| Author | Message | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2003 8:09 pm Post subject: Revealed: US Dirty Tricks to Win Vote on Iraq War |
| To see this story with its related links on the The Observer site,
go to http://www.observer.co.uk
Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war
Secret document details American plan to bug phones and emails of
key Security Council members
The Guardian, March 01 2003
The United States is conducting a secret 'dirty tricks' campaign
against UN Security Council delegations in New York as part of its
battle to win votes in favour of war against Iraq.
Details of the aggressive surveillance operation, which involves
interception of the home and office telephones and the emails of
UN delegates in New York, are revealed in a document leaked to The
Observer.
The disclosures were made in a memorandum written by a top official
at the National Security Agency - the US body which intercepts
communications around the world - and circulated to both senior
agents in his organisation and to a friendly foreign intelligence
agency asking for its input.
The memo describes orders to staff at the agency, whose work is
clouded in secrecy, to step up its surveillance operations
'particularly directed at... UN Security Council Members (minus US
and GBR, of course)' to provide up-to-the-minute intelligence for
Bush officials on the voting intentions of UN members regarding
the issue of Iraq.
The leaked memorandum makes clear that the target of the heightened
surveillance efforts are the delegations from Angola, Cameroon,
Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan at the UN headquarters in New
York - the so-called 'Middle Six' delegations whose votes are being
fought over by the pro-war party, led by the US and Britain, and
the party arguing for more time for UN inspections, led by France,
China and Russia.
The memo is directed at senior NSA officials and advises them that
the agency is 'mounting a surge' aimed at gleaning information not
only on how delegations on the Security Council will vote on any
second resolution on Iraq, but also 'policies', 'negotiating
positions', 'alliances' and 'dependencies' - the 'whole gamut of
information that could give US policymakers an edge in obtaining
results favourable to US goals or to head off surprises'.
Dated 31 January 2003, the memo was circulated four days after the
UN's chief weapons inspector Hans Blix produced his interim report
on Iraqi compliance with UN resolution 1441.
It was sent by Frank Koza, chief of staff in the 'Regional Targets'
section of the NSA, which spies on countries that are viewed as
strategically important for United States interests.
Koza specifies that the information will be used for the US's 'QRC'
- Quick Response Capability - 'against' the key delegations.
Suggesting the levels of surveillance of both the office and home
phones of UN delegation members, Koza also asks regional managers
to make sure that their staff also 'pay attention to existing
non-UN Security Council Member UN-related and domestic comms
[office and home telephones] for anything useful related to
Security Council deliberations'.
Koza also addresses himself to the foreign agency, saying: 'We'd
appreciate your support in getting the word to your analysts who
might have similar more indirect access to valuable information
from accesses in your product lines - ie, intelligence sources.'
Koza makes clear it is an informal request at this juncture, but
adds: 'I suspect that you'll be hearing more along these lines
in formal channels.'
Disclosure of the US operation comes in the week that Blix will
make what many expect to be his final report to the Security
Council.
It also comes amid increasingly threatening noises from the US
towards undecided countries on the Security Council who have been
warned of the unpleasant economic consequences of standing up to
the US.
Sources in Washington familiar with the operation said last week
that there had been a division among Bush administration officials
over whether to pursue such a high-intensity surveillance campaign
with some warning of the serious consequences of discovery.
The existence of the surveillance operation, understood to have
been requested by President Bush's National Security Adviser,
Condoleezza Rice, is deeply embarrassing to the Americans in the
middle of their efforts to win over the undecided delegations.
The language and content of the memo were judged to be authentic
by three former intelligence operatives shown it by The Observer.
We were also able to establish that Frank Koza does work for the
NSA and could confirm his senior post in the Regional Targets
section of the organisation.
The NSA main switchboard put The Observer through to extension
6727 at the agency which was answered by an assistant, who
confirmed it was Koza's office. However, when The Observer asked
to talk to Koza about the surveillance of diplomatic missions at
the United Nations, it was then told 'You have reached the wrong
number'.
On protesting that the assistant had just said this was Koza's
extension, the assistant repeated that it was an erroneous
extension, and hung up.
