Iraq softens tone on UN inspectors return

BAGHDAD, Iraq, March 4 (UPI) -- An Iraqi newspaper reported Monday that Baghdad might agree on the return of U.N. inspectors of weapons of mass-destruction if their return is coupled with a limited timetable for lifting the decade-old embargo on Iraq.

The report by the mass circulation Babel newspaper, run by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's eldest son, Uday, came as Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri prepared to travel to New York for talks Thursday with U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan.

Babel said Iraq's main reason for opposing the return of the international weapons inspectors was "the Americans want them to stay forever, implying the unjust siege would continue indefinitely."

"Had the U.S. administration and its tail, Britain, been serious and truthful in their claims, they would have set up a timetable for the inspectors' program that should be followed by a lifting of the siege," the paper said.

It contended that the United States was determined to attack Iraq regardless of the fate of the inspection team's mission because it needed the country's oil reserves.

The paper concluded by urging the U.S. administration to deal with Baghdad in a civilized way that ensures the interests of both parties, saying, "Iraq is bound to have the largest strategic oil reserves in the coming phase."

Copyright © 2002 United Press International

Saudi peace plan founders as the body count soars

Another day, another funeral ... Israeli police at the grave of fellow officer Moshe Dayan, who was killed by a sniper near the Jewish settlement of Qedar, on the West Bank, at the weekend. Photo: AFP
It is the only Middle East offer on the table, but the United States is still stepping warily, writes Gay Alcorn from Washington.


The United States responded warily at first to Saudi Arabia's Middle East peace plan, saying that it was not new and lacked specifics. The Secretary of State, Colin Powell, called it a "minor development".

Then, as the only glimmer of hope in the latest bloodbath, Crown Prince Abdullah's "vision" - an offer to Israel for normalised relations with Arab nations in exchange for withdrawal from the West Bank, Gaza and the Golan Heights - was welcomed more enthusiastically at the White House.

Bush Is Withholding War Information, Daschle Says

WASHINGTON -- President Bush has not been forthcoming about progress in the war on terrorism or about a "secret government" operating since Sept. 11, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) said Sunday.

As a result, lawmakers are finding it difficult to carry out their constitutional duties of approving money for the war and providing oversight of the executive branch, he said.

"None of us knew about the secret government," Daschle said on "Fox News Sunday," referring to the cadre of senior bureaucrats sent on a rotating basis to two undisclosed locations to ensure continuity of government if a terrorist strike hits Washington.

That, he said, is a "profound illustration of the chasm that exists sometimes with information. . . . It's an illustration of the need for a better communications process."

Helicopter death toll raises pressure on Bush

THE loss of American life during the largest US ground offensive in Afghanistan raised the stakes in the political battle at home over the direction of the War on Terror.
The rising death toll has increased pressure on the Bush Administration to explain its war goals as US special forces prepare to go into action in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, Yemen and the Philippines and Congress takes up the President’s request for an increase in defence spending.

The emerging clash between the Bush Administration and Congress follows criticism of the President’s lack of consultation with legislators by Tom Daschle, the Senate majority leader and a potential presidential candidate.

Mr Daschle put the cat among the pigeons last week when he suggested that the first phase of the war was not yet over because US forces had failed to kill or capture the al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden or the Taleban’s Mullah Muhammad Omar.

GAO: Pentagon Fudged Missile Test

WASHINGTON –– The Pentagon and contractors exaggerated the success of the nation's first missile defense test in 1997, ignoring a flawed sensor that had trouble distinguishing a warhead from a decoy, congressional investigators said Monday.

The Pentagon called the findings outdated.

Contractors TRW and Boeing, who jointly built the system that was tested, played down the problems as did a Massachusetts Institute of Technology review team, said investigators from the General Accounting Office.

But Rep. Edward Markey, D-Mass., who released the findings by Congress' investigative agency, said, "If we can't tell the warhead apart from a decoy, what good is it?"

The latest disagreement surfaced as the costs of an anti-missile system, strongly favored by President Bush, continues to grow. Designing, testing and building a land- and sea-based missile defense system would cost between $23 billion and $64 billion by 2015, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated this year.

Tension on edge of Georgian gorge

The arrival in Georgia of a small team of US military experts and the announcement that 200 troops may be sent there to help in the war on terrorism has focused attention on the country's Pankisi Gorge, bordering on Chechnya.
Apart from Georgia and the United States, the country that has shown greatest interest in the move is Russia, which has long accused Georgia of failing to act against Chechen rebels who it says have been sheltering in the gorge.

