[Peace-discuss] Just Foreign Policy News, October 20, 2006

[Robert Naiman]

Just Foreign Policy News
October 20, 2006

No War with Iran: Petition
Nearly 2900 people have signed the Just Foreign Policy/Peace Action
petition through Just Foreign Policy's website. Please sign/circulate
if you have not done so:
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/involved/iranpetition.html

Just Foreign Policy on MySpace:
If you have a MySpace account, add us:
http://www.myspace.com/justforeignpolicy

Just Foreign Policy News daily podcast:
http://www.justforeignpolicy.org/podcasts/podcast_howto.html

Summary:
U.S./Top News
Growing doubts among GOP lawmakers about the administration's strategy
and the prospect of Democratic wins in next month's elections will
soon force the Bush administration to abandon its open-ended
commitment to the war in Iraq, the Washington Post reports.

The US military command in Iraq acknowledged Thursday its 12-week-old
campaign to win back control of Baghdad from sectarian death squads
and insurgents had failed to reduce violence across the city, the New
York Times reports.

In a news analysis, the Times writes that acknowledgment by the US
Army spokesman that the latest plan to secure Baghdad has faltered
leaves Bush with some of the ugliest choices he has faced in the war.
Whatever choices he makes they will be forced by a series of events
that seems largely out of his control.

Representatives of a group of academics and writers rejected the
Anti-Defamation League's invitation to discuss their charge that the
ADL applied pressure to shut down a prominent critic of Israel's New
York lecture, Jewish Week reports. In their letter, the critics wrote
Foxman: "What does surprise and disturb us is that an organization
dedicated to promoting civil rights and public education should
threaten and exert pressure to cancel a public lecture by an important
scholar."

An American military propaganda campaign that planted favorable news
articles in the Iraqi news media did not violate laws or Pentagon
regulations, but it was not properly supervised by military officials
in Baghdad, an audit by the Pentagon Inspector General has concluded.

A federal judge ruled Thursday US courts did not have the authority to
prohibit allied military forces in Iraq from transferring to the Iraqi
government's custody an American citizen who has been sentenced to
death.

The U.S. public has become increasingly anxious about world events and
the role their country is playing in them, according to a new survey.
The survey found a substantial rise in concern about how the U.S. is
perceived in the world. Nearly 90% of respondents said they considered
it a threat to U.S. national security when "the rest of the world sees
the US" in a negative light. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said the
world currently feels either "somewhat" or "very" negatively toward
the country, while nearly four in five said they believe the country
is seen as "arrogant".

Going into the November midterm elections, seven in ten Americans say
they prefer Congressional candidates who will pursue a new approach to
U.S. foreign policy, the Program on International Policy Attitudes
reports.

Iran
Britain said Thursday it expects a draft U.N. resolution on Iran to be
introduced in the Security Council early next week and diplomats said
it will seek sanctions on Tehran for refusing to suspend uranium
enrichment. France, Britain and Germany were still discussing the text
with the US on Thursday, and had not yet shown it to Russia and China.

Iraq
The Shiite militia run by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr seized
total control of the southern Iraqi city of Amarah on Friday in one of
the boldest acts of defiance yet by one of the country's powerful,
unofficial armies, AP reports.

Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki's office has instructed the country's
health ministry to stop providing mortality figures to the UN,
jeopardizing a key source of information on the number of civilian war
dead in Iraq, the Washington Post reports.

Israel
Unauthorized settler outposts in the West Bank would get official
government approval under a deal Israel's defense minister is working
out, AP reports..

Lebanon
The Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah fired cluster munitions during
its 33-day war with Israel last summer, in strikes that caused one
death and 12 injuries, according to a report released this week by
Human Rights Watch.

North Korea
China is prepared to step up pressure on North Korea in coming weeks
by reducing oil shipments, among other measures, if the country
refuses to return to negotiations or conducts more nuclear tests, the
New York Times reports.