While many diplomats at the UN assume they are being bugged,
the memo reveals for the first time the scope and scale of US
communications intercepts targeted against the New York-based
missions.
The disclosure comes at a time when diplomats from the
countries have been complaining about the outright 'hostility'
of US tactics in recent days to persuade then to fall in line,
including threats to economic and aid packages.
The operation appears to have been spotted by rival organisations
in Europe. 'The Americans are being very purposeful about this,'
said a source at a European intelligence agency when asked about
the US surveillance efforts. | |  | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2003 8:11 pm Post subject: Bush and Blair to ditch UN if France blocks intervention |
| Look at the Russian Parliamentary leader's comments at the end of the folloowing as I would also like to let him know about the JINSA/PNAC cabal as well:
Forwarded:
Recent Gallup polls in the USA show that 59 percent of those polled support an invasion of Iraq (if there were UN Security Council approval). If the Iraqi missiles were taken apart (as they were destroyed yesterday, but I think that such a US/UN double standard when considering that paragraph 14 of UN Security Council Resolution 687 against Iraq calls for the Middle East to be a zone free of weapons of mass destruction to include Israeli nuclear missiles), then only 39 percent support the invasion of Iraq. And only 33 percent approval for going to war without UN approval.
Subj: Bush and Blair to ditch UN if France blocks intervention
Date: 3/2/03 2:24:53 AM Pacific Standard Time
http://www.sundayherald.com/print31828
Sunday Herald - 02 March 2003
Bush and Blair to ditch UN if France blocks intervention
Iraq destroys four missiles, but Straw says it's just a 'cynical' move to divide UN
By James Cusick, Westminster Editor
AS hopes fade of winning a second UN resolution, Britain and the United States are now preparing the ground to argue that both governments already have the implied authority of the UN for conflict. Sources close to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw yesterday admitted that if 'there was no prospect of winning a second resolution' -- due to the use of a UN Security Council veto by potentially France, Russia or China -- 'then we may consider abandoning it altogether'.Washington also yesterday altered its strategy in exactly the same manner when Pres ident George Bush, referring to the existing Security Council resolution 1441, said the US was determined to enforce its terms, which demand that Saddam Hussein surrender his country's weapons of mass destruction.Condoleezza Rice, the US national security adviser, called the new draft resolution presented to the UN last week simply 'an affirmation of the council's willingness to enforce its own resolution'. Over the coming week, Tony Blair is expected to reinforce the message that it is the 'authority of the UN', already explicit in the unanimously agreed resolution 1441, that must be upheld. In effect, the Prime Minister is preparing the ground for the political mayhem both inside his party and beyond should a second UN resolution fail to materialise and he takes British forces into war alongside the US. Key to winning support in the Security Council would have been Iraq's defiance and obstruction of UN orders to disarm. But yesterday Iraq, reluctantly, agreed to the destruction of four of its outlawed al-Samoud 2 missiles. At a military base just outside Baghdad, bulldozers were brought in to crush the missiles under supervision of the UN. A potential timetable to destroy the remaining 100-plus al-Samoud 2 missiles was also discussed with the UN. Around 50 of the missiles are with Iraqi forces scattered around the country and will have to be brought in to be destroyed. And for the first time in a month, Iraq agreed to unsup ervised interviews with Iraqi scientists, a small number of which have taken place already.Although Dr Hans Blix, the UN's chief weapons inspector, described Iraq's move on its missiles as 'a very significant piece of real disarmament' both the US and UK remained sceptical. If Blix reinforces a signif icant positive shift in Iraq's level of co-operation when he delivers his latest report to the UN this Friday, it may put the final nail in the coffin for any hope of agreement on a second resolution. France's foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, said yesterday that the destruction of the missiles 'confirms that inspectors are getting results'. He said Iraq's decision to comply was an important step in the disarmament process. As one of the harshest critics of the US-UK position, and having already demanded inspectors be given more time, it now seems inconceivable that France will now not use its veto in an attempt to avert war. However, the White House said Iraq's compliance was 'propaganda wrapped in a lie inside a falsehood'. Straw warned the international community that it 'should not be taken in' by Saddam. He dismissed Iraq's promise to destroy