ATLANTA The grace period for air travel has ended. Gone are the days of goodwill after the Sept. 11 attacks, when passengers, airlines and airports were willing to put up with all kinds of intrusive and time-consuming security measures. Gone, too, are the months when carriers desperately wooed frightened travelers by catering to their needs, and when well-intentioned U.S. officials optimistically laid out new safety plans.
Now, airlines and airports are vigorously lobbying the government to scale back or modify many of its new safeguards. Passengers are clamoring for more consistent and less exasperating security procedures. And airlines are cutting back on passenger services and creating ticket restrictions they never would have dared put in place last fall. Hartsfield Atlanta International, the busiest airport in the world, is grappling with many of the issues hanging over the industry a full year after the terrorists struck, transforming air travel more than any aspect of daily life. The airport serves as a hub for Delta Air Lines, the third-largest carrier in the United States, and AirTran Airways, a fast-growing low-fare carrier.
No single industry was hit harder by the attacks than the airlines, which have lost $10 billion in the last year.
Besides resorting to drastic cost-cutting efforts to stay aloft, the airlines are engaged, along with airports like Hartsfield, in a contentious debate with the 10-month-old Transportation Security Administration over what security measures should be cut back.
The airlines openly object to security measures that they say have scared away customers, especially on short flights.
The Transportation Security Administration "has the best intentions in the world," said Frederick Reid, Delta's president. "But unless you keep the law enforcement focus and add customer service and efficiency to it," he said, "you will kill aviation."
Delta has been one of the most outspoken airlines about dropping certain security procedures, such as searching carry-on bags at the boarding gate.
Friday, September 13, 2002
'We are stretched, really stretched,'' a senior U.S. Army combat commander told me. The 10 divisions that constitute the sole surviving superpower's fighting strength are scarcely able to handle today's responsibilities, much less a full-scale war in Iraq. What's more, a pre-emptive strike against Baghdad may only be the first of such military ventures.
Rep. Duncan Hunter of California, vice chairman and dominant Republican on the House Armed Services Committee, last week shined a light onto this nation's future pre-emptions. Questioned on CNN's ''Crossfire'' about military intervention in Iraq, Hunter said: ''The president understands this is a new era of what I call terrorists with high technology. I think we're going to have to make this decision over and over.''
He listed Libya as another nuclear threat, followed by other possible U.S. targets, adding: ''Iraq is the first take on that question.''
That alarms the uniformed military. These career officers, who are faithful to civilian supremacy in military affairs, do not question policy. What bothers them is lack of muscle to execute so muscular a global strategy. The concern is about quantity, not quality. Old-timers view today's volunteer soldiers as better trained and better motivated than their draftee predecessors. There are just not enough of them to meet demands.
Major troop assignments in Korea, Japan, Germany and elsewhere in Europe (well over 100,000) did not end with the Cold War. Fighting in Afghanistan will last a long time, and a U.S. presence is projected there even longer. Peacekeeping commitments in Bosnia (which were supposed to have ended five years ago) and Kosovo are open-ended. One battalion (830 troops) is assigned to the Sinai, requiring an additional battalion ready to go there and still another battalion coming back. Four divisions (around 60,000) are talked about at the outset for Iraq, with the possibility of many more to follow.
Stretched though the Army may be, no help is on the way. Defense Department sources know Congress will not approve any increase in manpower. On the contrary, decreases in weapons systems can be expected once the midterm elections are out of the way.
SYDNEY, Australia (CNN) -- Japan is Asia's most exposed economy to a possible U.S. war on Iraq because of its high dependence on imported energy and exports, according to a new regional analysis.
Oil accounts for 52 percent of Japan's total energy supply, and about 86 percent of its $50 billion in annual oil imports comes from the Middle East.
That is a far higher figure than the 25 percent dependency on Mid-East oil for the United States and 5 percent for the U.K., according to Japan's New Energy Foundation.
South Korea and Taiwan are also heavily dependent on oil from the Middle East. Between them, the three countries account for about 85 percent of East Asia's oil imports.
Military analysts say oil tankers heading out of the Arabian Gulf would likely become targets if hostilities break out. That in turn would put pressure on oil supplies in Asia, despite most refiners keeping reserves of at least 70 days.
On Tuesday the U.S. Navy warned that al Qaeda terrorists may be planning attacks against tankers, sending oil prices to $30 a barrel on the NYMEX Wednesday. (Full story)
West Texas Intermediate for October delivery closed at $29.77, after briefly touching the $30 mark. In London, Brent crude closed at $28.40.
Berlin declared yesterday that it would do its utmost to avert a war in Iraq, warning of a possible "explosion" of oil prices that could derail Germany's economic recovery.
Speaking before President George Bush delivered his blunt words at the General Assembly in New York, Hans Eichel, Finance Minister in the ruling Social Democrat-led coalition, said an escalation of the conflict could trigger a surge in oil prices that could "upset many plans". The German government would " try to prevent things getting that far", Mr Eichel told the Bundestag.
His remarks reflect the hostility of German public opinion to what Chancellor Gerhard Schröder calls an American "adventure" in Iraq – a hostility Mr Schröder is hoping to harness to help him win re-election this month.
A similar warning was voiced by Wim Duisenberg, head of the European Central Bank, who said the possible attack was exacerbating worries about economic growth.
Qatar and Turkey also expressed their opposition. The al-Udeid air base in Qatar is emerging as a likely regional command and control centre for the Americans.
