Saturday, December 20, 2003

Man who betrayed Iraq

THE MAN who "betrayed Iraq" and gave the tip-off that
led to the capture of Saddam Hussein was a distant
relative of the ousted president, according to Iraqi
sources in Tikrit. The sources identified the man as
Qusai Rasoul, who they say was among the most trusted
Saddam loyalist at one point.
"We are almost sure that this animal and son of a
bitch was the one who gave the information to the
Americans," said one source speaking in Arabic using
the term "heyawan" (animal) and "ibn al khalb" (son of
a bitch) to describe him. "He should not have broken
down under questioning no matter what, but it seems he
did and this makes him a traitor of Iraq. We will
never forgive him. We will give him a death worse than
a dog's."
According to the sources, Qusai Rasoul was among a
dozen people picked up by American soldiers about a
week before Saddam's capture on Saturday and
reportedly subjected to intense questioning.
A few of those questioned were released two days
later, and they told fellow Tikriti loyalists of
Saddam after the capture of the former president that
they believed Qusai Rasoul was the man who fingered
the ousted leader.
"It was not as if the others knew where Saddam was and
they did not talk," said the source. "They, like most
others, did not know but they knew that Qusai Rasoul
could have some idea."
Qusai Rasoul is believed to be still held under US
custody and it is unlikely that he would be entitled
to the $25 million bounty on Saddam's head since he
had not volunteered the information and gave it out
under pressure.
"We are searching for him now, and he would die a slow
and painful death when we catch him," said the
source. "All the people Tikrit would take part in his
execution by tearing him apart."
The information provided by Qusai Rasoul was the name
of another man whom he perhaps knew was sheltering the
ousted leader. That man was Qais Al Namek, who once
served Saddam in Baghdad but retired several years ago
and returned to his home and farming in Al Dawr,
located about 25 kilometres northeast of Tikrit.
According to the US military, a 600-member American
military unit - a special task force mandated to
ferret out Saddam — made a beeline for Al Dawr after
receiving "actionable intelligence" about Saddam's
whereabouts. They laid siege to Namek's home as well
as his nearby farmhouse. It was in an underground
cellar in the yard of the farmhouse that they
discovered Saddam and arrested him. The two targets
were the areas codenamed Wolverine 1 and Wolverine 2
in the American operation.
While the Tikriti sources were not privy to details of
the raid and arrest, they said if it was true that
Saddam was found hiding inside a cellar in Al Dawr,
then it was definitely at Namek's farmhouse.
Arrested along with Saddam was Namek's two sons, who
were present at the site, according to other sources.
A red and white taxi, which was apparently used by
Saddam to move around, was owned by one of the sons.
That was also hauled away by the American soldiers,
obviously hoping it might provide some clue to the
places that Saddam might have frequented.
None of the Tikrit sources who spoke to Manorama knew
where the elder Qais Al Namek was or even whether he
was alive or dead or in American captivity.
According to the sources, Qais Al Namek, a schoolmate
of Saddam, was enlisted into the private circles the
president in the 70s, but he left Baghdad a few years
ago complaining of ill-health.
It was since he did not figure in any American list of
people who were believed close to the president at the
time of his ouster from power that Namek's home or
farmhouse did not figure high in the toppled leader's
suspected hideout.
At the same time, the sources in Tikrit said they
believed -- although they did not actually know
specifics — that the Namek hideout could have been
among the dozens of such cellars where Saddam could
have been hiding since he went underground following
the fall of Baghdad to US forces.
"There are dozens like Nameks who would give their
life to Saddam," commented the source.
That declaration confirms the belief that it was
highly unlikely that Saddam spent all the time since
April at Namek's farmhouse. He would have changed
places very frequently. This means that he had to have
Namek-like hideouts to retire to whenever the American
heat got closer to him.
However, the US force hunting for Saddam had not
reported finding any such empty cellars during their
failed effort to locate Saddam on Saturday. But that
did not mean there were not any since the US would
have kept it a tightly guarded secret that they had
some clue to the means of hiding adopted by Saddam

