[Peace-discuss] News notes 030921 (part 1 of 2)

[C. G. Estabrook]

	Notes from last week's "war on terrorism" -- prepared
	for the AWARE meeting, Sunday, September 21, 2003.

ROAD RAGE. This week, in metaphors for the Occupation, a drunk American
soldier shot and killed a rare Bengal tiger in the Baghdad zoo [MIRROR UK
0921], American soldiers open fire on the car of an Italian diplomat who
had the temerity to try to pass a US convoy, killing his driver [REUTERS
0919], and American soldiers opened fire indiscriminately on crowds after
they'd been ambushed - then rounded up all the young men in the area: "The
US authorities in Iraq - who only report their own deaths, never those of
Iraqis - acknowledged three US soldiers dead. There may be up to eight
dead, not counting the wounded ... and this on the very day that George
Bush admitted for the first time that there was no link between Saddam
Hussein and the 11 September assault on the United States." [R. FISK 0919]
On Saturday, two American soldiers were killed in a mortar attack on a US
prison (and more than a dozen wounded) and a third died from a roadside
bomb. [REUTERS 0921] "...nine gunmen this morning shot and critically
wounded Akila al-Hashemi, one of three women on the [Iraq's US-appointed]
governing body, as she was being driven to work by a driver and three
bodyguards." [NYT 0921] And our own Member of Congress tells us that the
Occupation is going well and that he did the right thing to vote for it.
[WILL 0919]. In the most frightening event of the week, the
Vice-President, once thought to be the eminence grise of this
administration, revealed himself on last Sunday's Meet the Press to be
much stupider or much more mendacious than we thought (or both) - so much
so that the President had to blurt out the truth to correct him later in
the week. He really is as smart as this group gets - and that's scary.

WHICH GOES FIRST, HIS HEART OR HIS MIND? "Vice President Dick Cheney last
Sunday aggressively defended the administration's handling of Iraq, saying
there is no reason to 'think that the strategy is flawed or needs to be
changed.' Cheney claimed that the White House, which last week asked for
$87 billion in additional funding, had not underestimated the cost of war.
He described the Iraq operation as a 'major success' and claimed that
Americans are being viewed as 'liberators' in Iraq. He also continued to
make long debunked allegations linking Iraq to the attacks of Sept. 11. At
one point Cheney claimed Iraq was the 'geographic base' for the Sept. 11
attack. And despite doubts from both the FBI and CIA, Cheney claimed that
one of the hijackers, Mohamed Atta, may have met with an Iraqi
intelligence officer five months before the attack. Cheney however said
little about Saudi Arabia's ties to Sept. 11. He said 'I don't want to
speculate.' He then went on to say Sept. 11 is 'over with now, it's done,
it's history and we can put it behind us.'" [DN 0915]

MAD DICK. "Cheney's appearance on Meet the Press consisted of, to be
perfectly objective, a mélange of misleading and mendacious charges. A
sampling: Cheney said that Saddam may have played a part in 9/11, that he
also may have played a part in the '93 WTC bombing, that Iraq trained
al-Qaida on biological and chemical weapons, that Mohammed Atta met with
an Iraqi intel source in Prague, and that the United States has 'found'
two mobile biological labs ... For months the WP has been more aggressive
than the other papers, most notably the NYT, and today is no exception.
The Post goes through Cheney's charges point by point, each time noting
that the evidence is murkier than Cheney presented or simply not there:
There's no publicly known info that Saddam was involved in 9/11 or
otherwise helped al-Qaida. The FBI has said that at the time of the
supposed Prague meeting, it believes Atta was in the United States. As for
the supposed mobile germ labs, Cheney might be convinced they're part of a
weapons-building program, but intel agencies are at best divided, with
many experts convinced they're for making weather balloons ... One other
note on Cheney's appearance: As the NYT and LAT mention, the vice
president acknowledged he misspoke before the war when he said once on the
Meet the Press that Saddam had 'reconstituted nuclear weapons.' During the
same program, Cheney repeatedly qualified the statement, saying that
Saddam was 'trying' to reconstitute his nuclear 'program.'" [SLATE 0915]
"Cheney justified the invasion of Iraq in his first televised interview in
six months ... claimed again Iraq tried to acquire uranium from Niger ...
professed no knowledge that White House helped evacuate 24 members of the
Bin Laden family days after 9/11. (Retired chief White House aide Richard
Clarke revealed that top White House officials approved the evacuation of
140 influential Saudis, including relatives of Osama Bin Laden, days after
the Sept. 11 attacks at a time when all commercial and private flights
were grounded.) Cheney suggested Iraq is linked to the 1993 World Trade
Center bombing through wanted Iraqi-American Abdul Rahman Yasin ... there
is a $25 million price on his head; but when Saddam Hussein offered to
hand him over, the Bush Administration said no." [DN 0916] "LAT editorial
page: The vice president's 'sweeping, unproven claims' about Saddam's
alleged connection to al-Qaida suggest that Cheney hasn't been hiding out
at a secure, undisclosed location; he's been 'stuck in a time warp.' The
editorial's title: 'CHENEY IN WONDERLAND.'" [SLATE 0916]

