Former commander of French military operations in ICoast suspended
http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051018003718.ym9oj6jl.html
Full Version: International News and Commentary
Common Ground Common Sense > National & International News > Daily National and International News > International News Archive
Analysis: Asia Quake Worse Than Tsunami?
http://www.terradaily.com/news/tectonics-05zzzzg.html
http://www.terradaily.com/news/tectonics-05zzzzg.html
Pakistan Reaches Out To Rival India After Quake Calamity
http://www.terradaily.com/news/tectonics-05zzzzh.html
http://www.terradaily.com/news/tectonics-05zzzzh.html
Climate Model Predicts Dramatic Changes Over Next 100 Years
http://www.terradaily.com/news/climate-05zzzzzl.html
http://www.terradaily.com/news/climate-05zzzzzl.html
China Could Become World Leader In Wind Power: Greenpeace
http://www.terradaily.com/news/energy-tech-05zzzzzzzf.html
http://www.terradaily.com/news/energy-tech-05zzzzzzzf.html
UN Urges Early Warning Systems To Combat Desertification
http://www.terradaily.com/news/water-earth-05zg.html
http://www.terradaily.com/news/water-earth-05zg.html
Ancient Anthropoid Origins Discovered In Africa
http://www.terradaily.com/news/life-05zzzzzzt.html
http://www.terradaily.com/news/life-05zzzzzzt.html
http://theseoultimes.com/ST/?url=/ST/db/read.php?idx=645
Tension of the Times
Rev. Moon's New Line Conflicts with Hard-Line Editor in Chief of the Washington Times
It's a sign of the times when even the people who bankroll Washington's leading conservative newspaper are said to be uneasy with Bush administration foreign policy. But in that heretical spirit, a revolt is reportedly brewing at the Unification Church, which owns the Washington Times and is pushing for changes at the paper.
Insiders say the church's new line is that with the end of the Cold War, it's important to support international organizations such as the United Nations and to campaign for world peace and interfaith understanding. That stance would be awkward for the Times's hard-line editor in chief, Wesley Pruden, and its stable of neoconservative columnists.
The only public sign of ferment was an announcement in April by News World Communications, a Unification Church subsidiary that owns the Times, that it would no longer print three related publications. A spokesman explained that News World was seeking to save money and "reposition" its assets by terminating the biweekly Insight magazine, the monthly World & I magazine and a Spanish-language newspaper in New York, Noticias del Mundo.
The real battles have been taking place out of public view, and rumors about a high-level power struggle have been swirling around the Times offices. Sources say that the dominant church official overseeing the publications is now the Rev. Chung Hwan Kwak, a close adviser to the church's founder, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
Rev. Sun Myung Moon
Kwak's most prominent public role has been as chairman of the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace, a Moon operation that seeks to promote interfaith dialogue. He said at a conference in 2002 that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks "showed the tensions that exist between much of the Islamic world and the United States. To understand the conflict in the world today, we must understand the role of religion." Many hawkish Times columnists would probably dissent.
Kwak became chairman of the Times parent company several months ago. He replaced Douglas D.M. Joo on the News World board and as head of two media subsidiaries, the magazine group and United Press International.
Joo remains president of the Times, according to Richard Amberg, the paper's vice president and general manager. He said Joo was in South Korea this week and is being considered for broader management responsibility with Korean companies owned by the church. Amberg said Joo believes that the Times must become more "reader-friendly" and that the paper is conducting an extensive reader survey that could lead to changes in coverage.
Pruden responded yesterday to the reports of friction between the paper and the church over foreign policy: "What you're saying confirms that we operate independently," he said. "They've never told me to put anything in the paper or keep anything out." He added: "I would resist any effort to change the fundamental vision under which the paper was founded."
Rev. Chung Hwan Kwak
Coverage of the Korean Peninsula has been an especially delicate issue. The paper's stance has been aggressively anti-Pyongyang. But the church has embraced a conciliatory line, including investment in North Korea. Moon has bankrolled Pyonghwa Motors, which plans to produce cars in the North, along with a hotel, a park and a church there. A senior church official, Ahn Ho Yeol, told a South Korean newspaper last year: "It is our principle to achieve peace on the Korean Peninsula by promoting mutual prosperity." Again, that's a dovish sentiment you won't often read in the Times.
The Unification Church has bankrolled huge losses at the Times, which several sources estimated have totaled more than $1 billion over the past 22 years. The paper's losses are running about $20 million annually, one source said; another source offered a slightly higher estimate. Insiders said that Japanese backers of the church had been especially unhappy with the Times's huge losses and with its right-wing positions on global political issues.
Adding to tensions within the Moon publishing family was the Times's decision last fall not to run an investigative article by UPI on the U.S. military's poor medical treatment of troops returning from Iraq. That UPI coverage went on to win second place in this year's Raymond Clapper awards, along with other journalism prizes. Pruden said yesterday that he thought the story wasn't adequately sourced. He also complained that some UPI commentary articles had become "liberal to the point of leftist" and conflicted with Times editorial positions.
Pruden won't give up control of the Times without a fight. And he has powerful Republican friends on Capitol Hill and in the administration who would probably back a campaign to maintain the paper's editorial line and fend off meddling by its owners. What's clear from the Times-Moon dust-up is that the battle for the soul of conservatism has a new front.
The above article is from The Washington Times.
Tension of the Times
Rev. Moon's New Line Conflicts with Hard-Line Editor in Chief of the Washington Times
It's a sign of the times when even the people who bankroll Washington's leading conservative newspaper are said to be uneasy with Bush administration foreign policy. But in that heretical spirit, a revolt is reportedly brewing at the Unification Church, which owns the Washington Times and is pushing for changes at the paper.
Insiders say the church's new line is that with the end of the Cold War, it's important to support international organizations such as the United Nations and to campaign for world peace and interfaith understanding. That stance would be awkward for the Times's hard-line editor in chief, Wesley Pruden, and its stable of neoconservative columnists.
The only public sign of ferment was an announcement in April by News World Communications, a Unification Church subsidiary that owns the Times, that it would no longer print three related publications. A spokesman explained that News World was seeking to save money and "reposition" its assets by terminating the biweekly Insight magazine, the monthly World & I magazine and a Spanish-language newspaper in New York, Noticias del Mundo.
The real battles have been taking place out of public view, and rumors about a high-level power struggle have been swirling around the Times offices. Sources say that the dominant church official overseeing the publications is now the Rev. Chung Hwan Kwak, a close adviser to the church's founder, the Rev. Sun Myung Moon.
Rev. Sun Myung Moon
Kwak's most prominent public role has been as chairman of the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace, a Moon operation that seeks to promote interfaith dialogue. He said at a conference in 2002 that the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks "showed the tensions that exist between much of the Islamic world and the United States. To understand the conflict in the world today, we must understand the role of religion." Many hawkish Times columnists would probably dissent.
Kwak became chairman of the Times parent company several months ago. He replaced Douglas D.M. Joo on the News World board and as head of two media subsidiaries, the magazine group and United Press International.
Joo remains president of the Times, according to Richard Amberg, the paper's vice president and general manager. He said Joo was in South Korea this week and is being considered for broader management responsibility with Korean companies owned by the church. Amberg said Joo believes that the Times must become more "reader-friendly" and that the paper is conducting an extensive reader survey that could lead to changes in coverage.
Pruden responded yesterday to the reports of friction between the paper and the church over foreign policy: "What you're saying confirms that we operate independently," he said. "They've never told me to put anything in the paper or keep anything out." He added: "I would resist any effort to change the fundamental vision under which the paper was founded."
Rev. Chung Hwan Kwak
Coverage of the Korean Peninsula has been an especially delicate issue. The paper's stance has been aggressively anti-Pyongyang. But the church has embraced a conciliatory line, including investment in North Korea. Moon has bankrolled Pyonghwa Motors, which plans to produce cars in the North, along with a hotel, a park and a church there. A senior church official, Ahn Ho Yeol, told a South Korean newspaper last year: "It is our principle to achieve peace on the Korean Peninsula by promoting mutual prosperity." Again, that's a dovish sentiment you won't often read in the Times.
The Unification Church has bankrolled huge losses at the Times, which several sources estimated have totaled more than $1 billion over the past 22 years. The paper's losses are running about $20 million annually, one source said; another source offered a slightly higher estimate. Insiders said that Japanese backers of the church had been especially unhappy with the Times's huge losses and with its right-wing positions on global political issues.
Adding to tensions within the Moon publishing family was the Times's decision last fall not to run an investigative article by UPI on the U.S. military's poor medical treatment of troops returning from Iraq. That UPI coverage went on to win second place in this year's Raymond Clapper awards, along with other journalism prizes. Pruden said yesterday that he thought the story wasn't adequately sourced. He also complained that some UPI commentary articles had become "liberal to the point of leftist" and conflicted with Times editorial positions.
Pruden won't give up control of the Times without a fight. And he has powerful Republican friends on Capitol Hill and in the administration who would probably back a campaign to maintain the paper's editorial line and fend off meddling by its owners. What's clear from the Times-Moon dust-up is that the battle for the soul of conservatism has a new front.
The above article is from The Washington Times.
IRAN: Rafsanjani Offers Hope On Nuclear, Oil Issues
Analysis by Saloumeh Peyman
TEHRAN - The fact that it was former president Hashemi Rafsanjani who announced Iran's readiness to talk on the ''country's nuclear dossier without any pre-condition'' rather than his hardline successor, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, offers a glimmer of hope for reconciliation with the West on the key nuclear and oil issues.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30650
Analysis by Saloumeh Peyman
TEHRAN - The fact that it was former president Hashemi Rafsanjani who announced Iran's readiness to talk on the ''country's nuclear dossier without any pre-condition'' rather than his hardline successor, Mahmud Ahmadinejad, offers a glimmer of hope for reconciliation with the West on the key nuclear and oil issues.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30650
IRAQ: Referendum Will Change Little
Analysis by Ferry Biedermann
BEIRUT - Iraqis voted on the weekend in a referendum that is billed as decisive for their political future, and by extension, crucial for restoring order in their violence-wracked country. But the country's leaders and the George W. Bush administration may find that the cycle of violence and political instability cannot be so easily broken.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30628
Analysis by Ferry Biedermann
BEIRUT - Iraqis voted on the weekend in a referendum that is billed as decisive for their political future, and by extension, crucial for restoring order in their violence-wracked country. But the country's leaders and the George W. Bush administration may find that the cycle of violence and political instability cannot be so easily broken.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30628
SOUTH AFRICA: Inter-Country Adoption a Last Resort, or Best Hope?
Nicola Spurr
JOHANNESBURG - It seems an obvious response to a pressing problem. If there are thousands of orphaned children in South Africa who cannot find a home in their extended families, then why not place more emphasis on adoption? And if adoptive families cannot be found locally, why not look abroad?
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30647
Nicola Spurr
JOHANNESBURG - It seems an obvious response to a pressing problem. If there are thousands of orphaned children in South Africa who cannot find a home in their extended families, then why not place more emphasis on adoption? And if adoptive families cannot be found locally, why not look abroad?
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30647
VENEZUELA: New Wave of Protests - By Government Supporters This Time
Humberto Márquez
CARACAS - Despite its broad range of social programmes financed by windfall oil profits, the administration of President Hugo Chávez in Venezuela has been facing a new wave of protests. But this time they are led by supporters of the government.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30638
Humberto Márquez
CARACAS - Despite its broad range of social programmes financed by windfall oil profits, the administration of President Hugo Chávez in Venezuela has been facing a new wave of protests. But this time they are led by supporters of the government.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30638
Millions Flee Floods, Desertification
Stephen Leahy
TORONTO - The United Nations estimates that upwards of 50 million people may be on the move in five years due to environmental disasters and degradation. More people are already displaced by environmental disasters than war, according to the Red Cross.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30603
Stephen Leahy
TORONTO - The United Nations estimates that upwards of 50 million people may be on the move in five years due to environmental disasters and degradation. More people are already displaced by environmental disasters than war, according to the Red Cross.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30603
IRAQ: The Pay May Be Lousy, But the Fish Head Soup Is Free
David Phinney
WASHINGTON - Jing Soliman left his family in the Philippines for what sounded like a sure thing -- a job as a warehouse worker at Camp Anaconda in Iraq.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30620
David Phinney
WASHINGTON - Jing Soliman left his family in the Philippines for what sounded like a sure thing -- a job as a warehouse worker at Camp Anaconda in Iraq.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30620
Monumental Trouble in Sri Lanka
Amantha Perera
PERELIYA, Galle - The twisted hulks of three railway carriages, standing near where they were picked up and slammed against houses in this fishing village by the Dec 26 tsunami, symbolise the power of nature as well as human frailities exposed in the aftermath.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30645
Amantha Perera
PERELIYA, Galle - The twisted hulks of three railway carriages, standing near where they were picked up and slammed against houses in this fishing village by the Dec 26 tsunami, symbolise the power of nature as well as human frailities exposed in the aftermath.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30645
Foot-and-Mouth Shakes Up Global Beef Market
Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO - The outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in western Brazil could drive up international beef prices, which is why experts believe the ban on Brazilian beef imports will be short-lived.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30629
Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO - The outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease in western Brazil could drive up international beef prices, which is why experts believe the ban on Brazilian beef imports will be short-lived.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30629
SOUTH AFRICA: The Past Isn't History Yet
Marina Penderis
JOHANNESBURG - Clever student, top grades, demanding university course... For anyone in this position, using a cheque book or managing medical insurance should be a cinch, right?
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30617
Marina Penderis
JOHANNESBURG - Clever student, top grades, demanding university course... For anyone in this position, using a cheque book or managing medical insurance should be a cinch, right?
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30617
Bali Bounces Back, Slowly
Fabio Scarpello
KUTA, Indonesia - These days an unexpected high tide or a flaw in the perfect blue waves, that lap gently at this famed beach, is enough to make tourists, as well as local people, jumpy.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30571
Fabio Scarpello
KUTA, Indonesia - These days an unexpected high tide or a flaw in the perfect blue waves, that lap gently at this famed beach, is enough to make tourists, as well as local people, jumpy.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30571
BRAZIL: Reaching Out to Young Men to Fight Gender Violence
Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO - Watching his mother receive frequent beatings at the hands of his stepfather made him a quiet teenager who keeps his gaze glued to the floor. But he decided that he was not going to become a violent man himself, and poured his experiences into the script of a play that is now used as a tool in the fight against domestic violence.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30599
-
Mario Osava
RIO DE JANEIRO - Watching his mother receive frequent beatings at the hands of his stepfather made him a quiet teenager who keeps his gaze glued to the floor. But he decided that he was not going to become a violent man himself, and poured his experiences into the script of a play that is now used as a tool in the fight against domestic violence.
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30599
-
SOUTH AFRICA: "Men Must Work with Other Men"
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30597
A Giant Leap From Rhetoric to Reality?
UNFPA Report: The Promise of Equality
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30595
Better for Women Also Better for Men
IPS Interview: UNFPA executive director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30598
In Tamil Nadu, Women Lead the War Against HIV
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30596
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30597
A Giant Leap From Rhetoric to Reality?
UNFPA Report: The Promise of Equality
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30595
Better for Women Also Better for Men
IPS Interview: UNFPA executive director Thoraya Ahmed Obaid
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30598
In Tamil Nadu, Women Lead the War Against HIV
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=30596
Saddam Hussein Faces Mass Murder Trial Voice of America
Iraq's long-time dictator Saddam Hussein is to go on trial Wednesday for mass murder, the first of what is expected to be several indictments of the deposed president and senior officials of his regime. The tribunal is seen as fulfilling aspirations for justice of thousands of Iraqis who lost family members under the regime. But it is also causing apprehension among some, who fear that it will only worsen the violence that has been the legacy of the war to depose Saddam.