all its al-Samoud 2 missiles as 'a cynical attempt to divide the Security Council'. To end the crisis Straw said Saddam only had to say he was in 'complete, immediate and full compliance of resolution 1441'. Iraqi foreign minister Naji Sabri said: 'We are co-operating because we want to co-operate, because we think it is to our benefit. We don't need anyone to tell us to co-operate.'A senior source in the Foreign Office said that following Blix's report this Friday: 'It will probably be towards the end of the following week that the UK-backed second resol ution will be formally put to the Security Council. It is likely we will demand a formal vote, essentially to confront France or whoever and flush out their use of their veto. We would want to make it evident who had halted the resolution. But if there is no prospect of winning, that strategy may be abandoned altogether.' Meanwhile, Turkey's parliament, after a day of high drama and confusion, yesterday finally denied US forces use of Turkish territory to launch a northern attack on Iraq. US supply ships and armaments had been waiting outside Turkish ports, with troops in the US also awaiting final authority to fly into Turkey. However, the Turkish parliament will reconvene on the issue this week. The US -- which has promised a massive financial aid and trade package to Turkey -- are said to be furious at the potential logistical chaos this will bring to its battle plans. A northern front is regarded as crucial to the prospects of a quick, short war.
Pat Buchanan: Wages of Empire:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/03/01/pat-buchanan-wages-of-empire.php
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/02/28/opinion/28KRIS.html?ex=1047450772&ei=1&en=3e008a399a0a04a1
Secret, Scary Plans
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
!!!!!ome of the most secret and scariest work under way in the Pentagon these days is the planning for a possible military strike against nuclear sites in North Korea.
Officials say that so far these are no more than contingency plans. They cover a range of military options from surgical cruise missile strikes to sledgehammer bombing, and there is even talk of using tactical nuclear weapons to neutralize hardened artillery positions aimed at Seoul, the South Korean capital.
There's nothing wrong with planning, or with brandishing a stick to get Kim Jong Il's attention. But several factions in the administration are serious about a military strike if diplomacy fails, and since the White House is unwilling to try diplomacy in any meaningful way, it probably will fail. The upshot is a growing possibility that President Bush could reluctantly order such a strike this summer, risking another Korean war.
The sources of information for this column will be as mystifying as the underlying U.S. policy itself, for few will discuss these issues on the record. But it seems those interested in the military option ? consisting primarily of raptors clustered around Dick Cheney and Don Rumsfeld and in the National Security Council ? have until recently been slapped down by President Bush himself.
Recently Mr. Bush seems to have become more hawkish. He is said to have been furious when Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage (one of the few senior Bush aides who know anything about Korea) told Congress that the U.S. would have to talk to North Korea.
So the White House has hardened its position further, swatting away its old willingness to engage North Korea bilaterally within a multilateral setting. Now the administration has dropped the bilateral reference and is willing to talk to North Korea only in a multilateral framework that doesn't exist. The old approach had a snowball's chance in purgatory; now it's less than that.
"We haven't exhausted diplomacy," one senior player noted. "We haven't begun diplomacy. . . . We could have a slippery slope to a Korean war. I don't think that's too alarmist at all."
Other experts I respect are less worried. James Lilley, an old Korea hand and former ambassador to Seoul and Beijing, says my concerns are "much too alarmist." He says the State Department controls Korea policy and realizes that "the military option is almost nonexistent."
Maybe. But meanwhile, North Korea is cranking out provocations and plutonium. This week it started up a small reactor in Yongbyon. More worrying, America's spooks detected on-and-off activity at a steam plant at Yongbyon, which may mean that the North is preparing to start up a neighboring reprocessing plant capable of turning out enough plutonium for five nuclear weapons by summer. Look for reprocessing to begin soon, perhaps the day bombs first fall on Iraq.
Dick Cheney and his camp worry, not unreasonably, that the greatest risk of all would be to allow North Korea to churn out nuclear warheads like hotcakes off a griddle. In a few years North Korea will be able to produce about 60 nuclear weapons annually, and fissile material is so compact that it could easily be sold and smuggled to Iraq, Iran, Libya, Syria and Al Qaeda.
