"The
Great Terror"
"The case for deterrence, drawing on the bipolar Cold War, leads inexorably to a world of hyperproliferation. This is madness." (Charles Krauthammer)
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 - 2003/01/31November 2002
Monday, November 25, 2002 - Saturday, November 30, 2002
"The Obsolescence of Deterrence" (Charles Krauthammer, The Weekly Standard, from the 2002/12/09 issue)
"The Prospect of War" (Brian Urquhart, The New York Review of Books, from the 2002/12/19 issue)
"UN resumes Iraq inspections" (BBC News, 2002/11/27)
"Mr. Blix Goes to Baghdad" (Gary Milhollin, The Wall Street Journal, 2002/11/26)Monday, November 18, 2002 - Sunday, November 24, 2002
"America, Islam and the Iraqi Threat" (Paul Wolfowitz, FrontPageMagazine, 2002/11/22)
"NATO backs disarming Iraq" (Bill Sammon, The Washington Times, 2002/11/22)
"Bush says Saddam has 17 days left to decide his fate" (Roland Watson, The Times, 2002/11/21)
"Saddam already defying UN, says White House" (Toby Harnden and Anton La Guardia, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/11/19)
"UN inspectors begin Iraq mission" (BBC News, 2002/11/18)
"Baghdad warns that a US strike will lead it to hit back at Israel" (Paul Waugh, Independent, 2002/11/18)Monday, November 11, 2002 - Sunday, November 17, 2002
"France Loves Tyrants" (Jonathan Foreman, New York Post, 2002/11/17)
"Saddam has outwitted his enemies again" (Con Coughlin, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/11/17)
"Who Needs the U.N. Security Council?" (James Traub, The New York Times Magazine, 2002/11/17)
"A Struggle for the President's Heart and Mind" (Bob Woodward, The Washington Post, 2002/11/17)
"Between the Lines of an Iraqi Letter" (Verlyn Klinkenborg, The New York Times, 2002/11/16)
"Saddam pays Gaddafi $3 billion to give his family safe haven in Libya" (Michael Evans, The Times, 2002/11/16)
"Saddam Hussein's Delusion" (Amir Taheri, The New York Times, 2002/11/14)
"Iraq Accepts New U.N. Council Resolution" (Colum Lynch, The Washington Post, 2002/11/13)
"Europe lacks moral fibre, says US hawk" (Edward Pilkington and Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian, 2002/11/13)
"Pre-schoolers protest possible war in Iraq" (Steve Sexton, The California Patriot, 2002/11/13)
"Deadline for Hussein" (Dennis Ross, The Washington Post, 2002/11/12)
"Two Faces, One Terror" (Fouad Ajami, The Wall Street Journal/FrontPageMagazine, 2002/11/12)
"Iraq and the Left" (Barry Rubin, The Jerusalem Post, 2002/11/12)
"Iraq Said to Try to Buy Antidote Against Nerve Gas" (Judith Miller, The New York Times, 2002/11/12)Monday, November 4, 2002 - Sunday, November 10, 2002
"Baghdad's Moment of Truth" (Colin L. Powell, The Washington Post, 2002/11/10)
"War Plan in Iraq Sees Large Force and Quick Strikes" (David E. Sanger et al., The New York Times, 2002/11/10)
"Huge anti-war protest in Florence" (BBC News, 2002/11/09)
"The U.N. Trap?" (William Kristol and Robert Kagan, The Weekly Standard, from the 2002/11/18 issue)
"Bush and Blair order Saddam: Disarm or else" (Roland Watson and Rosemary Bennett, The Times, 2002/11/09)
"U.N. passes Iraq resolution on weapons inspections" (CNN.com, 2002/11/08)
"Ramadan Sermon From Iraq" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 438, 2002/11/08)
"U.S. says Baghdad is hiding anthrax" (Bill Gertz, The Washington Times, 2002/11/08)
"Bush optimistic over UN resolution" (BBC News, 2002/11/07)
"UN council studies new Iraq resolution" (William M. Reilly, UPI, 2002/11/06)
"US proposes to give Iraq one last chance on weapons inspections" (James Bone, The Times, 2002/11/06)
"Hail the American imperium" (Fouad Ajami, usnews.com, from the 2002/11/11 issue)
"First Interview with Saddam Hussein in 12 years" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 437, 2002/11/05)
"The Chirac Doctrine" (Amir Taheri, National Review, 2002/11/04)Friday, November 1, 2002 - Sunday, November 3, 2002
"Saddam & Terror" (Jim Hoagland, New York Post, 2002/11/03)
"Saddam Says Public Opinion Works Against U.S.-British Desire to Oust Him" (Maamoun Youssef, The Washington Post, 2002/11/03)
"Saddam orders agents to assassinate Iraqi opposition leaders sheltering in Britain" (Con Coughlin, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/11/03)
"After Saddam 1" (Kanan Makiya, Prospect, from the November 2002 issue)
"Belgrade told to stop arms sales to Saddam" (Richard Beeston and Zoran Kusovac, The Times, 2002/11/02)
"Saddam's Brain" (David Brooks, The Weekly Standard, from the 2002/11/11 issue)
"Harsh words for America as Baghdad trade fair opens" (Dusan Stojanovic, AP/Yahoo! News, 2002/11/01)
"Sending in a dupe to disarm Saddam" (Per Ahlmark, The Washington Times, 2002/11/01)
"Dubious Council" (The New Republic, 2002/11/01)
"The Obsolescence of Deterrence" (Charles Krauthammer, The Weekly Standard, from the 2002/12/09 issue)
"Why does the president feel, asks Zbigniew Brzezinski, that "deterrence doesn't work, when it worked with such murderous, dangerous tyrants as Stalin, as Mao Zedong. It worked during the Cuban missile crisis"? The first problem with this argument is its nostalgia for containment and nuclear deterrence. Like all nostalgia, especially Cold War nostalgia, it depends on a memory that is highly selective. And fuzzy. It presents the international relations of the second half of the 20th century as simple and stable. They were not. We came more than once to the brink of Armageddon. ... WMD technology is spreading and coming within the reach of dozens of countries. Under such circumstances, the logic of deterrence argues perversely for increased proliferation - if everyone has nukes, everyone is deterred, and no one will use them. Safety through deterrence; universal safety through universal deterrence. There's no escaping this logic. Yet it is plainly a huge bet against everything we know about human nature. It is also a terrible tempting of statistics. The proliferation of weapons of mass destruction will certainly include increasingly unstable and unbalanced characters. It will mean that even such inherently undeterrable substate groups as al Qaeda will in time get these weapons. The result will inevitably be a deeply unstable international structure that promises to break down at myriad points in the future, even the near future. The case for deterrence, drawing on the bipolar Cold War, leads inexorably to a world of hyperproliferation. This is madness.""The Prospect of War" (Brian Urquhart, The New York Review of Books, from the 2002/12/19 issue)
A review of Kenneth M. Pollack's "The Threatening Storm: The Case for Invading Iraq": "As it is, Saddam Hussein is the industrialized world's worst nightmare, an aggressive, unpredictable, psychotic dictator in the midst of the world's most important oil-producing region, who, in addition to his chemical and biological arsenal, may before long acquire usable nuclear weapons as well. The current, much disputed question is whether to try to live with and contain this undeniably serious threat to peace and to the world economy, or to destroy it before it gets any larger. ... In his concluding chapter, "Not Whether, but When?," Pollack castigates other nations in the United Nations for gravely weakening collective security, multilateral diplomacy, the UN Security Council, and international law by walking away from the problem of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. He believes that if the world passes up the opportunity to take action, it will not get another chance, and that the policies of containment and deterrence are dangerous traps, particularly after Saddam gets nuclear weapons. Invasion, with all its risks, is, he writes, the only way to ensure that Saddam Hussein will never again threaten the region or cause an international nuclear crisis. The risks of not invading - nuclear war or the destruction of the oil production of the Persian Gulf - are infinitely greater than even the worst projection of the costs of invasion.""UN resumes Iraq inspections" (BBC News, 2002/11/27)