Saddam Hussein
The trial of Saddam Hussein is being seen by many Iraqis as the long overdue hand of justice after decades of suffering. And some see the event as a possible warning to other authoritarian figures in the region. But many analysts fear that the process will only deepen the divisions in Iraqi society and fuel the violence that has killed thousands of people in recent years. They worry that the trial will especially alienate Sunni Arabs, who dominated government under Saddam, but have since been relegated to a minor role. Sunnis boycotted legislative elections nine months ago, which were won by the Shiite Arab majority and independence-minded Kurds. The head of Amman's Jerusalem Center for Political Studies, Ureib Rantawai, says the trial, coming at this time, will only aggravate the Iraqi crisis. "It will increase the anger," he said. "It will raise the instability in Iraq. It will help the extremists to use this trial in order to justify what they are doing nowadays in Iraq." Saddam Hussein and seven subordinates are to appear Wednesday under tight security before a special tribunal of five Iraqi judges. They are charged with ordering the mass murder of 140 villagers from Dujail, north of Baghdad, after a failed assassination attempt 23 years ago. If convicted, they could face the death penalty. But Saddam's lawyers say they will ask for a postponement in order to better prepare their defense. Legal experts say that the Dujail massacre is one of the lesser atrocities committed by the Saddam regime. They say the former leader could also be tried for the gassing of five thousand Kurds in 1988, the deaths of thousands of Shiites following an uprising in 1991, and hundreds of thousands of deaths during the Iran-Iraq war. They say the Dujail incident is well documented and therefore can help establish a model for subsequent trials. Analysts warn the trial could turn Saddam into a victim in the eyes of some people, especially Arab Sunnis. As a result, they say the proceedings must be well run. "It should be a fair trial. It should be a just trial. It should be an open one. Transparency, I think, is a very, very important issue," added analyst Ureib Rantawi. "Otherwise, it will be identified by part of the Iraqis as part of the conspiracy led by the Americans on [against] their country." But international human-rights organizations have voiced concerns, saying that some of the rules governing the trial do not meet international standards. They say the defense must not be restricted and guilt must be proven beyond any reasonable doubt. Iraqi officials and their international advisors say such measures are in place and the trial will be fair.
Hussein Goes on Trial Tomorrow, and Iraqis See a First Accounting Spiegel Online
Saddam's accusers have their day in court The Age (subscription)
ABC News - Channel 4 News - USA Today - AKI - all 335 related »
Iraq's long-time dictator Saddam Hussein is to go on trial Wednesday for mass murder, the first of what is expected to be several indictments of the deposed president and senior officials of his regime. The tribunal is seen as fulfilling aspirations for justice of thousands of Iraqis who lost family members under the regime. But it is also causing apprehension among some, who fear that it will only worsen the violence that has been the legacy of the war to depose Saddam.
Saddam Hussein
The trial of Saddam Hussein is being seen by many Iraqis as the long overdue hand of justice after decades of suffering. And some see the event as a possible warning to other authoritarian figures in the region. But many analysts fear that the process will only deepen the divisions in Iraqi society and fuel the violence that has killed thousands of people in recent years. They worry that the trial will especially alienate Sunni Arabs, who dominated government under Saddam, but have since been relegated to a minor role. Sunnis boycotted legislative elections nine months ago, which were won by the Shiite Arab majority and independence-minded Kurds. The head of Amman's Jerusalem Center for Political Studies, Ureib Rantawai, says the trial, coming at this time, will only aggravate the Iraqi crisis. "It will increase the anger," he said. "It will raise the instability in Iraq. It will help the extremists to use this trial in order to justify what they are doing nowadays in Iraq." Saddam Hussein and seven subordinates are to appear Wednesday under tight security before a special tribunal of five Iraqi judges. They are charged with ordering the mass murder of 140 villagers from Dujail, north of Baghdad, after a failed assassination attempt 23 years ago. If convicted, they could face the death penalty. But Saddam's lawyers say they will ask for a postponement in order to better prepare their defense. Legal experts say that the Dujail massacre is one of the lesser atrocities committed by the Saddam regime. They say the former leader could also be tried for the gassing of five thousand Kurds in 1988, the deaths of thousands of Shiites following an uprising in 1991, and hundreds of thousands of deaths during the Iran-Iraq war. They say the Dujail incident is well documented and therefore can help establish a model for subsequent trials. Analysts warn the trial could turn Saddam into a victim in the eyes of some people, especially Arab Sunnis. As a result, they say the proceedings must be well run. "It should be a fair trial. It should be a just trial. It should be an open one. Transparency, I think, is a very, very important issue," added analyst Ureib Rantawi. "Otherwise, it will be identified by part of the Iraqis as part of the conspiracy led by the Americans on [against] their country." But international human-rights organizations have voiced concerns, saying that some of the rules governing the trial do not meet international standards. They say the defense must not be restricted and guilt must be proven beyond any reasonable doubt. Iraqi officials and their international advisors say such measures are in place and the trial will be fair.
Hussein Goes on Trial Tomorrow, and Iraqis See a First Accounting Spiegel Online
Saddam's accusers have their day in court The Age (subscription)
ABC News - Channel 4 News - USA Today - AKI - all 335 related »
Britain grapples with 'honor killing' practice
British police began reexamining 117 murders for honor motives last
year. By James Brandon
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1019/p04s01-woeu.html?s=hns
British police began reexamining 117 murders for honor motives last
year. By James Brandon
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1019/p04s01-woeu.html?s=hns
Guatemalans wary of military aid
Defense and security ministers from regional countries agreed last week
to form a relief force. By Jill Replogle
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1019/p06s02-woam.html?s=hns
Defense and security ministers from regional countries agreed last week
to form a relief force. By Jill Replogle
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1019/p06s02-woam.html?s=hns
Russian holiday: just for the hardy
Only three million tourists visited the country last year. By Fred Weir
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1019/p06s03-woeu.html?s=hns
Only three million tourists visited the country last year. By Fred Weir
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1019/p06s03-woeu.html?s=hns
North Korea's reality gap
Its government is imposing ever more draconian steps to snuff out
budding economic freedom. By Donald Kirk
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1019/p07s01-woap.html?s=hns
Its government is imposing ever more draconian steps to snuff out
budding economic freedom. By Donald Kirk
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1019/p07s01-woap.html?s=hns
Europeans declare bird flu 'a global threat'
Markos Kyprianou, the EU health and safety commissioner, expressed concern that Europe was not sufficiently prepared for a possible pandemic.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/18/news/flu.php
Markos Kyprianou, the EU health and safety commissioner, expressed concern that Europe was not sufficiently prepared for a possible pandemic.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/18/news/flu.php
On eve of Saddam's trial, questions
The fairness and competence of the Iraqi tribunal has been called into question.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/18/news/saddam.php
The fairness and competence of the Iraqi tribunal has been called into question.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/18/news/saddam.php
Bush pick for court opposed abortion
Harriet Miers pledged support in 1989 for a constitutional amendment that would ban abortions except to save the life of a mother.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/18/news/court.php
Harriet Miers pledged support in 1989 for a constitutional amendment that would ban abortions except to save the life of a mother.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/18/news/court.php
10% of population has shopped on Web, study shows
The highest incidence of shopping occurred in Germany, Austria and the United Kingdom, with at least 95 percent of Internet users having made purchases.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/18/business/eshop.php
The highest incidence of shopping occurred in Germany, Austria and the United Kingdom, with at least 95 percent of Internet users having made purchases.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/18/business/eshop.php
China's building boom becomes a frenzy
This year alone, Shanghai will complete towers with more space for living and working than there is in all the office buildings in New York City.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/18/news/boom.php
This year alone, Shanghai will complete towers with more space for living and working than there is in all the office buildings in New York City.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/18/news/boom.php
Bush backs EU efforts to cut agricultural subsidies
President George W.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/18/news/union.php
President George W.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/18/news/union.php
Google to face off with Europeans over books
Google said this week that it was operating local-language sites in at least nine European countries for Google Print, expanding into territories where it has drawn fierce criticism.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/18/business/google.php
Google said this week that it was operating local-language sites in at least nine European countries for Google Print, expanding into territories where it has drawn fierce criticism.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/18/business/google.php
As conservatives split, research group dismisses Bush critic
Bruce Bartlett, a Republican commentator who has been increasingly critical of the White House, has been dismissed as a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/18/news/gop.php
Bruce Bartlett, a Republican commentator who has been increasingly critical of the White House, has been dismissed as a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/18/news/gop.php
This time, the ballot is an act of faith
The fact that millions of Iraqis went out and cast their ballots this weekend speaks to a strong belief in their future.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/18/opinion/edarraf.php
The fact that millions of Iraqis went out and cast their ballots this weekend speaks to a strong belief in their future.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/18/opinion/edarraf.php
Give Iraq justice, not vengeance
If significant human rights shortcomings in the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal law are not addressed, they could jeopardize the legitimacy of the proceedings.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/18/opinion/eddicker.php
If significant human rights shortcomings in the Supreme Iraqi Criminal Tribunal law are not addressed, they could jeopardize the legitimacy of the proceedings.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/18/opinion/eddicker.php
Accountability comes to the Arab world
Accountability in the Middle East is the most elusive of concepts.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/18/opinion/edelta.php
Accountability in the Middle East is the most elusive of concepts.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/10/18/opinion/edelta.php
Analysis: Decline In Armed Conflict Claimed
http://www.spacewar.com/news/milplex-05j.html
United Nations (UPI) Oct 18, 2005 - The independent Human Security Report released at the United Nations says armed conflict declined by 40 percent since 1991, citing successes of U.N. conflict-resolution and peace-building policies.
http://www.spacewar.com/news/milplex-05j.html
United Nations (UPI) Oct 18, 2005 - The independent Human Security Report released at the United Nations says armed conflict declined by 40 percent since 1991, citing successes of U.N. conflict-resolution and peace-building policies.
US encouraged by India, Pakistan reconciliation moves
http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051018230550.tjkz0g7v.html
http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051018230550.tjkz0g7v.html
Elbaradei 'Confident' Nuclear Talks Will Resume With Iran
http://www.spacewar.com/news/iran-05zzzzp.html
Vienna (AFP) Oct 18, 2005 - The head of the UN's nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, said Tuesday he was "confident" that negotiations would resume soon with Iran over the nature of its nuclear program.
http://www.spacewar.com/news/iran-05zzzzp.html
Vienna (AFP) Oct 18, 2005 - The head of the UN's nuclear watchdog, Mohamed ElBaradei, said Tuesday he was "confident" that negotiations would resume soon with Iran over the nature of its nuclear program.
Iran says French nuclear position sad and a hindrance
http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051018191544.t01hmqky.html
http://www.spacewar.com/2005/051018191544.t01hmqky.html
Analysis: Rumsfeld Arrives In Beijing
http://www.spacewar.com/news/china-05zzzzzzzzzr.html
Beijing (UPI) Oct 18, 2005 - US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrived in Beijing Tuesday for a brief but busy first visit in his position as a top member of the Bush administration.
Rumsfeld To China: World Watching If It Charts Path To Open Society
http://www.terradaily.com/news/china-05zzzzzzzzzs.html
http://www.spacewar.com/news/china-05zzzzzzzzzr.html
Beijing (UPI) Oct 18, 2005 - US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld arrived in Beijing Tuesday for a brief but busy first visit in his position as a top member of the Bush administration.
Rumsfeld To China: World Watching If It Charts Path To Open Society
http://www.terradaily.com/news/china-05zzzzzzzzzs.html
New Chinese Missile Subs Pose Challenge To U.S.
http://www.spacewar.com/news/submarine-05r.html
Washington (UPI) Oct 18, 2005 - China's two new next-generation submarines with anti-ship missile capabilities pose a greater challenge to U.S. and Western fleets in the near future, World Net Daily reported this weekend.
http://www.spacewar.com/news/submarine-05r.html
Washington (UPI) Oct 18, 2005 - China's two new next-generation submarines with anti-ship missile capabilities pose a greater challenge to U.S. and Western fleets in the near future, World Net Daily reported this weekend.
Outside View: After The Iraq Vote
http://www.spacewar.com/news/iraq-05zzzzp.html
Washington (UPI) Oct 18, 2005 - The referendum on Iraq's constitution is only the beginning of a political process to resolve the issues dividing Iraqis along ethnic and sectarian lines.
http://www.spacewar.com/news/iraq-05zzzzp.html
Washington (UPI) Oct 18, 2005 - The referendum on Iraq's constitution is only the beginning of a political process to resolve the issues dividing Iraqis along ethnic and sectarian lines.
Serbian Factory Bombed By NATO To Make Arms For US Company
http://www.spacewar.com/news/milplex-05i.html
Belgrade (AFP) Oct 18, 2005 - A Serbian factory bombed by NATO in 1999 is to make arms for US weapons manufacturer Remington in a contract worth 3.2 million dollars (2.6 million euros), a report said Tuesday.
http://www.spacewar.com/news/milplex-05i.html
Belgrade (AFP) Oct 18, 2005 - A Serbian factory bombed by NATO in 1999 is to make arms for US weapons manufacturer Remington in a contract worth 3.2 million dollars (2.6 million euros), a report said Tuesday.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/asia/article320565.ece
China Crisis: threat to the global environment
Spectacular growth now biggest threat to environment
By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
Published: 19 October 2005
Western politicians queue up to sing its praises. Economists regard it with awe and delight. Other countries are desperate to imitate it. Yet there is another side to China's exploding, double-digit-growth miracle economy - it is turning into one of the greatest environmental threats the earth has ever faced.
An ominous sign of the danger is given in a groundbreaking report from Greenpeace, published today, which maintains that China is now by far the world's biggest driver of rainforest destruction. The report documents the vast deforestation driven by the soaring demands of China's enormous timber trade - the world's largest - as the country's headlong economic development sucks in ever-more amounts of the earth's natural resources.
Citing figures from the International Tropical Timber Organisation, the Greenpeace study says that nearly five out of every 10 tropical hardwood logs shipped from the world's threatened rainforests are now heading for China - more than to any other destination.
Yet deforestation is only one of the threats to the planet posed by an economy of 1.3 billion people that has now overtaken the United States as the world's leading consumer of four out of the five basic food, energy and industrial commodities - grain, meat, oil, coal and steel. China now lags behind the US only in consumption of oil - and it is rapidly catching up.
Because of their increasing reliance on coal-fired power stations to provide their energy, the Chinese are firmly on course to overtake the Americans as the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, and thus become the biggest contributors to global warming and the destabilisation of the climate. If they remain uncontrolled, the growth of China's carbon dioxide emissions over the next 20 years will dwarf any cuts in CO2 that the rest of the world can make.
Even that, however, is not the ultimate threat from an economy which is growing at a rate the world has never seen before. According to Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington DC, the leading American environmental analyst, China's scarcely imaginable growth in the coming years means that the world's population will simply run up against the limits of the planet's natural resources sooner than anyone imagines.
If growth continues at 8 per cent a year, Mr Brown said, by 2031 China's population, likely to be 1.45 billion on current UN predictions, will have an income per person equivalent to that of the US today. He said: "China's grain consumption will then be two-thirds of the current grain consumption for the entire world. If it consumes oil at the same rate as the US today, the Chinese will be consuming 99 million barrels a day - and the whole world is currently producing 84 million barrels a day, and will probably not produce much more.
"If it consumes paper at the same rate we do, it will consume twice as much paper as the world is now producing. There go the world's forests. If the Chinese then have three cars for every four people - as the US does today - they would have a fleet of 1.1 billion cars, compared to the current world fleet of 800 million. They would have to pave over an area equivalent to the area they have planted with rice today, just to drive and park them."
Mr Brown, who has been tracking and documenting the world's major environmental trends for 30 years, went on: "The point of these conclusions is simply to demonstrate that the western economic model is not going to work for China. All they're doing is what we've already done, so you can't criticise them for that. But what you can say is, it's not going to work. And if it doesn't work for China, by 2031 it won't work for India, which by then will have an even larger population, nor for the other three billion people in the developing countries.
"And in some way it will not work for the industrialised countries either, because in the incredibly integrated global economy, we all depend on the same oil and the same grain.
"The bottom line of this analysis is that we're going to have to develop a new economic model. Instead of a fossil-fuel based, automobile-centred, throw-away economy we will have to have a renewable-energy based, diversified transport system, and comprehensive reuse and recycle economies. "If we want civilisation to survive, we will have to have that. Otherwise civilisation will collapse."
The Greenpeace report is one of the first major indictments of the catastrophic environmental effects the great Chinese industrial behemoth is starting to have on the rest of the world.
The ecological damage that China's breakneck industrialisation is having on the country itself has been widely recognised. In an interview earlier this year, China's deputy environment minister, Pan Yue, said five of the 10 most polluted cities worldwide are in China; acid rain is falling on one-third of the country; half of the water in its seven largest rivers is "completely useless"; a quarter of China's citizens lack access to clean drinking water; one-third of the urban population is breathing polluted air; and less than a fifth of the rubbish in cities is treated and processed in an environmentally sustainable way. But China's malign environmental "footprint" on other countries has been less widely reported.
