[Peace-discuss] News notes 031005

[C. G. Estabrook]

	Notes from last week's 'war on terrorism' -- prepared
	for the AWARE meeting, Sunday, October 5, 2003.

NEVER MIND. "An internal Defense Department review of the prewar intel
provided by the Iraqi defectors sent along by Pentagon favorite Ahmed
Chalabi has concluded that most of the information was either bogus or
useless ... The Times' lead also contains a little mea culpa, noting that
Chalabi 'had made some of these defectors available to several news
organizations, including The New York Times, which reported their
allegations about prisoners and the country's weapons program.' What that
seems to miss is the extent of the Times' reliance on Chalabi and the
papers' pre-eminent role in pushing his preferred storylines. As ace WMD
sleuth Judith Miller once wrote to a Times colleague, Chalabi 'provided
most of the front page exclusives on WMD to our paper.'" [SLATE 0929]

AND THE DEMOCRATS WOULD PROVIDE BAND-AIDS. "The total number of people
without health insurance rose by 2.4 million last year, the largest
increase in a decade. The percentage of people without health care is now
15.2 percent, up from 14.6 percent in 2001 but below the recent peak of
16.3 percent in 1998." [NYT 0930]

WHY DO THEY HATE US? "Ambushes of two American convoys Monday that left
one GI dead and two injured. One of the ambushes led to a roughly
eight-hour gun battle. The details on the incident are still murky, but
everybody agrees that after the surprisingly heavy guerrilla attack, the
U.S. counter-attacked using air support and armor.  The LAT sees the most
significance in the battle, suggesting that the U.S.'s use of overwhelming
force is ultimately counterproductive: 'The Americans start shooting
randomly as soon as they are attacked,' said one man in the area. 'No
matter how powerful they are, we have to get them out of here; we want to
crush them underfoot.'" [SLATE 0930]

EVEN THE PUPPETS DON'T WORK. "Washington's exit strategy from Iraq
received a setback on Tuesday as a deadline for the first step in drawing
up a new constitution slipped away because of divisions in the Iraqi
Governing Council. Popular ratification of a constitution lies at the core
of the 'seven steps to Iraqi sovereignty' laid out by Paul Bremer, the US
civilian administrator in Baghdad. Colin Powell, secretary of state, has
spoken of a six-month 'deadline' for writing a new constitution. But, as
of Tuesday night, a key committee selected by the Governing Council had
not met an end of September deadline, already put back by two weeks, for
delivering its final recommendations on how to choose a body to write the
constitution." [FT 1001] "According to the 25th paragraph in the Times
piece, the U.S.'s current Iraqi political development plan 'does not
include elections for a constitutional assembly.'" [SLATE 0930]

JUST LIKE ENRON. "The Washington Post notes that Pentagon auditors are
investigating allegations that the Pentagon comptroller's office tried to
hide $20 million from Congress by temporarily stashing the funds in the
Special Forces command." [SLATE 0930]

THIEVES LIKE US. P. Krugman: "...in July two enterprising Middle Eastern
firms started offering cellphone service in Baghdad, setting up
jury-rigged systems compatible with those of neighboring countries ... the
[US] authorities promptly shut down the services. Cell service, they said,
could be offered only by the winners in a bidding process -- one whose
rules, revealed on July 31, seemed carefully designed to shut out any
non-American companies ... Oddly, the announcement of the winners,
originally scheduled for Sept. 5, keeps being delayed. Meanwhile, only
Paul Bremer and his people have cellphones -- and, thanks to the baffling
decision to give that contract to MCI, even those phones don't work very
well. (Aside from the fact that its management perpetrated history's
biggest accounting fraud, MCI has no experience in building cell
networks.) Meanwhile, several companies with close personal ties to top
administration officials have begun brazenly offering their services as
facilitators for companies seeking Iraqi business. The former law firm of
Douglas Feith, the Pentagon under secretary who oversees Iraq
reconstruction, has hung out its shingle. So has another company headed by
Joe Allbaugh, who ran the Bush-Cheney campaign in 2000 and ran FEMA until
a few months ago. And a third entrant is run by Ahmad Chalabi's nephew."
[NYT 0930]

