April 10, 2003
Media Compilation #129: The Day After - The Grim Reality in Iraq and Other Collateral Consequences
Dear journalist
As the downfall of Saddam Hussein's 35 year brutal regime was celebrated yesterday in Baghdad and other Iraqi cities by a boisterous population tasting a bit of freedom amidst the ruins of their country, some may have been tempted to think that war and violence were after all justified to break the tight hold of this dictator upon its oppressed people. This would certainly be the wrong lesson to draw from this massive onslaught of the mightiest, most sophisticated military machine on Earth against a weak opponent whose means of defense were from another era. It only proves that when you are the biggest bully on the block, you can sow terror and impose your will wherever you wish until you are faced with a more formidable foe than you. Resorting to such violence has not solved anything and most ominously, no weapons of mass destruction have been found yet to vindicate the British-American claims justifying their illegal invasion. All that can now be hoped for - once all residual fighting has ended - is that sufficient humanitarian assistance will be swiftly provided, water and electricity will be quickly restored to all the main cities, and harmonious international cooperation will enable this part of the world to climb back from the abyss of anarchy and destruction it now faces and gradually create conditions for peace, harmony and justice to prevail for all.
In the meantime there is still much to be said to expose the various motives at the root of this war and the various repercussions and possibilities following in its wake.
Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
http://www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com
This compilation is archived at http://www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com/Archives2003/MediaCompilation129.htm
P.S. Again I cannot recommend strongly enough that you subscribe to GlobalNetNews-Summary-subscribe@yahoogroups.com to get a daily roundup of about 30 news articles from a variety of sources worldwide - including the title, the URL and a quote from each article, similar to my "See also" section below.
"The past is prophetic in that it asserts loudly that wars are poor chisels for carving out peaceful tomorrows. One day we must come to see that peace is not merely a distant goal that we seek, but a means by which we arrive at that goal. We must pursue peaceful ends through peaceful means."
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., from a Jan. 25, 1967, speech in Los Angeles entitled "The Casualties of the War in Vietnam"
"Mourn not the dead. But rather mourn the apathetic throng - the cowed and meek who see the world's great anguish and its wrong, and dare not speak."
- Ralph Chaplin
CONTENTS
1. Collateral Damage -- Poor Hit First By States' Woes
2. The Mystery of Saddam's Banned Arms
3. Disarmament In Tatters
4. US Arms Group Heads for Lisbon The Portugal News
See also:
Dictators' Collusion (April 10)
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=4/10/03&Cat=2&Num=017
... Suspicions rose on the same day when U.S. troops, that had been stopped at the Euphrates, immediately were able to advance toward the heart of Baghdad without any significant resistance by Iraqi forces. Nobody asked why Tikrit, that was once called the ideological heart of Saddam's government and the last possible trench of the Iraqi army, was never targeted by U.S. and British bombs and missiles. Or why when the elite Iraqi forces arrived in eastern Iraq from Tikrit, the pace of the invaders advancing toward central Baghdad immediately increased. Also, it has been reported that over the past 24 hours, a plane was authorized to leave Iraq bound for Russia. Who was aboard this plane? All these ambiguities, the contradictory reports about Saddam's situation, and the fact that the highest-ranking Iraqi officials were all represented by a single individual -- Iraqi Information Minister Mohammed al-Sahhaf -- and the easy fall of Baghdad shows that the center of collusion had been Tikrit, where Saddam, his aides, and lieutenants from the Baath Party had been waiting for al-Sahhaf to join them so that they could receive the required guarantees to leave the country in a secret compromise with coalition forces. This possibility was confirmed by the Al-Jazeera network, which quoted a Russian intelligence official as saying that the Iraqi forces and the invaders had made a deal. The Russian official told Al-Jazeera that the Iraqi leaders had agreed to show no serious resistance against the U.S.-British troops in return for a guarantee that Saddam and his close relatives could leave Iraq unharmed.
Is Baghdad Captured or Abandoned? (April 9)
http://english.pravda.ru/war/2003/04/09/45863.html
(...) Kabul was captured according to the more or less same scenario in the autumn 2001. The Northern Alliance backed by allies easily entered the city Talibs had abandoned the day before. The move allowed the Taliban to save personnel and arms, which still give the anti-Taliban coalition contingents a lot of trouble in Afghanistan.