Wednesday, December 10, 2003

Nuclear Israel and Mideast

PV Vivekanand

THE LIBYAN decision to abandon programmes to develop weapons of mass destruction may or may not have anything to do with what the world saw happening in Iraq in the name of WMD, but it raises again one of the key concerns of the countries of the Middle East — the Israeli arsenal of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons.
It has for long been a demand of the countries of the Middle East that the region be free of weapons of mass destruction. It was also one of the key objectives of the Arab-Israeli peace process launched in Madrid in 1991. Several rounds of talks were held indeed after the Madrid conference, but Israel's deceptive approach to the issue torpedoed the effort.
We have heard US President George Bush welcoming the Libyan move and calling on other nations to recognize that the pursuit of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons brings not influence or prestige, but "isolation and otherwise unwelcome consequences."
But we did not hear the US president mention Israel. Would it be that Bush forgot that Israel possesses one of the largest stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. Granted that it might not have tonnes and tonnes of chemical or biological weapons stored, but it is known that Israel has perfected the techniques and keeps in battle readiness the components to make such weapons at short notice. That is not to mention its nuclear arsenal of up to 200 warheads and indeed more than that of the UK.
Perhaps Washington might not want to mention Israel's stocks and continuing pursuit of WMD if only because US assistance in material and technology might have had a lot to do with what is in Israel's possession now.
Israel always got away with refusing to deny or confirm its possession of WMD but asserting only that it would not be the first to introduce nuclear weapons in the Middle East. The US not only went along with the Israeli posture but also protected its "strategic partner" in the Middle East whenver pressure mounted on it to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
The US always used its diplomatic clout at the UN to ward off the pressure on Israel to sign the NPT and allow the UN to inspect its nuclear facilities. In the latest round, four years ago, Washington got tough with Egypt and warned Cairo to stay off Israel's case.
Of course, it was part of the established pattern that international law has two faces when it comes to the US and its allies, particularly Israel.
If our memory serves us right, Israel has often cited the need to defend itself against Iraqi and Libyan weapons in order to justify, however implictly, its own weapons programmes.
Today, Iraq's weapons are no more (that, if it had any to start with at the beginning of the war that led to the ouster of the Saddam Hussein regime), and Libya has announced it is abandoning all its WMD programmes. Isn't time Washington turned its focus onto Israel?

Monday, November 17, 2003

Saddam readied guerrilla war

pv vivekanand

CLEAR signs have emerged that Saddam Hussein had known he would be toppled and he and his supporters planned for a guerrilla war for nearly one year before the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq in March and April this year, according to Western and Arab intelligence sources.
The finding is rather startling, the sources admitted, given Saddam's rhetorics and defiance of the US in the run-up to the war and the way Iraqi defences collapsed under a deal American intelligence made with senior Iraqi miltiary officers.
"We're sure American intelligence has also come across the information that Saddam had been planning the intense guerrilla war that is taking place today in post-war Iraq," said a Western intelligence source. "They (American intelligence) are not disclosing the information, and European intelligence agencies don't feel obliged to share their fingings with the Americans either," added the source.
Arab intelligence sources also confirmed that they had found out that Saddam had ordered a close-knit group of supporters — who were and are not known even to his top aides — to prepare for "the war of resistance" against the US sometime in the second quarter of 2002.
"There was a steady diversion of arms and ammunition from the stores of the Iraqi miltiary to unknown destinations and those who questioned it were told it was being done under the direct orders of Saddam himself," said an Arab source.
"All indications are that Saddam was fully aware that he stood no chance against the US military might and that he would be ousted from power," said the source. "Saddam was not known to be a military strategist - a weak one at that if any thing - and his option was to make it as costly as possilble for the Americans to maintain their control of post-war Iraq."
The revelations are surprising since they confound all theories forward so far to explain the mounting intensity of resistance attacks against American and allied forces that constitute the coalition forces occupying Iraq.
According to the Arab intelligence source, Osama Bin Laden and Saddam had no organised links prior to or after the Sept.11, 2001, when Bin Laden's Al Qaeda activists slammed three hijacked airplanes to New York's World Trade Center towes and Washington's Pentagon.
"Saddam had invited Bin Laden to take shelter in Iraq following the August 1998 bombings of American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania but Bin Laden turned down the invitation since he had nothing but contempt for Saddam and his polices," said the source.
According to the source, Al Qaeda fighters and sympathisers — Sudanese, Yemenis, Egyptians, Algerians and others  — drifted into Iraq before and after the US-led invasion and occupation of Iraq this year, but "they are not there as an organised group under a central command."
"They are in small groups but have contacts with the underground resistance that is supplying them with arms and ammunition to wage surprise attacks on the Americans in Iraq," said the Arab source.
This account was confrmed by the European intelligence source.
"What we are seeing in Iraq today are un-coordinated but effective attacks against the occupation forces," said the source. "It had surprised us to see that there was a steady source of supply of rockets, mortars and short-range projectiles as well as RPGs (rocket-propelled grenades) that were being used in the attacks," the source said. "But soon it became apparent that there are weapons and ammunition stored in strategic locations in the country although it is difficult to pinpoint the storage areas," added the source.
According to the source, the Americans are being "more lucky than being efficient" in locating the hidden weapons. In the last six months, the US military has announced the seizure of major hauls of weapons in less than a dozen sites.
"That is only a scratch on the surface, according to information available to us," said the European source.

Tuesday, November 11, 2003

Another Vietnam in Iraq?

