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News :: International Relations |
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AWARE News Notes 031005 |
Current rating: 0 |
by Carl Estabrook
Email: cge (nospam) shout.net (unverified!) |
08 Oct 2003
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Notes from last week's 'war on terrorism' â€" prepared
for the AWARE meeting, Sunday, October 5, 2003.
[AWARE -- Anti-War Anti-Racism Effort -- is a group of people from C-U and environs who are opposed to the principal policies of the US government -- neo-imperialism and favoritism of the rich. We hold open meetings every Sunday 5-7pm at the Urbana IMC to discuss the situation and plan a variety of responses. The selection and the comments below, however, represent my views and not necessarily those of AWARE as a whole or of particular members. (Source and date are indicated after each item thus: [NYT 1005] = New York Times, October 5, 2003.) --CGE] |
NEVER MIND. "An internal Defense Department review of the prewar intel provided by the Iraqi defectors sent along by Pentagon favorite Ahmed Chalabi has concluded that most of the information was either bogus or useless ... The Times' lead also contains a little mea culpa, noting that Chalabi '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.' What that seems to miss is the extent of the Times' reliance on Chalabi and the papers' pre-eminent role in pushing his preferred storylines. As ace WMD sleuth Judith Miller once wrote to a Times colleague, Chalabi 'provided most of the front page exclusives on WMD to our paper.'" [SLATE 0929]
AND THE DEMOCRATS WOULD PROVIDE BAND-AIDS. "The total number of people without health insurance rose by 2.4 million last year, the largest increase in a decade. The percentage of people without health care is now 15.2 percent, up from 14.6 percent in 2001 but below the recent peak of 16.3 percent in 1998." [NYT 0930]
WHY DO THEY HATE US? "Ambushes of two American convoys Monday that left one GI dead and two injured. One of the ambushes led to a roughly eight-hour gun battle. The details on the incident are still murky, but everybody agrees that after the surprisingly heavy guerrilla attack, the U.S. counter-attacked using air support and armor. The LAT sees the most significance in the battle, suggesting that the U.S.'s use of overwhelming force is ultimately counterproductive: 'The Americans start shooting randomly as soon as they are attacked,' said one man in the area. 'No matter how powerful they are, we have to get them out of here; we want to crush them underfoot.'" [SLATE 0930]
EVEN THE PUPPETS DON'T WORK. "Washington's exit strategy from Iraq received a setback on Tuesday as a deadline for the first step in drawing up a new constitution slipped away because of divisions in the Iraqi Governing Council. Popular ratification of a constitution lies at the core of the 'seven steps to Iraqi sovereignty' laid out by Paul Bremer, the US civilian administrator in Baghdad. Colin Powell, secretary of state, has spoken of a six-month 'deadline' for writing a new constitution. But, as of Tuesday night, a key committee selected by the Governing Council had not met an end of September deadline, already put back by two weeks, for delivering its final recommendations on how to choose a body to write the constitution." [FT 1001] "According to the 25th paragraph in the Times piece, the U.S.'s current Iraqi political development plan 'does not include elections for a constitutional assembly.'" [SLATE 0930]
JUST LIKE ENRON. "The Washington Post notes that Pentagon auditors are investigating allegations that the Pentagon comptroller's office tried to hide $20 million from Congress by temporarily stashing the funds in the Special Forces command." [SLATE 0930]
THIEVES LIKE US. P. Krugman: "...in July two enterprising Middle Eastern firms started offering cellphone service in Baghdad, setting up jury-rigged systems compatible with those of neighboring countries ... the [US] 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 ... 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.) 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." [NYT 0930]
BUT WHO CARES ABOUT THE UN? "A United Nations human rights investigator has denounced a controversial barrier Israel is building in the West Bank as illegal. John Dugard, a South African law professor, said the wall was tantamount to an 'unlawful act of annexation' which should be condemned by the international community." [BBC 0930]
IN THE WORDS OF THE POET, THERE IS SOME SHIT I WILL NOT EAT. "The Israeli government's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee called for the discharge of the 28 Air Force pilots who are openly refusing to bomb Palestinian civilian targets. The committee also said the letter signed by the pilots should be viewed as an incitement to mutiny in a time of war." [DN 0930]
