| Author | Message | | Guest-cdbc | |  | | Guest-cdbc | | | | Earth Boy | | Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2003 7:39 pm Post subject: laws that prevent trial of Israelis in US? |
| References, please. With all due respect to you, Spiritual Mistress,
I must look this up myself. | | | | Guest-c651 | | Posted: Tue Feb 18, 2003 10:00 pm Post subject: Israel's Proxy War? |
| Find this article at:
http://www.mediamonitors.net/mshahidalam1.html
Israel's Proxy War?
by M. Shahid Alam
It has been apparent to all but the purblind ? a defect in understanding assiduously cultivated by America?s mass media ? that the war United States is ready to wage against Iraq has almost nothing to do with its security.
In an age when the people believe that their voices must be heard, the United States must sell its wars the way corporations sell their products. In the past, the people were asked to lay down their lives for visions of glory; now, governments appeal to their self-interest. The first Gulf War had to be fought to protect American jobs. If Saddam Hussain stayed in Kuwait, he would raise the price of oil, and Americans would lose their jobs.
The argument this time is different. It had to be weightier than any fear of losing jobs. This new war seeks regime-change; it involves greater risks. American forces must invade Iraq, defeat the Iraqi army, occupy Baghdad, and stay around, even indefinitely. Americans understand that "regime-change" is serious business. They would not back this war unless Iraq threatened American lives. That explains why the war against Iraq had to supersede the war against terrorism, and why Saddam replaced Osama as the new icon of America?s loathing.
This substitution was quite easily executed. Most Americans take the President at his word when he talks about foreign enemies; this trust comes more easily when a Republican occupies the White House. George Bush told Americans that Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction, and he had to be stopped before he could transfer them to Al-Qaida. (Why hadn?t he done this already?) For many Americans, it was an open and shut case. Saddam had to be removed.
The flaws in this argument did not matter. If Saddam hadn?t used WMDs during the first Gulf War ? when his army was being pummeled ? why would he use them now? The CIA warned that a war, or the threat of it, would increase the risk of Iraq using WMDs. Others, like Scott Ritter, a former chief weapons inspector for the UN, pointed out that Iraq did not have any WMDs that mattered. More than 90 percent had been destroyed by inspectors; if any escaped, they would be past their shelf life. At least initially, few Americans gave any credence to these doubts, though that has been slowly changing.
Why then is United States straining to go to war against Iraq?
The most popular theory on the left is that this war is about oil. According to one version of this theory, the White House, a captive of oil interests, wants to corner Iraq?s oil for American oil corporations. I do not find this credible. The power brokers in United States would not allow a single industry lobby, even a powerful one, to drag the country into a war which could hurt all of them, and perhaps badly, if the war plans went awry and produced a spike in oil prices. At the least, it is doubtful if oil interests, on their own, can account for the unobstructed rush to a mad war.
There is another oil theory. It argues that the American economy needs cheaper oil; this will save tens of billion dollars. Once Saddam has been removed, and Iraq?s oil supply restored to levels that existed before the first Gulf War, the oil prices will come down substantially. It is hard to reconcile this theory with a US-imposed sanctions regime that has drastically curtailed Iraq?s oil output for the past twelve years. If there were concerns that Saddam might use the oil revenues for a military build-up, that could be addressed by an inspections regime and selective economic sanctions.
There is also a third oil theory, one offered recently.[1] It maintains that this war preempts the Euro threat to the hegemony of the dollar. By pegging oil to the dollar, OPEC has been a key player in the arrangements that have maintained the dollar as the currency of international reserve. In October 2000, Saddam Hussein offered the first challenge to this system by switching Iraq?s dollar reserves to Euro. If OPEC follows Iraq?s lead it could spell trouble for the dollar. This can only be stopped by dismantling the OPEC, and this demands war against Iraq.
An OPEC challenge to the dollar sounds seems na?ve at best. This is hardly the kind of revolutionary action we can expect from an OPEC packed with client states like Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, and UAE; the oil price hike of 1974 could only occur in the backdrop of the Cold War. A precipitate dethronement of the dollar could produce consequences for United States and the world economy which would make the East Asian financial crisis of 1997 look like a storm in a teacup. Not even the EU would push for such results. On the other hand, there is a small chance that the war itself might validate this theory ? if it convinced OPEC that the war aims to dismantle the oil cartel.
If it isn?t oil, then, is this civilizational war, a war of the Christian West against Islam? This conjecture flies in the face of some obvious facts. First, this is America?s war. It is opposed by two key Western allies, France and Germany; and apart from Britain and Israel, the support of other Western countries lacks depth. More to the point, the overwhelming majority of Westerners outside the United States oppose this war. In United States itself, the anti-war sentiment has grown rapidly, and the most recent polls indicate a majority against the war if it happens without the support of the United Nations.
Is it then America?s war against Islamists? Even that is doubtful. Apart from the right-wing Christian extremists, led by the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson, nearly all Christian denominations have come out against the war. Everyone would agree that Al-Qaida constitutes the most serious Islamist threat to United States; they had proved it on September 11, 2001. And yet, we are ready to push this threat aside in order to wage war against one of the most decidedly secular of Arab states, one that spent ten years waging war against ?fundamentalist? Iran? Why not Wahhabi Saudi Arabia which supplied 16 of the 19 hijackers of September 11. Why not Shiite Iran? Their turn too will come, one hears neoconservative voices, to be followed by Syria, Egypt and Pakistan.
Why then is United States ready to wage this war against Iraq, ostensibly against its own best interests? Most sensible people agree that this is a war whose consequences cannot be controlled, or even foreseen. It may destabilize friendly regimes, bringing radical Islamists to power in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. It may disrupt oil supplies, causing a price hike at a time when the global economy already weak and vulnerable to shocks. It may force Saddam to use his chemical and biological weapons ? if he has them ? leading United States to nuke Baghdad or Basra. It may fuel global terrorism for years to come, leading to attacks on American interests globally.
These anomalies quickly melt away if we are willing to entertain a seldom-aired hypothesis. This may not be America?s war at all, much less a war of the West against Islam or Islamists. Instead, could this be Israel?s war against the Arabs fought through a proxy, the only proxy that can take on the Arabs? This will most likely provoke derisive skepticism. Could the world?s only superpower be persuaded to fight Israel?s war? Is it even possible? Could the tail wag this great dog?
