"The
Great Terror"
"Iraqi officials say President Saddam Hussein has won 100% backing in a referendum on whether he should rule for another seven years. There were 11,445,638 eligible voters - and every one of them voted for the president..." (BBC News)
News and commentary on Saddam Hussein and Iraq.
Part 1: 2001/06/18 - 2002/06/27
Part 2: 2001/07/05 - 2002/08/30
Part 3: 2002/09/02 - 2002/09/30
Part 4: 2002/10/01 - 2002/10/30
Part 5: 2002/11/01 - 2002/11/30
Part 6: 2002/12/01 - 2002/12/31
Part 7: 2003/01/01 - 2003/01/31October 2002
Monday, October 28, 2002 - Thursday, October 31, 2002
"Return of the 'Chicken Hawks'" (Michael Kelly, The Washington Post, 2002/10/30)
"No Prince Charming here" (Jed Babbin, The Washington Times, 2002/10/29)Monday, October 21, 2002 - Sunday, October 27, 2002
"12 Americans Stage Protest Hussein Is Happy to Allow" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2002/10/27)
"Thousands Rally Around World Against Iraq War" (Mark Wilkinson, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2002/10/27)
"US peace marches draw thousands" (BBC News, 2002/10/26)
"Saddam recalls children of envoys" (Bill Gertz, The Washington Times, 2002/10/24)
"U.S. Hands Iraq Resolution to U.N. Security Council" (Dafna Linzer, AP/The Washington Post, 2002/10/24)
"Yugoslavia 'sold arms to Iraq'" (CNN.com, 2002/10/28)
"In Opening the Gates of Its Gulag, Iraq Unleashes Pain and Protest" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2002/10/23)
"Iraqis linked to Oklahoma atrocity" (James Langton, The Evening Standard, 2002/10/22)
"Hussein and Mobs Virtually Empty Iraq's Prisons" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2002/10/21)Monday, October 14, 2002 - Sunday, October 20, 2002
"From Its Palaces, Iraq's View Is of a World Filled With Allies" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2002/10/20)
"Iraq's last Jews wait in fear for war" (Ian Cobain, The Times, 2002/10/18)
"War Looms but God Is With Us, Hussein Tells Iraqis" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2002/10/18)
"Air War" (Franklin Foer, The New Republic, 2002/10/16)
"Saddam 'wins 100% of vote'" (BBC News, 2002/10/16)
"One Candidate, One Outcome: A Show of Loyalty in Iraq Vote" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2002/10/16)
"Defiant Iraqis Vote 'Yes' to Saddam in Blood" (Nadim Ladki, Reuters, 2002/10/15)
"Saddam assured "yes" in one-man poll" (Reuters/Financial Times, 2002/10/15)Monday, October 7, 2002 - Sunday, October 13, 2002
"Tour of Suspect Iraqi Plant Offers Only Partial Access" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2002/10/13)
"Saddam's Sons" (Evan Thomas and Christopher Dickey, Newsweek, from the 2002/10/21 issue)
"Radical Shias are a worry for Bush as well as Saddam" (Ian Cobain, The Times, 2002/10/12)
"Iraq Backs Away From U.N. Demand to Set Arms Terms" (Julia Preston, The New York Times, 2002/10/12)
"Congress Passes Iraq Resolution" (Jim VandeHei and Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post, 2002/10/11)
"Slave State" (Robert Kaplan, The New Republic, 2002/10/10)
"Mother of all election frauds will make plotters stop and think" (Ian Cobain, The Times, 2002/10/10)
"Germans 'shopped for guns for Iraq'" (Roger Boyes, The Times, 2002/10/10)
"Bush Cites Iraqi Threat Posed to U.S. and Allies" (David E. Sanger, The New York Times, 2002/10/08)
"Saddam's Evil Luxury Lairs" (Niles Lathem, New York Post, 2002/10/07)
"Saddam's inner circle is defecting, say Iraqi exiles" (Anton La Guardia, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/10/07)Tuesday, October 1, 2002 - Sunday, October 6, 2002
"Speaking for Saddam, the cool survivor who has not lost his head" (Roger Matthews, The Times, 2002/10/06)
"Not So Innocents Abroad" (David Tell, The Weekly Standard, from the 2002/10/14 issue)
"Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector Backs Stiff U.S. Demand on Iraq" (Todd S. Purdum and David Firestone, The New York Times, 2002/10/05)
"C.I.A. Says Iraq Revived Forbidden Weapons Programs" (Michael R. Gordon, The New York Times, 2002/10/05)
"Vicious circles closing in" (Micha Odenheimer, Haaretz, 2002/10/04)
"Put up or shut up" (Mark Steyn, The Spectator, from the 2002/10/05 issue)
"Oakville MP compares Bush to WW2 villains" (Sheldon Alberts, National Post, 2002/10/03)
"White House Would Welcome Hussein Assassination" (The Washington Post, 2002/10/02)
"US threatens to thwart inspectors' return to Iraq" (Richard Beeston et al., The Times, 2002/10/02)
"Crude" (Peter Beinart, The New Republic, 2002/10/01)
"Saddam's Patsies" (George F. Will, New York Post, 2002/10/01)
"Return of the 'Chicken Hawks'" (Michael Kelly, The Washington Post, 2002/10/30)
"I am certainly now a hawk, and during the Vietnam years I was certainly a dove. What changed me was in fact experience of war - but not as a soldier. I covered the Gulf War as a reporter, and it was this experience, later compounded by what I saw reporting in Bosnia, that convinced me of the moral imperative, sometimes, for war. In liberated Kuwait City, one vast crime scene, I toured the morgue one day and inspected torture and murder victims left behind by the departing Iraqis. "The corpse in drawer 3 . . . belonged to a young man," I later wrote. "When he was alive, he had been beaten from the soles of the feet to the crown of the head, and every inch of his skin was covered with purple-and-black bruises. ... The man in drawer 12 had been burned to death with some flammable liquid. ... Corpses 18 and 19 ... belonged to the brothers Abbas ... the eyeballs of the elder of the Abbas brothers had been removed. The sockets were bloody holes." That was the beginning of the making of me as at least an honorary "chicken hawk." After that, I never again could stand the arguments of those who sat in the luxury of safety - "advocating nonresistance behind the guns of the American Fleet," as George Orwell wrote of World War II pacifists - and held that the moral course was, in crimes against humanity as in crimes on the street corner: Better not to get involved, dear.""No Prince Charming here" (Jed Babbin, The Washington Times, 2002/10/29)