The crudely colonial nature of this enterprise can no longer be disguised (April 10)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,933487,00.html
On the streets of Baghdad yesterday, it was Kabul, November 2001, all over again. Then, enthusiasts for the war on terror were in triumphalist mood, as the Taliban regime was overthrown. The critics had been confounded, they insisted, kites were flying, music was playing again and women were throwing off their burkas. In parliament, Jack Straw mocked Labour MPs who predicted US and British forces would still be fighting in the country in six months' time. Seventeen months later, such confidence looks grimly ironic. For most Afghans, "liberation" has meant the return of rival warlords, harsh repression, rampant lawlessness, widespread torture and Taliban-style policing of women. Meanwhile, guerrilla attacks are mounting on US troops - special forces soldiers have been killed in recent weeks, while 11 civilians died yesterday in an American air raid - and the likelihood of credible elections next year appears to be close to zero.
Israel eyes Iraqi oil
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/2933557.stm
Hotel hit 'deliberate': French TV (April 9)
http://www.dailytelegraph.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,6258986,00.html
FOOTAGE filmed by France 3 television of a strike on a hotel which killed two journalists in Baghdad today shows a US tank targeting the journalists' hotel and waiting at least two minutes before firing. The journalist and film editor who filmed the attack, Herve de Ploeg, who filmed the attack, said: "I did not hear any shots in the direction of the tank, which was stationed at the west entrance of the Al-Jumhuriya (Republic) bridge, 600 metres north-west of the hotel. The tank's turret is seen moving toward the Palestine Hotel, where foreign reporters have set up shop, and the gun carriage lifting and waiting at least two minutes before opening up. The French TV channel had positioned two cameras in two rooms facing the bridge as of 6.30am (11.30pm AEST). "It had been very quiet for a moment. There was no shooting at all. Then I saw the turret turning in our direction and the carriage lifting. It faced the target," said De Ploeg.
Robert Fisk : Amid Allied jubilation, a child lies in agony, clothes soaked in blood (April 8)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=395117
They lay in lines, the car salesman who'd just lost his eye but whose feet were still dribbling blood, the motorcyclist who was shot by American troops near the Rashid Hotel, the 50-year-old female civil servant, her long dark hair spread over the towel she was lying on, her face, breasts, thighs, arms and feet pock-marked with shrapnel from an American cluster bomb. For the civilians of Baghdad, this is the real, immoral face of war, the direct result of America's clever little "probing missions" into Baghdad.
US rampage through Baghdad kills thousands (7 April 2003)
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/apr2003/bagd-a07.shtml
The American military has officially claimed the 64th Armored Regiment of the US Third Infantry Division killed between 2,000 and 3,000 Iraqis during a three-hour rampage through southwestern Baghdad on April 5. In the aftermath of the assault, the Red Cross reported the city's hospitals filling with hundreds of wounded, both military and civilian, and morgues receiving dozens of bodies. From a staging area in the southern outskirts of Baghdad, the 64th Armored launched a "reconnaissance in force" north along Highway 8 and parallel roadways toward the centre of the city. The armored column then turned west and cut a swath through industrial and residential suburbs of southern Baghdad alongside a major expressway to the airport, which American forces had seized on the evening of April 3. ... The Washington Post reported: "US forces killed between 2,000 and 3,000 Iraqis during Saturday's show of force, which drew fierce but futile resistance from Iraqi soldiers and militiamen regarded as President Saddam Hussein's last line of defense." Troops of the 64th Armored described the attack to the New York Times as "a blistering gauntlet of death and destruction that engulfed civilians as well as Iraqi fighters". According to the Times: "The Iraqi fighters... fired from streets, from groves of trees, from highway overpasses. Many mingled with the civilians caught up in the unexpected armored thrust. Some people ran. Others waved white clothes or held up their hands." At the airport, a US trooper stated: "People were lying all over the side of the road. I couldn't even count how many." The reported American casualties were one dead and several wounded. ... The US military has admitted the action on April 5 had no military objective. US Central Command spokesman Captain Frank Thorp told a press conference in Qatar: "This isn't about taking or holding ground. At this point, that was not an objective, to hold any territory in Baghdad. This was an opportunity that the ground force commander saw to move troops through a major area of Baghdad, and [he] jumped on it." Major General Buford C. Blount, the field commander of the Third Infantry Division, told journalists: "We just wanted to let them know that we're here."