BUT WHO CARES ABOUT THE UN? "A United Nations human rights investigator
has denounced a controversial barrier Israel is building in the West Bank
as illegal. John Dugard, a South African law professor, said the wall was
tantamount to an 'unlawful act of annexation' which should be condemned by
the international community." [BBC 0930]

IN THE WORDS OF THE POET, THERE IS SOME SHIT I WILL NOT EAT. "The Israeli
government's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee called for the
discharge of the 28 Air Force pilots who are openly refusing to bomb
Palestinian civilian targets. The committee also said the letter signed by
the pilots should be viewed as an incitement to mutiny in a time of war."
[DN 0930]

BUT WHO CARES ABOUT THE UN? (II). "At the UN General Assembly Monday,
Saudi Arabia, Syria and Egypt accused the UN watchdog nuclear agency of
failing to criticize Israel's suspected nuclear program at the same time
that the agency pressures other nations to give up their nuclear programs.
Israel has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and is widely
believed to possess nuclear weapons [sic]." [DN 0930]

WAR WITHOUT END. "The military newspaper Stars and Stripes is reporting
that the U.S. is making base preparations in Afghanistan that will allow
U.S. forces to stay there for up to eight more years. Meanwhile a U.S.
soldier was killed and two others were wounded during a clash with
suspected members of the Taliban Monday in southeastern Afghanistan." [DN
0930]

THE RICH KNOW. "The Washington Post is reporting that President Bush
raised up to $50 million in campaign contributions over the last three
months. That is more than three times as much as the top Democrat, Howard
Dean. [DN 0930]

WHERE? "One American soldier was killed Tuesday and two wounded in an
attack in Afghanistan. Media magazine Editor & Publisher just published a
piece about the papers' lack of coverage in Afghanistan." [SLATE 1001]

WHAT A SURPRISE. "The NYT notes on Page One that a panel appointed by the
Bush administration has concluded that among Arabs and Muslims abroad,
'hostility toward America has reached shocking levels.'" [SLATE 1001]

WE KILL BECAUSE OF THE BUDGET. "Israeli soldiers sometimes fire live
ammunition at Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip because of a
shortage of non-lethal weapons, the state comptroller wrote in a report
released Wednesday ... Since violence erupted three years ago, 2,477
people have been killed on the Palestinian side and 860 on the Israeli
side." [MERCURY/AUSTRALIA 1001] "The State Department is notifying
Congress that it plans no immediate reductions in loan guarantees for
Israel, despite settlement construction on the West Bank, spokesman
Richard Boucher said." [LAT 1001]

OCCUPATION IS NOT LIBERATION. "A demonstration by unemployed men in
central Baghdad turned into a riot after police fired in the air, with
protesters throwing explosives and setting cars ablaze. Up to 100 men
gathered outside a police station, where they said they had been promised
jobs after making payments to police officers." [BBC 1001]

OF COURSE IT'S WORTH IT. "The number of those [i.e., Americans] wounded in
action (or injured in combat-zone accidents) is far higher [than those
killed]. And while combat deaths have been relatively low since the
Vietnam War, the ratio of these nonfatal casualties to war fatalities is
increasing - from 3 to 1 in World War II to more than 5 to 1 in Iraq
(1,691 to date)." [CSMONITOR 1001]

RETALIATION. "The Justice Department announced Tuesday that it has begun a
full criminal investigation into allegations that Bush administration
officials leaked the name of a covert CIA operative, leaving open the
possibility a special counsel will be appointed when more facts are
learned." [WP 1001] "Regarding the Wilson leak, one unnamed official told
the Times, 'There is blood in the water, and there are people all over
Washington who want to take advantage of that.'" [NYT 0929] "The real
intelligence scandal is how an open opponent of the U.S. war on terror
such as Mr. Wilson was allowed to become one of that policy's
investigators [sic]." [WSJ 1001]