Babbin on Hussein's "presidential palaces", which again are likely to be off-limits to any weapons inspections: "The main Baghdad "Presidential Complex" covers about 2 square kilometers, and about 15 or 20 buildings, including several palaces. One palace, Al-Seqoor ("the Eagle") houses a biological weapons lab called Al-Tahaddi, "the Challenge." Like almost all of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction facilities, the Al-Tahaddi lab is underground. Unconfirmed reports say that the Al-Tahaddi lab is working on the Ebola and West Nile viruses, among others. Just west of there is the Al-Radwaniyeh compound, which covers about 9.3 square kilometers. Al-Radwaniyeh is used to store biological weapons of mass destruction and also has hardened bunkers for a large command and control facility. ... About 80 miles northwest of Baghdad is the city of Samarra. Just north of there is the Jabal Makhul Presidential Site. It's about 10 square miles in size with about 90 buildings. Jabal Makhul - which means "under the mountain" - is the home of Project 555, Saddam's uranium enrichment program. Located in the Al-Fajir site within the huge complex, Project 555 is working overtime shifts, trying to make fissile materials for nuclear weapons. According to my sources, it's also a favorite place to hide other weapons of mass destruction in a large complex of underground tunnels.""12 Americans Stage Protest Hussein Is Happy to Allow" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2002/10/27)
A group of 12 Americans from a Chicago-based pacifist group, Voices in the Wilderness, gathered today to bring the American style of protest to Saddam Hussein's Iraq. ... Kathy Kelly, a 49-year-old former Chicago high school English teacher who is a co-founder of Voices in the Wilderness, spoke out against the Bush administration and in defense of positions taken by Mr. Hussein. At one point, she said she wished that the United States government would follow Mr. Hussein's example in ordering the emptying of Iraq's prisons, a move the Iraqi leader made last Sunday, in part to counter Mr. Bush's descriptions of him as a murdering tyrant. "I wish people in our country would be willing to show the same spirit of forgiveness and reconciliation to the two million people in our prisons," she said.""Thousands Rally Around World Against Iraq War" (Mark Wilkinson, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2002/10/27)
Sarandon's belief that terrorism can't be "fought with violence" is just mindnumbingly stupid: "Tens of thousands of anti-war protesters marched peacefully on the White House on Saturday to express opposition to a possible U.S. attack on Iraq, some chanting slogans accusing President Bush of planning genocide. ... In Washington, actress Susan Sarandon, who supports numerous liberal causes, accused Bush of having "hijacked our losses and our fears." Sarandon said terrorism could not be fought with violence and that most Americans did not want a conflict. ... "George Bush, you can't hide. We charge you with genocide!" chanted the demonstrators, who were escorted by mounted U.S. Park Police and watched by 600 police officers along the route in the heart of the nation's capital." (See also: "US peace marches draw thousands" (BBC News, 2002/10/26))"US peace marches draw thousands" (BBC News, 2002/10/26)
Moral equivalence à la Sarandon: "More than 10,000 people have marched on the White House in Washington, as part of a day of worldwide protests against a possible American-led war against Iraq. The organisers of the Washington march had been expecting many thousands more to attend. However, a BBC correspondent in Washington says the rally is still the biggest demonstration against an Iraqi war so far. ... The rally in Washington opened with speeches at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. Speakers included musician Patti Smith and actress Susan Sarandon. "Let us find a way to resist fundamentalism - fundamentalism of all kinds, within al-Qaeda and within our government," Ms Sarandon said. Among those also taking part were civil rights leader Jesse Jackson, and Palestinian and Moslem groups." (See also: "Anti-War Activists Rally in Washington" (Lawrence L. Knutson, AP/The Washington Post, 2002/10/26): "Thousands of people protested in northern Europe, but the turnouts were far below organizers' predictions. In Germany, a crowd estimated by police at 4,500 people carried placards that declared "War on the imperialist war," "Stop Bush's campaign" and "No blood for oil," along with a few Iraqi flags, at Berlin's downtown Alexanderplatz ahead of a planned march past the U.S. and British embassies.")"Saddam recalls children of envoys" (Bill Gertz, The Washington Times, 2002/10/24)
"Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein has ordered all his diplomats posted abroad to send their children back to Iraq, according to a U.S. intelligence report. The notice, seen as a sign of fragility in the Baghdad government, was sent in the past two days to Iraqi envoys and intelligence personnel around the world and was ostensibly a security measure, U.S. intelligence officials said. Intelligence analysts believe that Saddam is ordering the recall of the officials' children, amid increasing U.S.-led international pressure on Baghdad, to discourage defections by using them as potential hostages." (See also: "Iraq orders foreign journalists out" (CNN.com, 2002/10/24): "The Iraqi government will expel all foreign journalists from the country next week, Iraqi officials said Thursday. The move comes after furious complaints from the Iraqi government about the reporting of several foreign journalists on assignment in the country. Iraqi officials said that after the foreign journalists' dismissal they will admit a small number back at some point under tough new rules.")"U.S. Hands Iraq Resolution to U.N. Security Council" (Dafna Linzer, AP/The Washington Post, 2002/10/24)
"Pushing ahead on Iraq after weeks of diplomatic wrangling, the United States put its tough new proposal into the hands of the Security Council in preparation for a vote that could come as early as next week. Russia appeared to be the main obstacle Thursday, rejecting the draft chiefly due to language that could trigger military action against Iraq. But France, which has similar objections and was a vocal opponent of earlier U.S. offerings, was ready to negotiate and wouldn't block the resolution's passage, French diplomats said. The U.S. proposal, drafted with British support, gives U.N. inspectors broad new powers to search and destroy banned weapons and warns Iraq of "serious consequences" if it obstructs their work. British Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock said the text 'is very clearly intended to be a last chance offer to Iraq.'" (See also: "Iraq Urges UN to Stand Up to US on Draft Resolution" (Nadim Ladki and Evelyn Leopold, Reuters, 2002/10/24): "Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said the U.S. draft resolution was akin to a declaration of war on both Baghdad and the United Nations. "The United States wants to create justifications for attacking Iraq with a new resolution and this draft resolution presented by the United States, which it amended for the worse, is an insult to the United Nations and the international community," he told Qatar's al-Jazeera television.")"Yugoslavia 'sold arms to Iraq'" (CNN.com, 2002/10/28)
