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Mossad and Moving Companies:
Masterminds of Global Terrorism?
CIA says al Qaeda ready to use nukes
By Bill Gertz THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Al Qaeda terrorists and related groups are set to use chemical,
biological and nuclear weapons in deadly strikes, according to a
new CIA report. "Al Qaeda's goal is the use of [chemical,
biological, radiological or nuclear weapons] to cause mass
casualties," the CIA stated in an internal report produced last
month. "However, most attacks by the group — and especially
by associated extremists — probably will be small-scale,
incorporating relatively crude delivery means and easily produced
or obtained chemicals, toxins or radiological substances," the
report said.
Islamist extremists linked to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden
"have a wide variety of potential agents and delivery means to
choose from for chemical, biological and radiological or nuclear
(CBRN) attacks," said the four-page report titled "Terrorist CBRN:
Materials and Effects." The unclassified report was produced by the
CIA's intelligence directorate, and a copy of it was obtained by
The Washington Times. The report identifies several deadly toxins
and chemicals that al Qaeda could use to conduct the attacks,
including nerve gases, germ and toxin weapons anthrax and ricin,
and radiological dispersal devices, also known as "dirty
bombs."
Disclosure of the CIA report comes as the agency is under
fire over its reports on Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear
weapons, none of which has been uncovered. Several lawmakers from
both parties, including Sens. John W. Warner, Virginia Republican,
and John McCain, Arizona Republican, have called for hearings into
the intelligence about Iraq that the Bush administration
received.
In the latest report, the CIA said terrorist success would
depend on planners' technical expertise. However, one likely goal
of any attempted attack would be "panic and disruption," the agency
stated. Several groups of al Qaeda tried to conduct "poison plot"
attacks in Europe using chemicals and toxins in assassinations and
small-scale attacks, the CIA said. "These agents could cause
hundreds of casualties and widespread panic if used in multiple,
simultaneous attacks," the report said. Also, al Qaeda is
developing bombs with radioactive material from industrial or
medical facilities, and an al Qaeda document obtained in
Afghanistan revealed that the group had sketched out a crude device
capable of causing a nuclear blast, the report said.
"Osama bin Laden's operatives may try to launch conventional
attacks against the nuclear industrial infrastructure of the United
States in a bid to cause contamination, disruption and terror," the
report stated. Al Qaeda's plans for chemical arms were revealed in
a document obtained in summer 2002 that "indicates the group has
crude procedures for making mustard agent, sarin and VX," the
report said. Mustard is a blistering agent, and sarin and VX are
nerve agents that can kill humans in small amounts. The report also
states that Mohamed Atta, ringleader of the September 11 attacks,
and Zacarias Moussaoui, who is on trial in Virginia on charges
related to the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon,
studied methods of delivering biological weapons.
Both men "expressed interest in crop dusters, raising our
concern that al Qaeda has considered using aircraft to disseminate
[biological warfare] agents," the report said. According to the
report, al Qaeda and other terrorists also could produce what the
CIA calls an "improvised nuclear device" capable of causing a
nuclear blast. Such a bomb is "intended to cause a yield-producing
nuclear explosion," the report said. Terrorists could produce a
nuclear device in three ways, including a bomb made from "diverted
nuclear-weapons components," a nuclear weapon that had been
modified, or a new, indigenously designed device, the report
said.
A homemade nuclear bomb would be one of two types: either an
implosion device that uses conventional explosives to create a
nuclear blast, or a "gun-assembled" device. Making a nuclear bomb
would require that terrorists first obtain fissile material such as
enriched uranium or plutonium as fuel for creating a nuclear blast.
A more likely type of terrorist attack is the use of such nuclear
material with conventional explosives to create a "dirty," or
radiological, bomb, the report said. "Use of a [radiological
dispersal device] by terrorists could result in health,
environmental and economic effects as well as political and social
effects," the report said. "It will cause fear, injury, and
possibly lead to levels of contamination requiring costly and
time-consuming cleanup efforts."
Among the materials that are available to terrorists for this
type of bomb are cesium-137, strontium-90 and cobalt-60 —
materials used in hospitals, universities, factories, construction
companies and laboratories. A security notice made public by the
State Department yesterday stated that "al Qaeda and sympathetic
terrorists groups continue to demonstrate their interest in
mass-casualty attacks using chemical, biological, radiological, and
nuclear (CBRN) weapons."
The notice said no information proves the group now is planning
an attack in the United States with a weapon of mass destruction,
but noted that "such an attack cannot be ruled out." The FBI also
distributed a bulletin recently to law-enforcement agencies
identifying the chemical, biological and nuclear weapons available
to al Qaeda and other terrorists. The CIA report contains
photographs of a training video obtained in Afghanistan from an al
Qaeda training camp showing chemical agents being tested on dogs.
Agents available to the group include toxic cyanides that can kill
in high doses and less-lethal industrial chemicals such as chlorine
and phosgene.
Biological agents al Qaeda could use include anthrax, a bacteria
that can cause mass casualties, and botulinum toxin. The CIA stated
that methods for producing botulinum have been found in terrorist
training manuals. Another toxin weapon, ricin, "is readily
available by extraction from common castor beans," the report said.
"There is no treatment for ricin poisoning after [the toxin] has
entered the bloodstream," the report said. "Terrorists have looked
at delivering ricin in foods and as a contact poison, although we
have no scientific data to indicate that ricin can penetrate intact
skin."
Comment: While the
"terrorists" seem to have various agents and chemicals at their
disposal with which to terrorise the American public, the CIA, on
the other hand, relies on just one - Reports doused with a generous
helping of Bullshit - Whoever put together the above report must
have found it difficult to write as they were no doubt laughing
hysterically at the time. One point they failed to include however
is that the "Islamic terrorists" are also planning to blow up
anyone who tries to investigate the Bush administration over the
lack of WMD in Iraq. Based on the details of the above report it is
obvious that the CIA/Bush administration is relying heavily on the
extreme gullibility of the American public and the fact that most
do not know how difficult it is to make a nuclear yield device, or
that Ricin would have to be injected individually into each
target.
Listen
to Noam Chomsky speak at the University of the District of
Columbia.
"George Bush has Indeed Succeeded in Granting Osama Bin Laden a
Wish Beyond his Wildest DreamsÉHe's Turned the U.S. into the
Most Feared and Disliked and, in Many Quarters, Hated Country in
the World."
Comment: And even more Noam Chomsky
here:
"The preventive war doctrine is virtually an
invitation to potential targets to develop some kind of deterrent,
and there are only two kinds of deterrent. One is weapons of mass
destruction, the other is large-scale terror."
We are thinking that we have all been set up. The
above quote from Chomsky, states something so obvious that it is
shocking to see that it did not penetrate the biochemical induced
patriotic fervor. Perhaps no one wants to admit that evil exists
until it's already breathing down their neck, and it's too
late.
A quote from this interview to keep in mind as the
Iraqis continue to live under a terrorist regime, and religious
zealots worm their way into power over a once secular
society:
"As for countries suffering under tyranny - yes, it
would be very good if somebody would help and support them. Take
for example the current administration in Washington. They
themselves - remember, these are mostly re-cycled Reaganites - they
supported a series of monstrous dictators, who subjected their
populations to vicious tyranny, including Saddam Hussein,
Ceausescu, Suharto, Marcos, Duvalier. It's quite a long list. The
best way to deal with that would have been to stop supporting them.
Incidentally, support for terror and violence continues. The best
way to stop it is to stop supporting them. Often, in fact in every
one of those cases, they were overthrown by their own populations,
even though the US was supporting the dictator. Ceausescu, for
example, was a tyrant perfectly comparable to Saddam Hussein. He
was overthrown in 1989 by his own population, while he was being
supported by the current incumbents in Washington, and that
continues. If there are people resisting oppression and violence,
we should find ways to support them, and the easiest way is to stop
supporting the tyrants. After that, complicated issues arise. There
is no record, that I know of, of the US, or any other state -
[there are] very rare examples - intervening to try to prevent
oppression and violence. That's extremely rare."
Does the CIA Know
How to Overthrow Foreign Governments
Successfully?
By Chalmers Johnson
The
Central Intelligence Agency has an almost unblemished record of
screwing up every "secret" armed intervention it ever undertook.