The hawk faction believes that the U.S. as a last resort could make a surgical strike, even without South Korean consent, and that Kim Jong Il would not commit suicide by retaliating. The hawks may well be right.
Then again, they may be wrong. And if they're wrong, it would be quite a mistake.
The North has 13,000 artillery pieces and could fire some 400,000 shells in the first hour of an attack, many with sarin and anthrax, on the 21 million people in the "kill box" ? as some in the U.S. military describe the Seoul metropolitan area. The Pentagon has calculated that another Korean war could kill a million people.
So if the military option is too scary to contemplate, and if allowing North Korea to proliferate is absolutely unacceptable, what's left? Precisely the option that every country in the region is pressing on us: negotiating with North Korea.
Ironically, the gravity of the situation isn't yet fully understood in either South Korea or Japan, partly because they do not think this administration would be crazy enough to consider a military strike against North Korea. They're wrong.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EB28Ak02.html
http://www.atimes.com
Middle East
Bush shares dream of Middle East democracy
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - In a major policy address to the neo-conservative think-tank American Enterprise Institute (AEI), US President George W Bush on Wednesday pledged to "ensure that one brutal dictator is not replaced by another" in post-invasion Iraq and argued that a US victory there "could also begin a new stage for Middle Eastern peace".
"The passing of Saddam Hussein's regime will deprive terrorist networks of a wealthy patron that pays for terrorist training, and offers rewards to families of suicide bombers," he said. "And other regimes will be given a clear warning that support for terror will not be tolerated."
The speech, the latest in an accelerating series of appearances by Bush and other senior members of his administration to drum up public support for war in Iraq with or without the United Nations Security Council's authorization, was notable as much for its venue as its content.
AEI, whose foreign policy "scholars" are closely identified with the most unilateralist and pro-Likud elements in the Bush administration, has acted as the hub of a network of neo-conservative activists and groups, including the Project for the New American Century (PNAC), the Center for Security Policy (CSP), the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), and several others that have agitated for war against Iraq and other Arab states that are believed to threaten Israel since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center in Manhattan and the Pentagon near Washington, DC.
More than any other think-tank in Washington, AEI and its associates have consistently formulated and favored the most radical and hardline proposals for US policy, including aligning US policy in the Middle East with Israel's right-wing Likud party; cutting ties with traditional US allies such as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan; opposing negotiations with North Korea; providing direct security guarantees to Taiwan; and treating China as a strategic threat with which an eventual confrontation should be considered inevitable.
In sympathetic publications - including the Weekly Standard, the National Review, the Washington Times, the New Republic, the editorial pages of the Wall Street Journal - as well as on talk shows on Fox News and CNN, they have aggressively pressed those positions, and launched attacks against their perceived enemies, particularly Secretary of State Colin Powell and former national security advisor Brent Scowcroft, both of whom are seen as dangerous realists, and, more recently, the governments of France and Germany.
AEI has also served as a major recruiting ground for foreign-policy positions in the administration.
Indeed, its former executive vice president, John Bolton, has become one of the Bush administration's most powerful - despite journalistically undercovered - figures as undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, a key post that he has used not only to ensure Washington's withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty, but also the undermining of other elements of the international arms-control regime. He has also spearheaded US efforts to attack the Rome Protocol to set up the new International Criminal Court. He told the Wall Street Journal last year that signing the letter informing the UN of Washington's renunciation of adherence to the Rome Protocol was "the happiest moment of my government service".
Presiding over much of AEI's foreign-policy program has been Richard Perle, a close advisor and longtime friend of Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld, who named him as chairman of the Defense Policy Board (DPB). Lynne Cheney, Vice President Dick Cheney's spouse, also works at AEI, albeit not in a foreign-policy position, as does former UN ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick.
Perle, who has also worked closely with Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz since they were students at the University of Chicago in the late 1960s, convened the DPB within a few days of the attacks to discuss possible links between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda and put Baghdad squarely in Washington's crosshairs in the impending anti-terrorist campaign.