Bulent Ecevit, the Turkish Prime Minister, said the threat of an attack was "a sword dangling over our heads". Mr Ecevit's co-operation could be vital to the Americans, but Turkey fears that if Saddam Hussein is unseated Iraq could fall apart, destabilising the entire region, including volatile Kurdish areas in south-eastern Turkey.
THE Pentagon fears that the chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, might deny the US forces in Germany - the greatest concentration of American men and materiel outside the United States - the right to use German airspace in any attack on Iraq.
This would prove a devastating blow to planners who rely on Germany as an integral part of their strategy to overthrow Saddam Hussein.
The US hospital at Ramstein air base is the largest in Europe, and is included in plans to care for wounded servicemen in a future campaign. AWACS radar planes, bombers, fighters, massive transport aircraft and stockpiles of much needed ammunition are on US bases in Germany, as well as tens of thousands of servicemen.
Currently the Americans fly at will through German airspace but the anti-American rhetoric is increasing in Germany, as polls show 85 per cent of the population are against a US-led invasion to topple Saddam.
A Pentagon spokesman said: "It is true that we would need German permission to use its airspace in operations against Iraq."
In Berlin, the German foreign ministry refused to confirm or deny whether permission to launch Iraq-related missions from Germany would be given although, there are no plans to impede US activities on the bases themselves.
A spokeswoman said: "When a decision to go to war is made it is the day such decisions concerning Germany will be decided. The question remains open."
At a campaign rally in Lübeck on Tuesday for the general election on 22 September, Mr Schröder said : "Not on my watch - no German involvement in a war with Iraq, whatever the UN may say."
The British Army is not ready to fight a desert war despite preparations for a conflict in the Gulf, defence sources said yesterday.
Contingency plans are in place to send a "light" armoured division of two brigades to Kuwait but the tanks are not "desertised".
Half of the Challenger II tanks sent to Oman during an exercise last year were left stranded when their engines became clogged with dust after a few hours in the desert.
But despite those problems, no British tanks have been desertised and an MoD spokesman said the time required to do so would have to be written into any deployment plans.
There are also problems with the Army's main infantry weapon, the SA80 rifle, which despite a refit suffered repeated stoppages during Operation Jacana in Afghanistan when dust blown up by the helicopters clogged its working parts.
The weapon is being tested under exercise conditions in Oman in a move senior officers hope will restore confidence in the weapon. But the Royal Marine commandos who used it in Afghanistan say it is a very poor weapon.
While any attack on Iraq is now certain to take place next year rather than this, the apparent lack of urgency in getting the tanks and rifles ready for war is "deeply disturbing", one source said.
It is also likely to suffer severe problems getting the tanks to Kuwait, an operation that would take around 10 weeks even assuming no problems cropped up.
The MoD allowed one of its three roll-on roll-off ferry charters to lapse, with the result that the French snapped it up. That has forced the MoD to look elsewhere on a very limited market for means of getting their tanks to Kuwait.
Nevertheless, the main problems remain the Challenger 2 tanks and the SA80. Senior Army officers remain convinced that the Royal Marines were not maintaining their weapons properly and that the SA80 A2 will prove its worth in Oman. But one Royal Marines officer said this was "complete nonsense".
DAVID ASMAN, FOX NEWS CHANNEL: President Bush at the U.N. today mapping out Saddam Hussein's violations of U.N. resolutions. Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who at one time warned in similar tones about Saddam Hussein, sounds different now. The question is why.
Scott Ritter joins us here in our studio. Good to have you, sir.
SCOTT RITTER, FORMER U.N. WEAPONS INSPECTOR: Thanks a lot.
ASMAN: Let me read to you a couple of quotes. I'm sure you've heard it before, but these are from four years ago, when you sounded about Saddam Hussein not very much different from the way President Bush did today at the U.N.
This one is from this week -- August 30, 1998 -- "Six months is a very reasonable time scale for Iraq to resume weapons capabilities."
The second two are from Good Morning America also in August of '98.
First, "Iraq's job is to avoid bringing the world's attention to the fact they've retained these weapons," and then, "Iraq retains the capability to launch a chemical strike." Sounds like Saddam Hussein is very dangerous and could mount a chemical strike right now.
RITTER: And what point are you trying to make?
ASMAN: Do you disagree with that in any way, shape or form?
RITTER: I don't disagree with anything I've ever said. Why in God's name would I disagree with something I've said?
ASMAN: Then how is it that people have gotten the impression that since those statements were made, you're now being somewhat apologetic for what Saddam Hussein is doing?
RITTER: Forget those people. Let's deal with the facts.
First of all, it's a matter of perception. When I resigned, I didn't resign as someone beating the drum of war. I'm not out there promoting war. I didn't promote war when I was a weapons inspector. I'm not promoting war now.
I'm promoting the process of weapons inspections as mandated by the Security Council. So I resigned in protest from being unable to do the job of completing the disarmament of Iraq.
As George Bush was displaying his grasp of diplomatic vocabulary in front of the UN yesterday, 7,000 miles away in the Gulf his fellow Americans were speaking a different language.
Their words were military terms: frigates, bombers, air defence fighters, refuelling tankers, carrier battle groups, reconnaissance planes, special forces. All these things are on their way to the region or already in position in readiness for a possible attack on Iraq.