"Two separate teams set off from the UN's Baghdad offices at the former Canal Hotel at 0530GMT and drove to a military compound north of the capital. ... The BBC's Ben Brown in Baghdad says the UN teams drove off at high speed in white Land Cruisers, pursued by journalists and causing traffic chaos. The team our correspondent was following arrived at a complex of warehouses called al-Rashad. Journalists were first allowed inside the gates, but then were pushed out again amid scenes of confusion. ... As the inspections began, air raid sirens sounded over Baghdad. Iraqi officials say they were set off by Western planes flying over the city.""Mr. Blix Goes to Baghdad" (Gary Milhollin, The Wall Street Journal, 2002/11/26)
"There is a reason why Iraq's friends preferred Mr. Blix. He already had an unsurpassed record of failure in dealing with Saddam Hussein. From 1981 to 1997, Mr. Blix headed the International Atomic Energy Agency, the U.N. body responsible for inspecting nuclear sites around the world--including Iraq's--to make sure they are not cranking out atomic bombs. As late as 1990, the same year Iraq invaded Kuwait, Mr. Blix's inspectors rated Iraq's cooperation as "exemplary." But all the while Saddam was running a vast A-bomb program under their very noses. Iraq produced both plutonium and enriched uranium for nuclear weapons in clear violation of the IAEA's rules. Some of the work went on at the same places that were being inspected, and was hidden with the help of an Iraqi official who was himself a former IAEA inspector. ... If the inspectors continue as they have begun, Saddam will never be forced to give up his mass destruction arsenal - which every Western intelligence service believes he has - because Mr. Blix will never uncover what is hidden. The world should demand that Mr. Blix confront Saddam now with the best evidence the West can muster, and insist on explanations. Unless he does so, Mr. Blix will have the distinction of missing the Iraqi bomb before the Gulf War, missing it afterward, and now missing it once again." (See also: "Sending in a dupe to disarm Saddam" (Per Ahlmark, The Washington Times, 2002/11/01))"America, Islam and the Iraqi Threat" (Paul Wolfowitz, FrontPageMagazine, 2002/11/22)
A transcript of a speech made by the Deputy Secretary of Defense: "We hear a lot of talk about the root causes of terrorism. And some people seem to suggest that poverty is the root cause of terrorism. It's a little hard to look at a billionaire named Osama bin Laden and think that poverty drove him to it. Nor was that the case for Ayman al-Zawahiri who comes from one of the most prominent, distinguished families in Egypt. But it would be putting our heads in the sand to say there isn't something quite substantially Islamic about the form of terrorism that we're confronting today. And I think in important ways the war against terrorism is a war for the soul of the Muslim world. ... Do the pessimists really believe that the only way to preserve what they call "stability" in one of the most important countries of the Arab world is to preserve indefinitely the rule of one of the world's most despotic tyrants? ... That regime has turned Iraq, one of the potentially richest countries in the Middle East, into the most savage kind of prison. But as we have seen in Afghanistan when the yoke of terrorism is removed people use their newfound freedom to build a better future for themselves and for their children. And there is no question in my mind if it comes to that we will not only have removed another haven for terrorists and made our country safer, we will also have made a significant step forward in helping the Muslim world to build a better future for themselves and for all of us.""NATO backs disarming Iraq" (Bill Sammon, The Washington Times, 2002/11/22)
"NATO yesterday pledged its "full support" for the U.S.-led effort to disarm Saddam Hussein, giving President Bush new momentum to take action against Iraq "with our close friends." "We deplore Iraq's failure to comply fully with its obligations," said the leaders of all 19 NATO nations, including Germany, which nonetheless declined to pledge troops to the effort. The leaders issued a joint statement expressing strong support for a recent U.N. Security Council resolution that calls on the Iraqi leader to disarm or face the wrath of the international community.""Bush says Saddam has 17 days left to decide his fate" (Roland Watson, The Times, 2002/11/21)
"President Bush said yesterday that President Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship would enter its "final stage"if he does not declare his banned weapons of mass destruction within 17 days. Delivering his starkest warning yet as he sought to enlist Nato’s support for a looming war with Iraq, Mr Bush said that Saddam would be inviting military action if he continued to deny his "arsenal of terror". "Should he again deny that this arsenal exists, he will have entered his final stage with a lie. And deception this time will not be tolerated. Delay and defiance will invite the severest consequences," Mr Bush said. ... Mr Bush said: 'One thing is certain, he’ll be disarmed, one way or the other.'" (See also: "President Bush Previews Historic NATO Summit in Prague Speech" (George W. Bush, The White House, 2002/11/20))"Saddam already defying UN, says White House" (Toby Harnden and Anton La Guardia, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/11/19)
"The White House last night began to build its case that Saddam Hussein was already defying the United Nations. It said Iraq's repeated attempts to fire on American and British aircraft in the no-fly zones amounted to a "material breach" of the latest Security Council resolution. But Britain has not echoed Washington's comments and officials in London privately expressed concern that America could seize on Iraq's behaviour in the no-fly zones as a possible casus belli. ... During a trip to Chile, Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, said: "I do find it unacceptable that Iraq fires. It is for the president of the United States and the UN Security Council to make judgments about their view of Iraq's behaviour over a period of time." However, US officials indicated that America would not go back to the UN until further violations - such as impeding the work of the inspectors.""UN inspectors begin Iraq mission" (BBC News, 2002/11/18)
"International inspectors have returned to Iraq for the first time in four years with a sweeping new mandate to search for weapons of mass destruction. The leader of the UN team, Hans Blix, said inspections would resume on 27 November and that he hoped the work could ease a "tense" situation. ... The 25-strong team of inspectors now in Iraq include Mohammed el-Baradei, Mr Blix's counterpart from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). The advance party will hold discussions with Iraqi Government officials to pave the way for new searches, but Mr Blix has said there will be no advance warning of any site to be checked. The inspectors - whose numbers are expected to swell to 100 by the end of the year - have been instructed to report to the Security Council on their findings or any hindrance to their work. If Iraq fails to meet the UN demands, the Security Council could reconvene to discuss taking further action - even war.""Baghdad warns that a US strike will lead it to hit back at Israel" (Paul Waugh, Independent, 2002/11/18)