By PV Vivekanand

Has the US found its second Vietnam in Iraq? Although some experts already see a Vietnam-like scenario emerging in Iraq, others think the situation has not reached that point but that it is definitely a possibility. General consensus is that it would take a few more attacks claiming casualties in double digits to drive home the reality that the US has failed to "pacify" Iraqis, and this would intensify the war of attrition.
Is it possible that the US might decide to withdraw from Iraq? Hardly likely, given that the strategic objectives of the invasion and occupation of Iraq do not leave any room for such thoughts in Washington.
Is it possible for the US to shift strategy and hope to win over the people of Iraq to its side as a benevolent occupier? It seems difficult, given that the US military is in a vengeful mode and treats Iraqis will brutality, contempt and hostility.
The US military does not seem to accept that it has a responsibility to bring about normal life for Iraqis in an atmosphere of safety and security if only because the chaos that prevail in the country today is the direct result of American actions, Saddam Hussein or no Saddam.
American soldiers storm houses without discrimination, haul away people without justification and subject even women to humiliating bodysearches, reports from Baghdad say.
They are unable to check revenge killings, thefts and lootings and left the task of ensuring law and order to redrafted members of Saddam's police force whose motives are suspect at best.
Women are too scared to go out fearing rape and harassment and are thus denied the role they should be playing in the society.
The growing hostility towards Americans among Iraq was perhaps summarised in the words of Abdullah Oman, 18, carried by the Associated Press this week.
"They are watching us die and laughing. They humiliate us. They handcuffed me and arrested me in front of my parents late one night because I stood on my house porch after curfew."
Oman, like hundreds of other Iraqi boys, will willingly join the resistance and fight the Americans since he does not believe the US military occupying his country has his interests in mind.


Growing anti-US feelings

The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) underlined the dilemma the US faces in a recent report that warns of growing popular support for the forces challenging the US occupation of Iraq and says efforts to rebuild the country could collapse without immediate corrective action.
The CIA analysis reportedly suggests that the escalation of the US military campaign against guerrillas could cause new civilian casualties and drive more Iraqis to the side of the insurgents. It also says that the inability of US forces to crush the guerrillas is convincing growing numbers of Iraqis that the occupation can be defeated.
The report is said to warn that none of the postwar Iraqi political institutions and leaders has shown an ability to govern the country or even make progress on drafting a constitution or holding an election.
The American strategists and decision makers might need a CIA report like that to understand, if they wish to, the realities on the ground in Iraq. But people in the region do not have to read such reports to draw up a clear picture of the situation in Iraq and realise what is going wrong where for the Americans, starting with the very decision that seems to have been made years ago to invade and occupy Iraq citing whatever reasons and justifications they could cite.

Invalid reasons

It is essential to note here that none of the reasons that the US cited as having left Washington with no choice but to wage war on Iraq has been proved true.
It is surprising that US President George W Bush and his senior aides continue to insist that the reasons they cited for the war were very valid. There are a few questions that many are desperate to ask them without any trimmings and demand clear-cut, non-evasive and truthful answers. They include:
-- You had said Iraq possessed and was continuing to produce massive stocks of weapons of mass destruction which was a threat to American security and indeed the world. Now, six months after securing absolute military control of the country, where are those weapons of mass destruction?
-- You had said Iraq was linked to Al Qaeda and was somehow involved in the Sept.11 attacks and the invasion of that country was part of the US-led war against terrorism. Where is the proof?
-- Your argument today is that the ouster of Saddam meant liberation for the people of Iraq. Aren't today the people of Iraq subjected to brutal occupation that seems like a leaf taken from the Israeli occupation of the Palestinians?
— You argue that the Iraqi Governing Council is in charge of things in Iraq. But, as members of the council have affirmed, they are forced to take orders from the US overseer in Iraq, Paul Bremer, who retains absolute authority over anything and everything concerning the council's purported mission. How could you blame the council for the slow pace in work towards a constitution and general elections?
In the meantime, the ground reality in Iraq is a vicious circle. As American soldiers seeth with fury and hit back at suspected Iraqis with a vengeance after every resistance attack, they are making it all the more difficult for moves to convince the Iraqis that the US means "well" for them. If anything, the US military is making more enemies in Iraq every day.

'Foreign fighters'

Who is behind the mounting attacks against US and other coalition forces in Iraq?
It is difficult to say. No doubt, Saddam loyalists have a role in the operations but it would be a gross exaggeration to conclude that the ousted president is running the war of resistance. He might want to do that and might even think he is doing it, but his circle of influence is relatively limited but is indeed effective in inflicting casualties among the American forces.
An American commander recently declared that "foreign" fighters were behind the increasing anti-US attacks in Iraq. One would have thought that the American commander was as much an Iraqi as a descendant of Haroun Al Rasheed and had a national duty to protect Iraq from non-Iraqis.
It is certain that non-Iraqi Arabs play a prominent role the attacks, but it is unclear whether Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda is the leading force among them.
US officials and members of the Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) have said foreign volunteers, including some from Al Qaeda, have slipped across the borders into Iraq to take part in a "holy war" against the US-led occupation.
"We're seeing Yemenis, we're seeing Sudanese, we're seeing Syrians and Egyptians, to name a few," according to a senior US commander.
Sources in Ammans said Jordanians and Palestinians were also among those fighting the Americans in Iraq.
What the Americans fail to realise and accept is that it does not need Bin Laden or Al Qaeda to fuel anti-US sentiments or orchestrate attacks. There are millions who see the American approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict and Muslims in general as totally biased and thus consider Washington as part of the problem at par with Israel.
If anything, the US, by maintaining the presence of over 15,000 soldiers in Iraq, has offered a perfect target for attacks. It might not be an exaggeration to say that some of the guerrillas in Iraq are more concerned with inflicting as much damage to the US military than worrying about the US occupation of the country. For many of them, dying while staging an attack against the US is only performing their duty in defence of the Arab and Muslim causes.