Consider first Israel?s motives. Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Syria and Pakistan do not threaten the United States; but they are a threat to Israel?s hegemonic ambitions over the region. This conflict between Israel and her neighbors was written into the Zionist script. A Jewish state could only be inserted into Palestine by resort to a massive ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. After such inauspicious beginnings, Israel could only sustain itself by keeping its neighbors weak, divided, and disoriented. It has since waged wars against Egypt in 1956; against Egypt, Syria and Jordan in 1967; against Iraq in 1981; against Lebanon, since 1982; and against Palestinians continuously since 1948.
Israel?s contradictions have deepened since the mounting of the second Intifada. When the Palestinians rejected the Bantustans offered at Oslo, Israel chose Ariel Sharon, a war criminal, to ratchet its war against Palestinian civilians. Faced with Apaches, F-16s, tanks and artillery, in desperation, the Palestinians turned increasingly to suicide bombings. Sharon?s brutal war was not working, and Israel?s losses began to catch up with Palestinian casualties. In April 2002, Israeli tanks reoccupied the Palestinian towns, destroyed Palestinian civilian infrastructure, increasingly placing Palestinians under curfews, sieges, destroying their workshops, stores, hospitals, orchards and farms. This was the new strategy of slow ethnic cleansing through starvation.
This slow ethnic cleansing is only a stopgap. The most serious threat which Palestinians pose is demographic: their growing population could soon turn the Jews into a minority inside greater Israel. Since the Palestinians won?t live under an Israeli apartheid, the Likud, with growing popular support, is turning to Israel?s second option. If the apartheid plan were to fail, Israel would engage in large-scale ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, more massive than the ones implemented in 1948 and 1967.
But Israel cannot do this alone. This ethnic cleansing can only be implemented in the shadow of a major war against the Arabs, a war to Balkanize the region, a war to bring about regime-change in Iraq, Syria and Iran, a war that only United States can wage. Israel needs United States to wage a proxy war on behalf of Israel.
It should be clear that Israel has the motive; but does it also possess the capability to pull this off? Is it possible for a small power to use a great power ? the only superpower, in this case ? to wage its own wars. Historically, great powers have often waged wars through lesser proxies; but that does not mean that this relationship can never get inverted.
What makes this eminently possible is the way an indirect democracy ? in particular, democracy in United States ? works. The demos elect candidates picked by powerful lobbies, ethnic, industry and labor lobbies; once elected, the officials work for the lobbies. By far the most powerful political lobby in this country works for Israel, led by American Israel Public Action Committee (AIPAC). There is scarcely a member of the Congress whose election campaigns have not been funded by AIPAC; several are funded quite heavily.[2] The power of the pro-Israel lobby in United States, however, does not start or end with AIPAC. The result of this massive power is a Congress packed with Israeli yes-men. No member of the Congress has dared to contradict Israeli interests and remained in office. Just last year, two members of Congress, Earl Hilliard and Cynthia McKenny, were defeated by pro-Israeli money because they had stepped out of line.
Consider some of the achievements of the pro-Israeli lobby over the years. First, an estimate of the cost of Israel to US taxpayers. Since 1985, without debate or demurral, the Congress has sheepishly voted an annual foreign aid package of $3 billion to Israel, nearly two thirds of this in outright grants, and constituting one-third of all US foreign assistance. When estimated in 2001 constant dollars, the total foreign aid to Israel since 1967 adds up to $143 billion.[3] That amounts to a transfer of $28,600 for every Jewish citizen of Israel.
The official aid is only a small part of the cost of Israel to the US economy. We need to account for loan guarantees and write-offs, bribes paid to Egypt and Jordan in support of our Israeli policy, subsidies to Israel?s military R&D, boost in oil prices (attributed to US support for Israel in the 1967 war), losses due to trade sanctions imposed on Israel?s enemies, etc. When Thomas Stauffer, a consulting economist in Washington, added up all these costs, he concluded that since 1973 Israel has cost the United States about $1.6 trillion.[4] In per capita terms, this amounts to $320,000 for every Jewish citizen of Israel.
The US record on vetoes cast in UN Security Council constitutes another major achievement of the pro-Israel lobby. The US has cast 73 vetoes out of the 248 cast by all permanent members of the Security Council. On 38 occasions, these vetoes were cast to shield Israel from any criticism directed against its violation of human rights of Palestinians or the territorial rights of its neighbors. On another 25 occasions, US abstained from such a vote.[5] This does not include the votes cast by United States ? along with Israel, Tuvalu and Nauru ? against UN General Assembly resolutions criticizing Israeli violations of human rights or Security Council resolutions. It would be difficult to maintain that the strategic interests of United States always demanded such a consistent voting record on Palestine.
I am aware that the notion of an Israeli proxy war against Iraq will be greeted with skepticism by not a few. I hope to have established that Israel possess in abundance both the motive and capability for such a war. There is some evidence that it has demonstrated this capability in the past also. In the words of Lloyd George, then Prime Minister of Britain, the Zionist leaders promised that if the Allies supported the creation of "a national home for the Jews in Palestine, they would do their best to rally Jewish sentiment and support throughout the world to the Allied Cause. They kept their word."[6] It is doubtful if Zionist influence now is weaker than it was in 1917.
This is not to argue that the pro-Israeli lobby is the only reason for the projected US war against Iraq. At present, there are several forces in United States that are pushing for this war. Prominent among these indigenous forces are the oil corporations, the arms manufacturers, the aerospace industry, and the right-wing Christian evangelists. However, it is doubtful if these indigenous groups, on their own, could have pushed United States so decisively towards the present catastrophic confrontation with the Islamic world. Certainly, the intellectual justifications for this hazardous confrontation have come almost entirely from the pro-Israeli lobby. And their intellectual input may have been vital.
Notes:
[1]http://www.sierratimes.com/03/02/07/arpubwc020703.htm
[2]http://www.wrmea.com/html/aipac.htm
[3]http://www.counterpunch.org/rooij1116.html
[4]http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1209/p16s01-wmgn.html
[5]http://middleeastinfo.org/print.php?sid=63
[6]Lilienthal, Alfred M., "What price Israel" (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1953): 20-21.
M. Shahid Alam is Professor of Economics at Northeastern University. His last book, "Poverty from the Wealth of Nations," was published by Palgrave in 2000. | | | | Guest-cdbc | | Posted: Wed Feb 19, 2003 10:23 pm Post subject: It's Not Just the Oil |
| It's Not Just the Oil
By Stanley Heller (bio below)
Does a boxer fight with one hand tied behind his back? Why is the anti-war movement reluctant to talk about all the reasons for the drive to invade Iraq? Yes, major reasons for the permanent war drive are corporate greed for oil, dreams of political domination, and the lust to test weapons. But there's another one. Extreme right-wing forces from a foreign country and their powerful American backers are pushing the U.S. to invade Iraq and many other countries. I'm, of course, talking about Israel.