Indeed, within just nine days of September 11, 2001, Perle helped mobilize support for an open letter to Bush by PNAC, whose offices are on the fifth floor of the AEI building in downtown Washington, that laid out a program for conducting a war on terrorism that anticipated much of what the administration has subsequently followed.
Signed by 40 prominent right-wingers and neo-conservatives, of whom at least a dozen were directly associated with AEI, the letter argued that the war on terror must not stop with bin Laden, but must also include ousting Saddam Hussein, "even if evidence does not link him to the [September 11] attack", cutting off aid to the Palestinian Authority (PA), striking Hezbollah in Lebanon, retaliating against Iran and Syria if they do not stop supplying Hezbollah, and sharply increasing the defense budget.
In another letter six months later, the same group called for the US to cut all ties with Palestinian President Yasser Arafat and cease pressure on Israel to negotiate with him pending the emergence of a new Palestinian leadership. "Israel's fight against terrorism is our fight," the letter said. "Israel's victory is an important part of our victory. For reasons both moral and strategic, we need to stand with Israel in its fight against terrorism." After a major struggle between the hawks clustered around Rumsfeld and Cheney and more realist forces led by Powell, Bush adopted PNAC's recommendations.
Having won that battle, its AEI associates led by Perle transformed themselves into neo-Wilsonians by leading the charge for a regional policy of "reshaping", "transforming" and "democratizing" the entire Middle East, the main subject of Bush's address on Wednesday.
"This war cannot be limited to national theaters," Michael Ledeen, another AEI "scholar" and JINSA co-founder along with Perle, argued last September. "We face a regional challenge and must respond accordingly. We are the one truly revolutionary country on Earth, which is both the reason for which we were attacked in the first place and the reason we will successfully transform the lives of millions of people throughout the Middle East."
Similarly, another AEI associate, Joshua Muravchik called as early as a year ago for an aggressive pro-democracy policy in the region. Citing a recent survey by Freedom House, a New York-based neo-conservative think-tank, that found Arab states to be the least "free" of any other region, he argued that "far from pointing toward a relaxation of military efforts [in the war against terror, the survey] suggests that the more terror-loving tyrannies the United States can topple the better".
Yet another AEI scholar and former Central Intelligence Agency officer, Marc Reuel Gerecht, has also called for sweeping changes in US policy toward authoritarian Arab regimes, such as Saudi Arabia, although his views about the compatibility of democratic institutions with Arab temperaments have tended to be far more equivocal, if also revealing. "Arabs only respect strength," he wrote last year in an appeal for Washington to back Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's efforts to crush Palestinian resistance in the occupied territories. "Though the Near East Bureau at State hates the notion, the tougher Sharon becomes, the stronger our image will be in the Middle East."
Gerecht has also been a major proponent of severing ties with Saudi Arabia, as has Perle himself, who last summer got in trouble with the White House for inviting a vehemently anti-Saudi French scholar to address the DPB about the necessity of ousting the royal family from power.
Bush's appearance at AEI on Wednesday, however, made it clear that all had been forgiven. And his embrace of virtually all of the think-tank's theories about democratizing the region made clear the extent to which the most radical hawks in the administration have prevailed in the internal policy debate.
"There was a time when many said that the cultures of Japan and Germany were incapable of sustaining democratic values," said Bush. "Well, they were wrong. Some say the same of Iraq today. They are mistaken. "The nation of Iraq ... is fully capable of moving toward democracy and living in freedom.
"A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region," he declared, adding that "it is presumptuous and insulting to suggest that a whole region of the world - or the one-fifth of humanity that is Muslim - is somehow untouched by the most basic aspirations of life".
Moreover, "success in Iraq could also begin a new stage for Middle Eastern peace, and set in motion progress towards a truly democratic Palestinian state ... Without this outside support for terrorism, Palestinians who are working for reform and long for democracy will be in a better position to choose new leaders: true leaders who strive for peace; true leaders who faithfully serve the people.