Suspect neighbours

The first suspects in the American mind are Iraq's neighbours.
The Iranian role, if any at all, in anti-occupation attacks in Iraq is at best murky. It is highly unlikely that the Iranian government would involve itself in such actions, particularly given that Tehran is acutely aware that it is being targeted for "regime change" and anything and everything it does could be used in the US-led campaign against it.
At the same time, Tehran would not sit idle if Iranian interests among the 15 million and plus Shiites of Iraq -- 60 per cent of the population by some accounts —  are undermined. It would like to use its influence through the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and ensure that its interests are protected. So far, there is no evidence that SCIRI has undertaken any anti-US attack in Iraq and it is clear the group wants a major share of power in post-war Iraq through a peaceful transition. The group is confident that it would be able to secure a major slice of power in Iraq if democratic elections were to be held.
There are indeed hardline groups within Iran with enough influence and financial clout to support anti-US attacks across the border in Iraq. Again, no evidence has emerged of such activities yet.
Tehran would also like to eliminate the main Iranian opposition group, Mujahedeen e-Khalq, which had upto 30,000 members in camps in Iraq with the blessing of the Saddam regime. The group has been disarmed by the US, but Washington is not ready to accept the Iranian demand that its members be handed over to Tehran. It remains a serious sore point in the already tense relationship between Washington and Tehran.
Syria has rejected American charges that it is allowing anti-US guerrillas to enter Iraq along its borders; so has Saudi Arabia. It is highly unlikely that either of them would allow such infiltration, but it is a possibility that the porous desert frontier is being used by guerrillas to enter Iraq. The same applies to Jordan, which has always found it difficult to patrol its border with Iraq against drug and weapon smugglers.
Turkey has its own interests to protect in northern Iraq and the Ankara government could be expected to check infiltration across the border to Iraq. However, there are militant anti-US groups in Turkey and it cannot be ruled out that some of them are active in Iraq. Furthermore, it is seen natural that Turkish agents are present in Iraq to pursue Ankara's interests in preventing the Iraqi Kurds from setting up an independent state in the north of the country.
Kuwait recently imposed controls over access to areas near its border with Iraq, apparently after intelligence reports indicated guerrilla infiltration.

Long-term strategy

What are the prospects for an American decision to quit Iraq?
Very little at this point in time.
Reports in the mainstream American media have exposed that hardliners in the Bush administration had planned the invasion and occupation of Iraq as part of an American strategy aimed at gaining control of the international oil market, maintaining a strong American military presence in the Arabian Gulf as a deterrent, and removing Iraq as a potential threat to Israel, Washington's "strategic ally" in the Middle East.
Having accomplished the three objectives through the war against Iraq, Washington has just set out to implement other actions that would entrench the US in the region. Against that reality, entertaining any thought of withdrawal from Iraq is out of question no matter what cost Washington has to pay in American soldiers' lives.
That is definitely the impression one gets from reading between the lines of the affirmations of President Bush and his aides that the US would not be forced into "prematurely" leaving Iraq.
For all technical purposes, the "maturity" will be accomplished when "democracy" is established in Iraq and Iraqis assume control of their country. For practical purposes, in the view of many Arabs, the "maturity" that the US seeks would be a stage where whoever is in power in Iraq would take orders from Washington without raising any question whatsoever and allow the country and its people be used as a weapon from within the Arab heartland to undermine Arab interests.
As such, for those Arabs and a majority of Iraqis, and indeed many others in the world, there is little sincerity in American promises. They view any American move in the Middle East as aimed solely at serving American and Israeli interests.
US President George W Bush has asserted that those behind the attacks against US and allied forces in Iraq are extremists trying to install a Taliban-style regime in Afghanistan.
Well, whoever was behind that advise to the US president knows little about the history of Iraq and its people. Religious hardline sentiments were never a dominant factor among Iraqis, and there has been little sign of any strong Iraqi group advocating a Taliban-style regime there.
Documentary evidence have appeared in the American press showing that grabbing control of Middle Eastern oil wells as a strategic weapon was being planned as far back as 1975. Against that revelations, it would take much more than words from Washington to convince the Arabs that Bush and his aides mean it when they affirm their resolve to "rebuild" Iraq. For the sceptics, the lofty declarations from Washington only mean that the American administration is using "rebuilding" Iraq as a pretext to maintain and expand the American presence in the region and achieve absolute US domination of the world.
For the world at large, it is a matter of the sole superpower of the world challenging anyone and everyone. "We are the United States of America and we intend to accomplish whatever we wish. Dare us at your peril" -- this is message they are seeing in American actions around the globe.
What does this all mean for the hapless majority in Iraq? When would their suffering end?
Turned into pawns in a wider gameplan, they have little say in the rules of the game.
But, will a suspension of guerrilla attacks lead to an improvement in the daily life of an Iraqi family. Perhaps yes, but not as long as Americans remain in absolute control and consider Iraq as its backyard.