The government of South Korea told Secretary of State Rice Thursday it
had no intention of pulling out of an industrial zone and a tourist
resort in North Korea, the New York Times reports. "We are not
deviating from the international community only because we differ with
a certain country," a security adviser for President Roh said,
referring to the United States.

Contents:
U.S./Top News
1) Major Change Expected In Strategy for Iraq War
Michael Abramowitz & Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post, October 20, 2006; A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/19/AR2006101901907.html
Growing doubts among GOP lawmakers about the administration's Iraq
strategy and the prospect of Democratic wins in next month's elections
will soon force the Bush administration to abandon its open-ended
commitment to the war, according to lawmakers in both parties and
foreign policy experts.

Senior figures in both parties are coming to the conclusion that the
administration will be unable to achieve a stable, democratic Iraq
within a politically feasible time frame. Agitation is growing for
alternatives to the administration's strategy of keeping Iraq in one
piece and getting its security forces running while 140,000 U.S.
troops try to keep a lid on rapidly spreading sectarian violence.

Democratic candidates are hammering Republican candidates for backing
a failed Iraq policy, and GOP defense of the war is growing muted. A
new NBC-Wall Street Journal poll released this week showed that voters
are more confident in Democrats' ability to handle the Iraq war than
the Republicans' - a reversal from the last election.

Interest appears to be growing in several broad ideas. One would be
some kind of effort to divide the country along regional lines.
Another, favored by many Democrats, is a gradual withdrawal of troops
over a set period of time. A third would be a dramatic scaling-back of
U.S. ambitions in Iraq, giving up on democracy and focusing on
stability.

Many senior Republicans also believe that essential to a successful
strategy in Iraq are an aggressive new diplomatic initiative to secure
a Middle East peace settlement and a new effort to engage Iraq's
neighbors, such as Syria and Iran, in helping stabilize the country --
perhaps through an international conference.

Many Senate Republicans are waiting for the recommendations of the
Iraq Study Group, a bipartisan panel co-chaired by former secretary of
state James Baker and former congressman Lee Hamilton. Both Baker and
Hamilton have made it clear that they do not see the administration's
current Iraq policy as working -- though they do not plan to issue
recommendations until well after the midterm elections, probably in
early January.

White House officials describe current turmoil over Iraq policy in
Washington as an expected byproduct of the upsurge in violence. Press
secretary Snow yesterday dismissed a dramatic about-face in policy -
such as a division of the country or phased withdrawal - as a
"non-starter" and called the idea that the White House will seek a
course correction in Iraq "a bunch of hooey." Bush has been adamant
that the United States will not withdraw its troops until the Iraqi
government can defend itself.

There is growing frustration inside the U.S. military over Iraq, with
some officers debating privately whether the situation there is
salvageable. In recent weeks, senior military officers have offered a
torrent of negative comments, a sharp contrast to the official
optimism of the past three years.

The demand for change on Iraq has been especially notable from inside
the president's party: Sen. John Warner, chair of the Armed Services
Committee, returned from Iraq saying that country was adrift and all
options should be considered. Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, said this
week that she is willing to consider breaking up Iraq.

If Democrats take one or both houses of Congress next month, their
views could become significant in shaping strategy. Sen. Carl Levin,
who would take over the chairmanship of the Armed Services Committee,
said he favors beginning a phased withdrawal of U.S. troops that
"gives the Iraqis notice that they're going to be looking into the
abyss" unless they make necessary changes.

A version of this option was presented to House Democrats by former
national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski, who outlined a
four-step plan that would include a joint declaration by the U.S. and
Iraqi governments on a timeline for the departure of U.S. troops, a
follow-up international conference on stabilizing Iraq and a greater
focus on economic reconstruction.

The Iraq Study Group is also mulling a variant of the gradual
withdrawal idea that would move U.S. troops out of Iraq but leave a
residual force in the region to keep the violence from spreading and
Iraq's neighbors from meddling.

Another idea getting a closer look is a new power-sharing agreement
that would give more power to autonomous regions - Kurdish in the
north, Sunni in the middle and Shiite in the south - while weakening
the central government. This idea is identified with Sen. Joseph
Biden, senior Democrat on the Foreign Relations Committee. Because
there is no oil in what would be the Sunni-controlled area, Biden
envisions some sort of scheme to share oil revenue with the Sunnis to
get them to agree to such a plan.

