| Author | Message | | Guest-c651 | | Posted: Sat Feb 22, 2003 11:52 pm Post subject: The Real Reasons for the Upcoming War With Iraq |
| The Real Reasons for the Upcoming War With Iraq: A Macroeconomic and Geo-strategic Analysis of the Unspoken Truth by William Clark
http://www.mediamonitors.net/williamclark1.html | |  | | Guest-c651 | | | | Guest-c651 | | | | Guest-c651 | | Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2003 12:31 am Post subject: MI-6 and CIA oppose war on Iraq |
| VERY INTERESTING
MI-6 and CIA oppose war on Iraq
Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk)
By Paul Lashmar and Raymond Whitaker
LONDON: Tony Blair and George Bush are encountering an
unexpected obstacle in their campaign for war against Iraq
their own intelligence agencies.
Britain and America's spies believe that they are being
politicised: that the intelligence they provide is being selectively
applied to lead to the opposite conclusion from the one they
have drawn, which is that Iraq is much less of a threat than their
political masters claim. Worse, when the intelligence agencies
fail to do the job, the politicians will not stop at plagiarism to
make their case, even "tweaking" the plagiarised material to
ensure a better fit.
"You cannot just cherry-pick evidence that suits your case and
ignore the rest. It is a cardinal rule of intelligence," said one
aggrieved officer. "Yet that is what the PM is doing." Not since
Harold Wilson has a Prime Minister been so unpopular with his
top spies.
The mounting tension is mirrored in Washington. "We've gone
from a zero position, where presidents refused to cite detailed
intel as a source, to the point now where partisan material is
being officially attributed to these agencies," said one US
intelligence source.
Mr Blair is facing an unprecedented, if covert, rebellion by his top
spies, who last week used the politicians' own weapon the
strategic leak against him. The BBC received a Defence
Intelligence Staff (DIS) document which showed that British
intelligence believes there are no current links between the Iraqi
regime and the al-Qa'ida network. The classified document,
written last month, said there had been contact between the two
in the past, but it assessed that any fledgling relationship
foundered due to mistrust and incompatible ideologies.
That conclusion contradicted one of the main charges laid
against Saddam Hussein by the United States and Britain, most
notably in Wednesday's speech by the Secretary of State, Colin
Powell, to the UN Security Council that he has cultivated
contacts with the group blamed for the 11 September attacks. Such a leak
of up-to-date and sensitive material reveals the
depth of anger within Britain's spy community over the misuse of
intelligence by Downing Street. "A DIS document like this is
highly secret. Whoever leaked it must have been quite senior
and had unofficial approval from within the highest levels of
British intelligence," said one insider. In response the Foreign
Secretary, Jack Straw, tried to play down the importance of the
DIS, which he repeatedly called the Defence Intelligence Services.
No sooner had that embarrassment passed, however, than it
emerged that large chunks of the Government's latest dossier
on Iraq, which claimed to draw on "intelligence material", were
taken from published academic articles, some of them several
years old. It was this recycled material that Mr Powell held up in
front of a worldwide television audience, saying: "I would call my
colleagues' attention to the fine paper that the United Kingdom
distributed ... which describes in exquisite detail Iraqi deception
activities."
Now Glen Rangwala, the Cambridge University analyst who
blew the whistle on the original plagiarism, has pointed out the
deception did not end there. He showed that the young Downing
Street team, led by Alison Blackshaw, Alastair Campbell's
personal assistant, which put the document together had
"hardened" the language in several places.
How selectively the work of the intelligence agencies is being
used on both sides of the Atlantic is shown by a revealing clash
between Senator Bob Graham and the Bush administration's
top intelligence advisers. Mr Graham, a Democrat, is chair of the
Senate Intelligence Committee. Last July, baffled by the
apparently contradictory assessments on Iraq by America's 13
different intelligence agencies, he asked for a report to be drawn
up by the CIA that estimated the likelihood of Saddam Hussein
using weapons of mass destruction.
The CIA procrastinated, but finally produced a report after
Senator Graham threatened to accuse them of obstruction. The
conclusions were so significant that he immediately asked for it
to be declassified. The CIA concluded that the likelihood of
Saddam Hussein using such weapons was "very low" for the
"foreseeable future". The only circumstances in which Iraq would
be more likely to use chemical weapons or encourage terrorist
attacks would be if it was attacked. After more arguments the CIA
partly declassified the report. Senator Graham noted that the
parts released were those that made the case for war with Iraq.