"An inquiry has been launched into claims that a Yugoslav arms dealer sold military equipment to Iraq in violation of a U.N. embargo. Media reports claim an illicit trade between the state-run arms dealer, Yugoimport, and Saddam Hussein's regime during the presidency of Slobodan Milosevic. It is also alleged that Serb experts may have helped the Iraqis build up defences. The affair came to light after a NATO inspection last week of an arms company in the Serb-controlled part of neighboring Bosnia. A Yugoslav military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told The Associated Press the raid uncovered documents linking the Bosnian arms company, Orao, and Yugoimport, which acted as an intermediary by exporting defence equipment to Iraq.""In Opening the Gates of Its Gulag, Iraq Unleashes Pain and Protest" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2002/10/23)
"President Saddam Hussein's decision on Sunday to open the gates of his prisons and let tens of thousands of political prisoners and common criminals go free has afforded ordinary Iraqis a rare glimpse into the gulag that has maintained his power for 23 years, and prompted small but remarkable protests by some who lost relatives into the grim embrace of the state security police years ago. The protests over the last two days are the most visible sign of a new and potentially seismic trend: A willingness among ordinary people to speak up - if only in relatively small numbers, briefly, and to the accompaniment of strident praise for Mr. Hussein - for rights obliterated by him in his 23 years as Iraq's absolute ruler. ... "Where is my son? I demand to know where is my son!" one middle-aged woman in a black cloak cried, as she huddled with a group of women at the head of 150 protesters who staged a noisy rally today outside the Ministry of Information beside the Tigris River in central Baghdad." (See also: "Hussein and Mobs Virtually Empty Iraq's Prisons" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2002/10/21))"Iraqis linked to Oklahoma atrocity" (James Langton, The Evening Standard, 2002/10/22)
"The FBI is under pressure from the highest political levels in Washington to investigate suspected links between Iraq and the Oklahoma bombing. Senior aides to US Attorney-General John Ashcroft have been given compelling evidence that former Iraqi soldiers were directly involved in the 1995 bombing that killed 185 people. The methodically assembled dossier from Jayna Davis, a former investigative TV reporter, could destroy the official version that white supremacists Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were solely responsible for what, at the time, was the worst act of terrorism on American soil. Instead, there are serious concerns that a group of Arab men with links to Iraqi intelligence, Palestinian extremists and possibly al Qaeda, used McVeigh and Nichols as front men to blow up the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City.""Hussein and Mobs Virtually Empty Iraq's Prisons" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2002/10/21)
"Tens of thousands of Iraqi prisoners stormed out of their cells to freedom today after President Saddam Hussein declared an amnesty that appeared to have all but emptied a sprawling, nationwide network of prisons that have served as the grim charnel houses of one of the world's harshest police states. ... Once the prison gates collapsed, the mood changed. Seeing watchtowers abandoned and the prison guards standing passively by or actively supporting them as they charged into the cell blocks, the crowd seemed to realize that they were experiencing, if only briefly, a new Iraq, where the people, not the government, was sovereign. Chants of "Down Bush! Down Sharon!" referring to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of Israel, faded. In one cell block, a guard smiled broadly at an American photographer, raised his thumb, and said, "Bush! Bush!" Elsewhere, guards offered an English word almost never heard in Iraq. "Free!" they said. 'Free!'""From Its Palaces, Iraq's View Is of a World Filled With Allies" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2002/10/20)
"Without doubt, the international mood seems better for Iraq than it has in years. ... Looking around the Arab world, Mr. Hussein finds that there is not a single country backing American military action, not even gulf states like Kuwait and Qatar that would be likely bases for American aircraft in a new war. In the West, the United States has only one unambiguous ally in its threat of military action, Britain, and there is much wavering elsewhere. In Baghdad's newspapers on Saturday, headlines trumpeted the announcement that Spain's top diplomat in Baghdad, Fernando Valderrama, had resigned in protest over Spain's "subordination to the American government" in the crisis. The theme of American isolation was prominent in Mr. Hussein's inaugural speech on Wednesday. In the rambling, the Iraqi leader ran through a checklist of countries and concluded that Iraq has the backing not only of "those aggressed against by the Zionist alliance" - Palestinians and their supporters - but also "by freedom lovers all over the world." Together, Mr. Hussein said, these nations would "cause the arrows of aggression to go astray" and doom America to end up "despised, condemned and defeated" in a war with Iraq.""Iraq's last Jews wait in fear for war" (Ian Cobain, The Times, 2002/10/18)
