"The
Great Terror"
"'Occupy us - please!' a Kurdish man on the street demands of an American visitor. Indeed, the main fear of Iraqi Kurds I spoke to is that Washington will not attack." (Mary Ann Smothers Bruni)
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 - 2003/01/31January 2003
Monday, January 27, 2003 - Friday, January 31, 2003
"Caught on Tape" (Michael Isikoff and Michael Hirsh, Newsweek, 2003/01/31)
"The Fire Last Time" (Zainab Al-Suwaij, The New Republic, 2003/01/30)
"NYT on Iraq - A Fisking" (Andrew Sullivan, Salon.com/andrewsullivan.com, 2003/01/30)
"United We Stand" (José María Aznar et al., The Wall Street Journal, 2003/01/30)
"Iraq to chair U.N. disarmament conference" (CNN.com, 2003/01/29)
"Cowboys Welcome in Kurdistan" (Mary Ann Smothers Bruni, The Washington Post, 2003/01/29)
"Answer this: do the people of Iraq deserve freedom?" (Janet Daley, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/01/29)
"Next Stop: War" (Terry Eastland, The Weekly Standard, 2003/01/29)
"Neither a Realist Nor a Liberal, W. Is a Liberator" (Lawrence F. Kaplan and William Kristol, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/01/29)
"State of the Union Address by President George W. Bush" (The White House, 2003/01/28)
"Scientists get death notices" (Niles Lathem, New York Post, 2003/01/28)
"Blair must turn a deaf ear to the siren calls of appeasers" (John Keegan, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/01/28)
"U.N. Inspectors Issue Tough Report on Iraq Disarmament" (Colum Lynch, The Washington Post, 2003/01/27)
"Looking on the Bright Side" (Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, from the 2003/02/03 issue)
"'Final Opportunity' for the U.N." (Robert L. Bartley, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/01/27)
"Powell ties Saddam regime to al Qaeda" (Nicholas Kralev, The Washington Times, 2003/01/27)Monday, January 20, 2003 - Sunday, January 26, 2003
"The Quarrel Over Iraq Gets Ugly" (Serge Schmemann, The New York Times, 2003/01/26)
"How Many People Has Hussein Killed?" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2003/01/26)
"This is the way Saddam Hussein sees it" (Con Coughlin, The Sunday Telegraph, 2003/01/26)
"Men Seek to Breach U.N. Baghdad Compound" (Charles J. Hanley, AP/Yahoo! News, 2003/01/25)
"Merci, M. de Villepin" (William Kristol and Robert Kagan, The Weekly Standard, from the 2003/02/03 issue)
"Iraq Faces Massive U.S. Missile Barrage" (CBS News, 2003/01/24)
"Iraq 'preparing for chemical war'" (BBC News, 2003/01/24)
"No Turning Back Now" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2003/01/24)
"Nos Amis the French" (The Wall Street Journal, 2003/01/24)
"The message from the Bush camp: 'It's war within weeks'" (Julian Borger et al., The Guardian, 2003/01/24)
"Why We Know Iraq Is Lying" (Condoleezza Rice, The Washington Post, 2003/01/23)
"Why They Cry 'Non!'" (Max Boot, Los Angeles Times, 2003/01/23)
"Berlin blinkered" (The Times, 2003/01/23)
"Bush Tired of Saddam's 'Bad Movie'" (Wendell Goler, Fox News, 2003/01/22)
"French and German Leaders Jointly Oppose Iraqi War Moves" (John Tagliabue, The New York Times, 2003/01/22)
"Saddam's Chemical Victims Still Suffering in Iran" (Paul Hughes, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2003/01/22)
"Germany rules out Iraq war support" (BBC News, 2003/01/22)
"Security Council Sells Out" (Thomas W. Murphy, USA in Review, 2003/01/21)
"France Vows to Block Resolution on Iraq War" (Glenn Kessler and Colum Lynch, The Washington Post, 2003/01/21)
"Ritter's attorney confirms arrest" (Lindsay Cohen, MSNBC, 2003/01/20)
"Britain to Send Thousands of Land Troops to Gulf" (Mike Peacock, Reuters, 2003/01/20)Monday, January 13, 2003 - Sunday, January 19, 2003
"The fall of the Baghdad wall" (Con Coughlin and Julian Coman, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/01/19)
"I Want You to Die for Israel..." (Right-Thinking from the Left Coast, 2003/01/18)
"Marches in World Capitals Oppose Iraq War" (AP/ABC News, 2003/01/18)
"Chemical warheads seized in Iraq" (BBC News, 2003/01/16)
"Iraqi Kurds Fight a War That Has Two Faces" (C.J. Chivers, The New York Times, 2003/01/15)
"A squeamish namby-pamby European wimp joins the Washington war debate" (Ian Buruma, The Guardian, 2003/01/14)
"The Left betrays the Iraqi people by opposing war" (Nick Cohen, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/01/14)
"Iraq Hunt To Extend To March, Blix Says" (Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus, The Washington Post, 2003/01/14)
"PM: 'Saddam should take the peaceful route and disarm'" (10 Downing Street, 2003/01/14)
"Blair vows to disarm Iraq" (BBC News, 2003/01/13)
"Blut für öl" (Der Spiegel, 2003/01/13)
"Germany's Implosion" (Andrew Sullivan, andrewsullivan.com, 2003/01/13)
"IAEA: Year for Iraq inspections" (CNN.com, 2003/01/13)Monday, January 6, 2003 - Sunday, January 12, 2003
"35,000 More U.S. Troops Ordered to Gulf" (Thom Shanker, The New York Times, 2003/01/11)
"Saddam's Idiots" (Jonah Goldberg, Town Hall, 2003/01/10)
"Powell and Bush at Cross-Purposes?" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2003/01/10)
"Blix Says Inspectors Have Found No 'Smoking Guns' in Iraq" (Edith M. Lederer, AP/The Washington Post, 2003/01/09)
"Jackals Gather Round" (William Safire, The New York Times, 2003/01/09)
"Listen to the world's fears, Blair tells US" (Michael White and Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian, 2003/01/08)
"Saddam accuses UN inspectors of spying" (BBC News, 2003/01/06)
"U.S. Is Completing Plan to Promote a Democratic Iraq" (David E. Sanger and James Dao, The New York Times, 2003/01/06)Wednesday, January 1, 2003 - Sunday, January 5, 2003
"Iraq's 'Bosnians'" (Melik Kaylan, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/01/05)
"Bush Tells Troops: Prepare For War" (Mike Allen, The Washington Post, 2003/01/04)"Caught on Tape" (Michael Isikoff and Michael Hirsh, Newsweek, 2003/01/31)
"The Bush administration is preparing to release supersensitive electronic intercepts obtained by the National Security Agency that officials say prove that Iraq has repeatedly lied to United Nations inspectors, plotted among themselves about how to conceal weapons material and even appeared to boast afterward at their success in doing so, Newsweek has learned. ...