"Tariq Aziz, Iraq's Deputy Prime Minister, gave his clearest warning yet yesterday that Baghdad would launch strikes against Israel if it was attacked by Britain and America. ... His remarks followed a prediction by Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, that Saddam Hussein would be "making the mistake of his life" if he failed to comply with the latest UN resolution on disarmament. Interviewed on ITV1's Jonathan Dimbleby programme, Mr Aziz said that any military action against Iraq would endanger not just Britain and America but also their allies such as Israel.""France Loves Tyrants" (Jonathan Foreman, New York Post, 2002/11/17)
"What makes France's partial U.N. victory over the United States all the more galling is that it is also a triumph for a foreign policy that persistently favors monstrous, murderous - often genocidally murderous - regimes. And yes, the Security Council resolution on Iraq was largely a triumph for France and a defeat for the United States: The French got almost everything they wanted. ... In the first Gulf War, between Iran and Iraq, it was the French, not the Americans as is often put about, who (with the Russians and Chinese) were Saddam Hussein's chief arms suppliers. Now they are among the prime foreign beneficiaries of the "Oil for Food" program, through which Saddam legally spends some of his oil wealth. The maintenance of Saddam's nightmarish rule over Iraq continues to be a major goal of French foreign policy. Though it had the additional benefit of frustrating the "Anglo-Saxon" powers, this, not the preservation of "peace" or stability, was the real point of France's efforts in the Security Council. ... Don't think for a minute that the Quai D'Orsay isn't perfectly aware of the mass murders of the Kurds and Marsh Arabs by the Saddam regime. But France's ruthless notion of "realism" (a popular maxim of the French diplomatic corps is "the task of diplomacy is to expedite the inevitable") makes those crimes irrelevant. We in the United States have done some bad things in the name of realpolitik. But with the exception of our unforgiveable support of the Khmer Rouge, we have never stooped this low.""Saddam has outwitted his enemies again" (Con Coughlin, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/11/17)
"Round one to Saddam. That is how the hawks in the Bush administration see the Iraqi dictator's decision to allow UN arms inspectors back into Iraq, this time with unrestricted access to any site they wish to visit. It looked like a humiliating climbdown for Saddam, who had always insisted he would "never let the UN spies return". In fact it is a considerable victory for him. "Saddam might in public give the impression that he is unhappy with the resolution," one adviser to the US President told me last week. "But privately, he must be delighted." The reason: Saddam's manoeuvering has delayed invasion of his country, certainly for months, and perhaps indefinitely. ... How has the Bush administration let itself be outmanoeuvered in this way? Some of Bush's tougher officials have no doubt as to whom to blame: Colin Powell, the US Secretary of State, who insisted that America had to go through the Security Council if it was to dismantle Saddam's regime and its weapons of mass destruction. Indeed, some of these officials seem to think that the real "axis of evil" consists not so much of Iraq, Iran and North Korea, but of Colin Powell, Kofi Annan, the UN Secretary General, and Dr Hans Blix, who will lead the inspection teams.""Who Needs the U.N. Security Council?" (James Traub, The New York Times Magazine, 2002/11/17)
"The Security Council needs the United States in order for it to play a meaningful role in world affairs, but it appears as though the United States doesn't need the Security Council - or at least that many of the leading members of the Bush administration think that it doesn't. Secretary of State George Marshall had predicted in 1948 that should there be ''a complete lack of power equilibrium in the world, the United Nations cannot function successfully.'' And now, for the first time since the U.N.'s establishment, that state of affairs has come to pass. And so the resolution on Iraq has been the first test case of the new world of American supersupremacy. As Gelson Fonseca, the Brazilian ambassador to the U.N., put it archly, ''You have a situation of dual containment: you have to contain the United States; you have to contain Iraq.'' Containing the Bush administration has meant finding a middle ground between rubber-stamping American policy - and thus making the council superfluous - and blocking American policy, and thus provoking America to unilateral action, which of course would make the council irrelevant. Fonseca seemed to feel that containing the U.S. is a harder job than containing Iraq, and possibly a more important one.""A Struggle for the President's Heart and Mind" (Bob Woodward, The Washington Post, 2002/11/17)
The first installment of excerpts from Bob Woodward's new book, "Bush at War", dealing with how "Powell Journeyed From Isolation to Winning the Argument on Iraq": "At the podium in the famous General Assembly hall, Bush reached the portion of the speech where he was to say he would seek resolutions. But the change hadn't made it into the copy that was put into the TelePrompTer. So Bush read the old line, "My nation will work with the U.N. Security Council to meet our common challenge." Powell was reading along with Draft No. 24, penciling in any ad-libs that the president made. His heart almost stopped. The sentence about resolutions was gone! He hadn't said it! It was the punch line! But as Bush read the old sentence, he realized that the part about resolutions was missing. With only mild awkwardness he ad-libbed it, saying later, "We will work with the U.N. Security Council for the necessary resolutions." Powell breathed again.""Between the Lines of an Iraqi Letter" (Verlyn Klinkenborg, The New York Times, 2002/11/16)
"Twice in the past week, George W. Bush has been called "Pharaoh" in missives from the Middle East. The word was uttered by the voice on an audiotape broadcast by Al Jazeera, which may or may not have been that of Osama bin Laden, and it also appeared in the recent letter from Naji Sabri, the Iraqi foreign minister, to Kofi Annan accepting the return of United Nations weapons inspectors to Iraq. ... In the Koran, as in the Bible, the Pharaoh is the very image of organized evil. ... The text of the Iraqi foreign minister's letter will remind many people of the intemperate language that used to come out of the Soviet Union. Indeed, the text borrows as richly from that old Communist vocabulary as it does from the lexicon of the Koran and the sanitized language of United Nations resolutions. ... The Iraqi letter reaches for the language of moral suasion, trying to speak in apothegms, as well as in the logic of international law, but every rhetoric it touches turns as hollow as the case it is making. It talks about stabbing the truth "with the dagger of evil." It argues that "he who remains silent in the defense of truth is a dumb devil." And though a reader ends up feeling that he is reading through a glass, darkly, pondering a text where the subtlest implications have been buried by a garbled rendering into English, the real purport of the letter is perfectly clear. It is a howl of temporary surrender, a plea of continuing defiance." (See also: "Text: Letter From Iraqi Foreign Minister to the U.N." (The Washington Post, 2002/11/13))"Saddam pays Gaddafi $3 billion to give his family safe haven in Libya" (Michael Evans, The Times, 2002/11/16)
"Saddam Hussein has made secret plans for his family and leading members of his regime to be given political asylum in Libya in the event of a war with America or a successful internal coup in Baghdad. The extraordinary steps taken by the Iraqi leader to provide an exit strategy for key relatives and associates, which includes paying $3.5 billion (£2.3 billion) into Libyan banks, provide the first evidence that Saddam is now facing up to the prospect of being toppled from power.""Saddam Hussein's Delusion" (Amir Taheri, The New York Times, 2002/11/14)
