WASHINGTON - A new study by the Army's Center of Military History has found that the U.S. military would have to commit 300,000 peacekeeping troops in Afghanistan and 100,000 in Iraq if it were to occupy and reconstruct those nations on the scale that occurred in Japan and Germany after World War II.
The study was requested by the Army's director of transformation in May as part of a force structure review undertaken in light of significant new troop demands in Afghanistan, ongoing commitments in the Balkans and potential peacekeeping duties in Iraq.
Although no one inside or outside the Pentagon is proposing anything close to post-World War II occupation forces in either Afghanistan or Iraq, Army officers say the study underscores the extent of new long-term force commitments the United States could be required to make.
One Army officer said the study was only one of many "data points" being analyzed. But the officer added: "One fact is that where we go, we tend to stay, and the list is increasing."
The officer noted that there are 10 active duty divisions in the Army now, compared with 18 at the time of the Persian Gulf War in 1991. As a result, because of the existing commitments in Korea, Afghanistan and the Balkans, an invasion of Iraq at the same level as in the Gulf War would essentially require the rest of the Army.
The study is based on the number of troops deployed in 16 occupations during the 20th century, from the Philippines in the early 1900s to Iraq after the Gulf War.
Wednesday, September 25, 2002
RAMALLAH, West Bank (AP) - Israel defied a U.N. Security Council demand Tuesday to end its six-day siege of Yasser Arafat ( news - web sites)'s devastated West Bank headquarters, and nine Palestinians were killed in an Israeli strike against alleged munitions factories and other targets in Gaza City
Israel's siege drew criticism from President Bush ( news - web sites) and many Israelis who questioned the wisdom of a military operation that may have boosted the Palestinian leader's popularity at a time when voices had begun to be heard urging him to share power.
Sporadic pro-Arafat demonstrations persisted Tuesday despite curfews imposed in the West Bank in an effort to halt suicide attacks.
With the United States abstaining, the Security Council demanded early Tuesday that Israel end its operations, "including the destruction of Palestinian civilian and security infrastructure." The resolution also called on the Palestinian Authority ( news - web sites) to ensure "those responsible for terrorist acts are brought to justice."
In Washington, Bush said: "We've got to end the suffering. I thought the actions the Israelis took were not helpful in terms of the establishment and development of the institutions necessary for a Palestinian state to emerge."
Unmoved, Israeli Defense Minister Binyamin Ben-Eliezer said that "no resolution, and no person, can take from us our exclusive right to defend our homes, our people."
No. This is not acceptable. This is not the country we want to be. This is not the world we want to make.
The United States of America is still run by its citizens. The government works for us. Rank imperialism and warmongering are not American traditions or values. We do not need to dominate the world. We want and need to work with other nations. We want to find solutions other than killing people. Not in our name, not with our money, not with our children's blood.
I rarely use the word "we" because it's so arrogant for one citizen to presume to speak for all of us -- and besides, Americans famously can't agree on the time of day. But on this one, I know we want to find a way so that killing is the last resort, not the first. We would rather put our time, energy, money and even blood into making peace than making war.
"The National Security Strategy of the United States -- 2002" is repellent, unnecessary and, above all, impractical. Americans are famous for pragmatism, and we need a good dose of common sense right now. This Will Not Work.
All the experts tell us anti-Americanism thrives on the perception that we are arrogant, that we care nothing for what the rest of the world thinks. Even our innocent mistakes are often blamed on obnoxious triumphalism. The announced plan of this administration for world domination reinforces every paranoid, anti-American prejudice on this earth. This plan is guaranteed to produce more terrorists. Even if this country were to become some insane, 21st century version of Sparta -- armed to teeth, guards on every foot of our borders -- we would still not be safe. Have the Israelis been able to stop terrorism with their tactics?
WASHINGTON (AP) This week's meetings of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund are expected to lure thousands of protesters to the nation's capital, and police are preparing by closing streets and bringing in extra officers.
While the major organizers promise a series of peaceful protests, at least one group is threatening to block key intersections and the Metro subway system, threatening to tie up traffic in downtown Washington.
According to the Golden Triangle Business Improvement District, which includes businesses near the World Bank, there will be platoons of 34 police officers each at several key downtown intersections. In addition, the public is being urged to stay away from the area on Friday. The Business Improvement District warns that ''major disruptions to morning traffic are expected.''
The Greater Washington Board of Trade, a regional business organization, is urging workers to use mass transit and companies to allow employees to work at home if possible.
''We want to see business as usual,'' spokeswoman Mary Anne Reynolds said. ''That's what the protesters don't want to see. We're saying take Metro and come on in. Those who can't, this is a good time to consider teleworking.''
The Board of Trade is advising businesses to remove sidewalk furniture, flower pots, and anything else that could be picked up and thrown. In addition, the group suggested businesses empty their trash bins by Wednesday.
Martin Thomas of the Mobilization for Global Justice, the group organizing most of the protests, said his organization does not support blockades or other disruptive actions. Indeed, the group has scheduled three days of workshops on nonviolent protest.
''No protesters are advocating violence,'' Thomas said. ''These events are going to be safe. They're going to be colorful.''
Activities such as teach-ins, workshops and a Thursday night candlelight vigil are preliminaries to a rally and march scheduled for Saturday on the grounds of the Washington Monument.
What concerns local officials is the call by a group known as the Anti-Capitalist Convergence to block bridges, roads and the subway system on Friday.
D.C. Police Chief Charles Ramsey said he was concerned that such protests could hinder efforts to respond to a terrorist attack.
''To knowingly set out to strangle this city in terms of causing massive traffic jams, both Metro and vehicular traffic, to knowingly do that to Washington, D.C., the capital of the United States at a point in our history when our very nation is at risk and under high alert is just totally irresponsible and I think goes way beyond something that one could associate with the right to protest or petition the government,'' Ramsey said.
WASHINGTON, Sept. 23 — An administrative law judge concluded today that the El Paso Corporation illegally helped to drive up prices for natural gas in California during the state's power crisis in 2000 and 2001, the first time any federal regulatory official has determined there was widespread manipulation of energy supplies.
In the ruling, Curtis L. Wagner Jr., the chief administrative law judge at the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, essentially validates the suspicions of California officials that El Paso, the nation's largest natural gas company, withheld natural gas from the state, thus driving up the cost of electricity that was generated by gas-fired turbines.
"El Paso Pipeline withheld extremely large amounts of capacity that it could have flowed to its California delivery points," Judge Wagner said in the ruling. El Paso's actions significantly increased the price of natural gas flowing to California, he added, and "substantially tightened the supply of natural gas at the California border."
Executives at El Paso, which is based in Houston, said the ruling "is unsupported by the evidence and is inconsistent with FERC policy."
Judge Wagner recommended that the energy agency begin determining penalties against El Paso for violating federal rules and "for the unlawful exercise of market power."
The ruling sent shares in El Paso down $4.16, or 36 percent, to $7.51.
California officials and one of the state's major utilities, which argued the case in hearings at the energy commission, said they would seek to recover nearly $4 billion in what they contended were higher power and gas prices caused by El Paso's actions.
The company also faces a number of lawsuits, which will be aided if the ruling is upheld.
But the decision faces review by the four-member energy regulatory commission and, if upheld there, an almost certain appeal to a federal appellate court.
El Paso predicted that the ruling would be reversed. In a statement, the chairman and chief executive of El Paso, William A. Wise, said: "We are disappointed that today's proposed decision does not recognize the substantial record evidence supporting El Paso Natural Gas's position that the pipeline was operated properly. We are confident in the strength of our position."
"Given the critical safety and deliverability concerns associated with operating a natural gas pipeline," Mr. Wise said, "it is inappropriate and without precedent to second-guess a pipeline's day-to-day operations."
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush ( news - web sites) said on Tuesday he was optimistic about U.S. economic strength as Federal Reserve ( news - web sites) policymakers warned of possible further weakness and Democrats stepped up their attacks on the president's record.
After a private business research group reported on Tuesday that consumer confidence declined for a fourth straight month in September, Bush said more work was needed but that with low inflation and low interest rates, the economy had the ingredients for growth.
"You bet I'm optimistic but I understand that we've got a lot of work to do," Bush told reporters after a meeting of his Cabinet. "I'm optimistic about America in general. The American people are resilient, they're strong. We've got the best workers in the world," Bush said.
But Democrats, anxious to focus public debate on the economy as well as a possible war with Iraq ahead of the November congressional elections, said the country could be on the brink of a second economic slump in nearly two years.
"DOUBLE DIP RECESSION?"
"Statistic after statistic makes me think that there is a real possibility for a double dip recession," Senate Majority Leader, Tom Daschle, a South Dakota Democrat, said. "There can be no question, unless we are able to deal more effectively with the economy, it could become a bigger issue than anything else on the horizon."
