003


Wir schreiben diesen Brief, denn wir sind beides ehemalige Militäroffiziere. Die Konflikte, an denen wir teilnahmen, mündeten in moralische Abgründe. Wir mussten hart kämpfen, um unsere Humanität zu retten. Wir kennen das moralische Dilemma, mit dem sich einige von Euch auseinandersetzen. Wer von Euch jetzt im Irak ist, stellt sich sicher die Frage, welchen Zweck verfolgt dieser Krieg und die daran anschließende Besatzung? Und weshalb wollen soviele Iraker, dass wir so schnell wie möglich wieder verschwinden? Soviel ist klar, viele von Euch werden in Situationen hineinkatapultiert, die Euch vielleicht lebenslang verfolgen. Zweifellos wart ihr nicht darauf vorbereitet, irakische Zivilisten zu töten - etwas, was jetzt regelmäßig vorkommt. Ihr seht Euch mit Problemen konfrontiert, die Folge einer schlecht geplanten Okkupation sind - geplant, durch Eure Vorgesetzten. Wir wissen, wie schwer es sein kann, in angespannten Situationen zwischen Freund und Feind zu unterscheiden - siehe die Situation in Falludschah Anfang des Monats, als mehrere (irakische) Polizisten getötet bzw. verletzt wurden.

Sicher seid Ihr zunehmend wütend angesichts des sinnlos erscheinenden Tods Eurer Kameraden und angesichts der eigenen Unfähigkeit zu entscheiden, wer von den irakischen Zivilisten, die Ihr “befreien” wolltet, Euer Feind ist. Von Zeit zu Zeit, dessen sind wir sicher, werden einige von Euch an Rache denken - angesichts des Tods von Kameraden. Wir bitten Euch dringend, gebt diesen Gefühlen nicht nach. Dadurch macht Ihr das Leben der unschuldigen Menschen nur noch gefährlicher, und Eure Humanität ist gefährdet. Politische Führer, die glauben, eine gewisse Anzahl Toter in Euren Reihen sei durchaus “akzeptabel” - bzw. eine noch größere Anzahl toter irakischer Zivilisten -, haben Euch in diese höllische Situation gebracht. Denkt daran, letzten Endes tragen sie die Schuld an den Situationen, die Ihr inzwischen täglich erlebt. Euch ist klar, der bewaffnete Konflikt im Irak wird wahrscheinlich noch sehr lange dauern - im Gegensatz zu dem, was das Pentagon vor Eurer Entsendung sagte und trotz des angeblichen “Siegs”, den George Bush verkündete, als er auf der USS-Lincoln landete.

Möglich, dass einige Eurer Kameraden keinerlei moralische Skrupel kennen bei dem, was sie tun - wie jener US-Soldat, der kurz nach der eigentlichen Invasion auf dem Frontcover-Foto einer britischen Zeitung abgebildet war: ‘KILL ‘EM ALL’ (tötet sie alle) stand in roter Farbe, die wie Blut wirken sollte, auf seinem Helm. Sicher töten einige (von Euch) - so wie er - voller Enthusiasmus. Wenn Ihr Euch nicht sicher fühlt bei dem, was Euch befohlen wird, werdet Ihr in so einer Umgebung sicher versucht sein, Eure Zweifel für Euch zu behalten. Falls Ihr sie aussprecht, wird man Euch wahrscheinlich schikanieren - verbal oder körperlich. Vielleicht werdet Ihr Euch sogar einem formalen disziplinarischen Prozedere stellen müssen. In dem Fall gibt es eine Reihe von Dingen, die Ihr wissen solltet. Die meisten Menschen auf der Welt begreifen, Saddam Hussein war ein tyrannischer Diktator, der viele Menschen, die unter seinem Regime lebten, töten oder erniedrigen ließ. Aber den meisten Menschen der Welt ist auch bewusst, dass das Vorgehen der US-Regierung bei der Beseitigung Saddams nicht von internationaler Seite abgesegnet war und dass es dabei um ganz andere, weniger edle Motive ging bzw. dass das Ganze zur Tötung einer beträchtlichen Anzahl unschuldiger Menschen geführt hat. Dabei hätten durchaus friedlichere Alternativen bestanden.

Wir waren gegen diesen Krieg, und wir sind gegen die bewaffnete Okkupation, die darauf folgte - nicht nur, weil nach wie vor soviele Unschuldige sterben sondern auch, weil das Ganze zu noch weniger Sicherheit geführt hat - überall auf der Welt. Dieser Krieg hat einer internationalen Ordnung, die sich auf die Herrschaft des Rechts stützt, weiter die Grundlage entzogen. Er fördert ein globales Regime der Unordnung, bei der häufig willkürliche Gewaltanwendung den Schiedsrichter spielt. Die Besatzung der palästinensischen Territorien durch die israelische Armee ist auch so ein Beispiel. Überall in Israel führt sie zu einer Verschärfung der Sicherheitslage. In vergleichbarer Weise erzeugt die Irak-Besatzung weltweit eine noch bedrohtere Sicherheitslage - auch in den USA. Und noch eine Sache solltet Ihr Euch bewusst machen. Menschen auf der ganzen Welt, auch viele in den USA, betrachten es als heldenhafte Tat, wenn Ihr einfach “nein!” sagt. Nein, Ihr wollt nicht länger Teil dieser mörderischen Besatzung sein, mit der Ihr und Eure Kameraden konfrontiert seid, und sagt zweitens ‘nein’ zu dem undurchsichtigen moralischen Sumpf, den dieser Krieg erzeugt hat. Inzwischen ist klar, dass die Rechtfertigsgründe für diesen Krieg, die die politischen Führer Amerikas und Großbritanniens anführten, wenig mit der Realität zu tun hatten. Geheimdienstinformation hatte sie darauf vorbereitet, ein Krieg könnte weltweit zu noch mehr Terror führen - und nicht zu weniger Terror. Und noch etwas solltet Ihr wissen: Eine maßgebliche Anzahl Juristen argumentiert, die Irak-Invasion war gemäß internationalem Recht illegal. Zumindest theoretisch könnten die Führer der Vereinigten Staaten und Großbritanniens also einem Kriegsverbrecherprozess entgegensehen. Angesichts der Macht, den ihre Positionen mit sich bringen, ist es zwar nicht sehr wahrscheinlich - andererseits: wenn (im Irak) soviele Zivilisten getötet werden, dass es für diese Leute zum politischen Problem wird, könnt Ihr sicher sein, dass man Euch oder Eure Kameraden auf die Anklagebank setzt, und die Anklage wird auf ‘Verbrechen’ lauten. Im Falle der getöteten Polizisten in Falludschah könnte es dazu kommen - vielleicht auch nicht. Wir sind beide der Meinung, man wird einen weiteren unglücklichen Zwischenfall abwarten und kurz darauf handeln.

Philip Caputo schrieb in seinem Buch ‘Rumor of War’ (‘Stoßtrupp durch die grüne Hölle’ heißt die deutsche Übersetzung; sie ist nicht mehr im Buchhandel erhältlich, evtl. antiquarisch, die Übersetzerin) über seine eigenen Erfahrungen als Platoon-Führer in Vietnam. Caputo wurde wegen Mordes angeklagt. Seine Einheit hatte während seines Kommandos zwei Zivilisten getötet, damals, in Vietnam. Die Armee hätte ihn am liebsten als ganz gewöhnlichen Kriminellen vor Gericht gestellt - als Mörder. Es sollte verhindert werden, dass herauskam, dass der Tod der beiden Zivilisten zwangsläufige Folge des Kriegs war - dadurch wäre nämlich noch viel mehr offenbart worden. Caputo musste lernen, dass die Wahrheit nicht beim Namen genannt werden darf. Damit hängen einfach zuviele moralische Fragen zusammen - wie “die Frage nach der Moralität der amerikanischen Intervention in Vietnam”. Um auf den aktuellen Krieg zurückzukommen. Ihr müsst Euch klar sein, die Schuld für jede Aktion, bei der Ihr im Irak mitmacht und die sich für die US-Regierung als politisch brisant entpuppt, wird man auf Euch abwälzen. Die Moralität der Invasion und Okkupation des Irak durch die Regierung soll in keinem Fall infrage gestellt werden. Anders gesagt: “Achtet auf Euren Rücken!”

Sollten Euch so massive moralische Zweifel plagen, dass Eure Humanität in Gefahr ist - wie bei uns beiden, der eine in Vietnam, der andere in Zusammenhang mit der israelischen Besatzung palästinensischen Gebiets -, denkt über Befehlsverweigerung nach, das raten wir Euch dringlich, falls Ihr es mit Befehlen zu tun bekommt, die Ihr nicht guten Gewissens ausführen könnt. Ich habe den Dienst in den von Israel besetzten Gebieten verweigert, weil mir bewusst war, ich könnte keine Militärbefehle mehr ausführen, die mit der Sicherheit meines Landes so gut wie nichts zu tun haben. Ich konnte die Anwendung willkürlicher Militärgewalt nicht länger rechtfertigen - ausgeführt im Namen einer gut kaschierten aber ungerechten Politik. Ich konnte nicht zulassen, dass mein Land mich zum Werkzeug macht, um einer ungerechten Sache zu dienen. Es war mir nicht länger möglich, mit den Folgen meiner Taten zu leben.

Ihr wisst hoffentlich, als amerikanische Soldaten seid Ihr nur gezwungen, “gesetzesmäßigen Befehlen” Eurer militärischen Vorgesetzten zu gehorchen (gemäß ‘Uniform Code of Military Justice’). Folglich ist es Euer gesetzliches Recht, “ungesetzliche Befehle” zu verweigern. Diese Vorkehrung hat man in den Militär-Kodex eingebaut, damit sich kein Soldat - wie damals die deutschen Soldaten nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg - aus seiner Schuld für Kriegsverbrechen herausredet, indem er behauptet, er hätte “nur Befehle befolgt”. Eine weitere Möglichkeit: Ersucht um Entlassung - mittels Kriegsdienstverweigerung aus Gewissensgründen. Um nicht in Vietnam dienen zu müssen, hatte ich (der andere von uns beiden), den Befehl verweigert und um Entlassung als Gewissensverweigerer eingegeben. Das Pentagon lehnte meinen Antrag ab, also verklagte ich den Verteidigungsminister vor dem Bundesgericht: (Ich sagte,) ich würde illegal beim US-Militär festhalten.