BUT WHO CARES ABOUT THE UN? (II). "At the UN General Assembly Monday, Saudi Arabia, Syria and Egypt accused the UN watchdog nuclear agency of failing to criticize Israel's suspected nuclear program at the same time that the agency pressures other nations to give up their nuclear programs. Israel has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and is widely believed to possess nuclear weapons [sic]." [DN 0930]
WAR WITHOUT END. "The military newspaper Stars and Stripes is reporting that the U.S. is making base preparations in Afghanistan that will allow U.S. forces to stay there for up to eight more years. Meanwhile a U.S. soldier was killed and two others were wounded during a clash with suspected members of the Taliban Monday in southeastern Afghanistan." [DN 0930]
THE RICH KNOW. "The Washington Post is reporting that President Bush raised up to $50 million in campaign contributions over the last three months. That is more than three times as much as the top Democrat, Howard Dean. [DN 0930]
WHERE? "One American soldier was killed Tuesday and two wounded in an attack in Afghanistan. Media magazine Editor & Publisher just published a piece about the papers' lack of coverage in Afghanistan." [SLATE 1001]
WHAT A SURPRISE. "The NYT notes on Page One that a panel appointed by the Bush administration has concluded that among Arabs and Muslims abroad, 'hostility toward America has reached shocking levels.'" [SLATE 1001]
WE KILL BECAUSE OF THE BUDGET. "Israeli soldiers sometimes fire live ammunition at Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip because of a shortage of non-lethal weapons, the state comptroller wrote in a report released Wednesday ... Since violence erupted three years ago, 2,477 people have been killed on the Palestinian side and 860 on the Israeli side." [MERCURY/AUSTRALIA 1001] "The State Department is notifying Congress that it plans no immediate reductions in loan guarantees for Israel, despite settlement construction on the West Bank, spokesman Richard Boucher said." [LAT 1001]
OCCUPATION IS NOT LIBERATION. "A demonstration by unemployed men in central Baghdad turned into a riot after police fired in the air, with protesters throwing explosives and setting cars ablaze. Up to 100 men gathered outside a police station, where they said they had been promised jobs after making payments to police officers." [BBC 1001]
OF COURSE IT'S WORTH IT. "The number of those [i.e., Americans] wounded in action (or injured in combat-zone accidents) is far higher [than those killed]. And while combat deaths have been relatively low since the Vietnam War, the ratio of these nonfatal casualties to war fatalities is increasing - from 3 to 1 in World War II to more than 5 to 1 in Iraq (1,691 to date)." [CSMONITOR 1001]
RETALIATION. "The Justice Department announced Tuesday that it has begun a full criminal investigation into allegations that Bush administration officials leaked the name of a covert CIA operative, leaving open the possibility a special counsel will be appointed when more facts are learned." [WP 1001] "Regarding the Wilson leak, one unnamed official told the Times, 'There is blood in the water, and there are people all over Washington who want to take advantage of that.'" [NYT 0929] "The real intelligence scandal is how an open opponent of the U.S. war on terror such as Mr. Wilson was allowed to become one of that policy's investigators [sic]." [WSJ 1001]
AN ISRAELI VIEW. "The Israeli leadership has succeeded in persuading a majority that there is no good reason to make any diplomatic effort to extricate [Israel] from crisis. Over the years, this majority, who believes that the Palestinian leadership is solely responsible for our national crisis, has grown only larger. It allowed the 'what's the use?' argument to become the primary tool for quashing criticism of the local leadership. When the 27 pilots announced their refusal to follow orders, the spearhead of the counterattack - which ran the gamut from dismissive scowls to charges of treason - was of course that their act entirely disregarded the necessity to teach the Arabs a lesson, without any flinching ... Sharon hasn't lifted a finger to fulfill any Israeli commitments in the road map, to remove illegal outposts and restore the scale of settlements to the level of [even] two years ago. He hasn't had even the glimmer of a thought of voluntarily removing a few settlements to initiate a change in climate in his relations with the Palestinian Authority." [HAARETZ 1001]
AND ANOTHER. "Captain Yaron Kostilitz, the [Israeli] military court prosecutor in a trial of six draft resisters, said the following on September 18: '... The [Israeli] Supreme Court examines IDF [i.e., Israeli military] activities in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, and rules that they are legal. The Supreme Court has determined that it is permissible to demolish houses in which terrorists lived, that an army commander [in the territories] is obligated to protect the welfare of settlers, that the code of law which applies to Jewish residents in these areas differs from the law of other [Palestinian] residents ... The Supreme Court has authorized the use of selective assassinations ... and the uprooting and pruning of olive trees in order to prevent terror attacks ... The Supreme Court has found that administrative arrests are legal; the Supreme Court has determined that the IDF acts in accordance with international laws which relate to warfare and the occupation of territories.'" [HAARETZ 1001]