2) U.S. Says Violence in Baghdad Rises, Foiling Campaign
John F. Burns, New York Times, October 20, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/20/world/middleeast/20iraq.html
The US military command in Iraq acknowledged Thursday its 12-week-old
campaign to win back control of Baghdad from sectarian death squads
and insurgents had failed to reduce violence across the city.

Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said the campaign had been marked by
increasing attacks on American troops and a spike in combat deaths.
Attacks soared by 22 percent, he said, during the first three weeks of
Ramadan, the holy month now nearing its end. With three new combat
deaths announced on Thursday, the number of American troops who have
lost their lives in October rose to 73, representing one of the
sharpest surges in military casualties in the past two years.

"The violence is indeed disheartening," Caldwell said. While the
sweeps have contained violence in some areas, over all, he said, the
campaign to gain control of the city "has not met our overall
expectations of sustaining a reduction in the levels of violence."

The American command's statement on the faltering campaign signified a
new and jarring stage in 18 months of efforts to bring peace to
Baghdad, with one military plan succeeding another, and none achieving
more than a temporary decline in the violence that has made Baghdad
the most bloody theater of the war. Senior officers have spoken of the
campaign in "make or break" terms, saying that there would be little
hope of prevailing in the wider war if the bid to retake Baghdad's
streets failed.

3) Bush Faces a Battery of Ugly Choices on War
David E. Sanger & David S. Cloud, New York Times, October 20, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/20/world/middleeast/20policy.html
The acknowledgment by the US Army spokesman in Iraq that the latest
plan to secure Baghdad has faltered leaves President Bush with some of
the ugliest choices he has yet faced in the war. He can once again
order a rearrangement of American forces inside the country, as he did
in August, when American commanders declared that newly trained Iraqi
forces would "clear and hold" neighborhoods with backup support from
redeployed American forces. That strategy collapsed within a month,
frequently forcing the Americans to take the lead, making them prime
targets.

There is no assurance, though, that another redeployment of those
forces will reduce the casualty rate, which has been unusually high in
recent weeks, senior military and administration officials say. The
toll comes just before midterm elections, in which even many of his
own party have given up arguing that progress is being made or that
the killing will soon slow.

Or Bush can reassess the strategy itself, perhaps listening to those
advisers — including some members of the Iraq Study Group, who say he
needs to redefine the "victory" that he again on Thursday declared was
his goal. One official providing advice to the president noted
Thursday that while Bush still insists his goal is an Iraq that "can
govern itself, sustain itself and defend itself," he has already
dropped most references to creating a flourishing democracy in the
heart of the Middle East.

Or, he could take the advice of Senator McCain, who argues in favor of
pouring more troops into Iraq, an option one senior administration
official said recently might make sense but could "cause the bottom to
fall out" of public support.

But whatever choices he makes - probably not until after the Nov. 7
election, and perhaps not until the bipartisan group issues its report
- they will be forced by a series of events, in Iraq and at home, that
now seems largely out of Bush's control.

4) L'Affaire Judt Rattles ADL; High-Brows Snub Foxman
'We'll see you in The New York Review of Books,' they cry, not in
private meeting.
Larry Cohler-Esses, Jewish Week, 10/20/2006
http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=13150
Representatives for a powerful roster of academics and writers this
week rejected the Anti-Defamation League's invitation to meet and
discuss their charge that the ADL applied pressure to shut down a
prominent critic of Israel's New York lecture. Professors Mark Lilla
and Richard Sennett, organizers of a protest letter to ADL signed by
113 intellectuals, rejected ADL's denial that it had not threatened or
pressured the Polish Consulate to deny a platform to New York
University historian Tony Judt.