For the past two months, ever since the U.N. inspectors re-entered Iraq and began searching for weapons of mass destruction, the NSA has been closely monitoring the conversations of Iraqi officials. The NSA intercepts establish conclusively that the Iraqis have been "hiding stuff" from the inspectors, the U.S. intelligence official said.
"They're saying things like, 'Move that,' 'Don't be reporting that' and 'Ha! Can you believe they missed that'," the official said. 'It's that kind of stuff.'""The Fire Last Time" (Zainab Al-Suwaij, The New Republic, 2003/01/30)
Al-Suwaij's riveting account of the uprising against Saddam Hussein 1991, when she joined the rebels in Karbala: "With makeshift weapons and our own bodies, we began to confront the Iraqi soldiers who had entered the town in recent days yet who were already weakened by weeks of allied bombing, desertions, and the army's withdrawal from Kuwait. The soldiers started firing on the crowd--the first time I had ever seen live shooting. Caught up in the frenzy of noise and excitement, I didn't run for cover. Instead, I kept shouting along with the others, "Down with Saddam!" Years of anger within me came pouring out.
Even with its guns, the army was no match for us that day. The angry crowds surged toward the soldiers' trucks and jeeps despite the rain of bullets. They swarmed en masse all over the military's vehicles and forced the troops out of their cars so that the soldiers could not possibly shoot at all the waves of rebels. Many soldiers threw down their weapons and ran off down the street, chased by the crowd. Many were caught and some were beaten; most who were captured were taken to the Imam Hussein shrine, which became a makeshift headquarters for the rebels and a detention center for army troops. I saw one older soldier who escaped the crowds banging on my neighbor's door, crying. He asked to be hidden or at least given some civilian clothes that might save him.""NYT on Iraq - A Fisking" (Andrew Sullivan, Salon.com/andrewsullivan.com, 2003/01/30)
Sullivan dissects a New York Times editorial: "So let's get this straight. Even if Saddam has chemical and biological weapons; even if he is in clear violation of U.N. resolutions; even if he and his proxies amount to a dire threat against the lives of Americans, the U.S. president should do nothing unless the French, Germans and Russians agree. This isn't foreign policy. It's the abdication of foreign policy. And it's certainly a direct assault upon the credibility of the United Nations. ...
The Times believes that Saddam is evil; that he is a real threat to the region and the West; that he has and is trying to gain more wepaons of mass destruction, and that the U.N. inspectors cannot disarm him. But the Times also believes that, even after eleven years of Saddam's defying the U.N., that war should not be an option, that diplomacy can remove Saddam, that the French and Germans should have a veto over American foreign policy, and that time is on our side. That's their position. It is as incoherent as it is cowardly; as weak as it is afraid." (See also: "The Race to War" (The New York Times, 2003/01/26))"United We Stand" (José María Aznar et al., The Wall Street Journal, 2003/01/30)
Amen. An article written by eight European leaders - Jose María Aznar, Jose-Manuel Durão Barroso, Silvio Berlusconi, Tony Blair, Vaclav Havel, Peter Medgyessy, Leszek Miller and Anders Fogh Rasmussen: "The attacks of 11 September showed just how far terrorists — the enemies of our common values — are prepared to go to destroy them. Those outrages were an attack on all of us. In standing firm in defence of these principles, the governments and people of the United States and Europe have amply demonstrated the strength of their convictions. Today more than ever, the transatlantic bond is a guarantee of our freedom.
We in Europe have a relationship with the United States which has stood the test of time. Thanks in large part to American bravery, generosity and far-sightedness, Europe was set free from the two forms of tyranny that devastated our continent in the 20th century: Nazism and Communism. Thanks, too, to the continued cooperation between Europe and the United States we have managed to guarantee peace and freedom on our continent. The transatlantic relationship must not become a casualty of the current Iraqi regime's persistent attempts to threaten world security.""Iraq to chair U.N. disarmament conference" (CNN.com, 2003/01/29)
"Iraq will chair the United Nations' most important disarmament negotiating forum during the panel's May session. At the rules-minded United Nations, it's not a country's status with international weapons inspectors, but the letters in its name that determine which member state chairs the Conference on Disarmament. "The irony is overwhelming," a U.S. diplomat said.""Cowboys Welcome in Kurdistan" (Mary Ann Smothers Bruni, The Washington Post, 2003/01/29)
"As American troops move into the Persian Gulf and George W. Bush wags an angry finger at Saddam Hussein, a nervous euphoria is descending on Iraqi Kurdistan, the enclave in northern Iraq protected by the "no-fly" zone and governed by Iraq's rebel Kurdistan Regional Government. The feeling is very different from that in Europe, where the American president is constantly being admonished for his "cowboy" tendencies.
"Occupy us - please!" a Kurdish man on the street demands of an American visitor. Indeed, the main fear of Iraqi Kurds I spoke to is that Washington will not attack.
"Iraqi officials warn us that Bush is all talk, that America will not invade," says Ismet Aguid, a former Iraqi foreign service officer. 'But we remain optimistic.'" (Note: Found via the sharp-eyed Occam's Toothbrush.)"Answer this: do the people of Iraq deserve freedom?" (Janet Daley, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/01/29)
"But is also about removing a regime that is guilty of genocide, that has made use of chemical weapons banned for generations by international conventions and that has, through its sponsorship of Palestinian suicide bombing, made any peaceful settlement in the Middle East virtually impossible.
This is where I find the case of the more rabid anti-war (which is to say, anti-American) party not only dishonest, but also deeply hypocritical. There are those who argue not only against going to war to remove Saddam, but also that economic sanctions against his regime should be lifted.
Shall we try to imagine what these voices of the liberal conscience would have said if the white South African authorities had used chemical weapons against the black population in Soweto? Would they have been arguing for British inaction and a lifting of economic sanctions against Pretoria?""Next Stop: War" (Terry Eastland, The Weekly Standard, 2003/01/29)
"And you can count on this: The war will start soon. ... Bush soberly stated the threat Saddam Hussein presents to the Middle East and the world. He cited credible authorities as to weapons and materials they believe Saddam possesses. And repeatedly Bush said, "He has given no evidence that he has destroyed them." Bush's unequivocal conclusion about Saddam: "The dictator of Iraq is not disarming. To the contrary, he is deceiving."
That statement was one of three that make me think war is imminent. Bush also related the terrible ways in which Saddam tortures his own people, whereupon he commented: "if this is not evil, then evil has no meaning." That was the second statement, and you could tell Saddam's evil truly infuriates him. The third came just afterwards, when Bush addressed the Iraqi people - absent from the Capitol but oh-so-present - and said, "Your enemy is not surrounding you - your enemy is ruling your country. And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation."