On November 12 Zev Chafets wrote an incredibly revealing article in the New Haven Register. In an article headlined,"Disarming Iraq is only a start in Middle East" he explained that the Arab and Iranian cultures were "irrational" and that nothing could be done to "improve the collective mental health of Arab societies". He proposed "giving the Arabs and Iran a stark choice .they can have sovereignty or jihad (in its secular or religious forms), but not both". He says "disarming" but of course he means invading the "Middle East's most hostile and deranged regimes".
Now, who is Zev Chafets? He was originally from Michigan, but went to Israel in 1967 and fought in their army and became director of the government press officer under Prime Minister Menachem Begin. He's now a columnist for the New York Daily News. He's ideas reflect the desires of Likud, the Israeli ruling party, one variant of extreme Israeli right wing opinion. The current party head, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, is delirious for the war. In his mind, with Iraq leveled the Palestinians will give up hope and he then can go on to his other objectives, destroying the governments of Lebanon, Syria and Iran.
How is this influencing the U.S.? It's not blatant. When you go to the Anti-Defamation League site you see nothing calling for war with Iraq. Sharon doesn't have to engage in noisy public appeals. The forces that demand the Iron Fist as the answer to all problems (the Neo-Cons) are at the highest levels of the U.S. government. When I was in Hebrew School I remember the teachers railing at the State Department for being filled with "Arabists" who hated Israel. Nobody rational would say that today. The top officials and advisors to Bush are all rabid Neo-Cons. Some like Richard Perle, Douglas Feith, and David Wurmser actually worked for Israeli think tanks, writing grand papers for (Likud) Prime Minister Netanyahu on how the U.S. and Israel should take apart and reconstruct the Middle East.
Do we have to talk about Congress? Just a few days ago the House voted near unanimously to congratulate the Israeli government on its wonderful fair election. Here's a government that is in material breach of the Security Council "demand" that it remove its forces from the Palestinian cities and Congress offers it hugs and kisses. Is it any wonder? The Israel Apartheid lobby just knocked off a four term Congresswoman (McKinney) as it has done to Senators and Congressmen so many times in the past. Years ago a wit called Congress "Israeli Occupied Territory". The joke is still right on the mark.
Are we giving aid to anti-Semites by denouncing Likud-Neo-con influence? Not at all. In no way are we advancing the loony nazi charge that "the Jews" run the country. Sure, many neo-cons are Jews. Jews are also the leaders of the U.S. anti-war movement. The biggest Jewish organizations are backing Sharon, but most Jews don't support them. According to a 1995 survey by the American Jewish Committee only 22% of American Jews consider themselves Zionists. Most American Jews don't give a dime to the ADL or any other Israel boosting organization.
A small group of U.S. Jews are fanatical supporters of Israeli Apartheid and they shower it with money. But even though they seem to have the world by a string, it isn't so. When Israeli interests clash with American ruling class interests the tail does not wag the dog. [Ask Jonathan Pollard who's sitting out a life term in Danbury prison] The U.S. ruling class is overwhelmingly Christian and the fundamentalism that inspires it is Pat Robertson's evangelism, not Jewish Orthodoxy.
Our argument is angry but precise. When the Left denounces Sharon we mean Sharon. When we assail an obvious foreign influence we're not alleging some all-powerful secret plot. When we condemn Israeli apartheid we denounce a Jewish superiority state, not the idea that Jews should live in Israel and enjoy every human right.
With that said we owe it to Americans to tell them the whole truth, that part of the war drive is being fueled by a wacko militarist clique from Israel and its interlocking bands of American Jewish and Christian supporters.
We're told not to bring up Israeli influence on the U.S. because it would split our supporters. Well, who would it alienate? It would tick off a certain group of Jews, those Jews who are schizophrenic politically, people who can be liberal or radical on every cause except Israel. They learned democracy in school, but they're still intimidated by their grandmothers.
An example is Rabbi Michael Lerner. While at times he makes sharp criticisms of Sharon when it comes down to a critical moment he's on the wrong side. When Palestinians were making progress explaining the Right to Return he got into the editorial page of the New York Times denouncing the mass return of people to their homes. While he will criticize human rights abuses he does not call for any effective action, i.e. boycotting Israel goods or suspending Israeli foreign aid. Hundreds of Israeli Jewish activists are warning that Sharon might force mass deportation of Palestinians during the Iraq invasion, but Lerner calls it anti-Semitic to make a connection between Israel and the drive for an Iraq invasion. ("Singling out Israel in the context of a war rally about Iraq is racist." -Tikkun website 2/17/03). Lerner's vocabulary is that of a chauvinist. He uses terms like "pro-Israel" or "anti-Israel". He is constantly brandishing charges about "Israel bashing" and "anti-Semitism".
I will say this. It was wrong to ban him from speaking at the San Francisco demo because he criticized ANSWER. We all have a right and duty to make criticisms. I have plenty problems with the politics of ANSWER, and I wrote about it on Counterpunch. [Yet far from being anti-Semitic on January 18 ANSWER bent over backwards and made no connection between the Iraq war and Israeli government.]
We don't need Lerner. We don't need the American Friends of Peace Now who support Sharon's attempt to grab $12 billion more in American tax dollars. Include these types in your coalitions and you will waste hours and hours talking about the politically correct way to describe Israel. We do need Jews who are fully committed to equality and democracy, but they won't be angered by exposures of the Likud-Neo-cons.
Most importantly we need to be honest and tell the whole truth to Americans. They need to know of all the reasons behind the drive to conquer Iraq. Some of us used the following chant in NYC. I recommend it at your next rally. "Bush and Sharon, they say War. We say, No!, We say No!"
----------------
Stanley Heller has been chairperson of the Middle East Crisis Committee (New Haven) since 1982. He is a moderator of al-Awda-Unity, a division of the Right to Return movement intent on encouraging Jewish activism. He can be reached at mail@TheStruggle.org | | | | Guest-c651 | | Posted: Thu Feb 20, 2003 11:39 am Post subject: 'The Evil of Evil' |
| 'The axis of evil'
By Hasan Abu Nimah in Jordan Times - Wednesday, February 19, 2003
WE LIVE in a world that has never lived without a natural or man-made catastrophe in one or other of its corners. We have come to accept that some of these disasters are simply inevitable. But that is not the case when a superpower decrees that we must have a war for the most unconvincing, fabricated reasons, for an openly imperialistic ideology, for power and greed, and for distraction from other, glaring, failures. These reasons, and nothing more, lie behind the US drive for an attack on Iraq, supported primarily by the United Kingdom and Israel.