He made his remarks to reporters as the Federal Reserve policymakers announced they would keep key interest rates steady, but warned the economic outlook was uncertain in the face of rising global tensions over Iraq.
In the Republican-controlled House of Representatives, Democratic Leader Richard Gephardt of Missouri said the economy was suffering its worst performance since the 1950s.
"We've seen the most anemic period of economic growth since Eisenhower was president," he said. "In 18 months, the stock market lost $4.5 trillion in value; more than two million people have lost their jobs. A wave of corporate scandals has eroded people's fundamental faith in our nation's free markets, and scores of corporations have become bankrupt."
This month, one year after the 9/11 attacks, there has been much talk that we have the terrorists on the run and are winning the War on Terrorism. The Afghan camps have been destroyed, the Taliban and al Qaeda have been overthrown and mostly forced out of Afghanistan, their command structure and ability to operate has been severely disrupted. Furthermore, the West has not experienced another major terrorist attack and a number of smaller attacks have been thwarted in both the U.S. and in Europe. This heightened sense of security in the West has succeeded in unearthing al Qaeda and sympathetic individuals in a number of European and Middle Eastern countries, which has stopped a number of dangerous attacks.
The picture painted by governments and media has been one of a highly successful campaign waged by the U.S. and allies that caught the Taliban and al Qaeda by surprise, sent them scurrying for the mountains, where significant sections of them were killed and their supplies destroyed, their camps wiped out and their ability to function as a network severely undermined. According to this view, al Qaeda was caught and punished and is now a shattered group reduced to panic and disorder.
Yet, we might be in danger of overestimating our successes. We may be gauging our success by our standards and by rules of engagement that have been applied to traditional military combat, counter-intelligence and previous anti-terrorist groups. Although it is true that al Qaeda and the Taliban have suffered important setbacks, the central command still exists and has influence, it is operationally effective and highly dangerous and much of its financial and logistical capabilities remain in tact. Indeed, al Qaeda may be more dangerous and difficult to track down and destroy now than before.
Al Qaeda is extremely flexible and its cadre operatives are trained and able to function independently. The CIA describes them as highly professional and disciplined combatants with skills as good or beyond those of a normal combat soldier. They have been trained in how to maintain cult cells and lie low patiently in the West, fabricate and use disguises and false papers, communicate with extreme secrecy and, moreover, to plan and operate independently using a wide variety of weapons and explosives, including biological and chemical ones. They are able to bide their time and meticulously prepare to attack, as was seen not only on September 11, but also in the Embassy bombings of Kenya and Tanzania and the USS Cole. One of the key purposes of the Afghan camps was to create such independent units for global operations over long periods.
Al Qaeda, then, is one of the most sophisticated, cunning and intelligent terrorist cults to exist in history. Its leaders are a combination of highly educated and intelligent people and expert, battle-hardened military strategists.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A fierce attack on President Bush ( news - web sites)'s Iraq policy issued by former Vice President Al Gore ( news - web sites) could help galvanize U.S. opposition to a new Gulf war ( news - web sites) while serving as a launching pad for Gore's probable 2004 presidential campaign, analysts said on Tuesday.
In a speech in San Francisco, the defeated 2000 Democratic presidential nominee on Monday laid out a scathing critique of Bush's Iraq policy.
Pollster John Zogby said Gore's message was "very well timed."
"Gore stepped in just as it appeared that pro-war sentiment would go virtually unchallenged in Congress and in the country," Zogby said. "There will be an anti-war movement that grows out of this."
Democrats in the U.S. Congress, acutely aware the mid-term elections that will decide control of both houses of Congress are only six weeks away, have been wary of speaking out against Bush on Iraq. Their main tactic has been to try to change the subject to domestic issues but with scant success.
Bush has been pressing Congress to debate Iraq and endorse his policy within the next couple of weeks before lawmakers leave Washington for the election campaign rather than waiting until mid-November.
"Gore put forward some legitimate and substantive arguments which might make it possible for the country to have a real debate. That makes him stand out among the various potential Democratic presidential candidates," said Steven Wayne, a political scientist at Georgetown University.
Gore, who as a senator supported the 1991 Gulf War, laid out several objections to Bush's determination to remove President Saddam Hussein ( news - web sites) from power, if necessary by force and with the United States acting alone.
He said a war against Iraq distracted attention from the war against terrorism and the need to stabilize Afghanistan ( news - web sites). It also alienated and frightened U.S. allies, would cost billions of dollars and might leave Iraq so unstable and disorganized it would become even more dangerous to the United States.
The California Superior Court judge, who took the unusual step of overturning a $78 million dollar "business fraud" jury verdict against Bill Simon's company, gave $1000 in the 1998 election cycle to Dan Lundren, the Republican candidate for Governor at that time. Michele Chalfant, the wife of James C. Chalfant, the Superior Court Judge who "cleared" Simon, gave $750 during the same period to Lundren.
Canon 2 of the California Code of Judicial Ethics imposes on judicial officers the duty to "act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary." Likewise, Canon 5 cautions judges to "avoid political activity that may create the appearance of political bias or impropriety. Judicial independence and impartiality should dictate the conduct of judges…." Given that in 1998 Lundren lost to Gray Davis, whom Bill Simon faces in the 2002 California race for Governor, the Chalfant political donations might raise some questions for the public as to whether, with respect to this trial and post-trial proceedings, Judge Chalfant possessed the independence and impartiality demanded by the Canons.
Chalfant, after serving in the LA Municipal Court, was appointed to the Superior Court bench by former California Governor Pete Wilson in 1998. Chalfant and his wife also contributed to Wilson's campaign fund.
The $78 million dollar judgment against William Simon and Sons created a formidable stumbling block for the GOP candidate, at a time in July when George W. Bush's Harken problems and Dick Cheney's Halliburton business practices were being widely questioned.
According to Blair, 'The assessed intelligence has established beyond doubt that Saddam has continued to produce chemical and biological weapons, that he continues in his efforts to develop nuclear weapons, and that he has been able to extend the range of his ballistic missile programme' (1).
Blair has come a long way since 7 September 2002. Then, while at Camp David with US President George Bush, he said: 'We haven't the faintest idea what has been going on in the last four years…other than what we know is an attempt to carry on rebuilding weapons.' (2) From not having the faintest idea to 50-plus pages of 'irrefutable evidence' in just 17 days? That ain't half bad.
Of course there is nothing new or shocking in Blair's dossier against Saddam. An early BBC analysis says, 'He may be a barrister but it is doubtful Blair would want to go into a court of law with [this] dossier' (3). Others point out that the dossier 'consists of a reworking of information that was already public' (4). According to one sceptic, 'It has everything you would expect, but little that would convince you'.
The dossier doesn't have everything you would expect. There is no mention of the alleged link between Iraq and al-Qaeda - even though British intelligence officials claimed just over a week ago that this would be Blair's 'major contribution' to the Iraq debate.
On 15 September 2002, the Sunday Telegraph reported that the draft dossier's central allegation was that 'Abu Zubair, believed to be in custody in the USA, and Rafid Fatah, still at large, were trained in Iraq and sent to work with al-Qaeda in Afghanistan' (5). The paper cited an intelligence official's claims that the dossier identifies two leading al-Qaeda operatives as having 'direct links' to Saddam.
Yet the final version doesn't mention al-Qaeda at all, or any of Iraq's other alleged links to terrorists. One commentator asks if those allegations were ditched because, 'amid all the speculation, there was no room left for lies' (8).
Perhaps the British government learned from the American experience. There, too, officials have made wild claims about bin Laden and Saddam being in cahoots. In early August 2002, defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld claimed 'there are al-Qaeda in Iraq', accusing Saddam of 'harbouring al-Qaeda operatives who fled the US military dragnet in Afghanistan' (6). In early September 2002, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said: 'Iraq clearly has links with terrorism that would include al-Qaeda.' (7)
Tony Blair's "dossier" on Iraq is a shocking document. Reading it can only fill a decent human being with shame and outrage. Its pages are final proof – if the contents are true – that a massive crime against humanity has been committed in Iraq. For if the details of Saddam's building of weapons of mass destruction are correct – and I will come to the "ifs" and "buts" and "coulds" later – it means that our massive, obstructive, brutal policy of UN sanctions has totally failed. In other words, half a million Iraqi children were killed by us – for nothing.
Let's go back to 12 May 1996. Madeleine Albright, the US Secretary of State, had told us that sanctions worked and prevented Saddam from rebuilding weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Our Tory government agreed, and Tony Blair faithfully toed the line. But on 12 May, Mrs Albright appeared on CBS television. Leslie Stahl, the interviewer, asked: "We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that's more than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?" To the world's astonishment, Mrs Albright replied: "I think this is a very hard choice, but the price, we think the price is worth it."