Colin Powell will go to the U.N. Security Council next week, and Bush himself will probably speak to the nation once more. You can almost hear the tanks of the liberators rolling into Baghdad.""Neither a Realist Nor a Liberal, W. Is a Liberator" (Lawrence F. Kaplan and William Kristol, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/01/29)
"Realists and liberals approach the world from different directions, but when it comes to Iraq, both ended up in the same place: generating excuses for inaction. President Bush, by contrast, does not speak of merely containing or disarming Iraq. He intends to liberate Iraq by force, and create democracy in a land that for decades has known only dictatorship. Moreover, he insists that these principles apply to American foreign policy more broadly. ...
Hence, the Bush strategy enshrines "regime change" - the insistence that when it comes to dealing with tyrannical regimes like Iraq, Iran, and, yes, North Korea, the U.S. should seek transformation, not coexistence, as a primary aim of U.S. foreign policy. As such, it commits the U.S. to the task of maintaining and enforcing a decent world order. Just as it was with the Bush team's predecessors, Iraq will be the first major test of this administration's strategy.
It will not be the last.""State of the Union Address by President George W. Bush" (The White House, 2003/01/28)
"Before September the 11th, many in the world believed that Saddam Hussein could be contained. But chemical agents, lethal viruses and shadowy terrorist networks are not easily contained. Imagine those 19 hijackers with other weapons and other plans - this time armed by Saddam Hussein. It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known. We will do everything in our power to make sure that that day never comes. (Applause.)
Some have said we must not act until the threat is imminent. Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike? If this threat is permitted to fully and suddenly emerge, all actions, all words, and all recriminations would come too late. Trusting in the sanity and restraint of Saddam Hussein is not a strategy, and it is not an option. (Applause.)""Scientists get death notices" (Niles Lathem, New York Post, 2003/01/28)
"Saddam Hussein has ordered official death certificates sent to Iraqi scientists' families as a chilling warning against aiding U.N. inspectors, The Post has learned. Word of the death certificates containing prominent scientists' names has reached Iraqi exile groups. "The message is, they will die a terrible death if they cooperate - and the death will be legally listed as an accident or result of an illness," said one exile. Iraqi scientists have refused to speak to U.N. weapons inspectors without government minders present.""Blair must turn a deaf ear to the siren calls of appeasers" (John Keegan, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/01/28)
"The objection to war now stated is not the danger it threatens to one's own side, but, paradoxically, that it threatens against the other. It has become commonplace for the appeasers to speak of "millions of deaths" among the opponents' civilian population and to warn of widespread ecological and economic disaster. War itself, not the suffering to Britain that it might bring, is now the enemy. So the blacker the horrors painted, the better the new appeasement's cause is served.
Most of this horror is spurious. Western armed forces are now so efficient and their weapons so precise that, as was demonstrated in Kosovo, even an intense bombing campaign kills very few civilians and does the minimum of damage to the opponents' infrastructure.
The appeasers, with half their minds, know this to be the case. That produces a dilemma. If a war to deprive an opponent of his weapons of mass destruction will not harm our own side, will do little harm to the other's population and is unlikely to cause material disaster, what is the point of appeasement?""U.N. Inspectors Issue Tough Report on Iraq Disarmament" (Colum Lynch, The Washington Post, 2003/01/27)
"The U.N.'s chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, told the Security Council today that Iraq "appears not to have come to a genuine acceptance" of its disarmament obligations, citing concerns that Baghdad has failed to disclose key elements of its biological and chemical weapons programs and staged protests in recent weeks to harass the inspectors. But Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, underscored the value of continued intrusive inspections in disarming Iraq. ...
"There is little time left for the council to face its responsibilities," John D. Negroponte, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations told the Security Council. "We see no evidence to indicate that Saddam is voluntarily disarming his nations of its biological, chemical weapons, nuclear capabilities and ballistic missiles."
Russia, France, Syria, Germany and China said that the inspections process is working and they should be given more time to complete their work." (See also: "Text: Blix Delivers Report to U.N." (The Washington Post, 2003/01/27))"Looking on the Bright Side" (Fareed Zakaria, Newsweek, from the 2003/02/03 issue)
Zakaria on the potential benefits of a successful war in Iraq: "Of course, not everyone would be helped by a successful war. The ruling elites in the Middle East — particularly those that remain stubbornly set in their old ways — will be challenged, threatened and eventually overturned. For these potentates and their courtiers it would mean the end of one of the richest gravy trains in history. That is why they will fight change as fiercely as they can. But for the people of the Middle East, after the shock of the war fades, it could mean a chance to break out of the terrible stagnancy in which they now sit.
There are always risks involved when things change. But for the past 40 years the fear of these risks has paralyzed Western policy toward the Middle East. And what has come of this caution? Repression, radical Islam and terror. I'll take my chances with change.""'Final Opportunity' for the U.N." (Robert L. Bartley, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/01/27)
"The issue, rather, is whether Mr. Blix, Mr. Annan, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin and the rest were serious in the 15-0 vote supporting Resolution 1441 last November. Point 13 noted that the Security Council "has repeatedly warned Iraq that it will face serious consequences as a result of its continued violations of its obligations."