...IT'S THE WAY THAT YOU DO IT. "CNN's top war correspondent, Christiane
Amanpour, says that the press muzzled itself during the Iraq war. And, she
says CNN 'was intimidated' by the Bush administration and Fox News, which
'put a climate of fear and self-censorship.' As criticism of the war and
its aftermath intensifies, Amanpour joins a chorus of journalists and
pundits who charge that the media largely toed the Bush administration
line in covering the war and, by doing so, failed to aggressively question
the motives behind the invasion. On last week's Topic A With Tina Brown on
CNBC, Brown, the former Talk magazine editor, asked comedian Al Franken,
former Pentagon spokeswoman Torie Clarke and Amanpour if 'we in the media,
as much as in the administration, drank the Kool-Aid when it came to the
war.' Said Amanpour: 'I think the press was muzzled, and I think the press
self-muzzled. I'm sorry to say, but certainly television and, perhaps, to
a certain extent, my station was intimidated by the administration and its
foot soldiers at Fox News. And it did, in fact, put a climate of fear and
self-censorship, in my view, in terms of the kind of broadcast work we
did.' Brown then asked Amanpour if there was any story during the war that
she couldn't report. 'It's not a question of couldn't do it, it's a
question of tone,' Amanpour said. 'It's a question of being rigorous. It's
really a question of really asking the questions. All of the entire body
politic in my view, whether it's the administration, the intelligence, the
journalists, whoever, did not ask enough questions, for instance, about
weapons of mass destruction. I mean, it looks like this was disinformation
at the highest levels.' Clarke called the disinformation charge
'categorically untrue' and added, 'In my experience, a little over two
years at the Pentagon, I never saw them (the media) holding back. I saw
them reporting the good, the bad and the in between.' Fox News spokeswoman
Irena Briganti said of Amanpour's comments: 'Given the choice, it's better
to be viewed as a foot soldier for Bush than a spokeswoman for al-Qaeda.'"
[USAT 0914]

KAY-OWED. "Britain and America have decided to delay indefinitely the
publication of a full report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction after
inspectors found no evidence that any such weapons exist. Efforts by the
Iraq Survey Group, an Anglo-American team of 1,400 scientists, military
and intelligence experts, to scour Iraq for the past four months to
uncover evidence of chemical or biological weapons have so far ended in
failure. It had been expected that a progress report would be published
tomorrow but MPs on Westminster's security and intelligence committee have
been told that even this has been delayed and no new date set. British
defence intelligence sources confirmed last week that the final report,
which is to be submitted by David Kay, the survey group's leader, to
George Tenet, head of the CIA, had been delayed and may not necessarily
even be published. In July Kay suggested on US television that he had seen
enough evidence to convince himself that Saddam Hussein had had a
programme to produce weapons of mass destruction. He expected to find
'strong' evidence of missile delivery systems and 'probably' evidence of
biological weapons. But last week British officials said they believed Kay
had been 'kite-flying' and that no hard evidence had been uncovered."
[SUNDAY TIMES UK 0914]