"For its part, the new government of Israel - as the terror threat is removed and security improves - will be expected to support the creation of a viable Palestinian state and to work as quickly as possible toward a final status agreement," Bush said in his one concession to Arab opinion that must have disappointed his hosts. "As progress is made toward peace, settlement activity in the occupied territories must end."
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
Wages of Empire:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2003/03/01/pat-buchanan-wages-of-empire.php
US Prepares to USE TOXIC GASES in IRAQ:
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=383006
House of Commons Debate: Only Resort to Warfare Once All other Methods are Exhausted:
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=382072
A Reminder from the Back Benches: Don't Take the Party for Granted:
http://argument.independent.co.uk/leading_articles/story.jsp?story=382041
British and Spanish Empires did Not Last Either:
http://enjoyment.independent.co.uk/books/reviews/story.jsp?story=368892
Russian parliament speaker blasts U.S.
From the International Desk
Published 3/1/2003 7:58 PM
TUNIS, Tunisia, March 1 (UPI) -- Russia's parliamentary speaker Saturday blasted the United States' policy towards Iraq, the region, and the world, warning that his country would use its veto power in the U.N Security Council to prevent a war on Iraq.Duma Speaker Gennadii Seleznev said at a news conference that proposals calling for the Iraqi leadership's ouster were "ridiculous." Unilateral U.S. action against Iraq would represent "radical political changes on the global level and would lead to the destruction of international law, the U.N and the Security Council," Seleznev said.Speaking at a news conference in Tunis after a three-day visit, Seleznev said these actions called for "serious thought for establishing alternative international bodies to the U.N. that could guarantee global security, especially that Russia and the rest of the world strongly reject the return to the laws of the jungle where the strong eats the weak." Countries cannot change regimes just because they don't like them, Seleznev told reporters. The current U.S. unilateralist slant is a "serious trend that needs to be confronted and to affirm that the people alone have the right to change their own regimes," he said.The Russian legislator said his country would use its veto power as one of the five permanent U.N. Security Council members to knock down any U.S. resolution allowing the use of force against Iraq for its failure to disarm.He also criticized the United States for adopting "double standard policies, where Iraq is asked to apply Security Council resolutions while Israel publicly rejects implementing resolutions regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict."He added that Washington "does not hesitate in imposing sanctions on Iraq on the excuse that it possesses weapons of mass destruction, and does not do the same to Israel, which does own WMD (weapons of mass destruction) and refuses to accept U.N. resolutions."Former U.S. administrations, displeased with Cuban President Fidel Castro's regime, "had to eventually tolerate his presence and were able to co-exist with his authority. So this suggestion (to remove Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein) is ridiculous and does not deserve discussion," Seleznev added.
To see this story with its related links on the The Observer site,
go to http://www.observer.co.uk
Revealed: US dirty tricks to win vote on Iraq war
Secret document details American plan to bug phones and emails of
key Security Council members
The Guardian, March 01 2003
The United States is conducting a secret 'dirty tricks' campaign
against UN Security Council delegations in New York as part of its
battle to win votes in favour of war against Iraq.
Details of the aggressive surveillance operation, which involves
interception of the home and office telephones and the emails of
UN delegates in New York, are revealed in a document leaked to The
Observer.
The disclosures were made in a memorandum written by a top official
at the National Security Agency - the US body which intercepts
communications around the world - and circulated to both senior
agents in his organisation and to a friendly foreign intelligence
agency asking for its input.
The memo describes orders to staff at the agency, whose work is
clouded in secrecy, to step up its surveillance operations
'particularly directed at... UN Security Council Members (minus US
and GBR, of course)' to provide up-to-the-minute intelligence for
Bush officials on the voting intentions of UN members regarding
the issue of Iraq.
The leaked memorandum makes clear that the target of the heightened
surveillance efforts are the delegations from Angola, Cameroon,
Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan at the UN headquarters in New
York - the so-called 'Middle Six' delegations whose votes are being
fought over by the pro-war party, led by the US and Britain, and
the party arguing for more time for UN inspections, led by France,
China and Russia.