NEOCON UPDATE. J Lobe: "...the image of Vice President Dick Cheney is changing. Already tarnished by questions surrounding the huge no-bid reconstruction contracts won by his former company, Halliburton, in which he retains a financial interest, as well as his refusal to disclose to Congress what meetings he held during his formulation of Bush's energy policy, Cheney is increasingly seen as a serious rightwing extremist and ideologue, and by far the most powerful number two in US history. As much as Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and his neo-conservative advisors have become the lightning rod for criticism over the Iraq war and the administration's hubris, Cheney appears to have acted as their principal patron and advocate with Bush himself, and more than any other official except perhaps Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the driving force within the administration for war with Iraq. Although long in the making, the secretive vice president's image as zealot appears to have impressed itself in the media just in the past two weeks ... According to a major account in the Washington Post on Monday, Cheney and his top aide, I Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, continued to press the [Saddam/911] story on the administration long after the intelligence community had dismissed it, even insisting on the eve of Secretary of State Colin Powell's presentation to the UN Security Council last February on Iraq's defiance of the council's resolutions that it be included in Powell's indictment ... At the beginning of the administration, it was he who championed Rumsfeld, his former boss in the Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford administrations, for the defense post and then insisted, over fierce objections by Secretary of State Colin Powell, on placing Wolfowitz in the number two position at the Pentagon. He also insisted, again over Powell's misgivings, on making ultra-unilateralist John Bolton, then vice president of the American Enterprise Institute (where Cheney's spouse, Lynne Cheney, is a fellow), Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. Bolton - praised by the ultra-rightwing former Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman as 'the kind of man with whom I would want to stand at Armageddon', the final, apocalyptic battlefield between good and evil prophesied in the Bible - told the Wall Street Journal last year that the 'happiest moment in his government service' came when the US pulled out of the treaty creating the International Criminal Court.-Cheney also made Libby his own chief of staff and national security advisor. A hard core neo-conservative who had worked with Wolfowitz in 1992 on a controversial draft strategy that called for global US military dominance that was strongly denounced by the Republican foreign policy establishment at the time, Libby later served as general counsel to the Cox Commission, a Congressional body convened to investigate alleged Chinese spying and acquisition of advanced-weapons technology. Its final report was almost universally derided as flimsy, exaggerated and inaccurate by both technical and China experts. Libby also represented Marc Rich, a billionaire fugitive who reportedly enjoys very close ties to Israeli intelligence and whose pardon by Bill Clinton in the last days of his presidency became a major scandal, but one quickly hushed by the incoming Bush administration. The fact that Rich had renounced his US citizenship after his conviction for tax evasion made the pardon - and Libby's efforts to obtain one - particularly galling for many conservatives and made Libby himself a particularly curious choice for Cheney's chief aide. Cheney also reportedly played a key role in the appointment of another controversial neo-conservative, Elliott Abrams, to head the Middle East office on the National Security Council. Abrams, a strong rightwing critic of the Oslo peace process, has identified closely with positions of the Likud Party in Israel. Cheney himself told Israel's defense minister in a meeting in early 2002 that he thought Palestinian President Yasser Arafat 'should be hanged'.At the same time, in what was widely interpreted as an effort to intimidate the Near East bureau of the State Department, which has generally favored a more even-handed position toward Israelis and Palestinians, Cheney's daughter, Elizabeth, was appointed by the White House to serve as deputy assistant secretary of state of that office in early 2002. And it was also Libby and Cheney who reportedly visited the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) several times in the run-up to the war in Iraq in what was taken as pressure on CIA analysts to take a darker view of Saddam's alleged ties to al-Qaeda and weapons of mass destruction than what was reflected in the agency's reports. In spite of the change in Cheney's media image and the questions raised about the propriety of his ties with Halliburton and the soundness of his judgment, there is little indication that Cheney's influence with Bush has been reduced." [ASIA TIMES 1001] "Cheney spinner Mary Matalin told the WP that the vice prez focuses on the big picture and 'connecting the dots.' He 'doesn't base his opinion on one piece of data [sic!],' she said." [SLATE 0929]