Now we know – if Mr Blair is telling us the truth – that the price was not worth it. The price was paid in the lives of hundreds of thousands of children. But it wasn't worth a dime. The Blair "dossier" tells us that, despite sanctions, Saddam was able to go on building weapons of mass destruction. All that nonsense about dual-use technology, the ban on children's pencils – because lead could have a military use – and our refusal to allow Iraq to import equipment to restore the water-treatment plants that we bombed in the Gulf War, was a sham.
This terrible conclusion is the only moral one to be drawn from the 16 pages that supposedly detail the chemical, biological and nuclear horrors that the Beast of Baghdad has in store for us. It's difficult, reading the full report, to know whether to laugh or cry. The degree of deceit and duplicity in its production speaks of the trickery that informs the Blair government and its treatment of MPs.
There are a few titbits that ring true. The new ammonium perchlorate plant illegally supplied by an Indian company – which breached those wonderful UN sanctions, of course – is a frightening little detail. So is the new rocket test stand at the al-Rafah plant. But this material is so swamped in trickery and knavery that its inclusion becomes worthless.
NAJAF, Iraq — As soon as American troops are rolling through Saddam Hussein's palaces, the odds are that this holy Shiite city 100 miles south of Baghdad will erupt in a fury of killing, torture, rape and chaos.
The Shiite Muslims who make up 60 percent of Iraq — but who have never held power — will rampage through the narrow streets here. Remembering the whispers from the bazaar about how Saddam's minions burned the beard off the face of a great Shiite leader named Muhammad Bakr al-Sadr, then raped and killed his sister in front of him, and finally executed him by driving nails through his head, the rebels will tear apart anyone associated with the ruling Baath Party.
In one Shiite city after another, expect battles between rebels and army units, periodic calls for an Iranian-style theocracy, and perhaps a drift toward civil war. For the last few days, I've been traveling in these Shiite cities — Karbala, Najaf and Basra — and the tension in the bazaars is thicker than the dust behind the donkey carts.
So before we rush into Iraq, we need to think through what we will do the morning after Saddam is toppled. Do we send in troops to try to seize the mortars and machine guns from the warring factions? Or do we run from civil war, and risk letting Iran cultivate its own puppet regime? In the north, do we suppress the Kurds if they take advantage of the chaos to seek independence? Do we fight off the Turkish Army if it intervenes in Kurdistan?
Unless we're prepared for the consequences of our invasion, we have no business invading at all.
So après Saddam, le déluge? That's only a guess, of course, but it's exactly what happened the last time Saddam was in trouble, at the end of the Persian Gulf war in 1991.
With the central government tottering, a Shiite uprising began in Basra and quickly spread. Here in Najaf, rebels tossed officials out of the windows of the Baath Party headquarters to be hacked apart by others below. Rioters raped and killed children in front of their parents.
Saddam's suppression two weeks later, as U.S. forces stood by passively, was equally brutal, with rebels hanged from lampposts and dragged to their deaths behind tanks. Not surprisingly, when I asked people in the bazaars about the uprising, they mostly turned pale and remembered urgent business elsewhere.
"It hurts my heart when I remember it," said Nasseem Jawad, a 40-year-old jeweler in the Najaf bazaar who was one of the few to admit to being in the area at the time. "They burned the supermarkets, destroyed the laboratories, schools and hospitals." Mr. Jawad was prudent enough to adhere to the government line that the rebellion was the work of Iranian provocateurs and would not happen again, but I'd bet otherwise.
Let's talk about the end of the world. A year from now, one of two things is likely to have happened.
If you believe the chickenhawk neocons, such as the Pentagon's maximum insider-adviser, Richard Perle, we'll have dropped a relative handful of troops, 40,000 or so, into the middle of Baghdad. Saddam Hussein will quickly be toppled. His weapons of mass destruction will be found and neutralized. (You must, of course, believe he has such an arsenal and delivery capability, since any proof is as vaporish and ephemeral as the claims that he's in league with al-Qaeda.)
Our forces will move out into the country, and the Iraqi people will wave little American flags as they welcome the GIs in scenes reminiscent of the WWII liberation of Paris. Other despotic Arab leaders will rejoice at Hussein's demise, and will be so smitten by the beneficence of pax Americana that they'll renounce their evil ways and embrace democracy.
That's called the "inside-out attack."
It's pretty much what is portrayed on the major media. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, for example, gushed the underlying (and lying) philosophy in its Sept. 5 jingoistic, cowboys-and-Indians Page 1 banner headline, "Ready to roll on Iraq."
It's not likely citizens will easily find much alternative opinion. CNN International Executive Vice President Rena Golden admitted Aug. 15 that the network self-censors news the Bushies wouldn't like because of "a reluctance to criticize anything in a war that was obviously supported by the vast majority of the people."
Not to be argumentative, but polls show support for war is rapidly evaporating. The only way the increasingly uneasy masses tilt toward war is if we have strong international backing, which we don't, and if the Bush war machine can guarantee few American boys will come home in bags, which the government can't do.
More important -- a fact that escapes the doltish CNN exec -- is that in a democracy, the people must be fully informed, not propagandized, in order to make decisions.
Still, Americans aren't much given to deep studying, and the popular sound bite-driven view is that a war with Iraq will be far less exciting than the weekly "WWF Smackdown." There won't even be the pretense of a fight; we'll just whup Hussein's ass.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, is in a final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.
-- Dwight David Eisenhower, 1953
AUSTIN, Texas -- "What's so interesting is that he's given in at the ideal moment: really early, when it messes us up." --Kenneth Pollack, an Iraq expert at the Brookings Institute, on Saddam Hussein's agreeing to weapons inspections as quoted in The New York Times.
Don't you just hate it when the bad guys agree to do what we want them to? If that's not a good reason to go in and take out Saddam, name one.
But our Fearless Leader, not one to be deterred from war merely by getting what he wants, promptly moved the goalposts and issued a new list of demands Iraq must meet, including paying reparations to Kuwait.
If you step back and look at this debate, it just gets stranger and stranger. For one thing, all the evidence is that the administration has already made up its mind and we're going into Iraq this winter. President Bush went to the United Nations and demanded they back him, he's going to Congress to demand they back him, and there it is. This is not a debate, it's Bush in his "You're either with us or against us" mode. It is not a discussion of whether invading Iraq is either necessary or wise.
If you add up all the reasons the administration has advanced for going after Saddam, there's only one thing left to say -- "Damn right, we need to take out Pervez Musharraf right now!" Musharraf has destroyed democracy in his country, he's backing terrorists in India (our democratic ally), his CIA was hand-in-glove with Al Qaeda, his military is riddled with militant Islamists, his madrasas teach hatred of the West, his heroes are Napoleon and Hitler, and he not only has nukes, he's threatened to use them.
George W. Bush's demand that Congress grant him war powers against Iraq and Saddam Hussein by using "all means that he determines to be appropriate" recalls Malcolm X's equally bellicose use of the phrase four decades ago, with this one difference: Malcolm was justified in his demand for freedom and equality for blacks. Bush is not justified in his design for a pre-emptive war on Iraq, a war hardly to be fought for freedom or equality.
Should a war be unleashed on Iraq, there won't be too many illusions about the outcome, even if it is favorable. Iraq is not the sort of place where freedom and equality are fought for, because the place is socially and politically too barren to nurture either. "Liberating" Iraq may be the standard operating rhetoric of an administration using all means necessary to its expedient ends. But nothing more elevating than "regime change," to use another standard operating euphemism, is likely to reward an offensive.
The question -- the worry -- should be focused on the Bush administration's rationale behind the resolution it has submitted to Congress. Specifically, Bush's disturbing and open-ended request for "all means appropriate," which opens the way to two possibilities: Considering this administration's rejection of a no-first-use policy, would the United States use weapons of mass destruction in its campaign to rid Iraq of weapons of mass destruction? And if Iraq is the target, then why expand the resolution to include the restoration of "international peace and security in the region"?
It may all be a matter of cleaning up the wording. Given the administration's tendency to lob bombastic words first and assess the damage later (think "axis of evil" or "you're either with us or you're with the terrorists"), the war resolution fits into a pattern of guerilla rhetoric: Let loose the fighting words, draw in the opposition onto the administration's turf, then compromise on the administration's terms.
About six years ago, Zacarias Moussaoui, who is now facing trial on capital charges as the alleged twentieth man in the September 11th aircraft hijackings, travelled to Chechnya with a childhood friend to join separatists in their fight against Russian control. At the time, young men from throughout the Muslim world were arriving in the region, which was regarded, after the Russian defeat in Afghanistan, as the site of a new jihad. Moussaoui was a Frenchman of Moroccan descent, and his friend was also from an immigrant family. Evidently, Moussaoui did not impress his superiors in the operation. When the Chechens decided that the foreign volunteers were more trouble than they were worth, Moussaoui was told to leave. (His friend was invited to stay, and was later killed, reportedly while filming combat scenes for an Islamic Web site.) "They sent Moussaoui packing," one of the lawyers appointed to represent him told me. "Who wants him around? He brought nothing to the table. He's trouble."