"His basic assumption is that there is a single Arab nation stretching from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean. At different times, history chooses part of this mythical nation to assume leadership. In Saddam Hussein's view, it is now Iraq's turn. ... In 1970, he opened the Ottoman archives, in which Iraqis were classified as either Ottoman or Persian subjects. ... The mass expulsion of the Persians was implemented from 1972 on. By 1980 nearly a million people had been driven out. ... In 1980 he decided to Arabize the Kurds. Over the next 10 years, more than 4,000 Kurdish villages in the north of the country were razed, their inhabitants transferred to southern Iraq and scattered among the Arabic-speaking majority. ... Under his vision, Iraq must be fully Arabized by force and, if necessary, through genocide. He also wants Iraq to secure control of the principal source of Arab wealth: oil. That means either the direct conquest of the Persian Gulf states or their indirect domination. He has shown that he is fully prepared to go to war to fulfill this vision and has done so on four occasions since 1968. His quest for weapons of mass destruction is simply one strategy by which he hopes to dominate the region.""Iraq Accepts New U.N. Council Resolution" (Colum Lynch, The Washington Post, 2002/11/13)
"Iraq's U.N. ambassador Mohammed Douri said today that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has decided to accept "without conditions" a U.N. resolution that sets tough new terms for U.N. inspections in Iraq, citing concerns about the impact of an American led war in the region. But a formal Iraqi letter presented by Douri to the United Nations stopped short of an unequivocal commitment to abide by all of the U.N.'s terms, raising the prospects of a potential confrontation between Iraq and the weapons inspectors. Douri's announcement to accept the new U.N. inspection resolution, which was adopted Friday unanimously by the 15 nation council, is still expected to pave the way for the resumption of U.N. inspections on Monday for the first time in four years. It comes a day after Iraq's parliament unanimously voted down the resolution but left the final decision in the hands of Hussein." (See also: "Text: Letter From Iraqi Foreign Minister to the U.N." (The Washington Post, 2002/11/13): "Then they returned to stress that Iraq had in fact produced chemical and biological weapons. They both know, as well as we do, and so can other countries, that such fabrications are baseless. ... Indeed, is there any good to be hoped for, or expected, from the American administrations, now that they have been transformed by their own greed, by Zionism as well as by other known factors, into the tyrant of the age.")"Europe lacks moral fibre, says US hawk" (Edward Pilkington and Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian, 2002/11/13)
"Richard Perle, a leading Pentagon adviser on Iraq, last night launched an extraordinary tirade against Europe which he accused of losing its moral direction and providing succour to Saddam Hussein. "I think Europe has lost its moral compass. Many Europeans have become so obsessed by the prospect of violence they have failed to notice who we are dealing with," he said in an interview with the Guardian. Mr Perle expressed serious reservations about the United Nations chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, and the ability of his team to disarm Iraq. But he reserved his most scathing comments for Germany and Chancellor Gerhard Schröder's new anti-war stance. "Germany has subsided into a moral numbing pacifism. For the German chancellor to say he will have nothing to do with action against Saddam Hussein, even if approved by the United Nations, is unilateralism," Mr Perle said.""Pre-schoolers protest possible war in Iraq" (Steve Sexton, The California Patriot, 2002/11/13)
The exploitation of little children for political causes is always ugly, but on the other hand they seem to be just about as logical as grown-up protesters: "They still believe in the Tooth Fairy and Santa Claus. They don't know how to spell their last names or tie their own shoes. But they do know that "war is bad," and that "Bush is a bully." The next generation of Berkeley peaceniks gathered on the steps of City Hall Tuesday to demonstrate their opposition to a pending war in Iraq- after school, of course. Armed with protest signs, microphones, and Harry Potter lunch-boxes, elementary and pre-school children demanded city leaders contact President Bush and halt his hawkish "war for oil." ... Though most students at the rally could not even name Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, many seemed certain the pending U.S. led war in Iraq is about oil. Celia, age 6, who could not spell her hyphenated last name, told the crowd President Bush "wants to make war because he wants oil." "What is so important about cars anyway," she asked. Later, when asked if she could name the president of Iraq, Celia, stumped, turned to a friend and asked, "Is it a boy or a girl?" Her friend, equally puzzled, responded, 'I think it's a boy.'""Deadline for Hussein" (Dennis Ross, The Washington Post, 2002/11/12)
"Many have said that Hussein is homicidal, not suicidal, and that when faced with the alternatives of survival or acceptance of disarmament, he will accept disarmament. Maybe, but I doubt Hussein feels he is truly being faced with that choice. In his mind, he believes he has been able to maneuver inspection regimes before, and this one, despite the toughened language and anywhere-anytime provisions, ultimately will be no different. And he may be right. ... If disarmament is the objective, the only possibility of achieving it without war will depend on Hussein's understanding that anything less than full disclosure is, in fact, the trigger for war. Anything less than that will put us on a slippery slope that allows Hussein to play for time, make sure the inspectors find nothing in the early going - or find only what he wants them to find to "prove" he is cooperating. President Bush has set the stage for disarmament. Now he must condition the French, the Russians and the rest of the world to understand that the moment of truth comes not with the inspectors' arrival but with the character of Iraq's disclosure on Dec. 8.""Two Faces, One Terror" (Fouad Ajami, The Wall Street Journal/FrontPageMagazine, 2002/11/12)
"The prospect of using force against Iraq has brought numerous demands that the U.S. establish a definitive connection between the rogue state and the events of Sept. 11. But we needn't look for a "smoking gun" that would unequivocally tie Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda. The more important link - of a more organic nature - has already been established. Iraq and al Qaeda are two main tributaries of Arab radicalism. ... For all the outward differences, Saddam and the leaders of al Qaeda offered the masses that flocked to their banners an absolution from responsibility, and a dream of revenge. In both cases, the crowd worked itself into a frenzy, and then fell into despondency when the Pied Piper was unable to deliver. ... America's enemies in that region are full of cunning. They should be read right; the banners they unfurl - secular or religious - are of no great significance. It is the drive that animates them that matters. What they bring forth, be they dictators in bunkers or jihadists on the run, is a determination to extirpate American influence from their world, and a view of history that the deep sorrows and failings of the Arab world can be laid at the doorsteps of the distant American power.""Iraq and the Left" (Barry Rubin, The Jerusalem Post, 2002/11/12)
