Gulf War Stories the Media Loved --
Except They Aren't True

"Even though a story can be incredibly preposterous in the Western mind, it can resonate deeply in other parts of the world," Todd Levanthal, a U.S. Information Agency specialist on disinformation, told the New York Times (9/16/90). "The key is predisposition to believe, not the crudity of the charge." While the point of the article was to portray Arabs as conspiratorial and irrational, the U.S. media's acceptance of crude charges about the official enemy demonstrates that a "Western mind" is no barrier to a "predisposition to believe."

Most U.S. news outlets uncritically accepted the story that 300 premature babies died when Iraqi soldiers removed them from incubators, which were sent to Iraq as loot. Alexander Cockburn (The Nation, 2/4/91), an exception, cited Kuwaiti medical personnel who went into exile after the invasion, who said that babies were still in incubators at Kuwait's Maternity Hospital in September, and that empty incubators had not been taken.

After the end of Iraqi occupation, the New York Times (2/28/91) offered this two-sentence retraction, buried five-sixths of the way through an article: "Some of the atrocities that had been reported, such as the killing of infants in the main hospitals shortly after the invasion, are untrue or have been exaggerated, Kuwaitis said. Hospital officials, for instance, said that stories circulated about the killing of 300 children were incorrect."

A "Captain Karim," ostensibly a former bodyguard of Saddam Hussein, was featured on 60 Minutes (1/20/91), as well as prominent TV outlets in Europe, making sensational charges about Saddam, e.g., "He become very happy when he see anyone in the acid bath." But as reported by Doug Ireland in the Village Voice (2/12/91), an investigation by French intelligence could find no evidence that Karim ever worked for Saddam, and labeled him a "mythomaniac" who had frequent contacts in Paris with Saudi military and intelligence officers.

Indulging in wishful thinking, Time's "Grapevine" page (2/11/91) asked "Is Saddam Cracking Up?" The piece claimed that Saddam was blinking very rapidly during his CNN interview the previous week: 40 times a minute, vs. 20-25 during an interview in June. Time consulted John Molloy, who trains salespeople to handle stress, who said, "When salesmen start blinking, they're usually in trouble. The guy looks like he's falling apart."

To put Saddam's blinking in perspective, Greenpeace's Peter Dykstra did a little research of his own: George Bush's eyes, he found, flickered at a Saddam-like 34 to 38 blinks per minute, while Michael Dukakis' showed a positively psychotic 74 b.p.m. Among the most reassuring eyes found by Greenpeace were Dan Quayle's, blinking a sane 20 times per minute.

The New York Times' editorial page (1/14/91) reported that "Baghdad Betty," an Iraqi government propaganda broadcaster, had told U.S. troops: "G.I., you should be home.... While you're away, movie stars are taking your women. Robert Redford is dating your girlfriend. Tom Selleck is kissing your lady.... Bart Simpson is making love to your wife."

When George Bush called Iraqi radio "ridiculous," the editorial said, "he couldn't know how right he was." But the joke was on the Times: The story it gleefully reported as fact was actually a joke Johnny Carson told on the Tonight Show (8/22/90). On Jan. 31 1990, Carson said that his joke had been "reported as a fact on CNN, Entertainment Tonight, Garrick Utley's Year-End Wrap-Up [on NBC], and in this issue of Time magazine [1/21/91]." In Carson's original joke, it's dad Homer Simpson instead of Bart -- a slightly more plausible scenario, since Bart is eight years old.

In war, some facts less factual

MOSCOW – When George H. W. Bush ordered American forces to the Persian Gulf – to reverse Iraq's August 1990 invasion of Kuwait – part of the administration case was that an Iraqi juggernaut was also threatening to roll into Saudi Arabia.
Citing top-secret satellite images, Pentagon officials estimated in mid–September that up to 250,000 Iraqi troops and 1,500 tanks stood on the border, threatening the key US oil supplier.

But when the St. Petersburg Times in Florida acquired two commercial Soviet satellite images of the same area, taken at the same time, no Iraqi troops were visible near the Saudi border – just empty desert.

"It was a pretty serious fib," says Jean Heller, the Times journalist who broke the story.

The White House is now making its case. to Congress and the public for another invasion of Iraq; President George W. Bush is expected to present specific evidence of the threat posed by Iraq during a speech to the United Nations next week.

But past cases of bad intelligence or outright disinformation used to justify war are making experts wary. The questions they are raising, some based on examples from the 1991 Persian Gulf War, highlight the importance of accurate information when a democracy considers military action.