John Sauven, forest campaigner for Greenpeace UK, said: "Western politicians, who think only in terms of gross domestic product, have seen China as some sort of economic wonderland. Tony Blair went to China with British businessmen in September and said how he wanted a slice of the cake. But the growth figures mask an environmental catastrophe. The Chinese are ripping the heart out of the world's irreplaceable rainforests to make cheap products like plywood for Western consumer markets."
The Greenpeace report details how, with incredible speed, China has become the world's largest plywood producer and exporter. Its export market has grown from less than one million cubic metres per annum in 1998 to nearly 11 million cubic metres in 2004.
China banned logging in large areas of its own natural forest in 1998 after catastrophic floods, themselves a direct result of deforestation, killed thousands of people. "This ban, coupled with massive growth in Chinese timber processing capacity and a liberalisation of trade barriers, led China to look overseas in its hunger for timber," says the Greenpeace report.
In one area of China investigated by the group, there were no fewer than 9,000 plywood mills taking in vast numbers of ancient hardwood trees from rainforests in countries such as Papua New Guinea, which are used merely to make plywood panels. Greenpeace contends that many of these trees, if not the majority, have been illegally logged.
The report, entitled Partners in Crime, does not blame only China - it accuses timber barons in rainforest countries of corruption in illegally supplying the wood, and builders' merchants and DIY outlets in Britain of culpable negligence in supplying plywood without establishing its origin. Chinese hardwood plywood imports to the UK have gone from 1 per cent of the total in 2001 to 30 per cent this year.
Greenpeace wants the EU, and failing that, Britain alone, to outlaw the import of timber which has not clearly been legally logged. At the moment there are no restrictions on illegally logged timber coming into Britain.
THE NUMBERS
Consumption
China - growing at nearly 10% a year - already consumes more grain, meat, coal and steel than the United States
Wealth
China's population will grow from 1.3 billion to 1.45 billion in 26 years - when per capita income will be equal to that of the US today
Oil
On current trends, China will by 2031 be consuming 99 million barrels of oil per day. Total world production today is only 84 million bpd
Forestry
China is already the biggest driver of rainforest destruction, says Greenpeace. Half of all rainforest logs head for China
Global warming
By 2025, China will overtake the US as the top emitter of the greenhouse gases causing global warming
Cars
By 2031, China would have 1.1 billion cars if it matches current US trends - bigger than the current world fleet of 800 million
Western politicians queue up to sing its praises. Economists regard it with awe and delight. Other countries are desperate to imitate it. Yet there is another side to China's exploding, double-digit-growth miracle economy - it is turning into one of the greatest environmental threats the earth has ever faced.
An ominous sign of the danger is given in a groundbreaking report from Greenpeace, published today, which maintains that China is now by far the world's biggest driver of rainforest destruction. The report documents the vast deforestation driven by the soaring demands of China's enormous timber trade - the world's largest - as the country's headlong economic development sucks in ever-more amounts of the earth's natural resources.
Citing figures from the International Tropical Timber Organisation, the Greenpeace study says that nearly five out of every 10 tropical hardwood logs shipped from the world's threatened rainforests are now heading for China - more than to any other destination.
Yet deforestation is only one of the threats to the planet posed by an economy of 1.3 billion people that has now overtaken the United States as the world's leading consumer of four out of the five basic food, energy and industrial commodities - grain, meat, oil, coal and steel. China now lags behind the US only in consumption of oil - and it is rapidly catching up.
Because of their increasing reliance on coal-fired power stations to provide their energy, the Chinese are firmly on course to overtake the Americans as the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, and thus become the biggest contributors to global warming and the destabilisation of the climate. If they remain uncontrolled, the growth of China's carbon dioxide emissions over the next 20 years will dwarf any cuts in CO2 that the rest of the world can make.
Even that, however, is not the ultimate threat from an economy which is growing at a rate the world has never seen before. According to Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington DC, the leading American environmental analyst, China's scarcely imaginable growth in the coming years means that the world's population will simply run up against the limits of the planet's natural resources sooner than anyone imagines.
If growth continues at 8 per cent a year, Mr Brown said, by 2031 China's population, likely to be 1.45 billion on current UN predictions, will have an income per person equivalent to that of the US today. He said: "China's grain consumption will then be two-thirds of the current grain consumption for the entire world. If it consumes oil at the same rate as the US today, the Chinese will be consuming 99 million barrels a day - and the whole world is currently producing 84 million barrels a day, and will probably not produce much more.
"If it consumes paper at the same rate we do, it will consume twice as much paper as the world is now producing. There go the world's forests. If the Chinese then have three cars for every four people - as the US does today - they would have a fleet of 1.1 billion cars, compared to the current world fleet of 800 million. They would have to pave over an area equivalent to the area they have planted with rice today, just to drive and park them."
Mr Brown, who has been tracking and documenting the world's major environmental trends for 30 years, went on: "The point of these conclusions is simply to demonstrate that the western economic model is not going to work for China. All they're doing is what we've already done, so you can't criticise them for that. But what you can say is, it's not going to work. And if it doesn't work for China, by 2031 it won't work for India, which by then will have an even larger population, nor for the other three billion people in the developing countries.
"And in some way it will not work for the industrialised countries either, because in the incredibly integrated global economy, we all depend on the same oil and the same grain.
"The bottom line of this analysis is that we're going to have to develop a new economic model. Instead of a fossil-fuel based, automobile-centred, throw-away economy we will have to have a renewable-energy based, diversified transport system, and comprehensive reuse and recycle economies. "If we want civilisation to survive, we will have to have that. Otherwise civilisation will collapse."
The Greenpeace report is one of the first major indictments of the catastrophic environmental effects the great Chinese industrial behemoth is starting to have on the rest of the world.
The ecological damage that China's breakneck industrialisation is having on the country itself has been widely recognised. In an interview earlier this year, China's deputy environment minister, Pan Yue, said five of the 10 most polluted cities worldwide are in China; acid rain is falling on one-third of the country; half of the water in its seven largest rivers is "completely useless"; a quarter of China's citizens lack access to clean drinking water; one-third of the urban population is breathing polluted air; and less than a fifth of the rubbish in cities is treated and processed in an environmentally sustainable way. But China's malign environmental "footprint" on other countries has been less widely reported.
John Sauven, forest campaigner for Greenpeace UK, said: "Western politicians, who think only in terms of gross domestic product, have seen China as some sort of economic wonderland. Tony Blair went to China with British businessmen in September and said how he wanted a slice of the cake. But the growth figures mask an environmental catastrophe. The Chinese are ripping the heart out of the world's irreplaceable rainforests to make cheap products like plywood for Western consumer markets."
The Greenpeace report details how, with incredible speed, China has become the world's largest plywood producer and exporter. Its export market has grown from less than one million cubic metres per annum in 1998 to nearly 11 million cubic metres in 2004.
China banned logging in large areas of its own natural forest in 1998 after catastrophic floods, themselves a direct result of deforestation, killed thousands of people. "This ban, coupled with massive growth in Chinese timber processing capacity and a liberalisation of trade barriers, led China to look overseas in its hunger for timber," says the Greenpeace report.
In one area of China investigated by the group, there were no fewer than 9,000 plywood mills taking in vast numbers of ancient hardwood trees from rainforests in countries such as Papua New Guinea, which are used merely to make plywood panels. Greenpeace contends that many of these trees, if not the majority, have been illegally logged.
The report, entitled Partners in Crime, does not blame only China - it accuses timber barons in rainforest countries of corruption in illegally supplying the wood, and builders' merchants and DIY outlets in Britain of culpable negligence in supplying plywood without establishing its origin. Chinese hardwood plywood imports to the UK have gone from 1 per cent of the total in 2001 to 30 per cent this year.
Greenpeace wants the EU, and failing that, Britain alone, to outlaw the import of timber which has not clearly been legally logged. At the moment there are no restrictions on illegally logged timber coming into Britain.
China Crisis: threat to the global environment
Spectacular growth now biggest threat to environment
By Michael McCarthy, Environment Editor
Published: 19 October 2005
Western politicians queue up to sing its praises. Economists regard it with awe and delight. Other countries are desperate to imitate it. Yet there is another side to China's exploding, double-digit-growth miracle economy - it is turning into one of the greatest environmental threats the earth has ever faced.
An ominous sign of the danger is given in a groundbreaking report from Greenpeace, published today, which maintains that China is now by far the world's biggest driver of rainforest destruction. The report documents the vast deforestation driven by the soaring demands of China's enormous timber trade - the world's largest - as the country's headlong economic development sucks in ever-more amounts of the earth's natural resources.
Citing figures from the International Tropical Timber Organisation, the Greenpeace study says that nearly five out of every 10 tropical hardwood logs shipped from the world's threatened rainforests are now heading for China - more than to any other destination.
Yet deforestation is only one of the threats to the planet posed by an economy of 1.3 billion people that has now overtaken the United States as the world's leading consumer of four out of the five basic food, energy and industrial commodities - grain, meat, oil, coal and steel. China now lags behind the US only in consumption of oil - and it is rapidly catching up.
Because of their increasing reliance on coal-fired power stations to provide their energy, the Chinese are firmly on course to overtake the Americans as the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, and thus become the biggest contributors to global warming and the destabilisation of the climate. If they remain uncontrolled, the growth of China's carbon dioxide emissions over the next 20 years will dwarf any cuts in CO2 that the rest of the world can make.
Even that, however, is not the ultimate threat from an economy which is growing at a rate the world has never seen before. According to Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington DC, the leading American environmental analyst, China's scarcely imaginable growth in the coming years means that the world's population will simply run up against the limits of the planet's natural resources sooner than anyone imagines.
If growth continues at 8 per cent a year, Mr Brown said, by 2031 China's population, likely to be 1.45 billion on current UN predictions, will have an income per person equivalent to that of the US today. He said: "China's grain consumption will then be two-thirds of the current grain consumption for the entire world. If it consumes oil at the same rate as the US today, the Chinese will be consuming 99 million barrels a day - and the whole world is currently producing 84 million barrels a day, and will probably not produce much more.
"If it consumes paper at the same rate we do, it will consume twice as much paper as the world is now producing. There go the world's forests. If the Chinese then have three cars for every four people - as the US does today - they would have a fleet of 1.1 billion cars, compared to the current world fleet of 800 million. They would have to pave over an area equivalent to the area they have planted with rice today, just to drive and park them."
Mr Brown, who has been tracking and documenting the world's major environmental trends for 30 years, went on: "The point of these conclusions is simply to demonstrate that the western economic model is not going to work for China. All they're doing is what we've already done, so you can't criticise them for that. But what you can say is, it's not going to work. And if it doesn't work for China, by 2031 it won't work for India, which by then will have an even larger population, nor for the other three billion people in the developing countries.
"And in some way it will not work for the industrialised countries either, because in the incredibly integrated global economy, we all depend on the same oil and the same grain.
"The bottom line of this analysis is that we're going to have to develop a new economic model. Instead of a fossil-fuel based, automobile-centred, throw-away economy we will have to have a renewable-energy based, diversified transport system, and comprehensive reuse and recycle economies. "If we want civilisation to survive, we will have to have that. Otherwise civilisation will collapse."
The Greenpeace report is one of the first major indictments of the catastrophic environmental effects the great Chinese industrial behemoth is starting to have on the rest of the world.
The ecological damage that China's breakneck industrialisation is having on the country itself has been widely recognised. In an interview earlier this year, China's deputy environment minister, Pan Yue, said five of the 10 most polluted cities worldwide are in China; acid rain is falling on one-third of the country; half of the water in its seven largest rivers is "completely useless"; a quarter of China's citizens lack access to clean drinking water; one-third of the urban population is breathing polluted air; and less than a fifth of the rubbish in cities is treated and processed in an environmentally sustainable way. But China's malign environmental "footprint" on other countries has been less widely reported.
John Sauven, forest campaigner for Greenpeace UK, said: "Western politicians, who think only in terms of gross domestic product, have seen China as some sort of economic wonderland. Tony Blair went to China with British businessmen in September and said how he wanted a slice of the cake. But the growth figures mask an environmental catastrophe. The Chinese are ripping the heart out of the world's irreplaceable rainforests to make cheap products like plywood for Western consumer markets."
The Greenpeace report details how, with incredible speed, China has become the world's largest plywood producer and exporter. Its export market has grown from less than one million cubic metres per annum in 1998 to nearly 11 million cubic metres in 2004.
China banned logging in large areas of its own natural forest in 1998 after catastrophic floods, themselves a direct result of deforestation, killed thousands of people. "This ban, coupled with massive growth in Chinese timber processing capacity and a liberalisation of trade barriers, led China to look overseas in its hunger for timber," says the Greenpeace report.
In one area of China investigated by the group, there were no fewer than 9,000 plywood mills taking in vast numbers of ancient hardwood trees from rainforests in countries such as Papua New Guinea, which are used merely to make plywood panels. Greenpeace contends that many of these trees, if not the majority, have been illegally logged.
The report, entitled Partners in Crime, does not blame only China - it accuses timber barons in rainforest countries of corruption in illegally supplying the wood, and builders' merchants and DIY outlets in Britain of culpable negligence in supplying plywood without establishing its origin. Chinese hardwood plywood imports to the UK have gone from 1 per cent of the total in 2001 to 30 per cent this year.
Greenpeace wants the EU, and failing that, Britain alone, to outlaw the import of timber which has not clearly been legally logged. At the moment there are no restrictions on illegally logged timber coming into Britain.
THE NUMBERS
Consumption
China - growing at nearly 10% a year - already consumes more grain, meat, coal and steel than the United States
Wealth
China's population will grow from 1.3 billion to 1.45 billion in 26 years - when per capita income will be equal to that of the US today
Oil
On current trends, China will by 2031 be consuming 99 million barrels of oil per day. Total world production today is only 84 million bpd
Forestry
China is already the biggest driver of rainforest destruction, says Greenpeace. Half of all rainforest logs head for China
Global warming
By 2025, China will overtake the US as the top emitter of the greenhouse gases causing global warming
Cars
By 2031, China would have 1.1 billion cars if it matches current US trends - bigger than the current world fleet of 800 million
Western politicians queue up to sing its praises. Economists regard it with awe and delight. Other countries are desperate to imitate it. Yet there is another side to China's exploding, double-digit-growth miracle economy - it is turning into one of the greatest environmental threats the earth has ever faced.
An ominous sign of the danger is given in a groundbreaking report from Greenpeace, published today, which maintains that China is now by far the world's biggest driver of rainforest destruction. The report documents the vast deforestation driven by the soaring demands of China's enormous timber trade - the world's largest - as the country's headlong economic development sucks in ever-more amounts of the earth's natural resources.
Citing figures from the International Tropical Timber Organisation, the Greenpeace study says that nearly five out of every 10 tropical hardwood logs shipped from the world's threatened rainforests are now heading for China - more than to any other destination.
Yet deforestation is only one of the threats to the planet posed by an economy of 1.3 billion people that has now overtaken the United States as the world's leading consumer of four out of the five basic food, energy and industrial commodities - grain, meat, oil, coal and steel. China now lags behind the US only in consumption of oil - and it is rapidly catching up.
Because of their increasing reliance on coal-fired power stations to provide their energy, the Chinese are firmly on course to overtake the Americans as the world's biggest emitters of greenhouse gases, and thus become the biggest contributors to global warming and the destabilisation of the climate. If they remain uncontrolled, the growth of China's carbon dioxide emissions over the next 20 years will dwarf any cuts in CO2 that the rest of the world can make.
Even that, however, is not the ultimate threat from an economy which is growing at a rate the world has never seen before. According to Lester Brown of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington DC, the leading American environmental analyst, China's scarcely imaginable growth in the coming years means that the world's population will simply run up against the limits of the planet's natural resources sooner than anyone imagines.
If growth continues at 8 per cent a year, Mr Brown said, by 2031 China's population, likely to be 1.45 billion on current UN predictions, will have an income per person equivalent to that of the US today. He said: "China's grain consumption will then be two-thirds of the current grain consumption for the entire world. If it consumes oil at the same rate as the US today, the Chinese will be consuming 99 million barrels a day - and the whole world is currently producing 84 million barrels a day, and will probably not produce much more.
"If it consumes paper at the same rate we do, it will consume twice as much paper as the world is now producing. There go the world's forests. If the Chinese then have three cars for every four people - as the US does today - they would have a fleet of 1.1 billion cars, compared to the current world fleet of 800 million. They would have to pave over an area equivalent to the area they have planted with rice today, just to drive and park them."