From the overthrow of the Iranian government in 1953 through the
Bay of Pigs, the failed attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro of
Cuba and Patrice Lumumba of the Republic of Congo, the Phoenix
Program in Vietnam, the "secret war" in Laos, aid to the Greek
colonels who seized power in 1967, the 1973 killing of Salvador
Allende in Chile and Ronald Reagan's Iran-Contra war against
Nicaragua, there is not a single instance in which the agency's
activities did not prove acutely embarrassing to the United States.
The CIA continues to get away with this primarily because its
budget and operations have always been secret and Congress is
normally too indifferent to its constitutional functions to rein in
a rogue bureaucracy. Therefore the tale of a purported CIA success
story should be of some interest.
Comment: This article does a good job of
summarizing many of the details of past CIA operations outside of
America. A different angle he did not explore is that perhaps these
CIA operations were not failures at all, but produced the exact
results intended. I understand, no one really wants to examine the
"terror of the situation."
Pentagon training workers to use new escape masks
Associated Press Monday, June 2, 2003
WASHINGTON - The Pentagon has handed out 25,000 emergency gas
masks to prepare defense employees for possible chemical or
biological terror attacks.
That completes about one-third of the effort started in late
February, when officials began training an average of several
hundred people a day in the use of ``emergency escape hoods.'' On
Monday, they gave the masks to a few dozen members of the news
media corps who work daily in the Defense Department
headquarters.
The masks are designed to give wearers up to about an hour of
protection to flee chemical or biological contamination, officials
said.
Some 80,000 masks are to be made available for department
employees and other workers as well as visitors at the Pentagon and
its annexes in other office buildings throughout the Washington
area.
US
Senate opens WMD probe
The BBC's Justin Webb By Justin Webb BBC
correspondent in Washington
In the United States, a full-scale Congressional inquiry has
been ordered on the use and possible abuse of intelligence
information on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
This is the first serious domestic pressure on the Bush
administration
The inquiry will include public hearings which will be televised
live.
The CIA is reported to be prepared to co-operate fully.
This is the first serious domestic pressure on the Bush
administration to give a detailed explanation of its pre-war claims
about weapons of mass destruction.
The inquiries are being conducted by the Senate Armed Services
and Intelligence Committees.
They are to hold a joint public hearing later in the month.
It is likely that senior officials such as the Defence
Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, and the Secretary of State, Colin
Powell, will be asked to attend.
Senator John Warner, the chairman of the armed services panel,
said he had ordered the inquiry because of the depth and
seriousness of the issue.
Mr Warner said he had been assured by the CIA director, George
Tenet, that all the statements made by the administration on the
subject and all the underlying intelligence supporting those
statements would be supplied to the committee.
Comment: As stated previously it
seems that something is definitely up here. Someone is ungagging
both the media and the Senate, setting them on Bush and Co. The
Cassiopaeans suggested that the Columbia shuttle was downed by a
"rogue group" to instill fear in Bush, prodding him to act more
quickly against Iraq. It would seem that if the pressure over the
missing WMD in Iraq were allowed to build significantly on Bush and
Co. Bush (via Mossad) may feel obliged to produce another 9/11, to
save their skins AND further the Israeli agenda of domination in
the middle east. That is one layer of the onion. At a deeper level
we perhaps have this supra-governmental "rogue group", that is
directing all of this with an ultimate agenda of its own, about
which Bush and Israel know little if anything. To it, Bush, Israel
Mossad etc. are all its pawns, to be used as they see fit and then
dispensed with.
Blix report fuels doubts on weapons of mass
destruction
By James Politi in Washington, James Blitz in Evian and Mark Turner
at the United Nations June 2 2003
US and British leaders were on Monday scrambling to explain why
they had so far failed to find evidence of Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction as United Nations weapons inspectors reported that
Baghdad was handing over fresh information just hours before the
US-led air strikes that began the war.
At the G8 summit in Evian, Tony Blair, the UK prime minister, was
forced to deflect suggestions by a former cabinet minister that he
had decided last September to go to war with Iraq, whether or not
United Nations support was forthcoming.
"The idea . . . that I made some secret agreement with George
Bush last September that we would invade Iraq in any event at a
particular time is completely and totally untrue," he said.
Colin Powell, US secretary of state, said "it wasn't a figment
of anyone's imagination" that Iraq possessed WMD. "There was no
doubt in my mind as I went through the intelligence that the
evidence was overwhelming," Mr Powell said in Rome, before heading
to the Middle East.
Comment: It is now clear that these
so called leaders folllow a policy of stating the exact opposite of
what is true.
P-I in Iraq: Baghdad a
city in chaos
As
security, services lag, anger over occupation grows
By LARRY
JOHNSON
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER FOREIGN DESK EDITOR
Monday, June 2, 2003
BAGHDAD,
Iraq -- The boy's smile faded when he heard the word
"American."
"Ishta!"
he said to the American. "Leave!" And he waved his hand as if he
were chasing away flies from his fruit stand.
Last
fall, a P-I team was again warmly welcomed to a Baghdad that was
beginning to come alive, despite the continuing sanctions and
despite the looming threat of war.
Then,
UNICEF figures showed, the malnutrition rate was declining, the
vaccination rate was going up, and there had been improvements in
communications, agriculture and the electricity supply. Also,
everywhere, from Baghdad to Basra, there was a surge of housing
construction.
Now,
another P-I team has found a drastically altered Iraq.
After two
devastating wars and 12 years of economic sanctions, Iraqis are
being crushed physically, economically, socially and spiritually.
Health conditions are in a downward spiral; the vast majority of
the work force has no work; the once burgeoning middle class has
almost disappeared; and they are under the occupation of a
conquering army.
That many
of them are no longer able to muster their famed hospitality for
American visitors comes as little surprise.
Electricity is still rolling on
and off in the city. Water is available, but humanitarian workers
warn that it is of poor quality. Some streets are awash in sewage.
The shells of burned-out buildings, from government ministries to
shopping malls, dot the skyline. Garbage rots along the sidewalks.
Without traffic lights and almost no police officers, the streets
are chaotic, and if not for the young men in various communities
who volunteer daily to risk life and limb to help direct traffic,
they would be parking lots.
There is
a U.S. military-enforced curfew from 11 p.m. until 4:30 a.m., but
because of the increasing violence, most people begin heading
indoors much earlier. By nightfall, the streets are almost empty.
[...]
"Iraqis
are facing real hunger as their food rations run out," said Rick
McDowell of the AFSC.
McDowell
said food rations are being distributed again for the first time
since the war, but 10 to 20 percent of the system won't be in
operation until August.
"That
means that 2 (million) to 4 million people won't get any food
rations in June and July," McDowell said. [...]
Iraqis get first food rations
as weapons controversy flares again
Tuesday
June 3, 4:45 AM
Iraqis began receiving their first food rations since the war to
topple Saddam Hussein as US and British leaders denied accusations
they exaggerated the threat of biological and chemical
weapons.
UN
special representative to Iraq Vieira de Mello claimed a sweeping
mandate upon his arrival in the country, as US overseers speeded up
efforts to involve Iraqis in running their own affairs.
[...]
Distribution of food rations
resumed for the first time since the war broke out in March, but
the UN's World Food Program (WFP) said just 1,000 people in Baghdad
received the package.
The
ration program, begun after UN imposed sanctions on Iraq following
its 1990 invasion of Kuwait, was the main source of food for about
60 percent of Iraq's 26 million people before the war.
[...]
Comment: 1000
people in Baghdad are once again receiving food rations. What
exactly are the other 15,599,000 Iraqis who rely on that aid
supposed to do? Surely their food supplies are running low after
three months. Given the chaos and lawlessness that is still
gripping most of the country, those 1000 people may not have long
to live.
Poll: 70% say things going well in Iraq
By
Richard Benedetto, USA TODAY
6/2/2003 8:43 PM
WASHINGTON — Most
Americans still say things are going reasonably well for the United
States in Iraq, despite reports of continued civil disorder there,
escalating attacks on American troops and failure to find weapons
of mass destruction, a USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll shows.
Overall,
70% say things in Iraq are going very or moderately well, down from
85% in late April, shortly after the major fighting
ended.
The
findings suggest that the public is less concerned about the
messiness of the Iraq situation than many critics of the Bush
administration, including Democratic presidential candidates, who
charge that President Bush misled the nation about the severity of
the Iraqi threat and failed to adequately plan for the war's
aftermath.
"Despite
the media coverage of the chaos in Iraq, the public is saying, 'The
war is over. We won. We knew that it was going to be messy after
the fighting ended. We don't necessarily want to know about it,' "
says Andrew Smith, a University of New Hampshire
pollster.