DOWN THE RAT LINES. "Retired general Anthony Zinni, who headed the US Central Command from 1997 to 2000, called late Tuesday for the dismissal of key Pentagon officials, saying he was 'disappointed' by their failure to properly plan for post-war developments in Iraq and warning that the US military could reach 'the breaking point.'" [AFP 1001]
HS EDUCATION. "A high school student has the right to wear a T-shirt to school with the face of President Bush and the words 'International Terrorist' on the front, a federal judge ruled. 'There is no evidence that the T-shirt created any disturbance or disruption,' U.S. District Judge Patrick J. Duggan said in the ruling released Wednesday by the American Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, which sued the Dearborn school district on behalf of Bretton Barber. An assistant principal had ordered Barber in February to conceal the anti-Bush message or go home. Dearborn High said it worried about inflaming passions at the suburban Detroit school, where a majority of students are Arab-American. But, the judge said, 'The record does not reveal any basis for (the assistant principal's) fear aside from his belief that the T-shirt conveyed an unpopular political message.' Attorneys for the school district declined to comment on the case. There was no answer at the district offices Wednesday evening. 'The court's decision reaffirms the principle that students don't give up their right to express opinions on matters of public importance once they enter school,' Kary Moss, executive director of the state ACLU, said in a news release Wednesday. Barber was 16 when he wore the shirt on a day he was scheduled to present a 'compare and contrast' essay in English class. Barber had chosen to compare President Bush to former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. At the time, Bretton said he wanted to express his anti-war position by wearing the shirt, which he ordered on the Internet." [AP 1001]
WE LOVE YOU, CHICAGO. "President Bush broke his own fundraising record Tuesday by raising $5.3 million for his 2004 run during a 12-hour visit to the Midwest. In one day Bush managed to raise more money than any of his Democratic opponents have raised over the past three months with the exception of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. In other campaign news, two top aides to Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton have resigned including his campaign manager, Frank Watkins." [DN 1001]
DON'T GET IN THE WAY. "Newspapers in Pakistan are reporting that U.S. warplanes bombed a section of Pakistan Monday in attempt to kill men believed to be connected to the Taliban or Al-Qaeda." [DN 1001]
KILLING KURDS, AGAIN. "Turkey and the US have agreed on an action-plan to eradicate the Kurdish paramilitary group, the PKK. The group is thought to have around 5,000 members living in northern Iraq. Ever since the US occupied Iraq, Turkey has been pressing Washington to crack down on the group which both countries designate as terrorist. Details of the plan are not clear, but a US official said any military action would be carried out by US troops. Any large scale Turkish military presence in northern Iraq would be opposed by the Kurdish groups which currently run the area. This agreement is important for Turkey, as it marks a new stage in its long battle with the PKK. It is also a sign of improving relations with the US. The agreement will almost certainly help the Turkish Government in its efforts to persuade parliament to send Turkish troops to help out the US-led coalition. The parliament will probably consider a request for around 10,000 troops later this month. Turkey and the PKK fought a bitter war for more than a decade. More than 30,000 people were killed, and over a million displaced from their homes - largely in the predominantly Kurdish southeastern part of the country. The PKK have long sought refuge from Turkish troops in the mountains of northern Iraq." [BBC 1002]
IT'S ONLY MONEY. "WSJ reports new assessments by the administration as well as by the World Bank that, when taken together, suggest that Iraq will need about $55 billion to rebuild. The White House has proposed giving about $20 billion." [SLATE 1002]
REPUBLICANS LIKE THEM, DON'T THEY? "Nearly 70% of Americans believe there should be a special counsel independent of the administration investigating the allegations that Bush administration officials illegally leaked the name of an undercover CIA agent. This according to a new Washington Post/ABC News poll." [DN 1002]