"Much of the American intelligentsia - opinion makers, journalists, professors, and so on - virulently oppose any war on Iraq. ... President Bush is a Republican and a conservative (and most decidedly not an intellectual) so he must be totally wrong. On the Left there is an undercurrent of implicit assumption that Saddam is preferable to Bush, though such an accusation would be met with angry denial. The irony here is that this places the Left in the position of opposing a US effort to overthrow a reactionary dictator, free an oppressed people, and replace a repressive regime with a democracy. If the president was a Democrat, one wonders whether more such people would perceive the ridiculousness of their position.""Iraq Said to Try to Buy Antidote Against Nerve Gas" (Judith Miller, The New York Times, 2002/11/12)
"Iraq has ordered large quantities of a drug that can be used to counter the effects of nerve gas, mainly from suppliers in Turkey, which is being pressed to stop the sales, according to senior Bush administration officials. The officials said the orders far outstripped the amount Iraq could conceivably need for normal hospital use, and they said Turkey had indicated in talks with the State Department that it was willing to review the matter. "If the Iraqis were going to use nerve agents," an official said, "they would want to take steps to protect their own soldiers, if not their population. This is something that U.S. intelligence is mindful of and very concerned about." Iraq has ordered, mainly from a Turkish company, a million doses of the drug, atropine, and the 7-inch autoinjectors that inject it into a person's leg, the officials said. ... Atropine is highly effective at blocking such nerve agents as sarin and VX, both of which Iraq has acknowledged having made and stockpiled. Iraq claims to have destroyed those stockpiles, but American intelligence agencies doubt it has done so.""Baghdad's Moment of Truth" (Colin L. Powell, The Washington Post, 2002/11/10)
"The disarmament process must now begin. The first inspectors plan to arrive in Iraq one week from tomorrow. The world will be watching. The inspectors are required to update the Security Council 60 days after inspections start. Inspectors also are required to inform the council whenever they encounter interference or obstacles. As President Bush said on Friday, U.S. policy will be one of zero tolerance. In the days and weeks of inspections that lie ahead, the international community can expect Iraq to test its will. Backing Resolution 1441 with the threat of force will be the best way to not only eliminate Iraq's weapons of mass destruction but also to achieve compliance with all U.N. resolutions and reach our ultimate goal: an Iraq that does not threaten its own people, its neighbors and the world. President Bush and both houses of Congress have emphasized that the United States prefers to see Iraq disarm under U.N. auspices without a resort to force. We do not seek a war with Iraq, we seek its peaceful disarmament. But we will not shrink from war if that is the only way to rid Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction. The Security Council has confronted Saddam Hussein and his regime with a moment of truth. If they meet it with more lies, they will not escape the consequences.""War Plan in Iraq Sees Large Force and Quick Strikes" (David E. Sanger et al., The New York Times, 2002/11/10)
"President Bush has settled on a war plan for Iraq that would begin with an air campaign shorter than the one for the Persian Gulf war, senior administration officials say. It would feature swift ground actions to seize footholds in the country and strikes to cut off the leadership in Baghdad. The plan, approved in recent weeks by Mr. Bush well before the Security Council's unanimous vote on Friday to disarm Iraq, calls for massing 200,000 to 250,000 troops for attack by air, land and sea. ... As the Pentagon puts the finishing touches on a plan of attack, White House and State Department officials are discussing what one senior official called a "seamless transition" from attack to a military occupation of parts of the country. It would include efforts to deliver food to Iraqis and to engage them quickly in planning for economic development and eventual democracy in areas that President Saddam Hussein has terrorized."Huge anti-war protest in Florence" (BBC News, 2002/11/09)
"Hundreds of thousands of protesters from across Europe have joined a rally in the Italian city of Florence to voice their opposition to any war with Iraq. ... There was no official police count of the numbers taking part, but observers estimated that about 300,000 people had turned out. The protest is the climax of the first meeting of the European Social Forum, which has brought together anti-globalisation campaigners from across the continent for five days of debates, conferences and concerts. ... Correspondents say there was a carnival atmosphere, with the crowd being entertained by clowns and jugglers and some participants eating or rollerblading along the route. ... But the message behind the rally was a serious one: "Take your war and go to hell," one banner read. "Bush, Blair and Berlusconi - assassins" said another." (See also: "U.N. Iraq Move Fuels Anger at Italy Anti-War Demo" (Luke Baker, Reuters/ABC News, 2002/11/09): "'It's a scandalous resolution,' said Sean Murray, 29, a member of a group called the Workers' Revolution. "It proves once more that the United Nations is a puppet of America, Britain and France and is not an institution that's there to serve the interests of the world's people." ... "There are so many problems in the world. Hunger, thirst and disease. Rather than tackling these, the United States is making it worse by waging war," said Ramadan Sleiman, a Palestinian activist on the streets of Florence.")"The U.N. Trap?" (William Kristol and Robert Kagan, The Weekly Standard, from the 2002/11/18 issue)
"There is no point in kidding ourselves: The inspections process on which we are to embark is a trap. It may well be one that this powerful and determined president can get out of, but it is a trap nonetheless. It was designed to satisfy those in Europe who oppose U.S. military action against Iraq; and it was negotiated by those within the Bush administration who have never made any secret of their opposition to military action in Iraq. We should hardly be surprised, then, that the process established by the U.N. Security Council makes it harder, not easier, for the president to accomplish what he has long stated as his objective in Iraq. President Bush's own policy advisers have led him into an inspections quagmire from which he may have difficulty escaping. ... The tragic irony, of course, is that the inspections regime cannot possibly "work," no matter how compliant Saddam chooses to be. It simply cannot eliminate the danger Saddam poses to the United States and to the world. Even if the inspectors were to find and destroy some of his illicit weapons and weapons-making facilities, we could never be confident that they had found and destroyed all of them. Nor is there anything to stop Saddam, after "disarming" and getting a clean bill of health, from beginning all over again. That is why President Bush has been right all along to insist on a change of regime in Iraq. The problem is not just Saddam's weapons. The problem is Saddam.""Bush and Blair order Saddam: Disarm or else" (Roland Watson and Rosemary Bennett, The Times, 2002/11/09)