Those that did not were withheld. He appealed, and the extra
material was eventually released. Yet the report has largely been
ignored by the US media.
Last week Colin Powell made much of the presence in Iraq of
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the man he identified as running an
al-Qa'ida network from Baghdad. He drew on information from
al-Zarqawi's captured deputy, but made no mention of another
explosive allegation from the same detainee: that Osama bin
Laden's organisation received passports and $1m (£600,000) in
cash from a member of the royal family in Qatar. It is well known
in US intelligence circles that the CIA director, George Tenet, is
angry with the Qatari government's failure to take action. But the
Gulf state would be the main US air operations base in any war
on Iraq, and Washington does not want to air the inconvenient
facts in public.
The doctored dossier
A British government dossier, "Iraq its infrastructure of
concealment, deception and intimidation", was largely copied
complete with poor punctuation and grammar from an article in
last September's Middle East Review of International Affairs and
two articles in Jane's Intelligence Review.
But the Downing Street compilers also rounded up the numbers
and inserted stronger language than in the original. In a section
on a movement called Fedayeen Saddam, members are,
according to the original, "recruited from regions loyal to
Saddam". The Government dossier says they are "press-ganged
from regions known to be loyal to Saddam".
On Fedayeen Saddam's total membership, the original says
18,000 to 40,000. The dossier says 30,000 to 40,000.
A similar bumping-up of figures occurs with the description of
the Directorate of Military Intelligence. Included among the duties
of the secret police, the Mukhabarat, says the original, are
"monitoring foreign embassies in Iraq" and "aiding opposition
groups in hostile regimes". The dossier says the duties include
"spying on foreign embassies in Iraq" and "supporting terrorist
organisations in hostile regimes".
The plagiarists cannot even copy correctly, confusing two
organisations called General Security and Military Security. This
means that the dossier says Military Security was created in
1992, then refers to it moving to new headquarters in 1990. The
head of Military Security in 1997 is named as Taha al-Ahbabi,
when he was actually in charge of General Security. | | | | Guest-c651 | | Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2003 12:52 am Post subject: Republic or Empire? by Joseph Wilson |
| Republic or Empire? by Joseph Wilson
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030303&s=wilson
s the senior American diplomat in Baghdad during Desert Shield, I advocated
a muscular US response to Saddam's brutal annexation of Kuwait in flagrant
violation of the United Nations charter. Only the credible threat of force
could hope to reverse his invasion. Our in-your-face strategy secured the
release of the 150 American "human shields"--hostages--but ultimately it
took war to drive Iraq from Kuwait. I was disconsolate at the failure of
diplomacy, but Desert Storm was necessitated by Saddam's intransigence, it
was sanctioned by the UN and it was conducted with a broad international
military coalition. The goal was explicit and focused; war was the last
resort.
The upcoming military operation also has one objective, though different
from the several offered by the Bush Administration. This war is not about
weapons of mass destruction. The intrusive inspections are disrupting
Saddam's programs, as even the Administration has acknowledged. Nor is it
about terrorism. Virtually all agree war will spawn more terrorism, not
less. It is not even about liberation of an oppressed people. Killing
innocent Iraqi civilians in a full frontal assault is hardly the only or
best way to liberate a people. The underlying objective of this war is the
imposition of a Pax Americana on the region and installation of vassal
regimes that will control restive populations.
Without the firing of a single cruise missile, the Administration has
already established a massive footprint in the Gulf and Southwest Asia from
which to project power. US generals, admirals and diplomats have
crisscrossed the region like modern-day proconsuls, cajoling fragile
governments to permit American access and operations from their territories.
Bases have been established as stepping stones to Afghanistan and Iraq, but
also as tripwires in countries that fear their neighbors. Northern Kuwait
has been ceded to American forces and a significant military presence
established in Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and
Oman. The over-the-horizon posture of a decade ago has given way to boots on
the ground and forward command headquarters. Nations in the region, having
contracted with the United States for their security umbrella, will now
listen when Washington tells them to tailor policies and curb anti-Western
dissent. Hegemony in the Arab nations of the Gulf has been achieved.
Meanwhile, Saddam might well squirm, but even without an invasion, he's
finished. He is surrounded, foreigners are swarming through his palaces, and
as Colin Powell so compellingly showed at the UN, we are watching and we are
listening. International will to disarm Iraq will not wane as it did in the
1990s, for the simple reason that George W. Bush keeps challenging the
organization to remain relevant by keeping pressure on Saddam. Nations that
worry that, as John le Carré puts it, "America has entered one of its
periods of historical madness" will not want to jettison the one institution
that, absent a competing military power, might constrain US ambition.