In February, 2001, Moussaoui showed up at the Airman Flight School, in Norman, Oklahoma. He was now thirty-two, and had continued to travel in pursuit of fundamentalist causes. He had been in Afghanistan (where he is alleged to have spent time in an Al Qaeda training camp), in Pakistan, and in Malaysia, while maintaining a base of sorts at a radical mosque in North London. When he arrived in America, two weeks after returning to London from a trip to Pakistan, he told customs he had thirty-five thousand dollars in cash. His sudden interest in flying had led him to pay five thousand dollars, in advance, for a series of lessons that should have allowed him to earn a pilot's license. Over the next three months, Moussaoui took fifty-seven hours of flight instruction, far more than the twenty hours most students need before flying solo. But he left the school in late May without a license.
Saddam Hussein could build a nuclear weapon within two years, the government claimed today in its long-awaited dossier on Iraq.
The 55-page document was released this morning ahead of an emergency Commons debate on the crisis.
But the contents of the report were dismissed as "nothing new" by critics and military experts.
Major Charles Heyman, editor of military bible Jane's World Armies, said: "It does not produce any convincing evidence, or any 'killer fact', that says that Saddam Hussein has to be taken out straight away."
And Thomas Withington, defence analyst with King's College, London, said a lot of the information was old material re-hashed adding: "Nothing staggering, is it?
Labour MP and former defence minister Peter Kilfoyle said: "There are no new killer facts in this document."
"The dossier is a judgement. It's full of unsubstantiated assertions and allegations. There is nothing we don't already know."
Backbench MP George Galloway, a vocal critic of action against Iraq, demanded the return of UN weapons inspectors and called the claims in the dossier "pulp fiction".
British officials have approved the export of key components needed to make nuclear weapons to Iran and other countries known to be developing such weapons.
An investigation by BBC Radio 4 programme File on Four will disclose that the Department of Trade and Industry allowed a quantity of the metal, Beryllium, to be sold to Iran last year.
That metal is needed to make nuclear bombs.
Britain has had an arms embargo to Iran since 1993 and has signed up to an international protocol which bans the sale of Beryllium to named countries, including Iran.
MP's concerns
Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, Menzies Campbell, who has been alerted to the BBC programme's material, is said to be extremely alarmed.
Beryllium is a metal with a limited number of high-tech uses in civilian industry, but is mostly used in defence applications and is a vital component in a nuclear bomb.
The programme has also interviewed a leading nuclear weapons expert in the UK who says that the Beryllium and other items which the DTI has licensed to Iran add up to a shopping list for a nuclear weapons programme.
The UK has an arms embargo against Iran, but not a trade embargo.
Now we know. The Americans have spelt it out in black and white. There will be a world government, but not one even pretending to be comprised of representatives of its nation states through the United Nations. The United States will rule, and not according to painstakingly developed international law and norms, but by what is in its interests.
In declaring itself dictator of the world, The United States will have no accountability to non-United States citizens. It will bomb who it likes when it likes, and change regimes when and as it sees fit, it will not be subject to investigations for war crimes, for torture, or for breaches of fundamental human rights.
When it asks the United Nations to move against Iraq, it is not demanding agreement to a strong case for action. It now admits it has no evidence that Iraq is preapring to use weapons of mass destruction against any other country. The Americans have stopped pretending, and now demand outright capitulation to its hegemony. The world will be policed in American interests. Full stop.
So now American history screams from background discussion to the forefront of debate. The Americans - despite their promises to be a benevolent dictatorship, do not aim to build, stabilise, and promote democracies. They aim to impose puppets, and agree to Faustian deals which brutalise and disempower citizens. They pay no heed to the disastrous results of such dictatorships when imposed in the past.
Australia's choice is to become a non-enfranchised satellite state of the United States - and thus responsible for its aggression and a legitimate target for those fighting to win back countries the Americans take by force, or to fight like hell to save the United Nation's dream of world government by negotiation.
Tuesday, September 24, 2002
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) - Israeli troops backed by dozens of tanks raided Gaza City on Tuesday to destroy several weapons workshops, killing nine Palestinians in gun battles in two neighborhoods of the Palestinians' largest city.
The incursion — the deepest into Gaza City in two years of fighting — came amid growing international criticism of Israel's 6-day-old siege of Yasser Arafat ( news - web sites)'s compound in the West Bank town of Ramallah.
On Tuesday, the U.N. Security Council demanded that Israel withdraw troops from Palestinian areas and the European Union ( news - web sites) told Arafat it was trying to get Israel to ease his isolation. Pope John Paul ( news - web sites) II also demanded an end to the blockade.
Israel assaulted and largely demolished Arafat's headquarters last week, in response to a Tel Aviv bus bombing that killed six people. On Tuesday, land phone lines to Arafat's compounds appeared to be out of order, meaning Arafat's only link to the outside world were a few mobile phones. Arafat and about 200 aides and security officials are confined to a few rooms in a wing of his office building.
The embattled Arafat said in a statement Tuesday that he welcomed the U.N. Security Council resolution, and urged the world to pressure Israel to implement it.
Despite the international outcry, Israeli troops backed by about 60 armored vehicles raided Gaza City early Tuesday.
Soldiers destroyed 13 workshops where the army said crude rockets were being made, and blew up the family house of a Hamas militiaman who killed five Israeli teenagers in a shooting rampage in a Jewish settlement in Gaza earlier this year.
The first 2002 election campaign in which George W. Bush's desire to attack Iraq became a major issue did not involve Republicans and Democrats. It was not even held in the United States. But it can still be said that Bush – and his proposed war -- came out on the losing end of the contest.
German voters on Sunday gave a narrow, yet clear, mandate to the red-green coalition of Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder. The dramatic come-from-behind win for Schroeder's Social Democratic Party (SPD) and its coalition partner, the Green Party, followed a campaign in which the chancellor promised to withhold German support for a US-led war against Iraq.
"Under my leadership, Germany will not participate in military action," declared Schroeder, in a blunt statement that distinguished the chancellor from Edmund Stoiber, the standard bearer of the conservative Christian Democratic Union-Christian Social Union (CDU-CSU)alliance that sought to oust the four-year-old SPD-Green government.
"There's still a big danger of war, and that is a point where we really have a differing opinion," Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer, Schroeder's Green Party ally, said of the governing coalition's differences with the Stoiber camp. "In no case should we escalate," Fischer said of Germany.
German election analysts said Schroeder's outspoken and consistent stance regarding Iraq helped his party eliminate a nine-point deficit in the polls and pull ahead of the opposition in the closing days of the campaign. In Sunday's voting The SPD-Green coalition won more than 47 percent of the vote and a majority of seats in the German Bundestag, the lower house of parliament. (The SPD was winning 37.6 percent of the vote in late returns, while the Greens earned 8.6 percent – the strongest national election finish in the party's 22-year history. The Greens are generally viewed as pulling the coalition toward a more anti-war stance.)
The explanation that the government is giving for the decision to demolish the Muqata - the Palestinian Authority official compound in Ramallah - and to isolate Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat in the wake of the murderous terror attacks last week is unconvincing, and it involves the government in contradictions.
The government is contending that by tightening the siege on the Palestinian leader, it aims to reinforce his labeling as someone who is irrelevant to dialogue until he comes to the conclusion that it is best for him to quit the territories and leave it to other people to lead the PA. Another of the government's justifications is its demand to hand over the wanted men who have taken shelter in Arafat's office. This explanation is not believable because the government is not providing evidence that proves a connection between the latest terrorist actions and the involvement of Arafat and the aides who are with him. The organization that took responsibility for last week's terror attacks is the Hamas.
Furthermore, as a result of the operational approach that the government approved for the Israel Defense Forces during the past year, Arafat has lost much of his power and the security organizations that were subordinate to him have been crushed. In this, Israel provided justification for his claim that in his current circumstances he does not have the ability to rein in the terror infrastructure that is operating against Israel. Moreover, Arafat has been effectively neutralized from influence ever since U.S. President George W. Bush disqualified him being considered a member of the community of legitimate leaders; the pressure that the IDF has been applying to him in recent days is not changing his status in this respect. At most, it is capable of forcing him to leave the territories.
Such a development, which is what the government desires, will deepen the lack of belief in its statements. A government that declares its aspiration to get rid of Arafat and does not hesitate to employ considerable force to achieve its end must along the way increase the chance that a new leadership will arise for the Palestinians. The experience of the Sharon government shows that it has not done enough to encourage the forces in Palestinian society that are challenging Arafat's leadership. The Sharon government did not use the relative quiet to make a gesture to the Palestinians and implant in them hope for more positive dialogue with Israel.