"President Bush and Tony Blair warned Iraq last night of the "severest consequences" if it failed to disarm after the United Nations Security Council voted unanimously to give President Saddam Hussein a week to accept an uncompromising new inspection regime. "The outcome of the current crisis is already determined," Mr Bush said. "The full disarmament of weapons of mass destruction by Iraq will occur. The only question for the Iraqi people is to decide how ... His co-operation must be full and unconditional or he will face the severest consequences." In Downing Street Mr Blair declared: 'Conflict is not inevitable, but disarmament is. Defy the UN's will and we will disarm you by force. Be in no doubt whatever of that.'" (See also the full statements: "President Pleased with U.N. Vote" (George W. Bush, The White House, 2002/11/08) and "PM statement on Iraq following UN Security Council resolution" (Tony Blair, 10 Downing Street, 2002/11/08))"U.N. passes Iraq resolution on weapons inspections" (CNN.com, 2002/11/08)
"The United Nations Security Council on Friday approved a resolution that demands unfettered access for U.N. inspectors to search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The vote is in line with U.S. efforts to win international backing for stripping Saddam Hussein of such weapons. The resolution passed unanimously, after Secretary-General Kofi Annan joined the assembled delegates in the Security Council chamber. "How this crisis is resolved will affect greatly the course of peace and security in the region and the world," Annan said after the vote. 'I commend the council for acting today with purpose and resolve.'" (See also: "Text of U.N. resolution on Iraq" (CNN.com, 2002/11/08))"Ramadan Sermon From Iraq" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 438, 2002/11/08)
Excerpts from a sermon delivered by Dr. Sheikh Bakr Abed Al-Razzaq Al-Samaraai in 'The Mother of All Battles' mosque in Baghdad, which was broadcasted on Iraqi television: "You [the West] are the real terrorists. We will scare you with the help of Allah. We stand strong; Allah will not allow the infidels to overcome the believers. Who are you, Oh foreigners. Who are you, Oh descendents of pigs and apes, to scare Muhammad, who is supported by Allah, as well as by Gabriel and the [other] Angels…??? Who are you, anyway, Bush [you] little dwarf to threaten Muhammad and his descendents!!?? We challenge you with our words, before challenging you with our weapons. Who are you to threaten us, our feelings and our holy places??!! ... We tell you, Oh Allah, that we are patient… and we will fight them with all kinds of weapons. Jihad, Jihad, Jihad, Jihad. ... Today, after the capture of Jerusalem, and after the infidels defiled the Arabian Peninsula and are threatening Arabs and Muslims, the holy places, and especially Iraq - Jihad has become an obligation of every individual Muslim [Fardh 'Ayn]. Anyone who does not comply, will find himself lost in [hell], side by side with Haman, Pharaoh and their soldiers. These are not just words of a sermon delivered from the pulpit of a mosque with enthusiasm, they are religious law.""U.S. says Baghdad is hiding anthrax" (Bill Gertz, The Washington Times, 2002/11/08)
"U.S. intelligence agencies have told U.N. weapons inspectors that Iraq has hidden 7,000 liters of anthrax, but chief inspector Hans Blix never reported the information to the U.N. Security Council, The Washington Times has learned. The failure to inform the council has raised questions about whether Mr. Blix will report accurately on anticipated Iraqi obstruction of weapons inspections, which could begin again later this month, said administration officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. ... Mr. Blix could not be reached for comment, but he said in a recent television interview that although he respects U.S. and British intelligence agency reports on Iraq's weapons, Unmovic cannot report the intelligence to the Security Council because spy agencies will not disclose their sources.""Bush optimistic over UN resolution" (BBC News, 2002/11/07)
"President Bush says the United Nations will vote on Friday on a resolution "bringing the civilised world together to disarm Saddam Hussein". Mr Bush told reporters in Washington: "I am optimistic we will get the resolution vote tomorrow." French President Jacques Chirac has reached agreement with Mr Bush over the wording of the US draft resolution currently being debated by the UN Security Council, Mr Chirac's spokeswoman says. ... Mr Bush told reporters: "The resolution is a disarmament resolution, it is a statement of intent to once and for all disarm Saddam Hussein. 'When this resolution passes, I will be able to say that the United Nations has recognised the threat and we are going to work together to disarm him.'""UN council studies new Iraq resolution" (William M. Reilly, UPI, 2002/11/06)
"The U.N. Security Council Wednesday began considering the revised U.S. draft resolution that, if approved in a vote anticipated by week's end, would declare Iraq in continuing "material breach" of previous measures and warn Baghdad of "serious consequences" - the diplomatic term for use of force - if it fails to cooperate with weapons inspectors. The measure, co-sponsored by Britain, gives Baghdad a "final opportunity to comply" with past and present U.N. resolutions and lays out a strict timetable of compliance." (See also: "Text of U.S. resolution on Iraq" (UPI, 2002/11/06))"US proposes to give Iraq one last chance on weapons inspections" (James Bone, The Times, 2002/11/06)
"The United States will table a revised draft resolution on Iraq at the United Nations today that gives Iraq "a final opportunity" to disarm through weapons inspections. The latest American proposal, which is likely to be adopted overwhelmingly by the end of the week, makes clear that any Iraqi non-compliance would constitute a "material breach" of the Gulf War ceasefire - wording that allows a resumption of military action. In a nod to France the text offers a limited follow-up role to the UN Security Council.""Hail the American imperium" (Fouad Ajami, usnews.com, from the 2002/11/11 issue)
"America is coming into an unmistakable imperial hegemony in the Muslim world. And the acquisition of that imperial position is as striking as the reluctance - at times the innocence - with which America approaches this new calling. ... America's political and military leaders are supremely sober and seasoned men and women. If war it be in Iraq, they will have come to it out of conviction that all other options have failed. They will have arrived at that determination only because the shattering terrors of Sept. 11, 2001, revealed hatreds of America and malignancies beyond our wildest imagination. ... Wars of liberation are never simple; gratitude is never guaranteed. We know this, for we never hear Islamists acknowledging the role of American power in rescuing the Bosnians and the Kosovars, both Muslim populations, from the assault of the more powerful Serbian and Croatian nationalisms. In Iraq, we may face a difficult imperial burden. But, in their wisdom, the American people seem to have factored all that into a subdued recognition that war against Saddam Hussein may emerge as the best of a bad lot of alternatives. Where Britain once filled the void left by the shattered Ottoman Empire in the aftermath of the First World War, now the failures – and the dangers – of the successor Arab states are drawing America to its own imperial mission.""First Interview with Saddam Hussein in 12 years" (MEMRI, Special Dispatch Series - No. 437, 2002/11/05)
"The Egyptian opposition weekly Al-Usbou' published yesterday an interview with Saddam Hussein. According to Al-Usbou', which has a very strong pan-Arab orientation, this was the first interview given by Saddam to any media outlet in the last 12 years. ...