Then what's the point of this new American imperialism? The neoconservatives
with a stranglehold on the foreign policy of the Republican Party, a party
that traditionally eschewed foreign military adventures, want to go beyond
expanding US global influence to force revolutionary change on the region.
American pre-eminence in the Gulf is necessary but not sufficient for the
hawks. Nothing short of conquest, occupation and imposition of handpicked
leaders on a vanquished population will suffice. Iraq is the linchpin for
this broader assault on the region. The new imperialists will not rest until
governments that ape our worldview are implanted throughout the region, a
breathtakingly ambitious undertaking, smacking of hubris in the extreme.
Arabs who complain about American-supported antidemocratic regimes today
will find us in even more direct control tomorrow. The leader of the future
in the Arab world will look a lot more like Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf than
Thomas Jefferson.
There is a huge risk of overreach in this tack. The projection of influence
and power through the use of force will breed resistance in the Arab world
that will sorely test our political will and stamina. Passion for
independence is as great in the Arab world as it is elsewhere. The hawks
compare this mission to Japan and Germany after World War II. It could
easily look like Lebanon, Somalia and Northern Ireland instead.
Our global leadership will be undermined as fear gives way to resentment and
strategies to weaken our stranglehold. American businessmen already complain
about hostility when overseas, and Arabs speak openly of boycotting American
products. Foreign capital is fleeing American stocks and bonds; the United
States is no longer a friendly destination for international investors. For
a borrow-and-spend Administration, as this one is, the effects on our
economic growth will be felt for a long time to come. Essential trust has
been seriously damaged and will be difficult to repair.
Even in the unlikely event that war does not come to pass, the would-be
imperialists have achieved much of what they sought, some of it good. It is
encouraging that the international community is looking hard at terrorism
and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. But the upcoming
battle for Baghdad and the lengthy occupation of Iraq will utterly undermine
any steps forward. And with the costs to our military, our treasury and our
international standing, we will be forced to learn whether our republican
roots and traditions can accommodate the Administration's imperial
ambitions. It may be a bitter lesson.
about Joseph Wilson
Joseph Wilson, chargé d'affaires at the US Embassy in Baghdad during Desert
Shield, was the last US diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein. He is an
adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington, DC. | | | | Guest-400c | | Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2003 2:20 am Post subject: THE "DON'T KNOW" CROWD |
| FEB. 24, 2003
THE "DON'T KNOW" CROWD
BY CHARLEY REESE
The Bush administration adamantly insists that Iraq has
weapons of mass destruction, but despite 12 years of inspections,
bombings and spying, it doesn't have a clue as to where they are.
It frequently warns us of terror attacks, but always says it
doesn't know where, when or how. Nor have there been any terror
attacks in the United States in the past 18 months.
Is it any wonder that millions of people around the world and
in the United States don't support President George Bush's personal
crusade to topple Saddam Hussein? Keep in mind that after the
Sept. 11 attack, which Saddam Hussein had nothing to do with,
virtually the entire world united in sympathy with us. Never has
one president destroyed so much support by so many people in so
short a time.
The fact is, the people in the Bush administration who want
to go to war with Iraq wanted to go to war with Iraq before Sept.
11. As a matter of fact, they wanted to go to war with Iraq before
George Bush was even elected president. That's a matter of record.
This war against Iraq has nothing to do with disarming Iraq and
nothing to do with terrorism. It has to do with the United States
creating a situation in which it and Israel will dominate the Middle
East and its oil resources.
The thing to remember about these alleged weapons of mass
destruction is that nobody in the Bush administration or with the
United Nations has ever laid eyes on them. What exists is a
discrepancy between two numbers in reports -- both supplied by
the Iraqi government. One report stated that so many chemical
bombs were used; another report had a different number. And the
Iraqis are certainly right in that nobody can prove a negative;
you can't produce for inspection what you don't have.
I personally don't know if these weapons exist in Iraq or
not. I do know they exist in many other countries. I do know that
in the Gulf War, Iraq did not use any chemical or biological
weapons, even when it was being routed from Kuwait and "bombed
back into the preindustrial age," to use an American phrase.
I do know that in the 12 years since, Iraq has not used any
chemical or biological weapons, even though it has been
subjected to the harshest economic sanctions in modern history
and to practically regular bombing. I do know that in the past
12 years, Iraq has not threatened, much less attacked, any of
its neighbors, while during that the same period of time we have
attacked Sudan, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq and Yugoslavia. I
do know that every one of the "neighbors" George Bush claims
Iraq is a threat to has said repeatedly that it does not feel
threatened by Iraq.