France and Russia have oil companies and interests in Iraq. They should be told that if they are of assistance in moving Iraq towards decent government, we'll do the best we can to ensure that the new government and American companies will work with them. If they throw their lot with Saddam, it will be difficult to the point of impossible to persuade the new Iraq government to work with them. Former CIA director James Woolsey, quoted in The Washington Post, September 15, 2002. So there you have it. The Bush administration may be telling the world that the reason the UN Security Council has to approve an allied attack on Iraq is because of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capability, but the real reason France and Russia are being told to get on board the US military bandwagon is Iraq's oil reserves.
According to The Washington Post, all five permanent members of the Security Council - the US, Britain, France, Russia and China - have international oil companies with major stakes in a change of leadership in Baghdad. The Washington Post is one of the major media vehicles through which members of the American establishment talk to each other.
It is clear the real issue here is who controls Iraqi oil.
Neither the US nor Britain - nor Australia for that matter - has produced any credible evidence to back up the ostensible reason for an attack on Iraq, or "regime change" (read assassination of Saddam).
The debate about how the US should go about getting control of Iraqi oil has been blunt and to the point. The new regime that the US intends to impose on Iraq will not honour any of the agreements made between the old regime and oil companies around the world.
As the Post points out, since the Gulf War in 1991, companies from more than a dozen nations have either reached or sought agreements to develop Iraqi oil fields or repair existing facilities.
According to the latest US Department of Energy background paper on Iraq, published in March, the UN had warned in 2000 of a "major breakdown" in Iraq's oil industry if spare parts and equipment were not forthcoming.
BERLIN –– Emboldened by his razor-thin victory in Germany's closest postwar election, Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder on Monday stuck by his emphatic opposition to a war on Iraq after a campaign that angered Washington for unleashing anti-American tones.
Schroeder secured a second four-year mandate for his coalition with the small Greens party in Sunday's vote, but his majority in parliament was shaved to only nine seats from a previous 21.
His conservative rival, Edmund Stoiber, said that slender majority would not hold long.
"I predict that this Schroeder government will rule for only a very short time," Stoiber said.
He said Schroeder would face a reinvigorated opposition at a time when the chancellor will have to tackle problems such as chronic unemployment and slow economic growth. Schroeder was embarrassed by a failed promise to cut the jobless total to 3.5 million by election day.
Schroeder's victory handed Europe's dwindling left another boost a week after Social Democrats triumphed in Sweden. A jubilant Schroeder appeared arm-in-arm with Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer of the Greens before cheering supporters in Berlin.
"We have hard times in front of us and we're going to make it together," Schroeder shouted.
Schroeder's outspoken opposition to a military conflict with Iraq was credited with giving him a late push in a tight campaign. But it provoked a rare open spat with the United States and accusations he whipped up emotions against a vital ally for electoral gain.
"What I criticize above all is that (Schroeder) opened the floodgates for anti-American tones," Stoiber said on German television, calling the crisis with the United States "the most devastating of the last 50 years."
Analysts expect Schroeder to adopt a softer tone after the election, but he showed no intention Monday of backing down. He has insisted he would not commit troops to a war in Iraq even if the United Nations backs military action.
Al Gore harshly criticized President Bush's push for war against Iraq, saying it has hurt the United States' standing and could dangerously undermine the rule of law around the globe.
"After Sept. 11, we had enormous sympathy, goodwill and support around the world," Gore said Monday. "We've squandered that, and in one year we've replaced that with fear, anxiety and uncertainty, not at what the terrorists are going to do but at what we are going to do."
In his first major speech on the Iraq situation, the once and possibly future Democratic presidential candidate accused Bush of abandoning the goal of a world where nations follow laws.
"That concept would be displaced by the notion that there is no law but the discretion of the president of the United States," he said.
"If other nations assert the same right, then the rule of law will quickly be replaced by the reign of fear," and any nation that perceives itself threatened would feel justified in starting wars, he said.
Gore also told the enthusiastic crowd at the Commonwealth Club of California he would decide in December whether to challenge Bush again for the presidency in 2004.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson said called Gore's speech "a bold step in the right direction" toward giving the country a platform upon which to discuss alternatives and options.
"At least in the fight against al-Qaida there is a world coalition. Bush's obsession with confronting Iraq unilaterally isolates our country and undercuts the coalition," Jackson said. "It is a real diversion from the present terror threat coming at us and a real diversion from the economic crisis."
Gore described his speech as an effort to lay out an alternative to the course of action pursued by the Bush administration.
In an astonishing letter to the Palestinian survivors of the 1982 Sabra and Shatila camps massacres, nine Israeli wo-men's peace groups have told Palestinians in Beirut that they support their efforts to indict the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon, for "war crimes'' committed against them almost exactly 20 years ago.
The women's letter, which was sent via the United States, has amazed the Lebanese lawyer representing the survivors of the massacre, for which Mr Sharon was held "personally responsible'' by an Israeli inquiry. "It is a wonderful gesture,'' Chibli Mallat said yesterday. "It is a wonderful message to receive in these very dangerous and violent times.''
The letter, from the Coalition of Women for A Just Peace in Israel, speaks movingly of the suffering of the Palestinians in 1982. "Our hearts ache to recall the terrible massacre that took place in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps 20 years ago, which Israeli leaders allowed to take place,'' it says. "We condemn the brutal murderers of your loved ones and we condemn the leaders who must be held accountable for these war crimes, Ariel Sharon above all.''
A Belgian court ruled earlier this year that it could not indict Mr Sharon for the killings, but more than 20 survivors of the massacre, whose lawyers include Mr Mallat, are now appealing against this decision.
Up to 1,700 Palestinians were butchered in the massacre by Lebanese militiamen allied to the Israelis. Israeli troops surrounded the camps as the killings went on but were told by their commanders not to interfere. Mr Sharon was Israeli Minister of Defence at the time and was forced to resign after the Israeli Kahan commission condemned him and several senior Israeli officers for not preventing the slaughter.
Despite Iraq's sudden invitation to renew UN weapons inspections, American hardliners will keep up the pressure for war. Regime change might be achieved under cover of disarming Baghdad. But without a serious debate on the objectives of force, there will be no opportunity to consider what could go wrong or how to handle the competing interests.
After all, the rationale for launching a war on iraq ought to determine how it would be waged. If the goal is a change of regime, the options range from sending assassination squads to target key individuals, to amassing a vast invasion force to take over the country. If the idea is to persuade the Iraqi military to perform a coup d'état, the officer corps would have to be persuaded that the only way to save their own skins would be to take out the government themselves. Heavy handed use of air power would be counterproductive if it killed the very people expected to assume power, or turned the public against the invading forces.
There is also the question of what kind of regime change is required. Will a replacement of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and his Takriti clan be sufficient if whoever takes over is prepared to relinquish the weapons of mass destruction, or does there have to be a representative government pledged to democratic norms to justify military intervention? In the first case, a timely coup could be sufficient to avert an invasion. But in the latter, a full-scale occupation would probably be necessary to transform the country from a dictatorship to a functioning democracy.
WASHINGTON -- If the late Democratic Sens. Ernest Gruening of Alaska and Wayne Morse of Oregon could somehow read President Bush's proposed war resolution against Iraq, they'd undoubtedly spin in their graves.
Mr. Morse and Mr. Gruening were the only two senators who voted in August 1964 against the Gulf of Tonkin resolution that gave President Lyndon B. Johnson a blank check to wage war against the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese forces in Indochina in the midst of LBJ's re-election campaign. They spent the rest of their political careers saying "I told you so" as President Johnson pulled out all the military stops and matters in Vietnam went from bad to worse.
While the language of Mr. Bush's resolution and the circumstances of the present situation are not identical, there are enough similarities to warrant comparison. Mr. Bush's resolution pushes Congress to authorize him "to use all means that he determines to be appropriate, including force," to enforce U.N. Security Council resolutions and "defend the national security interests of the United States against the threat posed by Iraq."
LBJ also got Congress to authorize "all necessary measures" he might take "to repel any armed attack" against American forces and "to prevent any further aggression." The difference in that case was that there was at least a reported armed attack on U.S. forces, though the accuracy of the report was questioned long after.
When reports reached President Johnson that torpedo-armed North Vietnamese patrol boats had attacked two U.S. destroyers in the Gulf of Tonkin, American aircraft struck back at North Vietnamese naval bases. He swiftly asked for and got the open-ended congressional authorization.
Given the space and time constraints of most news media companies, audience reaction often gets little attention. But Eric Alterman has so much room in his Web log on MSNBC.com that earlier this month he devoted an entire entry to readers' e-mail — 8,000 words of it.
Mr. Alterman, who is also a media columnist for The Nation, and other print and television journalists are discovering the freedom of Web logs, or "blogs," online soapboxes that typically consist of frequent entries with pithy commentary and links to other Web sites. But that freedom can also have some unpleasant consequences.
Bay Area would gain clout if control shifts
Washington -- Although public passions have yet to be stirred, the 2002 congressional election -- just six weeks away -- will set the course for the nation's political future and will greatly determine the muscle of the Northern California representation in Washington.