Mr Brown, who has been tracking and documenting the world's major environmental trends for 30 years, went on: "The point of these conclusions is simply to demonstrate that the western economic model is not going to work for China. All they're doing is what we've already done, so you can't criticise them for that. But what you can say is, it's not going to work. And if it doesn't work for China, by 2031 it won't work for India, which by then will have an even larger population, nor for the other three billion people in the developing countries.
"And in some way it will not work for the industrialised countries either, because in the incredibly integrated global economy, we all depend on the same oil and the same grain.
"The bottom line of this analysis is that we're going to have to develop a new economic model. Instead of a fossil-fuel based, automobile-centred, throw-away economy we will have to have a renewable-energy based, diversified transport system, and comprehensive reuse and recycle economies. "If we want civilisation to survive, we will have to have that. Otherwise civilisation will collapse."
The Greenpeace report is one of the first major indictments of the catastrophic environmental effects the great Chinese industrial behemoth is starting to have on the rest of the world.
The ecological damage that China's breakneck industrialisation is having on the country itself has been widely recognised. In an interview earlier this year, China's deputy environment minister, Pan Yue, said five of the 10 most polluted cities worldwide are in China; acid rain is falling on one-third of the country; half of the water in its seven largest rivers is "completely useless"; a quarter of China's citizens lack access to clean drinking water; one-third of the urban population is breathing polluted air; and less than a fifth of the rubbish in cities is treated and processed in an environmentally sustainable way. But China's malign environmental "footprint" on other countries has been less widely reported.
John Sauven, forest campaigner for Greenpeace UK, said: "Western politicians, who think only in terms of gross domestic product, have seen China as some sort of economic wonderland. Tony Blair went to China with British businessmen in September and said how he wanted a slice of the cake. But the growth figures mask an environmental catastrophe. The Chinese are ripping the heart out of the world's irreplaceable rainforests to make cheap products like plywood for Western consumer markets."
The Greenpeace report details how, with incredible speed, China has become the world's largest plywood producer and exporter. Its export market has grown from less than one million cubic metres per annum in 1998 to nearly 11 million cubic metres in 2004.
China banned logging in large areas of its own natural forest in 1998 after catastrophic floods, themselves a direct result of deforestation, killed thousands of people. "This ban, coupled with massive growth in Chinese timber processing capacity and a liberalisation of trade barriers, led China to look overseas in its hunger for timber," says the Greenpeace report.
In one area of China investigated by the group, there were no fewer than 9,000 plywood mills taking in vast numbers of ancient hardwood trees from rainforests in countries such as Papua New Guinea, which are used merely to make plywood panels. Greenpeace contends that many of these trees, if not the majority, have been illegally logged.
The report, entitled Partners in Crime, does not blame only China - it accuses timber barons in rainforest countries of corruption in illegally supplying the wood, and builders' merchants and DIY outlets in Britain of culpable negligence in supplying plywood without establishing its origin. Chinese hardwood plywood imports to the UK have gone from 1 per cent of the total in 2001 to 30 per cent this year.
Greenpeace wants the EU, and failing that, Britain alone, to outlaw the import of timber which has not clearly been legally logged. At the moment there are no restrictions on illegally logged timber coming into Britain.
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle...ticle320555.ece
As Saddam faces his judges, the nation he ruled for 35 years still fears his power
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
Published: 19 October 2005
"His morale is very, very, very high and he is very optimistic and confident of his innocence, although the court is ... unjust" Even as he stands trial in Baghdad today after almost two years in prison, Saddam Hussein's name still carries a charge of fear for Iraqis.
"The problem was to get judges who were not afraid to prosecute Saddam despite intimidation and threats," Hoshyar Zebari, the Foreign Minister, told The Independent yesterday. Although Saddam was overthrown in April 2003, many people in Baghdad remained fearful of saying his name, the minister said.
Mr Zebari, a Kurd who spent his life fighting Saddam's regime, is eager to get proceedings under way and says it was a serious mistake not to have begun months ago. He believes that Saddam remains an important motivator for Baathists fighting the new government.
"It will really be the trial of the history of his regime over 35 years," Mr Zebari said, referring particularly to the day that the bodies of 500 members of the Barzani tribe, of whom 8,000 were massacred in 1983, were brought back to Kurdistan to be buried.
"Every family can make a case against Saddam," he said. "Even the mountains, the water, the marshes of Iraq can testify against him. We have to bring to an end this dark chapter in Iraqi history."
Personally, Mr Zebari said, he would like a swift trial, but he did not think this would happen. He implied there would be a brief opening session and then the trial would be delayed for several weeks. This would allow the defence lawyers to read the evidence and for arrangements to be made to protect witnesses. "Those who are going to testify against him need security protection."
American and Iraqi officials have also said that there is likely to be a delay of several weeks before the full trial of Saddam Hussein and seven other defendants gets under way.
The charges against Saddam and the seven others in the dock today relate to the killing of 143 men from the village of Dujail, north of Baghdad, after an assassination attempt against Saddam in 1982. This incident, hitherto little publicised, was chosen because there is paper evidence linking the former leader to the murders. Although the number of dead was limited compared to other massacres, the cruel collective punishment was typical of Saddam's secret police approach throughout his 35 years in power.
Other cases being investigated include the killing of at least 185,000 Kurds in the Anfal campaign by the Iraqi army in 1987-88, and the slaughter of thousands of Shia after the crushing of the 1991 uprising. There is also the murder of Shia religious leaders on different occasions and the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Some 40 tons of documents are still being examined.
Iran said yesterday it had sent its own charges to the Iraqi court, related to the use of chemical weapons against civilians during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, in which more than 500,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands wounded.
Of the 17 members of the Dawa party who opened fire on Saddam's surprisingly lightly guarded motorcade in Dujail in 1992, eight were killed and nine fled to Iran.
Ibrahim al-Jaafari, now Iraqi Prime Minister, who was a leader of Dawa at the time, says he is puzzled why the case took so long to put together. "Any more delay will bring Iraq, the judiciary and the government into question. It's the right of every Iraqi citizen to ask why it took so long to prepare the Dujail case."
Going by a brief earlier court appearance by Saddam, the fallen leader will seek to dominate the proceedings and use them as a political podium. For this reason the court officials are still equivocating on whether or not to allow live television coverage or delay broadcasts by 20 to 30 minutes so they can be censored.
Mr Zebari said contemptuously that "people are saying that Saddam is going to try the occupation, Saddam is going to try the government, but really we are not afraid of that. I don't think that even the US or Britain are afraid of this."
The trial will take place in a former Baath party headquarters in Baghdad, which has been rebuilt with two modern courtrooms. Although the proceedings are being presented as wholly Iraqi, the US has reportedly spent $138m (£79m) on construction and is paying 50 American, British and Australian lawyers and support staff. The Special Tribunal before which Saddam will be appearing was set up by the American occupation in 2003.
Saddam's defence will be conducted by Khalil al- Dulaimi, who meets his notorious client at Camp Cropper, the US army detention close to Baghdad airport, where he is held. Mr Dulaimi will seek to have the case dismissed on the grounds that the tribunal was set up by the US and is therefore illegal.
He is also expected to seek a dismissal on the grounds that he has not read 800 pages of evidence and been allowed sufficient access to his client. He spent one and a half hours with Saddam yesterday and told reporters afterwards: "His morale is very, very, very high and he is very optimistic and confident of his innocence, although the court is ... unjust."
As for its political and military effects, although the Iraqi resistance to the change in regime, at least in its initial phase, was probably guided by former members of the Iraqi security services and the Baath party, it is not clear that this is still so. The US has sought to portray all the insurgency as being directed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his fanatical Sunni militants.
Many Sunnis will regard the trial as further evidence that they are being persecuted by the Shia-Kurdish majority, who make up 80 per cent of the Iraqi population.
Although only a minority of Sunnis, notably the Tikritis and those related to Saddam, benefited substantially from his rule, many have since come to regard it as a lost era of security and prosperity.
Mr Zebari cited recent Baath party literature as evidence. It says that the trial today should greeted by "firing deadly bullets to kill as many enemy agents as possible".
But as the old regime savagely persecuted the Islamic militants who are now fighting the government and the US occupation. They will presumably not be distressed to see Saddam on trial.
Today is certainly a significant day in Iraqi history. Saddam dominated life for more than a third of a century. His picture, variously dressed in a business suit, Kurdish tunic, Arab robes and military uniform, once decorated every street.
He was never a stupid man, but he came to see himself as a demi-God whose wishes or ideas even his most senior lieutenants found it dangerous to criticise. He identified with historic leaders from Hammurabi to Saladin and pictured himself in heroic mode.
Although never a professional soldier, his vision of himself was as a conqueror. He inherited a country that had great oil wealthy, an effective administration and an increasingly well-educated population and ruined it by launching two disastrous wars, the first against Iran in 1980 and the second against Kuwait in 1990.
Sunnis may still see him as part of their community and most Kurds and Shias will want to see him executed, but all will watch today's trial with fascination.Human rights organisations in the West, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have criticised the structure of the proceedings, saying it could produce a "victors' justice".
They have highlighted such issues as the burden of proof, political influence over the court and the use of the death penalty. "We have grave concerns that the court will not provide the fair trial guarantees required by international law," said Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch.
Mr Jaafari yesterday dismissed such concerns, saying: "This government takes pride in adhering to the rule of law and the separation of powers. As the head of the executive branch [I can say] we have not interfered in any way with the progress of the trial."
Former dictator on trial for his life
THE DEFENDANT
Once the darling of the West, Saddam Hussein held effective power since 1968 and absolute power in Iraq from 1979, when he became President and embarked on the first bloodletting that punctuated his 35-year rule by purging the ruling Baathist party. A year later Iran was attacked at the start of an eight-year war in which Saddam enjoyed the support of the US and Britain against the revolutionary Islamic leaders in Tehran. In 1988, when Iraqi forces used used chemical weapons against the Kurdish town of Halabja, killing some 5,000 civilians, Western governments averted their gaze. But Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 triggered both UN economic sanctions and the first Gulf war, which rolled back the occupation. Then followed a decade of in effect UN trusteeship of Saddam's country, while weapons inspectors scoured Iraq. But the containment policy began to leak and Saddam consolidated his power under the sanctions regime. The Bush administration vowed to rid the world of a dictator accused of concealing banned weapons programmes. After 11 September 2001, the military plans were put in place. Saddam fled as tanks rolled into Baghdad in April 2003 and was captured eight months later, taken from a hole near his home town of Tikrit.
THE COURT
The marble-lined court, below, decorated by chandeliers, is in a building where Saddam used to store gifts. It had not been decided yesterday whether the proceedings will be televised live or with a delay. It was also not known whether the five judges would be named or pictured. Some witnesses are to give evidence from behind a curtain to protect their anonymity, while observers and journalists will be behind bulletproof glass. Saddam and his co-defendants are being tried before an all-Iraqi special tribunal, set up in 2003 by the US-led authorities and now overseen by the elected government. It consists of trial chambers with five judges in each. The judges will hear the case without a jury. The prosecutor and Saddam's defence lawyer may propose questions for the judges to ask. US and British legal experts are on hand as advisers.
THE CHARGES
The first case to be brought against Saddam, 68, concerns the 1982 massacre of 143 Shias in the village of Dujail. Saddam is accused of crimes against humanity for the killings, which took place after an assassination attempt by a Shia party trying to revenge the murder of a party founder. The prosecution hopes that Saddam's direct responsibility can be shown more easily in Dujail than in bigger crimes, such as the Halabja attacks or the 1991 suppression of Kurdish and Shia uprisings, which could form the basis of later trials. Saddam is on trial with seven other co-defendants, including his half brother.
THE PROSECUTION
The 800-page indictment against Saddam, drawn up by the chief investigative judge, Raad Jouhi, has not been made public. The case against Saddam will be presented by the chief prosecutor of the tribunal, who heads a team of 20 prosecutors. The accused can be convicted on the "satisfaction" of the judges. Guilt does not have to be shown "beyond reasonable doubt".
THE DEFENCE
Saddam is not expected to enter a plea today, and his lawyer will ask for a three-month delay. He is being defended by a small team of lawyers led by Khalil Dulaimi, an Iraqi picked by Saddam's eldest daughter, Raghad, who now lives in Jordan. But Mr Dulaimi has little experience of such cases. The British barrister Anthony Scrivener QC has been approached to lead the defence, but will not be in Baghdad for the trial opening. The defence is expected to challenge the legitimacy of the court. As President, Saddam was immune from prosecution under the constitution.
THE OUTCOME
Saddam faces death by hanging or life imprisonment over the Dujail case, but can appeal against the sentence, which must be agreed by three of the five judges. He could be executed while the other cases are still pending.
Anne Penketh
"His morale is very, very, very high and he is very optimistic and confident of his innocence, although the court is ... unjust"
Even as he stands trial in Baghdad today after almost two years in prison, Saddam Hussein's name still carries a charge of fear for Iraqis.
"The problem was to get judges who were not afraid to prosecute Saddam despite intimidation and threats," Hoshyar Zebari, the Foreign Minister, told The Independent yesterday. Although Saddam was overthrown in April 2003, many people in Baghdad remained fearful of saying his name, the minister said.
Mr Zebari, a Kurd who spent his life fighting Saddam's regime, is eager to get proceedings under way and says it was a serious mistake not to have begun months ago. He believes that Saddam remains an important motivator for Baathists fighting the new government.
"It will really be the trial of the history of his regime over 35 years," Mr Zebari said, referring particularly to the day that the bodies of 500 members of the Barzani tribe, of whom 8,000 were massacred in 1983, were brought back to Kurdistan to be buried.
"Every family can make a case against Saddam," he said. "Even the mountains, the water, the marshes of Iraq can testify against him. We have to bring to an end this dark chapter in Iraqi history."
Personally, Mr Zebari said, he would like a swift trial, but he did not think this would happen. He implied there would be a brief opening session and then the trial would be delayed for several weeks. This would allow the defence lawyers to read the evidence and for arrangements to be made to protect witnesses. "Those who are going to testify against him need security protection."
American and Iraqi officials have also said that there is likely to be a delay of several weeks before the full trial of Saddam Hussein and seven other defendants gets under way.
The charges against Saddam and the seven others in the dock today relate to the killing of 143 men from the village of Dujail, north of Baghdad, after an assassination attempt against Saddam in 1982. This incident, hitherto little publicised, was chosen because there is paper evidence linking the former leader to the murders. Although the number of dead was limited compared to other massacres, the cruel collective punishment was typical of Saddam's secret police approach throughout his 35 years in power.
Other cases being investigated include the killing of at least 185,000 Kurds in the Anfal campaign by the Iraqi army in 1987-88, and the slaughter of thousands of Shia after the crushing of the 1991 uprising. There is also the murder of Shia religious leaders on different occasions and the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Some 40 tons of documents are still being examined.
Iran said yesterday it had sent its own charges to the Iraqi court, related to the use of chemical weapons against civilians during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, in which more than 500,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands wounded.
Of the 17 members of the Dawa party who opened fire on Saddam's surprisingly lightly guarded motorcade in Dujail in 1992, eight were killed and nine fled to Iran.
Ibrahim al-Jaafari, now Iraqi Prime Minister, who was a leader of Dawa at the time, says he is puzzled why the case took so long to put together. "Any more delay will bring Iraq, the judiciary and the government into question. It's the right of every Iraqi citizen to ask why it took so long to prepare the Dujail case."
Going by a brief earlier court appearance by Saddam, the fallen leader will seek to dominate the proceedings and use them as a political podium. For this reason the court officials are still equivocating on whether or not to allow live television coverage or delay broadcasts by 20 to 30 minutes so they can be censored.
Mr Zebari said contemptuously that "people are saying that Saddam is going to try the occupation, Saddam is going to try the government, but really we are not afraid of that. I don't think that even the US or Britain are afraid of this."
The trial will take place in a former Baath party headquarters in Baghdad, which has been rebuilt with two modern courtrooms. Although the proceedings are being presented as wholly Iraqi, the US has reportedly spent $138m (£79m) on construction and is paying 50 American, British and Australian lawyers and support staff. The Special Tribunal before which Saddam will be appearing was set up by the American occupation in 2003.
Saddam's defence will be conducted by Khalil al- Dulaimi, who meets his notorious client at Camp Cropper, the US army detention close to Baghdad airport, where he is held. Mr Dulaimi will seek to have the case dismissed on the grounds that the tribunal was set up by the US and is therefore illegal.