In the most blunt indication yet that the US administration's threat is not an idle one and it will force Iraq if necessary to meet its UN pledges, the US central command will move its headquarters to Qatar in November, perhaps indefinitely. The relocation is the culmination of a series of low-key moves on the Gulf chessboard designed to put all the pieces in place for a rapid US assault should the UN route now being pursued by Washington fail.
The establishment of command posts and the pre-positioning of heavy equipment in the region over the past year have put central command (Centcom) in a position to launch a strike on Baghdad within a fortnight of the order being given, if it is decided to mount the operation with a fast and light force of 50,000. There are about 30,000 American troops in the region already.
"It would take 10 days to bring in the additional equipment, 10 days to airlift the troops and 10 days to get to Baghdad," said John Pike, the head of GlobalSecurity.org, a thinktank which closely monitors military movements.
Nor would it take long to complete the military build-up if it were decided to play it safe and gather an overwhelming force of 200,000 or more before striking. Under Centcom's blueprint for a full-scale invasion, Operation Plan 1003, the force could be assembled in two months. That would be much faster than the six months' build-up in the last Gulf war, partly because it would involve fewer troops, partly because the sluggish US military machine has become gradually more nimble.
'bloody mess'?
WASHINGTON - The U.S. would win a war with Iraq, but the battle and victory itself would have consequences that President Bush should think very hard about, a respected military analyst said yesterday.
"Could this be a bloody mess? Yes, it could," said Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "And what do we do after we win?"
In a briefing on his 100-page analysis of Iraq's military, Cordesman said war probably is necessary to deprive dictator Saddam Hussein of chemical and biological weapons and stop his drive to get nuclear weapons.
But Cordesman said he was troubled that the White House had yet to plan for a postwar Iraq and had done little to gauge the reaction of Arab allies and Iran.
Cordesman also presented a doomsday scenario of Israel retaliating with nuclear weapons if Iraq unleashed a chemical or biological attack against it.
"The history here is of a man who lashes out," Cordesman said of Saddam.
If Iraq attacked with weapons of mass destruction, and he were an Israeli, "I would not be paying attention to phone calls from President Bush" urging restraint, Cordesman said.
Cordesman's estimates, which are similar to those of the CIA and other analysts, put Iraq's troop strength at about 400,000, backed by about 300 aircraft, 2,000 tanks and 3,000 armored personnel carriers.
This force has been decimated by 10 years of poor maintenance, lack of spare parts and little training, Cordesman said.
"This is a relatively weak and divided military and under pressure it might collapse," Cordesman said, but attacking on a guess "is not the way you go to war."
His cautionary analysis is at odds with the views of Richard Perle and Kenneth Adelman, civilian members of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Review Board who have influence at the White House.
OTTAWA: Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien, going where few other leaders dare to tread, has linked the September 11 suicide attacks to the perceived arrogance and selfishness of the United States and the West.
Chretien is the first head of a western major nation to suggest that the suicide hijackers might have been motivated by what he describes as the misguided policies of a rich and powerful West that did not understand the need for restraint.
The veteran prime minister, who has been in power for nine years, told the CBC in an interview aired yesterday that there was "a lot of resentment" about the way in which powerful nations treated the increasing number of poor and dispossessed people in the world.
"You know, you cannot exercise your powers to the point of humiliation for others. That is what the Western world - not only the Americans, the Western world - has to realise. Because they (the have-nots) are human beings too. There are long-term consequences if you don't look hard at the reality in 10 or 20 (or) 30 years from now," he said.
Chretien continued: "And I do think the Western world is getting too rich in relation to the poor world and necessarily, you know, we're looked upon as being arrogant, self-satisfied greedy and with no limits. And September 11 is an occasion for me to realise it even more."
A total of 3,025 people - including 23 Canadians - died in the September 11 attacks. The official count does not include the hijackers.
Chretien comes from the moderate left of Canada's ruling Liberal Party, which has sometimes looked upon US Republican administrations with suspicion.
Canadian Transport Minister David Collenette went further in an interview with the CBC that was shown in the same September 11 package as the prime minister's. He likened some leading players in the United States to bullies on an ice hockey rink.
Chretien's relations with US President George W Bush have always been cool and this criticism of Washington's increasingly unilateral foreign policy is unlikely to win him fresh friends in the White House.
Chretien's office yesterday denied media reports he felt Washington was responsible for the attacks, saying the prime minister was instead focusing on the increasing divide between rich and poor "which has been clearly used by fanatics to fan resentment toward the developed world."
Thursday, September 12, 2002
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan, Sept. 11 — For several months, the Special Operations Forces soldiers whom the United States sent to Afghanistan have been growing beards and donning local garb in an effort to blend in with the local people and their surroundings.
But last weekend, the story goes here, Pentagon brass were shocked by news photos of scruffy looking Special Operations Forces swinging into action to help abort the assassination attempt here against President Hamid Karzai in which his companion, Gul Agha Shirzai, governor of Kandahar Province, was wounded.
"On Monday," said a Special Operations Forces officer, leaning against the mud wall of a local bazaar, "we got the word: some general in Washington ordered no more beards."
Asking that his name not be used, the freshly shaved officer continued, "The guys are really burning on this" and nodded to his squad, men who all looked as if they had just emerged from a sheep-shearing shed.
The Special Operations Forces commander here has declined to explain or defend the new rules to reporters, according to Army Major Teri Oman, a spokeswoman for conventional Army forces at Kandahar Airfield.