The tiny margin by which each party clings to power in today's divided Congress makes any result possible, from complete Republican control of the White House and Congress -- for only the second time in a half-century -- to a return to the Democrats' pre-Newt Gingrich days of glory.
At stake is the shape of legislation governing everything from prescription drugs and logging in national forests to electricity prices and the future of Social Security.
Neither California senator is up for re-election, and just one of the state's 53 House races is regarded as competitive (the Central Valley seat being vacated by Rep. Gary Condit). However, the overall outcome will profoundly affect the balance of power in the Golden State, where several Republican lawmakers in Southern California and the Central Valley now wield considerable influence, while most Northern California lawmakers toil in the Democratic minority.
Democratic victories in a handful of races from Roswell, N.M., to Bangor, Maine, could propel the Bay Area's all-Democratic delegation into arguably the nation's most powerful. With Rep. Dick Gephardt, D-Mo., as the likely speaker, San Francisco Rep. Nancy Pelosi would be the front runner to become majority leader -- the party's No. 2 post. Rep. George Miller, D-Martinez, would take over the Education Committee, while Rep. Tom Lantos, D-San Mateo, would chair the International Relations Committee.
"The stakes are huge for the American people," said Pelosi, who has been raising money and campaigning for Democrats in swing districts around the country.
Pelosi said a Democratic Congress would challenge President Bush by passing a long series of measures on issues ranging from health care and the environment to abortion rights, which Bush would either be compelled to sign, or veto at his political peril.
The imagination of the average person goes blank when the subject is money in amounts over a certain number.
I know what it costs to buy a house, for instance, or a car or a weeklong vacation for four. But if Tyco International says its former chief, L. Dennis Kozlowski, took $33 million in loans he never repaid, or that he charged the company $14 million to furnish an apartment for his ex-wife, I must admit ... I have no idea what they are talking about.
The brain which has been assigned to me does not have that database.
Which is why it was helpful last week when the Tyco people added some four-digit details: They said Kozlowski spent $6,000 of company money for a shower curtain, for instance. They said he spent $2,200 for a nice wastebasket. He bought two sets of sheets for almost $6,000; a very special pincushion for $445.
These are numbers that bring an average person's imagination into play. I know three- and four-digit numbers. I, and most people I know, live among these kinds of numbers.
"Tell him how much you get from your pension," said Joanna Bell-Richards, coaching one of her clients, an elderly woman who sat in a cluttered living room with two televisions, a lot of old furniture and a beautifully maintained secretary bookcase containing all the classics of literature.
WASHINGTON - Senators called on the White House yesterday to come clean and disclose what President Bush knew before the Sept. 11 attacks.
"I'm sure that the American people were told what Franklin Delano Roosevelt was briefed on before Dec. 7, 1941," said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), alluding to Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor.
A congressional hearing detailed last week missed clues that, taken together, could have pointed to the plot. The investigation also highlighted shocking communication lapses between the FBI and CIA.
McCain said he wants to know how much Bush and former President Bill Clinton knew about Osama Bin Laden's terror network and its plans. The White House has refused to declassify documents relating to the attacks.
"Frankly, I don't get it when that kind of thing is not made available to the American people, in light of the magnitude of the tragedy," McCain told NBC's "Meet the Press."
Remember the waitress?
She's the gal President Bush kept alluding to every time he would pitch his $1.7 trillion tax-cut idea. Here's what Bush said in his own convoluted way back in 1991: "Under current law, say, a waitress is working hard to get ahead -- and she may have two children, earning $25,000 a year -- faces a higher marginal tax rate than a successful lawyer earning 10 times as much. That is not right."
If the lady still has a job in this topsy-turvy economy, she'll be saving about $200 in taxes.
Meanwhile, millions of middle-class families are getting saddled with a new tax that essentially lifts the burden off millionaires and socks it to Middle America. We're talking 36 million taxpayers, who will be forced to pay the "alternative minimum" tax by 2010 under the plan Congress passed last year.
The firefighter married to a teacher, the cop married to a legal secretary, the nurse married to a construction worker -- most all of them will be penalized under the new tax law if they have two or more kids. So much for compassionate conservatism.
Several economists warned this would happen, as did Democrats and a few fiscally conservative Republicans, too. They figured that Bush's tax cuts would bring back budget deficits and explode the debt. Bush argued otherwise. Now he blames the cost of the war on terrorism and congressional spending for the economy's woes and rising deficits.
Let's agree that the terrorist attacks hurt the nation's economic fortunes, as have the seemingly endless corporate scandals. The mammoth Bush tax cut still was so skewed to the richest Americans that it would be difficult to sustain even in a revved up economy.
And now a study by economists who have worked for Republicans and Democratic administrations, from Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton, shows us what Bush's call for tax fairness really meant. The study prepared for the Tax Policy Center, a project of the moderate Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, warns that 97 percent of families earning $75,000 and up to $500,000 will get hit with the "alternative minimum" tax, which means they won't get as much as they were promised.
NEW YORK (Reuters) - A U.S. attack on Iraq could reshape the increasingly grim federal budget landscape, making deficit projections, already bleeding red, look far worse in coming months.
Administration officials have argued a $300 billion swing from surpluses to deep deficits in just one year will be rectified by 2005. But analysts are skeptical. They say that deficits will worsen before there is any improvement.
Building expectations for massive deficits could also speed up an eventual increase in market interest rates, threatening the recovery. Interest and mortgage rates, now at their lowest levels in a generation, are helping companies get back on their feet and are fueling a housing boom.
"There is considerable risk of a large further expansion to Treasury borrowing in the event of U.S.-led military action against Iraq," said John Youngdahl, senior economist and Treasury financing watcher at Goldman Sachs.
Those comments came just a few days after White House senior economic advisor Lawrence Lindsey pegged the cost of a war with Iraq anywhere from $100 billion to $200 billion, far exceeding a previous military estimate of $50 billion.
on security
The federal government's sluggish effort to improve domestic security since Sept. 11 is leaving the U.S. vulnerable to terror attacks, Sen. Chuck Schumer said yesterday.
In a new "Security Report Card" released yesterday, Schumer (D-N.Y.) gave the government an overall C-minus for its anti-terror effort to protect the nation's rail systems, airports, water supply, and ports and borders.
"When it comes to domestic security, the federal government is playing Russian roulette with New York and the nation," Schumer said at a news conference in front of a Sept. 11 memorial inside Penn Station.
The report also graded 10 categories within homeland security, with a high of B-plus going to "Combating Bioterrorism." "Nuclear Plant Security" got a B-minus, "Aviation Security" a C-plus, "Northern Border Security" a C-minus, while "Rail Security" and "Defending the Water Supply" tied for the worst marks, with D-minuses.
You've read about Enron. You've read about Global Crossing and WorldCom. When it comes to corporate pillaging, however, Tyco may top all of them. And, like every other unprecedented story of the past two years, this one leads back to Palm Beach County.
Profiteering, when alleged in court documents, is impressive for the overall numbers. This month, a federal indictment charged former Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski and ex-Chief Financial Officer Mark Swartz with stealing $170 million from the conglomerate that has a large presence in Boca Raton. The indictment also charges them with getting another $430 million through fraudulent stock sales.
That would be $600 million in scammed income. As a high-ranking Securities and Exchange Commission official said, "This type of looting really hasn't been seen in our lifetime." But the degree of excess came out last week when David Boies, who was Al Gore's lawyer during the presidential election controversy, released the report he had prepared for Tyco that detailed how Mr. Kozlowski spent the money he allegedly stole from shareholders and employees.
WASHINGTON - Senior military officers are deeply concerned about the cost, demands and hazards of occupying Iraq, including the teeming capital city of Baghdad, should U.S. forces overthrow Saddam Hussein.
Some estimate that it would take thousands, if not tens of thousands, of troops to patrol Iraq, especially Baghdad, where the prospect of revenge killings, ethnic rivalry, terrorism and a humanitarian crisis could dwarf the urban perils faced by U.S. troops in Somalia in 1993.
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, appearing before Congress last week, declined to publicly discuss the number of peacekeeping troops that might be needed, but a study conducted for the Army based on 16 U.S. military occupations in the 20th century - dating to the Philippines in 1902 - estimates that about 100,000 occupation troops would be required to patrol a post-Hussein Iraq.
Moreover, a former strategist for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, retired Army Col. Scott Feil, predicts that 75,000 U.S. troops would be needed for the first year, with an undetermined number after that.
A force of that size would carry a high price tag. Feil, director of strategy for the Joint Chiefs in 1999-2000, placed it at $16 billion for the first year.
Still, some say the number of troops needed for an occupation - and the associated costs - can only be determined after the fight. Anthony H. Cordesman, an analyst with the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said that suggesting a number beforehand is akin to "predicting the outcome of a slot machine."