"Shedding no tears for Iraqi civilians"
http://www.yt.org/article.php?sid=1207
Firas discusses the civilian casualties in the current conflict in Iraq. Was warfare necessary? Was it necessary to kill the hundreds of confirmed innocents that have died so far?
PICTURES OF IRAQI VICTIMS
http://www.robert-fisk.com/iraqwarvictims_mar2003.htm
John Pilger: We see too much. We know too much. That's our best defence (April 4)
http://argument.independent.co.uk/commentators/story.jsp?story=394406
(...) These Anglo-American invasions of weak and largely defenceless nations are meant to demonstrate the kind of world the US is planning to dominate by force, with its procession of worthy and unworthy victims and the establishment of American bases at the gateways of all the main sources of fossil fuels. There is a list now. If Israel has its way, Iran will be next; and Cuba, Libya, Syria and even China had better watch out. North Korea may not be an immediate American target, because its threat of nuclear war has been effective. Ironically, had Iraq kept its nuclear weapons, this invasion probably would not have taken place. That is the lesson for all governments at odds with Bush and Blair: nuclear-arm yourself quickly. The most forbidden truth is that this demonstrably militarist British government, and the rampant superpower it serves, are the true enemies of our security. (...) How do we face this threat to all of us? The answer lies, I believe, in understanding the extent of our own power. Patrick Tyler wrote wisely in the New York Times the other day that America faced a "tenacious new adversary'' – the public. He says we are entering a new bi-polar world with two new superpowers: the Bush/Blair gang on one side, and world opinion on the other, a truly popular force stirring at last and whose consciousness soars by the day. Wasn't it the poet Shelley who, at a time like this, exhorted us to: "Rise like lions after slumber''?
War 'Against Iraqi People'
http://www.arabnews.com/Article.asp?ID=24875
NAJAF, 8 April 2003 - This is no longer a war against Saddam and his regime, if it ever was. It has become a war against the Iraqi people. The number of civilians killed since the invasion began is massive, and is rising dramatically as American and British forces continue to make their way north through densely populated areas. Each Iraqi city has lost many civilians, at times entire families, to "Operation Iraqi Freedom". Sami Osama, a truck driver, was delivering 5,000 kg of tomatoes through the small town of Sanawa when he approached an American checkpoint. According to witnesses who spoke to Arab News yesterday, he did not understand the orders in English and approached the checkpoint as normal. The US forces opened fire, killing him instantly and injuring two of his passengers.
Defending the dollar
http://www.witness.co.za/content/2003_04/14315.htm
Writing in the Sunday Times on March 30, Judge Richard Goldstone stated that there were only two lawful ways in which the U.S. could use military force against Iraq. One was if the UN Security Council sanctioned it; the other was in the case of"dire self-defence". The U.S. war against Iraq is in dire defence of dollar imperialism against the threat of the euro. Put another way, the war is about world economic dominance.
UN aid agencies paint grim picture of massive relief tasks in Iraq (7 April 2003)
http://electroniciraq.net/news/578.shtml
Painting a grim picture of hardship and horror, United Nations relief agencies today underscored the massive humanitarian tasks awaiting them in war-shattered Iraq. The World Health Organization (WHO) reported that hospitals in Baghdad and elsewhere were overwhelmed by the numbers of injured, the UN Children's Fund (UNICEF) said a humanitarian clock was ticking with each passing day, and the World Food Programme (WFP) predicted it would have to move in massive amounts of food next month.
Meanwhile, in Africa... 40 MILLION STARVING 'AS WORLD WATCHES IRAQ' (April 9)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/famine/story/0,12128,932778,00.html
Forty million Africans are at risk of starving but are not getting enough aid because the world is distracted by Iraq, the World Food Programme has warned. In an impassioned appeal to the United Nations security council, James Morris, the UN agency's executive director, accused the west of double standards. "How is it we routinely accept a level of suffering and hopelessness in Africa we would never accept in any other part of the world? We simply cannot let this stand."
Irish Republicans Accuse Bush Of Using Visit To Justify War
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,5944-638662,00.html
"We would be wrong not to point it out . . . the insensitivity of having a war summit which then discusses peace in the margins, of having a war summit which appears to be trying to use the Irish process as a stage or as a prop," (Gerry Adams) the Sinn Fein leader said.
Accusations fly over lack of action on friendly fire deaths (April 8)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,931992,00.html
Anti-War Rallies Draw Sea Of Demonstrators Worldwide
http://www.islam-online.net/English/News/2003-04/07/article03.shtml
WORLD CAPITALS, April 7 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) ˆ Sea of anti-war protestors took to the streets in different parts of the world Sunday, April6 , for the18 th consecutive day to protest the U.S.-led war on Iraq.