Solltet Ihr der Meinung sein, eine bestimmte Militäraktion, oder auch die gesamte Okkupation, sei in ihrer Durchführung eventuell illegal, stehen Euch weitere Mittel zur Verfügung. Ich zum Beispiel berief mich auf Telford Taylors (US-Chefankläger bei den Nürnberger Prozessen) Analyse nach dem Zweiten Weltkrieg. Ich argumentierte, gemäß der damals in Nürnberg entwickelten Standards seien die Mitglieder des US-Generalstabs als eventuell für Kriegsverbrechen in Vietnam verantwortlich zu betrachten. Ich und mehrere andere US-Unteroffiziere verlangten vom Verteidigungsminister eine militärgerichtliche Untersuchung, die darüber entscheiden sollte, ob die Mitglieder des Generalstabs Kriegsverbrecher sind. Dabei beriefen wir uns auf Artikel 135 des ‘Uniform Code of Military Justice’. In dem Artikel ist rechtlich festgelegt, dass der Militärgerichtsbarkeit unterstellte Personen verlangen können, dass jede Militärperson, von der sie glauben, dass sie gegen den Militär-Kodex verstoßen hat, einer formalen Untersuchung unterzogen und schließlich angeklagt wird. Natürlich werden Eure Vorgesetzten nicht viel davon halten - ums milde auszudrücken -, aber es ist absolut legal. Der Effekt ist jedenfalls, dass sie sich mehr Mühe geben, damit ihr Verhalten nicht noch mehr in jenen moralischen Sumpf abgleitet, den man jetzt im Irak sieht.

Noch etwas wollen wir Euch zum Schluss ausdrücklich sagen: Ihr seid nicht allein - mit dem moralischen Dilemma, in dem Ihr Euch befindet. Wir beide waren am Anfang auch auf uns gestellt mit unseren moralischen Fragen. Aber schon bald wurde uns klar, dass viele unserer Kameraden ganz ähnliche Skrupel plagen, hinsichtlich der Befehle. Also beschlossen wir, uns zu einem Instrument zu machen, das dazu beiträgt, das Militärpersonal zu organisieren - gegen die Politik unserer (jeweiligen) Regierung. Widerstand des US-Militärpersonals war ein signifikanter Faktor bei der Beendigung des Vietnamkriegs. Ob es ‘Courage to Refuse’* gelingen wird, die israelische Okkupation in den palästinensischen Gebieten zu beenden, bleibt abzuwarten. In jedem Fall sind Anstrengungen dieser Art hilfreich, um die moralischen u. politischen Fragen ans helle Tageslicht zu bringen. Was uns beide persönlich betrifft, so war es wichtig, als Menschen über das zu sprechen, was wir gesehen haben und so unsere Humanität zu bewahren - in Situationen, in denen man von uns erwartete, dass wir sie verleugnen.

Egal, was Ihr tut, bemüht Euch um eine gewisse Grundhöflichkeit im Umgang mit Kameraden und vorgesetzten Offizieren. Sie sind in der gleichen Situation. Wenn Ihr moralische Bedenken zur Sprache bringt - es gibt bestimmte Regeln. Sind es professionelle Soldaten, werden sie sich daran halten. Sollte dies nicht der Fall sein, und sie handeln unprofessionell und schikanieren Euch verbal oder physisch, macht Euch klar, es ist wahrscheinlich eine Folge ihrer eigenen Furcht hinsichtlich des moralischen Dilemmas, in das die politische Führung sie gezwungen hat. Unsere Hoffnung ist, dass Ihr es schafft, Euch diesem Dilemma klar zu stellen - und hoffentlich schließen sich Euch möglichst viele Kameraden an, die ebensoviel Mumm aufbringen wie Ihr. Vielleicht kommt Ihr zu dem Schluss, dass es moralisch korrekt ist, sich weiter an der Besatzung (des Irak) zu beteiligen - wir sind anderer Meinung. Aber wie auch immer Ihr Euch entscheidet, uns ist sehr, sehr wichtig, dass Ihr Eure Entscheidung im hellen Licht moralischer Aufgeklärtheit und politischer Informiertheit trefft. Wir hoffen, Ihr kehrt eines Tages für immer nach Hause zurück- und dies menschlich reicher und nicht ärmer.

* http://www.refusersolidarity.net
siehe hierzu auch unsere Nahostseite unter ‘Seruvniks’

Zur Biografie der beiden Autoren

Guy Grossman ist Philosophie-Doktorand an der Universität von Tel Aviv. Er ist Zweiter Leutnant der israelischen Reserve. Grossman gehört zu den Gründungsmitgliedern von ‘Courage to Refuse’, einer Gruppe, der mittlerweile über 500 (israelische) Soldaten angehören, die sich aus Gewissensgründen weigern, Militärdienst in den Besetzen Palästinensischen Gebieten zu leisten.

James Skelly ist Senior Fellow am ‘Baker Institute for Peace and Conflict Studies’ des Juniata College u. akademischer Koordinator der ‘Peace & Justice Programs’ der Brethren Colleges Abroad. Als Leutnant der US-Navy verklagte er den damaligen Verteidigungsminister Melvin Laird vor US-Bundesgerichten: Skelly wollte nicht nach Vietnam und verweigerte den Befehl. Er ist auch einer der Gründer (US-Westküste) von ‘The Concerned Officers Movement’ u. ‘The Concerned Military’.





[ Übersetzt von: Andrea Noll | Orginalartikel: "Open Letter" ]

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A hard hitting special report into the "war on terror"
Award winning journalist John Pilger

Breaking The Silence
Windows media player 51min.



http://informationclearinghouse.info/video1/35_mb_pilger_bre…

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September 29, 2003
FOREIGN POLICY
`I Understand, Gerd`
By RALF BESTE and GABOR STEINGART,
Der Spiegel

A new normalcy developed during the Schröder-Bush meeting, but differences remain.

How does one alleviate tense relations between two states? Lena Hassinger-Less, an interpreter working for the Chancellor, knows how it works now. She is a stylish and lively woman, which is partly evident in the way she uses all kinds of hand gestures to underscore her speech.

And this is how it happened: Just as German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder and US President George W. Bush began their 40-minute conversation last Wednesday at New York`s Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, Ms. Hassinger-Less` pen managed to escape from her grasp, catapult through the air, and land in the host`s lap. It was an incident that could be neither ignored nor brushed aside with a smile. But the world`s most powerful man defused this mildly embarrassing situation with a refreshing comeback: "This is an attack with weapons of mass destruction." A member of Schröder`s staff later remarked on how pleased he had been about Bush` remark: "That was the ice-breaker."

At that point, the most important objective of the meeting with Bush already seemed to have been achieved: The Chancellor wanted to reestablish a basis for discussion, something the German government and its most powerful ally, following their heated dispute surrounding the Iraq policy, had lacked for a sixteen-month period.

The prevailing opinion at the White House was that it`s about time, and Schröder also felt that it was time to break the silence. He likes to say that nations do not pursue romantic relationships, and in this respect his sentiments echo the words of Otto von Bismarck, former Chancellor of the German Reich, who once wrote in his memoirs that "not even the king" has the right to subordinate the interests of the state to his personal sympathies or antipathies.

In suite 35 H at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel, where the Washington administration has leased an entire floor for 50 years, a lively Bush greeted the German Chancellor with the words "Gerhard, we should let the past lie and look to the future."

The guest from Berlin nodded. The two men, visibly relieved, sat down on mustard-yellow chairs, facing a bouquet of yellow roses. Both men were surrounded by their key combatants: the US President by the Secretary of State, the National Security Advisor, Bush` chief of staff, and a secretary, and Schröder by coalition partner Joschka Fischer, his foreign policy advisor, and the German ambassador.

Following the overture from the master of the house, it was up to the Chancellor to continue this offensive of friendliness. Speaking in German and using the familiar "Du," Schröder went straight to the point with the great George: "I really shouldn`t be here." All hell was breaking loose at home in Germany, he said, as his administration is in the process of trying to push a number of very important social reforms through parliament. "I understand, Gerd," replied the US president, already sounding quite friendly.

The German, clearly encouraged by the president`s affable approach, told the American about the secrets of "Agenda 2010," even mentioning the most significant cosmetic defect in his domestic policy: "George, you know, of course, that I only have a four-vote majority."

The US president was clearly surprised, and in two respects. First, it appeared that he was in fact unaware of just how little latitude the Chancellor has and, second, he had not expected such a disarming display of openness on the part of his guest.

The mood became perceptibly more amiable. After all, as National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice had communicated to the Berlin delegation beforehand, Bush had gone into the meeting with considerable apprehension.

He had not ruled out renewed provocation or at least continued inflexibility, and had ordered the necessary precautions taken: no photographers! Not even the internationally accepted gesture - the handshake - was to be delivered to the global public.

After all, the meeting was poised to begin on a less than positive note. In an earlier meeting, French President Jacques Chirac had given his US colleague an affected lecture on war, peace and international law. According to American sources, George Bush was "pissed off," and became all the more so when Chirac railed against a "policy of fait accompli" in his speech before the General Assembly of the United Nations.

In contrast, Schröder displayed his more charming side. There were no lectures. More importantly, there wasn`t a hint of triumph, which, given the situation in an Iraq embroiled in conflict, would have been both justified and ill-advised. The Chancellor saved his call for "multilateralism" and UN involvement in Iraq - which, in his view, is the only approach that can "guarantee legitimacy" - for his speech before the General Assembly of the United Nations.