Monday, November 03, 2003

No Saddam negotiation

PV VIVEKANAND

A REPORT on Sunday that Saddam Hussein is in secret negotiations with US forces in Iraq has been summarily dismissed as unfounded by highly informed intelligence sources and diplomats in the region.
"There is little evidence on the ground to support the report," said a senior source who is in a position to know what is going on in Iraq round-the-clock.
The source was referring to a report in London's Sunday Mirror repor that Saddam was demanding safe passage to the former Soviet republic of Belarus in exchange for information on weapons of mass destruction and his bank accounts.
"It is at best laughable since someone has misled the paper's correspondent, " said the source. "The fact is that the coalition forces occupying Iraq have no clue whatsover at this point as to where Saddam could be, who his supporters are and how he manages to keep himself away from getting caught," said the source.
"It is highly unlikely that Saddam would bargain with the US and flee the country," said a senior Arab diplomat in the region. "It is not in Saddam to do so."
If anything, said the Arab diplomat, "the continuing attacks that inflict daily casualties on the forces occupying Iraq should be seen as a major morale booster for Saddam, regardless of whether it is his loyalists or others who are staging the attacks."
According to the Sunday Mirror report, the purported negotiations with Saddam are conducted with the knowledge of US President George W. Bush, who is being kept up to date on the talks by his national security adviser Condoleeza Rice who is coordinating negotiations led by US general Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of US forces in Iraq.
"A representative of Saddam in Western-style civilian clothes came to coalition people at Tikrit at sunset on September 12. He led them to a house where the security official was waiting," said a senior Iraqi quoted in the Sunday Mirror.
"The discussions are now going on under the direct authority of Sanchez," the source said, according to the newspaper.
The source, a man, maintained that Saddam had decided to seek a deal " because he is desperate, trapped and finding fewer and fewer people willing to give him shelter," the report said.
Even in the hypothesis that there is any substance to the report, Saddam "should be aware that the US would rather have him dead rather than taking him alive," said a senior European source. "It might be a big boost for Bush to get Saddam alive, given that the US has failed so far to get Osama Bin Laden.
"However, then the US would be burdened with the obligation to unveil the whereabouts the weapons of mass destruction that it alleges were stockpiled by Saddam since they would have Saddam himself to question."
"The fact is," said the European source, "there was never any weapons of mass destruction of the size and nature that the Americans and British cited as the reason for going to war."
"If Saddam is caught and still Bush is unable to unearth the alleged stockpile of weapons of mass destruction, said it would seal Bush's political future for good," said another observer. "Don't forget, Bush has been forced to retract his implict claims earlier that Saddam was also linked to the Sept.11 attacks." "Americans might be lethargic, but they are not stupid to be taken by the argument that the president never said Saddam was behind the attack," added the observer. "Bush never explicitly said so, but he certainly gave a convincing impression to his people that Saddam was indeed responsible for Sept.11."