WMD 'smoking gun' turns out to be pesticide
http://english.aljazeera.net/topics/article.asp?cu_no=1&item_no=2094&version=1&template_id=277&parent_id=258
In the latest false alarm for evidence that would help justify the US-led invasion of Iraq, a military officer announced that pesticide, not deadly sarin gas, was found at a chemical facility south of Baghdad US troops had braced for chemical, nuclear or biological attacks as they advanced toward Iraq from Northern Kuwait. (...) The Bush administration has repeatedly claimed it was justified in bypassing the UN Security Council and launching an invasion of Iraq, because of the threat posed by Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. But it is ironic, said Al Jazeera analyst Mohammed Ja'afar that both UN inspectors, and US-led troops, despite their deep thrust into the country, have not found any nuclear, biological or chemical weapons. Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has also vehemently denied he possessed such weapons.
U.S. Airstrike Kills 11 Afghan Civilians
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24-2003Apr9.html
KABUL, April 9 -- A U.S. warplane mistakenly killed 11 civilians, most of them women, when a 1,000-pound laser-guided bomb missed its intended target and landed on a house in eastern Afghanistan, the U.S. military said today. For the first time since the U.S-led coalition opened its war in Afghanistan in October 2001, the military immediately claimed responsibility for killing innocent civilians, calling the deaths a "tragic accident" and promising to investigate the error. It has acknowledged past incidents after investigations. Afghan government ministers predicted that the errant bomb, which fell as Taliban fighters are regrouping and launching attacks along the Pakistan border, will spawn new acts of terrorism aimed at destabilizing the U.S.-backed government of President Hamid Karzai.
Ebola Spurs Fears Of Looming Ape Extinction (April 7, 2003)
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/04/0407_030407_apedecline.html
For more than a year, conservationists in equatorial Africa have witnessed an Ebola epidemic burn a deadly trail through great apes at the heart of their range. The lethal virus has felled hundreds of endangered western gorillas and common chimpanzees from populations already devastated by commercial hunting and habitat loss elsewhere on the continent. Now, in the latest grave news from the region, researchers announced yesterday that numbers of great apes in Gabon have declined by more than half in less than 20 years. Experts fear the decline is even greater outside Gabon and that, unless trends are reversed, great apes could become effectively extinct in as little as two generations. CLIP
1.
From: http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/7536
Collateral Damage -- Poor Hit First By States' Woes
by Dr. Elizabeth Sherman, TomPaine.com, April 7, 2003
With the war in Iraq well under way, it’s not surprising that Americans are focused on reports from the field and terror alerts rather than questions about who is going to pay for the war and its aftermath.
So far, the Bush administration has decided to borrow from the capital markets to finance current expenditures, a strategy that will inflate deficit spending to the tune of $400 billion, and potentially raise interest rates. Even Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan warned, much to Bush’s chagrin, that budget deficits will need to be paid for, and that, in fact, such a stimulus was unnecessary.
But the Republicans’ domestic economic program is even more worrisome.
Instead of paying more in taxes at a time of soaring costs for defense and homeland security, the nation’s corporations and wealthiest taxpayers will pay less, as some large percentage of the president’s tax cut of $1.4 trillion for the next 10 years, goes through.
And how will those tax cuts be financed? At least in part by deep cuts in mandatory and discretionary programs amounting to $465 billion. That includes funding for Medicaid, cash assistance to the poor elderly, food stamps, student loans, school lunches, the environment and even veterans programs.
The Republican congressional leadership rationalized the cutbacks as necessary for "fiscal discipline" while insisting that tax cuts for the top 1 percent of taxpayers, which would exceed the reductions in social spending, are economically prudent. If this is not the equivalent of a moral Bizarro World, I don’t know what is.
For the states, the president’s economic plan will only exacerbate an already dire fiscal situation. Massachusetts, for example, faces wrenching cuts in Medicaid for its poorest and most vulnerable citizens, and deep reductions in reimbursements to hospitals, physicians and nursing homes already reeling from financial crises associated with the economic downturn. To make matters worse, Massachusetts stands to lose $2.67 billion in federal assistance, primarily in funds earmarked for Medicaid and poor childrens' health programs.