The irony is that more and more people in the world, especially in the Middle East, are starting to see these three countries acting together as the true “axis of evil”. Haaretz confirmed that Israel's “military and political leadership yearns for war in Iraq”. (“Enthusiastic Israeli army awaits war in Iraq”, Haaretz, Feb. 17, 2003)
Israel's leadership hopes that the destruction of Iraq will lead to the total subjugation and defeat of Syria, Lebanon and Iran. Israel also hopes to benefit from deep divisions about Iraq among the United States and its European allies. According to the Israeli newspaper: “There is also excitement in the Israeli army's planning department over the stand-off between the US and its NATO allies. A paper distributed to the army's upper echelons even spoke of an opportunity to remove the pro-Palestinian Europeans from the Middle East. A senior source said Saturday that the US will punish the Europeans for their back-stabbing on the road to Baghdad, and will no longer ask them for input regarding Israeli concessions.”
This zeal for war and destruction is supposed to lead to an outcome where a defeated Arab world and a marginalised Europe cannot stand in the way of Israel, backed by an increasingly extremist and isolated United States, imposing any settlement it wants on the Palestinians. At best, what the Palestinians can hope for is direct Israeli rule with all their civil and national rights cancelled. This will be Israel's “generous” alternative to what many in Israel's leadership really want, which is the total ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians.
Looking back, this is no more than an attempt to achieve what was tried — but failed — more subtly after the 1991 Gulf War. The main difference is that the first war was widely seen as justified by Iraq's clear transgression of invading and occupying Kuwait. What followed was essentially not different from what is planned this time. The 1991 war created “convenient” circumstances for an Arab-Israeli settlement. The PLO was severely weakened politically and hard hit financially, as hundreds of thousands of Palestinians working in Gulf states were expelled and governments cut off their assistance to the leadership. The PLO was not even accepted as a direct participant in the October 1991 Madrid conference, and the talks which followed in Washington.
With Israel's position thus strengthened, and unlimited American diplomatic support (except for token and temporary US resistance to aid for Israel's colony-building on Palestinian land), Israel did not respond to any of the far-reaching Palestinian compromises offered for peace, including full recognition of Israel in advance and full acceptance of the two-state solution. Rather, Israel took advantage of the weakness and desperation of the PLO and, behind the backs of the Washington negotiators, hatched the secret Oslo agreement which must go down in history as one of the worst deals ever made. This disaster simply laundered, with full PLO approval, all of Israel illegal war gains, at the expense of the Palestinian people. Negotiations were dragged on indefinitely in order to allow Israel the necessary time to achieve de facto annexation of all of the conquered territory.
By imposing, by brute force, a scandalously unjust and humiliating deal on the Palestinians, entirely denying their political and national rights, and by reducing the PLO to nothing more than a South Lebanon army-like police force for the Israeli occupation, Israel laid the grounds for the present Intifada and did not achieve the “peace” of the strong that it hopes for.
The warmongers in Washington and Tel Aviv believe that this time round they can get it right, having failed twelve years ago, by going all the way. Once they impose “total defeat” on the Palestinians and Arabs, they believe a golden age will open for Israel, which will face no obstacles before it. This will not happen.
It is quite possible that an attack on Iraq will destroy that country and produce immense political pressure on Syria, Lebanon and Iran. It is also possible that Israel, while world attention is focused on Iraq, will further intensify its campaign of war crimes against the Palestinians. It is even possible that by raising the level of atrocities even higher, Israel will claim to have imposed some sort of order on the situation, to have “defeated” the Palestinians. None of this will succeed. Israel, instead, will be guaranteed only more unrest, more determined resistance, more bloodshed and more horror.
The planned war against Iraq is an idea of a small group of ultra-pro-Israeli hawks who hatched it in the mid-1990s when they were advising the Israeli government of Benjamin Netanyahu. Today, this same small group has hijacked American policy at the Pentagon. This group, that gathered around figures like Paul Wolfowitz and Richard Perle, is not concerned with Iraqi “weapons of mass destruction”, human rights or terrorism. Their concern is the pure pursuit of power. For this group, there is no difference between American interests and the interests of Israel as defined by the most extreme elements. They have an obsession with the Arab and Muslim world that borders on hatred.
While it is easy to trace the growing influence of this group on an American establishment that has always allowed Israel to set the agenda for US policy in the Middle East, the UK's slavish commitment to this group is more puzzling. The British people are clearly concerned about how their prime minister seems to have transformed himself into America's deputy secretary of state in pursuit of an agenda that holds nothing positive for Britain. The UK always calculated that by forging a “special relationship” with the United States, it would gain influence both in America and in Europe. Prime Minister Tony Blair's foolish policies have done the opposite. The Americans simply take British support for granted, while Britain's position in Europe is worse even than it was under Thatcher. And for what? Blair claims that the UK is in danger from global terror. Maybe so, but many of his people answer that his dangerous policies are exposing the country to such terror rather than dealing effectively with any threat.
The voices of the tens of millions who marched for peace all over the world are sending a loud message to the United States, Britain and Israel, the three pillars of this new axis, if not of “evil”, then at least of raw, dangerous power and colonialism. These are voices of truth and reason. They are voices which bridge the gulf of misunderstanding, fear and suspicion between the West and the rest of the world, that figures like Bush, Blair and Sharon are fuelling. Let us hope that the millions who came out will act as an urgently needed check on the forces who relish war and use words like “justice” and “peace” only to mock them. | | | | Guest-400c | | Posted: Fri Feb 21, 2003 9:20 am Post subject: Rumsfeld & Bush's Iraq War Plan Was Formulated In 1998 |
| http://www.scoop.co.nz/archive/scoop/stories/80/aa/200302191108.7063e16a.html
Rumsfeld & Bush's Iraq War Plan Was Formulated In 1998
By Jason Leopold
February 19, 2003
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Secretary Paul Wolfowitz undertook a full-fledged lobbying campaign in 1998 to get former President Bill Clinton to start a war with Iraq and topple Saddam Hussein's regime claiming that the country posed a threat to the United States, according to documents obtained from a former Clinton aide.
This new information begs the question: what is really driving the Bush Administration's desire to start a war with Iraq if two of Bush's future top defense officials were already planting the seeds for an attack five years ago?
In 1998, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were working in the private sector. Both were involved with the right-wing think tank Project for a New American Century, which was established in 1997 by William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard, to promote global leadership and dictate American foreign policy.
While Clinton was dealing with the worldwide threat from Al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden, Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz wrote to Clinton urging him to use military force against Iraq and remove Hussein from power because the country posed a threat to the United States due to its alleged ability to develop weapons of mass destruction.