US MAKES DEFENSE NECESSARY? "A North Korean official claimed Thursday that the country has completed reprocessing its 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods and has begun using the extracted plutonium to make atomic bombs. North Korea says it needs nuclear weapons as a deterrent to what they say are U.S. plans to invade the country. Meanwhile Mohamed El Baradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, urged the world's nuclear powers to disarm. He said, 'Unless we are moving steadily toward nuclear disarmament, I'm afraid that the alternative is that we'll have scores of countries with nuclear weapons and that's an absolute recipe for self-destruction.'" [DN 1002]
WHAT BILL OF RIGHTS? "The Supreme Court was asked Wednesday to rule on the case of Yaser Esam Hamdi. For nearly two years, Hamdi, who is a U.S. citizen, has been locked up on a naval brig in South Carolina. The government has not filed charges against him, has not presented evidence of guilt and has barred him from meeting with an attorney. President Bush has designated Hamdi, who was captured in Afghanistan, to be an enemy combatant and thus stripped of any legal rights. Public defender Frank Dunham filed an appeal to the Supreme Court Wednesday on behalf of Hamdi who he has been barred from seeing. Dunham said, 'The man's been locked up for two years. He wants an opportunity to be heard in court. It goes right to the heart of our liberties.'" [DN 1002]
TIMELY REPORT. "35 years ago last Thursday, hundreds of Mexican students were massacred by the Mexican government in Tlatelolco Plaza. New government documents obtained by the Associated Press prove the massacre began when 360 snipers under government commands fired into a crowd of 10,000 students who were protesting the nation's one-party government and lack of political freedom. The massacre came just a week before the Olympics were to begin in Mexico City. The government has long maintained that armed students provoked the massacre. New evidence has also that future Mexican president Luis Echeverria played a greater role than previously believed in the massacre." [DN 1002]
SOME EXPLAINING TO DO. "A formal word to Congress from David Kay, the government's chief weapons inspector in Iraq, that no illicit arms have been found in the country, but that Saddam 'had not given up his aspirations and intentions' to develop such weapons. [AND THIS WAS REASON TO KILL 30,000?] Kay's 'interim progress report,' presented in a closed-door briefing with members of Congress Wednesday, appears to seriously undermine pre-war intelligence on what Saddam was up to. While inspectors have 'discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and significant equipment' that Iraq had concealed, 'we have not found stocks of weapons,' Kay said, according to a declassified statement issued after the briefing. 'But we are not yet at the point where we can say definitively either that such weapon stocks do not exist, or that they existed before the war and our only task is to find where they have gone.' The WP says that Kay's team has determined that Saddam's nuclear program was at only the 'very most rudimentary level' -- reminding readers in the second paragraph that the Bush administration had described Saddam's nuclear ambitions as an imminent threat to the United States while pushing for war ... the report undermines White House, State Department, and CIA claims that Saddam had a fleet of modified trailer trucks that it used to produce biological agents and that Iraq had produced large stockpiles of germ weapons ... Kay told lawmakers he needs another six months to nine months to conclude his work. As the NYT reported Thursday, the administration is asking for $600 million -- double what the search has cost so far -- to fund that effort." [SLATE 1003] "The NYT says the search effort hasn't been well run and seems bloated. 'Even when hot tips have come in, it often takes days to mobilize a unit to visit a suspect site or talk to a suspect scientist,' said a former member of one unit." [SLATE 1002] "The Washington Post follows Iraq Survey Group (ISG) head David Kay's statement that 'To date we have not uncovered evidence that Iraq undertook significant post-1998 steps to actually build nuclear weapons or produce fissile material,' with a reminder that on Oct. 7, 2002, President Bush said: 'The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program...'" [CURSOR 1004]
I WONDER WHY? "NYT/CBS News poll found a majority of those polled are uneasy about Bush's foreign policy. Just 45 percent of those polled 'have confidence' in Bush's handling of international crises -- down from 66 percent last April ... Six in 10 say the United States should not spend as much on Iraq as Mr. Bush has sought." [SLATE 1002]