In short, the costs of the war and the Republicans’ tax cuts will be paid for in cuts to programs that help those citizens with the fewest resources -- those who are most dependent on the government for health care and a minimal standard of living.
With the costs of such programs loaded onto states already weakened from the slack economy, it’s worth asking whether America’s corporate sector contributes its fair share.
A study in Massachusetts found that one-third of the top 50 corporations paid only the required minimal annual state taxes -- or $456 in the year 2000 when profits were still robust. No doubt loopholes in the tax code and creative accounting enabled corporate giants like Ratheon, Staples and FleetBoston to pay $2,339 less than the median individual Massachusetts taxpayer. Tax fairness indeed!
With Republicans in control of Congress at the national level, and armies of corporate lobbyists deployed by Treasury Secretary Snow to keep them in line, we can expect the president’s ideological assault on social programs to continue.
States like Massachusetts face tough choices in the weeks and months ahead. Will they rescind some of the generous tax breaks of the go-go 1990s that mainly benefited wealthy individuals and corporations? Or will they abandon the poorest individuals who rely on public spending for basic health care? It’s well past time to consider how these decisions reflect on what kind of society we have become, or whether, after all, we really care.
Dr. Elizabeth Sherman is a fellow at the Center for Public Leadership at the Kennedy School of Government, at Harvard University.
2.
The Mystery of Saddam's Banned Arms
Published on Monday, April 7, 2003
by the lnternational Herald Tribune
WASHINGTON -- As each day passes without chemical or biological weapons being found in Iraq, questions increase. In Washington, battle lines are already being drawn about what the success or failure to find such weapons in Iraq might mean for the legitimacy of the war itself.
The Bush administration has maintained that Iraq not only possesses chemical and biological weapons, but that those weapons posed an imminent threat to the United States. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency published a report in October stating that chemical and biological weapons production was under way in Iraq. This alleged threat was the public justification for short-circuiting the United Nations inspection process and launching the military campaign against the regime of Saddam Hussein.
So far no weapons of mass destruction have been used against allied troops. Unfortunately for the Bush administration's case against Iraq, however, no such weapons have been discovered in any form. While the search is only a few weeks old, this suggests three possibilities: that U.S. intelligence may not know the exact location of such weapons; that such weapons are only in areas controlled by troops loyal to Saddam; or that none are in Iraq, as the regime asserts.
If and when any weapons of mass destruction are discovered, those who supported the war in Iraq can be expected to use the find to justify the U.S.-led intervention. But if such weapons are located based on solid U.S. intelligence information, it raises other questions. If the U.S. knew where such weapons were, why was the information not given to UN inspectors? If inspectors could have been used to find such weapons, why was war necessary? If the discovery of weapons of mass destruction happens by chance, it will suggest that the inspectors might have been just as likely as the U.S. military to have found those weapons, given the time they requested to search. Moreover, unless the weapons found are of the most potent kind - VX nerve gas or weaponized anthrax - and in vast amounts, there will be many questions about why they posed the imminent threat alleged by the administration. So finding such weapons does not in itself mean that the U.S. action against Iraq was required or that war was the only way to uncover and eliminate those weapons.
Even worse for the U.S. case against Saddam, however, is that as each day passes, conspiracy theories grow that any chemical or biological weapons found might well be planted by U.S. forces. With anti-American sentiment and suspicion of U.S. information and motives growing, especially in the Middle East and Europe, the international public relations battle to convince other countries that any weapons found are of Saddam's own making will be an uphill battle.
To undercut such allegations, the Bush administration should seek to reintroduce UN inspectors into Iraq as soon as any weapons are discovered to provide objective assessments of what is found. But given the strength of opposition to the UN among hardline elements in the Bush administration, such a development is very unlikely.
The worst case for the administration and U.S. credibility globally is if no weapons of mass destruction are found in Iraq. In the runup to the war, key officials, including President George W. Bush himself, cited Iraqi weapons programs that turned out to be false leads or even outright forgeries. This has stretched U.S. credibility and added to international suspicion of American motives in attacking Iraq.
Failure to discover chemical and biological weapons in Iraq will be used by many groups and countries to vilify the United States. It will also reinforce claims that such weapons were only a pretext for America to remove Saddam's regime for other political or geostrategic reasons. Any attempt by America to allege that Iraq destroyed its weapons at the last minute or shipped them out of country are likely to be viewed with great skepticism. Most disturbingly, such a turn of events would all but eliminate U.S. credibility on weapons of mass destruction globally. Claims by Washington about weapons programs and intentions in North Korea and Iran would be viewed with suspicion while U.S. efforts to develop international responses to those serious nonproliferation challenges would be harder than ever. The writer is deputy director of the nonproliferation project at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Washington.