Indeed,
much of the news coverage over the weekend, while the poll was
being taken, focused on continued violence in Iraq and the
administration's failure so far to find weapons of mass
destruction. At least 10 American servicemembers were killed in
ambushes or accidents in the past week. [...]
Comment: Either
this poll was manipulated to make it seem to Americans that their
neighbors think everything is peachy in Iraq, or most Americans
actually do think that things are going well. In either case, it
illustrates BushCo's control of the media as well as the blissful
slumber of the vast majority of the American people.
Search
for Guns in Iraq and Surprise Under a Robe
By DAVID
ROHDE
New York Times
BAGHDAD,
Iraq, June 2 — The young Iraqi woman smiled when two American
paratroopers toting assault rifles strode up to the front door this
afternoon.
"No
weapons," she said in Arabic, waving her hands back and forth. "No
weapons."
Sgt.
Shane Netter was one of six paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne
Division combing a block in the working-class neighborhood of Abu
Dsheer. The troops shared one translator.
So
Sergeant Netter used pidgin Arabic and body language to
communicate. He motioned that they would have to search the house
anyway. Grudgingly, the woman and her husband quickly ushered
Sergeant Netter and Specialist Alleyne Edwin through their
two-story cinderblock home. But when the soldiers departed, so did
the niceties.
"What
right do they have to get into the house?" the husband, Nejim
Abdullah, 26, asked icily. "If some people have some weapons, does
that give them the right to see every house in the
city?"
The
search in Baghdad today was part of the largest operation of its
kind here. Troops inspected more than 2,000 homes for illegal
weapons. The surprise sweep and nighttime arrests produced bitter
complaints, a few comical moments and only a handful of weapons.
Two clerics were arrested.
Throughout the day, the American
paratroopers and Iraqi civilians engaged in an awkward dance. To
win over the Iraqis, young Americans went out of their way to
respect local customs, averting their eyes in the presence of Iraqi
women. To win over Americans, Iraqis pointed out photos of loved
ones executed by Saddam Hussein.
Over and
over again, the dual realities that American forces face in Iraq
appeared. Iraqis smiled when in direct contact, but bitterly
complained about the Americans as soon as they left. They
repeatedly accused the United States of failing to bring democracy
to Iraq.
"We know
the Western countries have democracy and liberty, and we want these
things to be implemented in our country," said Raad Hadi, 38, a
baker. "But we see around us that they are arresting our clerics."
[...]
Comment: They
ARE being implemented in Iraq. It's liberty and democracy, American
style.
The Day of the Jackals: On
War and Occupation
By
ARUNDHATI ROY
June 2, 2003
Counterpunch.org
Mesopotamia. Babylon. The Tigris
and Euphrates. How many children, in how many classrooms, over how
many centuries, have hang-glided through the past, transported on
the wings of these words?
And now
the bombs have fallen, incinerating and humiliating that ancient
civilization.
On the
steel torsos of their missiles, adolescent American soldiers
scrawled colorful messages in childish handwriting: "For Saddam,
from the Fat Boy Posse."
A
building went down. A market place. A home. A girl who loved a boy.
A child who only ever wanted to play with his older brother's
marbles. On the March 21--the day after American and British troops
began their illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq--an "embedded"
CNN correspondent interviewed an American soldier. "I wanna get in
there and get my nose dirty," Private A.J. said. "I wanna take
revenge for 9/11."
To be
fair to the correspondent, even though he was "embedded," he did
sort of weakly suggest that so far there was no real evidence that
linked the Iraqi government to the September 11, 2001, attacks.
Private A.J. stuck his teenage tongue out all the way down to the
end of his chin. "Yeah, well, that stuff's way over my head," he
said.
When the
United States invaded Iraq, a New York Times/CBS News survey
estimated that 42 percent of the American public believed that
Saddam Hussein was directly responsible for the September 11
attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. And an ABC news
poll said that 55 percent of Americans believed that Saddam Hussein
directly supported al-Qaeda. None of this opinion is based on
evidence (because there isn't any). All of it is based on
insinuation, auto-suggestion and outright lies circulated by the
U.S. corporate media. Public support in the U.S. for the war
against Iraq was founded on a multi-tiered edifice of falsehood and
deceit, coordinated by the U.S. government and faithfully amplified
by the press. We had the invented links between Iraq and al-Qaeda.
We had the manufactured frenzy about Iraq's "weapons of mass
destruction." No weapons of mass destruction have been found. Not
even a little one. [...]
Iraqi
bandits attempt to ambush MP's convoy
By Arifa
Akbar
03 June 2003
The Independent
Ann
Clwyd, the Prime Minister's special representative on human rights
in Iraq, escaped unscathed when her convoy was threatened by
bandits yesterday.
The
Labour MP told her office at Westminster that shots were fired but
that no one had been hurt in the incident, which occurred near
Kirkuk, in Northern Iraq.
Ms Clwyd,
who was with a convoy of eight cars and military escorts, insisted
she was "none the worse" for the experience but sounded shaken as
she spoke of the incident.
"We were
going along the road to the south of Kirkuk and people were coming
in our direction. They were making gestures holding their hands
together as though they were tied. They were trying to warn us
there had been shots fired at cars coming in our
direction.
"Shots
were certainly fired at people coming towards us. We stopped short
of that. We were given a warning. Then the Peshmerga, the Kurdish
fighters, and the Americans went after them," she said. The MP for
Cynon Valley, South Wales, said the bandits eluded capture by
running into the hills.
Despite
the confrontation, Ms Clwyd sounded a positive note over her visit
to the country. "There is such normality you can't believe there
has been a war," she said.
Comment: Armed
bandits shooting at cars is normality?! Ms. Clwyd's statement would
be hysterical if it weren't such a sad example of the wishful
thinking and lying that seem to be at the core of the Bush Reich
and its allies.
US 'to
appoint Iraqi leadership'
There is growing frustration among Iraqis towards the
coalition
Plans to allow a national conference of Iraqi groups to elect
an interim administration may be scrapped, a senior US official in
the country has suggested.
[...] Washington has admitted that it did not anticipate the
total collapse of the Iraqi administration following the fall from
power of President Saddam Hussein as coalition forces entered
Baghdad. [...]
Iraqis Assail U.S. Plans For Council
By Rajiv
Chandrasekaran
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, June 3, 2003
BAGHDAD,
June 2 -- Iraqi political leaders lashed out today at a plan by the
top U.S. civilian administrator here to appoint an interim advisory
council instead of convening a national conference to choose a
transitional government, saying that U.S. officials had reneged on
earlier assurances and that many Iraqis would regard the decision
as unpalatable.
Leaders
of seven key political groups held an emergency meeting today on
the decision by L. Paul Bremer III, the head of the U.S. occupation
authority in Iraq, to select between 25 and 30 Iraqis to serve on
an interim political council whose powers would largely be limited
to advising U.S. officials on policy issues and nominating Iraqis
to serve in senior positions in government ministries. The
organizations refrained from issuing a joint condemnation of
Bremer's plan because they hope to persuade him to change course,
but some of the groups made it clear they disapproved of the
decision.
"We are
skeptical this is going to work," said Entifadh Qanbar, a spokesman
for the Iraqi National Congress, which has close ties to Pentagon
officials and was until recently an exile group based in
London.
Qanbar
said the seven groups, including two parties representing ethnic
Kurds and two representing Shiite Muslims, want to soon have an
interim Iraqi government with clearly defined authority for various
aspects of governance instead of an "advisory board to
Bremer."
While the
U.S. occupation authority is not obliged to listen to the views of
the political groups, they do represent millions of Iraqis and
serve as important interlocutors for U.S. officials attempting to
navigate the country's uncharted and fractious political landscape.
[...]
In
Baghdad today, several Iraqis said they regarded Bremer's plan as a
denial of their political rights and a move that could increase
negative attitudes toward the U.S. occupation authority.
"If they
want stability, they should let Iraqis govern Iraq," said Abdul
Latif, an accountant. "We should be allowed to choose who should
represent us." [...]
Bush
shrugs off WMD worries
by Steve Schifferes BBC News Online,
Washington
In the US, President George W Bush is credited with victory in
Iraq despite the failure to find weapons of mass destruction.
While there is growing concern in Europe and elsewhere that the
failure to find weapons of mass destruction could undermine the
case for war against Iraq, there is far less political pressure
over the issue in the United States.
There are probably three reasons for this.
First, President Bush's conduct of the war as commander-in-chief
is seen as a great success by the public, and therefore he is being
given the benefit of the doubt on this issue.
