[Peace-discuss] Fwd: [sftalk] Undercover War Begins as US Forces Enter Iraq

[Alfred Kagan]

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>Date: Mon, 6 Jan 2003 17:33:39 -0500
>Subject: [sftalk] Undercover War Begins as US Forces Enter Iraq
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>The war has started  !!!!!
>JEFF
>
>Published on Monday, January 6, 2003 by the 
><http://www.smh.com.au/>Sydney Morning Herald (Australia)
>Undercover War Begins as US Forces Enter Iraq
>by John Donnelly in Washington and Tom Allard in Canberra
>
>
>About 100 United States special forces personnel and more than 50 
>CIA officers have been inside Iraq for at least four months, looking 
>for missile-launchers, monitoring oil fields, marking minefields and 
>helping their pilots target air-defence systems.
>
>The operations, which are said to have included some Australian, 
>Jordanian and British commandos, are seen as part of the opening 
>phase of a war, intelligence officials and military analysts say.
>
>This is despite the Bush Administration agreeing to the schedule of 
>United Nations weapons inspections.
>
>A spokeswoman for the Minister for Defence, Robert Hill, rejected 
>the suggestion that Australians - even individual soldiers attached 
>to US or British commando units - had been involved in covert 
>incursions. "Australians haven't been operating in Iraq," she said.
>
>Australia is believed to have a policy of not sending special forces 
>on covert operations into hostile countries, but the spokeswoman 
>described this as hypothetical.
>
>The action by US and British special forces in Iraq breaches 
>international law because it is not sanctioned by the UN.
>
>But it also reflects the new warfare, which targets terrorists and 
>hidden weapons and relies heavily on commando operations and 
>pre-emptive strikes.
>
>On January 27 the UN inspectors will report on whether they have 
>found evidence of a program to develop chemical, biological or 
>nuclear weapons.
>
>Soon after, the US is expected to announce whether Iraq is in 
>"material breach" of UN resolutions and whether that is a trigger 
>for an invasion aimed at toppling President Saddam Hussein.
>
>War preparations have been in full swing for months. The Pentagon 
>says 60,000 troops are in the Gulf region, and that number could 
>double in coming weeks.
>
>Even as President George Bush repeated at the weekend that it was 
>not too late to avert war if Saddam complies with the inspectors, 
>bombing by US jets over the no-fly zone, coupled with the commando 
>operations, means that a fight is already unfolding.
>
>"We're bombing practically every day as we patrol the no-fly zones, 
>taking out air defence batteries, and there are all kinds of CIA and 
>special forces operations going on," said Timur Eads, a former US 
>special operations officer. "I would call it the beginning of a war."
>
>Naseer Aruri, professor emeritus of political science at the 
>University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth, said the Bush 
>Administration was being duplicitous in conducting undercover 
>operations while agreeing to the UN inspections.
>
>"Certainly, the Arab world and the Islamic world would see it as 
>being inconsistent with the weapons inspections, as well as an 
>infringement on Iraq's sovereignty."
>
>A US intelligence official said the Iraq missions were separate from 
>the work of the inspectors, but that the two operations might be 
>moving in parallel.
>
>Some special forces members were following movements around 
>suspected weapons sites, and this information could be handed to the 
>UN teams.
>
>The US has so far refused to do so, out of concern that the reports 
>might be passed to Iraqi officials.
>
>Copyright © 2003. The Sydney Morning Herald
>
>###
>
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-- 


Al Kagan
African Studies Bibliographer and Professor of Library Administration
Africana Unit, Room 328
University of Illinois Library
1408 W. Gregory Drive
Urbana, IL 61801, USA

tel. 217-333-6519
fax. 217-333-2214
e-mail. akagan at uiuc.edu
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