The same message sounded far more cautious when delivered personally to Bush. Germany, said Schröder, intends to provide constructive assistance in rebuilding Iraq and help train police officers and soldiers. And weren`t the two men of the same mind when it came to the goal of transferring sovereignty to an Iraqi government? The American commander-in-chief nodded, clearly understanding the difference between Schröder`s proposals and the French demand for the quickest possible transfer of power in the Gulf.

Bush also made it clear to Schröder that although he is a powerful man, his hands are still somewhat tied. "The US Congress will not approve our request for 20 billion dollars for reconstruction if the money simply flows into the hands of some non-legitimate government."

Naturally, said Bush, sovereignty would have to be transferred from the United States to the Iraqis, but that would have to take its orderly and unhurried course. He said he was no dogmatist, especially since his fellow Americans aren`t terribly interested in the struggles surrounding UN resolutions: "Most people in the US don`t give a damn about a UN resolution." Loosely translated (into German), this means that most people couldn`t care less about the wording of UN resolutions.

Perhaps, the Chancellor cleverly suggested, a gradual transfer of sovereignty could ease the situation. Bush played along with Schröder`s remark by noticeably opening his eyes, which he had initially narrowed to small slits. He was clearly impressed by the Germans` eagerness to reach a compromise.

"A new idea" had been born, the President trilled, and suggested that the experts in drafting complex resolutions, "our two foreign ministers," be given the task of resolving this issue: "How do you feel about that, Gerd?"

Later on, the Chancellor was able to proudly announce that he and George had issued a "suitable assignment to the foreign ministers." He was clearly pleased with his words, since it so obviously delineates a division of power between master and underling. Schröder subsequently explained that his friend Joschka would be "absolutely and solely" responsible for "operational issues of foreign policy" or, in other words, the nitty-gritty.

Once they had relaxed, the heads of state were able to devote themselves to cultivating their relations, and to cautiously address their differences. One issue they discussed was Iran, whose nuclear program is particularly irksome to the United States. The Germans are suspicious of the fact that an aggressive stance is beginning to materialize - once again - in the United States. Schröder, who would like to avoid yet another global confrontation, asked the President why the Americans are unwilling to allow the Teheran government to sign a declaration affirming its agreement not to process weapons-grade uranium, so that it would not be completely prohibited from using nuclear energy for civilian purposes.

Bush voiced his disagreement with Schröder`s suggestion, but gently. He too worded his position in the form of a question, taking pains to avoid upsetting the German-American rapprochement. According to Bush, the Iranians have plenty of oil, "so why would they need nuclear energy?" It was a direct pass to Vice Chancellor Fischer, the German Green Party`s top politician, who then commented "I can only support you in this regard, Mr. President," adding that this his position was rather environmentally correct.

Bush smiled thinly. It was a role he didn`t seem particularly keen to assume, and he corrected the energetic foreign minister: "A country as big as the United States can`t just rely on wind power." The Chancellor was visibly pleased, and it was later reported in the minutes that both sides found the remark amusing.

Have German-American relations returned to their former state of normalcy? Schröder and Fischer, at least, would disagree, since they did not in fact abandon any of their prewar positions.

On his flight to New York, the Chancellor declared that he was not traveling to the United States as a supplicant, and on his return flight one of his advisors repeated the sentence that was considered a rallying cry just a few months ago, but now describes little more than a state of affairs: "German foreign policy is determined in Berlin."

It appears that the Americans can live with that. In the lobby of the Waldorf-Astoria, a senior State Department official joked with German Ambassador Wolfgang Ischinger: "If you`re happy and Condi Rice is happy, then so am I."

So the relationship between the superpower and the "European central power" (Schröder) has returned to that sober footing where personal sympathy is important but not decisive. In future, both sides will deal with one another more cautiously and with fewer illusions. "There can be no greater error," said the first American president, George Washington, "than to expect or calculate upon real favors from nation to nation." When seen in this light, Americans and Germans are henceforth partners without pathos.


Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Iraq is still the elephant in the conference chamber
The war will not be Blair`s downfall, but it won`t go away either

Martin Kettle
Tuesday September 30, 2003
The Guardian

Labour`s sidestep of a conference vote on Iraq was a spectacular coup for Tony Blair. It tells us that when he speaks in Bournemouth today the delegates will probably not shout him down either. Blair may not get the acclaim that Gordon Brown won yesterday. But he will survive. This is not to be a hanging day after all.

You can sense that mood in the hall and on the fringe. The conference atmosphere indoors is almost as flat as the sea outside. The Guardian`s lunchtime debate yesterday, potentially a shoot-out between Clare Short and Peter Mandelson on relations with Europe and America, was troubled, but determinedly civil. It was all a far cry from the viciousness of Labour conferences 20-odd years ago.

Maybe this sombre quiescence is all down to manipulation, but that would be too cute an explanation. These delegates are self-disciplined not party-disciplined. Even after Iraq, Labour senses it is still better off with Blair than without him. And who, looking at history, can dispute it? Bad luck, Iain and Charlie. A few more years to wait yet.

The sidelining of Iraq is nevertheless a grubby fix. It is a collective moral failure. As Helena Kennedy said at the Guardian fringe, people may not want to talk about Iraq, but it is still the elephant in the conference chamber. It is there even if the delegates pretend it is not. That is why, in the bigger scheme of things, Sunday night`s decision tolls the bell for an important part of Blair`s celebrated project.

Nine years ago, Blair literally promised a new Labour party. It was a brave and idealistic pledge. Labour would be a mass party for the modern era. The party would be based on individuals. It would be their party. The unions would be sidelined. The party would look like the country.

But this has not happened. At first, it seemed that it might. Membership rose dramatically after 1994. But everything changed in government. The tide of new members went out almost as rapidly as it had come in. Today, membership is as low as ever. And the retreating tide has revealed the unions once more too.

The reinvention of the party didn`t last because New Labour was ultimately afraid of its members. In general these new members supported Blair, and they mostly still do. But at key moments they could not be relied on. Iraq has become the final breaking point in the relationship.

Now there is to be no vote on the issue. Faced with the option of a confrontation with the ordinary members over Iraq and one with the unions over domestic programmes, Blair has unerringly chosen the latter. He knows he has little to fear from standing tough against the unions, even if he loses. Standing tough against the ordinary members, though, is another matter.

Eppur si muove. Even so, it moves. There may not be a vote on Iraq at Bournemouth this week. But the issue will not go away. When Blair stands up in the conference hall today he will make a speech that will echo round the world. But the foreign press will all be there because of what Blair will say about Iraq, not because of what he says about UK labour laws or foundation hospitals.

We know, of course, what he will say on Iraq. He gave the key lines a run-out in his interview with David Frost two days ago. He will say that he faced tough choices and did not flinch from them. He will say that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein is a great liberation for Iraq and the world. He will say that he is proud of our troops. And he will say that history will eventually prove him right.

It looks as though it will pass muster. Perhaps we have all misread the party`s mood. But Blair is not out of the woods on Iraq yet. Hutton looms over the autumn. Blair likes to pretend the threat to him from the inquiry has all been got up by malicious reporters. But it is a cheap shot, and demonstrably untrue.

Another big reason for caution is that the mood in the United States seems to be changing. Ever since September 11 2001, the Democrats have steered clear of the security issue. This was a more sensible decision than many critics here perceived. It prevented George Bush from blaming any difficulties on the Democrats. If the military policy succeeded, then Bush would be the political beneficiary. But if it failed, he would be tied to the failure too.

That failure is now on the agenda. And that has given the Democrats a bit of space and courage that was not there before. There is the start of a process in which politicians can begin to raise doubts about Bush`s competence post 9/11 and on Iraq in particular.

We exaggerate this change at our peril. There is an element of wishful thinking in some accounts of it. But there is movement nevertheless. And it has an effect back here. Every time Wesley Clark or the rest attack Bush over Iraq, they paint Blair into the corner too.

This is a poignant outcome. Blair never utters a word of criticism of Bush on Iraq. Yet, as a study in the current issue of Foreign Affairs magazine by James P Rubin shows, the Blair government was repeatedly at odds with US policy on Iraq.

According to Rubin, Britain privately opposed the way the US military build-up in the Gulf was allowed to set the diplomatic timetable. Britain also argued that if the weapons inspectors were given more time, Russia would be won round to support military action. Blair believed that the White House should have put more effort into the diplomatic initiative than it did. Britain was appalled by Bush administration briefings against Hans Blix. Most important of all, Britain wanted a significant compromise on timing - giving the inspectors several more weeks - in the failed second UN resolution, but Washington refused.

If Rubin is right, then on several occasions, Blair was privately pushing a third way on Iraq, a way that would have won much more international support and that would have greatly eased his difficulties at home. Each time, though, he was defeated by the Americans.

Blair`s position on Iraq ended up as the worst of all worlds. Privately he wanted to give the inspectors more time, but publicly he was the apologist for American choices that he had opposed. On Sunday, Blair told David Frost that he would have done nothing differently in Iraq. The truth is that he tried to do a lot of things very differently from the way they turned out.

If you believe Rubin, then the section of today`s speech on Iraq is not what it seems. At its heart will be a defence of the overthrow of Saddam. But if Blair had done it his way, he would have done it very differently and perhaps less damagingly. Hugo Young was right, in that pained and severe final column that appeared in this space only two weeks ago. Blair on Iraq was less wicked than tragic. He will be around a long time yet. Either way, the mark of Iraq will stay on him always.

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Iraqi defectors` weapons claims were `false`
Julian Borger, Washington
Tuesday September 30, 2003
The Guardian

US military intelligence has concluded that almost all the claims made by Iraqi defectors about Saddam Hussein`s alleged secret weapons were either useless or false, it was reported yesterday.

