Meditation Focus #79
Defusing the North Korean Crisis
Hello,
What follows is the 79th Meditation Focus suggested for the two consecutive weeks beginning Sunday, January 12, 2003.
DEFUSING THE NORTH KOREAN CRISIS
1. Summary
2. Meditation times
3. More information on this Meditation Focus
4. Peace Watch for Iraq and the Middle East
1. SUMMARY
After a period of gradual rapprochement between the North and South Koreas, the hopes of this long divided people were dashed by recent upsets in relations between the United States and the communist regime of the North Korean leader Kim Jong-il, in part due to the hard-line stance adopted by the Bush administration following admissions by North Korea that they had secretly pursued a nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 accord, which led to the end of oil shipments promised to the North under this deal. Furthermore, last month, North Korea expelled U.N. nuclear inspectors and said it was reactivating a nuclear reactor which could be used to produce weapon-grade material for 6 to 8 more atomic bombs in addition to the 2 crude devices believed to already exist in North Korea's arsenal. These developments have sent shockwaves of concerns in surrounding countries and there appears to be little the United States can do - short of going to war - that would prevent North Korea from producing more nuclear weapons in the coming months if its leader choose this risky route, a situation which could ultimately create a nuclear arms race in the region.
All the neighbors of North Korea oppose its acquisition of nuclear weapons, but they also oppose a military confrontation with Pyongyang. This is especially true of South Korea, which has been America's most stalwart ally in Asia since the end of the Korean War 50 years ago. Given that it is impossible to read into Kim Jong-il's mind as to whether this is all a cunning brinkmanship aimed at shoring up his own political situation is a country devastated by hunger and a deepening economic crisis and/or if he is genuinely concerned that he stands next in line after the U.S. has dealt with Saddam Hussein, it would appear that an unconditional acceptance of direct dialogue between the U.S. and North Korea and a negociated settlement out of this crisis are the only sensible political options right now.
Please dedicate your prayers and meditations, as guided by Spirit, in the coming two weeks, and especially in synchronous attunement at the usual time this and next week Sundays, to contribute in defusing the tensions created by the recent decisions and statements made by the parties involved in this simmering crisis so as to make everyone connected with this crisis keenly aware that the consequences of confrontation could only worsen an already very difficult situation for millions of human beings and that a peaceful resolution is not only highly preferable for all, but the only acceptable outcome. May love, compassion and mutual trust grow and quickly render harmless the attitudes, statements and decisions made by all parties involved, for the Highest Good of All.
This whole Meditation Focus is also available at http://www.aei.ca/~cep/MeditationFocus79.htm
"We are all connected as in a giant spiritual hive and we all resonate to each other. The power of human minds and hearts united around a common purpose through meditation and prayer is awesome and the more people can be harmonized around a common goal, the more powerful their collective influence on others and on unfolding world events can be. When we join in meditation, we are mere instruments for the universal Will, Love and Wisdom of God. We then act as conduits through which the very high level frequencies of the healing power of God can be stepped down to our human level and thus reach forth to all humans through the Web of Life interconnecting us all."
- Amanumenoum
2. MEDITATION TIMES
i) Global Meditation Day: Sunday at 16:00 Universal Time (GMT) or at noon local time. Suggested duration: 30 minutes.
ii) Golden Moment of At-Onement: Daily, at the top of any hour, or whenever it better suits you.
These times below now correspond to 16:00 Universal Time/GMT:
Honolulu 6:00 AM -- Anchorage 7:00 AM -- Los Angeles 8:00 AM -- Denver 9:00 AM -- San Salvador, Mexico City, Houston & Chicago 10:00 AM -- New York, Toronto & Montreal 11:00 AM -- Halifax, Santo Domingo, La Paz & Caracas 12:00 PM -- Montevideo, Asuncion * & Santiago * 1:00 PM -- Rio de Janeiro * 2:00 PM -- London, Dublin, Lisbon, Reykjavik & Casablanca 4:00 PM -- Lagos, Algiers, Geneva, Rome, Berlin, Paris & Madrid 5:00 PM -- Ankara, Jerusalem, Johannesburg, Athens, Helsinki & Istanbul 6:00 PM -- Baghdad, Moscow & Nairobi 7:00 PM -- Tehran 7:30 PM -- Islamabad 9:00 PM -- Calcutta & New Delhi 9:30 PM -- Dhaka 10:00 PM -- Rangoon 10:30 PM -- Hanoi, Bangkok & Jakarta 11:00 PM -- Hong Kong, Perth, Beijing & Kuala Lumpur +12:00 AM -- Seoul & Tokyo +1:00 AM -- Brisbane, Canberra & Melbourne +2:00 AM -- Wellington * +5:00 AM
+ means the place is one day ahead of Universal Time/Greenwich Mean Time.