"No, no, no," the "world opinion" chorus now chants, "those were only words, never intended to have any consequence." ... So now the United Nations has a final opportunity to prove itself a serious place - or at least for democracies such as Germany and France to show that their words mean something when they vote for Security Council Resolutions. They can't expect to be serious players in the world if they leave President Bush and his "coalition of the willing" to take enforcement of Resolution 1441 into their own hands.""Powell ties Saddam regime to al Qaeda" (Nicholas Kralev, The Washington Times, 2003/01/27)
"In a major foreign policy speech before political and business leaders at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell pledged to work with allies and other countries to disarm Saddam peacefully, but he told a packed hall that "multilateralism cannot become an excuse for inaction." ... He pointed to a direct link between Saddam's regime and Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda terrorist network, although he stopped short of suggesting that Iraq has anything to do with the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington. "The more we wait, the more chance there is for this dictator with clear ties to terrorist groups, including al-Qaeda, to pass a weapon, share technology or use these weapons again. The nexus of tyrants and terror, of terrorists and weapons of mass destruction is the greatest danger of our age," he said." (See also: "Remarks at the World Economic Forum" (Colin L. Powell, U.S: Department of State, 2003/01/26))"The Quarrel Over Iraq Gets Ugly" (Serge Schmemann, The New York Times, 2003/01/26)
"But last week, the dispute burst through the traditional facade of diplomatic niceties and revealed sentiments far different, and potentially more fateful, than the internecine squabbles of the cold war. If Washington attacks Iraq on its own, the French foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, declared, it would be "a victory for the law of the strongest." France and Germany, retorted Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, were history. ... The Europeans have put their faith in multilateral institutions, while Mr. Bush's Washington, especially since Sept. 11, 2001, believes in the extraordinary power of the United States as the primary instrument of security and freedom around the world. As the administration proclaimed in its National Security Strategy, the United States "possesses unprecedented — and unequaled — strength and influence in the world" that "must be used to promote a balance of power that favors freedom." To one senior European diplomat in Washington, these conflicting perspectives threaten to make an American invasion of Iraq into a "defining moment," a trans-Atlantic rift with repercussions on crises from Korea to the Middle East.""How Many People Has Hussein Killed?" (John F. Burns, The New York Times, 2003/01/26)
"In the end, if an American-led invasion ousts Mr. Hussein, and especially if an attack is launched without convincing proof that Iraq is still harboring forbidden arms, history may judge that the stronger case was the one that needed no inspectors to confirm: that Saddam Hussein, in his 23 years in power, plunged this country into a bloodbath of medieval proportions, and exported some of that terror to his neighbors. ... Stalin killed 20 million of his own people, historians have concluded. Even on a proportional basis, his crimes far surpass Mr. Hussein's, but figures of a million dead Iraqis, in war and through terror, may not be far from the mark, in a country of 22 million people.""This is the way Saddam Hussein sees it" (Con Coughlin, The Sunday Telegraph, 2003/01/26)
"From Saddam's point of view, he has won virtually every round in his contest with Washington since last spring, when Mr Bush and Mr Blair declared their intention to force Iraq to comply with its international obligations. Not even the recent discovery of a number of fully-operational Iraqi chemical weapons warheads, and the seizure of 3,000 pages of documents that prove categorically that Iraq is continuing with its effort to build an atom bomb, has affected the disinclination of the majority of the Western powers to sanction military action against Baghdad.
This distinct lack of political will, furthermore, to confront the Iraqi leader will simply confirm one of Saddam's most sincerely held beliefs, namely that the liberal democracies of the West, even after the appalling events of September 11, do not have the stomach for a fight.""Men Seek to Breach U.N. Baghdad Compound" (Charles J. Hanley, AP/Yahoo! News, 2003/01/25)
"As he waved his arms frantically, the first two vehicles swerved around him, but the third stopped, journalists said. "Save me!" he shouted in Arabic and English, after which he was allowed to enter the vehicle. He was carrying a copybook, witnesses said.
Appearing agitated and frightened, the young man, with a closely trimmed beard and mustache, sat inside the white U.N.-marked utility vehicle for 10 minutes. At first, an inspection team leader sought help from nearby Iraqi soldiers, but the man refused to leave the vehicle as the uniformed men pulled on his sleeve and collar.
"I am unjustly treated!" he shouted.
Then U.N. security men arrived, and they and Iraqi police carried the man by his feet and arms into the fenced compound, the journalists said. Ueki said the man was turned over to Iraqi authorities at a government office adjacent to the compound.""Merci, M. de Villepin" (William Kristol and Robert Kagan, The Weekly Standard, from the 2003/02/03 issue)
"It is now likely that U.N. Security Council authorization for war will be unobtainable, regardless of whether Saddam complies with Resolution 1441. Therefore, American politicians and the foreign policy elite will have to make clear, once and for all, whether or not they support the disarming of Iraq and the removal of Saddam's regime from power, by force, and without U.N. authorization. There can be no more obfuscation. ...
We would prefer it if France and Germany also joined forces with the United States in common defense of international security. We would prefer it if the U.N. Security Council supported war against Saddam. But most of all we want to see the United States and a coalition of willing partners take the action necessary to defend and preserve international security. The international situation has clarified. The case against Saddam is clear-cut. The Bush administration is, finally, united around the need for military action. Now the president, who has led us to this point, can give the word.""Iraq Faces Massive U.S. Missile Barrage" (CBS News, 2003/01/24)
"If the Pentagon sticks to its current war plan, one day in March the Air Force and Navy will launch between 300 and 400 cruise missiles at targets in Iraq. As CBS News Correspondent David Martin reports, this is more than number that were launched during the entire 40 days of the first Gulf War. On the second day, the plan calls for launching another 300 to 400 cruise missiles. ... The battle plan is based on a concept developed at the National Defense University. It's called "Shock and Awe" and it focuses on the psychological destruction of the enemy's will to fight rather than the physical destruction of his military forces. "We want them to quit. We want them not to fight," says Harlan Ullman, one of the authors of the Shock and Awe concept which relies on large numbers of precision guided weapons. "So that you have this simultaneous effect, rather like the nuclear weapons at Hiroshima, not taking days or weeks but in minutes," says Ullman.""Iraq 'preparing for chemical war'" (BBC News, 2003/01/24)
"Documents smuggled out of Iraq by an opposition group appear to indicate that Baghdad is equipping key units with protection against chemical weapons. The hand-written papers, said to have been smuggled out by the Iraqi opposition, refer to new chemical warfare suits to protect soldiers and distribution of the drug atropine to counter the effects of nerve gas. ... Iraq's Republican Guard and Special Republican Guard are among the recipients of special suits and atropine, according to the documents. A former arms inspector, Bill Tierney, told Today that "if both these two units have new equipment, then it would indicate that they are prepared to use chemical weapons.'""No Turning Back Now" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2003/01/24)
"In November we obtained, at a price, a unanimous U.N. Security Council resolution demanding Iraqi disarmament. Now Germany, France, Russia and China have declared themselves opposed to war so long as Hans Blix can run around Iraq merely "containing" Saddam Hussein. The lull is over. Germany, which has declared its opposition to war, assumes the presidency of the Security Council next month. France has threatened to veto any resolution authorizing the use of force. The Security Council break with the United States is now open. ...