"Fifty years ago there were about 350,000 Jewish people in Iraq. When the British marched into Baghdad at the end of the First World War a fifth of its citizens were estimated to be Jewish. Today 38 remain in the capital. In Basra, the once prosperous port in the south, there is just one old woman. In Mosul and Amarah, and other Iraqi cities where Jews had lived for more than two millennia, their communities have vanished without trace. ... With the threat of conflict looming, anti-Zionist banners appearing on public buildings, and high-placed Iraqis increasingly unnerved by Washington's talk of regime change, the dwindling Jewish community of Baghdad is terrified of what the future may hold. "I'm sorry, but I can't possibly talk to you," said Ibrahim Youssef Saleh, a doleful 80-year-old man who has been the leader of the community since the last rabbi died in 1996 and the president of the synagogue left to join his family in London two years ago. "You must have written permission from the Ministry of Information before I can talk to you, and then they will send one of their minders to sit in on the interview." Then, trembling visibly, Mr Saleh opened the door of his small office, where a small number of Hebrew texts had been slipped between the Arabic volumes on the bookshelves, and where the obligatory portrait of Saddam gazes down from the wall. "Will you please leave now?" he begged.""War Looms but God Is With Us, Hussein Tells Iraqis" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2002/10/18)
"President Saddam Hussein warned Iraqis today that they might have to endure war with the United States, but he assured them that Divine Providence would ensure their victory. ... His statements came in a rambling 40-minute speech at an inaugural ceremony marking his new seven-year term as Iraq's president. ... In the most substantive passage of the speech, Mr. Hussein referred to "the bloody events of September 2001," saying the United States had shunned calls from leaders around the world, including himself, to "identify the causes" of the attacks and address them. ... "The Americans did not hear the call," he said. "They found it easier to take the road of blood and violence." He added: 'The road of blood can only lead to more blood. We have learned this fact from our elders in the countryside. We used to hear them say it many years ago, despite their simple life of limited education. The road of blood takes you to more blood, and he who tries to shed the blood of others must expect his blood to be spilled.'" (See also the full text of the speech: "President Saddam Hussein - Swearing in and Speech" (Iraq News Agency, 2002/10/18): "The American administrations have for long been the product of the games of the Zionist lobby in the United States. They cannot see the facts as they are ; and even if they did see the facts as they were, they would not be able to act according to their own interpretation, but only according to the interests of the Zionist lobby and the Zionist entity which occupies Palestine.")"Air War" (Franklin Foer, The New Republic, 2002/10/16)
"Like their Soviet-bloc predecessors, the Iraqis have become masters of the Orwellian pantomime - the state-orchestrated anti-American rally, the state-led tours of alleged chemical weapons sites that turn out to be baby milk factories - that promotes their distorted reality. And the Iraqi regime has found an audience for these displays in an unlikely place: the U.S. media. It's not because American reporters have an ideological sympathy for Saddam Hussein; broadcasting his propaganda is simply the only way they can continue to work in Iraq. ... To stay on the right side of the regime, many reporters on the Baghdad beat take the path of least resistance: They mimic the Baath Party line. ... In her report reviewing Saddam's past ten years, Arraf included no mention of his butchery that has been documented in Human Rights Watch reports and in dozens of books. From her telling, you'd think he's the Robert Moses of Mesopotamia. ... When I asked CNN's Jordan to explain why his network is so devoted to maintaining a perpetual Baghdad presence, he listed two reasons: "First, because it's newsworthy; second, because there's an expectation that if anybody is in Iraq, it will be CNN." His answer reveals the fundamental attitude of most Western media: Access to Baghdad is an end in itself, regardless of the intellectual or moral caliber of the journalism such access produces. An old journalistic aphorism holds "access is a curse." The Iraqi experience proves it can be much worse than that.""Saddam 'wins 100% of vote'" (BBC News, 2002/10/16)
The Mother of all Democracies: "Iraqi officials say President Saddam Hussein has won 100% backing in a referendum on whether he should rule for another seven years. There were 11,445,638 eligible voters - and every one of them voted for the president, according to Izzat Ibrahim, Vice-Chairman of Iraq's Revolutionary Command Council. Saddam Hussein was the only candidate. ... The announcement of the results - broadcast live on television - was greeted with celebratory gunfire across Baghdad. "This is a unique manifestation of democracy which is superior to all other forms of democracies even in these countries which are besieging Iraq and trying to suffocate it," Mr Ibrahim said, apparently referring to the US.""One Candidate, One Outcome: A Show of Loyalty in Iraq Vote" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2002/10/16)
"The crowds gathered in Tikrit appeared to be in a trance, transported by their worship of Mr. Hussein, and by their contempt for President Bush, from the grim realities of everyday life in Iraq to a state of bliss. Women carrying pins punctured their fingers so they could mark their "yes" votes in blood. Men followed suit, using the blunt edges of paper clips as makeshift knives to start the blood flowing. One grandmother in a black cloak stormed onto one of the reporters' buses holding aloft a 10-day-old baby boy with a Saddam button pinned to his swaddling clothes, and shouting "Yes, yes, yes to Saddam" so forcefully it seemed she might faint." (See also: "Defiant Iraqis Vote 'Yes' to Saddam in Blood" (Nadim Ladki, Reuters, 2002/10/15))"Defiant Iraqis Vote 'Yes' to Saddam in Blood" (Nadim Ladki, Reuters, 2002/10/15)
"'With our blood and souls we defend Saddam Hussein,' supporters chanted at a polling station in central Baghdad as voters lined up to cast their vote. Making good on his words, a voter pricked his right thumb with a pin and ticked "Yes" with blood on his ballot paper. "I vote with my blood, not my pen," he said. Similar scenes were reported at other polling stations. ... There was no sign of the president, who rarely appears in public, but his eldest son Uday did vote. Uday drove in a red Rolls Royce to a polling station in central Baghdad. Surrounded by bodyguards, he got out of his car, marked his ballot paper and gave it to a young boy. The boy was escorted by a bodyguard inside the station and slotted the paper into the ballot box. Uday then drove away without setting foot in the station. Saddam's supporters began celebrating victory shortly after polls opened, dancing outside polling stations in the capital and bringing sheep to slaughter, a traditional Arab act of celebration. Tea and refreshments were distributed free at polling stations in Baghdad by ruling Ba'ath Party members. Telephone dialing tones in some districts of the capital were replaced by a recorded message of 'yes, yes to Saddam.'" (See also: "Projecting defiance and unity, Iraqis vote Tuesday" (Scott Peterson, The Christian Science Monitor, 2002/10/15): "Popular defiance is also manifest in at least one official sign-painting session, in which Iraqis gave their blood to be used as paint. The pro-Saddam banners vow "yes, a million times." Schoolchildren at official functions wear pink hearts made of construction paper pinned to their pinafores, which read "Yes, Yes, Saddam Hussein." The common chant - of every child here for a generation - is "'Our blood, our spirit, we sacrifice for Saddam.'")"Saddam assured "yes" in one-man poll" (Reuters/Financial Times, 2002/10/15)