* means the place is observing daylight saving time (DST) at the moment.
You may also check at http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/full.html to find your current corresponding local time if a closeby city is not listed above.
3. More information on this Meditation Focus
This complement of information may help you to better understand the various aspects pertaining to the summary description of the subject of this Meditation Focus. It is recommended to view this information from a positive perspective, and not allow the details to tinge the positive vision we wish to hold in meditation. Since what we focus on grows, the more positive our mindset, the more successful we will be in manifesting a vision of peace and healing. This complementary information is provided so that a greater knowledge of what needs healing and peace-nurturing vibrations may assist us to have an in-depth understanding of what is at stake and thus achieve a greater collective effectiveness.
From: http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030111/ap_wo_en_po/as_gen_nkorea_the_iraq_factor_1
North Korea seen playing Iraq card in nuclear standoff with Washington
Jan 11
SEOUL, South Korea - Melding coincidence with cunning, North Korea has seemingly leveraged the Iraqi crisis in its own nuclear standoff against the United States.
With thousands of U.S. troops pouring into the Middle East and U.N. weapons inspectors meticulously picking through Iraq, the message seems clear — North Korea is hoping Washington and its allies have their hands too full to pick another fight.
"North Korea has played the game very shrewdly because the United States has a lot of balls in the air at one time," said Danielle Pletka, a defense specialist at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. "The way they have chosen to proceed is clearly calculated to make things most difficult."
With bombastic warnings of a "Third World War," North Korea alarmed the world Friday by pulling out of the global Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty. It then raised the stakes on Saturday by announcing it may lift a moratorium on missile testing.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell called it "a very serious situation" but reiterated the need for a diplomatic solution, in bold contrast to Washington's repeated pledges to strike Iraq if Saddam Hussein does not disarm.
Along the heavily armed border separating North and South Korea , there is no buildup of troops, ramping up of patrols or other signs of heightening tensions, U.S. commanders say. All is mostly quiet for the 37,000 U.S. troop stationed here.
Asked late last month whether the U.S. military could take on Iraq and North Korea at the same time, U.S. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld insisted the United States could win the two conflicts back-to-back and decisively.
"Let there be no doubt about it," he said. But there's also no doubt about the latest word from Washington: diplomacy. "North Korea does perceive that it gives them some leverage," said Ralph Cossa, president of the Pacific Forum think tank in Honolulu, Hawaii. "They think it may make Washington more inclined to settle peacefully."
Cossa added, however, that quiet diplomacy is probably the approach the United States and its allies would want to take even if Iraq wasn't a factor, because a showdown with a nuclear-armed North Korea would "just get the North more fired up."
The current crisis erupted in October, when North Korea acknowledged to a U.S. envoy that it had a secret nuclear weapons program in violation of a 1994 accord. As punishment, Washington stopped oil shipments promised to the North under the deal.
That the revelation came as the United States was stepping up its confrontation with Iraq was partly a coincidence — Washington brought the matter to the world's attention. But in the interim, North Korea has been the one pushing buttons.
Last month, it expelled U.N. nuclear inspectors and said it was reactivating a nuclear reactor that Washington says can be used to build atomic bombs. North Korea's arsenal is already believed to include one or two nuclear weapons.
In the U.S. view, Iraq and North Korea have terrorist links and are intent on covertly stockpiling weapons of mass destruction. But political, historical and geographical realities set apart the two countries, which are not allies.
China has ties with North Korea dating back to the 1950-53 Korean War, in which Chinese soldiers fought U.S. troops, and doesn't want to lose influence over its neighbor. Russia also shares a border with North Korea, and pre-emptive strikes would likely be unacceptable to South Korea, a U.S. ally.
China and Russia have said they want a nuclear-free Korean Peninsula.
Despite its status as an "axis of evil" co-conspirator with Iraq, North Korea has not mentioned Baghdad in its official statements. It regularly rails against Iraq's main adversaries, the United States and the U.N. International Atomic Energy Agency, but only in relation to their "vicious hostile policy" toward Pyongyang.