The assessment by the Pentagon defence intelligence agency (DIA), leaked to US journalists, amounts to an indictment of the Iraqi National Congress, which brought the defectors to Washington`s attention, adding to the momentum towards invasion. A DIA official would not confirm or deny the report`s existence yesterday, saying any such document would be classified, but adding: "Any intelligence we get from an individual we never use as a sole source but we add it to our database.

"We don`t make decisions or take action based on sole sources."

The leak reflects a growing backlash by the US intelligence agencies - principally the CIA, DIA and the state department`s intelligence arm - whose findings and recommendations on Iraq were overruled before the war in favour of far more sensational assessments made by ideologically driven groups in the Pentagon and the vice-president`s office.

"All this is coming out now, because they didn`t have the political spine to do it before," said Vincent Cannistraro, a former head of CIA counter-intelligence operations.

"Now the tide has turned internally in terms of the use of intelligence before the war."

In another sign of that turning tide, the CIA director, George Tenet, has asked the justice department to investigate allegations that one or more administration officials leaked the name of a CIA analyst married to a prominent critic of the administration`s Iraq policy, Joseph Wilson.

Mr Wilson, a former ambassador and a member of the national security council, has said he believes the leak came direct from the White House, and has hinted that one of the sources could have been President Bush`s chief political adviser, Karl Rove.

The White House spokesman Scott McClellan said: "There has been absolutely nothing brought to our attention that suggests White House involvement."

The DIA report strikes at the heart of administration`s justification for going to war: that the Iraqi regime represented an imminent danger to the US because of its development of weapons of mass destruction.

A report by a CIA-led search team, the Iraqi Survey Group, due to be delivered to Congress this week, is expected to confirm that no stockpiles of such weapons have been found after a six-month hunt.

Much of the US and British case against Saddam was built on the testimony of defectors, and in Washingtonat least, most of those defectors were shepherded out of Iraq by the INC.

DIA officials interviewed about half a dozen defectors in European capitals and in the Kurdish-run northern city of Irbil in late 2002 and 2003.

They brought with them claims that Saddam was continuing to build biological, chemical and nuclear weapons underground and undetected by UN inspectors.

But according to the DIA report, only a third of the information they provided was of any interest, and most of the leads arising from the rest proved groundless.

The INC defectors were largely spurned by the CIA and state department, who believed they were concocting stories in the hope of being resettled in the US.

But they won an enthusiastic audience in the Pentagon`s office of special plans (OSP), set up after September 11, which became a parallel civilian channel for intelligence on Iraq, operating independently of the uniformed officers running the DIA.

According to yesterday`s edition of Time magazine, the INC`s American representative in Washington, Francis Brooke, was in weekly contact with the head of the OSP, William Luti, in the build-up to the war.

Neither Mr Brooke nor the INC office in Washington returned calls yesterday.

The OSP has been disbanded since the war, but its staff remains at work under different titles in the Pentagon.


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US responds in strength to latest ambushes
Rory McCarthy, Khaldiya
Tuesday September 30, 2003
The Guardian

American troops, helicopters and jets carried out an eight-hour operation west of Baghdad yesterday after one US soldier was killed and three wounded in two ambushes.

An Iraqi resident of Khaldiya said many tanks and other vehicles were destroyed.

In separate raids to the north, around Saddam Hussein`s home town, Tikrit, troops of the 4th Infantry Division said they had arrested 92 suspects and seized weapons. These raids appeared to be in response to an ambush earlier this month in Tikrit in which three soldiers were killed.

"The people we went after are the trigger-pullers attacking the coalition," said Lieutenant Colonel David Poirier, commander of the 720th Military Police Battalion, who led the joint raids with 200 newly retrained Iraqi police officers in Tikrit and other northern areas.

"We want to send the message that if you pull the trigger on the coalition, we will get you."

The two attacks about 60 miles west of Baghdad, near Khaldiya, each involved roadside bombs detonated as military convoys passed. Gunmen then attacked the vehicles with rocket-propelled grenades and gunfire.

Within minutes dozens of armoured vehicles had converged on the rural al-Qurtan area, north of Khaldiya. For eight hours the US troops fired on farmhouses. Four attack helicopters circled overhead, firing at targets on the ground, and strike jets flew low over the area.

"Many tanks and vehicles were destroyed with the rockets," said Abbas Mahtar, an Iraqi from Khaldiya who saw the attacks.

"The Americans called in reinforcements to rescue their injured. Then the Iraqi resistance attacked these extra troops. There was heavy fighting. It was the biggest attack we have seen here against the Americans."

It was unclear if the US suffered more casualties. Several ambulances and medical helicopters were seen in the area and residents insisted that dozens of soldiers had been killed or wounded.

They said an Iraqi woman was killed in the shooting and five people were wounded. At least 14 men were arrested.

US soldiers blocked a bridge across the Euphrates leading to al-Qurtan. When troops left the villagers found many of their homes badly damaged.

Crowds gathered at two houses which had been hit several times by heavy machinegun fire and rockets. Abid Ahmed Shibab, 40, who was in one of the houses when the tanks opened fire, said: "They were shooting everywhere. They were just trying to provoke us - to harm us. We are not the resistance. We are not the mojahedin."

He said the owner of the house, Salah Hassan, who ran a small building company, had been arrested, together with his son and a cousin.

"They had no link to the former regime. They had no link to any operation against the Americans," he added.

Since the regime fell in April, US troops have been come under attack dozens of times west and north of Baghdad. On Sunday six soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division were injured in Falluja, east of Khaldiya, when their convoy hit a roadside bomb.

Dozens of civilians have been killed by US soldiers in a series of accidents and raids in the same area, increasing the anger and frustration shared by most people in Falluja and Khaldiya.

Baghdad also continues to be plagued with violence. A member of a committee appointed by the governing council to draft a new constitution was shot at on Sunday as he drove home. Jalaladin al-Sagher, a Shia cleric, was not injured.

Last week, Aqila al-Hashimi, a member of the governing council, was shot outside her home and later died.

Yesterday a Baghdad shop which sold video discs of atrocities committeds by Saddam`s regime was blown up. The owner said he had received leaflets warning him to stop selling the discs.


Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

[Joerver]

Blair: Three out of five voters say he lied over Saddam threat
By Andrew Grice
30 September 2003


Three out of five people believe that Tony Blair lied over the threat posed by Iraqi weapons in the run-up to war, according to an NOP poll for The Independent.

But the survey suggests that replacing Mr Blair with Gordon Brown would not boost Labour`s appeal. The Prime Minister will today deliver a barely coded rebuke to his Chancellor by warning that the Government cannot take the soft option on its public service reforms.

The NOP poll, conducted at the weekend, found that 41 per cent of people want Mr Blair to resign as Prime Minister, while 52 per cent do not. Fifty-nine per cent think Mr Blair lied over the Iraqi threat, while 29 per cent do not.

The good news for Mr Blair is that Labour, on 38 per cent, enjoys a nine-point lead over the Tories (29 per cent), who are only narrowly ahead of the Liberal Democrats, on 27 per cent. If Mr Brown were Prime Minister, Labour`s lead would increase by one percentage point.

With Mr Blair`s leadership being called into question by his own party as never before, there were signs of tension between him and Mr Brown over the Government`s direction. Yesterday the Chancellor won a rapturous response at the conference when he said that the party was "best when we are Labour". He pointedly refused to mention the Blairite "New Labour" mantra.

In his keynote speech to Labour`s annual conference, the Prime Minister will say: "The decisions taken must be the right ones, not the easy ones." His words will be seen as a deliberate riposte to Mr Brown. Cabinet ministers loyal to Mr Blair saw Mr Brown`s address as an attempt to stake out different ground. One said: "Gordon was saying we can have the reforms as long as we keep the party united. That means taking the soft option."

Mr Blair will insist that his reforms are completely in line with Labour`s traditional values, declaring: "Reform is the route to social justice."

The Prime Minister will say that there can be no "retreat" from his changes but will try to win over his critics by promising that the next phase of his New Labour project, "renewal", will include a different style of governing. He will pledge "dialogue and debate" before policy decisions are announced. Mr Blair will insist that nothing should be allowed to stand in the way of "getting the best" for the British people.
30 September 2003 09:34



© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

[Joerver]

Python, and how to survive it
As the Monty Python team publish a definitive history, John Cleese tells John Walsh about his new life as a Californian rancher and part-time university lecturer
29 September 2003


As Keith Richards once said of Mick Jagger - John Cleese is an interesting bunch of guys. To Sixties coming-of-agers such as myself, he was the stern-visaged but hilarious pack-leader of Monty Python`s Flying Circus. To my children, he`s Basil Fawlty, and no one else. To the new Encyclopaedia of British Film, he`s "a polymath of British comedy in the last third of the 20th century". To an army of Python and Fawlty nostalgics, he`s a puzzle - the funniest man they`d ever seen, sidetracked, after all the laughter died away, into lots of dull musings (and spin-off books) on psychology and family group dynamics. To American film audiences, he was the freakishly tall Brit lawyer who shagged Jamie Lee Curtis in A Fish Called Wanda. To the natives of Montecito, a posh suburb of Santa Barbara, he`s the oddball Englishman in California. And this morning, as I interrupt his breakfast at 8.45am, he is being The Doting Father.

I had asked him, is it true that you have a ranch, and are therefore, technically speaking, a rancher? The explanation took a while: how he and his third wife, Alyce, bought their Montecito beach hut in 1994, and five years later she came to him, "trying to look cute", and suggested they buy a ranch. "I thought, `It`s happened at last, time to make that phone call and have her taken away somewhere she`ll be looked after` - but then I went to see it...

"It was owned by Diandra Douglas, Michael`s ex-wife. News that Michael was expecting a baby by Catherine Zeta Jones might have driven her over the edge, because she suddenly dropped the price by about half... It`s not enormous, just 15 acres, but it`s still pretty big for someone who used to have a postage stamp for a back garden."