In the most recent polling evidence, Americans said by a 67% to
31% majority that they were not deliberately misled on the question
of weapons of mass destruction.
Secondly, the Democratic opposition for the most part is
focusing on domestic issues, such as jobs and health care, and is
reluctant to take on the president on his strong suit of national
security.
Only Senator Bob Graham, a former head of the intelligence
committee, has charged that the government's obsession with Iraq
had weakened its ability to pursue the broader war on terror.
Now that the war is over, many Americans are also focusing much
more on the domestic agenda, and questions of the legal
justification for war are no longer seen as so important.
And thirdly, both in the media and in the policy community,
there are strong voices which argue that overthrowing Saddam
Hussein was a worthwhile objective in itself.
Columnists like the Washington Post's Charles Krauthammer argue
that the evil that was found in Iraq was so overwhelming as to
justify regime change.
Such viewpoints are echoed on many radio talk shows and cable
television channels like Fox News.
However, some voices of dissent are being heard.
Writing in the New York Times, columnist Paul Krugman argued
that "much of justification for the war turns out to have been
fictional".
A US soldier stands guard in front of a store during a search
for automatic weapons in a residential building US forces in Iraq
have not found banned weapons And calls are growing in Congress for
an investigation of the "intelligence failures" after a number of
articles, notably by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker, have claimed
that intelligence officials are concerned that the raw data had
been misinterpreted.
Senator Joe Biden, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, said on US television that the Bush
administration had "hyped" both the threat that Iraq was developing
nuclear weapons and their links to al-Qaeda.
Both the House and Senate Intelligence Committees say they will
launch an investigation of the matter, and the Senate Armed
Services Committee may join in.
The ranking Democrat on the House committee, Jane Harmon, says
that if there was an intelligence failure to find such weapons, it
would undermine the "major moral underpinning of the war" -
protecting the US from terrorist attack.
However, Republican Senator John Warner, the head of that
committee, said that the existence of an investigation should not
be taken to suggest an indictment of the administration.
Last week, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld suggested that it
may be that Iraq did not actually have any weapons of mass
destruction, just the capability to manufacture them quickly if
necessary from "dual-use" facilities.
The existence of only a "weapons programme" would be a
significant lowering of expectations from the claims made at the
United Nations in the run-up to the war.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell said he believed the evidence
was overwhelming that Iraq had the weapons and that it continued to
develop weapons programmes after UN inspectors left in 1998.
Mr Powell has pointed out that he spent four days and nights
going through the evidence with the CIA before he went to the UN,
in order to convince himself that it was solid information -
although some press reports suggest he was less than convinced
about the al-Qaeda link.
It was Mr Powell's presentation to the United Nations in
February that convinced many of the doubters about Iraq's weapons
programmes.
And for many American policy makers, the issue of weapons of
mass destruction was always more important for the international
audience rather than the domestic one.
It is still possible that the issue will gain domestic political
momentum, for example, as a result of a Congressional
investigation.
But for now, the Bush administration must be grateful that the
failure to find weapons of mass destruction has had such limited
political consequences.
Bush to
Chirac: Time to move on
Tuesday,
June 3, 2003 Posted: 01:01 GMT
EVIAN, France (CNN) -- U.S. President George W. Bush and his French
counterpart Jacques Chirac talked through their differences on Iraq
on Monday, with Bush saying it was "time to move on," a senior U.S.
official said.
Bush held
a 25-minute meeting with Chirac discussing the whole of the Middle
East, including the Palestinian issue, before departing for Egypt
to seek support from Arab leaders for the U.S.-backed "road map"
designed to end the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. [...]
At their
meeting with Chirac at the G-8 summit in Evian, France, Bush said
the U.S. and France maintained "good relations."
In a sign
of thawing relations France said it was sending special forces to
Afghanistan to work alongside U.S. troops.
"This
decision reflects both a wish of the United States and our desire
to participate in the stabilization of Afghanistan," Reuters quoted
Chirac spokeswoman Catherine Colonna as saying. She declined to say
when the troops would go or how many would be involved.
Later
Chirac told a news conference that while Bush had not actually
invited him to the U.S., he had told him he would be happy to see
him in America when the French president attends a conference in
New York on the eve of a U.N. General Assembly meeting in
September.
"President Bush asked me if I
was going to the session, and I said it was possible, and President
Bush said 'I'd be happy to meet you on that occasion,' and I said
'naturally'," Chirac said.
Chirac
was Bush's fiercest adversary in the run-up to the U.S.-led war and
threatened to veto a second U.N. resolution authorizing force
against former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.
The
American president said Chirac had been "honest" with him over
Iraq. The French leader knew a lot about the Middle East and he
would be asking his advice, Bush said before his flight to
Egypt.
The
senior U.S. official who reported Bush's comments to Chirac said
Chirac offered a number of interesting ideas in dealing with Syria.
No details were given. The two leaders also talked about Iran and
their shared concern that it be nuclear free. [...]
Comment: Isnt that just rosy! I
wonder if he also mentioned that blue really suited Bush and
suggested the name of a good hairdresser? The whole thing reads
like a Miss World acceptance speech. Anyone feel we are being toyed
with here? One minute they are at each others' throats, the next
they are exchanging telephone numbers.
Bush
locks Europeans out of Middle East process
By Eric
Silve in Jerusalem and Sa'id Ghazali in Gaza
03 June 2003
The Independent
George
Bush travelled from Evian to the Middle East yesterday, determined
to deny the Europeans a role in monitoring progress along the
international road-map to a Palestinian state.
Today he
meets Arab leaders in Egypt before hosting a formal Middle East
summit in Aqaba, Jordan, tomorrow between Israelis and
Palestinians. European diplomats have been excluded. An Israeli
official told The Independent yesterday: "There will be no
Europeans involved in the monitoring process. This has been a clear
understanding between Israel and the United States."
The US
monopoly chips away at Tony Blair's claim before the invasion of
Iraq that Britain was a major player in the search for peace
between Israel and the Palestinians. His friend George Bush, having
committed his authority to the peace plan, wants the Americans in
the driving seat. The Israelis insist it is in nobody's interest to
have Europeans "sticking a spoke in the wheels". [...]
Short:
Blair lied to cabinet and made secret war pact with
US
Tory
threat to break ranks on Iraq
Nicholas Watt and Michael
White in Evian June 2, 2003
The
Guardian Tony Blair is facing mounting pressure from across the
House of Commons to hold an independent inquiry into the Iraq war
after Clare Short levelled the incendiary allegation at the prime
minister that he had lied to the cabinet.
As
an increasingly exasperated prime minister once again swept aside
calls for a public inquiry into the failure to uncover banned Iraqi
weapons, the former international development secretary accused Mr
Blair of bypassing the cabinet to agree a "secret" pact with George
Bush to go to war.
To
compound the prime minister's difficulties - as MPs prepare to
return to Westminster tomorrow after the Whitsun recess - Robin
Cook demanded an independent inquiry into the "monumental blunder"
by the government.
His
criticisms were echoed last night by the Tories who said they were
giving "very serious consideration" to calls for an
inquiry.
PM's
DECEIT SACRIFICED BRITISH LIVES
By
Sir Max Hastings Who Initially Accepted The Case For War
EVEN
by the standards of the Bush Administration, last week was a
remarkable one for diplomatic folly.
Paul
Wolfowitz, the Assistant Defence Secretary, disclosed that the US
wilfully exaggerated the threat of weapons of mass destruction to
rally support for an Iraq war.
Likewise, Wolfowitz's boss, Donald Rumsfeld, declared that he
has little expectation of finding any WMDs.
He
then launched a new round of sabre-rattling against
Iran.
So
much for the gleeful banner under which President Bush greeted a
homebound American aircraft carrier crew: "Mission
accomplished."
The
leading lights of the US Defence Department always made it plain
that disarming Saddam was a pretext for regime change in
Iraq.
Yet
that pretext was the basis of a massive American diplomatic
offensive.
Tony
Blair explicitly told the British people that disarming Saddam
justified taking Britain to war. That argument was
fraudulent.
Some
of us, who accepted public and private Whitehall assurances about
WMDs, today feel rather silly.
Robin Cook is crowing, and well he may. He said that WMDs did
not exist. He appears to have been right.
It
is irrelevant that the Allies won the war. The Prime Minister
committed British troops and sacrificed British lives on the basis
of a deceit, and it stinks.