The Jan 26, 1998 letter sent to Clinton from the Project for the New American Century said a war with Iraq should be initiated even if the United States could not muster support from its allies in the United Nations. Kristol also signed the letter.
"We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War," says the letter. "In your upcoming State of the Union Address, you have an opportunity to chart a clear and determined course for meeting this threat. We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power."
"We urge you to turn your Administration's attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts. Although we are fully aware of the dangers and difficulties in implementing this policy, we believe the dangers of failing to do so are far greater. We believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council," says the letter.
The full contents of the Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz letter can be viewed at:
http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqclintonletter.htm (and attached below)
Clinton rebuffed the advice from the future Bush Administration officials saying he was focusing his attention on dismantling Al-Qaeda cells, according to a copy of the response Clinton sent to Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Kristol.
Unsatisfied with Clinton's response, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Kristol and others from the Project for the New American Century wrote another letter on May 29, 1998 to former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Senate Republican Majority Leader Trent Lott saying that the United States should, "establish and maintain a strong U.S. military presence in the region, and be prepared to use that force to protect our vital interests in the Gulf - and, if necessary, to help remove Saddam from power."
"We should take whatever steps are necessary to challenge Saddam Hussein's claim to be Iraq's legitimate ruler, including indicting him as a war criminal," says the letter to Gingrich and Lott.
"U.S. policy should have as its explicit goal removing Saddam Hussein's regime from power and establishing a peaceful and democratic Iraq in its place. We recognize that this goal will not be achieved easily. But the alternative is to leave the initiative to Saddam, who will continue to strengthen his position at home and in the region. Only the U.S. can lead the way in demonstrating that his rule is not legitimate and that time is not on the side of his regime."
The letter to Gingrich and Lott can be viewed at:
http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqletter1998.htm (and attached below)
The White House would not comment on the letters, or on whether Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz possessed any intelligence information that suggested Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States at the time. The letters offered no hard evidence that Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction.
The Clinton aide said the former President believed that the policy of, "containing Saddam Hussein in a box", was successful and that the Iraqi regime did not pose any threat to U.S. interests at the time.
President Clinton, "never considered war with Iraq an option," the former aide said. "We were encouraged by the UN weapons inspectors and believed they had a good handle on the situation."
Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Kristol, however, disagreed; saying the only way to deal with Hussein was by initiating a full-scale war.
"The policy of "containment" of Saddam Hussein has been steadily eroding over the past several months," Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Kristol wrote in their letter to Clinton.
"As recent events have demonstrated, we can no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War coalition to continue to uphold the sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades UN inspections. It hardly needs to be added that if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world's supply of oil will all be put at hazard. The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy."
Those alleged threats posed by Iraq, and the advice Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Weekly Standard Editor William Kristol, first offered the attention of the Clinton Administration five years ago have now become the blueprint for how the Bush Administration is dealing with the Iraq.
The existence of the Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz "war" letters is just another reason to question the Bush Administration's desire to go to war with Iraq now instead of dealing with other pressing issues such as Al-Qaeda. Because the letters were written in 1998 it proves that this war was planned well before 9-11 and casts further doubt on the administration's claims that Saddam Hussein was involved in the 9-11 terrorist attacks, and that this is a key part of their motivation.
- Jason Leopold is a freelance journalist based in California, he is currently finishing a book on the California energy crisis.
************
ATTACHED TWO LETTERS FROM PROJECT FOR THE NEW AMERICAN CENTURY
CLINTON LETTER
January 26, 1998
The Honorable William J. Clinton
President of the United States
Washington, DC
Dear Mr. President:
We are writing you because we are convinced that current American policy toward Iraq is not succeeding, and that we may soon face a threat in the Middle East more serious than any we have known since the end of the Cold War. In your upcoming State of the Union Address, you have an opportunity to chart a clear and determined course for meeting this threat. We urge you to seize that opportunity, and to enunciate a new strategy that would secure the interests of the U.S. and our friends and allies around the world. That strategy should aim, above all, at the removal of Saddam Hussein's regime from power. We stand ready to offer our full support in this difficult but necessary endeavor.
The policy of "containment" of Saddam Hussein has been steadily eroding over the past several months. As recent events have demonstrated, we can no longer depend on our partners in the Gulf War coalition to continue to uphold the sanctions or to punish Saddam when he blocks or evades UN inspections. Our ability to ensure that Saddam Hussein is not producing weapons of mass destruction, therefore, has substantially diminished. Even if full inspections were eventually to resume, which now seems highly unlikely, experience has shown that it is difficult if not impossible to monitor Iraq's chemical and biological weapons production. The lengthy period during which the inspectors will have been unable to enter many Iraqi facilities has made it even less likely that they will be able to uncover all of Saddam's secrets. As a result, in the not-too-distant future we will be unable to determine with any reasonable level of confidence whether Iraq does or does not possess such weapons.
Such uncertainty will, by itself, have a seriously destabilizing effect on the entire Middle East. It hardly needs to be added that if Saddam does acquire the capability to deliver weapons of mass destruction, as he is almost certain to do if we continue along the present course, the safety of American troops in the region, of our friends and allies like Israel and the moderate Arab states, and a significant portion of the world's supply of oil will all be put at hazard. As you have rightly declared, Mr. President, the security of the world in the first part of the 21st century will be determined largely by how we handle this threat.
Given the magnitude of the threat, the current policy, which depends for its success upon the steadfastness of our coalition partners and upon the cooperation of Saddam Hussein, is dangerously inadequate. The only acceptable strategy is one that eliminates the possibility that Iraq will be able to use or threaten to use weapons of mass destruction. In the near term, this means a willingness to undertake military action as diplomacy is clearly failing. In the long term, it means removing Saddam Hussein and his regime from power. That now needs to become the aim of American foreign policy.
We urge you to articulate this aim, and to turn your Administration's attention to implementing a strategy for removing Saddam's regime from power. This will require a full complement of diplomatic, political and military efforts. Although we are fully aware of the dangers and difficulties in implementing this policy, we believe the dangers of failing to do so are far greater. We believe the U.S. has the authority under existing UN resolutions to take the necessary steps, including military steps, to protect our vital interests in the Gulf. In any case, American policy cannot continue to be crippled by a misguided insistence on unanimity in the UN Security Council.
We urge you to act decisively. If you act now to end the threat of weapons of mass destruction against the U.S. or its allies, you will be acting in the most fundamental national security interests of the country. If we accept a course of weakness and drift, we put our interests and our future at risk.