3.
From: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/04/06/MN24820.DTL
Also from: http://truthout.org/docs_03/040803I.shtml
Disarmament In Tatters
James Sterngold San Francisco Chronicle
6 April 2003
U.S. undermined arms control system that was already deadlocked
The Bush administration's war to disarm Iraq and its increasingly unilateral approach to international disputes, say arms control experts, are helping to paralyze one of the most hopeful products of the post-World War II era: the global arms control and disarmament movement.
They argue that the elaborately constructed system of disarmament treaties and organizations, which over the years had controlled the spread of everything from chemical and biological weapons to nuclear materials, has been dangerously imperiled. Any new agreements are at best a distant dream.
"It is all very much dead in the water at the moment," said William Potter, a U.N. adviser and director of the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.
In fact, arms control advocates note, there is a particular irony to the war in Iraq: While U.S. forces pound Saddam Hussein in one of the most radical -- and expensive -- unilateral acts of disarming another country, the leading international forum for negotiating multilateral arms control agreements, the United Nations-affiliated Conference on Disarmament, is so frozen by disputes that it is unable even to agree on an agenda. Negotiations of crucial issues relating to nuclear materials, weapons in space and biological weapons are completely deadlocked.
"There is a lot of despair," said Jayantha Dhanapala, undersecretary- general for disarmament affairs at the United Nations, who worked to extend the Non-Proliferation Treaty in 1995. "There is a general feeling that the disarmament machinery is just not working."
Although there is general agreement that the old system is broken, it is not clear what will replace it -- or how newly emerging proliferation threats should be addressed.
Even a quick success in Iraq, for instance, will leave the Bush administration facing a potentially much graver challenge in North Korea, which is believed to have secretly built two nuclear weapons and is now openly revving up a production program. North Korea was the first country to abandon an arms agreement when it announced three months ago that it was withdrawing from the Non-Proliferation Treaty. That withdrawal takes effect this Thursday.
The Bush administration has argued it was forced to act in Iraq precisely because arms control agreements had failed to hold back rogue states like Iraq that were determined to acquire and keep weapons of mass destruction. But, critics claim, the administration contributed to their failure by walking away from a number of agreements. It has, for instance, abrogated the 1972 Anti- Ballistic Missile Treaty and it has made clear it has no intention of seeking ratification of the 1996 Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which President Clinton signed but the Senate rejected once before.
At the same time, the administration has proposed developing a new generation of nuclear weapons and possibly using them pre-emptively against hostile nations suspected of developing prohibited weapons. Many experts believe this strategy will only provoke some other nations to develop their own weapons of mass destruction -- thus making the work of arms control advocates that much harder.
"I can't recall any point in time when there have been so many challenges to the traditional way of approaching arms control," Potter said. "I really question whether the system can bear the strains.'
Robert Einhorn, a senior disarmament official in the Clinton administration, said that, even without the Bush administration's aggressive policies, the traditional arms control approach was already being undermined by other nations who chose to ignore the treaties, overtly or covertly.
"We've realized that good rules can't make bad guys good," he said. "Those mechanisms could only hold off the really determined cheaters so long."
John Bolton, the Bush administration's undersecretary of state for arms control and international security, put the case bluntly when he addressed the Conference on Disarmament last year. Given the deadlock in the conference, he described its debates as an exercise in futility, and insisted that the United States was prepared to act on its own.
"Our policy is, quite simply, pro-American, as you would expect," he said.
In November 2001, Bolton warned that six countries other than Iraq -- North Korea, Iran, Libya, Syria, Sudan and Cuba -- must dismantle their programs developing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. But no international organization has moved to address the issue.
"The problem is not just that the governments are not in agreement today," said Daryl Kimball, the executive director of the Arms Control Association. "The structure may not be adequate given how many are breaking the rules."
The turnaround in the fortunes of the arms control movement has been remarkably swift. The collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 led to a string of breakthroughs, including missile reductions, the elimination of nuclear weapons from many of the former Soviet states, an agreement with North Korea to mothball its nuclear program and the conclusion of a chemical weapons treaty.
