[Peace-discuss] News notes 030720

[C. G. Estabrook]

	Notes on the week's news from the "War on Terrorism"
	 -- for the AWARE meeting, Sunday, July 20, 2003

THE NEWS OF THE WEEK CAN BE SUMMED IN ONE WORD: LIES.  As usual, the most
cogent editorial comment in the Sunday papers is to be found in the comics
section, this time in Aaron McGruder's strip Boondocks.  And then for
unintentional humor, turn to John Foreman's editorial in the N-G.

American proconsul in Iraq Paul Bremer says that resistance to US
occupation is coming only from a small number of Saddam Hussein's
supporters. ("From the same folks who gave us 'coalition forces,' we now
have 'Saddam loyalists.'") In the last 48 hours, 4 American soldiers have
been killed in ambushes in Sunni areas.  To the south of Baghdad in the
Shi'ite city of Najaf, more than 10,000 angry demonstrators reluctantly
dispersed only after a show of force by U.S. Marines who fixed bayonets
and threatened the crowd.  Enraged by reports of U.S. harassment of a
radical young Shi'ite preacher after he condemned the new U.S.-backed
Governing Council, some of the cleric's aides warned of an "uprising" if
the troops did not quit Najaf.

More than 10,000 U.S. soldiers in the Third Infantry Division were ordered
this week to remain indefinitely in Iraq. This comes less than a week
after Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said they would return home by
September. The Division, which spearheaded the attack on Baghdad,
originally expected to return home in June.

"Following ABC News correspondent Jeffrey Kofman's Tuesday report on
flagging morale among U.S. soldiers in Iraq, in which one called on
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld to resign, the White House informed Matt Drudge
that Kofman is gay and Canadian." [CURSOR]

"In his first Pentagon briefing since becoming the head of U.S. CentCom,
Gen. John Abizaid calls Iraq a guerrilla war and raises the possibility of
yearlong tours for American troops.  The Wall Street Journal reports that
the Pentagon could start a call-up of as many as 10,000 U.S. National
Guard soldiers by this winter, to bolster forces in Iraq and offset a lack
of troops from allies." [CURSOR]

Meanwhile, representatives of Halliburton, Bechtel, etc., move through
Iraq like the conquereos they are.  Halliburton and General Electric are
continuing to do business in Iran -- one of the seven nations listed by
the State Department as a state sponsor of terror -- by using foreign
subsidiaries that are staffed with foreign nationals. [MOTHER JONES]

'The U.S. is operating open-ended protectorates in Afghanistan and Iraq,
at a combined cost of $5 billion a month, or $60 billion a year. That's
roughly triple the entire foreign-aid budget, and almost double the
federal government's budget for elementary and secondary education."  
[WSJ 7/15]

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan yesterday urged President Bush to send
peacekeeping troops to Liberia but Bush deferred making any decision
saying he needed to gather more information. Bush said, "I think everybody
understands, any commitment we have would be limited in size and limited
in tenure" -- at least until major oil deposits are discovered in
Liberia... No, Bush wasn't homest enough to say the last phrtase.

NYT leads with a leak from "US intelligence" that North Korea has a secret
plutonium-processing plant. If so, the Times notes, Washington would loose
one of its strategic options -- a pre-emptive airstrike against the known
plant.

"Former defense secretary William Perry warned that the United States and
North Korea are drifting toward war, perhaps as early as this year, in an
increasingly dangerous standoff that also could result in terrorists being
able to purchase a North Korean nuclear device and plant it in a U.S.
City." [WP 0715].  Perry was Clinton's defense secretary and now advises
Richard Gephardt.  A psychologist by training, he was hired in 1994 by
William Hambrecht, a major donor to Bill Clinton. Hambrecht and Perry have
made a fortune selling advanced military technology to the Chinese army.
In 1985, Perry and Hambrecht formed H&Q Technology Partners, Inc. and
Perry was paid salary by H&Q even while serving as Secretary of Defense.

The Washington Post leads with the U.S. military's plan to assemble, in
the next few weeks, a 3,500-strong militia of Iraqis that will conduct
security operations alongside American troops. Those with memories of
Vietnam may recall ARVNs and RF-PFs...

The NYT runs an intersting interview with a US air commander (Lt. Gen. T.
Michael Moseley) about the extensive pre-invasion bombing of Iraq under
the guise of punishing Saddam Hussein for breaching U.N. no-fly zones. The
article implies that the 606 bombs dropped on Iraq during the last half of
2002 allowed the U.S. to begin the war without an extensive air assault.
Of course it also suggets when -- and why -- the decision to invade Iraq
was made.

The NYT also runs a long report describing the US' completee lack of
intelligence on Iraq weapons after the US forced UN inspectors to withdraw
in 1998. At various times during the buildup to war the administration
implied that it had more accurate intelligence than the new inspectors
could ever hope to assemble, when in fact the White House was merely
extrapolating from five-to-10-year-old data.

The WP runs -- under a wimpish headline -- a listing of other lies (it
doesn't call them that) made by Bush outside of the State of the Union,
such as his assertion that Iraq could mount a biological or chemical
attack in 45 minutes, or that Iraq was harboring al-Qaida operatives.