Meanwhile inside Iraq, it has become irrelevant to criticise
the Americans for past failure to anticipate the problems of making
the country work.
The
question is whether they intend to commit resources on a scale
commensurate with the task, now that the requirement is
plain.
The
example of Afghanistan, where Washington seems untroubled by
post-war anarchy, is not encouraging.
The
Americans shrug that today's warlordism offers Afghans better lives
than yesterday's Taliban, and that outcome should
suffice.
THE
administration always asserted that the Iraqi people were not
enemies, but hapless pawns of a tyrant.
In
1945, the Germans and Japanese begged for cigarettes and scratched
in the ruins of their cities without much audible protest, because
they knew they were the vanquished. The Iraqis, by contrast, behave
as if they had just voted the Americans into office. They are
petulantly impatient to see their new government fulfil its
election pledges. The world is happy to cheer them on.
George Bush seems likely to fight a khaki presidential election
in 2004, on a platform of tough action abroad in the cause of
homeland defence.
Critics observe that he can scarcely do anything else, since
his management of the US economy frightens the life out of everyone
who thinks beyond polling day.
It
is hard to overstate the seriousness of the damage to British trust
which is inflicted almost daily by Washington's
insouciance.
What
was the point of reluctantly joining the Iraqi adventure, people
ask, if the British Government cannot curb the excesses of American
policy, and if the British Army's reward for participation is a
half-baked war crimes charge against one of its officers by a
disgruntled American major?
AMERICAN hawks would dismiss most of the above as a reflection
of familiar British liberal pusillanimity, our unflagging belief
that we ran the world more intelligently in our centuries than they
do in theirs.
Yet
there are good grounds for mistrusting American
judgment.
I
was among those who thought the war mistaken, but reluctantly
accepted the arguments for British participation, to preserve the
Atlantic alliance and to maintain some marginal influence upon
American policy. Today, given the behaviour of the US
Administration, that case is in tatters. Thus, some people declare
that this is the moment for Britain to jump ship, plainly to assert
that we will go no further alongside an ally so reckless in its
diplomacy, so careless in its actions.
Yet
the US remains the only superpower we have got. It cannot be
exchanged for a new model. Britain is now committed in Iraq, for
better or worse.
It
remains vital to engage with Washington. Even in the face of great
difficulties, the diplomatic effort must continue, to restrain
American unilateralism.
But
a heavy blow has been struck against our faith in American rhetoric
and judgment.
The
struggle against terrorism, and the management of the world look
harder today than they did a week ago, thanks to Washington's
frightening surge of unforced errors.
Comment: That's nice that Sir Hastings is coming clean, and
saying he made a mistake. We all make mistakes right? Our natural
impulse is to forgive and forget. I do hope he takes a look at the
carnage he contributed toward for such a pitiful reason as, "...to
preserve the Atlantic alliance and to maintain some marginal
influence upon American policy." and then subtly slides in, "Yet
the US remains the only superpower we have got. It cannot be
exchanged for a new model. Britain is now committed in Iraq, for
better or worse." Makes one a bit suspicious of the
sincerity.
Why
Moscow won't back down
By Hooman Peimani
Unlike what many American reports based on unidentified sources
suggest, Russia does not seem to be bowing to American pressure to
stop its non-military nuclear cooperation with Iran. On the
contrary, Russian authorities have repeatedly stated their
intention to continue such peaceful cooperation, as they did on May
27 when an Iranian Nuclear Energy Ministry delegation visited
Moscow. Although Moscow's firm stance on this issue is not new, the
timing of the recent Russian statements made them distinct from all
previous ones as the American government has heated up its campaign
against Iran's nuclear program.
Hence, Alexander Rumyantsev, Russian Atomic Energy Minister,
commented on his country's construction of Iran's Bushehr nuclear
power reactor during his talks with the Iranian delegation. In a
clear show of "defiance" to the United States, he stated: "We will
continue to fulfill our obligations despite the fact that our
positions on this issue differ from those of [the] officials in
Washington." Disregarding repeated American requests, including one
made in May, to stop the Bushehr project, he stressed his
ministry's determination to complete the reactor project. "The
Russian side does not see grounds to revise its obligations with
regard to the construction of the first power unit at the nuclear
power plant in Bushehr."
During their talks with the Iranian delegation, Rumyantsev and
his ministry made it clear that worsening American-Iranian
relations would not affect "Russia's cooperation with Iran with
respect to the completion of the nuclear power plant in Bushehr",
as Itar-Tass reported. For example, an unspecified ministry
spokesperson stated: "There are no reasons [for Russia] to halt
[the] construction of the first phase of the Bushehr Nuclear plant
or cease future cooperation between Iran and Russia in nuclear
energy." Not only that, but, according to IRNA, the Russian Atomic
Energy Ministry repeated its readiness to cooperate with Iran on
building five more nuclear power plants, an offer made initially in
2002 when the Russian government released its plans for future
economic relations with Iran.
Russian-Iranian nuclear ties have received the approval of the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), a Vienna-based agency in
charge of the verification of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
of 1968. Consequently, Russia's commitment to continue and to
expand its ties should not be controversial under normal
circumstances. However, the international environment since last
year has been anything but normal. The American and British
governments justified their war against Iraq and its subsequent
occupation under the pretext of preventing the proliferation of
weapons of mass destruction (WMD). They justified their actions,
although they had no proof to substantiate their claim of Iraq
being in material breach of its obligation under the United Nations
resolution on its WMD.
Having Iraq under occupation, the American government is
shifting its attention to Iran with the same objective in mind, ie,
bringing the country into its sphere of influence through a regime
change. Of course, there are fundamental differences between Iran
and Iraq with regard to their internal situation and external ties
and significance, which raise great doubts about the feasibility of
such plan. Nonetheless, Washington seems to be preparing grounds to
achieve the mentioned objective, probably through different means,
but with resorting to the same type of allegations as it did prior
to its war with Iraq. Such allegations are mainly the country's
ties with al-Qaeda and its pursuit of WMD.
The American government drew on Iraq's well-known WMD program in
the 1980s to justify its unsubstantiated claims regarding that
country in 2003. However, its allegation on Iran having an active
nuclear weapon program is based on pure speculations and lacks any
credibility, as, unlike the case of Iraq, there is not even a
historical precedence to make such allegation. Moreover, Iran's
nuclear program has received IAEA approval, clear proof of its
non-military nature.
Nevertheless, Washington has pressured the IAEA to declare Iran
in material breach of its nuclear obligations in the upcoming IAEA
meeting in June, although the February visit of the IAEA head and
his inspector teams to Iran did not prove any wrongdoing by the
Iranians. In particular, Washington has tried to portray Iran's
declared plan to establish facilities to have a complete nuclear
fuel cycle as a clear violation of its IAEA obligations and a proof
for its pursuing a nuclear weapons program. This is notwithstanding
the fact that having such objective and its required facilities to
enable the Iranians to exploit their own uranium mines and to
enrich uranium are well within Iran's rights under IAEA rules and
regulations.
Thus, Iran's two declared and under-construction uranium
enrichment facilities in Natanz and heavy water production facility
in Arak are not proof of its wrongdoings; the former inspected by
the IAEA team in February. This is especially so as IAEA
regulations require the declaration of nuclear facilities when they
contain nuclear material, which is not even the case for the two
under-construction facilities.
In light of these realities, Russia's clear determination to
continue its nuclear relations with Iran reflects not only its
attempt to preserve its economic interests in Iran, but its growing
concern about America's aggressive foreign policy. Undoubtedly,
such policy has major security implications for Moscow. In
particular, the Russians are concerned about the possibility of
Iran's domination by the US, in one form or another, which could
also lead to a long-term American military presence in that
country.
Moscow's loss of its Iranian strategic ally, if it happened,
would seriously endanger its security at a time that it requires a
long period of peace and security to revitalize its devastated
economy. Such loss will complete its encirclement by hostile or
potentially hostile pro-American states hosting the American
military. The American government's behavior since late 2001 has
indicated its pursuit of a plan to ensure its uninterrupted access
to energy resources and strategically important regions, such as
the Persian Gulf, its unchallenged power and its leadership of a
unipolar international system. That requires eliminating the
potential "troublemakers", the current and future "rogue"
states.
Given this reality, Russia should have every reason to believe
it to be one of the next states, if not the next one, on the
American list of targets if Washington restores its influence in
neighboring Iran. Fear of such a scenario seems to be a major
reason for the Russians to continue their multi-dimensional ties
with Iran, including in the nuclear realm, to prevent its weakness
and isolation, two tempting prerequisites for any future American
designs on Iran.