Sincerely,
Elliott Abrams - Richard L. Armitage - William J. Bennett
Jeffrey Bergner - John Bolton - Paula Dobriansky
Francis Fukuyama - Robert Kagan - Zalmay Khalilzad
William Kristol - Richard Perle - Peter W. Rodman
Donald Rumsfeld - William Schneider, Jr. - Vin Weber
Paul Wolfowitz - R. James Woolsey - Robert B. Zoellick
************
GINGRICH AND LOTT LETTER
May 29, 1998
The Honorable Newt Gingrich
Speaker of the House
U.S. House of Representatives
H-232 Capitol Building
Washington, DC 20515-6501
The Honorable Trent Lott
Senate Majority Leader
United States Senate
S-208 Capitol Building
Washington, DC 20510-7010
Dear Mr. Speaker and Senator Lott:
On January 26, we sent a letter to President Clinton expressing our concern that the U.S. policy of "containment" of Saddam Hussein was failing. The result, we argued, would be that the vital interests of the United States and its allies in the Middle East would soon be facing a threat as severe as any we had known since the end of the Cold War. We recommended a substantial change in the direction of U.S. policy: Instead of further, futile efforts to "contain" Saddam, we argued that the only way to protect the United States and its allies from the threat of weapons of mass destruction was to put in place policies that would lead to the removal of Saddam and his regime from power. The administration has not only rejected this advice but, as we warned, has begun to abandon its own policy of containment.
In February, the Clinton Administration embraced the agreement reached between the UN Secretary Koffi Annan and the Iraqi government on February 23. At the time of the agreement, the administration declared that Saddam had "reversed" himself and agreed to permit the UN inspectors full, unfettered, and unlimited access to all sites in Iraq. The administration also declared that the new organizational arrangements worked out by Mr. Annan and the Iraqis would not hamper in any way the free operation of UNSCOM. Finally, the administration stated that, should Iraq return to a posture of defiance, the international community would be united in support of a swift and punishing military action.
According to the UN weapons inspectors, Iraq has yet to provide a complete account of its programs for developing weapons of mass destruction and has continued to obstruct investigations. Sites opened to the inspectors after the agreement had "undergone extensive evacuation," according to the most recent UNSCOM report. UN weapons inspector Charles Duelfer has also pointed to significant problems in the new reporting arrangements worked out by Annan and the Iraqis, warning that these may have "important implications for the authority of UNSCOM and its chief inspectors." And, in the wake of these "Potemkin Village" inspections, the Iraqi government is now insisting that the inspections process be brought to an end and sanctions lifted - going so far as to threaten the U.S. and its allies should its demands not be met.
In the face of this new challenge from Saddam, however, the President's public response has been only to say that he is "encouraged" by Iraq's compliance with the UN inspections and to begin reducing U.S. military forces in the Gulf region. Unwilling either to adopt policies that would remove Saddam or sustain the credibility of its own policy of containment, the administration has placed us on a path that will inevitably free Saddam Hussein from all effective constraints. Even if the administration is able to block Security Council efforts to lift sanctions on Iraq this year, the massive expansion of the so-called "oil for food" program will have the effect of overturning the sanctions regime. It is now safe to predict that, in a year's time, absent a sharp change in U.S. policy, Saddam will be effectively liberated from constraints that have bound him since the end of the Gulf War seven years ago.
The American people need to be made aware of the consequences of this capitulation to Saddam:
-- We will have suffered an incalculable blow to American leadership and credibility;
-- We will have sustained a significant defeat in our worldwide efforts to limit the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Other nations seeking to arm themselves with such weapons will have learned that the U.S. lacks the resolve to resist their efforts;
-- The administration will have unnecessarily put at risk U.S. troops in the Persian Gulf, who will be vulnerable to attack by biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons under Saddam Hussein's control;
-- Our friends and allies in the Middle East and Europe will soon be subject to forms of intimidation by an Iraqi government bent on dominating the Middle East and its oil reserves; and
-- As a consequence of the administration's failure, those nations living under the threat of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction can be expected to adopt policies of accommodation toward Saddam. This could well make Saddam the driving force of Middle East politics, including on such important matters as the Middle East peace process.
Mr. Speaker and Mr. Lott, during the most recent phase of this crisis, you both took strong stands, stating that the goal of U.S. policy should be to bring down Saddam and his regime. And, at the time of the Annan deal, Senator Lott, you pointed out its debilitating weakness and correctly reminded both your colleagues and the nation that "We cannot afford peace at any price."
Now that the administration has failed to provide sound leadership, we believe it is imperative that Congress take what steps it can to correct U.S. policy toward Iraq. That responsibility is especially pressing when presidential leadership is lacking or when the administration is pursuing a policy fundamentally at odds with vital American security interests. This is now the case. To Congress's credit, it has passed legislation providing money to help Iraq's democratic opposition and to establish a "Radio Free Iraq." But more needs to be done, and Congress should do whatever is constitutionally appropriate to establish a sound policy toward Iraq.
U.S. policy should have as its explicit goal removing Saddam Hussein's regime from power and establishing a peaceful and democratic Iraq in its place. We recognize that this goal will not be achieved easily. But the alternative is to leave the initiative to Saddam, who will continue to strengthen his position at home and in the region. Only the U.S. can lead the way in demonstrating that his rule is not legitimate and that time is not on the side of his regime. To accomplish Saddam's removal, the following political and military measures should be undertaken:
-- We should take whatever steps are necessary to challenge Saddam Hussein's claim to be Iraq's legitimate ruler, including indicting him as a war criminal;
-- We should help establish and support (with economic, political, and military means) a provisional, representative, and free government of Iraq in areas of Iraq not under Saddam's control;
-- We should use U.S. and allied military power to provide protection for liberated areas in northern and southern Iraq; and
-- We should establish and maintain a strong U.S. military presence in the region, and be prepared to use that force to protect our vital interests in the Gulf - and, if necessary, to help remove Saddam from power.
Although the Clinton Administration's handling of the crisis with Iraq has left Saddam Hussein in a stronger position that when the crisis began, the reality is that his regime remains vulnerable to the exercise of American political and military power. There is reason to believe, moreover, that the citizens of Iraq are eager for an alternative to Saddam, and that his grip on power is not firm. This will be much more the case once it is made clear that the U.S. is determined to help remove Saddam from power, and that an acceptable alternative to his rule exists. In short, Saddam's continued rule in Iraq is neither inevitable nor likely if we pursue the policy outlined above in a serious and sustained fashion. If we continue along the present course, however, Saddam will be stronger at home, he will become even more powerful in the region, and we will face the prospect of having to confront him at some later point when the costs to us, our armed forces, and our allies will be even higher. Mr. Speaker and Senator Lott, Congress should adopt the measures necessary to avoid this impending defeat of vital U.S. interests.