"My concern in these situations, always, is that the intelligence that you get is driven by the policy, rather than the policy being driven by the intelligence," says former US Rep. Lee Hamilton (D) of Indiana, a 34-year veteran lawmaker until 1999, who served on numerous foreign affairs and intelligence committees, and is now director of the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington. The Bush team "understands it has not yet carried the burden of persuasion [about an imminent Iraqi threat], so they will look for any kind of evidence to support their premise," Mr. Hamilton says. "I think we have to be skeptical about it."

Liberalism's Patriotic Vision

With the massacres of a year ago came righteous outrage, bewilderment and a thirst for interpretations: What could such colossal violence mean? What did mass murder require of us? Who were we now? We needed a story.

The White House declared that the terrorists hated our freedoms; after an interlude of coalition building, the administration resumed its America-love-it-or-leave-it attitude. Members of Congress became sullen cheerleaders, cowed by the White House's willingess to question their loyalty. Patriotism seemed to function not as a spur to come to the aid of the country, but as a silencer.

Absolutists dominated the field — and eerily converged in their penchant for going it alone. The terrorists took it upon themselves to act in the name of all of Islam and all Muslims, to settle all accounts and slaughter all enemies. There could be no appeal or dissent; they expected their allies to be as silent as their enemies. They openly yearned to restore the eighth-century caliphate: a purist theocracy and an empire if ever there was one.

Squandering much support from around the world, President Bush soon showed he was ready to go it alone, keeping even Congress at arm's length. He was not content with self-defense. Countries that were not with us were against us. We were launched upon a permanent war against anyone he declared we were at war against; the administration reserved the right to break treaties and to undertake pre-emptive war.

The American left, too, had its version of unilateralism. Responsibility for the attacks had, somehow, to lie with American imperialism, because all responsibility has to lie with American imperialism — a perfect echo of the right's idea that all good powers are and should be somehow American. Intellectuals and activists on the far left could not be troubled much with compassion or defense. Disconnected from Americans who reasonably felt their patriotic selves attacked, they were uncomprehending. Knowing little about Al Qaeda, they filed it under Anti-Imperialism, and American attacks on the Taliban under Vietnam Quagmire. For them, not flying the flag became an urgent cause. In their go-it-alone attitude, they weirdly paralleled the blustering right-wing approach to the world.

Long before Sept. 11, this naysaying left had seceded. When Ralph Nader's Greens equated a Bush presidency with a Gore presidency, they took leave of any practical connection to America. Rightly demanding profound reforms but deluded about their popularity, they withheld their energy from the Democrats and squandered alliances that would have promoted their ideals. They acted as though their cause had to be lonely to be good.

Many liberals and social democrats saw through this hollow negativity and posed necessary questions. What was a war against terrorism? To what did it bind the nation? War against whom, and for how long? Why should American foreign policy be held hostage to oil? How should strong and privileged America belong in the world? Was the United States to be a one-nation tribunal of "regime change" wherever it detected evil spinning on an axis?

Some good answers float in the air now. They have not yet found political support, but they could. As the Bush administration paints itself into a corner, we could be headed toward a new liberal moment. Liberals need to step up their promotion of a Marshall Plan for Afghanistan and elsewhere, helping to stifle terrorism. Even conservatives no longer smirk about nation building or foreign aid.

Likewise, mainstream economists like Joseph Stiglitz (once chief economist of the World Bank) and Jeffrey Sachs (former free-market shock therapist) campaign to convince rich countries to give more development aid.

Liberals should affirm that American power, working within coalitions, can advance democratic values, as in Bosnia and Kosovo — but they should oppose this administration's push toward war in Iraq, which is unlikely to work out that way. Against oil-based myopia, there are murmurs (they should be clamors) that we should phase out the oil dependency that overheats the earth and binds us to tyrants.

On the domestic front, corporate chiefs have lost their new-economy charm — and the Bush administration's earlier efforts on their behalf have lost whatever political purchase they had. With the bursting of the stock market bubble, deregulation no longer looks like a cure-all.

Whom do Americans admire now? Whom do we trust? Americans did not take much reminding that when skyscrapers were on fire, they needed firefighters and police officers, not Arthur Andersen accountants. Yet we confront an administration whose policies reflect the idea that sacrifice — financial and otherwise — is meant for people who wear blue collars.