Thursday, October 09, 2003

Arab media slowly catching up

Session on Western media and Iraq

PV Vivekanand

The Arab media showed that it is moving towards holding its ground against the continuing assault by the Western media during the recent war on Iraq and were more objective in its coverage of the conflict when compared to the Western media.
However, the Arab media have to go a long way ahead before it could actually do the job they are supposed to do in terms of being instrumental in changes in the society.
This was the consensus at discussions held here on Wednesday as part of Arab Media Summit 2003, which ended later in the day.
The session, held under the title "Iraq as a case study: Western media coverage," was moderated by Peter Arnett, a former CNN correspondent who gained prominence during the 1991 Gulf war by virtue of him being the only American television reporter in who remained in Iraq throughout the military conflict.
According to Arnett, there need not be much of a classification between the Western and Arab television channels since news organisations borrowed each other's footage.
He referred to the arrangement between CNN and Al Jazeera television during the Afghanistan whereby the American network heavily used Al Jazeera footage.
In a broader context, Arnett described the recent war against Iraq as a continuation of the 1991 Gulf war, and said it "did not have to take place."
"This is a 13-year war. It was a pre-emptive war. The US and UK did not have to launch it," he said. "In the case of World War II, there was no choice as it was a war of survival. But this war angered the Arab World as it did not have to take place," said Arnett.
He said it was a question of credibility and trust.
He recalled British Prime Minister Tony Blair said Iraq could launch its alleged weapons of mass destruction ((WMD) with a 45-minute notice and US Secretary of State Colin Powell laid out a full dossier against Iraq at the UN.
"The Iraqi side said we not have any WMD, you can search anywhere and that's what the UN did," he said. "But then, Saddam Hussein did not have any credibility," he said.
Arnett was employed by the American networks NBC and National Geographic for covering the recent Iraq war. But they fired him for saying on Iraqi TV that the US war plan had failed.
In his comments here on Wednesday, he criticised the decision to sack him.
"As journalists, we need to know the other side, we should know the other side," he said.
Arnett said CNN had brought back war reporting to the forefront. "War reporting was on a decline. CNN's success during the first war motivated others," he said. "
However, he argued that while the US had won the war on the military front, it has lost the "information war."
"Today, it is impossible for anyone to control the media. There is no embedding anymore," he said referring to the unprecedented way that American journalists were allowed to accompany military units which invaded Iraq.
Jihad Al Khazen, director and writer of the Al Hayat newspaper, said the Arab media had outdone the Western media in objectively covering war.
Clive Myrie, a BBC correspondent, said the issue should not be reduced to a beauty contest between the Arab and Western media.
"We are all involved in getting to the truth and that is what we should be doing," he said.
Arguing against certain Arab perceptions that the Western media is biased against the Arabs, he said the Western media is not a single monolith that thinks alike but consists of various perspectives and processes.
Myrie, who was one of the "embedded" journalists with the US Marines during the Iraq war, said he was viewing the war from the perspective of the men in the US army unit.
He said he had formed bonds with soldiers in the units and the impact this had on maintaining standards of objective journalism.
"They were feeding me and helping me in my task and gave me a front row seat to see the war but I still had the freedom to be objective in reporting the war," he said.
Arnett said that the concept of embedded journalists was a brilliant masterstroke of the Pentagon in trying to turn coverage of the war in their favour. The coverage of embedded journalists, he noted was perceived as highly reliable.
Janine Digiovanni, a correspondent of The Times, highlighted the need for journalists to work in underreported regions of the world like Chechnya.
She said there were several regions of the world that deserved to be covered because of the appalling abuse of human rights but were not covered because they did not have oil or pipelines or vast natural resources.
"More often than not these stories were in Africa where the level of violence and massacre is beyond horrific."
She talked about how she was one on the only three journalists to witness the fall of Grozny in Chechnya.
She also related how she was horrified by the level of damage created by Israeli tanks which levelled the West Bank town of Jenin in April 2002.
She said she was proud to see what the British press had written about what happened in the town.
However, she was less than proud of her American colleagues, whom she accused of burying the Jenin story, or brushed it off because it was not considered a massacre.

Arabic talk shows - Hard Talk

PV VIVEKANAND
ARAB television talk shows that were a magnet for Arabs when they were launched a few years ago have now turned into boring shouting matches that lack objectivity or focus, with the audience prompted to switch to other channels, participants in a round-table debate here agreed on Wednesday.
The need of the day to improve the shows is to bring in more professionalism in terms of research and background material in order to enlighten the audience and link them to the issue being discussed, they said.
Equally important is a sense of purpose for talk shows rather than a goal of "bashing" people, said Tim Sebastian, who hosts the celebrated "Hard Talk" show of the British Broadcasting Corporation.
The general consensus at the one-hour discussion —"Western and Arabic TV Talk shows: Differences and Similarities — on the sidelines of Arab Media Summit 2003 was that Arab satellite channels like Al Jazeera started off with an impact and offering a forum for Arabs to express their opinion and highlight Arab causes and viewpoints. The channels assumed more prominence with their coverage of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars, but the talk shows declined in quality and content, according to the participants, most of whom were highly critical of Al Jazeera in particular.
The main complaint that was heard was that Arab television talk shows tend to be have less substance and are more oriented towards pleasing the audience through highly-charged debate.
At the same time, it was also observed that Arab television talks shows have not yet reached a level where they could be compared to the mature productions of the West as yet.
It was also debated whether Arabs interviewed on Western programmes like "hard talk" had sufficient mastery of English or suffered from lack of ability to be articulate self.
Commenting on complaints that many Arab figures participating in talk shows and interviews on Western television tend to leave wrong ideas and impression, Khaled Al Maeena, editor-in-chief of Arab News, made an emphatic point that those who do not think they qualify to take part should stay away from such shows because they end up giving wrong impressions and ideas. This is particularly applicable for senior government officials, he said.
Any personality who accepts an invitation to a talk show or interview should do his or homework and should prepare self to answer questions with authority, he said.
"Anyone who respects himself and is not qualified to speak on tv, should not go on air — whatever tv that is," said Maeena.
Also discussed was self-censorship by hosts — something that Sebastian said he never exercised in his 27 years with the BBC — and the need for television channels to ensure that their staff are not persecuted as a result of criticism on air.
According to Sebastian, "politics is a performing art" and "part of the interviewee's job is communication."
It is very important that every talk show should produce "new ideas.... new information" and this what makes successful talk shows, he said.
Western talk shows like his programme, he said, are not public relations exercises or entertainment. It is part of the democratic process where politicians and government leaders are held accountable in public.
He said research into the issues to be raised during the show or interview is an integral part of the professional approach; so is an post-event analysis of what it produced.
"Nobody gives anything to a journalist as a right. He has to go out and get it," he said.
"Rights evolve because people keep pushing for their freedom and what they want. One of the ways is through the TV," he said.
Sebastian said that he felt there is more openness from Middle Eastern governments, but there is also more self-censorship in the media.
"You have to keep pushing the boundaries. We have a right to hold our leadership to account because they affect our lives. It doesn't matter if you ruffle a few ministerial feathers, these are issues of life and death for many people," he said.
"For the purpose of the interviews, I take the opposing point of view because it is not very interesting to sit opposite and agree," he said.