"Certainly we should have a significant presence," he said. "We're not going to do that, it's clear, with 500 men."
The prospect of a large occupation force is troubling some members of Congress as they take up a resolution that could grant President Bush sweeping authority to remove Hussein from power and eliminate his weapons of mass destruction.
The secret is out. Two powerful intelligence gathering tools that the United States created to eavesdrop on Soviet leaders and to track KGB spies are now being used to monitor Americans. One system, known as Echelon, intercepts and analyzes telephone calls, faxes and e-mail sent to and from the United States. The other system, Tempest, can secretly read the displays on personal computers, cash registers and automatic teller machines, from as far as a half mile away. Although the inner workings of both systems remain classified, fueling exaggerated claims about their capabilities on Internet sites, credible detail has at last begun to emerge. It comes chiefly from foreign governments that began investigating American surveillance activities after discovering that the Echelon system had been used to spy on their defense contractors. From those documents it is possible to obtain the first accurate view of the threats high-tech spying poses to our right to privacy. We think you will agree it also creates a real and present threat to our freedom.
Monday, September 23, 2002
On September 13, 2001 I got a call from FOX News asking me to go on the O'Reilly Factor program that night, two days after the tragic events of September 11, to debate O'Reilly on War v. Peace. It is pretty clear where I stood and where he stood. I had been on this program before. I knew what I was getting in to. But I felt it would be important for one lawyer to get up there in front of a national audience and argue against a war and for the application of domestic and international law enforcement, international procedures, and constitutional protections, which I did.
Unfortunately, O'Reilly has the highest ranked TV news program in the country. I thought someone should be on there on September 13. I think most people agree that I beat O'Reilly. By the end of the show he was agreeing with me. But the next night he was saying that we should bomb five different Arab countries and kill all their people. But let me review for you briefly some of the international law arguments that I have been making almost full time since September 13. They are set forth in the introduction in my new book, The Criminality of Nuclear Deterrence.
The puppet Bush regime is using new, aggressive forms of brainwashing to change the very way Americans think and feel.
This is the psychological dimension of the "High Cabal's" general onslaught against American workers, just as the "war on terrorism" is the military dimension and corporate crime and tax cuts for the rich comprise the economic dimension.
We are living under the beginning stages of a military dictatorship in precisely the same way that 1930s Germans suffered under the Nazi regime.
As in the case of Nazi Germany, state-sponsored propaganda (brainwashing) is a vital part of the Bush regime's strategy.
Sometimes the worst ideas are the ones that are so widely accepted as sensible -- or inevitable -- that almost nobody actually examines them. So it is among our country's political elites with the notion of invading Iraq and displacing Saddam Hussein as President of Iraq. The idea is so entrenched that when, earlier this week, Hussein gave the Americans exactly what they'd demanded -- unconditional access for U.N. weapons inspectors -- not only did George Bush, predictably, dismiss the offer out of hand as a "ploy" and a "lie," but so did Tom Daschle, Richard Gephardt, and the rest of the Congressional Democratic leadership.
None of them, so far, have been willing to even consider the possibility of taking yes for an answer, because they're all wedded to a paradigm that makes invading Iraq sound awfully sensible. It goes like this: The United States can do anything it wants militarily. Saddam is bad. Saddam's oil is good. So why not get rid of him and take the oil? An invasion has other, lesser advantages as well -- particularly the intimidating example it provides for other governments that might one day consider serving their own, rather than American, interests -- but that's what it boils down to.
The problem is that there's a long list of very real answers to the rhetorical question of "why not?" Happily, a few of them are beginning to be raised on the fringes of American policy-making -- in particular, former U.S. Marine and Iraq weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who considers Iraq "qualitatively disarmed" and bitterly opposes an invasion, has been popping up all over the networks lately. But that's not the same as influencing the people -- mostly in the White House and Pentagon, peripherally in Congress -- who will make a final determination. Or, potentially, unmake a determination that's already been made.
Dr. Bob Rajcoomar, a U.S. citizen and former military physician from Lake Worth, Fla., found himself handcuffed and taken into custody last month in one of the many episodes of hysteria to erupt on board airliners in the U.S. since the Sept. 11 attacks.
Dr. Rajcoomar was seated in first class on a Delta Airlines flight from Atlanta to Philadelphia on Aug. 31 when a passenger in the coach section began behaving erratically. The passenger, Steven Feuer, had nothing to do with Dr. Rajcoomar.
Two U.S. air marshals got up from their seats in first class and moved back to coach to confront Mr. Feuer, who was described by witnesses as a slight man who seemed disoriented. What ensued was terrifying. When Mr. Feuer refused to remain in his seat, the marshals reacted as if they were trying out for the lead roles in Hollywood's latest action extravaganza.
They handcuffed Mr. Feuer, hustled him into first class and restrained him in a seat next to Dr. Rajcoomar. The 180 or so passengers were now quite jittery. Dr. Rajcoomar asked to have his seat changed and a flight attendant obliged, finding him another seat in first class. The incident, already scary, could — and should — have ended there. But the marshals were not ready to let things quiet down.
One of the marshals pulled a gun and brandished it at the passengers. The marshals loudly demanded that all passengers remain in their seats, and remain still. They barked a series of orders. No one should stand for any reason. Arms and legs should not extend into the aisles. No one should try to visit the restroom. The message could not have been clearer: anyone who disobeyed the marshals was in danger of being shot.
A GULF War hero yesterday spoke out against a new attack on Iraq.
Major General Patrick Cordingley, 57, who led the British 7 Armoured Brigade - The Desert Rats - in 1991, said: "I am absolutely opposed to war.
"I feel very strongly that it is wrong. There is no justification for sending British troops to Iraq. The case for war has not yet been made by the politicians."
It is estimated that around 15 per cent of invading troops would be wounded or killed in an assault on Baghdad - 37,000 soldiers in a total force of 250,000. The recently retired general said the dossier of evidence against Saddam would not prove the case for a war, adding: "I don't think they have much (evidence), frankly".
Meanwhile, the leader of Bahrain yesterday branded US military action against Iraq as harmful for the whole region.
Traditionally an American ally, Prime Minister Sheikh Khalifa bin Sulman said: "There is a strong intention to strike and a clear Arab and Muslim stance is required. Such an attack would harm the whole region."
He added that the offer to readmit weapons inspectors "had removed any reasons to continue threats".
The long-awaited dossier on the threat posed by Iraq, to be released by the British government on Tuesday, is expected to provide new evidence of Iraq's efforts to acquire destructive weaponry - but it is unlikely to provide much new information about what Saddam Hussein's weapons makers have achieved recently.
From 1991 to 1998, weapons inspectors built exhaustive dossiers on Iraq's efforts to build nuclear, biological and chemical weapons, together with the missiles to deliver them. The inspectors established the seriousness of Iraqi intentions to obtain such weapons, and its success in building biological and chemical arms.
When inspectors left the country in late 1998, they harboured doubts that Iraq's entire stockpile of chemical and biological weapons had been found. Significant amounts of materials were unaccounted for, and the manufacturing plants were small and easy to hide.
The inspectors were more certain they had got rid of most of Iraq's missile programme. This month's report from the International Institute for Strategic Studies suggested Iraq could probably assemble a small number of Al-Hussein missiles with a 650km range - sufficient to hit Israel - and a few with shorter range.
The inspectors reported that most infrastructure to build nuclear weapons had been dismantled, but the know-how and expertise required to restart a weapons programme was still in the country, and the time taken to build a weapon could be shortened considerably if Iraq could buy or steal fissile material from abroad.
Since 1998, uncertainty has grown. Satellites have shown activity at some sites used in the past for its weapons programmes - for example, the Al-Qaim phosphate plant and uranium extraction facility in north-west Iraq - but, in the absence of inspections, it has not been possible to say what this activity indicates.
Intelligence agencies have also uncovered evidence of Iraqi networks to obtain weapons technology and materials. Iraq has set up procurement networks in the eastern bloc and the former Soviet Union similar to those it had built up in western countries in the 1980s. Indeed procurement is the area where the UK document is likely to shed the most new light.
WASHINGTON — Defense and intelligence officials are raising doubts about a classified Pentagon plan to persuade Iraqi commanders to hold back their most lethal weapons in the event of war with the United States.
Officials familiar with the psychological operations, or "psyops," plan say its aim is to persuade Iraqi weapons handlers to disobey any order Saddam Hussein issues to launch chemical or biological attacks in the face of a U.S. invasion. Methods would include hacking into Iraqi military computers, dropping leaflets on Iraqi military bases, jamming Iraqi radio and television and substituting signals sent by special U.S. broadcasting aircraft, and contacting key officers through clandestine intermediaries or even e-mail.
Bush administration officials tout the plan as a way of mitigating the risk of war with Iraq. Senior Pentagon and intelligence officials counter that Saddam's commanders would get their orders at the point of a gun. Disobedience, they argue, would amount to suicide.