"'With our blood and souls we defend Saddam Hussein,' supporters chanted at a polling station in central Baghdad as voters lined up to cast their vote. "All Iraq calls, Saddam is the pride of my nation," others shouted. ... Merely an hour into the referendum, Saddam's supporters were celebrating victory, dancing outside polling stations in the capital and bringing sheep to slaughter, a traditional Arab act of celebration. "I voted a big Yes to Saddam and a big No to Bush," voter Mohammad Khalil said. "No one can tell us who our leader should or shouldn't be. We want Saddam Hussein." ... But the result is a forgone conclusion with the voting process tightly controlled by the authorities and with no independent observers or other candidates. Saddam won 99.96 percent in a first referendum in 1995. Officials say privately they want an even higher percentage this time, with some hoping for a perfect 100 percent "Yes" result.""Tour of Suspect Iraqi Plant Offers Only Partial Access" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2002/10/13)
A report from a tour of Al Furat, an industrial plant in Iraq: "One indication that the current operations at Al Furat might not be quite as harmless as the Iraq officials claimed came from the extensive defenses around the plant. Sandbagged bunkers lined the approach road after the buses carrying the group turned off the highway leading south from Baghdad. Farther off were clusters of antiaircraft weapons mounted on high earthen berms, all of them manned. ... Much of what the reporters saw at the plant had an oddly makeshift appearance, almost as if work on the radar and other electronic appliances under way in the laboratories was new, or at least being conducted in an oddly haphazard way. Secretaries sat staring mutely at the screen savers on their computer desktops, and logged onto programs only when reporters approached. Some testing equipment in otherwise bare laboratories sat on carts parked awkwardly along the walls, as if nobody had given much thought to the matter.""Saddam's Sons" (Evan Thomas and Christopher Dickey, Newsweek, from the 2002/10/21 issue)
"Both men (Uday is 38, Qusay 36) were born and bred to violence of the most lurid kind. As infants, they were supposedly given disarmed grenades as toys. More reliably, they were said to accompany their father on outings to the torture chamber. ... Saddam has always believed in the symbolic power of mutilation. [Saddam] was aiming at the creation of "a new man" in Iraq, just as Hitler and Stalin had tried to do in Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia. He may well have made his sons into psychopaths. ... Strolling through a park, Uday spotted a young couple. He called out to the young woman, but the pair walked on, pretending not to notice. Affronted, Uday grabbed the woman by the arm and declared, "You're much too good for this simple man." (Her companion was wearing the uniform of an Army captain.) The woman stammered that she had been married only the day before. Uday's guards promptly dragged her to a hotel room, where Uday raped her as the guards watched from the next room. Latif, who says he witnessed this scene, says he heard the woman scream. He went to the balcony and saw her half-naked figure lying in front of the hotel entrance six floors below. Her husband, who cursed Uday, was executed for 'defamation of the president.'""Radical Shias are a worry for Bush as well as Saddam" (Ian Cobain, The Times, 2002/10/12)
"Karbala may be a mud-coloured city, lying close to the mud-coloured waters of the Euphrates, but it is a place steeped in blood. It was the massacre here in AD680 of Imam Hussein and his followers that led to the great schism between Sunnis and Shias. ... Centuries later there would be slaughter again. In March 1991 the residents of Karbala joined those of Basra, 315 miles to the south, in the uprising against Saddam. The Iraqi Army fled in terror, about 75 Baath Party officials were hurled from their office windows to be hacked to death by the mob below and it seemed for one heady moment as if the regime were about to fall. But no strong leader emerged and there was no support from the West. The Republican Guard returned 11 days later to perpetrate the worst bloodbath that Karbala has seen. The guardsmen are said to have been merciless, ploughing through the bazaars in T72 tanks emblazoned with the slogan "No Shias After Today" and fighting from house to house until the last rebels sought sanctuary in the magnificent 11th-century al-Hussein and al-Abbas mosques. The copper-domed shrines are revered almost as much as Mecca by millions of Shias across the East, yet Saddam's troops did not hesitate to train their tank guns and heavy artillery on them. The surviving rebels are said to have been hanged from lampposts or dragged to their deaths behind the T72s. Their families were hunted down and shot. The shrines have been rebuilt, but some of their grey marble walls remain pock-marked by shrapnel, and fear still enshrouds the city, mingling with the sand that drifts in from the Mesopotamian Desert. Today there are fears of a fourth historic massacre at Karbala if renewed American and British attacks on Iraqi forces ignite the city's religious fervour, economic frustration and hatred of Sunni oppression.""Iraq Backs Away From U.N. Demand to Set Arms Terms" (Julia Preston, The New York Times, 2002/10/12)