Wednesday, October 08, 2003

Points of media convergence

PV Vivekanand

THE ARAB and Western media should focus on points of convergence rather than divergence and should accept that the fundamental principles guiding their work are the same, a prominent Arab writer and commentator said on Tuesday.
Khaled Al Maeena, editor-in-chief of Arab News, was addressing the first working session of the Arab Media Summit in Dubai.
In his short but comprehensive comment, Maeena told the session held under the title "Complicity? Responsibility? Liability? The Role of Media in the Modern War," Maeena tackled the various problems faced by the Arab media in addressing domestic Arab and international audiences.
He highlighted that the Arab media were fighting the stereotypes imposed on them.
"There's nothing called the Western media but only entities like the US media, European media and the British press," he said, adding that the US and British media had "distinguished themselves" from "Western media."
In the broader context, "while we do have some suspicion about each other, we can focus on areas of convergence," he said.
Maeena submitted that a new face of journalism was put forward during the Iraq war early this year. with the so-called embedded reporters donning uniforms and blatantly taking sides.
He called it compliance as well as complicity.
"Let me tell you, I'm not in the blame game," he said. "But at the same time it's a fact that a great chunk of the US media complied with the powers that be during the Iraq war.
"We know that there are people in the US who are with us. But the media have helped develop a situation in which Muslims and Islam are looked down upon as sub-human. The US media has helped create a fear psychosis," Maeena told the session, which was moderated by CNN's Nic Robertson.
Earlier in the session, Tim Sebastian of BBC's "Hard Talk" underlined the importance of having an media that asks for accountability and questions everyone concerns.
While expressing reservations over targeting the West for all the criticism, he said the Arab world needed do an introspection on how open they are to the outside world.
"What's your definition of truth? The truth that will help you keep your job or the truth that will get you fired?" Sebastian asked pointing out to a UN report which says not a single Arab country has freedom of press. "A free press is also a fallible press. But I prefer it to the alternative," he said.
The veteran BBC journalist denounced what he said was the practice of using war reporting as a yard stick of patriotism. The media should not take anything dished out to them by the officials at face value, he said.
"A questioning media is a key ingredient of any modern democracy," he said. "Nobody should be sent out to war without a reason. When the press asks 'why?' it deserves an answer from the powers that be," he said.
Robert Menard, chief executive officer of the France-based Journalists Sans Frontiers, voiced regret that governments which care little for press freedom expects the press to tell them the truth whatever be the risks involved.
"Even governments, which imprison and harass reporters for trying to find the truth never fail to lecture on press freedom. Truth is more and more becoming a casualty in conflicts," said Menard.
He noted that nearly 50 journalists were either killed or wounded in the three-year-old Palestinian uprising against Israeli occupation.
"How can we be giving lessons to journalists without taking into account their safety?" asked Menard.
Hamdi Qandeel, a prominent television personality from Egypt, asserted that the situation in the Arab world has not changed much from the 1960s when military used to be the only permissible source of information for the press.
The situation is changing fast, he said and pointed out to the way
Qatar's Al Jazeera television and Abu Dhabi TV covered the Iraq and the quality of their reports.
Such a qualitative shift is a promise to everyone that there is hope for the Arab media to expand and improve itself so as to convey the Arab point of view to the audience.
The second interactive session of the day held under the title
"Media: The Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction" and was moderated by Gavin Esler of the BBC.
Dr Azmi Bishara, Arab member of the Israeli Knesset, asserted that what he called politics of identity was a major hindrance to the Arabs to bring their real issues to the international community.
"The Arab media is always concerned with the politics of identity. It is always about 'we' and 'them,' either the Arabs versus the West or the Arabs versus Israel," said Bishara. "This disguises the more important issues concerning the oppressed people in the region, for example, the oppressed in Iraq," said Bishara, who represents Nazreth in the Knesset.
He criticised a large section of the Arab media for accepting the American media's versions in the name of rationality and pragmatism. However, the Arab media pose much less of a danger in spreading misinformation than the Western media because of the former's lack of credibility, he said.
Danny Schechter, a prominent writer from Washington, said it was wrong to label all American journalists anti-Arab. He pointed out that many American journalists were aware of the imbalances and were fighting disinformation and deception in the American media that were particularly highlighted during the coverage of the Iraq war.
At the same time, he conceded that many American journalists consider it as patriotism to accept the administration's point of view and be guided by it without question.
According to Schechter, the American media failed to show a great deal about the Iraq war to the American public. Such failure was deliberate, he said, since the media purposely held back information from the public. "The media can be judged more by its omissions," Schechter said.
Paul-Marie De La Gorce, a French journalist, slammed the US administration for having orchestrated what he said was a campaign of lies and deception in order to build the case for war against Iraq.
Specifically referring to the US allegations that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, he noted that no such weapon has been found in post-war Iraq.
Mohammed Al Sayed Saeed of Egypt's Al Ahram newspaper also referred to the American media build-up for war.
"Countries do not go to war because of interests but due to images," he said. "Media bombard minds with images that fill it with ideas and penetrate minds."
On Tuesday, three interaction sessions are the highlights of the Arab Media Summit, which will culminate with the presentation of the Arab Journalism Awards.
Among those attending the interactive sessions are Peter Arnett, a former CNN correspondent, Jihad Al Khazen of Al Hayat and former Palestinian minister Dr Hanan Ashrawi.