The memo is directed at senior NSA officials and advises them that
the agency is 'mounting a surge' aimed at gleaning information not
only on how delegations on the Security Council will vote on any
second resolution on Iraq, but also 'policies', 'negotiating
positions', 'alliances' and 'dependencies' - the 'whole gamut of
information that could give US policymakers an edge in obtaining
results favourable to US goals or to head off surprises'.
Dated 31 January 2003, the memo was circulated four days after the
UN's chief weapons inspector Hans Blix produced his interim report
on Iraqi compliance with UN resolution 1441.
It was sent by Frank Koza, chief of staff in the 'Regional Targets'
section of the NSA, which spies on countries that are viewed as
strategically important for United States interests.
Koza specifies that the information will be used for the US's 'QRC'
- Quick Response Capability - 'against' the key delegations.
Suggesting the levels of surveillance of both the office and home
phones of UN delegation members, Koza also asks regional managers
to make sure that their staff also 'pay attention to existing
non-UN Security Council Member UN-related and domestic comms
[office and home telephones] for anything useful related to
Security Council deliberations'.
Koza also addresses himself to the foreign agency, saying: 'We'd
appreciate your support in getting the word to your analysts who
might have similar more indirect access to valuable information
from accesses in your product lines - ie, intelligence sources.'
Koza makes clear it is an informal request at this juncture, but
adds: 'I suspect that you'll be hearing more along these lines
in formal channels.'
Disclosure of the US operation comes in the week that Blix will
make what many expect to be his final report to the Security
Council.
It also comes amid increasingly threatening noises from the US
towards undecided countries on the Security Council who have been
warned of the unpleasant economic consequences of standing up to
the US.
Sources in Washington familiar with the operation said last week
that there had been a division among Bush administration officials
over whether to pursue such a high-intensity surveillance campaign
with some warning of the serious consequences of discovery.
The existence of the surveillance operation, understood to have
been requested by President Bush's National Security Adviser,
Condoleezza Rice, is deeply embarrassing to the Americans in the
middle of their efforts to win over the undecided delegations.
The language and content of the memo were judged to be authentic
by three former intelligence operatives shown it by The Observer.
We were also able to establish that Frank Koza does work for the
NSA and could confirm his senior post in the Regional Targets
section of the organisation.
The NSA main switchboard put The Observer through to extension
6727 at the agency which was answered by an assistant, who
confirmed it was Koza's office. However, when The Observer asked
to talk to Koza about the surveillance of diplomatic missions at
the United Nations, it was then told 'You have reached the wrong
number'.
On protesting that the assistant had just said this was Koza's
extension, the assistant repeated that it was an erroneous
extension, and hung up.
While many diplomats at the UN assume they are being bugged,
the memo reveals for the first time the scope and scale of US
communications intercepts targeted against the New York-based
missions.
The disclosure comes at a time when diplomats from the
countries have been complaining about the outright 'hostility'
of US tactics in recent days to persuade then to fall in line,
including threats to economic and aid packages.
The operation appears to have been spotted by rival organisations
in Europe. 'The Americans are being very purposeful about this,'
said a source at a European intelligence agency when asked about
the US surveillance efforts. | | | | Alpha | | Posted: Sun Mar 02, 2003 9:10 pm Post subject: Bush's war is not about democracy |
| http://www.canoe.ca/Columnists/margolis_mar2.html
Toronto Sun | March 2, 2003
Bush's war is not about democracy
By ERIC MARGOLIS -- Contributing Foreign Editor
PALM BEACH, Fla. -- President George Bush claimed last week his impending war against Iraq would bring peace and democracy to the Middle East, and liberate Iraqis from repression.
At the same time, in a move clearly aimed at intimidating the media, the
White House denounced a CBS News interview with Saddam Hussein, in which the Iraqi leader asserted his nation had nothing to do with 9/11 or
al-Qaida, as "propaganda."
Now, I have no love for Saddam's sinister, brutal regime. The last time I
was in Baghdad, in late 1990, the Iraqi secret police threatened to hang me
as a spy after I discovered a group of technicians and scientists who had
been secretly sent by the British government to produce anthrax and other
germ warfare weapons for Iraq to use against Iran.