In a reply to ADL National Director Abraham Foxman's invitation to
meet and discuss the matter, they wrote: "Precisely because providing
a public forum for discussion was the matter in dispute - we do not
think that the kind of private meeting you suggest would be
appropriate." They instead invited Foxman to reply in writing in The
New York Review of Books, which will publish their protest letter next
week. Foxman is expected to do so.

In their letter, the critics wrote Foxman: "What does surprise and
disturb us is that an organization dedicated to promoting civil rights
and public education should threaten and exert pressure to cancel a
public lecture by an important scholar."

5) Pentagon Audit Clears Propaganda Effort
Mark Mazzetti, New York Times, October 20, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/20/washington/20lincoln.html
An American military propaganda campaign that planted favorable news
articles in the Iraqi news media did not violate laws or Pentagon
regulations, but it was not properly supervised by military officials
in Baghdad, an audit by the Pentagon Inspector General has concluded.
The report said that the secret program, run by the military in
conjunction with the Lincoln Group, was lawful and that it did not
constitute a "covert action" designed to influence the internal
political conditions of another country.

By law, only intelligence operatives, not the military, are authorized
to carry out covert actions, and the government is authorized to deny
publicly any knowledge of these activities. But the audit concluded
that military officials in Baghdad violated federal contracting
guidelines by failing to keep adequate records about the Lincoln
Group's first propaganda contract — for $10.4 million, signed in
September 2004.

6) U.S. Judge Says American Can Be Transferred to Iraqi Custody
New York Times, October 20, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/20/washington/20transfer.html
A federal judge ruled Thursday US courts did not have the authority to
prohibit allied military forces in Iraq from transferring to the Iraqi
government's custody an American citizen who has been sentenced to
death. The judge, Royce Lamberth of US District Court, ruled that the
man, Mohammed Munaf, was not being held directly by the US, but by the
multinational force created by UN resolutions. As a result, Lamberth
ruled, Munaf has no recourse to American courts.

Munaf, who was born in Iraq and became a US citizen in 2000, traveled
to Iraq in March 2005 to act as an interpreter and guide for 3
Romanian journalists. The journalists were kidnapped and held for 55
days. After they were freed, Munaf was detained and accused of being
involved in the kidnapping, and on Oct. 12 he was sentenced to death
by an Iraqi judge. In a similar case involving US citizen charged with
a crime in Iraq, a different federal judge ruled US courts did have
jurisdiction because the multinational force was under the effective
control of the US military and any distinction was a legalistic
fiction.

7) Poll of US Public Finds Growing Anxiety About World Affairs
Jim Lobe, lnter Press Service, Thursday, October 19, 2006
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/1019-01.htm
The U.S. public has become increasingly anxious about world events and
the role their country is playing in them, according to the latest
"Confidence in U.S. Foreign Policy" survey released here Wednesday by
Public Agenda and Foreign Affairs journal. The survey, overseen by
pollster Daniel Yankelovich, found a substantial rise in concern about
how the U.S. is perceived in the world and particularly in
predominantly Muslim countries, compared to the survey conducted in
January.

Nearly 90 percent of respondents said they considered it a threat to
U.S. national security when "the rest of the world sees the US" in a
negative light. Nearly two-thirds of respondents said the world
currently feels either "somewhat" or "very" negatively toward the
country, while nearly four in five said they believe the country is
seen as "arrogant".

Fears about terrorism and Islamic extremism have also increased
markedly over the past year, according to the survey, while concern
about Iraq, while relatively stable over the same period, remains
sufficiently high to be considered at a "tipping point"; that is, an
issue on which public opinion is so intense that politicians cannot
afford to ignore it.

According to virtually all political analysts, public dissatisfaction
with the Iraq war has become by far single biggest obstacle to
Republican chances of retaining control of both houses of Congress in
the Nov. 7 elections. Polls this month have consistently shown that
nearly two-thirds of the public disapprove of the way Bush is handling
the war.

According to Yankelovich, a tipping point is reached when the vast
majority of the public says they are concerned about an issue, with
more than 50 percent insisting that they are a concerned "a lot", and
when majorities believe that the government can do something about it.
According to the latest survey, 55 percent say they worry "a lot"
about the casualty toll in Iraq.