The impact on the ground is that American patrols now stand out sharply against the Afghan landscape.
Instead of knots of bearded men with a few touches of local garb and concealed weapons strolling through this city with a studied casualness, a Special Forces squad looks like what it is: foreign soldiers patrolling in Afghanistan.
With M-4 rifles slung over their shoulders, men patrol dressed in the beige, brown and olive green uniforms made famous in the Persian Gulf war.
Their faces are shaved as smooth as those of most high school seniors. The Special Operations officer, a six-month veteran of Afghanistan, looked as if he had just stepped off a troop transport from Germany.
In Afghanistan, where beards are a sign of manly maturity and wisdom, the Pentagon initially maintained "reduced grooming standards" for Special Operations Forces in the field. Green Berets and Navy SEALs operating here have grown beards, often modifying their uniforms to local standards, adding such items of civilian wear as dust scarves and loose shirts.
"We ate their food, we grew the beards," continued the Special Operations officer who was in full uniform, with the exception of a checkered scarf, a touch probably in violation of the new rules.
Smiling to passers-by, he added ominously: "We didn't act like an occupying army, like the Soviets. Well, now we are moving in that direction.
OF COURSE it was just coincidental that, on Sunday, as CNN was discrediting former United Nations weapons' inspector Scott Ritter, it was running promos for the remake of Four Feathers, A.E.W. Mason's tale of the coward who would not go to war.
Ritter, who had that day urged Iraq's National Assembly to let in weapons inspectors or face annihilation, is no chicken hawk. After his 12-year turn as a U.S. Marine intelligence officer, he faced down Saddam Hussein's goons as chief inspector of the United Nations Special Commission to disarm Iraq (UNSCOM). In 1998, he quit in protest over differences between what Washington wanted and what Iraq allowed.
Ever since, he has been very vocal about what really led to UNSCOM's failure to complete its mission — a failure Ritter largely blames on Washington — and how weapons' inspectors must be allowed back in to avert what will certainly be a brutal, bloody war. He insists that, if the Bush administration has evidence showing that Saddam is building nukes, then the American people have a right to see it before they sacrifice their lives.
So, naturally, CNN talking head Miles O'Brien on Sunday questioned Ritter on his loyalty.
"As an American citizen, I have an obligation to speak out when I feel my government is acting in a manner, which is inconsistent with the — with the principles of our founding fathers," said Ritter. "It's the most patriotic thing I can do."
Not in this climate. Not when there's the ironically named U.S.A. Patriot Act which abrogates civil rights. Not when those who criticize the administration are considered to be "with the terrorists." Not when the U.S. media let President George Bush's advisers — who, with the exception of Secretary of State Colin Powell, have never served their country as Ritter has — gallop all over the airwaves.
You couldn't flip a channel on Sunday without catching one of the Bush bunch, including wife Laura, Powell, vice-president Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and National Security adviser Condoleeza Rice, promoting an attack on Iraq as if they were actors flogging their latest project on Leno and Letterman.
The Iraq attack is on. The shadow U.S. president, Head Chicken Hawk Cheney, sounded the call this week in a forceful speech. And I think Head Chicken Hawk Cheney is so wrong that it’s hard to focus on anything else, even a looming deadline for a larger project.
The Chicken Hawks are on the verge of starting World War III, or at least a much larger war in the Middle East that will eventually affect all of us. I know a lot of people want to stop them. I have already increased my support of peace organizations and made plans to participate in some public demonstrations in the Dallas area against the Chicken Hawks’ offensive, blood-for-oil war. I have been writing letters, making calls, battling against Chicken Hawks in chat rooms and message boards, even invoking Christ’s Sermon on the Mount and call to love our enemies, to what seems like little avail. But I persist, as do many others, against the odds. Who knows, I might even march across the entire damned country again, as I did in 1984 in protest of Reagan-Bush’s Cold War policies.
Anyways, Head Chicken Hawk Cheney made it sound like Saddam Hussein is a menace to the world worse than Hitler was in the 1930s. A message to Chicken Hawks Cheney-Bush: Hussein might be bad in numerous ways, but Iraq is no Nazi Germany. And the U.S. today is more like Nazi Germany was than Iraq is.
Iraq is still severely weakened by the Persian Gulf War of 1990-91, when our bombs destroyed many Iraqi civilian facilities like homes, schools, mosques, and hospitals and more than 100,000 Iraqis died, along with 148 Americans. And it’s really hurt by the economic sanctions imposed by the UN in 1990, with underlying support from the U.S. More than one million additional Iraqis - many of them children under the age of five - have died of sanctions-related causes like amoebic dysentery and starvation. In fact, Ramsey Clark, the former U.S. Attorney General, reported to the UN Security Council in 1997 that the number of Iraqi children under age five who died increased from about 7,000 in 1989 to 57,000 in 1996. That number continued to rise to 78,000 dead in 1998, according to the Iraq Resource Information Site.
Iraq has some 2,000 tanks and several hundred aircraft and spends a piddling $1.4 billion annually on defense, less than Vietnam, Columbia, and Kuwait. How can you compare tiny Iraq to Nazi Germany in the 1930s, which probably had the world’s most powerful military machine at the time and was a real threat to world peace? How is devastated Iraq supposed to overtake us, especially when UN inspectors like Scott Ritter say they have no weapons of mass destruction? If Saddam can get a nuclear bomb, so can any two-bit dictator, and then what do we do? Are we going to go after all the two-bit dictators? How will we find them all when we can’t even locate bin Laden?