The president now faces his moment of truth. The one advantage of Resolution 1441 was that it gave us a window of legitimacy during which to mobilize, position equipment, launch carriers, line up bases - in short, create the infrastructure for disarming Hussein. However, now that the "world community" has shown that it never seriously intended to disarm Iraq, we are back on our own. This is the moment. There is no turning back.""Nos Amis the French" (The Wall Street Journal, 2003/01/24)
"Can the French read? We ask this after the latest French government threat to veto any U.N. Security Council effort to enforce the resolution that the French have already voted for, indeed that they helped write. Perhaps educational standards are slipping in Paris. Certainly loyalty standards are. ... If French U.N. promises are to be taken seriously, then what we have here is in fact Gallic contempt for the "international community" that the French claim to honor. They are not only encouraging Saddam to resist but they are also putting an American President into a position where he will have no choice but to act on his own and demonstrate how irrelevant to world security the U.N. Security Council, complete with its French veto, really is.""The message from the Bush camp: 'It's war within weeks'" (Julian Borger et al., The Guardian, 2003/01/24)
"President George Bush is determined to go to war with Saddam Hussein in the next few weeks, without UN backing if necessary, according to authoritative sources in Washington and London. The US president is "to turn up the heat" in his state of the union address on Tuesday. "The pressure comes from President Bush and it is felt all the way down," a European official said. "They're talking about weeks, not months. Months is a banned word now." ... A key moment will now be the state of the union address. According to a Washington source, the US administration remains divided along old fault lines about the precise timescale of war. The US secretary of state, Donald Rumsfeld, wants Mr Bush to set a clear and imminent deadline. But Mr Powell, is resisting, asking for a little more time for diplomatic coalition-building. But both sides of the divide are making it increasingly clear that the end result will be military action, with or without UN backing.""Why We Know Iraq Is Lying" (Condoleezza Rice, The Washington Post, 2003/01/23)
"Eleven weeks after the United Nations Security Council unanimously passed a resolution demanding — yet again — that Iraq disclose and disarm all its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs, it is appropriate to ask, "Has Saddam Hussein finally decided to voluntarily disarm?" Unfortunately, the answer is a clear and resounding no. ... Many questions remain about Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and arsenal — and it is Iraq's obligation to provide answers. It is failing in spectacular fashion. By both its actions and its inactions, Iraq is proving not that it is a nation bent on disarmament, but that it is a nation with something to hide. Iraq is still treating inspections as a game. It should know that time is running out.""Why They Cry 'Non!'" (Max Boot, Los Angeles Times, 2003/01/23)
"Of all Bush administration officials, Colin Powell is the one held in highest esteem in Europe. It's not hard to see why. Just like the Europeans, he doesn't want the United States to disarm Saddam Hussein without the backing of the United Nations. The secretary of State even managed to convince President Bush to seek U.N. support back in August. Thereafter he spent two months heroically haggling - mainly with French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin - over the text of a resolution that would win the assent of the entire Security Council. So how does De Villepin repay his negotiating partner? With a kick in the teeth.""Berlin blinkered" (The Times, 2003/01/23)
"The German Chancellor’s declaration that Berlin would vote against any United Nations resolution authorising the use of force against Iraq is not simply unhelpful; it is a contemptuous spurning of those who have protected German security for two generations, a self-serving attempt to revive his flagging political fortunes and a crass signal of Western division to Baghdad.""Bush Tired of Saddam's 'Bad Movie'" (Wendell Goler, Fox News, 2003/01/22)
"President Bush is running short on patience with Iraq, he told reporters Tuesday morning. "It appears to be a re-run of a bad movie," Bush said. "[Iraqi President Saddam Hussein] is delaying. He's deceiving. He's asking for time. He's playing hide-and-seek with inspectors. One thing is for certain — he's not disarming." ... "How much time do we need to see clearly that he's not disarming?" Bush asked. 'As I said, this looks like a re-run of a bad movie. And I'm not interested in watching it.'""French and German Leaders Jointly Oppose Iraqi War Moves" (John Tagliabue, The New York Times, 2003/01/22)
"In a blunt rejection of American impatience toward Baghdad, the leaders of France and Germany said today that they shared common views on Iraq, and that any Security Council resolution for military action would have to await the report of United Nations weapon inspectors. "War is always the admission of defeat and is always the worst of solutions," President Jacques Chirac of France said. "And hence everything must be done to avoid it." He added, 'France and Germany have a judgment on this crisis that is the same.'""Saddam's Chemical Victims Still Suffering in Iran" (Paul Hughes, Reuters/Yahoo! News, 2003/01/22)
"Esmail Khoshnevisan spluttered like a drowning man, his body shaking violently as he vented his anger against the man who ruined his life. "Saddam Hussein is a criminal and deserves everything he gets... I want America to start the war against him as soon as possible with UN backing," he wheezed from his narrow hospital bed. A truck driver for Iran's Revolutionary Guards during the bitter 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq war, Khoshnevisan was ferrying wounded soldiers from the frontline in southwestern Khuzestan province when Iraqi planes attacked with mustard gas. "It had the smell of chocolate and hay. We didn't have masks. My eyes closed up and started to sting," he rasped as a medic inserted a plastic tube carrying oxygen into his nostrils. Eighteen years later, Khoshnevisan, now 65, has chronic breathing problems and can barely speak two words at a time. His eyes permanently brim with fluid. His gums have disintegrated, leaving him toothless. He has been in and out of hospitals for the last decade as his symptoms steadily worsened. Doctors said practically all his lung tissue had been eaten away by the poisonous gas. ...
About 1 million people were killed in one of the most brutal conflicts of the 20th century. Iran estimates that around 100,000 people were affected by nerve and mustard gases used by the Iraqis during the conflict and that around one in 10 died before receiving any treatment.""Germany rules out Iraq war support" (BBC News, 2003/01/22)
"Germany has declared it will not back a UN resolution authorising war against Iraq, adding its concerns to mounting reservations within the Security Council about military action. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder made his remarks at a public meeting of his SPD party, shortly after US President George Bush told Iraq that time was running out. There has been rising resistance to war from France - a permanent member of the UN Security Council - and other allies, many of whom want UN weapons inspectors in Iraq to have more time to do their work." (See also: "France Vows to Block Resolution on Iraq War" (Glenn Kessler and Colum Lynch, The Washington Post, 2003/01/21))"Security Council Sells Out" (Thomas W. Murphy, USA in Review, 2003/01/21)
"Since 1996, Russia has ranked first among nations doing business with Iraq under the oil-for-food program with sales exceeding $4 billion, and Russia still hopes to collect the $12 billion in cold-war-era debt owed by Iraq. ... On December 8, 2002, Iraq sent both Russia and France a message when it cancelled the $4 billion contract with Russia's Lukoil to develop the West Qurna oil field. French oil firms, fearing they were next, began pressuring the French government to force the U.N. to resolve the Iraq crisis peacefully and Total Fina Elf demanded assurances its oil contacts in Iraq will be protected in the face of a possible U.S. attack. ...
On January 16, in direct contradiction of Blix's statements, the Russian Deputy Foreign Minister met with the Iraqi government and praised "the positive spirit of cooperation from Iraq" on the weapons inspections. On January 17, the Russian oil company Lukoil "miraculously" announced that it had "persuaded" Baghdad to reverse the decision made on December 8th to cancel the contract with Lukoil to develop the giant West Qurna oil field. ...