A reform bloc in Congress, bolstered in November, could start renewing the country. But we need much more than legislation. One year after, surely many Americans are primed for a patriotism of action, not of pledges. The era that began Sept. 11 would be a superb time to crack the jingoists' claim to a monopoly of patriotic virtue. Instead of letting minions of corporate power run away with the flag (while banking their tax credits offshore), we need to remake the tools of our public life — our schools, social services and transportation. Post-Vietnam liberals have an opening now, freed of our 60's flag anxiety and our reflexive negativity, to embrace a liberal patriotism that is unapologetic and uncowed. It's time for the patriotism of mutual aid, not just symbolic displays or self-congratulation. It's time to close the gap between the nation we love and the justice we also love.


Todd Gitlin, a former president of Students for a Democratic Society, is author of "Media Unlimited: How the Torrent of Images and Sounds Overwhelms Our Lives." He is a professor of journalism and sociology at Columbia University.

Anti-US feeling under scrutiny

The US State Department is due to host a conference on why there is so much anti-American sentiment in the world.

Twenty leading academics from the US and around the world will address members of the US Government on Thursday as part of a sustained campaign by the government to improve its global image.

There is a genuine sense of confusion amongst many people here in the US about why there should be so much anti-American feeling worldwide.

The belief, particularly on the right of US politics, is that the American dream is something most of the world would aspire to if they were only free to do so.

That has led to a sustained attempt by the Bush administration to promote American ideals and values around the world.

Certainly US President George W Bush has displayed a rare talent for alienating world opinion, right from his early decision to reject the Kyoto Protocol on global warming.

And many outside the US would argue that it is American policies themselves that are at fault, not their presentation, however much money and effort is spent on it.

Homeland Security Name an Issue

W A S H I N G T O N, Sept. 5 — The name of the Department of Homeland Security is meant to evoke images of safety even family, hearth, comfort. It gives some people a knot in the stomach.

An uncommon word to begin with, "homeland" became an everyday word after the Sept. 11 attacks and was institutionalized when President Bush created the Office of Homeland Security.

Jeff Neberman, who teaches European history at Boise State University, says it's "right out of Nazi Germany." The German word "heimat" means "homeland" and was used by the Nazis. Others dispute a direct Nazi link and note various cultures have used the word, too.

"Homeland" has "obviously grated on quite a number of people," said Todd Gitlin, who teaches culture and sociology at Columbia University. "It feels like an import even if you're not aware that its origins are German."

Leslie Savan, who wrote a book about advertising and popular culture, said "homeland" makes her think not only of Germany, but also of Russia and South Africa's former apartheid government.

"It's been one of those words that's supposed to sound cozy and warm," she said. "But because it sounds cozy and warm it has been used by totalitarian governments."

Bush wants Congress to turn the homeland security office into a full-fledged Cabinet agency called the Department of Homeland Security, a matter the Senate took up this week. The House has passed its version of Bush's plan to merge all or parts of 22 agencies into a 170,000-employee department focused on preventing terrorism.

Bush Expands Government Secrecy, Arouses Critics

WASHINGTON - As part of its "war on terrorism," the Bush administration has vastly expanded government secrecy, removing information from the public domain, limiting its disclosures to Congress and allowing law enforcement agencies to operate in the shadows.

Its policies are beginning to stir growing criticism from the courts, Congress and even from some conservatives.

"For whatever reason, this administration has gone way way too far in its pursuit of secrecy in some particularly worrying ways," said Mark Tapscott, head of the Center for Media and Public Policy at the conservative Heritage Foundation.

Administration officials, from the president down, have justified their policy on the needs of fighting terrorism.

"We can't have leaks of classified information. It's not in our nation's interest," Bush said last October.

But the policy goes beyond classified information. A March 19 memorandum from White House Chief of Staff Andy Card urged government agencies to more aggressively protect "sensitive but unclassified" information.

Even before the Sept. 11 attacks, the administration was expanding secrecy. It moved to hold up the release of presidential papers from former President Ronald Reagan and insisted on keeping secret members of an energy policy task force chaired by Vice President Dick Cheney.

Last week, the White House said it would keep secret 4,000 pages related to presidential pardons granted by former President Bill Clinton in the final days of his administration. It said all presidents had the right to discuss and decide on pardons in private.

'MORE SECRETIVE THAN NIXON'

"This administration is the most secretive of our lifetime, even more secretive than the Nixon administration. They don't believe the American people or Congress have any right to information," said last week Larry Klayman, chairman of Judicial Watch, a conservative group that is suing the administration to force it to reveal the members of the energy task force.