AN ISRAELI VIEW. "The Israeli leadership has succeeded in persuading a
majority that there is no good reason to make any diplomatic effort to
extricate [Israel] from crisis. Over the years, this majority, who
believes that the Palestinian leadership is solely responsible for our
national crisis, has grown only larger. It allowed the 'what's the use?'
argument to become the primary tool for quashing criticism of the local
leadership. When the 27 pilots announced their refusal to follow orders,
the spearhead of the counterattack - which ran the gamut from dismissive
scowls to charges of treason - was of course that their act entirely
disregarded the necessity to teach the Arabs a lesson, without any
flinching ...  Sharon hasn't lifted a finger to fulfill any Israeli
commitments in the road map, to remove illegal outposts and restore the
scale of settlements to the level of [even] two years ago. He hasn't had
even the glimmer of a thought of voluntarily removing a few settlements to
initiate a change in climate in his relations with the Palestinian
Authority." [HAARETZ 1001]

AND ANOTHER. "Captain Yaron Kostilitz, the [Israeli] military court
prosecutor in a trial of six draft resisters, said the following on
September 18: '... The [Israeli] Supreme Court examines IDF [i.e., Israeli
military] activities in Judea, Samaria and the Gaza Strip, and rules that
they are legal. The Supreme Court has determined that it is permissible to
demolish houses in which terrorists lived, that an army commander [in the
territories] is obligated to protect the welfare of settlers, that the
code of law which applies to Jewish residents in these areas differs from
the law of other [Palestinian] residents ... The Supreme Court has
authorized the use of selective assassinations ... and the uprooting and
pruning of olive trees in order to prevent terror attacks ... The Supreme
Court has found that administrative arrests are legal; the Supreme Court
has determined that the IDF acts in accordance with international laws
which relate to warfare and the occupation of territories.'" [HAARETZ
1001]