"Iraq, ignoring rising global pressure for thorough inspections of its weapons programs, has backed away from agreements reached last week on minimum conditions for the inspectors to carry out their work, diplomats said today. In a letter that became public today, Iraq did not meet a specific request to confirm agreements it made last week in Vienna with Hans Blix, the leader of the United Nations weapons inspection team. Instead, Iraq insisted on further discussions of even basic logistical arrangements." (See also excerpts from the letter: "Iraq's Response to the U.N." (The New York Times, 2002/10/12))"Congress Passes Iraq Resolution" (Jim VandeHei and Juliet Eilperin, The Washington Post, 2002/10/11)
"The House and Senate voted overwhelmingly to grant President Bush the power to attack Iraq unilaterally, remove Saddam Hussein from power and abolish that country's nuclear, chemical and biological weaponry. Moving the nation closer to a possible second war with Iraq, 77 of 100 senators and 296 of 435 House members voted to authorize the president to "use the armed forces of the United States as he determines to be necessary and appropriate in order to defend the national security of the United States against the continuing threat posed by Iraq." The president needs no further congressional approval to deploy troops, order airstrikes and wage a ground war with Iraq. "The gathering threat of Iraq must be confronted fully and finally," Bush said after the House vote yesterday afternoon . 'The days of Iraq acting as an outlaw state are coming to an end.'" (See also the resolution: "Congressional Joint Resolution to Authorize Use of Force Against Iraq" (The Washington Post, 2002/10/11))"Slave State" (Robert Kaplan, The New Republic, 2002/10/10)
"Where are all the humanitarian interventionists now? After all, throughout the 1990s they beat the war drums for military intervention against Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic, who is responsible for the deaths of only one-quarter as many people as Saddam Hussein. In the vast network of prisons, torture chambers, and poison-gas fields of Iraq and its border areas, Saddam bears responsibility for the deaths of a million people. ... Saddam is not just another dictator with whom we have to live. On a moral plane, even by the dismal standards of the Middle East, he is sui generis. The degree of repression is so severe in Iraq that whenever I would journey from Saddam's Iraq to Hafez al-Assad's Syria in the 1980s, it was like coming up for liberal humanist air. ... Three years earlier [1983], an American technician for Baghdad's Novotel hotel, Robert Spurling, had been taken away from his wife and daughters at Saddam International Airport and tortured for four months with electric shock, brass knuckles, and wooden bludgeons. His toes were crushed and his toenails ripped out. He was kept in solitary confinement on a starvation diet. Finally, American diplomats won his release. Multiply his story by thousands, and you will have an idea what Iraq is like to this day - at least, that is, until a Western leader has the gumption to stop it. ... Invading Iraq would be a humanitarian intervention if ever there were one." (Note: Thanks again to Barry Kaplovitz for the pointer.)"Mother of all election frauds will make plotters stop and think" (Ian Cobain, The Times, 2002/10/10)
"There will be no manifesto, no televised debates and the outcome is a foregone conclusion because there will be only one candidate. Iraq is consumed, nonetheless, by a bizarre brand of election fever as it prepares to re-elect President Saddam Hussein. In a ploy that has been condemned by opposition groups as the "mother of all election frauds", Saddam is staging a referendum next Tuesday in an attempt to legitimise his iron rule. Nearly 11.5 million voters in this country of 23 million people will be asked to answer "yes" or "no" to one simple question: do you agree that Saddam should remain President? In a similar exercise seven years ago, Saddam, who seized power in 1969, won 99.89 per cent of the votes cast. Voters had to write their names on their ballot papers and voted under the gaze of election officials. There were reports of reluctant Iraqis being threatened if they failed to vote. ... Party officials have chosen the Whitney Houston song I Will Always Love You as the campaign theme tune. The song accompanies the dawn-to-dusk election broadcasts on the three state-controlled television stations, which feature almost continuous footage of Saddam. He is shown praying, kissing children, firing an ancient rifle one-handed, waving to the masses and striking heroic poses.""Germans 'shopped for guns for Iraq'" (Roger Boyes, The Times, 2002/10/10)
"Germany's role in helping to rearm Iraq will come under fresh scrutiny after two businessmen were accused of acquiring equipment for President Saddam Hussein’s much-coveted supercannon. The arrests underline fears that Saddam's network has been actively shopping on the world’s black markets despite a 12-year United Nations embargo on arms imports. The prosecutor's office in Mannheim confirmed yesterday that two Germans would be tried in January for shipping drilling tools to Iraq via Jordan. "The equipment was exported to Jordan solely to avoid compliance with the embargo on military shipments to Iraq," Hubert Jobski, a prosecutor, said. The drills can be used to manufacture the tubes of Iraq's planned al-Fao supercannon, which could fire shells armed with atomic, biological or chemical agents up to 35 miles. The equipment was delivered between April 1999 and December 2000, which suggests that Baghdad has been actively constructing its supercannon. It is not known if any have been built.""Bush Cites Iraqi Threat Posed to U.S. and Allies" (David E. Sanger, The New York Times, 2002/10/08)
"President Bush declared tonight that Saddam Hussein could attack the United States or its allies "on any given day" with chemical or biological weapons. In a forceful argument for disarming Iraq or going to war with that country, he argued that "we have an urgent duty to prevent the worst from occurring." ... Building his case, the president charged for the first time that Iraq's fleet of unmanned aerial vehicles was ultimately intended to deliver chemical and biological weapons to cities in the United States. ... He called Mr. Hussein a dictator, "a student of Stalin" and a murderer, and most important described no solution other than Mr. Hussein's permanent removal from office that would end the confrontation." (See also: "President Bush Outlines Iraqi Threat" (George W. Bush, The White House, 2002/10/08): "I hope this will not require military action, but it may. And military conflict could be difficult. An Iraqi regime faced with its own demise may attempt cruel and desperate measures. If Saddam Hussein orders such measures, his generals would be well advised to refuse those orders. If they do not refuse, they must understand that all war criminals will be pursued and punished. If we have to act, we will take every precaution that is possible. We will plan carefully; we will act with the full power of the United States military; we will act with allies at our side, and we will prevail.")"Saddam's Evil Luxury Lairs" (Niles Lathem, New York Post, 2002/10/07)