THE MAN CHASING ENRON

On the morning of January 22nd, a lawyer named Bill Lerach got out of his van in front of the Houston federal courthouse and presented a cardboard box full of shredded documents to the cameras of a waiting press corps. At the time, the implosion of Enron was still leading the news, and Lerach had filed a lawsuit against the company on behalf of its aggrieved shareholders. "It's a smoking howitzer," Lerach told reporters that day. "It doesn't get any worse than this. Call the cops. Something has to be done here." The pictures of Lerach and the documents, which Enron employees purportedly had shredded, became an indelible image of the collapse of the energy-trading firm. "I thought I was going to be run over by the media," Lerach recalled months later. "Never underestimate the power of a physical exhibit."

Lerach, who has spent the last few decades suing corporate executives for lying to, cheating, and otherwise defrauding their shareholders, is probably the leading class-action lawyer in the country. He regards the Enron lawsuit as the most important case of his career. "This case sums up everything I've been saying about these companies for years," he told me happily. "I was right for ten years, and no one cared. In case after case, we pleaded that the analysts for the investment banks were corrupted. We pleaded that the accountants were corrupted by their consulting fees. These judges were incredulous. They threw us out. They said professionals would never behave that way. Well, we saw how they behaved, didn't we?"

For the past year or so, Lerach has shadowed the procession of corporate disasters. On August 20th, for example, his firm sued Martha Stewart, alleging that she dumped stock in her own company when she learned that she was going to be investigated for insider trading in shares of the biotech firm ImClone. To be sure, Lerach has lost a few of these cases, but even some of the defeats make him look farsighted. In November of 2000, he sued WorldCom; a federal judge in Mississippi dismissed the case last March—shortly before the company collapsed in an accounting scandal. In December of 1999, Lerach sued Tyco International, and a judge in New Hampshire turned him away last February—not long before that conglomerate had its own accounting scandal. But Lerach's goal is less about muckraking and more about the money to be made in his line of work. Even his public unveiling of the shredded documents in Houston revealed his multiple agendas. Lerach wanted to use the documents against Enron, but he also wanted to persuade the judge to designate his law firm's client the lead plaintiff in the case, and in that way earn tens of millions of dollars in legal fees.

How low can we go?

I have read a lot of flabbergasting articles about Sept. 11 and its aftermath in the past 11 months, but one paragraph in the paper last week brought the bar to its lowest.
A poll by Knight Ridder "indicated that most Americans are gung-ho for the global war on terrorism and a solid 67 percent favor taking it to Iraq."

Nope. Close, but that's not the paragraph.

It was this one: "The poll results reflect some confusion about the war on terrorism, a conflict with shifting boundaries and elusive enemies. Nearly one-third of Americans view the entire Muslim world as the enemy, even though several Muslim countries support the U.S. war effort."

The question this presents is: What?

Well, what do you expect in a country where it sometimes appears government is using a Marx Brothers movie script as a template.

Where it sometimes appears Homeland Security should be renamed "Homeland Paranoia."

Where the economic policy resembles in sincerity and record-keeping a Tammy Faye and Jim Bakker telethon.

Where the media seem to spend more money printing fast-fading flags and producing flag-waving promotions than on researching and reporting the actual degradation of rights, even the dissolution of rights, among citizens.

Doesn't it seem as if the government is wasting billions and billions of dollars on unnecessary or unworkable "security" - an exercise that reminds me of a raccoon attracted to anything that sparkles? Doesn't it seem as if we are botching chance after chance to prove to the world that the United States, in the face of a potential threat, can still assure equal justice under the law

Isn't it odd that government leadership is so rabidly intent on invading Iraq that it appears more attention is being paid to overthrowing a nation's psyche (our own) by zealous public relations than accumulating any solid evidence such an invasion is necessary?

Shouldn't we be a little worried when airport security has turned into an exercise in how best to amass eyebrow scissors and nail files, and detain and humiliate non-white travelers?

We wait and wait for someone in charge to ask: Invade Iraq? Are you nuts?

Church leaders speak against 'wicked' war

BRITAIN’S two most senior churchmen have launched separate impassioned initiatives aimed at preventing war against Iraq.
In an article in The Times today the Archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, writes that a war would have grave consequences, possibly setting the Arab world against the West. The Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey, has also raised his concerns in a private letter to the Prime Minister.

Their interventions are the latest in a number by bishops opposed to action against Iraq — and their comments are increasingly irritating the Government and its advisers. One official said that remarks from some senior clerics suggested they regarded Saddam Hussein as liberal-minded.

Tony Blair himself has been careful to refrain from comment on the criticism other than to say: “You have to decide what the greatest risk is and what the morally right thing to do is." The Prime Minister has promised to publish evidence to support his conviction that Iraq poses a grave and imminent threat. However, Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor writes that unless the evidence is both persuasive and incontrovertible, concerns in this country and abroad are unlikely to be allayed.