In Britain, of MOD officail and Iraq weapons inspector David Kelly
suddenly died after testifying before a Parliamentray committee about
being a source for BBC's account of lies of the Blair government.  The
government is trying to fend off accounts of its lying by attacking the
impartiality of the BBC.  The police say Kelly killed himself, but --
particulalry after the recent report on Britsh security's murders in N.
Irelan -- many think he was murdered.

On Saturday 7/19 the WP lead with a report that President Bush and
Condeleeza Rice didn't read parts of the definitive assessment of U.S.
Intelligence on Iraq. According to an unnamed White House official,
neither the President or Rice saw the State Department's footnote warning
that intelligence citing an Iraqi effort to purchase uranium from Niger
was "highly dubious." At the same time, in an unprecedented move the White
House released sections of the classified report to help boost their case
that Iraq's weapons program posed an imminent threat.

The U.S. may go the the UN to get other nations to contribute troops and
money to the effort to rebuild Iraq. Russia announced that it would only
send troops under a UN resolution, as did India.  The NYT reports an
emotional debate within the administration between Secretary Powell and
those willing to ask the UN for help, and Vice President Cheney and others
who vehemently oppose such a move because it would be humiliating.

The "Zogby Poll" (7/18) reports that Bush job performance slips to 53%
Positive, 46% Negative; more voters (47%) say it's time for someone new
than say he deserves re-election; but two thirds say it makes no
difference if WMDs are never found.

Meanwhile, news of the feckless Democrats. On Thursday, the House of
Representatives -- with seven Democrats absent, including presidential
candidate Richard Gephardt -- voted 213 to 210 to approve new regulations
that would cut off ... anywhere from 1 million to 8 million [Americans]
from guaranteed overtime pay.

Meanwhile the Financial Times is reporting that the Bush administration
has rejected an offer from Iran to open direct talks about its nuclear
program. Along with North Korea, Bush last year labeled Iran as part of
the axis of evil. In other news from Iran, the Iranian government says it
has discovered one of the world's largest undeveloped oil fields. The
field is believed to contain more than 38 billion barrels of oil. Tehran
is reportedly looking for a foreign partner to invest in the oil field.

The White House is now forecasting this year's budget defecit will top a
record $450 billion, more than 50 percent the administration's estimate
from just five months ago.

The Justice Department yesterday defied a federal court order and refused
to allow a detained member of Al Quada appear as a witness in the case of
Zacarias Moussaoui, the only person charged in the United States in
connection with the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.  Moussaoui had requested to
appear at his trial Ramzi Binalshibh the self-described planner of the
Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.  The Washington
Post reports the federal judge may now be forced to drop the indictment
against Moussaoui which could lead the government to try him by a secret
military tribunal.

In one of his last acts as White House flack Ari Fleischer said "The
President considers the [Iraq uranium] matter closed and wants to move
on," but the AP suggests that the next stop might be Bush's State of the
Union speech assertion that "Saddam Hussein aids and protects terrorists,
including members of al-Qaida."  Ari BTW is clearly around the bend: he
left with the assertioin, "I think the burden is on those people who think
[Saddam Hussein] didn't have weapons of mass destruction to tell the world
where they are." At his first briefing as White House Press Secretary,
Scott McClellan was asked why Bush said on Monday that the CIA's doubts
that Iraq sought to buy uranium were "subsequent" to Jan. 28 [which was a
lie].  McClellan was also asked why Bush said that Saddam hadn't allowed
inspectors back in, a quote that went unreported by the New York Times."

In an article now headlined 'Bush Knew Iraq Info Was Dubious,' -- it
originally said "False" -- CBS News reports that before the State of the
Union address was delivered, CIA officials warned members of Bush's
National Security Council staff the intelligence was not good enough to
make the flat statement Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa.

The U.S. State Department received copies of what would turn out to be
forged Niger documents in October 2002, reports the Washington Post,
contradicting earlier Bush administration claims that it did not have them
before the State of the Union speech. The documents were distributed to
the CIA and other agencies within days, but the U.S. government waited
four months to turn them over to U.N. weapons inspectors.

A CBS News poll taken on July 8 and 9, finds that 36% of respondents think
the Bush administration was telling most or all of what it knew about
Iraq's weapons, while 45% think it was hiding important elements and 11%
think that it was mostly lying. The poll also found that 45% believe the
U.S. is in control of the situation in Iraq, down from 71% in late April.

The U.S. government launches Hi, a new Arabic-language lifestyle magazine
targeted at 18-35 year olds in Middle Eastern countries...

COLUMNISTS LEAVING THE SINKING SHIP. "If President Bush is not reelected,"
writes David Broder, "we may look back on last Thursday, July 10, 2003, as
the day the shadow of defeat first crossed his political horizon." NYT's
Kristof refers to a memorandum to President Bush from Veteran Intelligence
Professionals for Sanity (VIPS), that fingers VP Dick Cheney in the Niger
forgery flap and calls on the president to ask for his resignation.

  ==============================================================
  C. G. Estabrook
  University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign [MC-190]
  109 Observatory, 901 South Mathews Avenue, Urbana IL 61801 USA
  office: 217.244.4105 mobile: 217.369.5471 home: 217.359.9466
  <www.carlforcongress.org>
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