The real messages sent at G-8 summit
Getting postwar bearings, leaders wrestle with US dominance and a
global economy.
By Howard LaFranchi
The Christian Science Monitor
WASHINGTON Despite some progress on his preferred topics of
terrorism and weapons nonproliferation, President Bush confronted
at this week's gathering of world leaders in France a reality of
resistance to US power that is likely to mark a range of future
US-world relations.
French President Jacques Chirac was the most direct in citing
much of the world's concerns about the United States in the
post-Iraq-war world. In a press conference Sunday that was part of
the G-8 meeting of the world's industrialized countries, Mr. Chirac
said he has "no doubt whatsoever that the multipolar vision of the
world that I've discussed many times is supported by a large
majority of countries."
But
the chafing at American demands of cooperation also came through in
comments from Russian President Vladimir Putin in reference to US
concerns over Iran's nuclear program. Mr. Putin said in a joint
news conference with President Bush that the positions of the two
countries "are much closer than they seem." [...]
[...] Bush - who left the summit of world leaders (set to end
Tuesday) on Monday to continue on to two crucial summits in the
Middle East - sounded a parting note of cooperation that built on
two meetings intended to mend fences with Chirac.[...]
Bush
also met with Chinese President Hu Jintao and made progress on the
issue of North Korea, according to US officials. The Chinese say
that North Korea has dropped demands that it meet solely with the
US. It has agreed to discuss its nuclear-weapons program with other
regional countries present.
The
White House, too, appears to have moved on the issue. It is now
apparently willing to consider direct talks with the North Koreans
if other countries are present at the meetings.[...]
On
economic issues as well, leaders attempted to project a sense of
cooperation even as domestic concerns dominate their actions. Bush
told the group that he continues to support a strong dollar, even
as European and other leaders worry that the policy is hurting
their exports and causing economic woes at home.
Mr.
Charney says he believes that in the long run, a wide, if initially
grudging, respect for what the US accomplished by removing Saddam
Hussein from power in Iraq will encourage countries to move beyond
their concerns to greater cooperation on the issues the White House
is emphasizing. But he says results may yet take a
while.
Who's
Your Daddy?
The
politics of terror alerts: heads Bush wins, tails Bush
wins...
by Steve
Perry
Monday, June 2, 2003
You may
not have noticed, but another Orange Alert has come and gone. The
latest one faded quietly away this weekend when the latest wave of
al-Qaeda attacks failed to materialize. The interesting thing is
that it was left in place for only a couple of weeks--an awfully
short time, one would imagine, in the planning-and-execution cycles
of terrorist organizations. How can the lighthouse keepers know
that the threat has abated in such a short time?
You have
to admit it looks like a risky move on its face--after all, what if
there is an attack somewhere this week? For the Bush administration
to take even this relatively minor gamble in lowering the threat
level suggests that it sees a value in the terror alert system that
it doesn't want to squander by leaving the sirens turned up all the
time.
Why?
Everyone knows that: public safety. We don't want the populace to
grow so inured that they walk down the street absentmindedly
picking up bombs.
Except
that this makes no sense at all. Even at Orange Alert we're all
told to go on with our normal routines--so there is really no added
measure of public safety in getting the public to take terror
alerts seriously. (To the extent it's useful to change the alert
status of police and government agencies periodically, that could
as easily be done without public hoopla.) But there are numerous
political uses. And if the system was conceived as one kind of
political instrument--a post-9/11 means of assuring the public that
the Bushmen were on top of a situation that they were patently not
on top of--it's clear that Rove and the rest have long since seen
through to its other political uses. At the moment its main virtue
is the ability to dictate the news cycle--and thus bury other, less
opportune stories at will--and to change the tenor of the day's
political dialogue, also at will. It will be one important source
of political capital for the Bushmen in the summer and fall of 2004
if they don't wreck its credibility altogether between now and
then. (This is far from a sure bet. The state of Arizona is saying
it may ignore the next orange alert.) [...]
Wasted at the
Pentagon
Fiscal
Irresponsibility, Fraud and the Military-Terrorism
Complex
By
STANDARD SCHAEFER
Counterpunch.org
The Bush
administration recently shelved a report commissioned by the
Treasury that shows the US currently faces a future of chronic
federal budget deficits totaling at least $44,200bn in current US
dollars . Shortly before this, the San Francisco Chronicle
published a story about the Defense Department's recent
acknowledgement that it is missing over $1.3 trillion U.S. and that
the Army lost track of 56 airplanes, 32 tanks, and 36 Javelin
missile command launch-units. The DoD figure itself is old news,
derived from at least seven years old according to reports from the
General Accounting Office, but what made the story important was
how little serious coverage of the Rumsfeld/Bush reform proposal
there was.
The
Defense Transformation for the 21st Century Act represents not just
an assault on the working class and unionized labor, but also a
cover-up of the fact that the Department of Defense's effort to
improve and modernize the Department of Defense accounting
practices is at least ten years old, has itself cost at least a
hundred million dollars and has produced no real results . In fact,
the Department by its own admission has only begun to implement its
plan to completely overhaul its financial management systems
aggressively since 2002.
This
raises several questions. First, given that many of Corporate
America's finest managerial minds have worked for the DoD, how is
it that this reform process has been so thoroughly bungled? Second,
could the missing tanks and planes be located in places like
Poland, for example, or any of the other countries that the US
bribed to join the "coalition of the willing"? The fraud in
military spending is, of course, legendary, but what is not
addressed is the mismanagement and how it quite possibly furthers
America's most covert foreign policies. [...]
Israel Releases Prominent Palestinian Before
Summit
By
Jeffrey Heller
Mon June 2, 2003 07:52 PM ET
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel released a jailed member of the
Palestine Liberation Organization's executive committee in a
goodwill gesture on the eve of a Middle East summit on Tuesday led
by President Bush.
About
another 100 Palestinian prisoners were likely to go free by
Wednesday, when Bush follows a meeting with Arab leaders in Egypt
with landmark talks in Jordan with the Israeli and Palestinian
prime ministers on a new "road map" for peace.
Taysir
Khaled, a leader of the Democratic Front for the Liberation of
Palestine and a member of the PLO's executive committee -- its
highest body -- was released from prison late on Monday.
"My
arrest was politically motivated," Khaled said in the West Bank
city of Ramallah, where he was welcomed by Yasser Arafat at the
Palestinian president's battered headquarters. Israeli defense
officials were unavailable for comment. [...]
FCC adopts media ownership rules
June 2, 2003: 1:19 PM EDT
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - The Federal Communications Commission
narrowly approved new media ownership rules Monday, allowing
television broadcasters to expand their reach, despite fears the
move may reduce the variety of viewpoints available to
consumers.
The
Republican-led government agency voted 3-2 to allow the broadcast
networks to own television stations that reach a combined 45
percent of the national audience, up from 35 percent.
Citing a need to update the decades-old rules to reflect new
sources of entertainment, information and news, the FCC also voted
to lift a ban that prevents a company from owning both a newspaper
and a television or radio station -- except in the smallest
markets.
FCC Puts Democracy on
Mute
JUNE 2,
2003 1:14 PM
Commondreams.org
WASHINGTON - Common Cause, MoveOn.org and Free Press today
condemned the FCC's 3-2 vote in favor of relaxing media ownership
rules that favor corporate monopolies at the expense of local news
outlets and diversity. The groups vowed to continue fighting to
take back America's public airwaves by going to Congress and the
courts to restore limits on what media giants can own.
"This is
a dark day for American democracy," said Chellie Pingree, president
of Common Cause. "The FCC has ignored mounting public pressure and
given the green light to a handful of media moguls to control what
the American public sees, hears, and reads. That is frightening
prospect." [...]
Bad
Idea
About 10 or 12 mega-conglomerates control about 75 percent of
the communications in the United States, and the Federal
Communications Commission is about to pass a rule that will allow
them to gobble up the remainder.
This is not good.
For a land that is supposedly the bastion of free speech, we
have fewer competing newspapers than most other industrial
countries in the world. Catch the news on ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, Fox
and CNN, and you get essentially an identical picture of the world,
one that bears only a limited and superficial resemblance to the
real one. We are nation of 268 million people and there are only,
as of 2001, 1,480 daily newspapers — most of them owned by
these few mega-corporations.