Even with such evidence, important questions remained to be addressed, including the effect on international law and how well it would be respected in future if military action were not endorsed by the UN.

Pre-Emptive Strike on Iraq: Count NATO Out

BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The United States would not be able to involve NATO in a pre-emptive strike on Iraq because offensive action runs contrary to the founding principles of the North Atlantic alliance, officials said.

NATO invoked its Article V mutual defense clause for the first time the day after the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington, but it was sidelined from the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan that followed.

An official at the 19-nation alliance said that although Article V is still "activated," Washington would have to prove a link between the hijacked airliner attacks and Baghdad for it to be used as a mandate for NATO strikes on Iraq.

"Article V was adopted for a very specific incident," said the official, who asked not to be named. "I don't think you can automatically presume that the situation we're talking about here (an attack on Iraq) would fit in this context."

But could Article V be re-invoked for strikes on Iraq?

"There is no chance," said the official. "We're talking pre-emptive action here and that's not part of NATO's doctrine."

Israeli spies accused of posing as Canadians

Federal officials are investigating claims that Israeli agents posed as Canadians during a spy operation in Gaza that reportedly used sexual blackmail to collect intelligence used to assassinate a Palestinian militant leader.

Canada's ambassador to Tel Aviv has asked Israel for an explanation of the incident and has been told it did not happen, but officials are concerned Israeli agents may be breaking their promise not to work undercover as Canadians.

Akram Zatmeh, 22, claims he supplied information to agents posing as Canadians that helped Israel pinpoint the whereabouts of a senior Hamas leader. The leader was later assassinated by Israeli forces in a July 23 missile attack that also killed 14 others, including nine children.

The informant claimed he was recruited by three agents who said they were Canadians and took him to the Canadian embassy in Tel Aviv before coercing him with promises of travel to Canada and threats to distribute fake photos showing him in sexual encounters.

In a similar incident in 1997, Canada recalled its ambassador to Israel after undercover Mossad agents were caught using falsified Canadian passports during an assassination attempt on a Palestinian militant leader. Israel apologized at the time and promised not to do it again.

PROPAGANDA WARS

As the War Party revs up its propaganda machine – the War Street Journal, the New York Post, Andrew "Bareback" Sullivan – we are awash in such a flood of b*llsh*t that the stench, let alone the sheer quantity, is enough to induce spasms of retching. In these dark days, the job of any truth-seeker is akin to cleaning the Augean Stables on a daily basis, and, heck, I'm no Hercules, but here goes….

My all-time favorite wartime fib is the one told by the lawyers for unnamed "victims of 9/11" who are suing the Saudis – and now the Iraqis – for $1 trillion in damages. The New York Post, which infamously ran the front-page headline "BUSH KNEW" after news of some vague pre-9/11 warning came out, has apparently decided to make this into a series: "IRAQ KNEW" screams the Post headline:

"A $1 trillion lawsuit, filed here yesterday, claims Iraq knew that Osama bin Laden was targeting New York prior to Sept. 11 – and that Saddam Hussein encouraged terrorists because he wanted revenge for losing the Gulf War…. Court documents filed in the suit say Saddam knew at least six weeks before the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks, and the presumed attempt to hit the White House, that bin Laden was plotting to strike high-profile U.S. targets."

The Saudis, and a long list of Middle Eastern countries, are being targeted by the War Party's legal division on the grounds that a murky conspiracy of Saudi princes, Middle Eastern intelligence agencies, oil interests, and others financed a terrorist plot against the U.S. There was no mention of the Illuminati, the Bilderbergers, or the Knights of Malta – this latter, I hear, was a fun buncha guyz – but we'll just have to see what the discovery process reveals. This is going to be fun…

Ah, but the fun has already begun with the "evidence" put out there by Kreindler and Kreindler, a law firm that specializes in litigating airline disasters – and is now determined to cause and cash in on a looming foreign policy disaster for the United States. The whole phony suit is based on an off-the-cuff remark by an Iraqi newspaper columnist, one Naeem Abd Muhalhal, who supposedly wrote, on July 21, 2001, that Bin Laden was contemplating "seriously, with the seriousness of the Bedouin of the desert, about the way he will try to bomb the Pentagon after he destroys the White House." The plaintiffs also claim Muhalhal had inside information when he wrote that Bin Laden was "insisting very convincingly that he will strike America on the arm that is already hurting," which allegedly means the twice-bombed WTC. An unnamed "associate" of Muhalhal's avers that his former friend is indeed an Iraqi intelligence agent, and the clincher is that this oracular columnist was singled out by Saddam himself for special praise.