But in 1998, India and Pakistan both exploded nuclear test devices, Iraq halted the U.N. weapons inspection program, and Iran and North Korea tested missiles. Shortly afterward, the U.S. Senate refused to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty.
Potter said the failure of the international community to impose significant sanctions against India and Pakistan contributed to the breakdown of the prohibitions and encouraged a flood of new violations.
Last February, Vice Admiral Lowell Jacoby, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Senate Select Commission on Intelligence that "some 25 countries possess or are actively pursuing WMD or missile programs."
He added that some Third World countries had also begun exporting their newly acquired technology for producing weapons of mass destruction, accelerating the alarming trend.
Meanwhile:
-- The United States has rejected an inspection and verification program for the biological weapons treaty, saying it is not stringent enough.
-- Talks on a treaty to prohibit weapons in outer space and to ban the production of fissile material for nuclear weapons are stalled.
-- The United States is resisting the space treaty, in part because it wants to consider deploying lasers on satellites as part of a missile defense, while China argues that without progress on that issue it will resist movement on the treaty to prohibit the development of fissile materials.
-- Efforts to ban the use of land mines are deadlocked, in part because of U.S. opposition.
-- While the United States and Russia have agreed to a nuclear missile reduction treaty -- which Russian President Vladimir Putin asked the State Duma to ratify on Saturday -- arms control specialists say it is fatally flawed because the decommissioned weapons are to be put in storage rather than destroyed, which means they could be redeployed at any time.
Still, some arms control advocates still believe the system can be saved.
"It is a crisis, but we are not yet at Armageddon," said Dhanapala of the United Nations. "We have the tools to fix this, and if we don't, then we have to make some new tools. The key will be coming up with some fresh approaches."
He was asked what those approaches might be.
"We have not yet seen any new ideas," replied Dhanapala
4.
From: http://the-news.net/cgi-bin/story.pl?title=US%20arms%20group%20heads%20for%20Lisbon&edition=697
US Arms Group Heads for Lisbon The Portugal News
4 April 2003
Directors of one of the world’s largest armament companies are planning on meeting in Lisbon in three weeks time. The American based Carlyle Group is heavily involved in supplying arms to the Coalition forces fighting in the Iraqi war.
It also holds a majority of shares in the Seven Up company and Federal Data Corporation, supplier of air traffic control surveillance systems to the US Federal Aviation Authority. The 12 billion dollar company has recently signed contracts with United Defence Industries to equip the Turkish and Saudi Arabian armies with aviation defence systems.
Top of the meeting’s agenda is expected to be the company’s involvement in the rebuilding of Baghdad’s infrastructure after the cessation of current hostilities. Along with several other US companies, the Carlyle Group is expected to be awarded a billion dollar contract by the US Government to help in the redevelopment of airfields and urban areas destroyed by Coalition aerial bombardments.
The Group is managed by a team of former US Government personnel including its president Frank Carlucci, former deputy director of the CIA before becoming Defence Secretary. His deputy is James Baker II, who was Secretary of State under George Bush senior. Several high profile former politicians are employed to represent the company overseas, among them John Major, former British Prime Minister, along with George Bush senior, one time CIA director before becoming US President.
The financial assets of the Saudi Binladen Corporation (SBC) are also managed by the Carlyle Group. The SBC is headed up by members of Osama bin Laden’s family, who played a principle role in helping George W. Bush win petroleum concessions from Bahrain when he was head of the Texan oil company, Harken Energy Corporation - a deal that was to make the Bush family millions of dollars. Salem, Osama bin Laden’s brother, was represented on Harken’s board of directors by his American agent, James R. Bath.
The connection between the Bush and bin Laden families can also be traced to the collapse of the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI) in the 1990s. Members of the Anglo Pakistani bank’s board of directors included Richard Helmes and William Casey, business partners of George Bush senior and former CIA agents. During their time at BCCI both Helmes and Casey worked alongside fellow director, Adnan Khasshoggi, who also represented the bin Laden family’s interests in the US.
The Portugal News has been told by a reliable source that the Carlyle Group meeting in Lisbon will discuss the relationship between the Saudi Binladen Corporation (SBC) and Osama bin Laden. Many US officials claim that the SBC continues to finance his political activities, and has done so for many years. If true, this would place George Bush senior and his colleagues at the Carlyle Group in an embarrassing position. As managers of SBC’s financial investments they might well be accused of indirectly aiding and abetting the United States’ number one enemy.
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