While the survey found growing concern about alienating foreign -
particularly Muslim - opinion and stronger support for diplomacy and
cooperating more with other countries on a range of issues, it also
suggested more intense public backing for preemptive attacks against
countries developing weapons of mass destruction.

It also found that 70 percent of respondents believed that criticism
of the U.S. for being too pro-Israel to broker an Israeli-Palestinian
peace was either "totally" or "partially" justified, a notable
increase from previous surveys.

8) Seven in Ten Americans Favor Congressional Candidates Who Will
Pursue a Major Change in Foreign Policy
U.S. Public Wants Less Emphasis on Military Force, More on Working Through U.N.
A Majority Supports Direct Talks with North Korea and Iran
World Public Opinion, Program on International Policy Attitudes,
October 20th, 2006
http://www.worldpublicopinion.org/pipa/articles/home_page/262.php

Going into the November midterm elections, seven in ten Americans say
they prefer Congressional candidates who will pursue a new approach to
U.S. foreign policy. A new nationwide survey finds a large and growing
majority of Americans is dissatisfied with the position of the US in
the world. Most Americans believe that U.S. policies are increasing
the threat of terrorist attack and decreasing goodwill toward the
United States.

The Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA)/WPO poll also
finds that large majorities of Americans feel that the US puts too
much emphasis on military force and unilateral action. Most say they
want their member of Congress to work to shift the emphasis of U.S.
foreign policy in favor of diplomacy, multilateral cooperation, and
homeland security.

Iran
9) Britain Says U.N. Iran Resolution Coming
Associated Press, October 20, 2006, Filed at 12:04 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-UN-Iran-Nuclear.html
Britain said Thursday it expects a draft U.N. resolution on Iran to be
introduced in the Security Council early next week and diplomats said
it will seek sanctions on Tehran for refusing to suspend uranium
enrichment. France's U.N. Ambassador had said Tuesday he hoped to
circulate a draft by the end of the week. But France, Britain and
Germany, who have led negotiations with Iran on its nuclear program,
were still discussing the text with the US on Thursday, and had not
yet shown it to Russia and China.

The US has called for broad sanctions, such as a total ban on missile
and nuclear technology sales, while the Russians and Chinese back
prohibitions of selected items as a first step.

Iraq
10) Shiite Militia Seizes Control of Iraqi City
Associated Press, October 20, 2006, Filed at 8:14 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/world/AP-Iraq.html
The Shiite militia run by anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr seized
total control of the southern Iraqi city of Amarah on Friday in one of
the boldest acts of defiance yet by one of the country's powerful,
unofficial armies, witnesses and police said. Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki dispatched an emergency security delegation the prime
minister's media adviser told AP.

The Mahdi Army fighters stormed three main police stations Friday
morning, planting explosives that flattened the buildings, residents
said. About 800 militiamen with Kalashnikov rifles and
rocket-propelled grenade launchers were patrolling city streets in
commandeered police vehicles, eyewitnesses said. Other fighters had
set up roadblocks on routes into the city and sound trucks circulated
telling residents to stay indoors.

Fighting broke out in Amara on Thursday after the head of police
intelligence in the surrounding province, a member of the rival Shiite
Badr Brigade militia, was killed by a roadside bomb, prompting his
family to kidnap the teenage brother of the local head of the a-Madhi
Army. The Mahdi Army seized several police stations and clamped a
curfew on the city in retaliation.

At least 15 people, including five militiamen, one policeman and two
bystanders, have been killed in clashes since Friday, Dr. Zamil Shia,
director of Amarah's department of health, said by telephone from
Amarah. The events in the city highlight the threat of wider violence
between rival Shiite factions, who have entrenched themselves among
the majority Shiite population and are blamed for killings of rival
Sunnis.