Saddam: Iraq is not the only country subjected to conspiracies. The U.S. wants to impose its hegemony on the region, and to do so it has to direct its hostilities towards the Arab countries, especially the pivotal ones. All this serves the Israeli Entity and International Zionism. ... The U.S. wants to impose its hegemony on the Arab world, and as a prelude it wants to control Iraq and then strike the capitals that oppose it and revolt against its hegemony. From Baghdad, which will be under military control, it will strike Damascus and Tehran. It will fragment them and will cause major problems to Saudi Arabia. ... This way the Arab oil will be under its control and the region, especially the oil sources - after the destruction of Afghanistan - will be under total control of the U.S. All these things serve the Israeli interests, and based on this strategy the purpose is to make Israel into a large empire in the area. Iraq's problem is that it opposes all these conspiracies, and the others do not understand that we are defending [them]. Everyone should know that no one will be safe from [the conspiracies] that are being hatched now against Iraq. All, from the point of view of the U.S. and Israel, are the same and what will happen to us, will happen to the others later.""The Chirac Doctrine" (Amir Taheri, National Review, 2002/11/04)
"France's President Jacques Chirac is "determined" to prevent the United States from removing the Iraqi regime of President Saddam Hussein by force. Sources in Paris insist that Chirac has decided to use the French veto in the United Nations Security Council, if necessary, to derail American plans for an attack on Iraq. ... On the basis of interviews with various sources in Paris, it looks as if the French leader's plan is devised in two phases. The first phase consists of efforts to prevent the passage of a Security Council resolution that would give the U.S. a legal basis for removing Saddam Hussein from power. Chirac wants the U.N. weapons' inspectors to return to Iraq and operate within a timeframe determined by themselves, not Washington. ... Assuming that the inspectors are in Iraq by Christmas, the Blix timetable would take us into the summer of 2004. Even if he reports at that time that the Iraqis have not cooperated with his team, the issue would have to be raised by the Security Council so that a new resolution, authorizing the use of force, is discussed. ... The second phase of Chirac's strategy consists of efforts inside Iraq to persuade Saddam to change certain aspects of his domestic and foreign policies. ... The source adds: "Chirac is convinced that he can persuade Saddam to talk the right talk and walk the right walk." ... What France is proposing in Iraq is already seen in Paris as "the Chirac Doctrine" which is aimed at persuading "trouble-making regimes" to accept peaceful change. The question is: Will Washington stand back and watch while the Chirac doctrine is put to its first major test?""Saddam & Terror" (Jim Hoagland, New York Post, 2002/11/03)
"The brief official note that came from Baghdad to the health ministry of a quasi-friendly European nation a few weeks ago was polite in tone, chilling in content. Iraq's health-service director wanted to know: Could you provide information and help to treat an anthrax outbreak? No answer went back to Baghdad. Instead, the European government reported the Iraqi inquiry to the State Department and asked its own questions: Could the note represent a genuine request for help for an outbreak that had already occurred? Or was it a veiled warning of a weapon that invading American forces would meet? "There is no way of knowing, and that may be the point," said an official who described the note's contents to me. 'The Iraqis are very adept at using disguised threats. But it is also conceivable that their efforts to weaponize anthrax have created a problem at home. There is no way to be sure.'""Saddam Says Public Opinion Works Against U.S.-British Desire to Oust Him" (Maamoun Youssef, The Washington Post, 2002/11/03)
From an interview with Saddam Hussein: "Iraqi President Saddam Hussein said in a rare interview that he believed the American and British determination to make war on Iraq could collapse under the weight of anti-war sentiment in the two countries. "Time is in our favor, and we have to buy more time hoping that the U.S.-British alliance might disintegrate because of ... the pressure of public opinion on American and British streets," Saddam told the Egyptian weekly Al-Osboa in the interview published Sunday. "The demonstrations in the Arab and Western world include hundreds of thousands of peace-loving people who are protesting the war and aggression on Iraq," he said, apparently referring to protests in the United States and around the world last month.""Saddam orders agents to assassinate Iraqi opposition leaders sheltering in Britain" (Con Coughlin, The Daily Telegraph, 2002/11/03)
"Saddam Hussein has instructed his security officials to kill Iraqi opposition leaders based in Britain to prevent them from forming an alternative government in the event of an Allied military attack to remove his regime, The Telegraph can reveal. According to highly classified information received by British and American intelligence officials in the past week, Saddam has issued a presidential decree authorising the murder of leading members of the Iraqi opposition "by any means necessary". He is also said to have approached the Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi - who is known to have a network of "sleeper" agents based in Britain and Europe - to help him to target Iraqi dissidents. Details of the decree, which was transmitted from Saddam's presidential palace compound in Baghdad to Iraqi security officials in Europe and the Middle East last week, have been intercepted by British officials at the GCHQ listening complex in Cheltenham. Saddam's instructions have also been picked up by CIA spy satellites and by agents in the Middle East.""After Saddam 1" (Kanan Makiya, Prospect, from the November 2002 issue)
"The removal of Saddam's regime presents the US with a historic opportunity-as big as anything in the middle east since the fall of the Ottoman empire and the entry of British troops into Iraq in 1917. Iraq is not Afghanistan. It is rich and developed enough and has the human resources to become as great a force for democracy and economic reconstruction in the Arab and Muslim world as it has been a force for autocracy and destruction. ... Federalism has become the key issue inside the Iraqi opposition. In the Iraqi circles with which I am involved-and which work closely with various agencies of the US government-federalism is the big idea. The origins of this debate go back to 1992, when the Kurdish parliament voted for federalism. A few months later the Iraqi National Congress (INC) adopted the policy in its conference in Salahuddin, northern Iraq. I attended that conference and spoke out strongly in favour of the idea. The INC later reaffirmed federalism at its 1998 New York conference. ... Iraqis deserve a country in which a Kurd, Chaldean, Assyrian or Turkoman can be elected to the highest offices. That means that even though the Arabs form a majority in the country, that should not grant them the right to exclude anyone else from positions of power-as has been the case in the regime led by a party that calls itself the Arab Ba'ath Socialist party. A democratic Iraq has to be an Iraq that exists for all its citizens equally, regardless of race, ethnicity or religion. That means a non-Arab Iraq.""Belgrade told to stop arms sales to Saddam" (Richard Beeston and Zoran Kusovac, The Times, 2002/11/02)