Don't be fooled by all the talk about choices. Sure you have a
choice between America Online and CompuServe. Guess who owns
CompuServe? AOL. The big conglomerates own most of the cable
channels. The producers of most of the programming are likewise
relatively few.
Every city and town in America needs an independent, locally
owned newspaper, radio station and TV station. Darned few have them
anymore. Some of these big conglomerates own newspapers, radio
stations, TV stations, book publishers, magazines, cable channels,
movie studios and TV networks. You name it, they got it. And they
want what they don't already have, and the FCC is about to give it
to them by loosening present restrictions on ownership of
properties in the same market.
You should also not be fooled by the blarney that owners don't
tell employees what to write or say. They don't have to. They don't
hire people who disagree with them on what they consider to be the
really important issues. You've got to be a pretty dumb employee
not to figure out what the boss likes and dislikes. And if you
don't, you won't be around that long.
Ego and pretentiousness notwithstanding, journalists are
blue-collar workers in information factories. There aren't many
willing to tell off the publisher or the news director, and those
who do are out the door.
I used to get a laugh when I was working for a daily newspaper
and the paper was crusading for some pet project. Inevitably,
somebody would call and say, "Why don't you write a column and tear
their arguments apart?"
"Well," I would reply, "for starters, my name is Reese, not
Rockefeller. This newspaper you want me to attack is the one that
pays my salary. Aside from my interest in not being unemployed, as
long as I take their money, I owe them loyalty."
Sure, I used to take positions that differed from those of the
newspaper on some issues, but if it was an issue the publisher and
editor really cared about, I either supported it or, if I couldn't
honestly do that, just wrote about something else. That's the way
the world works. And as an old Buddhist sage once observed, "If you
understand, the world is as it is; if you do not understand, the
world is as it is."
In all seriousness, the foundation of our great idea of
self-government is that if the people know the truth, they can make
the right political decisions. In our time, we depend on commercial
communications for most of our information. To allow so few hands
to control so much of our communications is dangerous.
Fakery in
American Journalism
By
Thomas Fleming
Mr.
Fleming's latest book is The Illusion of Victory: America in World
War I (Basic Books, 2003). He is a member of the board of directors
of HNN.
The
uproar over Jayson Blair, the New York Times reporter who was
exposed as a man who made up details and descriptions and
embellished stories with false quotes, has omitted one salient
fact. The journalists of the 19th and early 20th centuries would
have shrugged off Mr. Blair's inventions with a goodnatured wink.
"Faking it" -- the tradition of manufacturing facts to enliven
stories -- or even describing things that never happened -- has a
long tradition in American newspapers. [...]
9/11 Movie
Paints Bush as Hero
by
Linda McQuaig June 2, 2003
In
real life, Wyatt Earp probably dove under the bed at the first sign
of trouble. But he sure looked brave on the big screen, taking on
troublemakers in Dodge City.
Of
course, anyone's story can be magically transformed by Hollywood
screenwriters, who routinely turn the tawdriest tales into heroic
sagas.
Even
so, they must have dug deep into their bag of tricks to write the
made-for-TV movie - filmed in Toronto this spring - of George
Bush's heroic handling of the 9/11 crisis.
The
film, which qualifies for generous Canadian federal and provincial
cash incentives for film production, is sure to help the White
House further its two-pronged re-election strategy: Keep Americans
terrified of terrorism and make Bush look like the guy best able to
defend them.
Lionel Chetwynd, the writer-producer of this heartily pro-Bush
movie, is a kind of west coast David Frum - a Canadian who has
fully embraced the Bush revolution and even joined the
administration (sitting on a White House arts
committee).
His
film - unlikely to enhance the reputation of Canadian filmmakers -
portrays Bush as decisive and in-charge on 9/11, commanding
officials on Air Force One to take him to Washington.
"If
some tinhorn terrorist wants me, tell him to come and get me! I'll
be at home! Waiting for the bastard!"
Whoever was driving Air Force One apparently wasn't listening;
as we know, the president was flown instead to Nebraska and only
returned that evening to the White House, where Laura Bush was
holding the fort.
One
real-life scene unlikely to get much attention in the Hollywood
epic was captured on video the morning of Sept. 11.
It
shows the president, right after he's been told a plane has hit the
World Trade Center, strolling into a Grade 2 classroom at a Florida
school. Minutes later, an aide informs him a second plane has hit
the WTC.
The
president continues watching the children read a story about a pet
goat and then chit-chats with them about reading. (This leaves the
casting options wide open - Arnold Schwarzenegger as Bush, but Mr.
Dress-Up would have worked too.)
Anyone who's seen that video will recall Bush's inscrutable
look the moment he hears about the second plane. Does he realize
the course of history has changed? Is he afraid of
goats?
In
researching his film, Chetwynd reportedly had "lengthy" interviews
with Bush and top officials, including Donald Rumsfeld, Andrew Card
and Karl Rove.
This
access is in stunning contrast to the short shrift the
administration has given to serious attempts to investigate 9/11,
including efforts by a joint Congressional inquiry, which was
denied access to top officials.
The
White House is currently blocking publication of most of the
inquiry's 800-page report. It is also putting roadblocks in the
path of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks, which Bush
initially resisted establishing, but agreed to, under pressure from
9/11 families.
Among the many questions needing answers: Why was the
multi-billion-dollar U.S. military unable to muster any defence of
the nation that day, not even sending U.S. fighters up to
investigate the hijacked planes?
As
Harvard academic Elaine Scarry wrote in the Boston Globe last fall:
"On Sept. 11, the Pentagon could not defend the Pentagon, let alone
the rest of the country ... Does [this] mean that fifty years of
American defence policy is all wrong?"
Interesting question - just don't expect a response.
Canadians should ponder that question, as we consider backing
Bush's missile defence project.
Is
it likely that the U.S. military - which couldn't even deal with
large planes flying over its own territory for more than an hour on
Sept. 11 - would be able to deal with a sleek, camouflaged missile
approaching suddenly, at great speed, from some unknown
location?
It's
astonishing that the most catastrophic event in American history
has gone all but uninvestigated in the world's most apparently open
democracy.
As
Randal Davis, owner of a small Oregon floor cleaning company, noted
in an e-mail to me, "If someone slips and falls at the supermarket
where I contract, there is always an investigation. We want to know
why things happen so they don't happen again."
This
investigative zeal applies to just about everything in America -
except 9/11. If nothing else, aren't Americans curious to know what
went wrong that day?
Curious or not, they're soon to get the airbrushed version,
which will paint Bush as a hero and remind Americans how much there
is to fear.
As
E. J. Dionne noted in the Washington Post last week: "(T)he only
thing Republicans have to fear is the end of fear
itself."
A Producer's Claim: Queens man blames killing of director on post-
9/11 stress
By
Chau Lam New York
Newsday
Film
producer Nathan Chandler Powell admits he killed writer-director
Jawed Wassel. Then, he said, he cut up the body, packed the parts
in boxes but kept the head in his refrigerator. In an interview
last week at the Nassau County jail where he is awaiting trial on
murder charges, Powell said he did it because he suffered from
post-traumatic stress after witnessing the 9/11 terrorist attack on
the World Trade Center. "I suspected that he [Wassel] was an agent
for the Taliban," said Powell, 40, who was in his loft across the
East River in Long Island City when he saw the towers
fall.
Mega
Media Madness
John
Nichols and Josh Silver
tompaine.com
[...] The FCC's decision was the product of a corrupt process
that was awash in special-interest money, and that saw industries
that are supposed to be regulated telling the regulators how to
proceed. The Center for Public Integrity recently revealed that
over the past eight years, media companies and their associations
paid for 2,500 travel junkets by FCC commissioners and staffers, at
a cost of $2.8 million. The Center also revealed that FCC
commissioners, their aides and top staffers hosted 71
off-the-record meetings with industry executives in the months
leading up to today's vote. At the same time, only five meetings
were held with organizations representing the public interest.
Already, watchdog groups and members of Congress are calling for
investigations of the cozy relationship between the FCC and the
firms that will benefit from these rules changes.
Citizens across the United States are furious with FCC Chairman
Powell for limiting public input by scheduling only one official
hearing on the rules changes, by withholding the changes until just
three weeks before the vote, by neglecting to order adequate
studies of the impact of these rule changes, and by refusing a
request from Commissioners Michael Copps and Jonathan Adelstein --
as well as more than 120 members of Congress -- for a delay in the
vote. [...]
Study:
Detainees abused after 9/11 Justice Department's own report
critical of agency
By REBECCA CARR
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department mistreated some of the
hundreds of foreigners detained after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist
attacks, according to a report released Monday by the department's
own inspector general.