He is also expected to seek a dismissal on the grounds that he has not read 800 pages of evidence and been allowed sufficient access to his client. He spent one and a half hours with Saddam yesterday and told reporters afterwards: "His morale is very, very, very high and he is very optimistic and confident of his innocence, although the court is ... unjust."
As for its political and military effects, although the Iraqi resistance to the change in regime, at least in its initial phase, was probably guided by former members of the Iraqi security services and the Baath party, it is not clear that this is still so. The US has sought to portray all the insurgency as being directed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his fanatical Sunni militants.
Many Sunnis will regard the trial as further evidence that they are being persecuted by the Shia-Kurdish majority, who make up 80 per cent of the Iraqi population.
Although only a minority of Sunnis, notably the Tikritis and those related to Saddam, benefited substantially from his rule, many have since come to regard it as a lost era of security and prosperity.
Mr Zebari cited recent Baath party literature as evidence. It says that the trial today should greeted by "firing deadly bullets to kill as many enemy agents as possible".
But as the old regime savagely persecuted the Islamic militants who are now fighting the government and the US occupation. They will presumably not be distressed to see Saddam on trial.
Today is certainly a significant day in Iraqi history. Saddam dominated life for more than a third of a century. His picture, variously dressed in a business suit, Kurdish tunic, Arab robes and military uniform, once decorated every street.
He was never a stupid man, but he came to see himself as a demi-God whose wishes or ideas even his most senior lieutenants found it dangerous to criticise. He identified with historic leaders from Hammurabi to Saladin and pictured himself in heroic mode.
Although never a professional soldier, his vision of himself was as a conqueror. He inherited a country that had great oil wealthy, an effective administration and an increasingly well-educated population and ruined it by launching two disastrous wars, the first against Iran in 1980 and the second against Kuwait in 1990.
Sunnis may still see him as part of their community and most Kurds and Shias will want to see him executed, but all will watch today's trial with fascination.Human rights organisations in the West, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have criticised the structure of the proceedings, saying it could produce a "victors' justice".
They have highlighted such issues as the burden of proof, political influence over the court and the use of the death penalty. "We have grave concerns that the court will not provide the fair trial guarantees required by international law," said Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch.
Mr Jaafari yesterday dismissed such concerns, saying: "This government takes pride in adhering to the rule of law and the separation of powers. As the head of the executive branch [I can say] we have not interfered in any way with the progress of the trial."
Former dictator on trial for his life
THE DEFENDANT
Once the darling of the West, Saddam Hussein held effective power since 1968 and absolute power in Iraq from 1979, when he became President and embarked on the first bloodletting that punctuated his 35-year rule by purging the ruling Baathist party. A year later Iran was attacked at the start of an eight-year war in which Saddam enjoyed the support of the US and Britain against the revolutionary Islamic leaders in Tehran. In 1988, when Iraqi forces used used chemical weapons against the Kurdish town of Halabja, killing some 5,000 civilians, Western governments averted their gaze. But Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 triggered both UN economic sanctions and the first Gulf war, which rolled back the occupation. Then followed a decade of in effect UN trusteeship of Saddam's country, while weapons inspectors scoured Iraq. But the containment policy began to leak and Saddam consolidated his power under the sanctions regime. The Bush administration vowed to rid the world of a dictator accused of concealing banned weapons programmes. After 11 September 2001, the military plans were put in place. Saddam fled as tanks rolled into Baghdad in April 2003 and was captured eight months later, taken from a hole near his home town of Tikrit.
THE COURT
The marble-lined court, below, decorated by chandeliers, is in a building where Saddam used to store gifts. It had not been decided yesterday whether the proceedings will be televised live or with a delay. It was also not known whether the five judges would be named or pictured. Some witnesses are to give evidence from behind a curtain to protect their anonymity, while observers and journalists will be behind bulletproof glass. Saddam and his co-defendants are being tried before an all-Iraqi special tribunal, set up in 2003 by the US-led authorities and now overseen by the elected government. It consists of trial chambers with five judges in each. The judges will hear the case without a jury. The prosecutor and Saddam's defence lawyer may propose questions for the judges to ask. US and British legal experts are on hand as advisers.
THE CHARGES
The first case to be brought against Saddam, 68, concerns the 1982 massacre of 143 Shias in the village of Dujail. Saddam is accused of crimes against humanity for the killings, which took place after an assassination attempt by a Shia party trying to revenge the murder of a party founder. The prosecution hopes that Saddam's direct responsibility can be shown more easily in Dujail than in bigger crimes, such as the Halabja attacks or the 1991 suppression of Kurdish and Shia uprisings, which could form the basis of later trials. Saddam is on trial with seven other co-defendants, including his half brother.
THE PROSECUTION
The 800-page indictment against Saddam, drawn up by the chief investigative judge, Raad Jouhi, has not been made public. The case against Saddam will be presented by the chief prosecutor of the tribunal, who heads a team of 20 prosecutors. The accused can be convicted on the "satisfaction" of the judges. Guilt does not have to be shown "beyond reasonable doubt".
THE DEFENCE
Saddam is not expected to enter a plea today, and his lawyer will ask for a three-month delay. He is being defended by a small team of lawyers led by Khalil Dulaimi, an Iraqi picked by Saddam's eldest daughter, Raghad, who now lives in Jordan. But Mr Dulaimi has little experience of such cases. The British barrister Anthony Scrivener QC has been approached to lead the defence, but will not be in Baghdad for the trial opening. The defence is expected to challenge the legitimacy of the court. As President, Saddam was immune from prosecution under the constitution.
THE OUTCOME
Saddam faces death by hanging or life imprisonment over the Dujail case, but can appeal against the sentence, which must be agreed by three of the five judges. He could be executed while the other cases are still pending.
Anne Penketh
As Saddam faces his judges, the nation he ruled for 35 years still fears his power
By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad
Published: 19 October 2005
"His morale is very, very, very high and he is very optimistic and confident of his innocence, although the court is ... unjust" Even as he stands trial in Baghdad today after almost two years in prison, Saddam Hussein's name still carries a charge of fear for Iraqis.
"The problem was to get judges who were not afraid to prosecute Saddam despite intimidation and threats," Hoshyar Zebari, the Foreign Minister, told The Independent yesterday. Although Saddam was overthrown in April 2003, many people in Baghdad remained fearful of saying his name, the minister said.
Mr Zebari, a Kurd who spent his life fighting Saddam's regime, is eager to get proceedings under way and says it was a serious mistake not to have begun months ago. He believes that Saddam remains an important motivator for Baathists fighting the new government.
"It will really be the trial of the history of his regime over 35 years," Mr Zebari said, referring particularly to the day that the bodies of 500 members of the Barzani tribe, of whom 8,000 were massacred in 1983, were brought back to Kurdistan to be buried.
"Every family can make a case against Saddam," he said. "Even the mountains, the water, the marshes of Iraq can testify against him. We have to bring to an end this dark chapter in Iraqi history."
Personally, Mr Zebari said, he would like a swift trial, but he did not think this would happen. He implied there would be a brief opening session and then the trial would be delayed for several weeks. This would allow the defence lawyers to read the evidence and for arrangements to be made to protect witnesses. "Those who are going to testify against him need security protection."
American and Iraqi officials have also said that there is likely to be a delay of several weeks before the full trial of Saddam Hussein and seven other defendants gets under way.
The charges against Saddam and the seven others in the dock today relate to the killing of 143 men from the village of Dujail, north of Baghdad, after an assassination attempt against Saddam in 1982. This incident, hitherto little publicised, was chosen because there is paper evidence linking the former leader to the murders. Although the number of dead was limited compared to other massacres, the cruel collective punishment was typical of Saddam's secret police approach throughout his 35 years in power.
Other cases being investigated include the killing of at least 185,000 Kurds in the Anfal campaign by the Iraqi army in 1987-88, and the slaughter of thousands of Shia after the crushing of the 1991 uprising. There is also the murder of Shia religious leaders on different occasions and the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Some 40 tons of documents are still being examined.
Iran said yesterday it had sent its own charges to the Iraqi court, related to the use of chemical weapons against civilians during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, in which more than 500,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands wounded.
Of the 17 members of the Dawa party who opened fire on Saddam's surprisingly lightly guarded motorcade in Dujail in 1992, eight were killed and nine fled to Iran.
Ibrahim al-Jaafari, now Iraqi Prime Minister, who was a leader of Dawa at the time, says he is puzzled why the case took so long to put together. "Any more delay will bring Iraq, the judiciary and the government into question. It's the right of every Iraqi citizen to ask why it took so long to prepare the Dujail case."
Going by a brief earlier court appearance by Saddam, the fallen leader will seek to dominate the proceedings and use them as a political podium. For this reason the court officials are still equivocating on whether or not to allow live television coverage or delay broadcasts by 20 to 30 minutes so they can be censored.
Mr Zebari said contemptuously that "people are saying that Saddam is going to try the occupation, Saddam is going to try the government, but really we are not afraid of that. I don't think that even the US or Britain are afraid of this."
The trial will take place in a former Baath party headquarters in Baghdad, which has been rebuilt with two modern courtrooms. Although the proceedings are being presented as wholly Iraqi, the US has reportedly spent $138m (£79m) on construction and is paying 50 American, British and Australian lawyers and support staff. The Special Tribunal before which Saddam will be appearing was set up by the American occupation in 2003.
Saddam's defence will be conducted by Khalil al- Dulaimi, who meets his notorious client at Camp Cropper, the US army detention close to Baghdad airport, where he is held. Mr Dulaimi will seek to have the case dismissed on the grounds that the tribunal was set up by the US and is therefore illegal.
He is also expected to seek a dismissal on the grounds that he has not read 800 pages of evidence and been allowed sufficient access to his client. He spent one and a half hours with Saddam yesterday and told reporters afterwards: "His morale is very, very, very high and he is very optimistic and confident of his innocence, although the court is ... unjust."
As for its political and military effects, although the Iraqi resistance to the change in regime, at least in its initial phase, was probably guided by former members of the Iraqi security services and the Baath party, it is not clear that this is still so. The US has sought to portray all the insurgency as being directed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his fanatical Sunni militants.
Many Sunnis will regard the trial as further evidence that they are being persecuted by the Shia-Kurdish majority, who make up 80 per cent of the Iraqi population.
Although only a minority of Sunnis, notably the Tikritis and those related to Saddam, benefited substantially from his rule, many have since come to regard it as a lost era of security and prosperity.
Mr Zebari cited recent Baath party literature as evidence. It says that the trial today should greeted by "firing deadly bullets to kill as many enemy agents as possible".
But as the old regime savagely persecuted the Islamic militants who are now fighting the government and the US occupation. They will presumably not be distressed to see Saddam on trial.
Today is certainly a significant day in Iraqi history. Saddam dominated life for more than a third of a century. His picture, variously dressed in a business suit, Kurdish tunic, Arab robes and military uniform, once decorated every street.
He was never a stupid man, but he came to see himself as a demi-God whose wishes or ideas even his most senior lieutenants found it dangerous to criticise. He identified with historic leaders from Hammurabi to Saladin and pictured himself in heroic mode.
Although never a professional soldier, his vision of himself was as a conqueror. He inherited a country that had great oil wealthy, an effective administration and an increasingly well-educated population and ruined it by launching two disastrous wars, the first against Iran in 1980 and the second against Kuwait in 1990.
Sunnis may still see him as part of their community and most Kurds and Shias will want to see him executed, but all will watch today's trial with fascination.Human rights organisations in the West, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have criticised the structure of the proceedings, saying it could produce a "victors' justice".
They have highlighted such issues as the burden of proof, political influence over the court and the use of the death penalty. "We have grave concerns that the court will not provide the fair trial guarantees required by international law," said Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch.
Mr Jaafari yesterday dismissed such concerns, saying: "This government takes pride in adhering to the rule of law and the separation of powers. As the head of the executive branch [I can say] we have not interfered in any way with the progress of the trial."
Former dictator on trial for his life
THE DEFENDANT
Once the darling of the West, Saddam Hussein held effective power since 1968 and absolute power in Iraq from 1979, when he became President and embarked on the first bloodletting that punctuated his 35-year rule by purging the ruling Baathist party. A year later Iran was attacked at the start of an eight-year war in which Saddam enjoyed the support of the US and Britain against the revolutionary Islamic leaders in Tehran. In 1988, when Iraqi forces used used chemical weapons against the Kurdish town of Halabja, killing some 5,000 civilians, Western governments averted their gaze. But Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 triggered both UN economic sanctions and the first Gulf war, which rolled back the occupation. Then followed a decade of in effect UN trusteeship of Saddam's country, while weapons inspectors scoured Iraq. But the containment policy began to leak and Saddam consolidated his power under the sanctions regime. The Bush administration vowed to rid the world of a dictator accused of concealing banned weapons programmes. After 11 September 2001, the military plans were put in place. Saddam fled as tanks rolled into Baghdad in April 2003 and was captured eight months later, taken from a hole near his home town of Tikrit.
THE COURT
The marble-lined court, below, decorated by chandeliers, is in a building where Saddam used to store gifts. It had not been decided yesterday whether the proceedings will be televised live or with a delay. It was also not known whether the five judges would be named or pictured. Some witnesses are to give evidence from behind a curtain to protect their anonymity, while observers and journalists will be behind bulletproof glass. Saddam and his co-defendants are being tried before an all-Iraqi special tribunal, set up in 2003 by the US-led authorities and now overseen by the elected government. It consists of trial chambers with five judges in each. The judges will hear the case without a jury. The prosecutor and Saddam's defence lawyer may propose questions for the judges to ask. US and British legal experts are on hand as advisers.
THE CHARGES
The first case to be brought against Saddam, 68, concerns the 1982 massacre of 143 Shias in the village of Dujail. Saddam is accused of crimes against humanity for the killings, which took place after an assassination attempt by a Shia party trying to revenge the murder of a party founder. The prosecution hopes that Saddam's direct responsibility can be shown more easily in Dujail than in bigger crimes, such as the Halabja attacks or the 1991 suppression of Kurdish and Shia uprisings, which could form the basis of later trials. Saddam is on trial with seven other co-defendants, including his half brother.
THE PROSECUTION
The 800-page indictment against Saddam, drawn up by the chief investigative judge, Raad Jouhi, has not been made public. The case against Saddam will be presented by the chief prosecutor of the tribunal, who heads a team of 20 prosecutors. The accused can be convicted on the "satisfaction" of the judges. Guilt does not have to be shown "beyond reasonable doubt".
THE DEFENCE
Saddam is not expected to enter a plea today, and his lawyer will ask for a three-month delay. He is being defended by a small team of lawyers led by Khalil Dulaimi, an Iraqi picked by Saddam's eldest daughter, Raghad, who now lives in Jordan. But Mr Dulaimi has little experience of such cases. The British barrister Anthony Scrivener QC has been approached to lead the defence, but will not be in Baghdad for the trial opening. The defence is expected to challenge the legitimacy of the court. As President, Saddam was immune from prosecution under the constitution.
THE OUTCOME
Saddam faces death by hanging or life imprisonment over the Dujail case, but can appeal against the sentence, which must be agreed by three of the five judges. He could be executed while the other cases are still pending.
Anne Penketh
"His morale is very, very, very high and he is very optimistic and confident of his innocence, although the court is ... unjust"
Even as he stands trial in Baghdad today after almost two years in prison, Saddam Hussein's name still carries a charge of fear for Iraqis.
"The problem was to get judges who were not afraid to prosecute Saddam despite intimidation and threats," Hoshyar Zebari, the Foreign Minister, told The Independent yesterday. Although Saddam was overthrown in April 2003, many people in Baghdad remained fearful of saying his name, the minister said.
Mr Zebari, a Kurd who spent his life fighting Saddam's regime, is eager to get proceedings under way and says it was a serious mistake not to have begun months ago. He believes that Saddam remains an important motivator for Baathists fighting the new government.
"It will really be the trial of the history of his regime over 35 years," Mr Zebari said, referring particularly to the day that the bodies of 500 members of the Barzani tribe, of whom 8,000 were massacred in 1983, were brought back to Kurdistan to be buried.
"Every family can make a case against Saddam," he said. "Even the mountains, the water, the marshes of Iraq can testify against him. We have to bring to an end this dark chapter in Iraqi history."