What an amazing coincidence; Russia starts praising Iraqi compliance and criticizing any potential U.S. military action and the next day Iraq reverses its cancellation of the Lukoil contract and awards Russian firms additional contracts that could be worth up to $40 billion. Critics of possible U.S. military action against Iraq say its all about oil. They are partially right; they just got the "U.S. part" wrong. Its about Moscow and Paris wanting to protect their oil interests in Iraq.""France Vows to Block Resolution on Iraq War" (Glenn Kessler and Colum Lynch, The Washington Post, 2003/01/21)
"France suggested today it would wage a major diplomatic fight, including possible use of its veto power, to prevent the U.N. Security Council from passing a resolution authorizing military action against Iraq. ... But in a diplomatic version of an ambush, France and other countries used a high-level Security Council meeting on terrorism to lay down their markers for the debate that will commence next week on the inspectors' report. Russia and China, which have veto power, and Germany, which will chair the Security Council in February, also signaled today they were willing to let the inspections continue for months.""Ritter's attorney confirms arrest" (Lindsay Cohen, MSNBC, 2003/01/20)
As Charles Johnson points out, this might be a "possible explanation for Ritter’s 180-degree change of opinion on Iraq: what if he’s being blackmailed?": "Scott Ritter of Delmar is well known internationally as an outspoken, former U.N. weapons inspector. Now more information is coming to light about Ritter's past and a disturbing arrest. His attorney confirms he was arrested in 2001, but neither she nor police will discuss the details. ... The Daily Gazette first reported over the weekend that Ritter - whose full name is William Scott Ritter Jr. - was arrested in June 2001. The New York Daily News further reported that Ritter's arrest was part of an Internet sting. The report said he was arrested for having sexual discussions over the Internet with a person he thought was an underage girl. This individual turned out to be an undercover police officer. ... However, NewsChannel 13 reported in June 2001 about an arrest of a 39-year-old William Ritter of Delmar on charges he tried to lure a 16-year-old girl he met on the Internet to a Burger King in Menands. According to police, the intent of that meeting was so that she could watch him perform sexual acts on himself." (See also: "Ritter of Arabia" (Stephen F. Hayes, The Wall Street Journal, 2002/09/21))"Britain to Send Thousands of Land Troops to Gulf" (Mike Peacock, Reuters, 2003/01/20)
"Britain dramatically beefed up its military force heading for the Gulf on Monday, readying 30,000 troops and support personnel for a possible war against Iraq. The call-up far exceeded expectations. Defense officials said the mobilization compared with around 43,000 who took part in the 1991 Gulf War, launched after Iraqi President Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait.""The fall of the Baghdad wall" (Con Coughlin and Julian Coman, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/01/19)
"On the same morning that a team of inspectors had found the 12 artillery shells, another team of nuclear weapons experts had paid a surprise visit to the homes of two of Saddam's leading nuclear physicists who worked for Iraq's top secret for the Ministry of Military Industrialisation (MMI). ... Once inside they found what one Western official has described as a "highly significant" batch of documents which, on closer inspection, revealed that Saddam's scientists were continuing development work on producing an Iraqi nuclear weapon. ... The documents seized at the homes of the two scientists, however, confirm what Western intelligence has been arguing all along, that Saddam is continuing with his quest to develop the first Arab atom bomb."
"I Want You to Die for Israel..."
(Right-Thinking from the Left Coast, 2003/01/18)"Marches in World Capitals Oppose Iraq War" (AP/ABC News, 2003/01/18)
The globalization of idiocy: "Activists in Tokyo carried toy guns filled with flowers, one banner at a Moscow rally read "Iraq isn't your ranch, Mr. Bush," and anti-war protesters in Paris shouted, "Stop Bush! Stop war!" ... President Bush also faced peace protests in several cities at home this weekend. In Washington, rally leaders were expecting tens of thousands of activists, some arriving in bus from far-away states such as Wisconsin. In Paris, the 6,000-strong march was the third nationwide demonstration since October. ... In Moscow, Russians chanted "U.S., hands off Iraq!" and "Yankee, Go Home!" at a march outside the U.S. Embassy. One banner read: "U.S.A. is international terrorist No. 1." ... In the Middle East, a march in Cairo, Egypt, drew 1,000 people, while some of the 4,000 protesters in Beirut, Lebanon, carried posters of Saddam Hussein. Not all protesters were pushing for peace: In the Syrian capital, Damascus, some people shouted, "Our beloved Saddam, strike Tel Aviv," a refrain from the 1991 Gulf War." (Note: Right-Thinking from the Left Coast reports from the "peace rally" in San Fransisco, with lots of photos. Here's some captions from signs: "the Führer - already in his bunker" [Photomontage of Dick Cheney as Nazi], "HISTORY REPEATED" [Photo of Hitler], "STOP THE BUSHITLER", "THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN BUSH & SADDAM IS THAT SADDAM WAS ELECTED" and "I Want You to Die for Israel - ISRAEL SINGS!: ONWARD CHRISTIAN SOLDIERS..." ("Live From Baghdad" (Right-Thinking from the Left Coast, 2003/01/18). InstaPundit is also covering the rallies with photos and links.)"Chemical warheads seized in Iraq" (BBC News, 2003/01/16)
"United Nations weapons inspectors in Iraq say they have found nearly a dozen empty chemical warheads while searching an ammunition storage depot. Eleven warheads which could be used to carry chemical warfare agents were found at the Ukhaider depot and are currently being examined by experts, a UN spokesman said. ... Iraq - which has insisted throughout the current crisis that it does not possess chemical weapons - dismissed the find as "old rockets" which had long been forgotten.""Iraqi Kurds Fight a War That Has Two Faces" (C.J. Chivers, The New York Times, 2003/01/15)
A report from northern Iraq on Halat Karim Agha, a Kurdish commander: "His soldiers, known as pesh merga, meaning "those who face death," sat quietly under the moon. Eighteen pesh merga live here, atop a peak rising more than a mile in the sky, in seven stone bunkers that would fit inside a circle 45 feet wide. It is one spot on a front descending from Shinerwe Mountain to the valley's floor, pitting the pesh merga against the Islamic fighters of Ansar al Islam, a group connected to Al Qaeda. ...
After seizing Shinerwe Mountain in 2001, Halat Karim Agha's pesh merga hauled dead Islamists down the trail to a mosque in Halabja — as custom and decency dictate — where local families claimed them for burial. In two days the remains of local militants were gone, but seven bodies remained unclaimed. They were foreigners, jihad fighters from somewhere else. "We didn't know who they were," he said. "They had big beards, and they were ugly and strange." The Kurds believe they were members of Al Qaeda or Taliban fugitives from Afghanistan, and blame them for encouraging the mutilations of pesh merga dead: the slicing off of ears, the chopping off of heads. He thinks the foreigners will never surrender. "Those who have their hands red in the blood of people cannot find a place in society," he said. 'They themselves would not choose it.'""A squeamish namby-pamby European wimp joins the Washington war debate" (Ian Buruma, The Guardian, 2003/01/14)
Buruma on neo-conservative idealism versus traditional conservative realism: "I was invited to take part in a discussion at the American Enterprise Institute about Iraq after Saddam. The AEI is a neo-conservative outfit, whose members are imbued with a revolutionary mission to bring democracy to the world, backed by American force. ...