North Korea apparently doesn't want to fan the flames by entering that fray. Instead it is watching closely from the sidelines, analysts say.
In the end, policy makers concede the Iraq factor could play either way. If the United States gets bogged down in building a case against Iraq, North Korea could be emboldened to push ahead with its own nuclear programs. But if an Iraq war ends with a swift U.S. victory, it could unnerve Pyongyang's brinkmanship.
"It's an interesting question who has the Iraq card to play," Pletka said.
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From: http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030113/wview.html
Better Start Talking—and Fast!
Dialogue with North Korea would go a long way toward averting a real crisis
By Don Oberdorfer
January 5, 2002
The U.S. is in danger of playing its hand badly on the Korean peninsula and heading into the very crisis situation that Bush Administration officials hope to avoid. I was in North Korea in early November, one month after a U.S. team headed by Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly accused Pyongyang of operating a secret uranium-enrichment program aimed at producing nuclear weapons. To the surprise of Kelly and his team, the North Korean officials did not deny the charge but said they were "entitled" to have such a program because of threats against them by a hostile U.S.
Sitting at the same highly polished teakwood table in the Foreign Ministry in Pyongyang, talking to the same officials the Kelly team had seen, former U.S. Ambassador to South Korea Donald Gregg and I heard the North's considered response to Washington's worries. They would "clear the concerns" of the U.S.—get rid of the secret program— if Washington recognized their sovereignty and, especially, provided credible assurances of nonaggression.
Despite allegations that the North Koreans are seeking to blackmail the U.S. into rewarding them, they did not ask for money, resources or a tangible payoff of any kind for ending their secret nuclear program. Nor, according to U.S. sources, did they make such requests to the Kelly delegation. I had the distinct impression that they would settle for something well short of the nonaggression treaty they requested, if a credible assurance of their security was presented in some high-level fashion. What they really wanted, it seemed to me, was a face-saving way out of the uranium- enrichment program, which, according to U.S. intelligence, is years away from producing the raw material for even a single nuclear weapon. In the meantime, because the program violates Pyongyang's previous nonnuclear commitments, it is damaging the regime's relationships with its neighbors—relationships North Korea had been industriously seeking to improve to obtain the aid and trade that may be essential to its survival.
Instead of talking to North Korea, the Administration refused to engage Pyongyang further until it gave up its enrichment program. In November the U.S. led the way to stopping shipments of fuel oil promised to North Korea under a 1994 nonnuclear accord. North Korea's response, as U.S. allies in Asia had predicted, was to move to restart its original—and much more dangerous—plutonium nuclear-weapons plant. The North Koreans now appear to me to be headed toward production of nuclear weapons from this plant as rapidly as possible in an effort to assure their security, having been convinced by hard-liners, probably in the military, that a negotiated solution will not come to pass.
All the neighbors of North Korea oppose its acquisition of nuclear weapons, but they also oppose a military confrontation with Pyongyang. This is especially true of South Korea, which has been America's most stalwart ally in Asia since the end of the Korean War 50 years ago. The U.S. role in Korea was never as entirely positive as most Americans have imagined. President Theodore Roosevelt settled the Russo-Japanese War in 1905 on terms that paved the way for Japan to annex Korea, which it occupied until 1945. As World War II was ending, the U.S. divided Korea at the 38th parallel to stop Soviet troop movements. Thus Korea was severed into a communist North and a capitalist South, a division of this ancient nation that is still painful to Koreans longing for an eventual reunification by peaceful means.
Despite these earlier errors, it was the U.S. that saved South Korea in the 1950-53 war, at the cost of 36,500 dead. That is what most Americans and many South Koreans remember. But a new generation has emerged in South Korea that does not remember the Korean War and thus has less gratitude toward the U.S. Many younger Koreans have virtually no sense of threat from North Korea. Of a group of university freshmen I interviewed in Seoul this summer, most said they consider North Korea "more of a friend than an enemy." Such Koreans don't think that their northern cousins would detonate nuclear weapons on their own kin. They want to get along with North Koreans, not confront them, and many are aghast at U.S. rhetoric and policies.
North Korea, its neighbors and the Bush Administration have said the nuclear issue should be solved through dialogue. But the Administration appears still hamstrung by the conviction that dialogue would be a reward for bad behavior. If it sticks to this position, a crisis in Northeast Asia is only a matter of time.