Arab League vows support for Iraq in military confrontation with U.S.

CAIRO The foreign ministers of 20 Arab nations jointly pledged Thursday to support Iraq in its showdown with the United States, warning that American threats against Saddam Hussein's regime were threats to the entire Arab world.

Handing a diplomatic triumph to Baghdad at the conclusion of a two-day Arab League meeting here, the ministers issued a resolution declaring their "total rejection of the threat of aggression on Arab nations, in particular Iraq, reaffirming that these threats to the security and safety of any Arab country are considered a threat to Arab national security."

The ministers' stance is the latest and strongest sign of opposition among Arab nations to any U.S. military action aimed at toppling Saddam. The support of at least some Arab countries, particularly those that share land borders with Iraq, is regarded by many military analysts as crucial to a U.S. ground invasion.

Foreign Minister Naji Sabri of Iraq lauded the Arab ministers' resolution as he left the closed-door meeting. Arab nations, he said, voiced a "total rejection of the aggressive intentions of the United States."

Although some Arab governments have urged Baghdad to permit UN weapons inspectors to return in an effort to defuse the crisis, the ministers' statement Thursday did not specifically mention the inspectors. Taking a more deferential tone, the council of ministers instead said it "welcomes the initiatives by Iraq to forge a dialogue with the United Nations."

The ministers also echoed Baghdad's recent call for a "comprehensive settlement" of all of its disputes with the United Nations, calling for an end to UN trade sanctions imposed on Iraq after its 1990 invasion of Kuwait.

Iraq, which insists that its stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons have already been destroyed, has flip-flopped on whether it will allow weapons inspectors back into the country. After dismissing the idea, senior Iraqi officials said earlier this week that they would be willing to consider the return of inspectors if sanctions were lifted at the same time.

The UN Security Council, which imposed the sanctions after the Gulf War, has insisted that its inspectors verify that Iraq has stopped building weapons of mass destruction and has destroyed its stockpiles before the sanctions can be lifted. Iraq contends that it has ceased its biological and chemical weapons programs, but it has nonetheless forbidden UN inspectors from entering the country since 1998.

The Arab League's secretary general, Amr Moussa, said a military strike against Iraq would "open the gates of hell" in the Middle East. Western and Arab military analysts predict that Iraq may seek to respond to any U.S. attack by launching missiles at Israel in an effort to spark a wider conflict in the region.

Despite their pledge of support for Iraq's stance, the foreign ministers did not discuss whether they would lend military assistance to Iraq if it were attacked. A spokesman for the group said the issue was "too hypothetical."

Armed troops should back inspectors

The weapons inspector who oversaw the destruction of much of President Saddam Hussein's arsenal of chemical and biological weapons called yesterday for an armed force of 50,000 men to back up the United Nations experts.

Rolf Ekeus, chief UN inspector from 1991 to 1997, said "coercive inspections" could offer President Saddam a credible alternative to being overthrown by a US military intervention. "Iraq may well accept, if this is an alternative to an invasion," said Mr Ekeus, who now chairs the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. "The prospect of a military invasion may concentrate Saddam's mind."

The proposals are part of a report to be released today by an influential US think-tank, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Mr Ekeus said he was initially sceptical but is now one of the report's authors. His doubts evaporated after "hard-nosed feasibility discussions" with the retired air force general Charles Boyd, a former deputy commander of US forces in Europe, he said.

The UN arms experts were systematically stymied by Iraq during years of monitoring weapons of mass destruction in the 1990s. But the threat of military strikes alone was able to persuade the Iraqis to end some tense stand-offs. The inspectors have been barred from Iraq since they pulled out in December 1998, hours before the US and Britain launched Operation Desert Fox.

The new plan calls for the UN Security Council to set up a "powerful, multinational military force" to back the inspections. The force would be composed of air cavalry with at least four brigade-sized units stationed in Jordan, Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

"This is a simple and viable idea," Mr

Using Terror as a Pretext

PARIS -- Several Western democracies have become "predators of digital freedoms," using the fight against terrorism to increase surveillance on the Internet, an international media-rights group said Thursday.

Reporters Without Borders criticized not only authoritarian states such as China that tightly police Internet use, but also Western governments including the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Spain, Italy and Denmark and the European Parliament.

"A year after the tragic events in New York and Washington, the Internet can be included on the list of 'collateral damage,'" the Paris-based group said in a report. "Cyber liberty has been undermined and fundamental digital freedoms have been amputated."

The report accused China, Vietnam and other countries hostile to dissent of using the international counterterrorism campaign "to strengthen their police mechanisms and legal frameworks relating to the Web and to increase pressure on cyber dissidents."