ARE YOU WITH US OR WITH THE TERRORISTS? "A federal court ruled Wednesday that the government cannot seek the death penalty against accused 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui or present evidence that might tie him to the attacks because of prosecutors' refusals to allow him to interview captured al-Qaida operatives ... a major setback for the Justice Department, who has described the Moussaoui as a central figure in the 9/11 plot ... The Bush administration had previously threatened to move the case to a military tribunal -- where defendants have far fewer rights -- if civilian courts insist that Moussaoui have access to al-Qaida operatives." [SLATE 1002]
WOULD THE US ACTUALLY KILL ANYONE? "Citing security threats, the Venezuelan president last week canceled a planned visit to New York. Meanwhile U.S. intelligence officers are lobbying charges that it is Chavez who is harboring Islamic fundamentalists in Venezuela." [DN 1003]
THE BUSHIES CAN'T KEEP EXPLOSIVES OUT OF PLANES, BUT THEY'RE READY. "A senior general acknowledged Wednesday that military pilots now routinely practice shooting down hijacked commercial airliners, the NYT says on Page One. Air Force pilots are specially certified and trained for the missions, and they undergo psychological evaluations to ensure they are not 'trigger hesitant' at the moment of decision." [SLATE 1002]
SUPPORT OUR TROOPS. "Three more U.S. soldiers died in Iraq Wednesday after coming under guerilla attacks." [DN 1002] "Attacks against U.S. forces in Iraq increase. USA Today is reporting that Iraqis are now launching an average of 17 assaults a day against the U.S. occupying army, killing around three to six American soldiers a week, according to the military, and the resistance is only getting worse. In September there were days when U.S. forces were attacked over 20 times." [DN 1003]
BUT NOT URBANA OR CHAMPAIGN. "Chicago's city council approved a resolution Wednesday condemning the USA Patriot Act for casting a pall on the civil rights of minorities. Aldermen backpedaled from an earlier resolution that demanded lawmakers repeal the entire act, and instead asked Congressional leaders to strike out portions that 'violate fundamental rights and liberties.' Chicago became the largest city in the United States to criticize the Patriot Act, joining cities such as Minneapolis, Detroit, Baltimore, Philadelphia and San Francisco." [CD 1002]
OUR CLIENT AT WORK. "This week, Israeli forces killed 9 Palestinians, including a child, and more than 30 others were wounded. On Wednesday, Israeli occupying forces demolished 18 houses in the Rafah refugee camp, in the southern Gaza Strip. The demolition operation took place under intense shelling and indiscriminate shooting within the camp and was followed by further shelling as Israeli forces withdrew." [EI 1003]
LOOK WHO'S ANTI-WAR. "General Wesley Clark, the front-runner in the Democratic race for the White House, said Friday that the Bush administration should face an investigation into possible 'criminal' conduct in its drive to war. Gen Clark accused the Bush administration of entering office already determined to attack Iraq, then seizing on the September 11 attacks as justification. He called for an independent review of what he called the 'possible manipulation of intelligence' to convince the American people that war with Iraq was necessary. 'Nothing could be a more serious violation of public trust than consciously to make a case for war based on false claims ... We need to know if we were intentionally deceived ... This administration is trying to do something that ought to be politically impossible to do in a democracy, and that is to govern against the will of the majority,' he said. 'That requires twisted facts, silence, secrecy and very poor lighting' ... In a book due for publication later this month, Gen Clark will accuse the Bush administration of having a five year plan to attack nations across the Muslim world. In Winning Modern Wars, Gen Clark records a conversation with a 'senior military staff officer' he met at the Pentagon in November 2001, at the height of the Afghan campaign. America was headed next for war with Iraq, Gen Clark says the unnamed officer told him. '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',' Gen Clark writes. He has argued that America is wrongly ignoring Saudi Arabia and Pakistan as terrorist sponsors and called for the war on al-Qa'eda to be pursued through United Nations resolutions and an international tribunal for prosecuting terrorists." [TELEGRAPH UK 1004]
OCCUPATION IS NOT LIBERATION, AGAIN. "Two Iraqis were killed on Saturday in violent confrontations between hundreds of former soldiers in Saddam Hussein's disbanded army and occupying troops in Baghdad and the southern city of Basra." [REUTERS 1004]
THE MEDIA AT WORK. "Knight Ridder reports that in polls conducted between January and September 2003, by the Program on International Policy Attitudes, 60% of Americans held at least one of the following views: U.S. forces found WMD in Iraq. There's clear evidence that Saddam Hussein worked closely with the 9/11 terrorists. People in foreign countries generally either backed the U.S.-led war or were evenly split between supporting and opposing it." [CURSOR 1004]