Don Oberdorfer is journalist-in-residence at Johns Hopkins University's Nitze School of Advanced International Studies and author of The Two Koreas: A Contemporary History
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From: http://dailynews.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=542&e=1&u=/ap/20030111/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_north_korea
N. Korea Envoy: No Plans to Build Nukes
WASHINGTON - A senior North Korean diplomat contends his country does not intend to build nuclear weapons, New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson said Saturday as he concluded three days of talks with envoys from the communist nation.
While there was no immediate reaction from the White House or State Department, the United States is alarmed enough by North Korea 's nuclear ambitions that it is looking for U.N. support to harness the country's nuclear weapons programs.
North Korea has decided to quit a treaty designed to curb the spread of nuclear technology, and on Saturday said it was considering restarting missile tests and may start work to make atomic bombs.
Richardson, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations , said in Santa Fe, N.M., that the North Korea's deputy U.N. ambassador said during the talks that "North Korea has no intentions of building nuclear weapons."
The diplomat, Han Song Ryol, said in a brief statement that Richardson is "a top negotiator."
Richardson said he briefed Secretary of State Colin Powell on the talks, but emphasized that he was not an official representative of the Bush administration.
"I expressed my deep concern to Ambassador Han about North Korea's withdrawal from the Nuclear Proliferation Treaty and the announcement today that it will begin missile testing," Richardson said. "I believe that the North Koreans now understand the depth of international concern over the issue."
Earlier Saturday, North Korea held a rally in the capital, Pyongyang, to declare it would seek "revenge with blood" toward any country that violates its sovereignty.
The North has reversed its 1994 pledge to freeze its nuclear weapons programs, a decision that Secretary of State Colin Powell was leading the United States to go to the U.N. Security Council.
CLIP
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From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/article/0,2763,872748,00.html
Madman or master? Kim keeps the world guessing
Jonathan Watts in Tokyo
January 11, 2003
The Guardian
By his surprise withdrawal from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the Korean leader Kim Jong-il once again has the world wondering whether it is dealing with a dangerous madman or a brilliant tactician.
Just as diplomats in north-east Asia were congratulating themselves on having found a way out of the crisis, the ever unpredictable Mr Kim has plunged them straight back in by setting off on a characteristically unorthodox negotiating tangent.
As the media in Pyongyang roared out predictions of a third world war that the North would win with a "fire-to-fire standoff", Mr Kim's envoys in the United States began a bizarre mission to Santa Fe for a cosy chat with a former US ambassador they have identified as the best conduit for their message.
So what is Mr Kim playing at? It's a guessing game that has been played before, but the risk for Mr Kim is that familiarity with his style is likely to breed contempt among his opponents.
Since inheriting power from his father in 1994, Mr Kim has been able to make great use of his appalling reputation in the outside world, which relies on information from defectors and the impressions of a small number of Koreans not from the North who have met him.
CLIP
He has milked his image of being unstable and dangerous for all it was worth during nearly a decade of brinkmanship that has enabled him to cling to power despite all predictions.
By most rational calculations, North Korea was defeated either along with the rest of the communist bloc at the end of the cold war or during the recent years of famine, which has killed millions of North Koreans, but, as Mr Kim appears to have demonstrated once again, he does not accept the logic of the outside world.
But he appears to be running out of threats and friends.
One South Korean officials shrugged yesterday at the news of the North's latest escalation. "Straight out of the crisis escalation handbook," he said. "They think that by making everything seem like it cannot get any worse, they will be able to extract the best concessions, but people are not so scared anymore."
The world has indeed seen Mr Kim start to appear more normal - and thus more vulnerable - in the past two years.
In 2000, after becoming the most senior minister to visit Pyongyang, Madeleine Albright removed some of the mystique surrounding Mr Kim by saying he was slippery but not delusional. "I found him very much on top of his brief," the then US state secretary said.
An avid surfer of the internet and viewer of satellite TV news, Mr Kim knows more about the outside world than anyone else in his isolated country, where the media is strictly controlled.
He appears to be aware that he is increasingly an anachronism. In a sign that he may want to end his semi-godlike status, he ordered North Korean schools in Japan to remove his picture from classrooms.
In Pyongyang his image is far less visible than his father's.
This September he showed how desperate North Korea has become by confessing that its special forces had abducted at least a dozen Japanese civilians - including courting couples, cooks and beauticians - in the late 70s. For a country that has always claimed to be a victim, this was a risky move that could have undermined his authority.
Like yesterday's statement, that admission shocked the outside world, but from Mr Kim's point of view it was just another survival tactic aimed in the short term at winning aid and dividing opponents and in the long term at securing the survival of his regime. To him that is the only part of the game that matters.