But on the merits of the war itself, there could be no question. That was settled. Scepticism on this score was met with the kind of eye-rolling impatience with which committed Marxists treat people who still fail to understand the laws of history. ... The assumption here is that one is a namby-pamby European wimp, too squeamish for the necessary task at hand. Sure, a few tens of thousands may die, but what is that compared to the glories of democratic revolution? This goes beyond anti-European prejudices. It is where the neo-conservative ideologues reveal the now distant, but still unmistakably Trotskyist antecedents of their dogmatism. ...
My point is that the neo-conservatives today, as far as Iraq is concerned, are the idealists, and if their revolutionary ideals have any chance of succeeding, they will have to prevail over the realists, the oil men and the country-club Republicans, who will surely stand in their way. The irony here is that what is left of the left, on the whole, shares the views of the old right. Few believe in a democratic revolution in the Middle East, and even fewer think it is up to America to enforce it.""The Left betrays the Iraqi people by opposing war" (Nick Cohen, The Daily Telegraph, 2003/01/14)
"Gemma Redgrave, Anita Roddick, Rosie Boycott and Bianca Jagger are standing shoulder-to-shoulder with rough train drivers from Aslef and Marxist-Leninists from the Socialist Workers Party. Everyone who is anyone from the soft-headed centre to the anti-democratic Left is there. All are welcome - except the people in whose name the party is being thrown: the Iraqis. ...
Yet not one of the 50 Iraqi dissident groups that met in the capital last month to organise the struggle for national liberation has been asked to join the coalition. Nor would they be thanked if they tried to gatecrash. ...
They confront the anti-war movement with the disconcerting thought that there are worse things in the world than George W Bush and American imperialism, and Saddam Hussein and his prison state are among them. To right-thinking, Left-leaning people, such thoughts are not merely disconcerting but unthinkable. Oppressed peoples are meant to confirm the prejudices of their (usually white) betters, not raise awkward dilemmas.""Iraq Hunt To Extend To March, Blix Says" (Karen DeYoung and Walter Pincus, The Washington Post, 2003/01/14)
"Chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said yesterday that he is significantly expanding his inspection force in Iraq and plans to be working there at least until he presents a major report to the U.N. Security Council in March. Blix said his next presentation to the Security Council, due on Jan. 27, would be an interim update on the results of the first 60 days of inspections and mark 'the beginning of the inspection and monitoring process, not the end of it.'" (See also: "Inspectors want more time" (Joseph Curl, The Washington Times, 2003/01/14): "The International Atomic Energy Agency, whose inspectors have been in Iraq since November, said the United Nations has provided timelines of "somewhere between six and 12 months" to complete inspections.")"PM: 'Saddam should take the peaceful route and disarm'" (10 Downing Street, 2003/01/14)
A full transcript of Tony Blair's press conference: "And I tell you honestly what my fear is, my fear is that we wake up one day and we find either that one of these dictatorial states has used weapons of mass destruction - and Iraq has done so in the past - and we get sucked into a conflict, with all the devastation that would cause; or alternatively these weapons, which are being traded right round the world at the moment, fall into the hands of these terrorist groups, these fanatics who will stop at absolutely nothing to cause death and destruction on a mass scale.""Blair vows to disarm Iraq" (BBC News, 2003/01/13)
"British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said he is committed to disarming Iraq through the United Nations. He said he was convinced that the UN Security Council would back military action against Iraq if it breached the UN resolution requiring it to give up weapons of mass destruction. ... Mr Blair said he had "no doubt" that Saddam Hussein was attempting to rebuild his alleged nuclear, biological and chemical weapons arsenal. But the Iraqi leader still had the opportunity to avoid war, the prime minister said. "Even now, Saddam should take the peaceful route and disarm," he told his monthly press conference. 'If he does not, however, he will be disarmed by force.'"
"Blut für öl"
(Der Spiegel, 2003/01/13)
"Germany's Implosion" (Andrew Sullivan, andrewsullivan.com, 2003/01/13)
"Meanwhile, German popular culture seems to be becoming more and more pathologically anti-American. Take a look at this week's cover of Der Spiegel. They even turn Old Glory into a version of the Hammer and Sickle. Truly repulsive." (See also the cover: "Blut für öl" (Der Spiegel, 2003/01/13))"IAEA: Year for Iraq inspections" (CNN.com, 2003/01/13)
"U.N. weapons inspections in Iraq could take about a year and will be "worth the wait," an International Atomic Energy Agency spokesman has told CNN. Mark Gwozdecky reiterated comments made by chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix and IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei last spring, in which they made it clear the inspections could take 'in the vicinity of a year.'""35,000 More U.S. Troops Ordered to Gulf" (Thom Shanker, The New York Times, 2003/01/11)
"Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld signed a mammoth deployment order today sending about 35,000 new troops, half of them marines, to the Persian Gulf region, Pentagon and military officials said. The detailed order, described as several dozen pages long, involved the largest number of military personnel yet as the Pentagon masses troops, warships and aircraft around Iraq to pressure President Saddam Hussein to disarm - and to prepare for attack, should President Bush order the nation to war.""Saddam's Idiots" (Jonah Goldberg, Town Hall, 2003/01/10)
Goldberg on "a new and improved version of useful idiots; we call them "human shields." These are the citizens of the United States and Europe who deliberately put themselves between the U.S. military and Saddam Hussein - or Slobodan Milosevic - in order to stop America from its 'war of aggression.'": "Every day, various regimes around the globe carry out horrible acts of aggression. But, with a very few exceptions, the international peace movement seems uniquely concerned about what it perceives to be unwarranted aggression by the United States, Israel and Europe - in that order. When Saddam Hussein mobilized to invade Kuwait, there were no human shields heading to thwart him. When Saddam gassed the Kurds, the ranks of international peacnickery didn't hop aboard planes for Northern Iraq. ...