"These are the secret palaces of Saddam Hussein - the mystery structures at the heart of the battle over weapons inspection in Iraq. They're like no other buildings on earth - each believed to be a bizarre combination of luxury resort, death camp and weapons factory, with gold-plated faucets, gourmet kitchens, torture chambers and biological, chemical or nuclear manufacturing facilities. ... They boast dolphin pools, exotic birds, hunting ranges and even amusement parks. With water a symbol of success in the Arab world, the palaces are surrounded by giant manmade lakes. They have Olympic-size swimming pools and massive water fountains that use foreign pumps - which Iraq says it needs to ease draught conditions, but can't get because of export restrictions. The palaces are decorated in Italian marble and crystal chandeliers. Meals are made from food flown in from Europe.""Saddam's inner circle is defecting, say Iraqi exiles" (Anton La Guardia, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/10/07)
"Saddam Hussein's power base is coming under extreme pressure, with members of his inner circle defecting to the opposition or making discreet offers of peace in the hope of being spared retribution if the Baghdad dictator is toppled, according to Iraqi exiles. Ayad al-Awi, the head of the opposition Iraqi National Accord, said his group in recent weeks had received senior defectors from the Iraqi security services, which form the regime's nerve centre. At the same time Kurdish groups said they had received secret approaches from military commanders offering to turn their weapons on Saddam when the war began.""Speaking for Saddam, the cool survivor who has not lost his head" (Roger Matthews, The Times, 2002/10/06)
A profile of Iraq's Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz: "When Saddam sought to consolidate his grip on the presidency, Mr Aziz was instructed to get closer to the most senior people in the Baath Party to discover if they had, in the words of Saddam, “a black spot in their heart against me”. The horrific climax was a top-level meeting of the party during which Saddam drew a paper from his pocket, announced a conspiracy and with theatrical tears in his eyes, read out a list of those who had betrayed him. One by one, amid screams and roars of approval, they were led out. More than 20 were executed, many by their peers in the party.""Not So Innocents Abroad" (David Tell, The Weekly Standard, from the 2002/10/14 issue)
"Even as McDermott and Bonior were still on the ground in Baghdad, issuing their all's well cry, Iraqi vice president Taha Yassin Ramadan was telling the world, by way of Lebanese television, that his government reserved the right to launch a preemptive first strike--against American and allied targets, military or civilian, anywhere in the world. Where war is concerned, Ramadan promised, 'we'll decide when it happens." Iraq "has the right to confront the aggressors on its land and in any place the aggressors are found. An enemy is an enemy. ... Any American, British, or Zionist interests on Arab land or within reach of Arabs, wherever they are, I consider as legitimate.'""Chief U.N. Weapons Inspector Backs Stiff U.S. Demand on Iraq" (Todd S. Purdum and David Firestone, The New York Times, 2002/10/05)
"The chief United Nations weapons inspector, Hans Blix, today endorsed the main demand of the United States that Iraq make a full declaration of its weapons programs before inspections resume. After an hourlong meeting with Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and other officials, Mr. Blix said that there was "very broad support" in the Security Council for a new resolution setting tough terms for inspections. He also endorsed the threat of consequences if Iraq fails to disarm, saying, "I think it is clear that there has to be constant pressure" to make Baghdad comply.""C.I.A. Says Iraq Revived Forbidden Weapons Programs" (Michael R. Gordon, The New York Times, 2002/10/05)
"The Central Intelligence Agency said today that Iraq had taken advantage of the withdrawal of United Nations weapons inspectors to resume the production of chemical arms, expand efforts to develop biological weapons and revive its program to make nuclear arms. ... Iraq, the report said, has rebuilt weapons plants destroyed in American air raids. "Baghdad has begun renewed production of chemical warfare agents, probably including mustard, sarin, cyclosarin and VX," the C.I.A. said. The agency estimates that Iraq has several hundred metric tons of chemical agents that it could put in bombs, artillery shells and missile warheads. As for biological arms, the agency said that "all key aspects" of Iraq's offensive biological weapons program were active and that "most elements are larger and more advanced than they were before the Gulf war." (See also: "Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction Programs" (Central Intelligence Agency, 2002/10/04))"Vicious circles closing in" (Micha Odenheimer, Haaretz, 2002/10/04)
A must-read interview with Thomas von der Osten-Sacken, "one of Germany's leading authorities on human rights in Iraq": "When did you first realize that the Iraqi regime was not just another Middle East dictatorship?
"When I first came to Iraq, I very quickly realized that I could not compare the situation there to other Middle Eastern countries I had been in, like Syria, Jordan or Egypt. This country was hell. ... The Iraqis made people lie down in the streets and then buried them alive under asphalt. They killed everyone who looked a little religious, because this was a Shi'ite area. It was forbidden to take the corpses from the street. All in all, 60,000 or 70,000 people were killed in this area in 1991. ... The fear in Iraq, a BBC reporter said recently, is so palpable you can eat it. It's really indescribable. Syria is a dictatorship, but the fear and control in Iraq reaches into your living room. If there is no picture of Saddam Hussein in your living room, you might be arrested." ...
What do you think drives German policy against U.S. intervention in Iraq?