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See also:
How Dangerous is North Korea?
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030113/story.html
Dictator Kim Jong Il is pushing the world toward a showdown over his nuclear-weapons program
Star of His Own Show
http://www.time.com/time/covers/1101030113/wkim.html
Kim Jong Il has made an effort in recent years to appear less strange, but his outsize sense of drama is always on display
North Korea adds fuel to nuclear crisis (Jan 8)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,870746,00.html
Washington dispatch: George Bush's decision to go easy on Kim Jong Il leaves his plans to invade Iraq looking ever more inconsistent and ill-considered.
North Korea Pulls Out of Non-Proliferation Treaty U.S., Allies Condemn Move, Work to Stem Crisis (January 10)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A36749-2003Jan10.html
SEOUL, Jan. 10-North Korea today asserted that it was pulling out of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, the cornerstone of global efforts to halt the spread of atomic weapons, while rebuffing demands that it allow a return of U.N. inspectors to a reactor capable of producing nuclear materials that could be used to build a bomb. (...) Amid deepening concern over the unfolding confrontation on the Korean peninsula, officials from France and Britain today said the time had come to refer the matter to the Security Council for action. The council could impose consequences ranging from economic sanctions to force. (...) North Korea's action also pushed the issue to unprecedented terrain: Never before has a country withdrawn from the treaty, although North Korea announced it would do so a decade ago, before a last-minute compromise with the United States.
Why the U.S. Changed its North Korea Stance http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,405876,00.html
South Korean democracy has seen Seoul walk Washington away from its hard line
US prepared to talk to North Korea (January 8)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/article/0,2763,870807,00.html
The United States has today shifted its stance on North Korea and said that it is willing to begin direct talks with the country.
North Korea says sanctions mean war (January 7)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea/article/0,2763,870154,00.html
A defiant North Korea today responded to an ultimatum from the International Atomic Energy Agency by warning that any attempt to use sanctions to force the country to abandon its nuclear programme would be interpreted as a declaration of war.
North Korea Recent History (Interactive)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/flash/0,5860,855083,00.html
Special Report on North and South Korea
http://www.guardian.co.uk/korea
4. Peace Watch for Iraq and the Middle East
Please also keep in mind the current critical situation in Iraq and the Middle East where the escalating military preparations for a possible war require our continued peace-nurturing attention.
From: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40551-2003Jan10.html
Allies Slow U.S. War Plans
British and French Urge Time for Inspectors; Turkey Delays on Troops
Over the past week, key U.S. allies have sent an unambiguous message to the Bush administration to give United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq time to complete their work, even if it means delaying the onset of hostilities.
The allied opposition to an early war with Iraq has strengthened the hand of moderates in the administration who have been arguing against setting a firm deadline for Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to comply with demands for giving up his weapons of mass destruction, according to U.S. officials and allied diplomats. According to these sources, the odds of a February war appear to be receding, barring a major Iraqi misstep that would galvanize Western governments and public opinion.
"The odds have gone down for war," said a well-placed U.S. official. "We don't have a good war plan; the inspectors have unprecedented access to Iraq; we have just started giving them intelligence; we have to give them more time to see how this works. There is no reason to stop the process until it can't proceed any further."
The apparent relaxation in administration rhetoric contrasts with statements by President Bush late last year advocating a "zero tolerance" policy toward Hussein. After weeks of insisting that U.S. forces were poised to intervene in Iraq if Hussein failed to properly account for his weapons of mass destruction, administration spokesmen are now echoing their European counterparts, and saying the inspectors should be given time to do their work.
Before this week, it appeared that the administration was intent on orchestrating a final confrontation with Baghdad soon after Jan. 27, when chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix is due to report back to the Security Council on Iraqi compliance with international demands for the nation's disarmament. This coincided with a major U.S. military buildup in the Persian Gulf region -- putting maximum pressure on Hussein and providing Bush with a credible military option to back up his threats of "regime change."
All of a sudden, this timetable seems in doubt. Not only are key allies such as Britain and France publicly calling for the United Nations to come up with clear-cut evidence of Iraqi wrongdoing, the military preparations for an attack on Iraq have encountered a hitch because of delays by Turkey in agreeing to the two-front North-South war plan developed by the Pentagon.