Personally, Mr Zebari said, he would like a swift trial, but he did not think this would happen. He implied there would be a brief opening session and then the trial would be delayed for several weeks. This would allow the defence lawyers to read the evidence and for arrangements to be made to protect witnesses. "Those who are going to testify against him need security protection."
American and Iraqi officials have also said that there is likely to be a delay of several weeks before the full trial of Saddam Hussein and seven other defendants gets under way.
The charges against Saddam and the seven others in the dock today relate to the killing of 143 men from the village of Dujail, north of Baghdad, after an assassination attempt against Saddam in 1982. This incident, hitherto little publicised, was chosen because there is paper evidence linking the former leader to the murders. Although the number of dead was limited compared to other massacres, the cruel collective punishment was typical of Saddam's secret police approach throughout his 35 years in power.
Other cases being investigated include the killing of at least 185,000 Kurds in the Anfal campaign by the Iraqi army in 1987-88, and the slaughter of thousands of Shia after the crushing of the 1991 uprising. There is also the murder of Shia religious leaders on different occasions and the invasion of Kuwait in 1990. Some 40 tons of documents are still being examined.
Iran said yesterday it had sent its own charges to the Iraqi court, related to the use of chemical weapons against civilians during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, in which more than 500,000 people were killed and hundreds of thousands wounded.
Of the 17 members of the Dawa party who opened fire on Saddam's surprisingly lightly guarded motorcade in Dujail in 1992, eight were killed and nine fled to Iran.
Ibrahim al-Jaafari, now Iraqi Prime Minister, who was a leader of Dawa at the time, says he is puzzled why the case took so long to put together. "Any more delay will bring Iraq, the judiciary and the government into question. It's the right of every Iraqi citizen to ask why it took so long to prepare the Dujail case."
Going by a brief earlier court appearance by Saddam, the fallen leader will seek to dominate the proceedings and use them as a political podium. For this reason the court officials are still equivocating on whether or not to allow live television coverage or delay broadcasts by 20 to 30 minutes so they can be censored.
Mr Zebari said contemptuously that "people are saying that Saddam is going to try the occupation, Saddam is going to try the government, but really we are not afraid of that. I don't think that even the US or Britain are afraid of this."
The trial will take place in a former Baath party headquarters in Baghdad, which has been rebuilt with two modern courtrooms. Although the proceedings are being presented as wholly Iraqi, the US has reportedly spent $138m (£79m) on construction and is paying 50 American, British and Australian lawyers and support staff. The Special Tribunal before which Saddam will be appearing was set up by the American occupation in 2003.
Saddam's defence will be conducted by Khalil al- Dulaimi, who meets his notorious client at Camp Cropper, the US army detention close to Baghdad airport, where he is held. Mr Dulaimi will seek to have the case dismissed on the grounds that the tribunal was set up by the US and is therefore illegal.
He is also expected to seek a dismissal on the grounds that he has not read 800 pages of evidence and been allowed sufficient access to his client. He spent one and a half hours with Saddam yesterday and told reporters afterwards: "His morale is very, very, very high and he is very optimistic and confident of his innocence, although the court is ... unjust."
As for its political and military effects, although the Iraqi resistance to the change in regime, at least in its initial phase, was probably guided by former members of the Iraqi security services and the Baath party, it is not clear that this is still so. The US has sought to portray all the insurgency as being directed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his fanatical Sunni militants.
Many Sunnis will regard the trial as further evidence that they are being persecuted by the Shia-Kurdish majority, who make up 80 per cent of the Iraqi population.
Although only a minority of Sunnis, notably the Tikritis and those related to Saddam, benefited substantially from his rule, many have since come to regard it as a lost era of security and prosperity.
Mr Zebari cited recent Baath party literature as evidence. It says that the trial today should greeted by "firing deadly bullets to kill as many enemy agents as possible".
But as the old regime savagely persecuted the Islamic militants who are now fighting the government and the US occupation. They will presumably not be distressed to see Saddam on trial.
Today is certainly a significant day in Iraqi history. Saddam dominated life for more than a third of a century. His picture, variously dressed in a business suit, Kurdish tunic, Arab robes and military uniform, once decorated every street.
He was never a stupid man, but he came to see himself as a demi-God whose wishes or ideas even his most senior lieutenants found it dangerous to criticise. He identified with historic leaders from Hammurabi to Saladin and pictured himself in heroic mode.
Although never a professional soldier, his vision of himself was as a conqueror. He inherited a country that had great oil wealthy, an effective administration and an increasingly well-educated population and ruined it by launching two disastrous wars, the first against Iran in 1980 and the second against Kuwait in 1990.
Sunnis may still see him as part of their community and most Kurds and Shias will want to see him executed, but all will watch today's trial with fascination.Human rights organisations in the West, including Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch, have criticised the structure of the proceedings, saying it could produce a "victors' justice".
They have highlighted such issues as the burden of proof, political influence over the court and the use of the death penalty. "We have grave concerns that the court will not provide the fair trial guarantees required by international law," said Richard Dicker of Human Rights Watch.
Mr Jaafari yesterday dismissed such concerns, saying: "This government takes pride in adhering to the rule of law and the separation of powers. As the head of the executive branch [I can say] we have not interfered in any way with the progress of the trial."
Former dictator on trial for his life
THE DEFENDANT
Once the darling of the West, Saddam Hussein held effective power since 1968 and absolute power in Iraq from 1979, when he became President and embarked on the first bloodletting that punctuated his 35-year rule by purging the ruling Baathist party. A year later Iran was attacked at the start of an eight-year war in which Saddam enjoyed the support of the US and Britain against the revolutionary Islamic leaders in Tehran. In 1988, when Iraqi forces used used chemical weapons against the Kurdish town of Halabja, killing some 5,000 civilians, Western governments averted their gaze. But Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990 triggered both UN economic sanctions and the first Gulf war, which rolled back the occupation. Then followed a decade of in effect UN trusteeship of Saddam's country, while weapons inspectors scoured Iraq. But the containment policy began to leak and Saddam consolidated his power under the sanctions regime. The Bush administration vowed to rid the world of a dictator accused of concealing banned weapons programmes. After 11 September 2001, the military plans were put in place. Saddam fled as tanks rolled into Baghdad in April 2003 and was captured eight months later, taken from a hole near his home town of Tikrit.
THE COURT
The marble-lined court, below, decorated by chandeliers, is in a building where Saddam used to store gifts. It had not been decided yesterday whether the proceedings will be televised live or with a delay. It was also not known whether the five judges would be named or pictured. Some witnesses are to give evidence from behind a curtain to protect their anonymity, while observers and journalists will be behind bulletproof glass. Saddam and his co-defendants are being tried before an all-Iraqi special tribunal, set up in 2003 by the US-led authorities and now overseen by the elected government. It consists of trial chambers with five judges in each. The judges will hear the case without a jury. The prosecutor and Saddam's defence lawyer may propose questions for the judges to ask. US and British legal experts are on hand as advisers.
THE CHARGES
The first case to be brought against Saddam, 68, concerns the 1982 massacre of 143 Shias in the village of Dujail. Saddam is accused of crimes against humanity for the killings, which took place after an assassination attempt by a Shia party trying to revenge the murder of a party founder. The prosecution hopes that Saddam's direct responsibility can be shown more easily in Dujail than in bigger crimes, such as the Halabja attacks or the 1991 suppression of Kurdish and Shia uprisings, which could form the basis of later trials. Saddam is on trial with seven other co-defendants, including his half brother.
THE PROSECUTION
The 800-page indictment against Saddam, drawn up by the chief investigative judge, Raad Jouhi, has not been made public. The case against Saddam will be presented by the chief prosecutor of the tribunal, who heads a team of 20 prosecutors. The accused can be convicted on the "satisfaction" of the judges. Guilt does not have to be shown "beyond reasonable doubt".
THE DEFENCE
Saddam is not expected to enter a plea today, and his lawyer will ask for a three-month delay. He is being defended by a small team of lawyers led by Khalil Dulaimi, an Iraqi picked by Saddam's eldest daughter, Raghad, who now lives in Jordan. But Mr Dulaimi has little experience of such cases. The British barrister Anthony Scrivener QC has been approached to lead the defence, but will not be in Baghdad for the trial opening. The defence is expected to challenge the legitimacy of the court. As President, Saddam was immune from prosecution under the constitution.
THE OUTCOME
Saddam faces death by hanging or life imprisonment over the Dujail case, but can appeal against the sentence, which must be agreed by three of the five judges. He could be executed while the other cases are still pending.
Anne Penketh
http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?Stor...17-032524-4348r
Commentary: Iraq's geopolitical train wreck
By Arnaud de Borchgrave
UPI Editor at Large
Published October 17, 2005
WASHINGTON -- President Bush's national security adviser spelled out precisely why Iraq is now on course for a geopolitical train wreck. In an op-ed published coast-to-coast last weekend, Stephen Hadley makes unmistakably clear Iraq's new constitution is federal with provisions for regional governments that will not be allowed to intrude on the powers of the federal government.
Out of the window is any notion of Iraq as a unitary state, which it has been since its birth in 1920, through five previous constitutional iterations. Now, if the Baghdad federal government objects to "intrusions" in its prerogatives, it will simply be told to mind its own beeswax.
National elections for a new parliament and federal government are scheduled for Dec. 15, and horse-trading over Cabinet posts, which took two to three months for previous provisional authorities, will continue well in to the new year. Then new ministers will begin to staff up their departments, which will take several more weeks.
Meanwhile, Shiite Iraq and Kurdish Iraq are already running their own affairs. The new constitution then becomes a license for both to set up their respective governments and widen their independence vis-à-vis Baghdad. And if Baghdad doesn't like it, it will be told to lump it. Shiite Iraq has its own army with two well-trained and equipped militias, funded by Iran, and the Kurds their fierce Peshmerga fighters.
The constitutional referendum left 34 important issues in abeyance. Fifty of the constitution's 130 clauses are incomplete. They are to be determined later when laws are passed to implement the federal architecture. Baghdad's power to tax is up in the air, state religion is still uncertain, human rights, at least for women, are unclear, the role of the police is unspecified, and the militias are to be disbanded, but the document doesn't say by whom. In the event of a full-fledged civil war, which some knowledgeable observers say is already under way subrosa, federal zones are tailor-made for ethnic cleansing.
There is much media speculation about Arab countries playing a role in countering Iranian influence in Iraq. The United States is encouraging an Arab League-sponsored conference of national reconciliation in the next few weeks. The Bush administration sought to marginalize Iraq's Arab neighbors in the months following the 2003 defeat of Saddam Hussein's regime. Now, both Washington and the Arab League share concern about Iran's growing influence in Iraq, especially among Iraqi Shiites who make up 60 percent of the population.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari blames Arab reluctance to get involved for Iran's unimpeded progress. The United States was betting on the success of the democratic experiment in Iraq to defuse Iranian meddling. But Tehran's shadow keeps growing longer.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's jihadis are the only ones who have taken on Iran indirectly by declaring war on the Shiites. Neither Washington nor Arab capitals relish the idea of finding themselves aligned with al-Qaida's geopolitical objectives. Hence, the attraction of getting Iraq's Arab neighbors to take a more active role to prop up Baghdad. But long-time observers of the Iraqi scene seem to agree only a strongman can keep Iraq together. And that general is yet to emerge from the new Iraqi army. Such a figure would ensure that Iraq's three component parts stick together during a long transitory period.
As several countries have demonstrated over the past 50 years, there is no such thing as instant democratic capitalism. Since World War II, Spain, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Chile went through long periods of authoritarian rule before they were ready for democratic government.
As The Economist noted this week, it is hard to avoid "the conclusion that the campaign to make Iraq a better place has been one of the worst planned and executed in American history."
The uncertainty of Iraq's future, and its destabilizing impact on the Middle East, has already gotten several regional players to think of a nuclear future for themselves. A British intelligence report says both Egypt and Syria have sought to obtain dual-use capabilities from Western countries to advance their nascent, drawing-board nuclear programs. The same intelligence sources say nuclear Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have frequently discussed a nuclear future for the Wahhabi kingdom; both nations have denied this at high levels.
The United States has now failed to persuade Russia and China to allow the U.N. Security Council to take up a resolution that would impose sanctions on Iran for its failure to open all its nuclear installations to IAEA inspection. For the past 18 years, Iran, with the assistance of Pakistan's Dr. "Strangelove" A.Q. Khan, the transnational nuclear black marketer and father of his country's nuclear arsenal, has been working on a secret nuclear weapons program.
With the prospect of a Palestinian state fading once again in the chaos that followed Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, the Middle East is living up to its reputation as the world's most dangerous neighborhood.
Commentary: Iraq's geopolitical train wreck
By Arnaud de Borchgrave
UPI Editor at Large
Published October 17, 2005
WASHINGTON -- President Bush's national security adviser spelled out precisely why Iraq is now on course for a geopolitical train wreck. In an op-ed published coast-to-coast last weekend, Stephen Hadley makes unmistakably clear Iraq's new constitution is federal with provisions for regional governments that will not be allowed to intrude on the powers of the federal government.
Out of the window is any notion of Iraq as a unitary state, which it has been since its birth in 1920, through five previous constitutional iterations. Now, if the Baghdad federal government objects to "intrusions" in its prerogatives, it will simply be told to mind its own beeswax.
National elections for a new parliament and federal government are scheduled for Dec. 15, and horse-trading over Cabinet posts, which took two to three months for previous provisional authorities, will continue well in to the new year. Then new ministers will begin to staff up their departments, which will take several more weeks.
Meanwhile, Shiite Iraq and Kurdish Iraq are already running their own affairs. The new constitution then becomes a license for both to set up their respective governments and widen their independence vis-à-vis Baghdad. And if Baghdad doesn't like it, it will be told to lump it. Shiite Iraq has its own army with two well-trained and equipped militias, funded by Iran, and the Kurds their fierce Peshmerga fighters.
The constitutional referendum left 34 important issues in abeyance. Fifty of the constitution's 130 clauses are incomplete. They are to be determined later when laws are passed to implement the federal architecture. Baghdad's power to tax is up in the air, state religion is still uncertain, human rights, at least for women, are unclear, the role of the police is unspecified, and the militias are to be disbanded, but the document doesn't say by whom. In the event of a full-fledged civil war, which some knowledgeable observers say is already under way subrosa, federal zones are tailor-made for ethnic cleansing.
There is much media speculation about Arab countries playing a role in countering Iranian influence in Iraq. The United States is encouraging an Arab League-sponsored conference of national reconciliation in the next few weeks. The Bush administration sought to marginalize Iraq's Arab neighbors in the months following the 2003 defeat of Saddam Hussein's regime. Now, both Washington and the Arab League share concern about Iran's growing influence in Iraq, especially among Iraqi Shiites who make up 60 percent of the population.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari blames Arab reluctance to get involved for Iran's unimpeded progress. The United States was betting on the success of the democratic experiment in Iraq to defuse Iranian meddling. But Tehran's shadow keeps growing longer.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's jihadis are the only ones who have taken on Iran indirectly by declaring war on the Shiites. Neither Washington nor Arab capitals relish the idea of finding themselves aligned with al-Qaida's geopolitical objectives. Hence, the attraction of getting Iraq's Arab neighbors to take a more active role to prop up Baghdad. But long-time observers of the Iraqi scene seem to agree only a strongman can keep Iraq together. And that general is yet to emerge from the new Iraqi army. Such a figure would ensure that Iraq's three component parts stick together during a long transitory period.
As several countries have demonstrated over the past 50 years, there is no such thing as instant democratic capitalism. Since World War II, Spain, Taiwan, South Korea, Singapore and Chile went through long periods of authoritarian rule before they were ready for democratic government.
As The Economist noted this week, it is hard to avoid "the conclusion that the campaign to make Iraq a better place has been one of the worst planned and executed in American history."
The uncertainty of Iraq's future, and its destabilizing impact on the Middle East, has already gotten several regional players to think of a nuclear future for themselves. A British intelligence report says both Egypt and Syria have sought to obtain dual-use capabilities from Western countries to advance their nascent, drawing-board nuclear programs. The same intelligence sources say nuclear Pakistan and Saudi Arabia have frequently discussed a nuclear future for the Wahhabi kingdom; both nations have denied this at high levels.
The United States has now failed to persuade Russia and China to allow the U.N. Security Council to take up a resolution that would impose sanctions on Iran for its failure to open all its nuclear installations to IAEA inspection. For the past 18 years, Iran, with the assistance of Pakistan's Dr. "Strangelove" A.Q. Khan, the transnational nuclear black marketer and father of his country's nuclear arsenal, has been working on a secret nuclear weapons program.