NEOCON UPDATE. J Lobe: "...the image of Vice President Dick Cheney is
changing. Already tarnished by questions surrounding the huge no-bid
reconstruction contracts won by his former company, Halliburton, in which
he retains a financial interest, as well as his refusal to disclose to
Congress what meetings he held during his formulation of Bush's energy
policy, Cheney is increasingly seen as a serious rightwing extremist and
ideologue, and by far the most powerful number two in US history. As much
as Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and his neo-conservative advisors have
become the lightning rod for criticism over the Iraq war and the
administration's hubris, Cheney appears to have acted as their principal
patron and advocate with Bush himself, and more than any other official
except perhaps Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the driving force
within the administration for war with Iraq. Although long in the making,
the secretive vice president's image as zealot appears to have impressed
itself in the media just in the past two weeks ... According to a major
account in the Washington Post on Monday, Cheney and his top aide, I Lewis
'Scooter' Libby, continued to press the [Saddam/911] story on the
administration long after the intelligence community had dismissed it,
even insisting on the eve of Secretary of State Colin Powell's
presentation to the UN Security Council last February on Iraq's defiance
of the council's resolutions that it be included in Powell's indictment
... At the beginning of the administration, it was he who championed
Rumsfeld, his former boss in the Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford
administrations, for the defense post and then insisted, over fierce
objections by Secretary of State Colin Powell, on placing Wolfowitz in the
number two position at the Pentagon. He also insisted, again over Powell's
misgivings, on making ultra-unilateralist John Bolton, then vice president
of the American Enterprise Institute (where Cheney's spouse, Lynne Cheney,
is a fellow), Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International
Security. Bolton - praised by the ultra-rightwing former Senate Foreign
Relations Committee chairman as 'the kind of man with whom I would want to
stand at Armageddon', the final, apocalyptic battlefield between good and
evil prophesied in the Bible - told the Wall Street Journal last year that
the 'happiest moment in his government service' came when the US pulled
out of the treaty creating the International Criminal Court.-Cheney also
made Libby his own chief of staff and national security advisor. A hard
core neo-conservative who had worked with Wolfowitz in 1992 on a
controversial draft strategy that called for global US military dominance
that was strongly denounced by the Republican foreign policy establishment
at the time, Libby later served as general counsel to the Cox Commission,
a Congressional body convened to investigate alleged Chinese spying and
acquisition of advanced-weapons technology. Its final report was almost
universally derided as flimsy, exaggerated and inaccurate by both
technical and China experts. Libby also represented Marc Rich, a
billionaire fugitive who reportedly enjoys very close ties to Israeli
intelligence and whose pardon by Bill Clinton in the last days of his
presidency became a major scandal, but one quickly hushed by the incoming
Bush administration. The fact that Rich had renounced his US citizenship
after his conviction for tax evasion made the pardon - and Libby's efforts
to obtain one - particularly galling for many conservatives and made Libby
himself a particularly curious choice for Cheney's chief aide. Cheney also
reportedly played a key role in the appointment of another controversial
neo-conservative, Elliott Abrams, to head the Middle East office on the
National Security Council. Abrams, a strong rightwing critic of the Oslo
peace process, has identified closely with positions of the Likud Party in
Israel. Cheney himself told Israel's defense minister in a meeting in
early 2002 that he thought Palestinian President Yasser Arafat 'should be
hanged'.At the same time, in what was widely interpreted as an effort to
intimidate the Near East bureau of the State Department, which has
generally favored a more even-handed position toward Israelis and
Palestinians, Cheney's daughter, Elizabeth, was appointed by the White
House to serve as deputy assistant secretary of state of that office in
early 2002. And it was also Libby and Cheney who reportedly visited the
headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) several times in the
run-up to the war in Iraq in what was taken as pressure on CIA analysts to
take a darker view of Saddam's alleged ties to al-Qaeda and weapons of
mass destruction than what was reflected in the agency's reports. In spite
of the change in Cheney's media image and the questions raised about the
propriety of his ties with Halliburton and the soundness of his judgment,
there is little indication that Cheney's influence with Bush has been
reduced." [ASIA TIMES 1001] "Cheney spinner Mary Matalin told the WP that
the vice prez focuses on the big picture and 'connecting the dots.' He
'doesn't base his opinion on one piece of data [sic!],' she said." [SLATE
0929]

DOWN THE RAT LINES. "Retired general Anthony Zinni, who headed the US
Central Command from 1997 to 2000, called late Tuesday for the dismissal
of key Pentagon officials, saying he was 'disappointed' by their failure
to properly plan for post-war developments in Iraq and warning that the US
military could reach 'the breaking point.'" [AFP 1001]

HS EDUCATION. "A high school student has the right to wear a T-shirt to
school with the face of President Bush and the words 'International
Terrorist' on the front, a federal judge ruled. 'There is no evidence that
the T-shirt created any disturbance or disruption,' U.S. District Judge
Patrick J. Duggan said in the ruling released Wednesday by the American
Civil Liberties Union of Michigan, which sued the Dearborn school district
on behalf of Bretton Barber. An assistant principal had ordered Barber in
February to conceal the anti-Bush message or go home. Dearborn High said
it worried about inflaming passions at the suburban Detroit school, where
a majority of students are Arab-American. But, the judge said, 'The record
does not reveal any basis for (the assistant principal's) fear aside from
his belief that the T-shirt conveyed an unpopular political message.'
Attorneys for the school district declined to comment on the case. There
was no answer at the district offices Wednesday evening. 'The court's
decision reaffirms the principle that students don't give up their right
to express opinions on matters of public importance once they enter
school,' Kary Moss, executive director of the state ACLU, said in a news
release Wednesday. Barber was 16 when he wore the shirt on a day he was
scheduled to present a 'compare and contrast' essay in English class.
Barber had chosen to compare President Bush to former Iraqi leader Saddam
Hussein. At the time, Bretton said he wanted to express his anti-war
position by wearing the shirt, which he ordered on the Internet." [AP
1001]