Then look at the U.S.: We are arguably the most powerful, sophisticated military machine in known history. We spend about $396 billion a year on the military – and that number is expected to increase substantially in the coming years [at the height of the Cold War with the former Soviet Union, we spent about $300 billion]. The closest country in military spending is Russia at $60 billion annually, according to the Center for Defense Information. Another country in that "axis of evil" the Chicken Hawks wants us to fear so much, North Korea, spends even less at $1.3 billion. Iran, the third "evil" country, is up there at $9.1 billion but still only ranks 13th in the world in military spending [see http://www.cdi.org/issues/wme/spendersFY03.html for a list of what other countries spend].
America's determination to topple Saddam Hussein has intensified the debate over enforcement of UN resolutions, reviving claims they are selectively targeted to reflect the political interests of the major powers.
Opponents of UN sanctions against Baghdad allege that Israel has been permitted to defy resolutions for the past 30 years ordering it to quit the West Bank and Gaza, while Iraq's non-compliance has been punished by repeated bombings and a rigorously enforced trade embargo.
President Bush's speech to the UN general assembly in New York today recognises mounting international pressure for a fresh resolution against Iraq before any military action is taken.
His critics are unlikely to be persuaded. "The US has consistently employed a double standard when it comes to UN resolutions and international law," maintains Voice in the Wilderness, the campaign to end economic sanctions against Iraq. "For decades the US has vetoed UN resolutions condemning Israel's occupation of Arab territories."
Professor Malcolm Chalmers, who teaches international studies in the department of peace studies at Bradford University, agrees that UN resolutions reflect political relationships between permanent members of the security council and their allies.
"The way the security council works from the beginning is governed by its composition," he says. "In the case of Iraq the driving force is not what the United Nations said but what the major powers and the United States see as their priorities.
"There are other countries which have not complied with international treaties. Israel has been supported by America. It's a reflection of the modern world in which the US is the only power with the military might to enforce resolutions."
Sir Adam Roberts, professor of international relations at Oxford University, believes there is a fundamental difference between the UN's forthright condemnation of Iraq and its disapproval of Israel. "The comparison that is frequently made between Iraq's response to the resolutions relating to disarmament and Israel's responses to the resolutions about occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is a facile comparison," he says.
"The resolutions of the security council 242 and 338 call on all the parties to negotiate a peace settlement and it's perfectly possible to argue that serious attempts have been made ... and that responsibility for failure is not entirely Israel's fault.
"By contrast the resolutions on Iraq from 91 ... call unequivocally on Iraq to take certain actions and accept certain conditions as a quid pro quo for the ceasefire, and Iraq has been said quite clearly by the security council in 1998 to be in 'flagrant violation' of various resolutions. That was unanimously passed by the security council in resolution 1205 of 98. Iraq is the only state the security council itself has said is in flagrant violation of its resolutions."
Behind the memorial candles and commercial remembrances lies one of the most astute marketing campaigns in American political history. This week, as the nation marks the first anniversary of the 9-11 attacks, the Bush administration will twist voters' outpouring of raw emotion and patriotic fervor into a launching pad for the inevitable invasion of Iraq.
In a September 12 speech to the United Nations, President Bush will further showcase his arguments for knocking off Saddam Hussein. Behind the scenes, his advisers have been torquing the arms of European leaders, who rightly have withheld approval. The White House is making a very bold gamble, one that has most of the world scared to death.
Last week the U.S. stepped up its air attacks, sending 100 warplanes to bomb Iraq, which has been under intermittent siege since the end of Desert Storm in 1991. The Pentagon has continued to move ships, planes, and troops into the region. As for any congressional debate, it's as much for display as the deliberations of the UN, orchestrated to end in a non-binding resolution backing Bush.
Bush can hope war will benefit the economy. But it could also hurt. News early this week that Saudi Arabia would deny U.S. companies access to its prized natural gas fields is only the first sign of what could well turn into an economic energy boycott against the U.S., driving up prices and torpedoing our markets.
NEW YORK--We've lost a great deal during the past year. For one thing, the September 11 attacks became a pretend president's pretext to eviscerate the First Amendment and other basic rights. Stifling even the slightest whimpers of dissent may end up killing the two-party political system, long crippled and ineffectual, once and for all. Although terrorists had previously massacred Americans on American soil (jihadis in `93, rednecks in `95), 9-11 wiped away our national sense of invulnerability. An illusion of security--the fantasy that bomb-throwing hatemongers would shoot up airports and blow up buildings elsewhere in the world but not within the United States--turned out to be an utterly imaginary privilege of citizenship.
Infinitely more important, we lost a lot of people: 2,819 at the World Trade Center, including passengers on the planes that struck them. 189 in Washington. 44 in Pennsylvania. 3,052 Americans in all, not including many more who will die from cancer, asbestosis and other ailments related to the attacks. Many more are disabled. Huge numbers have suffered emotional damage, losing parents, children, spouses, friends.
And we killed a lot of people, too. We killed so many that nobody's sure of the exact number: 84 accidentally-bombed Afghans who were either neutral or on our side. Four Canadian soldiers. 40 innocent people celebrating a wedding. Several U.S. servicemen died in helicopter mishaps. Estimates range from 3,500 to 10,000 total, and that's not including the Taliban troops we killed on purpose--even though they had nothing to do with 9-11.
