| Author | Message | | Guest | | Posted: Fri Dec 20, 2002 9:52 pm Post subject: |
| US hawk 'tried to sully Iraq arms inspector'
Pentagon No 2 ordered CIA to investigate record of UN agency chief
Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday April 16, 2002
The Guardian
Paul Wolfowitz, the US deputy defence secretary and a leading hawk in the Bush administration, commissioned a CIA investigation of the chief United Nations weapons inspector in an apparent attempt to undermine the importance of inspections and strengthen the case for military action against Iraq, it was reported yesterday.
According to the Washington Post, Mr Wolfowitz asked the CIA earlier this year to look into Hans Blix's record when he was head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) between 1981 and 1997.
The IAEA's critics argue that during this period the agency took Iraqi assurances about its civil nuclear programme at face value and failed to spot signs that Saddam Hussein was secretly developing nuclear weapons.
Mr Blix, a 73-year-old Swedish diplomat who now heads the UN monitoring, verification and inspection commission (Unmovic), told the Guardian that the IAEA during his watch had been prevented from carrying out intrusive inspections by the internationally agreed rules it was forced to operate under.
But he conceded that before the Gulf war the Iraqis "were cheating and fooling us and everybody else" and he said "the lesson was learned". He promised that Unmovic would be "firm" in its inspections, although it would not "undertake any unnecessary provocations".
He made his remarks in an interview before the news of the CIA investigation surfaced, and his office made no comment on the report yesterday.
The CIA appears to have agreed that Mr Blix had conducted inspections "fully within the parameters he could operate" as head of the IAEA.
Mr Blix is due to attend talks next week with Iraqi officials about the possibility of UN inspectors returning to Iraq for the first time in more than three years. However, Baghdad has asked for a postponement, arguing that the meeting would divert attention from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Even if Unmovic is allowed into Iraq, the US hawks believe, the Iraqi leader will be able to convince Mr Blix that he has destroyed his stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, and they point to Mr Blix's time as IAEA chairman as evidence of his gullibility.
The state department, meanwhile, has argued that the administration must support Unmovic inspections if it wants to persuade the rest of the world it has exhausted all diplomatic means of dealing with the threat of Iraq's suspected arsenal.
The Washington Post said Mr Wolfowitz's request to the CIA "illuminates the behind-the-scenes skirmishing in the Bush administration over the prospect of renewed UN weapons inspections in Iraq."
The inspection issue has become "a surrogate for a debate about whether we go after Saddam", Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser and another prominent Washington hawk, said.
In its routine inspections before the Gulf war, the IAEA failed to find evidence of Baghdad's nuclear weapons programme which was later found to have been within months of successfully building a bomb. "It's correct to say that the IAEA was fooled by the Iraqis, but the lesson was learned," Mr Blix said.
However, he argued that the IAEA was hamstrung in its operations because it had no mandate before 1991 to conduct intrusive inspections.
The Washington Post quoted a state department official as saying that Mr Wolfowitz had "hit the ceiling" when the CIA report appeared to support Mr Blix's defence, concluding he was operating within the "parameters" laid down for him.
But an administration official claimed that the outspoken deputy defence secretary "did not angrily respond" to the CIA report because it only gave a "lukewarm assessment" of Mr Blix.
Mr Blix will find himself in a sensitive position if Iraq allows Unmovic to carry out inspections. If he judges that Baghdad is cooperating with the inspectors, sanctions could be suspended. If not, it could provide the US with legal justification for a military assault. | |  | | Guest | | Posted: Mon Dec 23, 2002 4:34 pm Post subject: BUSH'S FRIGHTENING MIDDLE EAST APPOINTMENT |
| BUSH'S FRIGHTENING MIDDLE EAST APPOINTMENT
Gary Kamiya, Salon.com, 12/10/02
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2002/12/10/abrams/index_np.html
By naming Iran-contra rogue Elliot Abrams its top policy advisor on the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the White House is signaling a hard
pro-Sharon line that could prove disastrous.