Initial reaction from Moscow was negative, but President Vladimir Putin later said the main thing was that action was finally being taken against both the Chechen rebels and the al-Qaeda fighters who are suspected of having joined them.

Attacks intensify in Mideast fighting

GAZA, March 4 (UPI) -- The death count in Palestinian-Israeli violence spiraled Monday as a gunman in Tel Aviv's center opened fire with an M16 soon after Israeli F-16 warplanes struck Palestinian Authority security offices next to Arafat's West Bank and Gaza headquarters.

The Palestinian gunman killed three Israelis and wounded 25 in a Tel Aviv restaurant district, police said.

The attacker was killed.

Palestinian medical sources said Israeli soldiers killed 22 Palestinians Monday during an intensive Israeli army air and ground operations in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

The shooting followed a day of fighting that included an Israeli F-16 attack on PA security offices, bloody raids on Palestinian refugee camps, an assassination attempt and Israeli targeting of a Red Crescent ambulance.

Nuclear weapon plot deemed not credible

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Bush administration received information last October outlining a plot to smuggle a stolen Russian nuclear weapon into the United States, most likely New York City, two administration officials said Sunday.

The intelligence was viewed as suspect from the outset and later was deemed "not to be credible," as one official said, when a polygraph test determined the informant was "bogus."

Nevertheless, it was the source of an alert to government agencies charged with trying to prevent such a scenario, because there are "some things you can't afford to be wrong about," one official said.

US toll in Afghan campaign climbs to 30

WASHINGTON: Thirty US military personnel have been killed in the US-led campaign in Afghanistan, nine of them from hostile fire and the remainder in air crashes and other accidents, according to US defense officials.

The deaths of seven US military personnel reported by US defense officials in fighting Monday near the eastern Afghan city of Gardez was the highest toll to hostile fire on a single day since the campaign began October 7.

Six soldiers were killed in the crash of an MH-47 special forces helicopter, and a seventh was last several hours earlier when another MH-47 special forces helicopter was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade while it was on the ground.

On March 2, a soldier was killed along with three Afghan fighters in hostile action at the start of the offensive near Gardez.

On January 4, a US Army special forces sergeant was killed near Khost when a team he was leading came under hostile fire.

U.S. push resumes after bloody day

March 5 — U.S.-led forces resumed their ground assault on Taliban and al-Qaida fighters in Afghanistan’s eastern mountains on Tuesday, coming within 100 yards of opposition caves and bunkers, an Afghan commander said. Seven U.S. troops have been killed and at least 40 others wounded in the operation — the worst U.S. casualties to enemy fire in Afghanistan yet. The commander of the Afghan campaign said that the war had entered its most dangerous phase so far and that more casualties were likely.

Heavy US casualties as al-Qaeda hits back

THE Pentagon admitted last night that al-Qaeda fighters had inflicted heavy losses on American forces in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, killing at least eight US soldiers and wounding about 40 more as two transport helicopters came under fire.
The casualties, the heaviest since America’s ill-fated mission in Somalia nearly a decade ago, were suffered during the most intense ground combat of the five-month conflict.

Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, warned the American public that the battle around Shahi-Kot, known as Operation Anaconda, was unlikely to be al-Qaeda’s “last stand” and tough combat lay ahead.

Israel Warplanes Bomb Arafat HQ

RAMALLAH, West Bank –– Israel stepped up retaliation Monday for Palestinian shootings and bombings, launching attacks that killed 16 Palestinians including the wife and three children of an Islamic militant leader and a doctor whose ambulance was hit during rescue efforts.

Israel's security Cabinet decided late Sunday to intensify military strikes after 22 Israelis were killed in four weekend attacks by Palestinian militants. Israeli troops raided two Palestinian refugee camps Monday, and Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said his country was at war.

Just after nightfall, an Israeli F-16 warplane dropped a bomb on Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's headquarters in Bethlehem, Palestinian security officials said. There were no reports of casualties; the building had been evacuated for several days in expectation of an Israeli attack. The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

In the deadliest single incident Monday, a pickup truck belonging to a leader of the militant group Hamas, Hussein Abu Kweik, was hit in the West Bank town of Ramallah by two shells fired from a nearby Israeli tank. A second car was hit by shrapnel.