WE LOVE YOU, CHICAGO. "President Bush broke his own fundraising record
Tuesday by raising $5.3 million for his 2004 run during a 12-hour visit to
the Midwest. In one day Bush managed to raise more money than any of his
Democratic opponents have raised over the past three months with the
exception of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. In other campaign news, two
top aides to Democratic presidential candidate Al Sharpton have resigned
including his campaign manager, Frank Watkins." [DN 1001]

DON'T GET IN THE WAY. "Newspapers in Pakistan are reporting that U.S.
warplanes bombed a section of Pakistan Monday in attempt to kill men
believed to be connected to the Taliban or Al-Qaeda." [DN 1001]

KILLING KURDS, AGAIN. "Turkey and the US have agreed on an action-plan to
eradicate the Kurdish paramilitary group, the PKK. The group is thought to
have around 5,000 members living in northern Iraq. Ever since the US
occupied Iraq, Turkey has been pressing Washington to crack down on the
group which both countries designate as terrorist.  Details of the plan
are not clear, but a US official said any military action would be carried
out by US troops.  Any large scale Turkish military presence in northern
Iraq would be opposed by the Kurdish groups which currently run the area.
This agreement is important for Turkey, as it marks a new stage in its
long battle with the PKK. It is also a sign of improving relations with
the US. The agreement will almost certainly help the Turkish Government in
its efforts to persuade parliament to send Turkish troops to help out the
US-led coalition. The parliament will probably consider a request for
around 10,000 troops later this month. Turkey and the PKK fought a bitter
war for more than a decade. More than 30,000 people were killed, and over
a million displaced from their homes - largely in the predominantly
Kurdish southeastern part of the country. The PKK have long sought refuge
from Turkish troops in the mountains of northern Iraq." [BBC 1002]

IT'S ONLY MONEY. "WSJ reports new assessments by the administration as
well as by the World Bank that, when taken together, suggest that Iraq
will need about $55 billion to rebuild. The White House has proposed
giving about $20 billion." [SLATE 1002]

REPUBLICANS LIKE THEM, DON'T THEY? "Nearly 70% of Americans believe there
should be a special counsel independent of the administration
investigating the allegations that Bush administration officials illegally
leaked the name of an undercover CIA agent. This according to a new
Washington Post/ABC News poll." [DN 1002]

US MAKES DEFENSE NECESSARY? "A North Korean official claimed Thursday that
the country has completed reprocessing its 8,000 spent nuclear fuel rods
and has begun using the extracted plutonium to make atomic bombs. North
Korea says it needs nuclear weapons as a deterrent to what they say are
U.S. plans to invade the country. Meanwhile Mohamed El Baradei, the head
of the International Atomic Energy Agency, urged the world's nuclear
powers to disarm. He said, 'Unless we are moving steadily toward nuclear
disarmament, I'm afraid that the alternative is that we'll have scores of
countries with nuclear weapons and that's an absolute recipe for
self-destruction.'" [DN 1002]

WHAT BILL OF RIGHTS? "The Supreme Court was asked Wednesday to rule on the
case of Yaser Esam Hamdi. For nearly two years, Hamdi, who is a U.S.
citizen, has been locked up on a naval brig in South Carolina. The
government has not filed charges against him, has not presented evidence
of guilt and has barred him from meeting with an attorney. President Bush
has designated Hamdi, who was captured in Afghanistan, to be an enemy
combatant and thus stripped of any legal rights. Public defender Frank
Dunham filed an appeal to the Supreme Court Wednesday on behalf of Hamdi
who he has been barred from seeing. Dunham said, 'The man's been locked up
for two years. He wants an opportunity to be heard in court. It goes right
to the heart of our liberties.'" [DN 1002]

TIMELY REPORT. "35 years ago last Thursday, hundreds of Mexican students
were massacred by the Mexican government in Tlatelolco Plaza. New
government documents obtained by the Associated Press prove the massacre
began when 360 snipers under government commands fired into a crowd of
10,000 students who were protesting the nation's one-party government and
lack of political freedom. The massacre came just a week before the
Olympics were to begin in Mexico City. The government has long maintained
that armed students provoked the massacre. New evidence has also that
future Mexican president Luis Echeverria played a greater role than
previously believed in the massacre." [DN 1002]