11) Iraq Aims to Limit Mortality Data
Health Ministry Told Not to Release Civilian Death Toll to U.N.
Colum Lynch, Washington Post, Friday, October 20, 2006; A16
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/19/AR2006101901799.html
Iraqi Prime Minister Maliki's office has instructed the country's
health ministry to stop providing mortality figures to the UN,
jeopardizing a key source of information on the number of civilian war
dead in Iraq, according to a U.N. document. A confidential cable from
the UN's top official in Baghdad, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, said the Iraqi
prime minister is seeking to exercise greater control over the release
of the country's politically sensitive death toll. U.N. officials
expressed concern the move threatens to politicize the process of
counting Iraq's dead and muddy international efforts to gain a clear
snapshot of the scale of killing in Iraq.

Qazi warned in the cable that the development "may affect" the UN's
ability to adequately record the number of civilians killed or wounded
in the Iraq war as it endures a bloody new phase of sectarian
violence. He said U.N. human rights workers would have "no guaranteed
means to corroborate" figures provided by the government.

The ongoing debate over the Iraqi death toll was reignited this month
after a team of Iraqi and American epidemiologists estimated 650,000
more people have died in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in March
2003 than would have died if the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime
had not occurred. Those figures, published in the British medical
journal the Lancet, were dismissed by the US and Britain as inflated.
President Bush said in December that 30,000 civilians have died as a
result of the war; the group Iraq Body Count yesterday posted an
estimate of between 43,937 and 48,783 civilian deaths.

The Iraqi government has resisted efforts by U.N. officials and human
rights workers to obtain reliable government figures on mortality. But
since July 2005, the Medico-Legal Institute in Baghdad, which is
controlled by the Iraqi health ministry, has supplied U.N.
investigators with raw figures from morgues on civilians who have died
violently. The health ministry's department of operation has provided
the UN with similar figures from the country's hospitals.

Those numbers attracted relatively little attention until June, when
the U.N. human rights office in Baghdad estimated that more than 100
people a day were dying in Iraq. In August, the office recorded the
largest spike of violence since the invasion, with more than 6,600
people killed in Iraq in July and August. A spokesman for the prime
minister subsequently voiced suspicion to the UN that the health
ministry, which is controlled by officials linked to Shiite cleric
Moqtada al-Sadr, was overstating the numbers, according to Qazi.

Iraq's health minister appealed to the prime minister to allow his
agency to continue providing the UN and the U.S.-led military
coalition with "data on the dead and wounded," according to Qazi. That
request was denied. Qazi sought to defend the U.N. efforts, noting
that Maliki confirmed that 100 civilians were dying each day. He also
noted that the Brookings Institution characterized the U.N. estimates
as "perhaps the most accurate estimate of the number of civilians
killed and wounded in Iraq."

Israel
12) Talks Could Lead to Approval of West Bank Settler Outposts
Associated Press, Friday, October 20, 2006; A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/19/AR2006101901835.html
Unauthorized settler outposts in the West Bank would get official
government approval under a deal Israel's defense minister is working
out, government officials and settlers said Thursday. Defense Minister
Amir Peretz is negotiating with settler leaders on a deal to take down
some of the outposts, move others and give authorization to the rest,
according a spokeswoman for the settlers.

The Defense Ministry confirmed that talks with settler leaders are
taking place and would continue, saying Peretz initiated them to
defuse tension and allow the evacuation of illegal outposts to
proceed. However, the ministry said in a statement that the talks were
"not negotiations, but dialogue" and that no agreements had been
reached. "We are not negotiating over the enforcement of the law," the
ministry said.

Settlers began building outposts in the early 1990s, when Israel
declared an official settlement freeze as part of the Oslo process.
Today there are more than 100 such outposts, which were built against
the law though often with the tacit or active participation of
government offices and with government funds.

A deal that leaves significant numbers of outposts in place could
constitute a violation of Israel's commitments under the
internationally backed "road map" plan. Israel said it would dismantle
all outposts built after 2001 as part of the plan, but so far has
removed only a few, and most of those were rebuilt.