Afghans aghast as US military chiefs blunder into ambush

Afghan commanders and local authorities have given grim accounts of a bungled launch of the United States-led offensive against al-Qaeda and Taliban forces south of Gardez.

The Americans blundered even in retreat, the Afghans said.

US military commanders are reluctant to release details of the attack - the largest offensive of the war by the coalition, which includes Australian SAS troops.

According to the Afghan sources, the deaths and injuries among the coalition and Afghan forces occurred when they were ambushed before the battle was due to begin outside the village of Shahikot at dawn on Saturday, local time.

The al-Qaeda forces launched a mortar and machine gun barrage that killed a US soldier and wounded dozens of Afghan and US troops.

U.S. helicopters hit; 8 soldiers die

Two Army helicopters were hit by enemy fire in Afghanistan, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Monday, raising to nine the number of Americans killed since a major offensive began Friday. On Monday, seven soldiers reportedly were killed when one helicopter was shot down and a gunbattle ensued. The other helicopter was on the ground when it was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade, killing one soldier on board.

Palestinian doctor killed by tank shells
(Filed: 04/03/2002)


A PALESTINIAN doctor was killed when an Israeli tank opened fire on an ambulance in the northern West Bank refugee camp of Jenin.

In a separate incident, six Palestinians were killed when Israeli tanks fired shells at the Al-Amari refugee camp in Ramallah from an army base in a Jewish settlement nearby.

The wife and three children of an official of the Islamic organisation Hamas were killed when shells hit their car. A four-year-old girl and one other person were killed in a second car.

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The PA believes full-scale war is coming

Opinion in the West Bank and Gaza Strip now has the Palestinian Authority and its leader, Yasser Arafat, at the peak of their popularity.

Palestinian journalists report that the fact that almost all the attacks on Israeli targets are being carried out by the Fatah's Tanzim militias, through the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, has greatly improved the prestige of the PA in Palestinian eyes. This new-found prestige stands out against a backdrop on which most of the attacks till recently were perpetrated by opposition groups, like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, while the PA's security forces were arresting and jailing those who planned and executed them.

An ever-more vicious cycle

Following one of the bloodiest weekends of the 17-month-long Palestinian intifada, the Israeli government has decided to step up military efforts to settle the conflict. That threatens an even more intense escalation of the violence

Troops die as US helicopter downed

A number of allied troops were killed today when an American helicopter was shot down over the mountains of eastern Afghanistan, a US official said.
The Chinook helicopter was taking part in a new US offensive to bomb hideouts of al-Qaida and Taliban fighters and block their escape routes, Pentagon sources said.

The Pentagon refused to confirm or deny that the helicopter had been lost, and there was no immediate confirmation of how many personnel had been killed or injured. Sky News said that at least six soldiers had died on the craft, which is capable of carrying some 40 people.

This was the first aircraft to be shot down in the war in Afghanistan, launched in October in response to the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on September 11

Bush View of Secrecy Is Stirring Frustration

The federal judge who ordered the Bush administration to turn over some records related to Vice President Cheney's energy task force wondered "what in the world" the Energy Department was doing, acting at such a "glacial pace" in response to Freedom of Information Act requests.

"The government can offer no legal or practical excuse for its excessive delay," Judge Gladys Kessler of the U.S. District Court in Washington wrote in an order made public on Wednesday.

But while Kessler expressed amazement at the Energy Department's response to information requests under FOIA, the 36-year-old cornerstone law for government transparency, the reluctance to provide information has become routine throughout the administration, liberal and conservative public interest groups say. They say it is a gathering trend, fed by, but not rooted in, the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Sen. Kerry Chides GOP on War Comments, Bashes Bush

CONCORD, N.H. (Reuters) - U.S. Senator John Kerry, in New Hampshire to support Democratic candidates for Congress, on Saturday accused Republicans of hiding behind a "false cloak of patriotism" as they attacked Democrats for questioning White House plans to expand the war on terrorism.

The Massachusetts liberal was speaking at a party fund- raiser in New Hampshire, whose first-in-the-nation presidential primary will play a key role in choosing the Democrat who will challenge President Bush (news - web sites) in 2004.

While Kerry has not declared himself a candidate for the White House, press aides hint that he is using trips to New Hampshire and other states to gauge support for a run.

"He wants to know that if he decides to do that, he can do it in a serious way knowing that resources are there," said David Wade, Kerry's director of communications.