WHAT A 'LIBERAL' JUSTICE THINKS. "The United States could learn from
compromises Israeli courts have struck to balance terrorism and human
rights concerns, Supreme Court Justice Stephen G. Breyer said Friday.
Israeli judges have adopted what Breyer called 'intermediate solutions'
that acknowledge the security risks the country faces, the justice told an
audience at Columbia Law School ... He gave an example drawn from Israeli
courts of terror defendants who might try to use visits from lawyers to
communicate terror instructions from behind bars. The security risk might
make it impossible to allow such defendants to receive visits from any
lawyer they choose, Breyer said, but not impossible to ensure a defendant
has a lawyer nonetheless. Defendants could still choose lawyers from an
approved list, Breyer said ... Without mentioning the Sept. 11 terror
attacks, Breyer said the Israeli experience is especially relevant to U.S.
courts now." [GUARDIAN 0912]

LANDSLIDE. In a Washington Post poll done Sept. 10-13, 52 percent said
they approved of the President's handling of affairs in Iraq - a figure
down 23 points since the end of the war in April. [WP 0914]

ANTI-CORPORATE GLOBALIZATION. "Negotiations at the World Trade
Organization meeting in Cancun collapsed last Sunday when delegates of the
newly formed G-22 from Africa, the Caribbean and Asia walked out of the
meeting in protest. This powerful alliance of poor but populous farming
nations emerged as the major opposition to the U.S. and European positions
and argued strongly for deeper cuts in US/EU farm protection. The collapse
of the talks comes as a major blow to the WTO that many poor countries
called a victory against the West. Thousands of anti-corporate
globalization activists and academics rejoiced last night at the meeting's
breakdown. Developing countries blamed the U.S. and Europe for being
unwilling to cut the huge subsidies paid out to their farmers. There was
also concern that new proposals on foreign investment proposed by Europe
and Japan would make it easier for foreign multinationals to take control
of industries in the global south." [DN 0915]

L'ETAT C'EST MOI. "[SOS Powell went to Iraq, where] he pooh-poohed
France's suggestion that authority should be handed over to Iraqis within
a few months. When one member of the Iraqi Governing Coalition brought up
France's suggestion, the Times says Powell, referencing France's objection
to the war, explained, 'We were right, they were wrong, and I am here.'"
[NYT 0915

LIBERATION US-STYLE. "The LAT's Jeffrey Fleishman visits Baghdad's morgue
and looks at the numbers: Before the war, the city had an average of 20
deaths per month caused by guns. In June, it was 389 and in August 518.
Suspicious deaths went from 250 this time last year to 872 in August."
[SLATE 0916]

THE REAL ENEMY. "New intelligence assessments are warning that the United
States' most formidable foe in Iraq in the months ahead may be the
resentment of ordinary Iraqis increasingly hostile to the American
military occupation, Defense Department officials said Tuesday. That
picture, shared with American military commanders in Iraq, is very
different from the public view currently being presented by senior Bush
administration officials, including Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld,
who once again today listed only 'dead-enders, foreign terrorists and
criminal gangs' as opponents of the American occupation. The defense
officials spoke on condition of anonymity, saying they were concerned
about retribution for straying from the official line. They said it was a
mistake for the administration to discount the role of ordinary Iraqis who
have little in common with the groups Mr. Rumsfeld cited, but whose anger
over the American presence appears to be kindling some sympathy for those
attacking American forces. Other United States government officials said
some of the concerns had been prompted by recent polling in Iraq by the
State Department's intelligence branch. The findings, which remain
classified, include significant levels of hostility to the American
presence. The officials said indications of that hostility extended well
beyond the Sunni heartland of Iraq, which has been the main setting for
attacks on American forces, to include the Shiite-dominated south, whose
citizens have been more supportive of the American military presence but
have also protested loudly about raids and other American actions. As
reasons for Iraqi hostility, the defense officials cited not just
disaffection over a lack of electricity and other essential services in
the months since the war, but cultural factors that magnify anger about
the foreign military presence. 'To a lot of Iraqis, we're no longer the
guys who threw out Saddam, but the ones who are busting down doors and
barging in on their wives and daughters,' one defense official said." [NYT
0916]