SOME EXPLAINING TO DO. "A formal word to Congress from David Kay, the
government's chief weapons inspector in Iraq, that no illicit arms have
been found in the country, but that Saddam 'had not given up his
aspirations and intentions' to develop such weapons. [AND THIS WAS REASON
TO KILL 30,000?] Kay's 'interim progress report,' presented in a
closed-door briefing with members of Congress Wednesday, appears to
seriously undermine pre-war intelligence on what Saddam was up to. While
inspectors have 'discovered dozens of WMD-related program activities and
significant equipment' that Iraq had concealed, 'we have not found stocks
of weapons,' Kay said, according to a declassified statement issued after
the briefing. 'But we are not yet at the point where we can say
definitively either that such weapon stocks do not exist, or that they
existed before the war and our only task is to find where they have gone.'
The WP says that Kay's team has determined that Saddam's nuclear program
was at only the 'very most rudimentary level' -- reminding readers in the
second paragraph that the Bush administration had described Saddam's
nuclear ambitions as an imminent threat to the United States while pushing
for war ... the report undermines White House, State Department, and CIA
claims that Saddam had a fleet of modified trailer trucks that it used to
produce biological agents and that Iraq had produced large stockpiles of
germ weapons ... Kay told lawmakers he needs another six months to nine
months to conclude his work. As the NYT reported Thursday, the
administration is asking for $600 million -- double what the search has
cost so far -- to fund that effort." [SLATE 1003] "The NYT says the search
effort hasn't been well run and seems bloated. 'Even when hot tips have
come in, it often takes days to mobilize a unit to visit a suspect site or
talk to a suspect scientist,' said a former member of one unit." [SLATE
1002] "The Washington Post follows Iraq Survey Group (ISG) head David
Kay's statement that 'To date we have not uncovered evidence that Iraq
undertook significant post-1998 steps to actually build nuclear weapons or
produce fissile material,' with a reminder that on Oct. 7, 2002, President
Bush said: 'The evidence indicates that Iraq is reconstituting its nuclear
weapons program...'" [CURSOR 1004]

I WONDER WHY? "NYT/CBS News poll found a majority of those polled are
uneasy about Bush's foreign policy. Just 45 percent of those polled 'have
confidence' in Bush's handling of international crises -- down from 66
percent last April ... Six in 10 say the United States should not spend as
much on Iraq as Mr. Bush has sought." [SLATE 1002]

ARE YOU WITH US OR WITH THE TERRORISTS? "A federal court ruled Wednesday
that the government cannot seek the death penalty against accused 9/11
conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui or present evidence that might tie him to
the attacks because of prosecutors' refusals to allow him to interview
captured al-Qaida operatives ... a major setback for the Justice
Department, who has described the Moussaoui as a central figure in the
9/11 plot ... The Bush administration had previously threatened to move
the case to a military tribunal -- where defendants have far fewer rights
-- if civilian courts insist that Moussaoui have access to al-Qaida
operatives." [SLATE 1002]

WOULD THE US ACTUALLY KILL ANYONE? "Citing security threats, the
Venezuelan president last week canceled a planned visit to New York.
Meanwhile U.S. intelligence officers are lobbying charges that it is
Chavez who is harboring Islamic fundamentalists in Venezuela." [DN 1003]

THE BUSHIES CAN'T KEEP EXPLOSIVES OUT OF PLANES, BUT THEY'RE READY. "A
senior general acknowledged Wednesday that military pilots now routinely
practice shooting down hijacked commercial airliners, the NYT says on Page
One. Air Force pilots are specially certified and trained for the
missions, and they undergo psychological evaluations to ensure they are
not 'trigger hesitant' at the moment of decision." [SLATE 1002]