The odds that one of those 6,500 to 13,000 people--or their children--would someday have cured cancer or written a great novel may be slim. But those deaths are nevertheless an unfathomable tragedy, and not just to their friends and families. If a universe is lost when a single person dies, who can justify what was done to us, or what we did to others?
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 11 — In the final days of her five years in office, Mary Robinson, the United Nations high commissioner for human rights, has sharply criticized the United States for eroding civil liberties at home and human rights standards around the world since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
"The United States could be a leader in combating terrorism while upholding human rights," Mrs. Robinson said in an interview here on Monday. "Instead it has sought to put all the emphasis on combating terrorism and has not been fully upholding human rights standards. And that's having a ripple effect on other less democratic countries."
She cited the United States' use of immigration laws to detain foreigners within its borders for indefinite periods, the racial profiling of people of Arab descent in searches and the prosecution of American citizens as enemy combatants, limiting their rights to legal representation. She also mentioned severe restrictions placed on the prisoners taken during the military campaign in Afghanistan and now being held at the American military base in Guantánamo Bay in Cuba.
Mrs. Robinson, the United Nations' top human rights official, said that over the last year, when she questioned other governments on repressive measures, they responded by pointing to the United States and saying, in her words, "For goodness sakes, standards have changed."
A number of developing nations have copied antiterrorism measures adopted by the Justice Department in the past year but have applied them to suppress opponents, Mrs. Robinson said. She mentioned new laws and political crackdowns in the name of fighting terrorism in Egypt, Zimbabwe and Pakistan, among others.
By coincidence, Mrs. Robinson's term ends on Sept. 11. She did not seek another term. Her successor, Sergio Vieira de Mello, a Brazilian, has spent most of his 33-year career at the United Nations in the Office of the High Commissioner for Refugees, and recently directed the operation overseeing East Timor's transition to independence from Indonesia.
A former president of Ireland, Mrs. Robinson, 58, brought a new outspoken style to the commissioner's job, often rattling the United Nations, traditionally timid about open criticism of governments. She sought to make sure her critique included both developing countries and major powers. Her forthright commentary often grated on Bush administration officials, who complained that she had made confronting the United States a personal cause.
The Bush administration suddenly finds itself fighting wars on two fronts - foreign and domestic. The first is in response to terrorism. The second is over corporate fraud and corruption at home.
This weekend the administration confronted both, with mixed results. Vice President Dick Cheney, appearing on Meet the Press, made a forceful case for regime change in Iraq, even if that meant US military intervention. The VP's appearance laid the ground for President Bush's September 12 address before the United Nations.
Cheney was less successful in fielding questions concerning allegations of accounting fraud and personal profiteering during his tenure as CEO of Halliburton, 1995-2000. The SEC is currently investigating the company's accounting practices and angry shareholders are alleging fraud and have sued Cheney and the company.
When asked Sunday to respond to the allegations, Cheney deflected the question, suggesting that the curious should refer to Halliburton's web site where, he claimed, they would find the answers. He said he could not answer the questions directly because it might be viewed as trying to influence the SEC's investigation.
But, as had been reported earlier when Cheney first referred reporters to the Halliburton Web site, the material there fails to answer those questions. Instead the site gratuitously states that Halliburton is innocent of any wrongdoing but has established new "accounting guidelines."
The site goes on to praise Cheney, as an "outstanding" leader. The company goes on to blame "political reporters" (guess that means us) who "want to see if there are any similarities between the company's accounting practices and those of the corporations under intense scrutiny because of their accounting." The web site continues: "However, we will work to answer every question honestly, no matter how ridiculous."
While Cheney continues to cite the SEC investigation for his public silence, he has not talked to the SEC about Halliburton either. Cheney spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise confirmed this weekend that SEC investigators have not even contacted the vice president yet.
Don't be surprised if he is never contacted. During the SEC's investigation of George W. Bush's Harken Energy stock sale in 1990 during his father's administration, the SEC never interviewed George W. Bush himself. Nor did the watchdog group approach Harken board members. In that case the SEC closed the investigation without taking action.
Fifty-two years ago, on a cold day on the Korean front, my lieutenant gave me a copy of Chinese Gen. Sun Tsu’s classic The Art of War. I've been a disciple ever since; the book has become my military bible, and I read a passage daily.
Sun Tzu lays it all out: Know your enemy; the art of war cannot be neglected; all warfare is based on deception; the highest form of generalship is to balk the enemy's plans; make sure the enemy threat is real.
Wise thinking about war and peace that Bush 43 should borrow from to help him counter the counsel of his advisers baying for Saddam's head. And since nobody has yet come up with sufficient justification for our grunts laying their lives on the line, the war gang would do well to slow down and study this brilliant Chinese general's words as well.
By the way, none of these hawks – not one of whom ever wore a soldier suit, even though most were of draft age back during the dark days of Vietnam – or their sons or daughters will be accompanying our warriors on their march to Baghdad. As usual, it will be a war fought by mainly blue-collar Americans with no vested interests in the oil business.
Back in 1991, when Stormin' Norman had the Iraqi army on the ropes, Super-Hawk Dick Cheney knew that Saddam had WMD (weapons of mass destruction) – but he still went along with Bush 41's decision to let the perps walk. Cheney should have stood in the door when 41 made that bad call and insisted we take out Saddam while we had the world behind us, and the forces on the ground to do the job. Or he should have resigned.