The operations are part of a larger plan that seeks to persuade Iraqis to drop their weapons once a U.S. attack begins. Such tactics paid dividends in the 1991 Gulf War, as attested by the large number of Iraqi prisoners found carrying leaflets from U.S. warplanes. The overall psychological war plan, in turn, is a major facet of the Pentagon's invasion plan for Iraq, which President Bush is considering.
One senior defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the psyops would have some value in persuading conventional Iraqi forces to surrender. Even so, the official said, the men in charge of Iraqi chemical or biological weapons and missile forces are likely Saddam's most loyal soldiers, who are motivated by fanaticism or fear, or both.
JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said Yasser Arafat was "finished", in his latest jab at the Palestinian leader, besieged by the army in his Ramallah office, the Maariv newspaper reported on Sunday.
Sharon made his comments during a phone conversation with Palestinian parliament speaker Ahmed Qorei on Saturday, in a bid to defuse the crisis resulting from the army's siege of the headquarters compound, the daily said.
"Israel has no intention of harming him. As far as we are concerned, he can stay where he is as long as he wants, but our duty is to prevent him from encouraging terrorism," Sharon told Qorei.
"I hope the Palestinians will understand that Arafat is finished, having led them to disaster... For us, he has been finished for a long time," the Palestinian leader's arch-rival added.
Qorei also spoke to Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres on Saturday to seek ways of ending the standoff, after Arafat refused to comply with Israel's demand for the surrender of some 20 security and intelligence commanders it accuses of links with militant groups.
For his part, Israeli Defence Minister Binyamin Ben Eliezer, quoted in the same newspaper, said Arafat was "in a very difficult situation".
As Israeli bulldozers were tearing down everything around Arafat's last redoubt, Ben Eliezer said: "He is in a very difficult situation right now, because nobody is showing much concern over his plight.
WASHINGTON - Prominent members of the U.S. Congress warned Sunday that a unilateral U.S. attack on Iraq could draw in Israel and lead to a wider Arab-Israeli war.
Senator Joseph Biden, a Delaware Democrat and chairman of the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said if the Israelis became involved "it becomes an Arab-Israeli war."
Biden and others appearing on Sunday television talk shows responded to a New York Times report that Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had told the Bush administration he would hit back if Iraq attacks Israel.
A source in Sharon's office contested that report, however, repeating the frequently stated policy that Israel reserves the right to respond. "It does not have to mean attack," the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
On CNN's "Late Edition," Foreign Minister Shimon Peres would not say what Israel would do in the event of an Iraqi attack, but made it clear his country would coordinate its response with the United States.
"We are not the ones to tell the United States what to do," Peres said. "We understand there is not going to be two wars and there are not going to be two supreme commands. So whatever will be, if it will be, should be coordinated."
Biden, appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation," said if Israel responded to an attack no Muslim nation, including such critical allies as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, could support the U.S. effort against Iraq, even behind the scenes.
"And you would find probably every embassy in the Middle East burned to the ground before it went too far," Biden warned.
Senator Richard Shelby, ranking Republican on the Senate intelligence committee, said any retaliation by the Israelis could mean "a widespread war in the Middle East."
Shelby, also speaking on "Face the Nation," said, "And also we'd be perceived, we'd be fighting side-by-side with the Israelis against all the Arab interests, and the war could spread."
The New York Times said Sharon had told senior American official privately of Israel's intention to act, unlike in the 1991 Persian Gulf war, when dozens of Iraqi Scud missiles struck without an Israeli response.
WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration's declaration, "The National Security Strategy of the United States," stands as one of the more amazing, depressing and self-deluding documents ever written by the governors of the land of the free and the home of the brave. It is, in fact, too American by half, reading more like the warning cry of crazed missionaries than the reasoned or tolerant arguments of a free and democratic people.
The 33 pages submitted to Congress last Friday should be read to music: Onward American soldiers, marching as to war! We will save the world whether it wants to be saved or not, and those who will not be saved will be destroyed in the fires of new technologies. It seems that we are a beleaguered people, surrounded by an encroaching jungle of danger, persecuted from all sides for our goodness, our decency, our generosity. Or, to be more precise, we are better than other people, and they will become like us -- or else.
It is hard to imagine these pages of the national strategy were written inside the comfortable walls of the White House in this sunny capital. The Cold War, it seems, has passed, and things are even worse now with thunder crashing around the world as evildoers gather in the darkness at our borders. It is not the strategies and policies of the document that I find so amazing. It is the tone, or as younger people might say, "the attitude," that is so disturbing, and in some ways, so foreign.
Are we really so afraid of everyone else? Do we no longer believe that it is morning in America?
Here are some of the thoughts and words from the final draft of the document, which says, among other absurdities, that nationalism is internationalism and victory is defeat:
"The United States' national security strategy will be based on a distinctly American internationalism that reflects the union of our values and our national interests. The aim of this strategy is to help make the world not just safer but better ...
"We are menaced less by fleets and armies than by catastrophic technologies in the hands of the embittered few. We must defeat these threats to our nation, allies and friends ...
"Today, humanity holds in its hands the opportunity to further freedom's triumph over all these foes. The United States welcomes our responsibility to lead in this great mission ...
"By making the world safer, we allow the people of the world to make their own lives better. We will defend this just peace against threats from terrorists and tyrants ...
Pro-war political correctness: if you're for peace, you must be 'anti-Semitic'
The comment by the German Minister of Justice that President Bush was focusing on Iraq to divert attention from domestic problems – "That's a popular method. Even Hitler did that" – came in the midst of an all-out propaganda offensive by the War Party to paint the antiwar opposition as "anti-Semitic." On the nation's campuses, a new "watchdog" group, Campus Watch, has been set up by Israel's most vocal supporters to "monitor" our universities for evidence of anti-Semitism. The neocon's favorite Ivy Leaguer, Harvard President Lawrence Summers, has declared that anti-Semitism is on the rise, not only throughout Europe and the Middle East, but also in the U.S. In an ironic dramatization of the (once) conservative view that foreign aid is bad because it may some day come back to haunt us, Israel's amen corner in the U.S. has launched a slick television ad campaign, intent on prettifying the Jewish state's increasingly ugly policy of naked aggression and ethnic cleansing. (Hey, I hope you enjoy the ads, because you're paying for them!)
The timing of the German controversy couldn't have been better, as far as the War Party is concerned, and Condi Rice was quick to snarl back at Berlin:
"The reported statements by the interior minister, even if half of what was reported was said, are simply unacceptable. How can you use the name Hitler and the name of the president of the US in the same sentence? Particularly how can a German, given the devotion of the US in the liberation of Germany from Hitler?"
Condi's unspoken assumption is that Germans are forever to be deemed morally inferior and incapable of judging their betters, namely the United States. After all, we "liberated" them – after handing over half the country (and half of Europe) to the Communists. The loopy thesis of Daniel Goldhagen, that permanently banishes the entire German race to a kind of moral purgatory, is rejected by many Zionists and most Jews, but eagerly embraced by a top U.S. official. If not for Condi's genuinely bigoted obtuseness, she might see the rather obvious truth that the Germans are certainly well-qualified to warn us of the dangers attendant to Hitlerism.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia -- This longtime ally of America isn't convinced that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein poses a serious and imminent military threat to regional stability and security. That threat, it believes, comes from another source: the United States, top officials say.
Many here think that Hussein has been chastened by his military failures and is unlikely to wage war on his neighbors--unless the U.S. decides to invade.
"The U.S. may know something about the existence of chemical weapons in Iraq, but we are not sure," said the nation's longtime security chief, Interior Minister Prince Nayif ibn Abdulaziz, adding that a U.S. attack on Iraq will create problems in the region "faster than any Iraqi operation against its neighbors."
For more than 70 years, Saudi Arabia and the United States have had close ties, a marriage of convenience that has served their mutual political and strategic interests. But relations have been strained since Sept. 11, 2001, and the priorities of both countries have diverged.
The U.S. government wants Hussein ousted. The Saudi leadership wants the Palestinian-Israeli conflict resolved first. Neither side has been willing to budge.
Against this backdrop, the White House faces the prospect of waging a major military campaign in the Persian Gulf region without the key strategic support of Saudi Arabia.
"The Saudis don't regard Saddam as a military threat," said a high-level Western diplomat based here in Riyadh, the capital. "For the Saudis, he is a political threat. The Saudis fear U.S. military action will not only divert attention and break up a coalition to fight terrorism, but will also foster terrorism."
So far, the Saudi government has been very clear. If the U.S. goes it alone, without the endorsement of the United Nations, the government will refuse to allow the use of its territory.
When authorities said recently they would allow U.S. forces to operate here if there is a U.N. resolution, observers say, the goal was to thwart a war by pressuring Hussein to let in weapons inspectors. It was not meant as a nod to the U.S. agenda.