But what I dislike even more than Saddam's nasty regime are government lies and propaganda.
Since 9/11, Americans have been subjected to the most intense propaganda campaign from their government since World War I. Much of the mainstream U.S. media have been intimidated by the Bush administration into unquestioningly amplifying its party line.
Or, in the worst tradition of yellow, jingoist journalism, they act as
cheerleaders for war.
I am reminded of the sycophantic Soviet media during the days of Chairman Leonid Brezhnev.
The American public, often wobbly about geography, history and
international affairs, has been alternatively terrified and enraged by
bare-faced lies that Iraq was about to attack America with nuclear weapons
or germs, and was a secret ally of al-Qaida.
A shocking two-thirds of Americans mistakenly believe Iraq staged the 9/11 attacks.
A surging wave of anti-Islamic hate, promoted in part by Bush's allies on
the loony far right, and administration repression of Muslims,
frighteningly recalls Europe's growing anti-Semitism of the early 1930s.
These are the reasons why a majority of Americans still support a war of
aggression against Iraq, though more and more question the president's
motives.
A frightening claim
It's frightening to see Bush claim with a straight face his war against
Iraq will bring democracy and peace to the Mideast, and save Iraqis from
repression.
Why didn't he begin by saving Palestinians from the repression by his
alter-ego, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon? If Bush really cared about
Mideast democracy, he's had two years to do something about U.S.-sponsored dictatorships like Egypt and Pakistan, or medieval autocracies such as Morocco, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and America's Gulf protectorates.
When Bush says he will bring democracy to benighted Iraqis, what he really means is U.S. rule.
In Bush-speak, "democracy" has been perverted to mean U.S. imperial
hegemony: nations run by puppet rulers who make all the right noises, like
Afghanistan's U.S.-installed figurehead, Hamid Karzai, while following
Washington's orders to the letter.
Bush's war is not about democracy, weapons of mass destruction, human
rights, or terrorism. It has two main motivations. First, the Manifest
Destiny crowd in Washington, led by VP Dick Cheney and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. The terrible events of 9/11 have seemed to produce an almost psychotic reaction in these good, patriotic Americans, transforming them into 19th century imperialists.
Their intention is perfectly clear: 1) prevent any nation ever challenging
U.S. global hegemony; 2) dominate oil. The aggression against Iraq is not
about oil per se, it is about control of oil. Before the Iraq crisis, the
U.S. imported about $18 billion of crude oil annually from the Mideast, but
spent $31 billion keeping military forces there. Why? Control of Mideast
oil gives the U.S. domination over Europe and Japan, which draw most of
their oil from the region.
Domination of the Mideast and Caspian Sea oil will assure the U.S. a
permanent stranglehold over China and India, as well as Europe and Japan.
The second driving force is Israel's far-right Likud government, many of
whose ideas have come to dominate Bush administration policy and U.S. media commentary on the Mideast.
The Clinton administration was close to Israel's moderate Labour Party;
Bush's camp is totally aligned with Israel's aggressive far right and
mirrors its views and policies to a remarkable, unprecedented degree.
Likud and its powerful American supporters want the U.S. to crush Iraq into
pieces. The principal beneficiary of the war against Iraq will be Israel.
Many Americans simply don't understand their leadership is about to plunge the nation into an open-ended, dangerous colonial war. All the propaganda about democracy, human rights and regional stability is the same kind of double-talk used by the 19th century British and French imperialists who claimed they were grabbing Africa and Asia to bring the benefits of Christian civilization to the heathens.
A veteran U.S. diplomat, John Kiesling, who just resigned from the State
Department in protest over Iraq, eloquently described the damage inflicted
on America by the run-amok Bush administration:
"Our fervent pursuit of war with Iraq is driving us to squander the
international legitimacy that has been America's most potent weapon of both offence and defence since the days of Woodrow Wilson." Amen.
Misery loves company. An American-occupied Iraq looks destined to join the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Gaza as another human, political and moral disaster for all concerned.
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Eric can be reached by e-mail at margolis@foreigncorrespondent.com.
Letters to the editor should be sent to editor@sunpub.com or visit his home
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