Yes, but why do you need a ranch? "Half of it is hillside, and half is where we keep the horses, because my daughter Camilla is seriously good at horse-riding." And then all the Doting Father stuff came out - Camilla this, Camilla that, grand-prix tournaments, shows in the Midwest, riding against professionals, amazingly high jumps, she`s soooo brilliant, she`s starting at UC Santa Barbara next week, studying anatomy, statistics and chemistry... "She`s such an interesting girl," he concluded, with misty-eyed fondness.

Cleese the benign family man is a surprise, where one expected (because of his books on "surviving" families) a neurotic martinet. But you get the impression that he`s thrilled to contemplate a life just getting under way, and compare it with his own. Because, at the age of 63, Cleese is in a curious position. His glory days as the doyen of Python zaniosity are not so much ancient history as the stuff of mythology. The TV shows and movies are enshrined on DVDs. Fawlty Towers seems to be repeated on a tape-loop on BBC2, Monty Python`s Life of Brian topped the Empire magazine poll of Best Ever Comedies (it even beat Some Like It Hot), and all the career highlights were so long ago - leaving Mr Cleese with what Dylan Thomas`s widow Caitlin called "a leftover life to kill".

"Someone asked me the other day, `What do you do?`," said Cleese. "And I said, `Mainly interviews about things that I did more than 25 years ago`..." He is, in fact, as busy as a bull at a china convention, as we shall see. But this week sees the launch of The Pythons Autobiography by The Pythons, a 360-page oral history of the high watermark of British surrealism, told in the words of the participants. It ranges wide, through the back-history of Cleese, Palin, Idle, Chapman, Jones and Gilliam - sketching a tour d`horizon of the whole British comedy landscape since 1962 (taking in en route such landmarks as At Last the 1948 Show, I`m Sorry I`ll Read That Again and The Frost Report), and telling you everything you`ll ever need to know about the Ministry of Silly Walks sketch and the Knights That Say "Ni!" sketch in Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

But through Cleese`s contributions, you can hear the plaintive tone of a man who has convinced himself that he`s in the wrong job, the wrong game, the wrong trousers. Up to the age of 18, he was steered into scientific subjects, without having the least disposition to be a scientist. And: "I don`t think I ever believed that my soul really was in showbusiness," he writes. As for being an actor - "When I wasn`t acting, I never missed it. I was very happy being a writer.

"Of course, acting brings in 10 times the money that writing does. But apart from the early years, when I was figuring out how to make things work, and being interested in why you got the laugh tonight but not the previous night, you get to the point where you feel a bit like Steve Davis, where your technique`s pretty good but you can`t pretend that doing the same things for the umpteenth time is all that exciting."

He always preferred, he says, working things out in a script, resolving problems of logic or structure. There`s a very rational, scientific mind inside the great farceur`s head. And he`s recently put a lifetime`s accumulated wisdom into practice, taking a university drama class as a stand-in teacher. "The Drama people at UC Santa Barbara said, somebody`s going off to do a Shakespeare festival in Texas and he can`t do his comedy class; would you like to take over? I thought it was an intriguing idea, so I went along. What they liked was that I started off talking about anxiety and how to manage it. I didn`t realise that you can attend drama school every day for five years and no one will talk about it, yet it`s the characteristic feature of the whole acting thing, having to go out in front of people and risk making a terrible fool of yourself."

Though each of the Pythons downloaded their life stories and testimonies of the Zany Years for the book, they haven`t been together in a while. They keep in touch my e-mail rather than physical presence. "I had lunch with Michael [Palin] about three months ago. He`s now in the Himalayas, doing his latest travel programme. Terry Gilliam I tried to have lunch with 12 weeks ago, but he was off to London that day.

"Jonesy [Terry Jones] is doing a series of programmes about medieval England, and I`ve chatted to him now and again. I haven`t seen Eric [Idle] in a very long time. He`s been writing songs for a musical of Holy Grail. We e-mail each other a lot.

"We don`t often sit down in the same room together, but the last time we did, we laughed so much - we laugh more when we`re together than with anybody else. It`s so pleasing that that`s still the case."

That left only Graham Chapman, who is sadly beyond the reach of e-mail, having died of cancer in 1989. His shadow hovers over the Babel of voices, not just because his own contributions are included seemingly from beyond the grave (courtesy of his writings and previous Python histories), but because he is the great Python casualty, an outsider in the group, whose contributions became more problematic as his drinking worsened and he struggled to confront his homosexuality. In the book, Cleese calls his former writing partner "emotionally disconnected", and recalls embarrassing three-hour silences that routinely fell between them. "I was genuinely fond of him, but the longer the relationship went on, there was a lot I just didn`t know - say, twelve-thirteenths of the iceberg."

Inevitably, the book ends on an elegiac note when, during the making of The Meaning of Life, Cleese decided that he`d had enough. "We couldn`t figure out what the film was about, what the core idea was... I just thought, `I don`t want to do this anymore`. I`d reached the point where I wanted to make my own mistakes, not other people`s." By that stage, Fawlty Towers was being hailed as the greatest sitcom in the history of the world, and he didn`t need the Pythons any longer. And with that, he took his leave of the British comic stage.

"I wanted to move on a bit. I was always watching to see if some competition was coming up, and it used to surprise me what little competition there was." Whom has he admired in English comic circles?

"Jennifer [Saunders] and Dawn [French] were terrific together - they were the only women who made me laugh as much as the best men did. And I thought Griff Rhys Jones tremendously funny - he was the only one, apart from Tommy Cooper, who could just stand there and make me laugh. I`ve seen Ricky Gervais in The Office, and that`s very, very good. How clever to do it through a camera crew shooting a documentary, there`s always that edge of detachment. It`s very well done."

Cleese shyly admits that he will himself be back soon on comic TV, in an unlikely setting. "I`m going to do some Will & Grace, partly because I like the show so much - I watch it with my daughter, it`s her favourite show - and partly because it`s directed by Jimmy Burrows, the only TV director I`ve ever worked with whom I`d seriously call a genius."

Burrows directed the episode of Cheers in which Cleese guest-starred as a visiting shrink, being patronised by Frasier Crane. He`s also been signed up by the Food Channel to make a film about wine, a long-held passion. So, what with the horses, the comedy masterclasses, the gay sitcom, and the oenological documentary, he`s spending a pretty busy pre-retirement.

But c`mon, John, I said, when it comes down to it, you`re the bloke from Weston-super-Mare, the City gent with the furled umbrella, the upper-class patrician in The Frost Report, the guy who asked Jamie Lee Curtis, "Have you any idea how ghastly it is to be British?". What`s an Englishman like you doing in the heart of California?

"My stepson`s in Ventura, 20 minutes away. My older daughter`s in Santa Monica, married to Ed Solomon, who wrote Men in Black. Combine that with the weather, the fact the well-paid work is here, I`m outside the ambit of the UK press, and I`m not that well-known here - that`s why I stay."

Of course you`re known, I said. California is full of mad Python and Fawlty fans. "Put it this way," said Cleese. "In England, in terms of well-known-ness, I`m Newcastle United. Over here, I`m Bristol City..."

You can buy `The Pythons Autobiography by The Pythons` (Orion) for £24.99 (rrp £30), incl p&p UK (add £1.50 overseas) by calling 01903 828503 and quoting ref: JAIP
30 September 2003 09:35


© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

[Joerver]

September 30, 2003
Big Increase Seen in People Lacking Health Insurance
By ROBERT PEAR

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 — The number of people without health insurance shot up last year by 2.4 million, the largest increase in a decade, raising the total to 43.6 million, as health costs soared and many workers lost coverage provided by employers, the Census Bureau reported today.

The increase brought the proportion of people who were uninsured to 15.2 percent, from 14.6 percent in 2001. The figure remained lower than the recent peak of 16.3 percent in 1998.

A continued erosion of employer-sponsored coverage was the main reason for the latest increase, the bureau said. Public programs, especially Medicaid, covered more people and cushioned the loss of employer-sponsored health insurance but "not enough to offset the decline in private coverage," the report said.

The proportion of Americans with insurance from employers declined to 61.3 percent, from 62.6 percent in 2001 and 63.6 percent in 2000. The number of people with employer-sponsored coverage fell last year by 1.3 million, to 175.3 million, even as the total population grew by 3.9 million.

Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, said the numbers showed that "the nation must do more" to help the uninsured. Mr. Thompson said, for example, that Congress should provide tax credits for the purchase of private insurance.

But no action is imminent. Congress is preoccupied with efforts to help a large, politically potent group that already has insurance, the elderly, by adding drug benefits to Medicare.

Ronald F. Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a liberal-leaning consumer group, said: "It`s hard to grasp the magnitude of the number of uninsured. It exceeds the aggregate population of 24 states."

The number of full-time workers without health insurance rose by 897,000 last year, to 19.9 million. Kate Sullivan, director of health care policy at the United States Chamber of Commerce, said the increase was alarming and predicted it would continue this year.

"Workplace coverage is becoming unaffordable for many employers and employees," Ms. Sullivan said.

On Friday, the Census Bureau reported that poverty rose in 2002 for the second consecutive year. The poverty rate generally declines when the economy expands, but there is no guarantee that the number of uninsured will also decline.

The number of uninsured increased each year from 1987 to 1998, even when the economy was booming. Small businesses accounted for many of the new jobs then, and such businesses are far less likely to provide insurance.

Health policy experts said the number of uninsured was likely to rise this year because the job market remains weak and many states have cut back their Medicaid programs. The unemployment rate was higher in 2002 than in 2001 and has climbed a bit further this year.

Hanns Kuttner, a health policy analyst at the University of Michigan, said: "Rising rates of unemployment tend to erode health insurance coverage among adults. But when parents lose jobs, their children are more likely to be eligible for public programs."

About 8.5 million children were uninsured in 2002. They account for 11.6 percent of all children under 18. Both numbers were virtually the same as in 2000 and 2001.