SUPPORT OUR TROOPS. "Three more U.S. soldiers died in Iraq Wednesday after
coming under guerilla attacks." [DN 1002] "Attacks against U.S. forces in
Iraq increase. USA Today is reporting that Iraqis are now launching an
average of 17 assaults a day against the U.S. occupying army, killing
around three to six American soldiers a week, according to the military,
and the resistance is only getting worse. In September there were days
when U.S. forces were attacked over 20 times." [DN 1003]

BUT NOT URBANA OR CHAMPAIGN. "Chicago's city council approved a resolution
Wednesday condemning the USA Patriot Act for casting a pall on the civil
rights of minorities. Aldermen backpedaled from an earlier resolution that
demanded lawmakers repeal the entire act, and instead asked Congressional
leaders to strike out portions that 'violate fundamental rights and
liberties.' Chicago became the largest city in the United States to
criticize the Patriot Act, joining cities such as Minneapolis, Detroit,
Baltimore, Philadelphia and San Francisco." [CD 1002]

OUR CLIENT AT WORK. "This week, Israeli forces killed 9 Palestinians,
including a child, and more than 30 others were wounded. On Wednesday,
Israeli occupying forces demolished 18 houses in the Rafah refugee camp,
in the southern Gaza Strip. The demolition operation took place under
intense shelling and indiscriminate shooting within the camp and was
followed by further shelling as Israeli forces withdrew." [EI 1003]

LOOK WHO'S ANTI-WAR. "General Wesley Clark, the front-runner in the
Democratic race for the White House, said Friday that the Bush
administration should face an investigation into possible 'criminal'
conduct in its drive to war. Gen Clark accused the Bush administration of
entering office already determined to attack Iraq, then seizing on the
September 11 attacks as justification. He called for an independent review
of what he called the 'possible manipulation of intelligence' to convince
the American people that war with Iraq was necessary. 'Nothing could be a
more serious violation of public trust than consciously to make a case for
war based on false claims ... We need to know if we were intentionally
deceived ... This administration is trying to do something that ought to
be politically impossible to do in a democracy, and that is to govern
against the will of the majority,' he said. 'That requires twisted facts,
silence, secrecy and very poor lighting' ... In a book due for publication
later this month, Gen Clark will accuse the Bush administration of having
a five year plan to attack nations across the Muslim world. In Winning
Modern Wars, Gen Clark records a conversation with a 'senior military
staff officer' he met at the Pentagon in November 2001, at the height of
the Afghan campaign. America was headed next for war with Iraq, Gen Clark
says the unnamed officer told him. 'But there was more. This was being
discussed as part of a five-year campaign plan, he said, and there were a
total of seven countries, beginning with Iraq, then Syria, Lebanon, Libya,
Iran, Somalia, and Sudan. So, I thought, this is what they mean when they
talk about 'draining the swamp',' Gen Clark writes. He has argued that
America is wrongly ignoring Saudi Arabia and Pakistan as terrorist
sponsors and called for the war on al-Qa'eda to be pursued through United
Nations resolutions and an international tribunal for prosecuting
terrorists." [TELEGRAPH UK 1004]

OCCUPATION IS NOT LIBERATION, AGAIN. "Two Iraqis were killed on Saturday
in violent confrontations between hundreds of former soldiers in Saddam
Hussein's disbanded army and occupying troops in Baghdad and the southern
city of Basra." [REUTERS 1004]

THE MEDIA AT WORK. "Knight Ridder reports that in polls conducted between
January and September 2003, by the Program on International Policy
Attitudes, 60% of Americans held at least one of the following views: U.S.
forces found WMD in Iraq. There's clear evidence that Saddam Hussein
worked closely with the 9/11 terrorists. People in foreign countries
generally either backed the U.S.-led war or were evenly split between
supporting and opposing it." [CURSOR 1004]