--
What crook, rogue and hard-line reprobate from the Republicans' glory years
will President George W. Bush exhume next? It's hard to say -- he seems to
have already hired them all…
Abrams fits right into the Bush White House, and not just because he almost
went to jail for a scandal so much bigger and nastier than Whitewater it's
embarrassing even to mention them in the same breath. Like the Big Three in
the Bush Tetrarchy -- Rice, Rumsfeld and Cheney -- Abrams is a hawk,
unabashed about using American power unilaterally. Like them, his worldview
has been shaped by a black-and-white Cold War ideology in which stopping
Communist or leftist expansion by any means necessary was America's top
priority…
Just as the Cold War hawks could not distinguish between legitimate Third
World national liberation movements and The Communist Menace, so today they
can't distinguish between the real political, national and economic
grievances that help drive Muslim and Arab rage and The Islamic Menace, a
reified version of Samuel Huntington's "clash of civilizations." Now add to
this a hard-line, politically useful commitment to Israel's security (more
accurately, to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's vision of a secure Israel) and
a Likud-like belief -- perhaps also influenced by some ill-understood
Bernard Lewis -- that the Arabs are all talk and that a taste of the lash
will send them cowering back into their tents. Taken together, you have the
explanation not just for the Bush administration's unprecedented pro-Israel
policies, but its apparent unconcern that invading Iraq could cause
terrorism, like the 21st century's Black Death, to finally and definitively
infect the religious fanatics among the world's powerless.
Considering this mindset, and the considerable political importance Bush
attaches to the fervently right-wing Christian evangelicals who believe
that Israel must be supported at all costs in order for the rapture to take
place, the appointment of Elliot Abrams to the U.S.'s top Middle East
policy position may not seem surprising. Abrams, like the Pentagon's Paul
Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, is a hard-line Israel supporter who has cast
doubt on the value of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process and warned the
U.S. not to strengthen the Palestinians at the expense of Israelis…
SEE ALSO:
DALAI LAMA TROUBLED BY ISRAEL'S TREATMENT OF THE PALESTINIANS
SAN FRANCISCO, Dec. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- The Dalai Lama, Tibet's spiritual
leader and one of the world's most recognized moral authorities, is
"particularly troubled" by the suffering of the Palestinians at the hands
of the Israelis, Scott A. Hunt notes in his new book The Future of Peace:
On the Front Lines with the World's Great Peacemakers.
At the advice of one of the highest officials in the Dalai Lama's
government, Hunt went to the Holy Land to "figure out what can be done" to
end the violence in that land. In the course of his investigation, Hunt
traveled throughout Israel, the West Bank, and the Gaza Strip. He
interviewed Hanan Ashrawi, and two Israeli political leaders, Uri Avnery
and Shulamit Aloni. He also met hundreds of civilians and soldiers on both
sides. His book shows the clear blueprint to peace in that region.
The Dalai Lama abhors violence from all quarters. He has been extremely
supportive of Judaism and Jewish people throughout the world. He holds
that the Wailing Wall is one of the most sacred spots on earth. After
visiting the Holy Land, though, he could not help but notice the dire
poverty and social instability facing the Palestinian people, as opposed to
the relative comfort and wealth in Israel proper. He notes that this
inequality does not contribute to a culture of peace…
---
ISRAEL SILENT ON FOOD WAREHOUSE RAZING
ASSOCIATED PRESS, 12/10/02
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/international/AP-Israel-Food-Destroyed.html
BEIT LAHIYA, Gaza Strip (AP) -- It was considered a routine operation,
similar to many Israeli army forays into Palestinian areas over the past
two years -- locate a building believed to be used by terrorists and
destroy it.
This three-story building in this northern Gaza town, however, had enough
flour, cooking oil and rice stored on its ground floor to feed 38,000
people for a month. The goods belonged to the U.N.-affiliated World Food
Program.
Israeli troops blew it up anyway.
Nearly two weeks after that Nov. 30 incident, the Israeli military has yet
to provide a detailed explanation, and aides to Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon say they would not comment until the military does… | | | | Guest | | | | Guest | | Posted: Thu Dec 26, 2002 11:19 pm Post subject: Forget Iraq: The Battle is in Turkey |
| Forget Iraq: The Battle is in Turkey
http://www.heatherwokusch.com/ | | | | Guest | | Posted: Sat Dec 28, 2002 6:58 am Post subject: Sharon's War? |
| http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/printrn20021226.shtml
Robert Novak
December 26, 2002
Sharon's war?