No, it's not, as O'Keefe and his useful idiots claim, "oppression" or the killing of innocent men, women and children that rankles the anti-war movement; it's that the United States gets under their skin. ... "Pacifism is objectively pro-fascist," George Orwell wrote in 1942. "This is elementary common sense. If you hamper the war effort of one side you automatically help out that of the other." O'Keefe and his friends are objectively in favor of Saddam Hussein and his murderous regime because they believe he is uniquely worth defending with their bodies. They may be brave, I guess, but they're still idiots, and I'm sure Saddam is grateful for them." (Note: The Orwell-quote is from "Pacifism and the War" (Partisan Review, August-September 1942))"Powell and Bush at Cross-Purposes?" (Charles Krauthammer, The Washington Post, 2003/01/10)
"It is impossible to find weapons of mass destruction in an uncooperative country. Even strong, determined inspectors will fail. Look: The United States was attacked with anthrax - and more than a year later we still can't find the stuff, even with the cooperation of the entire national government and every law enforcement agency in sight. How do you expect to find anthrax in a country in which the authorities are hiding it? Chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix is neither strong nor determined. He was handpicked by France and Russia in 2000 for precisely that reason. (When it was suggested to an administration official that Blix was Inspector Clouseau, he protested that this was unfair: "Clouseau was trying to find stuff.") Everyone knows that the only way to find weapons is to question Iraqi scientists under conditions of protective asylum outside Iraq. Yet Blix has contemptuously dismissed this option as running 'an abduction agency.'""Blix Says Inspectors Have Found No 'Smoking Guns' in Iraq" (Edith M. Lederer, AP/The Washington Post, 2003/01/09)
"U.N. weapons inspectors have not found any "smoking guns" in Iraq but are receiving intelligence from several nations that could be helpful, chief U.N. weapons inspector Hans Blix said Thursday. ... Blix spoke to reporters before briefing the Security Council on the progress of inspections and assessments of Iraq's 12,000-page weapons declaration, which he and other inspectors have said leaves many questions unanswered. After the briefing, Greenstock told reporters that 'the procedural, passive cooperation of Iraq has been good ... but the proactive cooperation we have been looking for from Iraq has not been forthcoming.'""Jackals Gather Round" (William Safire, The New York Times, 2003/01/09)
"The Saudis and Egyptians, sensing Saddam's demise, are devising Saddamism without Saddam. The idea is to spirit the dictator and his two bloodthirsty sons out of Iraq, passing the power to a clique of Sunni generals and Baath Party politicians, thereby offering spurious "regime change" while averting an overthrow that might give their own citizens ideas. Algeria is said to be the location chosen for the Hussein family's permanent vacation. France has also begun to hedge its bets. Well aware of the likelihood of allied action or an internal coup before the Ides of March, Jacques Chirac does not want his country out in the cold as oil-rich New Iraq is put on its feet by the U.S. and Britain. ... If Hans Blix's report equivocates and the Security Council delays, the U.S. will act. The jackals know that. That is why Iraqi officers are sending word to the opposition through second cousins that "I'm your friend, remember later." That is why jackal-nations are circling, eager to subvert liberation and make off with the coming freedom of the Iraqi people.""Listen to the world's fears, Blair tells US" (Michael White and Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian, 2003/01/08)
"In a major foreign policy speech, the prime minister made an ambitious bid to woo sceptics about the looming war with Iraq at the same time as he reminded Washington that global interdependence must work both ways if progress is not to be overwhelmed by "the common threat of chaos". ... Earlier Mr Blair had said: "I would never commit British troops to a war I thought was wrong or unnecessary. But the price of influence is that we do not leave the US to face the tricky issues alone. 'By tricky, I mean the ones which people wish weren't there, don't want to deal with and, if I can put it a little pejoratively, know the US should confront, but want the luxury of criticising them for it.'" (See also the full speech: "PM speech to Foreign Office Conference in London" (Tony Blair, 10 Downing Street, 2003/01/07))"Saddam accuses UN inspectors of spying" (BBC News, 2003/01/06)
"Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has said United Nations weapons inspectors are carrying out "pure intelligence work". He denounced the work of the teams sent to monitor Iraq's compliance with demands to disarm, saying they were exceeding their mandate. ... The Iraqi leader charged: "Instead of searching for so-called weapons of mass destruction to reveal the lies of liars... the inspection teams became interested in compiling lists of Iraqi scientists, ask workers questions that are not what they seem and gather information about army camps and legitimate military production. "These things, or most of them, are pure intelligence work," he said in a television broadcast to mark Army Day." (See also: "Full text: Saddam Hussein speech" (The Guardian, 2003/01/06))"U.S. Is Completing Plan to Promote a Democratic Iraq" (David E. Sanger and James Dao, The New York Times, 2003/01/06)
"President Bush's national security team is assembling final plans for administering and democratizing Iraq after the expected ouster of Saddam Hussein. Those plans call for a heavy American military presence in the country for at least 18 months, military trials of only the most senior Iraqi leaders and quick takeover of the country's oil fields to pay for reconstruction. The proposals, according to administration officials who have been developing them for several months, have been discussed informally with Mr. Bush in considerable detail. They would amount to the most ambitious American effort to administer a country since the occupations of Japan and Germany at the end of World War II.""Iraq's 'Bosnians'" (Melik Kaylan, The Wall Street Journal, 2003/01/05)
"The recent theater of amity among Iraq's opposition factions at a London conference should not beguile anyone. Iraq's interethnic rivalry smolders daily hotter, especially in the northern areas around the strategic oil towns of Kirkuk and Mosul. That area is facing a potential Balkan-style upheaval of pent-up forces, with the most moderate secular Muslim group, the Iraqi Turkomans, cast in the role of the local Bosnians. The Iraqi Turkomans complain that their share of the population is being deliberately underrepresented. They and their neighbors the Christian Assyrians are angry that their urban districts - still under Saddam Hussein's control - are being pre-emptively gerrymandered by the Kurdish factions to carve out a greater Iraqi Kurdistan in a future grab for oil terrain.""Bush Tells Troops: Prepare For War" (Mike Allen, The Washington Post, 2003/01/04)
"President Bush somberly warned 4,000 young soldiers today to prepare for war with Iraq, promising to unleash the full force of the U.S. military if Saddam Hussein does not seize a final chance to disarm. ... Units are shipping out of U.S. bases almost daily. Pentagon officials said 60,000 troops are in the Persian Gulf region, a number that could double in coming weeks. Today, the Marine Corps said troops and aircraft from California had been ordered to the region this week. ... "If force becomes necessary to secure our country and to keep the peace," Bush told the troops, "America will act deliberately, America will act decisively, and America will prevail because we've got the finest military in the world." The soldiers, a sea of flag-waving camouflage fatigues that melted into the camouflage-covered walls, responded with an approving "Hooah!" ... "America seeks more than the defeat of terror: We seek the advance of human freedom in a world at peace," he said. 'That is the charge history has given us, and that is the charge we will keep.'" (See also: "President Rallies Troops at Fort Hood" (The White House, 2003/01/03))
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