I do know that the only leader threatening the world with
nuclear weapons and pre-emptive attack is George W. Bush. It
gives me no pleasure to point that out. But it is not the role
of an American citizen to be a sheep. It has become apparent that
those of us who supported Bush made a mistake. I'm beginning to
believe that a philanderer and a liar is less dangerous than an
upright but ignorant man who thinks God has appointed him to
rule the world.
The best way to support our troops is to try to prevent the
Bush administration from sacrificing their lives for the hidden
agenda of the crazy neoconservatives in his administration.
Young Americans should not die because a bunch of chicken hawks
have a cockamamie idea that they can bring liberal democracy to
the Middle East by making war. That's like trying to sell pork
barbecue in Mecca. What the president is intent on doing is
committing a crime against humanity. If he goes through with it,
he'll have to change his ritualistic "God bless America" to
"God forgive us."
(Write to Charley Reese at P.O. Box 2446, Orlando, FL 32802) | | | | Guest-400c | | Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2003 3:12 am Post subject: DIPLOMATIC RIFFS |
| FEB. 17, 2003 (COL. 1)
DIPLOMATIC RIFFS
BY CHARLEY REESE
The diplomatic riff with Europe is about the only amusing thing that has happened in this
buildup to war with Iraq.
It's funny that the president brags about having the support of Spain, Italy, Slovenia,
Poland, Hungary, Lithuania, Estonia, Bulgaria and Denmark. Those countries together couldn't
whip Iraq. They haven't played a significant military role in the past two centuries. He can
call France and Germany the ``Old Europe'' if he wants to (nobody would mistake him for being
well-informed about geopolitics anyway), but they are the powerhouses of the New Europe.
Another funny thing is the United States trying to get NATO to defend Turkey from Iraq. You
probably don't know this, but the original U.S. proposal was that the NATO countries would
agree to defend Turkey … and to help pick up the tab for rebuilding Iraq. All Europe, old and
young, said, ``No way.'' So the United States adopted the fallback provision of defending
Turkey, just so the United States can claim NATO support for its war. So far, France, Germany
and Belgium have said, ``Get out of here.''
What's funny is that Turkey isn't going to be attacked by Iraq. Iraq wouldn't dare attack
Turkey. Any time it chooses, the Turkish army could fight its way into Baghdad without any
help from NATO or us. The Turks ruled that whole part of the world for half a millennium, and
at the end of World War I, they bloodied the British and the French. They were the only
country in that area that didn't become a European colony or protectorate. The founder of
modern Turkey, Kemal Ataturk, once sent a telegram to a British politician who had said Turkey
was ruled by ``a drunk and 11-man council.'' You are wrong, Ataturk wrote, Turkey is ruled by
one drunk. Ataturk was not only a great soldier and revolutionary, but he had a sense of
humor.
The Turks don't fear Iraq. They are only going along with this ploy because they want to be
members of the European Union and think that full participation by NATO in their defense would
help them. By the same token, the United States doesn't need allies in a military sense. The
little countries of Europe are just window dressing so that President Bush can deny that a war
he wants and that our forces will fight is not ``unilateral.'' Why wouldn't this ``coalition
of the willing'' be willing, since it's not going to cost them any soldiers or equipment or
money? They are woefully short of all three. I'm sure the Bush administration has offered them
bribes in one form or another.
I'm afraid that our fearless leader has talked himself into a diplomatic hole. It's hard to
insult people and enlist them as allies at the same time. It will be hard to blame the U.N.
Security Council if he goes to war without a resolution. The whole world knows what most
Americans don't: Israel has defied more U.N. resolutions than Iraq, and it has defied them
because the United States blocks any attempt to enforce them. In other words, our claim to be
concerned about U.N. credibility is a sham. We use the United Nations if it suits our purpose
and ignore it if it doesn't. That's been true since Day One of the United Nations' existence.
On the other hand, the president, having foolishly said he would go to war with or without
the United Nations, now stands to lose credibility if he doesn't go to war. We went through
this crap in Vietnam; 58,000 Americans died to save face for politicians in Washington who in
the end stabbed them in the back. George Bush's credibility isn't worth a single American or
Iraqi life. He can say simply, ``I've changed my mind.'' That's a hell of a lot better
alternative than war.
In the meantime, he has sent exactly the opposite message from what he wanted to. He has
said to the world, you'd better arm yourself like North Korea or we'll attack you. Not a good
message.