With the prospect of a Palestinian state fading once again in the chaos that followed Israel's withdrawal from Gaza, the Middle East is living up to its reputation as the world's most dangerous neighborhood.
http://www.wpherald.com/storyview.php?Stor...18-022829-9767r
Outside view: The challenges to Iraq after the vote
By Anthony H. Cordesman
Outside View Commentator
Published October 18, 2005
WASHINGTON -- The referendum on Iraq's constitution is only the beginning of a political process to resolve the issues dividing Iraqis along ethnic and sectarian lines.
Iraq's factions must now turn their attention to the election to take place on Dec. 15. There is little time to thoroughly explain and debate issues, and this election is likely to be one where most Iraqis vote along ethnic and sectarian lines, with only a small fraction voting for secular and national parties.
The new government cannot formally take office until Jan. 1, and could take weeks -- or months -- longer to organize. New ministers must then come in, and only then will the key issues that were the focus of the constitution become the subject of real-world political battles.
Much will depend on how many of the Sunnis who voted against the constitution will now attempt to participate in the political process. Polls in June 2005 showed deep divisions among Sunnis as to whether boycotting the Jan. 30 elections was a bad idea. For example, 83 percent in Baghdad thought it was a bad idea, but only 40 percent in Ramadi.
In the months that followed, however, more and more Sunnis favored participation in the constitutional referendum. A poll in September 2005 showed that 84 percent of all Iraqis in the Baghdad area favored registering and voting while only 7 percent opposed it. The percentages were: 75 percent pro- and 5 percent anti- in the Mosul area, 78 percent pro- and 7 percent anti- in the Tikrit/Baquba area.
These percentages were not radically different in the Kurdish area: 79 percent pro- and 6 percent anti-, and the Shiite areas in the south: 87 percent pro- and 2 percent anti-.
The turnout was good, particularly given the fact that serious problems existed in distributing ballots and/or knowing which voters should go to which polling places -- especially in the less secure Sunni areas. The turnout was 63 percent to 64 percent of registered voters versus 58 percent in the January election. This reflected a major increase in Sunni voters, since Shiite turnout in the south was lower than in January.
The Sunni vote did not reflect a solid bloc, in part due to deep internal divisions in the Sunni community. One Sunni party, the Iraqi Islamic Bloc, did support the constitution after obtaining some changes to the test, and agreement that it could be amended by the new parliament. Some strongly opposed it, and hard-line insurgents opposed registering and voting.
The results of the vote are still unclear, but reflect the predictable favorable outcome in Shiite and Kurdish areas. However, this does not mean agreement on how the constitution is to be completed, interpreted, and enforced. The Kurds want Kirkuk, oil areas, and secure revenues. The Shiites still have to work out the power balance between factions, the role of figures like al-Sadr, and issues such as the role of religion versus secular practices.
The Sunni vote was strongly "anti-" in purely Sunni areas, with "no" votes ranging around 85 percent to 95 percent. (97 percent in al Anbar). It may have been more favorable in mixed areas. However, problems existed in the Sunni turnout in many areas, including Mosul and Nineveh province, because of insurgent threats -- which may explain why 78 percent of the voters supported the constitution. Similarly, 70 percent were favorable in Diyala.
It should be noted that an agreement was reached before the referendum that the new parliament would have the right to amend the constitution. Moreover, many provisions are vague or partially contradictory, and 50 out of 130 clauses were not completed before the referendum.
These key issues are:
-- Defining federalism, the relative power of the federal regions versus the national government, and demarcating any ethnic and sectarian zones with "fracture" lines in areas like Kirkuk, Basra and Mosul.
-- Allocating oil revenues for existing and future fields, and deciding on the future of oil development.
-- Deciding who has the power to tax.
-- Defining the power of the national government relative to provincial and
local government.
-- Deciding on the role of religion in the state.
-- Deciding on the relative balance of religious and secular law and the power of national versus local courts and law enforcement.
-- Deciding who really has power over the police, whether the security forces will become national, and whether the prohibition of militias will actually be enforced.
-- Interpreting the meaning of the human rights provisions of the constitution.
Some further compromises may be possible before the election, but it seems unlikely that most of these key issues can really be resolved before mid-2006. Throughout this period, insurgents will continue to try to block the political process and cause a civil war. Sunnis will have to decide whether and how to participate in the political process, and pre-referendum polls showed sharp divisions over whether to participate by town and governorate.
The Shiite majority will have to resolve its own issues about the relative role of religion in the state, and Shiite militias. The Kurds will have to settle their future role in government, and deal with issues like the future of Kirkuk. Inevitably, there will be debates about who controls the military, security forces, and police, and the role of the Coalition.
--
(Anthony H. Cordesman holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.)
--
(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of World Peace Herald or United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)
Outside view: The challenges to Iraq after the vote
By Anthony H. Cordesman
Outside View Commentator
Published October 18, 2005
WASHINGTON -- The referendum on Iraq's constitution is only the beginning of a political process to resolve the issues dividing Iraqis along ethnic and sectarian lines.
Iraq's factions must now turn their attention to the election to take place on Dec. 15. There is little time to thoroughly explain and debate issues, and this election is likely to be one where most Iraqis vote along ethnic and sectarian lines, with only a small fraction voting for secular and national parties.
The new government cannot formally take office until Jan. 1, and could take weeks -- or months -- longer to organize. New ministers must then come in, and only then will the key issues that were the focus of the constitution become the subject of real-world political battles.
Much will depend on how many of the Sunnis who voted against the constitution will now attempt to participate in the political process. Polls in June 2005 showed deep divisions among Sunnis as to whether boycotting the Jan. 30 elections was a bad idea. For example, 83 percent in Baghdad thought it was a bad idea, but only 40 percent in Ramadi.
In the months that followed, however, more and more Sunnis favored participation in the constitutional referendum. A poll in September 2005 showed that 84 percent of all Iraqis in the Baghdad area favored registering and voting while only 7 percent opposed it. The percentages were: 75 percent pro- and 5 percent anti- in the Mosul area, 78 percent pro- and 7 percent anti- in the Tikrit/Baquba area.
These percentages were not radically different in the Kurdish area: 79 percent pro- and 6 percent anti-, and the Shiite areas in the south: 87 percent pro- and 2 percent anti-.
The turnout was good, particularly given the fact that serious problems existed in distributing ballots and/or knowing which voters should go to which polling places -- especially in the less secure Sunni areas. The turnout was 63 percent to 64 percent of registered voters versus 58 percent in the January election. This reflected a major increase in Sunni voters, since Shiite turnout in the south was lower than in January.
The Sunni vote did not reflect a solid bloc, in part due to deep internal divisions in the Sunni community. One Sunni party, the Iraqi Islamic Bloc, did support the constitution after obtaining some changes to the test, and agreement that it could be amended by the new parliament. Some strongly opposed it, and hard-line insurgents opposed registering and voting.
The results of the vote are still unclear, but reflect the predictable favorable outcome in Shiite and Kurdish areas. However, this does not mean agreement on how the constitution is to be completed, interpreted, and enforced. The Kurds want Kirkuk, oil areas, and secure revenues. The Shiites still have to work out the power balance between factions, the role of figures like al-Sadr, and issues such as the role of religion versus secular practices.
The Sunni vote was strongly "anti-" in purely Sunni areas, with "no" votes ranging around 85 percent to 95 percent. (97 percent in al Anbar). It may have been more favorable in mixed areas. However, problems existed in the Sunni turnout in many areas, including Mosul and Nineveh province, because of insurgent threats -- which may explain why 78 percent of the voters supported the constitution. Similarly, 70 percent were favorable in Diyala.
It should be noted that an agreement was reached before the referendum that the new parliament would have the right to amend the constitution. Moreover, many provisions are vague or partially contradictory, and 50 out of 130 clauses were not completed before the referendum.
These key issues are:
-- Defining federalism, the relative power of the federal regions versus the national government, and demarcating any ethnic and sectarian zones with "fracture" lines in areas like Kirkuk, Basra and Mosul.
-- Allocating oil revenues for existing and future fields, and deciding on the future of oil development.
-- Deciding who has the power to tax.
-- Defining the power of the national government relative to provincial and
local government.
-- Deciding on the role of religion in the state.
-- Deciding on the relative balance of religious and secular law and the power of national versus local courts and law enforcement.
-- Deciding who really has power over the police, whether the security forces will become national, and whether the prohibition of militias will actually be enforced.
-- Interpreting the meaning of the human rights provisions of the constitution.
Some further compromises may be possible before the election, but it seems unlikely that most of these key issues can really be resolved before mid-2006. Throughout this period, insurgents will continue to try to block the political process and cause a civil war. Sunnis will have to decide whether and how to participate in the political process, and pre-referendum polls showed sharp divisions over whether to participate by town and governorate.
The Shiite majority will have to resolve its own issues about the relative role of religion in the state, and Shiite militias. The Kurds will have to settle their future role in government, and deal with issues like the future of Kirkuk. Inevitably, there will be debates about who controls the military, security forces, and police, and the role of the Coalition.
--
(Anthony H. Cordesman holds the Arleigh A. Burke Chair in Strategy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington think tank.)
--
(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of important issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of World Peace Herald or United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1017/p03s01-usfp.html?s=t5
Military strategy in Iraq: What is it?
Congress presses Bush and the Pentagon for a clearer articulation of their vision.
By Mark Sappenfield | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON – In refocusing the nation's attention on the war on terror in past weeks, both the president and his critics in Congress are increasingly turning to a fundamental yet frequently overlooked aspect of the Iraq conflict: whether the United States has a clear military strategy to defeat the insurgency.
Time and again, the Bush administration has stated that the way to ultimately break the insurgency is to create a strong and democratic Iraq. But that's the political path to victory, measured in mileposts such as last weekend's constitutional referendum. How to assess the military's progress in subduing - or at least managing - an enemy that refuses to stand and fight is a question that only now is getting asked.
This conflict is the sort that the armed forces have avoided since Vietnam, where the Pentagon never found adequate answers to similar strategic questions. But America's more aggressive post-Sept. 11 stance suggests that this is the warfare of the future - and the military must learn how to cope with it.
Now, pressed by Congress and an impatient public, President Bush and Pentagon leaders have begun to articulate the vision behind their current course - casting Iraq as a battle of wills in which American forces will help an improving Iraqi Army hunt down and destroy terrorists. But after 2-1/2 years of halting progress, doubts are growing among military analysts and a more combative Congress that this is a winning strategy - or even a strategy at all.
"Strategy is about connecting means to ends," says Andrew Krepinevich of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments here. "It's not quite clear what the strategy is."
On several occasions recently, the president has sought to refute these critics. "Our strategy is clear in Iraq," he declared in the Rose Garden Sept. 28, citing how coalition forces had killed the second-highest ranking member of Al Qaeda in Iraq and were training Iraqi forces. As more Iraqi forces reach readiness, he added, coalition forces would strike more terrorist enclaves and hold them, tightening the noose on the insurgency.
Two days later, the top commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, went so far as to say that "we need to defeat [Al Qaeda in Iraq] in the next six to 12 months, restore Iraqi control over the borders, keep them from bringing in the suicide bombers and the foreign fighters, so that after these elections the Iraqis have the opportunity to deal with the [remaining militant Saddam Hussein loyalists]."
Congressional doubts
Yet after staying largely silent on the issue throughout much of the Iraq war, Congress is now questioning whether the ongoing military operations in Iraq are guided by any unified strategy to secure the country. In a Sept. 29 congressional hearing, Rep. Ike Skelton (D) of Missouri asked General Casey: "What are we seeking to achieve? Are we fighting a counterinsurgency mission, or is our mission simply to train and equip the Iraqis?"
Two weeks ago, Sen. Jack Reed (D) of Rhode Island proclaimed that "what the administration is talking about is not really a strategy to succeed, but simply a strategy to leave."
Not coincidentally, the most critical voices have been Democrats. Sensing a president wounded by Katrina and buffeted by the growing unpopularity of the Iraq war, some lawmakers have seized the strategy issue as a new and politically palatable way to criticize the administration without overtly opposing the war.
But the concerns go beyond politics. They strike at the very character and capacity of the modern military. The grand lesson of Vietnam was that America's armed forces were peerless on the field of battle, but ill-suited for protracted conflicts against unconventional armies.
"The consensus among the military was that we don't want any more of these wars because we don't like them and we're not good at them," says Dr. Krepinevich.
From that experience emerged the so-called Powell Doctrine - named for retired Gen. Colin Powell's insistence that the US military go to war only when it had a clear mission, overwhelming force, and an obvious exit strategy. Sept. 11, however, drew America into the sorts of conflicts it had specifically avoided, involving the untidy and time-consuming prospect of toppling nations and rebuilding them.
In Iraq, the toppling was practically flawless, but the military is still coming to grips with how to wage war against the embers of anger - an unseen enemy that doesn't align itself in battalions, divisions, or corps. Army leaders recognize that something more than a rifle and a helmet is required.
"You need a strategy, not just a military strategy," says Brig. Gen. Volney Warner of the Army Command and General Staff College, noting that political and economic progress are necessary to turn citizens against an insurgency. "The military's general role is to ensure security and stability."
Scrutiny of raids
How to provide that security, however, has so far proved elusive in the four most violent provinces. The large, periodic raids against scattered insurgent strongholds - such as the recent Operations Iron Fist and River Gate - have accomplished little, critics say, and have had more to do with short-term election-day security than a long-term plan for victory. Although it is the kind of mission for which the Army is best suited, there's little evidence that they have significantly dulled the insurgents' capacity. "What we've had are operations that go out and try to find terrorists and kill them in situations where we haven't got the underlying intelligence [from informants]," says Krepinevich.
So he suggests what he calls the ink-spot strategy: consolidating security in the 14 relatively nonviolent provinces and then slowly moving out to areas of the other provinces. The military would hold these areas with overwhelming force for a period of six months or a year before moving on - spreading like an ink spot on a tablecloth.
By creating a sense of security, the coalition can create and gradually expand the number of areas where residents feel comfortable passing along tips about insurgents without fear of reprisals. After all, coalition forces are estimated to outnumber insurgents 20 to 1, Krepinevich says: "If we knew who [the] insurgents were and where they were, the insurgency would be over."
Military strategy in Iraq: What is it?
Congress presses Bush and the Pentagon for a clearer articulation of their vision.
By Mark Sappenfield | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON – In refocusing the nation's attention on the war on terror in past weeks, both the president and his critics in Congress are increasingly turning to a fundamental yet frequently overlooked aspect of the Iraq conflict: whether the United States has a clear military strategy to defeat the insurgency.
Time and again, the Bush administration has stated that the way to ultimately break the insurgency is to create a strong and democratic Iraq. But that's the political path to victory, measured in mileposts such as last weekend's constitutional referendum. How to assess the military's progress in subduing - or at least managing - an enemy that refuses to stand and fight is a question that only now is getting asked.
This conflict is the sort that the armed forces have avoided since Vietnam, where the Pentagon never found adequate answers to similar strategic questions. But America's more aggressive post-Sept. 11 stance suggests that this is the warfare of the future - and the military must learn how to cope with it.
Now, pressed by Congress and an impatient public, President Bush and Pentagon leaders have begun to articulate the vision behind their current course - casting Iraq as a battle of wills in which American forces will help an improving Iraqi Army hunt down and destroy terrorists. But after 2-1/2 years of halting progress, doubts are growing among military analysts and a more combative Congress that this is a winning strategy - or even a strategy at all.
"Strategy is about connecting means to ends," says Andrew Krepinevich of the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments here. "It's not quite clear what the strategy is."
On several occasions recently, the president has sought to refute these critics. "Our strategy is clear in Iraq," he declared in the Rose Garden Sept. 28, citing how coalition forces had killed the second-highest ranking member of Al Qaeda in Iraq and were training Iraqi forces. As more Iraqi forces reach readiness, he added, coalition forces would strike more terrorist enclaves and hold them, tightening the noose on the insurgency.
Two days later, the top commander in Iraq, Gen. George Casey, went so far as to say that "we need to defeat [Al Qaeda in Iraq] in the next six to 12 months, restore Iraqi control over the borders, keep them from bringing in the suicide bombers and the foreign fighters, so that after these elections the Iraqis have the opportunity to deal with the [remaining militant Saddam Hussein loyalists]."