Yet 11 years later, Cheney is the main cheerleader for attacking Iraq because – breaking news – Saddam has chemical and bio weapons. And, he keeps telling us, Saddam now also has nukes.
Even though many experts say it isn't so, let's buy into Cheney's pitch and agree that Iraq has a few small nuclear warheads. The question then becomes: “Can he land them in New York City or Los Angeles?” The answer is: “No.”
"What harm can he do in four years?" I'm ashamed to say it, but that was my initial reaction to the Supreme Court's selection of George Bush as president. Attempting to avoid alternating waves of gnawing discomfort and quiet desperation, I asked myself a question my imagination dared not answer. Squelching a parade of fears, I sacrificed truth and clarity at the altar of rationalization. "It's not the end of the world," I said, and set my sights on 2004.
Now it appears those first fears were but legless underachievers. Early concerns focused on the environment and education and what Paul Krugman refers to as our "$7 trillion reversal of fiscal fortune;" certainly nothing as dark as what's transpired in the past year. Even as civil liberties, international commitments and our right to petition the government fell by the wayside, and it looked as if incompetence, neglect or something worse contributed to what went wrong, I needed to trust that this president was above exploiting tragedy for personal or political gain.
Using the Statue of Liberty and Sept. 11 as backdrops, however, he continues to shamelessly cull Americans into accepting his agenda: "War is peace. Slavery is freedom. And we're going to attack Iraq no matter what." As one seasoned government official told the Christian Science Monitor, "This administration is capable of any lie. . . in order to advance its war goal in Iraq." Given Gulf War propaganda expert John MacArthur's assertion that this crew will "make up just about anything ... to get their way," it's now clear that unimaginable harm can occur in a matter of months. And, frankly, musings on "the end of the world" are open to interpretation, too.
Initially, Armageddon chatter was met with amusement, a la Y-2K hand-wringing and millennium madness. Some saw Satan in the smoke clouds, just as others see the Virgin Mary in their Cinnabons. Surprisingly, however, a recent Time/CNN poll showed that a whopping one third of all Americans are now checking the news for apocalyptic signs. And raptureready.com webmaster Todd Strandberg joyfully updates his "Rapture Index" as events unfold.
While Armageddon aficionados might be easily dismissed, when Brent Scowcroft says an attack on Iraq will lead to Armageddon and Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa warns it will "open the gates of hell," these matters take on more weight. Likewise, when a Saudi diplomat explains that Bush's "obsession" with Iraq will lead to tragedy, one thing becomes starkly clear: Armageddon, tragedy and "gates of hell," aren't words traditionally used by generals and ambassadors.
Various mainstream sources have also reported that Christian Zionists are campaigning to oust the Palestinians in order to make way for the Second Coming of Christ. Considering Biblical prophecy a mandate for awarding regional control to Israel (while downplaying another aspect of the "to do" list - conversion of the Jews), conservative Christians are not only funding Jewish settlers, but garnering immense influence in Washington. The secretive Council for National Policy, for example, which ABC News labeled "the most powerful conservative group you've never heard of," includes John Ashcroft, Tommy Thomson and "Left Behind" author Tim LaHaye as former members.
Despite pressure from the Democratic National Committee, the Bush campaign refuses to release a tape of the rumored "king-making" speech G.W gave before the council in 1999, fueling speculation that the council was responsible for his presidential nomination. Whether that's true or not, as the Washington Post reported last December, "For the first time since religious conservatives became a modern political movement, the president of the United States has become the movement's de facto leader."
WASHINGTON (AP) - The chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee urged President Bush ( news - web sites) on Wednesday to rule out unilateral military action against Iraq, saying it was the "single worst option" for dealing with Saddam Hussein ( news - web sites).
Sen. Joseph Biden ( news, bio, voting record), D-Del., issued the appeal a day before Bush's speech on Iraq to the U.N. General Assembly. Bush is expected to ask the Security Council to compel Iraq to readmit U.N. weapons inspectors. It is not clear whether he will say the United States is prepared to use force against Iraq if the Iraqi president refuses to comply.
Biden, in remarks to the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia, said he will be "extremely disappointed" if Bush lays out a unilateralist approach in his U.N. speech that conveys the message, "`The world be damned, here we go.' That is not in our interest," Biden said.
CAIRO, Sept. 10 — Anger at the United States, embedded in the belief that the Bush administration lends unstinting support to Israel at the expense of the Palestinians, is at an unparalleled high across the Arab world, according to analysts and diplomats in the region.
The resolve of President Bush to use force against Iraq, they say, compounds the antagonism, which is expressed with particularly unvarnished dismay in Egypt and neighboring Jordan, Washington's crucial Arab allies.
More than in previous bouts of anti-Americanism in the region, the anger permeates all strata of society, especially among the educated, and is tinged, people acknowledge, with disillusionment at their own long-entrenched American-backed leadership.
Frustration at the failure of the Arab governments to forge a common front against the administration and its close relationship with the government of Ariel Sharon in Israel seeps through many conversations.
"There is a sense by many ordinary people and politicians that the moves against Iraq are an effort to redraw the map for the strategic interests of the United States and Israel," said Rami G. Khouri, an American-educated Jordanian journalist and a senior analyst with the International Crisis Group, a research group with offices in Washington.