(Write to Charley Reese at P.O. Box 2446, Orlando, FL 32802) | | | | Guest-400c | | Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2003 3:52 am Post subject: Would be a lot Cheaper to Just Cut Aid to Israel.... |
| WHY TERRORIST ATTACKS ARE NOT INEVITABLE:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/11/26/why-terrorist-attacks-are-not-inevitable.php
Liberating America From Israel:
http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/middle-east-and-asia/2002/12/30/liberating-america-from-israel.php
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A45436-2003Feb21.html
washingtonpost.com
WASHINGTON IN BRIEF
Saturday, February 22, 2003; Page A08
Pentagon Costs of War On Terror at $28 Billion
The costs of a war with Iraq would be in addition to the $28 billion the U.S. military has already spent battling terrorists in Afghanistan and around the world since the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Pentagon officials said yesterday.
Excluding preparations for confronting Iraq, that is what the Pentagon had spent through Sept. 30, said Lt. Col. Gary Keck, a Defense Department spokesman.
The cost of the global fight against terrorism averages $1.6 billion monthly, including $750 million in Afghanistan, he said.
The anti-terrorism spending compares with an overall defense budget of $366 billion for the fiscal year that started Oct. 1. But that amount is expected to grow significantly in coming weeks, with or without a war.
Members of Congress and their aides said that they expect President Bush to request $20 billion more for the military for this year -- excluding any costs of a war with Iraq.
The money would be for replenishing accounts the Pentagon has dipped into for its ongoing campaigns in Afghanistan, the Philippines and elsewhere abroad. In addition, the military has incurred more security expenses at home, such as those for the periodic air patrols over some major U.S. cities. | | | | Guest-400c | | Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2003 4:56 am Post subject: UN will die 'moral death' if it gives in to US on Iraq: Indi |
| http://abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s787404.htm
UN will die 'moral death' if it gives in to US on Iraq: Indian PM
Indian Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee has reiterated his opposition to a US-led war against Iraq, warning that the United Nations could "die a moral death" if it succumbs to pressure from Washington.
Vajpayee's BJP party spokesman Vijay Kumar Malhotra said: "The Prime Minister said that the international situation is worsening (and) there is a possibility of war in Iraq."
"We don't want war, a majority of nations also don't want war, but they are unable to say so," Mr Malhotra quoted Prime Minister Vajpayee as saying.
"Also there is fear that the United Nations organisation becomes ineffective and dies a moral death if it takes any step under US pressure," Prime Minister Vajpayee said.
His comments came days after Defence Minister George Fernandes said it would be "inconceivable" for the United States to attack Iraq.
India has already spoken out against any unilateral US attack on Iraq but urged Baghdad to come clean on weapons of mass destruction.
The country is heavily dependent on oil and workers' remittances from the Gulf.
More than 10,000 people protested Saturday around India against a US war on Iraq, a meagre number compared with many demonstrations around the world. | | | | Guest-400c | | Posted: Sun Feb 23, 2003 5:56 am Post subject: US offers India $2.5b on Iraq |
| http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_23-2-2003_pg7_54
US offers India $2.5b on Iraq
NEW DELHI: Soliciting India’s support for an attack on Iraq, the United States has offered to dish out $2.5 billion which Baghdad currently owes the Indian government. India has also been offered a major chunk of the reconstruction-of-Iraq pie after war, taking into account the fact that India Railways and construction companies had worked in Iraq earlier, said a news report carried by a national daily, “The Asian Age,” here on Saturday.
Oil, of course, remains a major lure with Washington, making it clear to all countries in the world that the proceeds of war would be shared with those who take a clear stand supporting the US today, added the report. India has been assured its oil supply from Iraq will be protected although no one is willing to guarantee the barrels will be sold at the earlier throwaway prices.
Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee modified his categorical stance against a war on Iraq when he did not rule out the possibility of allowing US planes to refuel in India if situation so arises, the report said.
According to agency reports, Mr Vajpayee was asked if his government would allow US planes to refuel, as had been done by the Chandrashekhar government during the last Gulf war. The situation will not arise, but if it did the government would consider it and take a decision at that point of time, he said according to the report.
India has been one of the main purchasers of Iraqi oil and has received a direct assurance from Washington that its interests in Iraq will not suffer because of a war, added the report.
Indian Foreign Secretary Kanwal Sibal, during a recent visit to Washington, was told by US State Department officials that interests of both the US and India could converge after the war and the removal of President Hussein. —APP
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