'There are very close ties between a certain German ideology dating back to the 19th century, running through World War I and escalating in World War II with the Nazis and continuing afterward, which has close ties to pan-Arabism. One that shares the same enemies: America, the Jews, Israel. Anti-American and anti-Israel resentments are very strong in Germany and they have become stronger since 1989. ... At the moment, you can hardly distinguish between the very far right wing and the very far left wing. ... Germany is signaling that it is standing on the other side. Everywhere in the Middle East, in the Syrian press, in the Hezbollah press, in the Baghdadi press, Germany is being praised for taking the same side they did 50 years ago. So people understand what the Germans are doing. And I think that that is quite interesting - and quite horrifying.'""Put up or shut up" (Mark Steyn, The Spectator, from the 2002/10/05 issue)
"But I wonder if the rest of the anti-Yank set have thought it through. When they bitch about America's warmongering but think the UN's the perfect vehicle to restrain it, you know they're just posing, and that, though they may routinely say that 'Bush frightens me', they're not frightened at all. ... Imagine any previous power of the last thousand years with America's unrivalled hegemony and unparalleled military superiority in a unipolar world with nothing to stand in its way but UN resolutions. Pick whoever you like: the Soviet Union, Imperial Japan, the Third Reich, the Habsburgs, Tsarist Russia, Napoleon, Spain, the Vikings. That's really 'frightening'. I've now read a gazillion columns beginning, 'He's a dangerous madman with weapons of mass destruction. No, not Saddam. George W. Bush.' It barely works as a joke never mind a real threat. The fact that, in all the torrent of anti-Americanism, there's no serious thought given to how to reverse it nor any urgency about doing so tells you precisely how frightening and dangerous these folks really think the Great Satan is. ... Saddam's creditors in Moscow and under-the-table trading partners in Paris, his useful idiots in Europe and kindred spirits in the thug states may yet team up to stymie America at the UN and those 150,000 'peace' marchers will cheer. But be careful what you wish for.""Oakville MP compares Bush to WW2 villains" (Sheldon Alberts, National Post, 2002/10/03)
"An Ontario Liberal MP set off a heated debate in the Commons yesterday for comparing any U.S. attack on Iraq to the Japanese raid on Pearl Harbor and Nazi aggression in Europe during the Second World War. ... During a debate on Iraq late Monday, Bonnie Brown, the MP for Oakville, suggested a pre-emptive U.S. strike on Saddam Hussein would be akin to the actions of the Japanese empire's attack on Pearl Harbor. Military experts said her grasp of history is flawed. "When we moved in World War Two as Allies, we were moving against the idea of one nation aggressively invading and taking over another. This is exactly what George Bush is now proposing," Ms. Brown said. The third-term MP also drew an analogy between possible U.S. bombing of Iraq and the surprise Japanese attack on the U.S. fleet at Pearl Harbor in 1941. "If he does go ahead and strikes Iraq, will he have to rewrite history so that the other pre-emptive strike, Pearl Harbor, is no longer described as an atrocity?" ... Military analyst David Bercuson said Pearl Harbor was just one part of a long war Japan was fighting for control of Asia in which millions had already died. A U.S. attack against Iraq would be a strike against a murderous tyrant who might use weapons of mass destruction, he said. 'If you saw someone coming at you with a bloody, dripping axe in their hand and you had a gun, would it be pre-emptive to shoot them?'""White House Would Welcome Hussein Assassination" (The Washington Post, 2002/10/02)
"The White House press secretary today said the Bush administration would welcome the assassination of Saddam Hussein by his countrymen, arguing that "one bullet" would be a cost-effective way of removing the threat the Iraqi leader represents. "The cost of one bullet, if the Iraqi people take it on themselves, is substantially less" than going to war, President Bush's press secretary, Ari Fleischer, said when asked at a televised briefing about the cost of military action against Iraq. Asked whether the administration was advocating the assassination of Hussein, Fleischer repeatedly replied: 'Regime change is welcome in whatever form that it takes.'""US threatens to thwart inspectors' return to Iraq" (Richard Beeston et al., The Times, 2002/10/02)
"Progress between Iraq and the United Nations hit an immediate snag last night when Washington said that it would work to block the swift return of weapons inspectors. Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, said that the inspectors should not go back to Iraq until they had received new instructions from the UN Security Council. His intervention came after Iraqi officials in Vienna reached a comprehensive agreement with Hans Blix, the UN’s chief weapons inspector, that could see inspectors back in Baghdad within two weeks after a four-year absence. ... One State Department official said that the United States would "thwart" the return of inspectors until they had fresh instructions from the Security Council.""Crude" (Peter Beinart, The New Republic, 2002/10/01)
"Antiwar leftists say America shouldn't attack Iraq because American foreign policy shouldn't be dictated by oil. While the "this war is really about oil" thesis may be marginal in Washington, it's pervasive beyond America's shores. ... But this just raises another logical problem: If all the Bush administration wanted from Iraq were those six million daily barrels of crude - if all its talk about nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons was merely a smoke screen - why wouldn't the United States simply lift sanctions? Attacking Saddam, after all, entails huge financial costs, risks American lives, and could prompt civil war in precisely those parts of Iraq where oil companies want to drill. Lifting sanctions would far more easily produce the same result - since it is sanctions that have partially prevented Iraq from importing the equipment that it needs to boost oil production. ... Indeed, for their first nine months in office, Cheney and the Bush team didn't propose invading Iraq; they proposed scaling back the U.N. sanctions regime. The Bush administration changed its mind not because of oil but because of terrorism." (Note: For a recent example of the war for oil-thesis, see "The Sun Can't Set on This Empire Too Soon" (Robert Scheer, Los Angeles Times, 2002/10/01): "It sure smells like imperialism. That's the word historians use when powerful nations grab control of desired resources, be it the gold of the New World or the oil of the Middle East. Imperialist greed is what "regime change" in Iraq and "anticipatory self-defense" are all about, and all of the rest of the Bush administration's talk about security and democracy is a bunch of malarkey." And for a critique of Scheer, see "Scheer Deception: The Lies and Jargon of Robert Scheer" (Ben Fritz, Spinsanity, 2001/10/08): "In column after column, his favored tactics have been irrational criticism, distortion, and spin. ... For those concerned about the rise of irrational discourse in American politics, Robert Scheer stands out as one of the worst offenders." )"Saddam's Patsies" (George F. Will, New York Post, 2002/10/01)
"Not since Jane Fonda posed for photographers at a Hanoi anti-aircraft gun has there been anything like Rep. Jim McDermott, speaking to ABC's "This Week" from Baghdad, saying Americans should take Saddam Hussein at his word, but should not take President Bush at his. ... McDermott sided with Saddam in opposing what McDermott calls the "coercive stuff" - inspections backed by force, which are the only kind that have even a remote chance of being productive. Parroting Saddam's line to perfection, he said "Iraq did not drive the inspectors out, we" - actually, the U.N. - "took them out. So they should be given a chance." His implication is that America, not Iraq, foiled inspections. ... Bonior's contribution from Baghdad was to charge that "a horrendous, barbaric, horrific" number of cases of childhood leukemia and lymphomas have been caused by "uranium that has been part of our weapons system that was dropped here during the last war." ... The radiation involved is much less than that occurring naturally in the Iraqi soil where tank battles occurred in 1991. At least a dozen U.S., U.N. and European studies, including one involving U.S. soldiers who still have depleted uranium in their bodies resulting from "friendly fire" accidents, show no grounds for believing in the health effects Baghdad and Bonior claim." (See also: "Democratic Congressman Asserts Bush Would Mislead U.S. on Iraq" (John H. Cushman Jr., The New York Times, 2002/09/30))
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