Mr. Khouri, like many others, said the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, was deeply unpopular in the region.
"Everyone I know wants Saddam Hussein removed," he said. "Nobody I know wants the Americans to do it — because we believe they are the last people in the world who will work on the behalf of Arab interests."
But this deep antagonism toward the United States is mixed, Mr. Khouri and others said, with an affinity for the American way of life that feeds the disillusionment with the Bush administration.
MOSCOW - When George H. W. Bush ordered American forces to the Persian Gulf – to reverse Iraq's August 1990 invasion of Kuwait – part of the administration case was that an Iraqi juggernaut was also threatening to roll into Saudi Arabia.
Citing top-secret satellite images, Pentagon officials estimated in mid–September that up to 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks stood on the border, threatening the key US oil supplier.
But when the St. Petersburg Times in Florida acquired two commercial Soviet satellite images of the same area, taken at the same time, no Iraqi troops were visible near the Saudi border – just empty desert.
"It was a pretty serious fib," says Jean Heller, the Times journalist who broke the story.
The White House is now making its case. to Congress and the public for another invasion of Iraq; President George W. Bush is expected to present specific evidence of the threat posed by Iraq during a speech to the United Nations next week.
But past cases of bad intelligence or outright disinformation used to justify war are making experts wary. The questions they are raising, some based on examples from the 1991 Persian Gulf War, highlight the importance of accurate information when a democracy considers military action.
"My concern in these situations, always, is that the intelligence that you get is driven by the policy, rather than the policy being driven by the intelligence," says former US Rep. Lee Hamilton (D) of Indiana, a 34-year veteran lawmaker until 1999, who served on numerous foreign affairs and intelligence committees, and is now director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. The Bush team "understands it has not yet carried the burden of persuasion [about an imminent Iraqi threat], so they will look for any kind of evidence to support their premise," Mr. Hamilton says. "I think we have to be skeptical about it."
With all the war fever about re-invading Iraq, the press and politicians are ignoring the opinion of the veterans of our last war in the Gulf. But we veterans were there, and we have unique and critical first-hand knowledge of the course and consequences of warfare in Iraq. Our opinions should be solicited and heard before troops deploy for battle, not after they have returned wounded, ill or in body bags.
Another invasion of Iraq in 2002 will be very different from the invasion of 1991. The war's mission has changed in the intervening years, from removing Iraq from Kuwait to removing the entire Iraqi government and military establishment from power. Because the goal of the U.S. military has changed, the Iraqi army may retreat to the cities, where they may face better odds than in the desert.
During the open desert tank battles of '91, U.S. tanks out-classed and out-fought obsolete Iraqi tanks, and U.S. infantry captured tens of thousands of poorly supplied Iraqi soldiers operating without command and control from Baghdad. But in the urban warfare scenario of 2002, pitched infantry skirmishes and ambushes in cities may present a more level battlefield for Iraqi troops fighting in their hometowns. The Iraqi military can be expected to fight for each block within each city with the most ruthless means available. When faced with the impending overrun of their nation, the Iraqi military didn't hesitate to use chemical weapons against Iran.
Because of these significant differences, here are 10 reasons why, as a Gulf War combat veteran, I oppose a second Gulf War as a costly and preventable mistake.
When the planes hit the World Trade Center last Sept. 11, my brother Avrame, who was in the North Tower, refused to join the evacuation because he was concerned for the safety of his close friend and fellow worker, a quadriplegic who could not easily leave. So Avrame stayed, hoping that help would arrive. When it didn't, he and his lifelong associate died together, along with thousands of others innocent New Yorkers.
That day changed my life. It changed the lives of all those who lost loved ones in the towers.
It changed the lives of the relatives of those on the flight that crashed in Pennsylvania. It changed the lives of hundreds of families who lost loved ones in the Pentagon. And, perhaps to a lesser extent, it changed the lives of most people living in the United States.
In the months after the disaster, I often heard how Sept. 11 changed the world. But I don't think the attacks changed the world. And to the extent that Americans believe that Sept. 11 changed the world, it is because they don't know much about the world in which they live.
I have never heard anyone say that the horrific massacres of 1994 in Rwanda - which took more than 500,000 lives - changed the world. Nor have I ever been told that Indonesia's massacre of 200,000 East Timorese during a 20-year span changed the world. I have not even heard that the daily loss of 8,000 souls in sub-Saharan Africa due to AIDS changed the world.
Were these people less important than my dear brother?
Despite my own personal grief, I must conclude that, in light of these far greater calamities, Sept. 11 did not change the world. What it did, in its own terrible way, was invite Americans to join the world, which is already a very troubled place. The question is whether we will accept that invitation.
Sadly, President Bush has no interest in doing so. He does not want the United States to join, or even cooperate with, the new International Criminal Court. He has also withdrawn the United States from the long-standing Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty with Russia, even as India and Pakistan shudder on the verge of nuclear war. He refuses to support international agreements that would alleviate global warming, and he will not seek to ratify the treaty banning land mines, leaving the United States in the company of Iraq, Iran and North Korea, Bush's "axis of evil."
And now the president is planning for a war against Iraq. Never mind that Iraq has committed no act of aggression against us that justifies war, that there has been no evidence linking Iraq to the Sept. 11 attacks. Neither does the president seem to care that the world is opposed to an invasion of Iraq.