Genevieve M. Kenney, an economist at the Urban Institute here, said: "Programs intended to provide coverage for children are working to compensate for the economic downturn and catching a lot of kids who would otherwise be uninsured. But many states, in the midst of a fiscal crisis, have reduced efforts to locate and enroll children eligible for Medicaid."

Men are more likely to be uninsured than women. Men accounted for two-thirds of the increase in the number of uninsured, apparently because they were more likely to lose employer-sponsored coverage.

The number of uninsured men rose by 1.6 million last year, to 23.3 million, while the number of uninsured women rose by 761,000, to 20.2 million.

The drop in coverage came even though the number of people with health insurance increased, by 1.5 million last year, to 242.4 million. But the increase was more than offset by the combined effects of population growth and the decline in workplace coverage.

The proportion of people without health insurance ranged from 8 percent in Minnesota to 24.1 percent in Texas. The rates for Rhode Island, Wisconsin and Iowa, which have made sustained efforts to expand coverage, were similar to the figure in Minnesota.

Texas, facing fiscal problems and unwilling to raise taxes, cut back Medicaid and its Children`s Health Insurance Program this year.

Looking at two-year averages, the Census Bureau said that the proportion of people without coverage fell in New Mexico but rose in 18 states: Colorado, Idaho, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, North Carolina, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Texas, Vermont, Virginia and Wisconsin. The changes in the other states were not statistically significant.

People in the South and the West were more likely to be uninsured. Only 11.7 percent of people in the Middle West were uninsured, compared with 13 percent in the Northeast, 17.1 percent in the West and 17.5 percent in the South.

As an entitlement program, Medicaid expands to meet the need in hard economic times.

Despite the Medicaid program, 10.5 million poor people, or 30.4 percent of those in poverty, had no health insurance last year. This percentage, double the rate for the total population, did not change from the prior year. About 24 percent of all uninsured people were poor.

The proportion of blacks and non-Hispanic whites without health insurance rose last year, to 20.2 percent and 10.7 percent, respectively. The figure for Hispanics was much higher, 32.4 percent, unchanged from the prior year.

Fully one-third of the foreign-born population was uninsured. About 43 percent of noncitizens — 8.9 million of the 20.6 million noncitizens — and 17.5 percent of naturalized citizens lacked coverage.

Among people living in poverty, 49 percent of those who worked full-time were uninsured.

But middle-income households accounted for most of the increase in the number of uninsured. In households with annual incomes of $25,000 to $74,999, the number of uninsured people rose last year by 1.4 million, to 21.5 million, and the increase was most noticeable among households with incomes of $25,000 to $49,999.

At companies with fewer than 25 employees, only 30.8 percent of the workers had employer-sponsored insurance in their own names last year, down from 31.3 percent in 2001. The proportion of workers with insurance also declined at companies with 25 to 99 employees (by 2.4 percentage points, to 54.4 percent) and even at businesses with more than 1,000 employees (by nine-tenths of a percentage point, to 68.7 percent).

Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, said he was working with Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, on a bill that would offer tax credits to jobless workers to buy certain types of health insurance.

"We have long known the problem of the uninsured is serious," Mr. Baucus said. "This week`s data show that it`s getting worse."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

[Joerver]

September 30, 2003
NEWS ANALYSIS
Boiling Brew: Politics and Health Insurance Gap
By ROBIN TONER

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 — The jump in the number of Americans without health insurance is not just another bad economic statistic.

Health care costs are soaring again, after several years of stability; average premiums rose nearly 14 percent this year, the third year of double-digit increases, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. Employers are pushing more of the costs onto their workers, raising co-payments and deductibles. At the same time, many Americans saw their health benefits jeopardized by layoffs, which have continued despite the official end of the recession in November 2001.

In such times, the plight of the uninsured becomes more of a middle-class issue, more of a symbol of real close-to-home insecurity and thus more politically potent, advocates and experts say. Until now, "it`s mainly been an issue of altruism for a discrete and disadvantaged population," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, a liberal consumer group.

"Now that the losses in health coverage are impacting more middle-class and working families," Mr. Pollack said, "this issue becomes one of self-interest for a very substantial part of the population."

Even before the Census Bureau announced the numbers, showing that the number of uninsured Americans had risen by 2.4 million last year, to 43.6 million, most of the major Democratic presidential candidates were campaigning hard on the problems in health care. Not since the 1992 election has the issue drawn so much attention, and the reasons are not hard to find.

For Democrats, it is a powerful symbol of a sluggish economy, of a lack of federal money to deal with domestic problems because of the deficit and the war in Iraq and of what they say is the Bush administration`s insensitivity to the needs of the home front. It could, in short, be a significant vulnerability for President Bush — if the Democrats succeed in framing this election as a referendum on domestic policy.

Republicans argue that the administration has several major initiatives on the table to deal with the problems of cost and access to health care, from its Medicare prescription drug plan to legislation that would cap jury awards in medical malpractice lawsuits.

"If Democrats are seen as obstructing that process, that could be a significant problem for them politically," said Christine Iverson, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee.

The Bush administration has also proposed in the past to expand coverage to the uninsured through the use of tax credits to help them buy insurance. Still, some experts say the administration will eventually have to offer a broader vision on health care as an alternative to the Democrats.

In fact, Americans place the health care issue high on the political agenda, based on recent polls. A CNN/USA Today/Gallup Poll last week found that a candidate`s position on health care was cited as "extremely important" by 43 percent of Americans, just below terrorism (cited by 49 percent) and the economy (49 percent), and well above the environment (30 percent) and taxes (36 percent.)

An NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll in July found that health care costs ranked at the top of Americans` economic concerns, cited by 24 percent, compared with 16 percent who cited high taxes.

Most of the major Democratic candidates have produced a major plan to expand health coverage, generally financing it by rolling back all or part of Mr. Bush`s tax cuts. But Republican strategists are quick to point out that the politics of health care are complicated and that the candidate with the biggest plan is not always rewarded.

The classic example, of course, is President Bill Clinton, who ran on the promise of universal health care only to see his actual plan for national health insurance turn into a political and legislative debacle. Critics said that plan would cost more, create a huge new government bureaucracy and give many Americans poorer health coverage than they already had.

Given the Democrats` reliance on using the tax cut to finance a health care plan, Republicans are very likely to make a version of that argument again. Bill McInturff, a Republican pollster and expert on public opinion and health, said, "A lot of 2004 will be a fight about who is perceived to pay versus who is perceived to get the benefit." In the past, Mr. McInturff said, when middle-income voters sensed they were being asked to pay more so that others received health care, "political paralysis has happened."

Still, he added: "People still don`t get how big an issue this will be. The numbers and the state of the economy and the relationship between the cost of care and what`s happened to the uninsured will be addressed in the 2004 campaign cycle, because it`s what people care about."

The problems in the health care system are related to nearly every issue bubbling domestically, from unemployment to the fiscal crisis in the states. Moreover, even if employment begins to pick up — and new estimates will be released on Friday — nobody is expecting a speedy turnaround in the problems of health care costs and coverage.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

[Joerver]

September 30, 2003
INTELLIGENCE
White House Denies a Top Aide Identified an Officer of the C.I.A.
By ERIC LICHTBLAU and RICHARD W. STEVENSON

WASHINGTON, Sept. 29 — The White House today dismissed as "ridiculous" the suggestion that Karl Rove, senior adviser to President Bush, had illegally disclosed the identity of an undercover C.I.A. officer, as the F.B.I. opened an investigation into the case.

At the same time, the White House rejected growing calls from Democrats for the appointment of a special outside counsel to determine whether someone in the administration had disclosed the officer`s identity in an effort to punish criticism of its Iraqi intelligence by the officer`s husband.

Asked if there was a need for an independent counsel, Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said, "At this point, I think the Department of Justice would be the appropriate one to look into a matter like this."

Pressed on whether there would be a potential conflict of interest for Attorney General John Ashcroft to oversee an investigation that could have immense political implications for Mr. Bush, Mr. McClellan said that there were "a lot of career professionals" at the Justice Department and that "they`re the ones that, if something like this happened, should look into it."

The growing furor underscored the Bush administration`s continued political vulnerability on the issue of whether it exaggerated the threat from Iraq before the war. The developments also raised questions about the relationship between the White House and George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence.

It was the C.I.A.`s general counsel who asked the Justice Department to open an inquiry into the July newspaper column, by the syndicated writer Robert Novak, that identified an undercover C.I.A. agent.

The firestorm over the leak comes at a time when even some Republicans in Congress are beginning to cast a more skeptical eye on the administration`s use of intelligence to make its case against Iraq. In an interim assessment made public over the weekend, the senior Republican and senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee said there were "too many uncertainties" in the intelligence underlying the National Intelligence Estimate used by the administration to justify the war.

Faced with a torrent of questions from reporters, Mr. McClellan engaged in a balancing act all day. He said the issue of disclosing classified information about a C.I.A. officer was "a very serious matter" that should be "pursued to the fullest extent" by the Justice Department. But he also repeatedly said there was no evidence that Mr. Rove or any other White House officials, including those in Vice President Dick Cheney`s office, had disclosed such information.

"There`s been nothing, absolutely nothing, brought to our attention to suggest any White House involvement, and that includes the vice president`s office as well," he said.

Should any White House officials be found to have disclosed the information, he said, they would lose their jobs, "at a minimum."

The White House sought today to head off the calls for a special counsel as numerous Democratic lawmakers and presidential candidates said they doubted that the Justice Department could investigate without at least the appearance of a conflict of interest.

One Democratic presidential candidate, Senator Joseph I. Lieberman of Connecticut, said the situation was reason enough to revive the independent counsel law, which Congress allowed to die in 1999 after widespread concern over Kenneth W. Starr`s Whitewater investigation.

The current regulations, put in place by former Attorney General Janet Reno, give Mr. Ashcroft discretion over whether to appoint a special counsel if the department appears to have a conflict of interest.