"Britain is preparing to confront Yugoslavia at the highest level next week over new and irrefutable evidence that Belgrade has been secretly selling crucial military technology to Saddam Hussein. Officials said last night that the arms threatened the lives of British soldiers in the impending war with Iraq, and the revelations have enraged London and Washington. The two Governments consider Yugoslavia’s breaches so serious that it risks regaining the pariah status that it endured before the 2000 revolution that overthrew President Milosevic. The showdown will take place on Tuesday when Jack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, flies to Belgrade to demand that President Kostunica stamp out an illegal arms trade that has supplied sophisticated weapons not only to Iraq, but also to Liberia, Libya and possibly Burma." (See also: "Yugoslavia 'sold arms to Iraq'" (CNN.com, 2002/10/28))"Saddam's Brain" (David Brooks, The Weekly Standard, from the 2002/11/11 issue)
Brooks on Michel Aflaq, the founder of the Syrian and Iraqi Baath parties, and the Baathist ideology: "The Arab Nation for him is a transcendent spiritual force, a bit like Hegel's concept of the Spirit of History. The Arab Nation is the ideal around which human history ascends. The Arab Nation is the culmination of all values. Arabs attain spiritual perfection when they achieve solidarity with the Arab Nation and purge themselves of the cancerous influences of the West. ... The Baath saw themselves as strugglers, as people engaged in a permanent revolution aimed at uniting them with the inner perfection that is Arabism. ... The Baath party is not quite like the Communist parties. It bears stronger resemblance to the Nazi party because it is based ultimately on a burning faith in racial superiority. The revolution, in Saddam's terms, is not just a political event, as the Russian or French revolution was a political event; it is a mystical, never-ending process of struggle, ascent, and salvation. ... Saddam Hussein has taken such awful risks throughout his career not because he "miscalculated," as the game theorists assert, but because he was chasing his vision. He was following the dictates of the Baathist ideology, which calls for warfare, bloodshed, revolution, and conflict, on and on, against one and all, until the end of time.""Harsh words for America as Baghdad trade fair opens" (Dusan Stojanovic, AP/Yahoo! News, 2002/11/01)
"The Baghdad International Trade Fair opened Friday with patriotic songs, praise for Saddam Hussein and condemnation of America. Participation at the two-week fair was at a level not seen since the 1991 Gulf War . Saddam's aides hailed the turnout - nearly 1,200 companies from 49 countries - as a global show of support for Iraq's struggle against Washington's "aggressive policies." But the participants, mostly representing smaller trade firms looking for lucrative deals once a punishing U.N. trade embargo is lifted, said they were here to sell - not to support Saddam's regime. "We are here not for politics but for pure business," said Guy Jevinoy, a representative of France's E-Sat company, which sells satellite phones. "We are here to establish contacts and hope for better days for Iraq." ... Girls waving scarves with Saddam's portrait sang patriotic songs as Iraqi's top brass - except for the reclusive Iraqi president - watched the opening ceremony under watchful eyes of machine-gun totting guards and plainclothes police. "America can say what it wants," the girls sang, 'but for the next 1,000 years, we will say Yes, Yes for Saddam.'""Sending in a dupe to disarm Saddam" (Per Ahlmark, The Washington Times, 2002/11/01)
Ahlmark is a former deputy prime minister of Sweden and my favourite Swedish political commentator: "Hans Blix will head the U.N. arms inspectors charged with searching for, finding and destroying Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. ... I can think of few European officials less suitable for a showdown with Saddam. Indeed, it is with utter disbelief that I watch television news about Mr. Blix's negotiations with the Iraqi dictator's henchmen. ... When Mr. Blix headed the IAEA before the Persian Gulf war of 1991, he blithely assured the world, after several inspections, that nothing alarming was happening in Iraq. He delivered the clean bill of health that Saddam had hoped for when he began hiding his atomic factories and nuclear ambitions. Since then, we have learnt all too unambiguously that Saddam is obsessed with procuring weapons of mass destruction - chemical and biological warheads as well as atomic bombs and the missiles to deliver them. ... Saddam's chemical and biological arms, and his determination to get nuclear weapons, are a threat to the world. The dictator could use these arms himself or make them available to terrorist organizations. And the issue of war and peace depends on a man repeatedly duped the Iraqi regime. The Bush administration probably understands Mr. Blix's weaknesses. My guess is that the United States will not allow Mr. Blix and the inspectors that he oversees to be deceived by Iraq again. Regardless of how this crisis develops from this point, the United Nations has neglected its duties by asking a wimp to lead the inspectors who are supposed to stand up to the brute of Baghdad." (Note: The original link is down, but the article can be found here.)"Dubious Council" (The New Republic, 2002/11/01)
"In truth, France's fantasies of grandeur - fantasies that are decades, if not centuries, out of date - would be laughable, except that they are taken seriously in Turtle Bay. And so the Bush administration must endlessly negotiate with a country whose Iraq policy is motivated by petro-dollars and anti-American resentment, particularly the anti-American (and anti-Western) resentment of its Muslim immigrant masses. Why not stop the charade and let France veto the Iraq resolution? The United States and its allies could, on their own, eliminate the unconventional weapons of that most unconventional tyrant, Saddam Hussein. And, as a side benefit, the United Nations would suffer a humiliation so profound that it might force some long-overdue reconsideration of the Security Council's anachronistic composition. For international organizations to be relevant, privilege must follow power, and for them to be admirable, privilege must follow decency. Nothing would more dramatically further both goals than dethroning France."
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