Congressional doubts
Yet after staying largely silent on the issue throughout much of the Iraq war, Congress is now questioning whether the ongoing military operations in Iraq are guided by any unified strategy to secure the country. In a Sept. 29 congressional hearing, Rep. Ike Skelton (D) of Missouri asked General Casey: "What are we seeking to achieve? Are we fighting a counterinsurgency mission, or is our mission simply to train and equip the Iraqis?"
Two weeks ago, Sen. Jack Reed (D) of Rhode Island proclaimed that "what the administration is talking about is not really a strategy to succeed, but simply a strategy to leave."
Not coincidentally, the most critical voices have been Democrats. Sensing a president wounded by Katrina and buffeted by the growing unpopularity of the Iraq war, some lawmakers have seized the strategy issue as a new and politically palatable way to criticize the administration without overtly opposing the war.
But the concerns go beyond politics. They strike at the very character and capacity of the modern military. The grand lesson of Vietnam was that America's armed forces were peerless on the field of battle, but ill-suited for protracted conflicts against unconventional armies.
"The consensus among the military was that we don't want any more of these wars because we don't like them and we're not good at them," says Dr. Krepinevich.
From that experience emerged the so-called Powell Doctrine - named for retired Gen. Colin Powell's insistence that the US military go to war only when it had a clear mission, overwhelming force, and an obvious exit strategy. Sept. 11, however, drew America into the sorts of conflicts it had specifically avoided, involving the untidy and time-consuming prospect of toppling nations and rebuilding them.
In Iraq, the toppling was practically flawless, but the military is still coming to grips with how to wage war against the embers of anger - an unseen enemy that doesn't align itself in battalions, divisions, or corps. Army leaders recognize that something more than a rifle and a helmet is required.
"You need a strategy, not just a military strategy," says Brig. Gen. Volney Warner of the Army Command and General Staff College, noting that political and economic progress are necessary to turn citizens against an insurgency. "The military's general role is to ensure security and stability."
Scrutiny of raids
How to provide that security, however, has so far proved elusive in the four most violent provinces. The large, periodic raids against scattered insurgent strongholds - such as the recent Operations Iron Fist and River Gate - have accomplished little, critics say, and have had more to do with short-term election-day security than a long-term plan for victory. Although it is the kind of mission for which the Army is best suited, there's little evidence that they have significantly dulled the insurgents' capacity. "What we've had are operations that go out and try to find terrorists and kill them in situations where we haven't got the underlying intelligence [from informants]," says Krepinevich.
So he suggests what he calls the ink-spot strategy: consolidating security in the 14 relatively nonviolent provinces and then slowly moving out to areas of the other provinces. The military would hold these areas with overwhelming force for a period of six months or a year before moving on - spreading like an ink spot on a tablecloth.
By creating a sense of security, the coalition can create and gradually expand the number of areas where residents feel comfortable passing along tips about insurgents without fear of reprisals. After all, coalition forces are estimated to outnumber insurgents 20 to 1, Krepinevich says: "If we knew who [the] insurgents were and where they were, the insurgency would be over."
http://blogs.washingtonpost.com/earlywarni...ls_secret_.html
William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security
Israel's Secret Hand in Iraq Inspections
(First of a two-part series)
On October 8, 1994, weapons inspector and former Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter arrived in Tel Aviv, setting in motion a nine year odyssey that ultimately led to the current Iraq war.
Ritter, who left the United Nations in 1998 convinced that the United States government was undermining inspections, and later became a vociferous war opponent arguing that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, has now written a tell-all book Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein (Nation Books).
"Intelligence" in the title is an entity -- the CIA -- and Ritter's claim is that "it" destroyed the United National Special Commission (UNSCOM) in its 1990's pursuit of "regime change."
Scott Ritter destroyed UNSCOM.
He didn't do it alone. And he did not necessarily do it intentionally. But like so many covert operators, Ritter became entangled in a covert scheme that sought to penetrate Saddam Hussein's inner circle, a scheme that became more about itself than any foreign policy goal that might result.
To be clear, it was Iraq that developed WMD illegally. Saddam Hussein's inner circle volunteered nothing to the U.N., and retained as much as they could. Iraq chose not to disclose the full extent of its WMD program, only doling out "compliance" with Security Council resolutions when it was trapped or caught lying.
But Iraq Confidential helps to explain how the United States also contributed to an intractable stand-off with Baghdad. But most important, the service that Scott Ritter really provides is to inadvertently explain how the Bush administration later came to believe that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.
A bit of full disclosure: In 1998, I was hired by the office of Secretary-General Kofi Annan to
look into allegations that UNSCOM was being used to collect information for the United States above and beyond that needed by weapons inspectors to catch the Iraqis in their deceits. UNSCOM was being used, and had set up a variety of surveillance programs designed to support the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
The "close in" eavesdropping scheme was able to monitor short-range radio and telephone calls in Baghdad and thus "map" Saddam Hussein's inner circle and guard force. (For targeting purposes, the quality of the intelligence was so good that after Iraq ejected UNSCOM from the country in November 1998, the Clinton administration just couldn't resist undertaking Operation Desert Fox, the now infamous "wag the dog" attack whose real purpose -- perhaps not so far fetched -- was to kill Saddam Hussein or at least to sow enough confusion and disruption in his guard force to open the way for a coup.)
Scott Ritter fills in a lot of detail I wasn't aware of as to how UNSCOM aided U.S. covert efforts, but his bombshell is about Israel. Starting in about 1994, Israel very quietly shared its own sensitive intelligence about Saddam's infrastructure and security apparatus with the United Nations, working with Ritter to develop a new approach to inspections, and identifying prospective "targets" for the U.N. team to inspect. What is most interesting about the Israeli assistance is how distant the sharing was from the United States: Israel assisted the U.N. on the basis of own interests -- weakening Iraq.
What the Israelis got in return, courtesy of Ritter's maneuvers, were U-2 reconnaissance images of Iraq taken by U.S. Air Force aircraft for UNSCOM, and later even raw intercept tapes that Israeli linguists and analysts were able to exploit. If there is anything that secret producers hate, it is losing control of their information. Though Ritter doesn't know why, clearly at some point Washington snapped and the U.S. government tried to stop, or at least control, the exchange. Ritter interprets the U.S. pressure as part of THE conspiracy.
Here is Scott Ritter: international inspector working for the United Nations, making repeated trips to Israel, going through contortions to hide Israeli assistance from even most of his inspector colleagues, conducting secret meetings, involved in intra-governmental intrigues, privy to compartmented operations, working with the CIA and "Delta force," using special code names. Ritter describes in page after page how he is at the center of secret operations made secret in order to protect intelligence sources and methods and preserve operational security and allow governments to cooperate without political recriminations. He is more than happy to play secret agent as long as he is at the center of it all and getting what he wants.
Yet when Washington questions UNSCOM's inspections methods, and when U.S. intelligence desires to preserve its own sources and methods by controlling what secret information UNSCOM shares with the Israelis, it is THE conspiracy.
Ritter disparages the CIA's need to be in control and criticizes Washington for calling into question "the integrity" of UNSCOM. What was really going on in Washington though, is that the entire UNSCOM-Israel enterprise, the program of inspections focusing on Saddam's security agencies, and Ritter's propensity for confrontation -- particularly his wilingness to step way outside normal channels -- was increasingly seen as undermining U.S. foreign policy.
To Ritter, that policy was "regime change," pure and simple. Ritter's case for conspiracy is that the United States from day one was never interested in disarmament, that even when Security Council Resolution 687 was crafted in the first Bush administration soon after Operation Desert Storm "American diplomats had destabilizing and undermining Saddam Hussein at the front of their minds."
To Ritter, who eventually became a vocal critic of the U.S. decision to abandon weapons inspections and go to war, Washington never had any intentions to let sanctions be lifted. To Ritter, since Washington never wanted to lift sanctions, it never wanted the U.N. to be successful. But on this score, Ritter is just dead wrong.
The weakness of Resolution 687, if one could call it a weakness, was that it was crafted by Cold War arms control experts who were completely focused on weapons of mass destruction, stung at the time by the failure of the International Atomic Energy Agency to curtail Iraq's gigantic nuclear weapons program, and embarrassed by the extent of U.S. ignorance about Saddam's various illegal weapons efforts.
Iraq was required to give up all of its biological, chemical, nuclear, and long-range missile programs along the Cold War model. Ignored were Iraq's conventional forces that were responsible for invading Iran and Kuwait in the first place. But most important, what the Resolution did was ignore Saddam Hussein and his regime. It wasn't until the mid-1990's that the human right aesthetic justified international action against such war criminals. In 1991, when Resolution 687 was passed, the conspiracy was that the United States was willing, as was the rest of the international community, to keep Saddam Hussein in power for grandiose geo-political reasons.
The U.S. approach to Iraq thus wasn't some conspiracy. It was a poorly conceived strategy followed by completely new territory. Sure over time (pretty quickly indeed) it became clear that Iraq would never voluntarily comply with the U.N.; over time all parties evolved to understand how difficult it would be to achieve disarmament with a non-cooperative party (the inspection regime was to have lasted a few months, at most a couple of years); and over time, the Clinton administration came to the conclusion that the only way Iraq would ever cease being a threat to the region would be if Saddam Hussein was gone.
Conspiracy theorists want to believe that some hidden hand understood and was maneuvering all of this from the beginning. I don't think that is true and Ritter doesn't produce the goods to prove his case.
From the very beginning, though, Scott Ritter had already reached his own conclusion, and it is one that in hindsight seems so prescient and so right, who could question his story.
Scott Ritter was convinced that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.
By William M. Arkin | October 18, 2005; 03:34 PM ET | Category: Intelligence
Previous: Iraq: Time to Get Out | Main Index
William M. Arkin on National and Homeland Security
Israel's Secret Hand in Iraq Inspections
(First of a two-part series)
On October 8, 1994, weapons inspector and former Marine Corps intelligence officer Scott Ritter arrived in Tel Aviv, setting in motion a nine year odyssey that ultimately led to the current Iraq war.
Ritter, who left the United Nations in 1998 convinced that the United States government was undermining inspections, and later became a vociferous war opponent arguing that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, has now written a tell-all book Iraq Confidential: The Untold Story of the Intelligence Conspiracy to Undermine the UN and Overthrow Saddam Hussein (Nation Books).
"Intelligence" in the title is an entity -- the CIA -- and Ritter's claim is that "it" destroyed the United National Special Commission (UNSCOM) in its 1990's pursuit of "regime change."
Scott Ritter destroyed UNSCOM.
He didn't do it alone. And he did not necessarily do it intentionally. But like so many covert operators, Ritter became entangled in a covert scheme that sought to penetrate Saddam Hussein's inner circle, a scheme that became more about itself than any foreign policy goal that might result.
To be clear, it was Iraq that developed WMD illegally. Saddam Hussein's inner circle volunteered nothing to the U.N., and retained as much as they could. Iraq chose not to disclose the full extent of its WMD program, only doling out "compliance" with Security Council resolutions when it was trapped or caught lying.
But Iraq Confidential helps to explain how the United States also contributed to an intractable stand-off with Baghdad. But most important, the service that Scott Ritter really provides is to inadvertently explain how the Bush administration later came to believe that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction.
A bit of full disclosure: In 1998, I was hired by the office of Secretary-General Kofi Annan to
look into allegations that UNSCOM was being used to collect information for the United States above and beyond that needed by weapons inspectors to catch the Iraqis in their deceits. UNSCOM was being used, and had set up a variety of surveillance programs designed to support the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.
The "close in" eavesdropping scheme was able to monitor short-range radio and telephone calls in Baghdad and thus "map" Saddam Hussein's inner circle and guard force. (For targeting purposes, the quality of the intelligence was so good that after Iraq ejected UNSCOM from the country in November 1998, the Clinton administration just couldn't resist undertaking Operation Desert Fox, the now infamous "wag the dog" attack whose real purpose -- perhaps not so far fetched -- was to kill Saddam Hussein or at least to sow enough confusion and disruption in his guard force to open the way for a coup.)
Scott Ritter fills in a lot of detail I wasn't aware of as to how UNSCOM aided U.S. covert efforts, but his bombshell is about Israel. Starting in about 1994, Israel very quietly shared its own sensitive intelligence about Saddam's infrastructure and security apparatus with the United Nations, working with Ritter to develop a new approach to inspections, and identifying prospective "targets" for the U.N. team to inspect. What is most interesting about the Israeli assistance is how distant the sharing was from the United States: Israel assisted the U.N. on the basis of own interests -- weakening Iraq.
What the Israelis got in return, courtesy of Ritter's maneuvers, were U-2 reconnaissance images of Iraq taken by U.S. Air Force aircraft for UNSCOM, and later even raw intercept tapes that Israeli linguists and analysts were able to exploit. If there is anything that secret producers hate, it is losing control of their information. Though Ritter doesn't know why, clearly at some point Washington snapped and the U.S. government tried to stop, or at least control, the exchange. Ritter interprets the U.S. pressure as part of THE conspiracy.
Here is Scott Ritter: international inspector working for the United Nations, making repeated trips to Israel, going through contortions to hide Israeli assistance from even most of his inspector colleagues, conducting secret meetings, involved in intra-governmental intrigues, privy to compartmented operations, working with the CIA and "Delta force," using special code names. Ritter describes in page after page how he is at the center of secret operations made secret in order to protect intelligence sources and methods and preserve operational security and allow governments to cooperate without political recriminations. He is more than happy to play secret agent as long as he is at the center of it all and getting what he wants.
Yet when Washington questions UNSCOM's inspections methods, and when U.S. intelligence desires to preserve its own sources and methods by controlling what secret information UNSCOM shares with the Israelis, it is THE conspiracy.
Ritter disparages the CIA's need to be in control and criticizes Washington for calling into question "the integrity" of UNSCOM. What was really going on in Washington though, is that the entire UNSCOM-Israel enterprise, the program of inspections focusing on Saddam's security agencies, and Ritter's propensity for confrontation -- particularly his wilingness to step way outside normal channels -- was increasingly seen as undermining U.S. foreign policy.
To Ritter, that policy was "regime change," pure and simple. Ritter's case for conspiracy is that the United States from day one was never interested in disarmament, that even when Security Council Resolution 687 was crafted in the first Bush administration soon after Operation Desert Storm "American diplomats had destabilizing and undermining Saddam Hussein at the front of their minds."
To Ritter, who eventually became a vocal critic of the U.S. decision to abandon weapons inspections and go to war, Washington never had any intentions to let sanctions be lifted. To Ritter, since Washington never wanted to lift sanctions, it never wanted the U.N. to be successful. But on this score, Ritter is just dead wrong.
The weakness of Resolution 687, if one could call it a weakness, was that it was crafted by Cold War arms control experts who were completely focused on weapons of mass destruction, stung at the time by the failure of the International Atomic Energy Agency to curtail Iraq's gigantic nuclear weapons program, and embarrassed by the extent of U.S. ignorance about Saddam's various illegal weapons efforts.
Iraq was required to give up all of its biological, chemical, nuclear, and long-range missile programs along the Cold War model. Ignored were Iraq's conventional forces that were responsible for invading Iran and Kuwait in the first place. But most important, what the Resolution did was ignore Saddam Hussein and his regime. It wasn't until the mid-1990's that the human right aesthetic justified international action against such war criminals. In 1991, when Resolution 687 was passed, the conspiracy was that the United States was willing, as was the rest of the international community, to keep Saddam Hussein in power for grandiose geo-political reasons.
The U.S. approach to Iraq thus wasn't some conspiracy. It was a poorly conceived strategy followed by completely new territory. Sure over time (pretty quickly indeed) it became clear that Iraq would never voluntarily comply with the U.N.; over time all parties evolved to understand how difficult it would be to achieve disarmament with a non-cooperative party (the inspection regime was to have lasted a few months, at most a couple of years); and over time, the Clinton administration came to the conclusion that the only way Iraq would ever cease being a threat to the region would be if Saddam Hussein was gone.
Conspiracy theorists want to believe that some hidden hand understood and was maneuvering all of this from the beginning. I don't think that is true and Ritter doesn't produce the goods to prove his case.
From the very beginning, though, Scott Ritter had already reached his own conclusion, and it is one that in hindsight seems so prescient and so right, who could question his story.
Scott Ritter was convinced that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.
By William M. Arkin | October 18, 2005; 03:34 PM ET | Category: Intelligence
Previous: Iraq: Time to Get Out | Main Index
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