Although many administration officials believe that Turkey will eventually go along with "urgent" U.S. requests to station as many as 80,000 troops in the country in preparation for an attack on northern Iraq, it could take weeks to conclude the negotiations and move the troops into position. The lack of a definite response from Ankara has confronted the Bush administration with the difficult choice of delaying the war or abandoning plans for a northern front, which could mean higher U.S. casualties.
On the diplomatic front, some of the strongest words of caution have come from Britain, which until now has played the role of Washington's staunchest ally in the gathering showdown with Baghdad. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is coming under increasing pressure from his own Labor Party to distance himself from Bush, told the British cabinet on Thursday that the weapons inspectors should be given "time and space" to finish their work.
Blair said that the Jan. 27 date for Blix's report to the Security Council was "an important staging post," but "shouldn't be regarded in any sense as a deadline," according to British officials.
Both Britain and France want the United States to return to the Security Council for another resolution to endorse the use of military force against Hussein and to formally declare Iraq to be in "material breach" of its disarmament obligations. In order to get such a resolution through the Security Council, allied diplomats say it will probably be necessary for Blix to submit an unambiguous report accusing Baghdad of continuing its weapons of mass destruction programs.
In an interim report to the Security Council on Thursday, Blix criticized Iraq for failing to provide full information on its weapons programs, but said inspectors needed more time to compile an accurate picture. He added that his inspectors had so far failed to find "a smoking gun" demonstrating Iraqi noncompliance. CLIP
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See also:
UN prepares for huge Iraqi casualties (Jan 7)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/2636835.stm
Humanitarian effects of war could be grave Up to 500,000 people could suffer serious injuries during the first phase of an attack on Iraq, a confidential United Nations report says.
Iraq D-Day Remains Elusive (Jan 9)
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,406589,00.html
UN inspectors dampen expectations of an answer on Iraq's weapons by January 27. How much longer would the Bush administration wait?
Weapons Inspectors Scour Iraq, U.S. Readies Troops (Sat Jan 11)
http://dailynews.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=574&ncid=721&e=1&u=/nm/20030111/wl_nm/iraq_dc
U.N. weapons inspectors scoured more sites in Iraq on Saturday in search of weapons of mass destruction as the United States ordered nearly 35,000 more troops to the Gulf for a possible war. The U.N.'s nuclear watchdog, overseeing the laborious arms inspections, has called on the United States to provide more specific intelligence to help in the search for any banned weapons. The appeal came on Friday from Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), while top officials in Europe spoke out against a rush to war on the basis of inconclusive weapons inspections. "Without proof, it would be very difficult to start a war," European Union foreign policy coordinator Javier Solana said. Friday's order by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to send thousands more troops to the Gulf was the biggest since the Pentagon began a very public surge of troops and forces in recent weeks. The aim was to more than double the 60,000 U.S. troops now in the Gulf region while President Bush decides whether to order an invasion of Iraq over alleged weapons of mass destruction. CLIP
US Will Attack Iraq 'Without UN Backing' (Jan 10)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/011203A.perle.attack.htm
America will not delay a war with Iraq until the autumn and is prepared to launch military action against Saddam Hussein without further United Nations authorisation, a senior Bush administration adviser said yesterday. Richard Perle, chairman of the Pentagon's Defence Policy Board and a hawk whose views carry considerable weight, rejected suggestions from British ministers and senior Foreign Office officials that plans for an early war should be put on hold. CLIP
US, UK Warplanes Bomb Iraq (Jan 9)
http://sg.news.yahoo.com/030108/1/36bt1.html
British and US warplanes swung into action over Iraq, while London stepped up Western efforts to woo Turkey into adopting a firmer stand against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
Undercover War Begins as US Forces Enter Iraq (Jan 6)
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/01/05/1041566310159.html
(...) About 100 United States special forces personnel and more than 50 CIA officers have been inside Iraq for at least four months, looking for missile-launchers, monitoring oil fields, marking minefields and helping their pilots target air-defence systems.
Plan: Tap Iraq's Oil (Jan 10)
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-usoil103081930jan10,0,13852.story
U.S. Considers Seizing Revenues to Pay for Occupation, Source Says
Greece Plans E.U. Mission to Avoid Iraq War (Jan 8)
http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/international/international-iraq-eu.html
Families of Sept. 11 Victims Hold Vigil in Iraq (Jan 8)
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=2011150
Iraq Key maps: Military Buildup, etc.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/nol/shared/spl/hi/middle_east/02/iraq_key_maps/html/mbu.stm
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