BUSH'S POODLE IN THE DOGHOUSE. "Prime Minister Tony Blair conceded
privately that Iraq did not have the quickly deployable weapons of mass
destruction that the British government cited as justification for war,
former Foreign Secretary Robin Cook asserted Sunday. Mr. Cook, who
resigned his post as leader of the House of Commons because of Britain's
decision to join in the American-led war, said Mr. Blair also made it
clear to him in a conversation two weeks before combat began that he did
not believe Saddam Hussein's weapons posed a 'real and present danger' to
Britain. A controversial intelligence dossier published last September
argued that Iraq had unconventional weapons that could be used within 45
minutes of an order being given. Mr. Cook said that he had no reason to
doubt that Mr. Blair believed the claim at the time it was made, but that
in a conversation on March 5 Mr. Blair told him the weapons were only
battlefield munitions and could not be assembled by Mr. Hussein for quick
use because of 'all the effort he has put into concealment.' Mr. Cook's
account was made public in extracts published in The Sunday Times of
London from 'Point of Departure,' a book based on his diary entries from
the period." [NYT 1005]

THE LATEST (REVEALED) LIES. "The NYT reports that a secret U.S. government
task force, convened last fall, concluded that the Iraqi oil industry was
badly damaged by a decade of trade embargoes and was not likely to cover
the cost of rebuilding the country after a war. These conclusions are at
odds with statements made by administration officials after the report was
released. According to the Times, Paul Wolfowitz told Congress during the
war that 'we are dealing with a country that can really finance its own
reconstruction, and relatively soon.' In April, Dick Cheney said that
Iraq's oil production could reach 3 million barrels a day by the end of
the year, though the task force had determined that Iraq was generating
less than 2.4 million barrels a day before the war." [SLATE 1005]

WHO'S RESPONSIBLE? "A suicide bombing in Haifa killed at least 19 people
on Saturday. The WP reports that the Islamic Jihad has claimed
responsibility for Saturday's attack, identifying the suicide bomber as a
woman from Jenin whose brother and cousin were killed by Israeli troops in
June. The incident occurred in a crowded seaside restaurant owned by Jews
and managed by Arabs, according to the Post. The dead included several
children and at least four Israeli Arabs." [SLATE 1005] "Israel's health
minister, Danny Naveh, speaking on army radio, said Israel should 'seize
this opportunity to get rid of Arafat.'" [NYT 1005 -- NOT IN LATER
EDITIONS.]

BUT WHO CARES ABOUT THE UN? (III) "The United Nations Security Council met
in emergency session Sunday afternoon to discuss an Israeli air raid
inside Syria. Damascus demanded the meeting, warning that Israel was
threatening security in the Middle East with its first attack on Syrian
soil in more than 20 years ... Syrian Foreign Minister Farouk al-Sharaa
called on the Security Council to consider measures to deter Israel from
'provocative and aggressive policies'. 'Syria has practised the highest
level of self-restraint, realising that Israel is trying to create
pretexts ... to export its internal crisis to the region,' Mr Sharaa said
in a letter to the UN. The BBC's Kim Ghattas in Beirut says that, given
Syria's obsolete army, diplomacy is Damascus' safest path. Israeli
Government spokesman Avi Pazner stressed that the air strike was not
directed against Syria - but against Islamic Jihad, the group which has
claimed responsibility for Saturday's bombing. But he said every country
had to understand that it would be held responsible if it harboured
terrorists ... Israel said the target of the raid was the Ein Saheb camp,
22 kilometres (14 miles) outside Damascus, which it claimed was used by
several militant groups, including Hamas and Islamic Jihad. Syrian media
have described Ein Saheb as a Palestinian refugee camp. And a spokesman
for Islamic Jihad denied having 'any training camps or bases in Syria or
any other country'. A senior commander of another militant group, the
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, said the camp was one of
his group's disused bases ...Earlier, the Israeli army demolished the home
of the female Palestinian suicide bomber who carried out the Haifa attack.
It also launched missile attacks against two separate locations in Gaza
City, including a Palestinian refugee camp." [BBC 1005] "Syria closed the
offices of both Hamas and Islamic Jihad after the U.S. invasion of Iraq
out of fear it could be the next nation targeted by the United States. The
United States had been pushing Syria to act further and expel Hamas and
Islamic Jihad leader, but Syria has refused." [AP 1005]

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