[...]
They
contend that they were working around the clock, using every
resource available to prevent a second wave of attacks. Their
strategy was to lock up as many people with suspected ties to
terrorists as possible.
Comment: Who will speak up for these people? They will use the
same excuse when they come for you. People
are held without trials and abused, and we're supposed to excuse
the Nazi Justice employees who imprison and torture
them?
What's Wrong With This
Picture?
Seven of
Eight Men Facing Serious Execution Dates in June are Black or
Latino
JUNE 2,
2003 10:25 AM
WASHINGTON - Seven of the eight people facing serious execution
dates in June are African American or Latino, demonstrating unfair
bias in the way the death penalty is applied, the National
Coalition to Abolish the Death Penalty said today.
Between
June 5 and June 27, eight people face serious execution dates in
the states of Indiana, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas and Utah.
(A ninth person, Troy Kell of Utah, also has an execution date
pending but is expected to receive a stay.) Of the eight people
with serious dates, six are African American, one is Latino and one
is white. [...]
"The
death penalty is biased in two ways when it comes to race," said
Steven W. Hawkins, executive director of the National Coalition to
Abolish the Death Penalty. "First, blacks make up 43 percent of
death row population, but only 13 percent of the U.S. population
generally. Second, and more significantly, the race of the victim
often determines who lives and who dies. Of those executed since
1976, 81 percent were convicted of killing white victims. 19
percent were convicted of killing minority victims."
[...]
Togo's president leads
contested vote count: officials
Tuesday
June 3, 4:24 AM
Togo's president was poised to extend his reign as Africa's
longest-serving leader, early vote counts from a weekend election
showed, as two opposition figures said that they had won the
poll.
With 40
percent of the votes from Sunday's election counted, incumbent
Gnassingbe Eyadema had received 59 percent of ballots cast, the
election commission said here late Monday. [...]
But his
sternest challenger Olympio, the son of Togo's first president who
was assassinated by soldiers in 1963, was banned from contesting
the election because the electoral commission deemed his candidacy
application to be incomplete.
The UFC
denounced "massive fraud" in Sunday's election and called for a
re-run.
"The acts
of fraud uncovered today (Sunday) surpass even what we had
expected: the early closing of polling stations, the buying of
votes," UFC secretary general Jean-Pierre Fabre told a press
conference on polling day.
The UFC
alleged there had been incidents of ballot-stuffing,
non-distribution of voter cards, and other fraud.
Eyadema's
camp, meanwhile, accused the opposition of being sore
losers.
Comment: This
process should be familiar to Americans...
Four U.S. soldiers
briefly detained by Iran
03 Jun
2003 00:24:39 GMT
WASHINGTON, June 2 (Reuters) -
Four U.S. soldiers and five civilians on boats in the Shatt al-Arab
waterway were detained, blindfolded and interrogated by Iranians
for several hours on Sunday, the U.S. Central Command said on
Monday.
The
soldiers and three of the civilians, including a U.S. contractor,
were escorted back to their boats and released on Monday but two
civilian boat drivers remained in detention, a spokesman for
Central Command said.
The group
was "taken by force by Iranians. They were blindfolded, taken up
river for about 20 minutes to a building where they were
interrogated," Cmdr. Dan Gage said by telephone from Central
Command headquarters in Tampa, Florida.
Gage said
initial medical examinations of the released individuals indicated
there were no injuries or signs of physical abuse. He said he had
no information on the nationalities of the captains of the two
boats or the drivers who remained in detention. [...]
Making a
wormhole just got easier...but it's no simple matter.
2 June 2003 PHILIP BALL
Good news for time travellers - it just got cheaper. The amount
material needed to build a window through time is infinitesimally
small, new research shows.
To travel through time, all you need to do is open a wormhole in
space-time and step through it. And to do that you need a magic
ingredient called 'exotic matter', which is repelled rather than
attracted by gravity.
The hitch is that no one has the remotest idea how to make
exotic matter. But don't despair, say Matt Visser, of the Victoria
University of Wellington in New Zealand, and his colleagues. They
have shown that when we do figure out how to make the stuff, we
won't need very much of it[...]
Hot weather kills 1,000 Indians
Tuesday June 03, 2003
An acute heat wave in southern India has claimed the lives of more
than 1,000 people. Authorities in the state of Andhra Pradesh says
conditions are even worse than those in a similar disaster last
year.
Some parts recorded temperatures of over 50C as weather officials
say the monsoon, expected at this time of the year, has been
delayed.
The district of Nalgonda is the worst hit area where the death toll
has risen to 204.
Vatican irked by
Christian omission
The
Vatican wants a Christian EU
The
Vatican has expressed its anger at the failure of those drafting a
new constitution for the European Union to include a reference to
Christianity in their working version of the document.
While the current draft speaks of Europe's "spiritual impulse"
and refers to the continent's Greco-Roman and Enlightenment
heritage, it makes no mention of the continent's predominant
religion.
In
an interview with Italy's Corriere della Sera, Valery Giscard
d'Estaing, who heads the EU body that drew up the draft presented
this week, said he could not mention Christianity for fear of
offending other religions.
This
omission would be very important and serious, even from a purely
historical point of view Vatican spokesman Joaquin
Navarro-Valls
But the Vatican spokesman said he wanted the next version to
include a specific mention of Christianity.
"Members of this Convention have already suggested the
inclusion of this element, this explicit mention of Christianity in
future versions of the draft," Joaquin Navarro-Valls told Vatican
Radio. "This omission would be very important and serious, even
from a purely historical point of view."
Prodi backing
Mr Giscard d'Estaing said that, despite the omission, it was
"obvious that Europe's spiritual impulse is that of
Christianity".
"We
could not mention it more explicitly because, otherwise, we should
have mentioned the other religious traditions present in the
continent, from the Jewish one to the Muslim one," he said in an
interview published on Saturday in the Milan daily.
[...]
Mercury in rain surpasses safe level Concentrations at
least twice the EPA standard for toxin in lake
water
BRUCE HENDERSON
Charlotte Observer
Rainfall in the Carolinas has concentrations of mercury, a
toxic metal, that are about twice as high as levels the federal
government calls safe in lakes, an advocacy group reported
Thursday.[...]
High-tech van, infrared cams fight SARS
BEIJING, China - China has deployed a high-tech van loaded with
monitoring equipment to police spitting in its war against SARS,
the official Beijing Evening News said.
The
vehicle is equipped with three cameras and a big viewing monitor.
It can transmit pictures to the city's sanitation department within
seconds, the paper said, without giving further details. It quoted
an official as saying the truck would be used for crime prevention
in the future.
Fat
people will have to diet if they want to see the
doctor
By
Melissa Kite, Political Correspondent
Labour plan patients' contract
OVERWEIGHT people and heavy smokers would have to sign
contracts promising to diet or give up cigarettes in return for
treatment, under radical new plans being drawn up by Labour.
Written contracts would set out the patient's responsibilities
while offering them help to cut down or quit smoking, lose weight,
take more exercise or eat a more nutritious diet, The Times has
learnt. Those who failed to keep their side of the bargain or kept
missing appointments could be denied free care.
And Finally...
King Blames Trousers for
World's Ills
Mon Jun
2, 9:44 AM ET
MBABANE
(Reuters) - Swaziland's absolute monarch has singled out women
wearing trousers as the cause of the world's ills in a state radio
sermon that also condemned human rights as an "abomination before
God."
"The
Bible says curse be unto a woman who wears pants, and those who
wear their husband's clothes. That is why the world is in such a
state today," Mswati, ruler of the impoverished feudal nation of
about one million, said late on Thursday.
The Times
of Swaziland reported that the monarch, who reigns supreme in the
landlocked country run by palace appointees and where opposition
parties are banned, went on to criticize the human rights
movement.
"What
rights? God created people, and He gave them their roles in
society. You cannot change what God has created. This is an
abomination before God," the king told an audience of conservative
church leaders.
Women on
the streets of capital Mbabane were not impressed.
"The king
says I am the cause of the world's problems because of my outfit.
Never mind terrorism, government corruption, poverty and disease,
it's me and my pants. I reject that," said Thob'sile
Dlamini.
Mswati is
Africa's last absolute monarch. He is currently married to nine
wives, with a wedding pending for wife number 10, and has chosen an
additional fiancee after reviewing videos of topless maidens
performing a traditional Reed Dance ceremony.
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