Lebanon
13) Cluster Weapons Used by Hezbollah
Rights Group Cites 1 Death, 12 Injuries In War With Israel
Nora Boustany, Washington Post, Friday, October 20, 2006; A18
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/19/AR2006101901825.html
The Lebanese Shiite militia Hezbollah fired cluster munitions during
its 33-day war with Israel last summer, in strikes that caused one
death and 12 injuries, according to a report released this week by
Human Rights Watch. The group expressed alarm over the rising supply
of these controversial weapons to non-state armed groups.

"We are disturbed to discover that not only Israel but also Hezbollah
used cluster munitions in the recent conflict, at a time when many
countries are turning away from this kind of weapon precisely because
of its impact on civilians," said Steve Goose, the director of the
Human Rights Watch Arms Division. "Use of cluster munitions is never
justified in civilian-populated areas because they are inaccurate and
unreliable," he said.

Cluster munitions endanger civilians by spreading bomblets over a wide
radius, causing casualties and leaving unexploded duds that often kill
or maim after a military conflict has ended. While the weapons are not
banned under international law, humanitarian groups argue that their
use is not justified in inhabited areas.

North Korea
14) China May Press North Koreans
Joseph Kahn, New York Times, October 20, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/20/world/asia/20china.html
China is prepared to step up pressure on North Korea in coming weeks
by reducing oil shipments, among other measures, if the country
refuses to return to negotiations or conducts more nuclear tests,
Chinese government advisers and scholars who have discussed the matter
with the leadership say. Washington has urged Chinese leaders to use
all the tools at their disposal to put additional pressure on Kim
Jong-il, the North Korean leader.

Among the most potent of those tools is oil. China provides an
estimated 80 to 90 percent of North Korea's oil imports, shipped by
pipeline at undisclosed prices that Chinese officials say represent a
steep discount from the world market price. Any reduction in that aid
could severely hamper North Korea's already faltering economy.

Several leading Chinese experts said senior officials had indicated in
the past week that they planned to slap new penalties on North Korea
going beyond the ban on sales of military equipment imposed by the UN
. But they would be likely to hold off if Kim agreed to return soon to
multilateral talks North Korea has boycotted since September 2005.

Discussions about how to respond to the nuclear test, which was
described by one expert as a "political earthquake" for Chinese
leaders, come amid a flurry of diplomacy aimed at ironing out
enforcement of UN sanctions and luring Kim back to negotiations.

15) South Korea Tells Rice It Won't Abandon Industrial and Tourist
Ventures With North
Thom Shanker & Martin Fackler, New York Times, October 20, 2006
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/20/world/asia/20rice.html
The government of South Korea told Secretary of State Rice Thursday it
had no intention of pulling out of an industrial zone and a tourist
resort in North Korea, even though the operations put hard currency
into the pocket of its government. The South Korean foreign minister,
Ban Ki-moon, said he had explained "the positive aspects" of the
industrial park at Kaesong and described how the tourism zone around
Mount Kumgang was "a very symbolic project" for reconciliation between
the Koreas.

While the US has long called for further isolating North Korea to
discourage its nuclear ambitions, South Korea has taken a different
course. Its decade-old policy of engagement has aimed to ensure peace
on the peninsula by opening North Korea to trade, investment and
economic interdependence. The nuclear test raised calls in South Korea
to re-examine the policy. But officials have said the UN sanctions
will not end broad economic and trade contacts with North Korea, a
stand backed by South Korean public opinion.

State Department officials describe the tourism zone in particular as
a conduit for cash for North Korean leaders. The project, which opens
a revered mountain site and hot springs to foreign visitors, has
earned North Korea more than $456.9 million in precious hard currency,
said its South Korean developers, Hyundai Asan.

On Wednesday, Song Min-soon, a security adviser for President Roh,
replied that the project "is not a policy to be changed following
somebody's order to do this or that."

"We are not deviating from the international community only because we
differ with a certain country," he told reporters. "I'm not going to
name that country," he added, though the context made it clear he was
referring to the US.

--------
Robert Naiman
Just Foreign Policy
www.justforeignpolicy.org

Just Foreign Policy is a membership organization devoted to reforming
U.S. foreign policy so that it reflects the values and interests of
the majority of Americans.