BUSH'S POODLE IN THE DOGHOUSE. "Prime Minister Tony Blair conceded privately that Iraq did not have the quickly deployable weapons of mass destruction that the British government cited as justification for war, former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook asserted Sunday. Mr. Cook, who resigned his post as leader of the House of Commons because of Britain's decision to join in the American-led war, said Mr. Blair also made it clear to him in a conversation two weeks before combat began that he did not believe Saddam Hussein's weapons posed a 'real and present danger' to Britain. A controversial intelligence dossier published last September argued that Iraq had unconventional weapons that could be used within 45 minutes of an order being given. Mr. Cook said that he had no reason to doubt that Mr. Blair believed the claim at the time it was made, but that in a conversation on March 5 Mr. Blair told him the weapons were only battlefield munitions and could not be assembled by Mr. Hussein for quick use because of 'all the effort he has put into concealment.' Mr. Cook's account was made public in extracts published in The Sunday Times of London from 'Point of Departure,' a book based on his diary entries from the period." [NYT 1005]
THE LATEST (REVEALED) LIES. "The NYT reports that a secret U.S. government task force, convened last fall, concluded that the Iraqi oil industry was badly damaged by a decade of trade embargoes and was not likely to cover the cost of rebuilding the country after a war. These conclusions are at odds with statements made by administration officials after the report was released. According to the Times, Paul Wolfowitz told Congress during the war that 'we are dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction, and relatively soon.' In April, Dick Cheney said that Iraq's oil production could reach 3 million barrels a day by the end of the year, though the task force had determined that Iraq was generating less than 2.4 million barrels a day before the war." [SLATE 1005]
WHO'S RESPONSIBLE? "A suicide bombing in Haifa killed at least 19 people on Saturday. The WP reports that the Islamic Jihad has claimed responsibility for Saturday's attack, identifying the suicide bomber as a woman from Jenin whose brother and cousin were killed by Israeli troops in June. The incident occurred in a crowded seaside restaurant owned by Jews and managed by Arabs, according to the Post. The dead included several children and at least four Israeli Arabs." [SLATE 1005] "Israel's health minister, Danny Naveh, speaking on army radio, said Israel should 'seize this opportunity to get rid of Arafat.'" [NYT 1005 -- NOT IN LATER EDITIONS.]
BUT WHO CARES ABOUT THE UN? (III) "The United Nations Security Council met in emergency session Sunday afternoon to discuss an Israeli air raid inside Syria. Damascus demanded the meeting, warning that Israel was threatening security in the Middle East with its first attack on Syrian soil in more than 20 years ... Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa called on the Security Council to consider measures to deter Israel from 'provocative and aggressive policies'. 'Syria has practised the highest level of self-restraint, realising that Israel is trying to create pretexts ... to export its internal crisis to the region,' Mr Sharaa said in a letter to the UN. The BBC's Kim Ghattas in Beirut says that, given Syria's obsolete army, diplomacy is Damascus' safest path. Israeli Government spokesman Avi Pazner stressed that the air strike was not directed against Syria - but against Islamic Jihad, the group which has claimed responsibility for Saturday's bombing. But he said every country had to understand that it would be held responsible if it harboured terrorists ... Israel said the target of the raid was the Ein Saheb camp, 22 kilometres (14 miles) outside Damascus, which it claimed was used by several militant groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Syrian media have described Ein Saheb as a Palestinian refugee camp. And a spokesman for Islamic Jihad denied having 'any training camps or bases in Syria or any other country'. A senior commander of another militant group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said the camp was one of his group's disused bases ...Earlier, the Israeli army demolished the home of the female Palestinian suicide bomber who carried out the Haifa attack. It also launched missile attacks against two separate locations in Gaza City, including a Palestinian refugee camp." [BBC 1005] "Syria closed the offices of both Hamas and Islamic Jihad after the U.S. invasion of Iraq out of fear it could be the next nation targeted by the United States. The United States had been pushing Syria to act further and expel Hamas and Islamic Jihad leader, but Syria has refused." [AP 1005]
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