Among cases cited was that of Li Dawei, a former policeman sentenced in July to 11 years in prison on charges of using the Internet to subvert the Chinese government.

But even among Western democracies, "many countries have adopted laws, measures and actions that are poised to put the Internet under the tutelage of security services," Reporters Without Borders said.

100 jets join attack on Iraq

About 100 American and British aircraft took part in an attack on Iraq's major western air defence installation yesterday in the biggest single operation over the country for four years.


Click to enlarge
The raid appeared to be a prelude to the type of special forces operations that would have to begin weeks before a possible American-led war. It was launched two days before a war summit between President George W Bush and Tony Blair in America.

The Prime Minister promised that Britain would be alongside the Americans "when the shooting starts".

The raid seemed designed to destroy air defences to allow easy access for special forces helicopters to fly into Iraq via Jordan or Saudi Arabia to hunt down Scud missiles before a possible war within the next few months.

Although only 12 aircraft dropped precision-guided bombs on to the H3 airfield, 240 miles west of Baghdad and close to Jordan, many support aircraft took part.

The strikes were carried out by nine American F15 Strike Eagles and three RAF Tornado GR4 ground attack aircraft flying from Kuwait.

At least seven types of aircraft took part. Fighter cover was provided by US F-16 Fighting Falcons and RAF Tornado F3s from Saudi Arabia. RAF VC10 tanker aircraft flying from Bahrain were among the support aircraft.

These also included EA6b Prowlers, which send out signals to confuse enemy radar, and E3a Awacs aircraft that co-ordinate operations and carry out reconnaissance of any response.

RAF Tornados also took part in the reconnaissance. American central command refused to go into detail about the number of aircraft involved in the raid.

It said: "Coalition strikes in the no-fly zones are executed as a self-defence measure in response to Iraqi hostile threats and acts against coalition forces and their aircraft."

The Pentagon said that the raid was launched in "response to recent Iraqi hostile acts against coalition aircraft monitoring the southern no-fly zone".

Iraq had made 130 attempts to shoot down coalition aircraft this year.

The Ministry of Defence in London refused to confirm that RAF aircraft had taken part, but defence sources said that Tornado ground attack and reconnaissance aircraft played a key role. The attack on what the American central command described as an "air defence command and control facility" was the first time that a target in western Iraq had been attacked during the patrols of the southern no-fly zone.

Until yesterday, all strikes had been against air defence sites in the south, around Basra, Amara, Nassairya and Baghdad.

President's approval rating drops to 60 percent in new poll

President Bush ( news - web sites)'s job approval has dropped to 60 percent in a new poll released Thursday by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press. His approval is in the mid 60s in several other recent polls.



Bush's approval was at 80 percent in January in this poll, but his numbers have dropped as the numbers showed more of a partisan divide.

_Bush's approval among Republicans has dropped from 95 percent to 83 percent. It has dropped from 69 percent to 39 percent among Democrats and from 79 percent to 65 percent among independents.

_In September 1998, then-President Clinton ( news - web sites) had a job approval of 61 percent as he faced increasing pressure in the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Clinton's support, like Bush's, was similarly partisan, with 88 percent of Democrats, 32 percent of Republicans and 59 percent of independents approving.

The Pew poll of 1,001 adults taken Aug. 14-25 has an error margin of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.

The real goal is the seizure of Saudi oil

I keep listening to the words coming from the Bush administration about Iraq and I become increasingly alarmed. There seems to be such confusion, but through it all a grim determination that they are, at some point, going to launch a military attack. The response of the British government seems equally confused, but I just hope that the determination to ultimately attack Iraq does not form the bedrock of their policy. It is hard now to see how George Bush can withdraw his bellicose words and also save face, but I hope that that is possible. Otherwise I fear greatly for the Middle East, but also for the rest of the world.
What is most chilling is that the hawks in the Bush administration must know the risks involved. They must be aware of the anti-American feeling throughout the Middle East. They must be aware of the fear in Egypt and Saudi Arabia that a war against Iraq could unleash revolutions, disposing of pro-western governments, and replacing them with populist anti-American Islamist fundamentalist regimes. We should all remember the Islamist revolution in Iran. The Shah was backed by the Americans, but he couldn't stand against the will of the people. And it is because I am sure that they fully understand the consequences of their actions, that I am most afraid. I am drawn to the conclusion that they must want to create such mayhem.