LET'S DO IT AGAIN. "A top Bush administration official, John Bolton,
testified Tuesday before Congress that Syria has an ambitious program to
develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. New York Times reporter
Judith Miller obtained a draft of Bolton's statements in which he also
suggests that Syria is partly responsible for the ongoing attacks of U.S.
troops in Iraq because, he claims, Syria has failed to stop militants from
entering and fighting in Iraq. Bolton says that Syria has 'a stockpile of
the nerve agent sarin that can be delivered by aircraft or ballistic
missiles, and has engaged in the research and development of more toxic
and persistent nerve agents such as VX.'" [DN 0916]

OH, ALL RIGHT, WE WON'T. "Coming under international criticism, the
Israeli government reversed itself Monday and claimed the government's
official policy on controlling Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat did not
include the option of assassinating him." [DN 0916]

BUT WE WON'T FORCE YOU. "The United States on Tuesday vetoed a United
Nations Security Council resolution that called on Israel to drop its
threat to harm or expel Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. The U.S. was the
only Security Council member to oppose the resolution. Three countries
abstained from the vote." [DN 0917]

LIBERATION, US-STYLE (II). "The U.S. military is now holding 10,000
prisoners in Iraq including six people claiming to be US citizens and two
who say they are British. The number of prisoners is twice as high as
previously reported." [DN 0917] "A front-page NYT piece says the U.S. is
holding 4,400 'security detainees' in Iraq ... The Pentagon says the men
are suspected of attacking or planning to attack U.S. or other friendly
forces. As the Times suggests, 'security detainee' seems to be the new,
less baggage-laden label for 'enemy combatant.' One general explained that
by not designating the detainees POWs, the military has a bit more freedom
during interrogations. 'It's not that they don't have rights,' she said,
'they have fewer rights.'" [SLATE 0917]

TERRORISTS WITH WMDS. "The Senate by a 53-41 voted yesterday to rejected a
measure that would have put a ban on 'bunker buster' nuclear bombs.
Senator Ted Kennedy, who called for the ban, warned that the US is
starting a new nuclear arms race. Kennedy said 'At the very time when we
are urging other nations to halt their own nuclear weapons programs, the
administration is rushing forward to develop our own new nuclear
weapons.'" [DN 0917]

LAND OF THE FREE. "Federal agents in Connecticut are now arresting all
illegal immigrants as soon as they are issued orders of deportation,
marking a major policy shift. Until now most immigrants have been allowed
to remain free while they appeal their deportation order. The Department
of Homeland Security is testing a pilot program in Connecticut which is
scheduled to begin nationally on Sept. 30. The Department estimates there
are 400,000 cases where immigrants in the US have ignored deportation
orders." [DN 0917]

BAD PR. "Wired.com is reporting that the Senate has slashed hundreds of
millions of dollars from the budget of DARPA or the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency. The Pentagon's office had come under great
criticism over the past year for proposing programs such as the Big
Brother-like Total Information Awareness. DARPA's Information Awareness
Office, which was until last month headed by John Poindexter, will face
the largest budget cuts." [DN 0917]

AS THEY SAID. "Former U.N. chief weapons inspector Hans Blix believes that
Iraq destroyed most of its weapons of mass destruction 10 years ago, but
kept up the appearance that it had them to deter a military attack. In an
interview with an Australian radio station broadcast Wednesday, Blix said
it was unlikely that the U.S and British teams now searching for weapons
in Iraq would find more than some 'documents of interest.' 'I'm certainly
more and more to the conclusion that Iraq has, as they maintained,
destroyed all, almost, of what they had in the summer of 1991,' Blix told
Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio." [AP 0917]