Sincerely,
Elliot Abrams - William J. Bennett - Jeffrey Bergner
John R. Bolton - Paula Dobriansky - Francis Fukuyama - Robert Kagan
Zalmay Khalilzad - William Kristol - Richard Perle - Peter Rodman
Donald Rumsfeld - William Schneider, Jr. - Vin Weber - Paul Wolfowitz
R. James Woolsey - Robert B. Zoellick | | | | Guest-43e1 | | Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2003 5:48 am Post subject: Dropping the mask |
| The hubris of Israel and its well-placed American agents is such, that they have almost completely dropped the mask. Sharon threatens to nuke the Middle East, and Bush's Jewish cabal speaks openly of "nuking Mecca", nuking Iraq, conquering the region, and then the world.
The story of Israeli hit teams on U.S. soil merits no mention, except for the hysteria of emails from one liberal/leftist to another.
Israel's 9/11 involvement, whatever it was, is never brought up.
The dual loyalties Gary Hart alluded to are referenced on TV as "loathsome", by Paul Begala, a Clintonite who owes his entire career to America's Jewish Establishment.
"Peace activist" Rabbi Lerner shrieks about "anti-semitism", not the tsunami of silence about the Israel-centric zeal to annihilate Iraq.
Israel murdered twenty Palestinians this week, not a story.
The Weekly Standard's David Brooks assails the resurgence of "anti-semitism", and praises Paul Wolfowitz as a hero.
John McCain characterizes the anti-war millions as "foolish", and "unwise", and no one dares mention the millions he's received from AIPAC.
How long can this go on before a part of hell breaks loose? | | | | Guest-400c | | Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2003 7:58 am Post subject: Pravda: Fair Warning, OBL's tapes, 9.11 passenger lists & |
| Subj: Pravda: Fair Warning, OBL's tapes, 9.11 passenger lists & the US media
Date: 2/21/03 1:30:41 PM Pacific Standard Time
Pravda: Fair Warning, OBL's tapes & 9.11 passenger lists??
Pravda.RU:World:More in detail
14:52 2003-02-19
Fair Warning
The Middle Eastern CNN-type news agency, Al-Jazeera, recently aired an audio tape of Osama bin Laden calling all Muslims to rise up and defend their “brothers in Iraq." The timing of the tape is impeccable. Both domestic and European critics had been complaining that the U.S. is should only be attacking terrorists, not Saddam Hussein. But now this wonderful tape appears, showing how Iraq and the Al Qaeda are really one and the same.
Not surprisingly on the same tape ‘Osama’ threatens Saudi Arabia, his own country that furnished the majority of the 9-11 hijackers and millions of dollars into his pockets. American support of the Saudi government had been waning, but now, thanks to this tape persuading us just how strong an enemy Saudi Arabia is to Osama, all Americans can now believe the Saudis are on our side.
This tape is far too convenient for the aims of the U.S. government. Not one of the talking heads on the TV news channels have noticed this. No one has said that there could be an Arab Rich Little out in the weeds with a Sony tape recorder. Or even one in Langley.
Speaking of the TV ‘news,’ none of them have offered or asked for one bit of proof that OBL and/or Al Qaeda had anything to do with the 9-11 attacks. I just haven’t seen any actual evidence. Have you?
Immediately after 9-11 the airlines published the passenger lists of all four crashed aircraft. Nowhere on them were the names of the terrorists which the government released, strangely within mere hours of the tragedy. More strange, several of the terrorists have since been discovered to be still alive, well, and nowhere near the USA.
Can anyone out there offer us any real proof that Al Qaeda and Osama were responsible for 9-11? I’ve heard countless generalizations, characterizations and commentary about Muslim “hatred for our way of life,” but is there any real evidence? I think we all know the answer.
Here’s a question you’ll never hear asked by the government-lap-dog U.S. media: Who died and made us boss?
What gives us the authority to go inside a foreign country and forcibly remove its leader? We did this with Manuel Noriega in Panama. Now we want to do it with Iraq. But what international law authorizes us to do this? After all, we tell the People’s Republic of China that they better not set foot in Taiwan. And we sure objected to Japan expanding into neighboring countries.
How can a country that issued the Monroe Doctrine demand at the threat of war that other nations not try to colonize or otherwise influence countries in the western hemisphere, set itself above that rule?
We still apply the Monroe Doctrine today, only we apply it globally to every other nation but ourselves. Isn’t this hypocritical? Not only is it hypocritical, call it typical, typical because this nation is ruled by hypocrites that make thousands of rules for us unwashed masses but exempt themselves from them. Whoever says that, “No one is above the law,” has never read much about the U.S. Congress. One example of hundreds is that Congress members don’t pay into Social Security. How much is taken by force out of your salary annually?
Do you see Yale, Harvard and other Ivy League graduates running to fill the ranks of the military forces now encircling Iraq? Sure you do....
Only poor kids are going to Iraq. We will tell them to kill and maim other poor kids for all the rich ones who will not serve. We will tell them to kill and maim other poor kids for all the rich fathers who made fortunes exploiting their poor fathers.
After the release of the Rich Little-Osama tape, polls say that the majority of Americans now believe Iraq should be attacked as a terrorist organization. Just one little tape and now we’re going to war with pride.
Already the non-serving elites are reaping the benefits of war. In one week alone, fuel oil prices for home heating went up 20%. If I complain that more sick, elderly pensioners will freeze because they cannot pay these increases, people will e-mail me that I’m “unpatriotic.” It seems that anyone who criticizes government nowadays is labeled unpatriotic.
Like Abraham Lincoln, I expect our current president to sign a bill tossing all critics in jail without due process. After all, no one objected much when our government began throwing “terror suspects” into prison, declaring that they have no constitutional rights whatsoever. That’s what happens when foolish people believe that the government can grant and take away rights.
Maybe someone will come up with another audio tape with ‘Osama’ saying how helpful are American citizens who criticize America. Polls will quickly show that Al Qaeda sympathizers deserve no due process. Polls will scream, “Hang ‘em high!” Then the elites can redefine a suspected government critic as an “unpatriotic terrorist-supporting suspect,” causing me and you to wind up in an isolation cell for years without even one phone call out.
Due process now belongs only to those who the U.S. government allows.
We did not speak up in defense of human rights for people denied due process because a label was placed upon them by government. That guarantees that no one will speak up for us when we are carted away in the night. We know this because we have seen this all before, on Kristalnacht, the night Jewish windows were broken throughout Germany by elite forces that wound up limiting human rights for everyone but themselves.