The many words that are uttered about Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction, which are never substantiated with any hard evidence, seem to mean very little. Even if Saddam had such weapons, why would he wish to use them? He knows that if he moves to seize the oilfields in neighbouring countries the full might of the western world will be ranged against him. He knows that if he attacks Israel the same fate awaits him. Comparisons with Hitler are silly - Hitler thought he could win; Saddam knows he cannot. Even if he has nuclear weapons he cannot win a war against America. The United States can easily contain him. They do not need to try and force him to irrationality.

But that is what Bush seems to want to do. Why is he so determined to take the risk? The key country in the Middle East, as far as the Americans are concerned, is Saudi Arabia: the country with the largest oil reserves in the world, the country that has been prepared to calm the oil markets, producing more when prices are too high and less when there is a glut. The Saudi royal family has been rewarded with best friend status by the west for its cooperation. There has been little concern that the government is undemocratic and breaches human rights, nor that it is in the grip of an extreme form of Islam. With American support it has been believed that the regime can be protected and will do what is necessary to secure a supply of oil to the west at reasonably stable prices.

Bush's Conspiracy to Riot

More than three decades apart, two political riots influenced the outcome of U.S. presidential elections. In 1968, protests at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago hurt Democrat Hubert Humphrey and helped Republican Richard Nixon eke out a victory. On Nov. 22, 2000, the so-called “Brooks Brothers Riot” of Republican activists helped stop a vote recount in Miami -- and showed how far George W. Bush’s supporters were ready to go to put their man in the White House.

But the government reaction to the two events was dramatically different. The clashes between police and Vietnam War protesters in 1968 led the Nixon administration to charge seven anti-war radicals with “conspiring to cross state lines with the intent to incite a riot.” The defendants, who became known as the Chicago Seven, were later acquitted of conspiracy charges, in part, because the protests were loosely organized and because solid documentary evidence was lacking.

After the Miami “Brooks Brothers Riot” – named after the protesters’ preppie clothing – no government action was taken beyond the police rescuing several Democrats who were surrounded and roughed up by the rioters. While no legal charges were filed against the Republicans, newly released documents show that at least a half dozen of the publicly identified rioters were paid by Bush’s recount committee.

The payments to the Republican activists are documented in hundreds of pages of Bush committee records – released grudgingly to the Internal Revenue Service last month, 19 months after the 36-day recount battle ended. Overall, the records provide a road map of how the Bush recount team brought its operatives across state lines to stop then-Vice President Al Gore’s recount efforts.

The records show that the Bush committee spent a total of $13.8 million to frustrate the recount of Florida’s votes and secure the state's crucial electoral votes for Bush. By contrast, the Gore recount operation spent $3.2 million, about one quarter of the Bush total. Bush spent more just on lawyers – $4.4 million – than Gore did on his entire effort.

Attacks spark chaos in Afghanistan

KABUL, Afghanistan, Sept. 5 — In what appeared to be a day of coordinated attacks on Afghanistan’s fragile government, President Hamid Karzai survived an assassination attempt Thursday by an Afghan security guard. A car bomb that exploded in the heart of the Afghan capital reportedly killed at least 22 people and wounded dozens.

THE ASSASSINATION ATTEMPT on Karzai occurred when the guard fired at his car as it was leaving the governor’s mansion in Kandahar, witnesses said. Karzai was in the southern Afghan city attending the wedding celebration of his brother.
Karzai’s American bodyguards opened fire in response to the shooting, and three people were killed, including one who was wearing an Afghan military uniform.
The governor of Kandahar, Gul Agha Sherzai, was injured, but it was unclear if he was hit by gunfire from the assailant or by shots fired afterward.
“I was just outside the gate when I heard the gunshots,” said Sherzai’s security chief, Dur Mohammed. “The Americans opened fire on three people and they were killed.”
After the attack, Karzai returned to the governor’s guesthouse, where he is staying. “As he arrived here he assured people that he was fine,” said BBC reporter Lyse Doucet, who witnessed the attack.
Sherzai was being treated at the hospital at the U.S. air base in Kandahar, said Capt. Christa D’Andrea, a U.S. spokesman at Bagram air base, the U.S. military headquarters in Afghanistan.
Earlier this year, Karzai replaced his Afghan guards with an American special forces contingent after reports of an assassination plot planned by his own security detail.
Afghan Foreign Minister Abdullah said there was “no doubt” Karzai was the target of an assassination attempt.
The incident occurred shortly after the car bombing in the Afghan capital, Kabul, 300 miles to the northeast. Although it was not immediately clear whether the incidents were related, the violence came less than a week before the Sept. 11 anniversary, raising questions about whether Osama bin Laden’s terror network or a disaffected Afghan group was responsible.