SO BAD EVEN CAPITALISTS SAY SO. "Billionaire George Soros reportedly is
putting together a $10 million warchest to prevent U.S. President George
Bush from winning a second term. Soros, who in 1992 made $1 billion in a
single day through currency speculation that drove down the British pound,
along with a group of philanthropists and trade unions, is mounting a
campaign to unseat Bush for what he sees as the administration's misuse of
power, Canada's National Post reported. 'You passed the U.S.A. Patriot Act
without proper discussion,' Soros said in a recent interview with PBS.
'Anyone who opposed it was accused of giving aid and comfort to the
terrorists. I think we've gone off the rail in this country. Lawmakers
didn't even get a copy of the bill. They couldn't even read it before it
was passed.' The Hungarian-born Soros is estimated to be worth $5 billion
and has been involved in philanthropic activities -- largely in Eastern
Europe -- since 1979." [UPI 0917]

SO BAD EVEN SPOOKS SAY SO. "Former CIA analysts Ray McGovern and David
MacMichael accuse President Bush of waging the Iraq war based on a series
of lies, discuss the unprecedented pressure that VP Dick Cheney put on the
CIA before the invasion and call on CIA analysts and agents to come
forward with information that will reveal the lies of the Bush
administration." [DN 0917]

SO BAD EVEN BUSH SAYS SO. "President Bush distanced himself on Wednesday
from comments by Vice President Dick Cheney that left the impression he
saw a possible link between Saddam Hussein and the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
'We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved in Sept. 11,' Bush
told reporters as he met members of Congress on energy legislation ...
Bush said Cheney was right about suspicions of an Iraq-al Qaeda link,
citing the case of Jordanian Abu Musab Zarqawi, a leader of an Islamic
group in northern Iraq called Ansar al-Islam, believed to have links to al
Qaeda. The United States believes Zarqawi received medical treatment in
Baghdad and helped orchestrate the assassination of a U.S. diplomat in
Jordan. 'There's no question that Saddam Hussein had al Qaeda ties,' Bush
said ... In recent speeches, he has called Iraq the 'central front' in the
war on terror, saying U.S. occupation forces face 'a foreign element' as
well as Saddam loyalists. But the U.S. authorities have yet to produce any
foreigners known to have participated in any recent military operation ...
Bush said, 'The key is to make sure that the political situation in Iraq
evolves in a way that will lead to a free society.'" [REUTERS 0917]

HOW TO BUY OFF THE US. "South Korea is leaning toward sending 10,000
troops to Iraq, many of them special forces. In return, says the LAT, the
White House has agreed to mellow its stance toward North Korea and be open
to negotiations. [SLATE 0917]

HOW TO HOLD THE US OFF. "The Guardian of London is reporting that Saudi
Arabia is considering acquiring nuclear weapons to counter the possible
nuclear threat from Israel and Iran. Meanwhile, Arab countries yesterday
urged the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy
Authority, to force Israel to less inspector assess its nuclear program as
it is doing with Iran." [DN 0918]

SUPPORT OUR TROOPS. Angry protests mounted this week among families of
Army National Guard and Reserve troops as the full impact of a new policy
requiring those forces to serve year-long tours in Iraq began to hit home
across the country ... in Florida, Sen. Bill Nelson (D) said after meeting
with angry National Guard families in Orlando and Tampa that he would put
a hold on the nomination of James G. Roche to become Army secretary if the
policy is not modified. "You can't rely on these occupations in the future
to be done by the Guard and Reserves," Nelson said Friday in an interview.
"They have a specialized niche, and in times of war, that's one thing. But
in times of long, lengthy occupations, you can't take them away from their
employers [and their families]. Otherwise, they're not going to reenlist."
[WP 0920]

SUPPORT OUR TROOPS (II). "American Family Voices will launch a television
advertisement asking the government to take care of America's troops and
families instead of taking care of Halliburton. The ad, which began
running Thursday in Washington, D.C., New Hampshire, Iowa, Missouri, and
Wisconsin notes the sweetheart deals Halliburton is receiving from the
U.S. government while budgets for education, healthcare and even veteran's
benefits are being slashed across the country ... American Family Voices
(AFV) is a 501(c)4 non-profit, issue advocacy organization created to
focus attention on the economic and family issues most important to the
quality of middle class working families' lives."
[AMERICANFAMILYVOICES.ORG 0917]

[continued in part 2]