In a letter to Mr. Ashcroft the Senate minority leader, Tom Daschle of South Dakota, and three other leading Democrats said, "We do not believe that this investigation of senior Bush administration officials, possibly including high-level White House staff, can be conducted by the Justice Department because of the obvious and inherent conflicts of interest involved."

Mr. Bush ignored a reporter`s shouted question about the matter this afternoon in the Rose Garden.

Mr. Novak`s column centered on a retired diplomat, Joseph C. Wilson 4th, who concluded more than a year and a half ago in a report for the C.I.A. that there was no clear evidence that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium ore from Africa in order to build nuclear weapons.

Mr. Novak disclosed in his column that although Mr. Wilson never worked for the C.I.A., his wife, Valerie Plame, "is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction" and that "two senior administration officials" told him that she was the one who suggested sending him to Africa.

Speaking on CNN today, Mr. Novak said, "Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this." Instead, he said he was doing reporting on Mr. Wilson`s Africa trip when a senior administration official told him the trip was inspired by his wife.

It is a felony for any official with access to classified information to disclose the identity of a covert American agent. Mr. Novak said he did not believe that was the situation.

He said he checked with the C.I.A., which asked him not to use Ms. Plame`s name but gave him no indication that doing so would endanger her or anyone else. He also suggested that Ms. Plame might not have been an undercover agent.

"According to a confidential source at the C.I.A., Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operative, and not in charge of undercover operatives," he said.

In an interview tonight, Mr. Wilson declined to comment on his wife`s job, but said the C.I.A. would not have referred the matter to the Justice Department for investigation if it did not believe national security had been breached and the law broken.

Mr. Wilson backed off somewhat from his previous statements that Mr. Rove had probably leaked the story. But, Mr. Wilson said, "at a minimum, he condoned it, and he most certainly did nothing during the six or seven days after the Novak article appeared to discourage others from talking about it."

Soon after Mr. Novak`s column first appeared, Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, pressed Mr. Ashcroft to open a criminal investigation, and the C.I.A. referred the issue in late July to the Justice Department.

Mr. Ashcroft decided during the past several days to move ahead with a preliminary inquiry, and the Justice Department notified the F.B.I. late today that the bureau would lead the investigation.

"We`ll start with the C.I.A.," said an F.B.I. official. "They`re the ones that held the information, so we`ll go from there to find out who had access to it."



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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September 30, 2003
NEW CONSTITUTION
Iraqi Groups Badly Divided Over How to Draft a Charter
By PATRICK E. TYLER

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 29 — As the Iraqi Governing Council presses for a more rapid end to the occupation and a transfer of sovereignty to Iraqis, a new dispute over who will control the drafting of an Iraqi constitution is bringing to the surface deep divisions between Shiites, Sunnis and Kurds.

Iraqi officials who have been deliberating for two months as a 25-member committee to recommend a procedure for drafting the constitution said they were deadlocked.

Their report, expected out by Tuesday, is likely to kick the complex questions of who should draft a new founding document back to the Governing Council and the occupation powers. Last week, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell challenged Iraqis to complete a new constitution within six months, but committee members said that goal would be all but impossible to achieve.

In interviews, members of the committee blamed religious and ethnic fault lines for their deadlock. Neither the occupation powers nor the United Nations, whose presence here has been sharply reduced after two bomb attacks on its Baghdad headquarters, have tried, the committee members said, to overcome old suspicions between Sunnis and Shiites that one group will try to dominate the other.

One member said the exercise had in effect become a device to defer a complex political negotiation that is crucial to defusing any potential for civil conflict. The report is expected to bring the issue out into the open.

At the core of the dispute is whether to hold elections for a constitutional assembly, a step that some members fear would allow Shiites to dominate the drafting process.

The top Shiite religious leader, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, insists that a national census be organized to affirm the Shiites` majority of 60 to 65 percent of the population, and then followed by an election for the constitutional assembly.

The committee voted 24 to 0 on Sept. 8 to endorse that proposal, but a number of members said they had grave reservations and are quietly pushing for some alternative.

Even if procedures can be agreed on, it could take a year or more to draft a constitution, some committee members predict.

"We need time," said Fuad Massoum, a Kurdish leader who is chairman of the committee. "This is why a census is so important. We must reach agreement of all the members of the Iraqi mosaic."

He said the process would probably require the intervention of the United Nations or an international leader to ensure that each major ethnic and religious group feels that its rights have been protected.

The demographic reality of the Shiite majority in Iraq and the grand ayatollah`s insistence on a census have wakened old fears among minorities — Sunnis, Kurds, Christians and Turkmens. They fear that the Shiites would seek to impose an Islamic state in Iraq, or in other ways weaken the rights of other groups.

Shiite leaders strongly deny this assertion.

"They are afraid of the voice of the majority, but we will manage to eradicate their fears," said Jalal Uldin al-Saghir, who represents Iraq`s largest Shiite religious party on the committee, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq.

But Sunnis and Kurds wonder how sincerely the Shiite religious leaders are committed to democracy, as they insist they are, when their party name calls for "Islamic revolution."

No Sunni member of the committee has openly challenged Grand Ayatollah Sistani`s call for elections, which was underscored in June when he issued a religious ruling, or fatwa, on the subject.

The reclusive grand ayatollah, who was born in Iran but who rejects the activist political role pursued by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, the spiritual leader of the 1979 Islamic revolution in Iran, has positioned himself as the key power broker in Iraq.

He told members of the committee during a meeting on Sept. 11 in Najaf that he had intervened to guarantee that Iraq`s constitution would protect the rights of all ethnic and religious groups and prevent radicals on either side of the Sunni-Shiite divide from hijacking the process.

At least one Sunni member of the committee asserted during deliberations that Shiites did not have a majority in Iraq. Such claims, for Shiites, incite the old fears of disenfranchisement. Whatever steps are taken on the constitution, "if Sistani doesn`t like it, then it is a major crisis," said Kanan Makiya, a constitutional scholar who represents Ahmad Chalabi in the deliberations. Mr. Chalabi is the current president of the 24-member Iraqi Governing Council.

If the deadlock is thrown back to the Governing Council and to the occupying administration, much will rest on the chief American administrator, L. Paul Bremer III, who has not met with the grand ayatollah.

Mr. Massoum and other members of the committee said that instead of elections, a number of Sunni and Kurdish members had pressed for a constitutional assembly to be "selected" by town-hall-style meetings in each of the country`s 18 provinces. That way, the drafting of the constitution would be under the control of a representative body, but no group could use an election mandate to dominate the process.

But Shiites on the committee steadfastly refused this approach.

"Elections are supported by the Shiites and opposed by everyone else," one member said.

Ayatollah Sistani also rejected the "selection" method for deciding who will sit in a constitutional assembly, reportedly asking the committee members in their Sept. 11 meeting, "Why should we let some sheik decide for every member of his tribe?"

Mr. Makiya, praising the grand ayatollah for an "amazingly reasonable" and "utterly democratic" approach, warned that the occupation authority under Mr. Bremer should not try to circumvent the grand ayatollah. Mr. Bremer`s current seven-step plan for political development in Iraq does not include elections for a constitutional assembly.

Sheik Saghir, one of the Shiite clerics on the constitutional committee, said fears that Iraq`s Shiites would act in the same manner Iranian Shiites did during the 1979 revolution were misplaced.

"We don`t want Islamic government in Iraq — it would be a loss for Islam," he said. But at the same time, he said, Shiites are mindful of how British and Sunnis leaders disenfranchised them in 1922.

"The time is right for Americans to come and talk to the Shiites directly so they would know the true Shiites," Sheik Saghir said.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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Iraqis ran through Khaldiya on Monday after a firefight backed by U.S. helicopters, tanks and warplanes.
September 30, 2003
RESISTANCE
U.S. Forces Ambushed in Two Towns
By PATRICK E. TYLER

AGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 29 — American forces were compelled to call in helicopters, tanks and warplanes to fight off an ambush by Iraqi insurgents today in the rebellious city of Khaldiya, military officials and witnesses said. Several soldiers were wounded in the firefight, which lasted at least six hours.

In a virtually simultaneous ambush just six miles away in Habbaniya, a soldier was killed when the convoy he was traveling with was attacked with an explosive device and rocket-propelled grenades, according to The Associated Press.

Both Iraqi towns lie along the Euphrates River in the so-called Sunni triangle, an area of intense resistance to American occupation forces.

A military official said the almost daylong battle in Khaldiya, 40 miles west of Baghdad, began just after 9 a.m. when an explosive device detonated as a military convoy of the 82nd Airborne Division was passing. Guerrillas then opened fire on the disabled convoy with automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades, Lt. Col. George Krivo said.

Military officials said reinforced units of the light infantry division had regrouped and given chase to the Iraqis, who took refuge in a number of houses in the town.

Soldiers in Bradley fighting vehicles supported by attack helicopters sought to flush out and destroy the Iraqi fighters in a battle that lasted into midafternoon, the officials said. There were reports of a number of civilian casualties.

Local witnesses described a fierce battle, with helicopters, fighter jets and tanks attacking suspected guerrilla positions, according to The Associated Press. The witnesses` account, though, said it had taken several hours for reinforcements to arrive, during which time the Iraqi attackers had run away.

Military officials could provide no estimate of the size of the attacking force, nor any estimate of the number of Iraqi deaths. Reuters reported that local residents had said that at least five Iraqis had been wounded during the battle.

The attacks came on a day when the United Nations announced that it had further reduced its international staff in Baghdad, to fewer than 50 people. More than 600 staff members were working in Iraq before the car bomb attack on Aug. 19 against the hotel that served as United Nations headquarters.

In the unstable region west of the capital, the 82nd Airborne has taken a more aggressive approach to resistance after replacing the Third Armored Cavalry Regiment earlier this month. In at least three high-profile incidents since Sept. 12, soldiers from the 82nd have killed Iraqi civilians or Iraqi police officers in incidents near the town of Falluja.