WASHINGTON -- Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, having just returned from a week-long fact-finding trip to the Middle East, addressed the Chicago Council of Foreign Relations Dec. 16 and said out loud what is whispered on Capitol Hill: "The road to Arab-Israeli peace will not likely go through Baghdad, as some may claim." The "some" are led by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. In private conversation with Hagel and many other members of Congress, the former general leaves no doubt that the greatest U.S. assistance to Israel would be to overthrow Saddam Hussein's Iraqi regime. That view is widely shared inside the Bush administration, and is a major reason why U.S. forces today are assembling for war. "Military force alone," Hagel told his Chicago audience, "will neither assure a democratic transition in Iraq, bring peace to Israelis and Palestinians, nor assure stability in the Middle East." Indeed, the senator returned from the Mideast more concerned than his prepared speech indicates. As the U.S. gets ready for war, its standing in Islam -- even among longtime allies -- stands low. Yet, the Bush administration has tied itself firmly to Gen. Sharon and his policies. Gen. Amran Mitzna, the new Labor Party leader challenging the heavily favored Sharon in the Jan. 28 election, is denied access to senior U.S. officials. In private conversation, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice has insisted that Hezbollah -- not al Qaeda -- is the world's most dangerous terrorist organization. How could that be, considering al Qaeda's global record of mass carnage? In truth, Hezbollah is the world's most dangerous terrorist organization from Israel's standpoint. While viciously anti-American in rhetoric, the Lebanon-based Hezbollah is focused on the destruction of Israel. "Outside this fight (against Israel), we have done nothing," Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, the organization's secretary general, said in a recent New York Times interview. Thus, Rice's comments suggest that the U.S. war against terrorism, accused of being Iraq-centric, actually is Israel-centric. That ties George W. Bush to Arik Sharon. The prime minister says astonishing things to U.S. visitors. He once rejected hope for negotiations, contending that Arabs and Jews will kill each other for a hundred years. More recently, he promised to put a Jewish settlement on top of any high ground. What is widely perceived as an indissoluble Bush-Sharon bond creates tension throughout Islam -- including Turkey, long a faithful U.S. ally and even longer a secularized state. A poll of Turks by Pew Global Attitudes released Dec. 4 shows 83 percent opposition to permission for U.S. use of bases in their country. Furthermore, a 53 percent Turkish majority asserted that the U.S. wants to oust Saddam Hussein as part of an anti-Muslim crusade rather than because he is a threat to peace. Turkish cooperation in the war must be approved by Turkey's newly elected parliament, consisting of about 90 percent new members with an Islamic party in a heavy majority. The parliament's mood did not improve when the European Union on Dec. 12 rebuffed both the Turkish and the U.S. governments by rejecting Turkey's application for membership. Abdullah Gul, the new prime minister, accused European leaders of "discrimination" and "prejudice" -- reflecting Islam's current view of the West. That is the background for an attack on Iraq by a coalition of English-speaking countries. "We should refrain from a rush to declare a 'material breach' because of the gaps in Iraq's 12,000-page document," Hagel advised in Chicago, calling on the U.S. to "marshal our own evidence." Nevertheless, Hagel's close associate, Secretary of State Colin Powell, declared a material breach three days after the senator's advice. Powell's uncharacteristic bellicosity may have been necessary for him to stay in the complicated game played within the Bush administration. Without Powell, President Bush may not have gone to Congress and the United Nations or delivered his masterful speech to the U.N. General Assembly. Day to day, only the secretary of state stands up to the forceful Vice President Dick Cheney. On balance, war with Iraq may not be inevitable but is highly probable. That it looks like Sharon's war disturbs Americans such as Chuck Hagel, who have no use for Saddam Hussein but worry about the background of an attack against him. | | | | Guest | | | | Guest | | | | Guest | | | | *Mutt American | | Posted: Tue Dec 31, 2002 4:14 pm Post subject: Re: Bush planned Iraq 'regime change' before becoming Presid |
|
Since Saddam has been in violation for 11 years, planning sounds like a pretty good idea. | | | | Guest | | Posted: Tue Dec 31, 2002 4:57 pm Post subject: Re: Bush planned Iraq 'regime change' before becoming Presid |
| | *Mutt American wrote: |
Since Saddam has been in violation for 11 years, planning sounds like a pretty good idea. |
Considering that you think it's a good idea for anyone to allow the stoning of a child to go unhindered and to suggest that anyone who does is 'interfering', I'm not surprised that you think that the killing of thousands of innocent people in order to implement a regime change as a 'good idea'. | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