None of us can say that we had no fair warning.
Jack Duggan
Special to PRAVDA.Ru
Related links:
PRAVDA.Ru Terminator from the White House
PRAVDA.Ru War in Iraq Too Expensive
PRAVDA.Ru The Case For War Against Iraq Has Been Made
PRAVDA.Ru The war with Iraq will kill the American economy
PRAVDA.Ru Black Nationalist group against war in Iraq | | | | Guest-400c | | Posted: Mon Feb 24, 2003 8:36 am Post subject: Warmongering Powell Hints at Timetable for War in Iraq |
| Warmongering Powell Hints at Timetable for War in Iraq (see article included after the following):
The Real Reasons for the Upcoming War with Iraq:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/uk-and-europe/2003/02/22/the-real-reasons-for-the-upcoming-war-with-iraq.php
Conflict of Interest for JINSA Zionist Extremists (in Bush Regime) who are Pushing US to war for Greater Israel and Oil:
http://www.mediamonitors.net/williamhughes30.htm
Iraq and Control of Middle East well Underway:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/uk-and-europe/2003/02/23/war-for-iraq-and-control-of-middle-east-well-underway.php
JINSA Zionist Extremists Arranging New Regime of US Occupied Iraq:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/uk-and-europe/2003/02/22/jinsa-zionist-jews-arranging-new-regime-of-us-occupied-iraq.php
JINSA Zionist Extremists Also Contributed to Current N. Korea Crisis
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/02/23/jinsa-zionists-contributed-to-n-korea-crisis-also.php
Would be a Lot Cheaper for US to Just Cut Aid to Israel:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/uk-and-europe/2003/02/23/would-be-a-lot-cheaper-to-just-cut-aid-to-israel.php
BEIJING/BAGHDAD (Feb. 23) - Secretary of State Colin Powell dropped heavy hints about Washington's timetable for war in Iraq on Sunday, saying the U.N. should take vital decisions soon after a weapons inspectors' report expected on March 7.
Powell told a news conference in Tokyo he expected the U.N. Security Council to make a judgment about a new resolution on Iraq -- to be presented by the United States and Britain as early as Monday -- soon after the inspectors' report.
"It isn't going to be a long period of time from the tabling of the resolution until a judgment is made as to whether the resolution is ready to be voted on or not," Powell said.
"Iraq is still not complying and time is drawing to a close when...the Security Council must show its relevance by insisting that Iraq disarm or that Iraq be disarmed by a coalition of forces that will go in and do it," he added.
U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Thursday excited speculation about the timing of an attack on Iraq by saying the Western forces already massed in the Gulf were "ample" for the task. But Powell's remarks appeared to narrow the schedule.
The U.S. military is anxious to act by April, when temperatures in Iraq begin to soar. Soldiers may have to spend extended periods in stifling protective suits and masks because of the threat of chemical or biological weapons.
Powell flew from Tokyo to Beijing on Sunday. The United States, backed by Britain, is mounting a diplomatic effort to win over the 10 rotating members of the Security Council to back a resolution paving the way for war and to persuade permanent members France, Russia and China not to veto it.
China, like France and Russia, says U.N. inspectors should be given more time in Iraq. But analysts said it could tacitly back Washington by abstaining from voting on what it views as a distant problem not worth jeopardising Sino-U.S. relations over.
Syria, one of the 10 temporary Council members Washington must woo, said it had already turned down flat a request from Powell that it back the resolution, on the grounds that it would be exploited as a pretext to attack Iraq whatever it said.
The British government, which is sending some 40,000 troops to the Gulf, also signalled on Sunday that war to overthrow Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was not imminent.
"There will be further negotiations at the U.N. over the next few weeks," said Foreign Office minister Mike O'Brien.
"We are going to work very hard to get a second resolution and indeed we expect to get a second resolution unless Saddam disarms in the meantime," O'Brien said. "I hope he does, I hope we can avoid war...but we must ensure Saddam is disarmed."
Public opinion in Britain is opposed to a war without U.N. authorisation. The anti-war mood elsewhere in Europe is strong.
Activists vowed on Sunday to block all movement of U.S. arms by rail between American bases in Italy and Italian dock workers pledged to stop handling U.S. war cargo.
Some 30,000 people marched through the Moroccan capital Rabat to denounce U.S. policy and at least 5,000 through Moscow.
U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan urged Iraqi leaders not to misinterpret such protests as a licence to resist the U.N. "They have to destroy these weapons... If they refuse to destroy them, the council will have to take a decision on that," he said.
BANNED MISSILES
Iraq test-fired an al-Samoud 2 engine on Sunday to show U.N. inspectors the missile could not violate a permitted range limit.
U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix has ordered Iraq to start destroying the missiles by March 1 because their range exceeds 90 miles.
Former Russian Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov was in Baghdad on Sunday on a mission for President Vladimir Putin.
Primakov, a Middle East expert and a long-time friend of Saddam, arrived late on Saturday and was expected to meet senior Iraqi officials before leaving later on Sunday.
Russia, which is owed billions of dollars by Iraq and has signed valuable contracts to develop Iraqi oilfields, says it sees no need to use force against Baghdad.
A major element of Washington's diplomatic preparation for war has been to win Turkey's permission to use its bases as a launchpad and its border with Iraq as a gateway to invade.
Turkey, anxious to dampen Kurdish nationalism in Iraq that might stir up separatism in its own Kurdish southeast, says it will send troops into northern Iraq on the heels of an American force to prevent an independent Kurdish state emerging.
Kurds in northern Iraq reacted angrily to what appeared to be the terms of a near-complete U.S.-Turkish agreement.
"If there's a forced incursion...believe me there will be uncontrolled clashes," said a spokesman for the Kurdish Democratic Party.
"And it will be bad for the image of the United States, Britain and other countries who want to help Iraq, to see two of their allies, Turkey and Kurdistan, at each other's throats."
Saudi Arabia raised the army's state of alert and started ordering gas masks for civilians. The kingdom is home to about 5,000 U.S. troops, but has yet to decide whether to allow U.S. forces to attack Iraq from its territory without U.N. approval.
Instead, Kuwait is the main base for the planned thrust into southern Iraq. Kuwaiti authorities said on Sunday an Iraqi had been arrested on suspicion of spying on American forces.
The U.N. Children's Fund launched a measles and polio vaccination campaign for four million Iraqi children on Sunday and said malnutrition levels showed Iraq was suffering a humanitarian crisis even before any war.
REUTERS Rtr 11:31 02-23-03 | | | | | ©2002-2009 WarWithoutEnd.co.uk |