In northern Iraq today, troops from the Fourth Armored Division, operating with about 200 Iraqi policemen, conducted one of the largest search operations yet in the area around Saddam Hussein`s hometown, Tikrit.

The raids are an effort to break the cycle of resistance against allied forces and find important resistance leaders from Mr. Hussein`s military or security services who may be directing attacks. A total of 92 Iraqis were arrested in raids on Sunday night and today, but military officials did not say whether any resistance leaders had been captured.

In Baghdad today, unknown assailants blew up a video store that specialized in selling cassettes of violence and torture meted out by members of Mr. Hussein`s secret services. No one was hurt in the blast.

Also in the capital, confusion continued to surround a street shootout that involved a convoy carrying Jalal Uldin al-Saghir, a Shiite cleric who is on the committee that is to report its recommendations on writing Iraq`s new constitution this week.

Mr. Saghir was not hurt in the gun battle, which jangled nerves after the assassination of Akila al-Hashimi, a member of Iraq`s Governing Council. She was shot by nine gunmen on Sept. 20 and died five days later.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company


A soldier took a position in palm trees after his convoy was attacked, setting off a firefight that lasted hours.

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September 30, 2003
Boom Times on the Poverty Roll

An additional 1.7 million Americans slipped into official poverty last year, ground down by the pernicious joblessness that remains the most salient fact of the economic recovery. Job growth — promised by Republican architects of the new tax cuts favoring the affluent — remains a national dream. The poverty roll rose to 34.6 million people, more than a third of them children, according to new census data. And the grimness of this trend is hardly reversible in the immediate future as the president and the Republican-led Congress pay for the tax cuts, postwar Iraq and other programs with budget deficits that are projected to sap $5 trillion from the nation`s revenue flow over the next decade.

A dark dynamic in the rising poverty is the near tripling of the long-term unemployed in the past three years, to 1.9 million formerly productive workers who have simply given up looking for jobs in the depressed market. Some of the severest poverty and unemployment rates have struck Midwest industrial states, which have suffered many of the 2.7 million payroll jobs lost during President Bush`s watch. Republican lawmakers are now scurrying to cobble together some sort of job program — an effort that seems aimed more at the voting next year in key electoral battlegrounds than at the 12 out of 100 impoverished Americans. It is hard to see these Americans as a priority of Mr. Bush in a year in which he failed to prod Congressional Republicans to reverse the cruel denial of new child-care tax credits to low-income families.

The ominous context for the nation`s mushrooming poverty, jobless and deficit problems was spelled out yesterday by a bipartisan coalition of leading economists and business and government veterans from the Committee for Economic Development, the Concord Coalition and the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. They warned that the coming decade would doubtlessly be "the most fiscally irresponsible in our nation`s history," unless the president and Congress somehow lose their cut-taxes-and-spend enthusiasm.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

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September 30, 2003
The Presidency Wars
By DAVID BROOKS

Have you noticed that we`ve moved from the age of the culture wars to the age of the presidency wars? Have you noticed that the furious arguments we used to have about cultural and social issues have been displaced by furious arguments about the current occupant of the Oval Office?

During the 1980`s, when the culture wars were going full bore, the Moral Majority clashed with the People for the American Way. Allan Bloom published "The Closing of the American Mind" and liberals and conservatives argued over the 1960`s.

Those arguments have died down, and now the best-sellers lists are dotted with screeds against the president and his supporters. A cascade of Clinton-bashing books hit the lists in the 1990`s, and now in the Bush years we`ve got "Shrub," "Stupid White Men" and "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them."

The culture warriors were passionate about abortion, feminism or prayer in schools. But with the presidency warrior, political disagreement, cultural resentment and personal antipathy blend to create a vitriol that is at once a descendant of the old conflicts, but also different.

"I hate President George W. Bush," Jonathan Chait writes in a candid piece in The New Republic. "He reminds me of a certain type I knew in high school — the kid who was given a fancy sports car for his sixteenth birthday and believed that he had somehow earned it. I hate the way he walks. . . . I hate the way he talks. . . . I suspect that, if I got to know him personally, I would hate him even more."

The quintessential new warrior scans the Web for confirmation of the president`s villainy. He avoids facts that might complicate his hatred. He doesn`t weigh the sins of his friends against the sins of his enemies. But about the president he will believe anything. He believes Ted Kennedy when he says the Iraq war was a fraud cooked up in Texas to benefit the Republicans politically. It feels so delicious to believe it, and even if somewhere in his mind he knows it doesn`t quite square with the evidence, it`s important to believe it because the other side is vicious, so he must be too.

The fundamental argument in the presidency wars is not that the president is wrong, or is driven by a misguided ideology. That`s so 1980`s. The fundamental argument now is that he is illegitimate. He is so ruthless, dishonest and corrupt, he undermines the very rules of civilized society. Many conservatives believed this about Clinton. Teddy Kennedy obviously believes it about Bush. Howard Dean declares, "What`s at stake in this election is democracy itself."

The warrior goes out looking for leaders strong enough to crush the devil. Wesley Clark appeals to the warrior mentality when he declares: "This is war. It`s a culture war, and I am their greatest threat. They are doing everything they can to destroy me right now." It doesn`t matter that Clark doesn`t yet have policies. This isn`t about policies. So far the campaign has not been shaped by how much of the Bush tax cut this or that Democratic candidate wants to roll back. It`s about who can stand up to the other side.

To the warrior, politics is no longer a clash of value systems, each of which is in some way valid. It`s not a competition between basically well-intentioned people who see the world differently. It`s not even a conflict of interests. Instead, it`s the Florida post-election fight over and over, a brutal struggle for office in which each side believes the other is behaving despicably. The culture wars produced some intellectually serious books because there were principles involved. The presidency wars produce mostly terrible ones because the hatreds have left the animating ideas far behind and now romp about on their own.

The warriors have one other feature: ignorance. They have as much firsthand knowledge of their enemies as members of the K.K.K. had of the N.A.A.C.P. In fact, most people in the last two administrations were well-intentioned patriots doing the best they could. The core threat to democracy is not in the White House, it`s the haters themselves.

And for those who are going to make the obvious point: Yes, I did say some of these things during the Clinton years, when it was conservatives bashing a Democrat, but not loudly enough, which I regret, because the weeds that were once on the edge of public life now threaten to choke off the whole thing.



Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company |

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September 30, 2003
Who`s Sordid Now?
By PAUL KRUGMAN

It`s official: the administration that once scorned nation-building now says that it`s engaged in a modern version of the Marshall Plan. But Iraq isn`t postwar Europe, and George W. Bush definitely isn`t Harry Truman. Indeed, while Truman led this country in what Churchill called the "most unsordid act in history," the stories about Iraqi reconstruction keep getting more sordid. And the sordidness isn`t, as some would have you believe, a minor blemish on an otherwise noble enterprise.

Cronyism is an important factor in our Iraqi debacle. It`s not just that reconstruction is much more expensive than it should be. The really important thing is that cronyism is warping policy: by treating contracts as prizes to be handed to their friends, administration officials are delaying Iraq`s recovery, with potentially catastrophic consequences.

It`s rarely mentioned nowadays, but at the time of the Marshall Plan, Americans were very concerned about profiteering in the name of patriotism. To get Congressional approval, Truman had to provide assurances that the plan would not become a boondoggle. Funds were administered by an agency independent of the White House, and Marshall promised that priorities would be determined by Europeans, not Americans.

Fortunately, Truman`s assurances were credible. Although he is now honored for his postwar leadership, Truman initially rose to prominence as a fierce crusader against war profiteering, which he considered treason.

Iraq`s reconstruction, by contrast, remains firmly under White House control. And this is an administration of, by and for crony capitalists; to match this White House`s blithe lack of concern about conflicts of interest, you have to go back to the Harding administration. That giant, no-bid contract given to Halliburton, the company that made Dick Cheney rich, was just what you`d expect.

And even as the situation in Iraq slides downhill, and the Iraqi Governing Council demands more autonomy and control, American officials continue to block local initiatives, and are still trying to keep the big contracts in the hands of you-know-who.

For example, in July two enterprising Middle Eastern firms started offering cellphone service in Baghdad, setting up jury-rigged systems compatible with those of neighboring countries. Since the collapse of Baghdad`s phone system has been a major source of postwar problems, coalition authorities should have been pleased.

But no: the authorities promptly shut down the services. Cell service, they said, could be offered only by the winners in a bidding process — one whose rules, revealed on July 31, seemed carefully designed to shut out any non-American companies. (In the face of strenuous protests the rules were revised, but still seem to favor the usual suspects.) Oddly, the announcement of the winners, originally scheduled for Sept. 5, keeps being delayed. Meanwhile, only Paul Bremer and his people have cellphones — and, thanks to the baffling decision to give that contract to MCI, even those phones don`t work very well. (Aside from the fact that its management perpetrated history`s biggest accounting fraud, MCI has no experience in building cell networks.)

Then there`s electricity. One reason Iraq still faces blackouts is that local experts and institutions were excluded from the repair business. Instead, the exclusive contract was given to Bechtel, whose Republican ties are almost as strong as Halliburton`s. And if a recent story in The Washington Post is accurate, Bechtel continues to ignore pleas by Iraqi engineers for essential spare parts.

Meanwhile, several companies with close personal ties to top administration officials have begun brazenly offering their services as facilitators for companies seeking Iraqi business. The former law firm of Douglas Feith, the Pentagon under secretary who oversees Iraq reconstruction, has hung out its shingle. So has another company headed by Joe Allbaugh, who ran the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2000 and ran FEMA until a few months ago. And a third entrant is run by Ahmad Chalabi`s nephew.

There`s a moral here: optimists who expect the administration to get its Iraq policy on track are kidding themselves. Think about it: the cost of the occupation is exploding, and military experts warn that our army is dangerously overcommitted. Yet officials are still allowing Iraqi reconstruction to languish, and the disaffection of the Iraqi public to grow, while they steer choice contracts to their friends. What makes you think they will ever change their ways?



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