Wake-up calls at Arab Media Summit

October
PV Vivekanand

STRONG calls were heard in Dubai on Tuesday for retrospection by the Arab information media and a fresh strategy and perspective aimed at raising medial professionalism in the Arab World.
Leading the call was UAE Minister of Information Sheikh Abdullah Bin Zayed Al Nahyan, who, in a harsh-hitting key note address at the opening of Arab Media Summit 2003, criticised the Arab media of having failed to expose the realities of the Gulf crisis and not presenting the actual picture of the military situation before the recent war on Iraq.
Sheikh Abdullah and others speakers at the forum, which was opened by ubai Crown Prince and UAE Defence Minister General Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum in the presence of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, emphasised the need for a sweeping rethink on the part of the Arab media with a view to effectively presenting the Arab viewpoint effectively to the international community.
The forum -- held under the tile "War & the Media" — also heard calls for a new perspective on the concept of press freedom with responsibility and admissions by Western journalists that objectivity and accuracy were often lacking in the non-Arab media too.
Sheikh Mohammed told the gathering, the third of its kind, that the interaction between Arab and non-Arab media personalities also brought to the fore the prevailing sense of distrust as well as allegations of one-sided and 'selective' approach to truth in journalism.
Sheikh Mohammed lamented that the Arab countries have become the exporters of bad news over a long period now.
New disputes are springing up and the dispute over water is predicted to take the centrestage of Arab politics in the future, he reminded.
"Can we , if not an Arab nation, at least form a limited liability company with human beings as its capital," Sheikh Mohammed asked, concluding his speech with a strong condemnation of the Israeli aggression on Syria.
Schroeder in his speech sought the help of the media in reducing the hostile preconceptions between people in the Arab World as well as in the West. "The European Union is looking towards building meaningful relationship with the GCC countries. The Arab media can greatly contribute in this regard as it is in the threshold of an information revolution facilitated by excellent infrastructure," he remarked.
Schroeder said that while freedom is undoubtedly a precondition for prosperity, the media should make responsible use of this freedom.
In what was hailed as the some of the most refreshing comment heard from an Arab minister of information, Sheikh Abdullah regreted that the recent war on Iraq once again exposed the failure of the Arab media in distinguishing between fact and propaganda.
"Before the war, Arab media failed to reveal the true nature of the Iraqi regime...but dealt with it as if it were a peaceful government and portrayed the conflict as simply one between Western powers and an Arab regime ready to confront and challenge them in the name of Arab honour and sovereignty," he told the gathering.
"Arab media distanced itself from reality and helped mislead public opinion by supplying unrealistic suppositions about the possible outcome of the conflict," Sheikh Abdullah said.
Sheikh Abdullah said that if the region's media had adopted an objective approach and exposed the real situation where that the military balance was tilted in favour of coalition forces, there would not have been such "panic and frustration" in the Middle East.
"Arab media must take an objective stand and not allow anything to prevent us from self-criticism and evaluation to achieve a media which informs, not misleads, which explains, not distorts," he said. "We must accept that there are mistakes and weaknesses in our governments and societies..." The opening session was followed by two interactive sessions, one on "Complicity? Responsibility? Liability? The Role of Media in the Modern War" and the second on "Media: The Ultimate Weapon of Mass Destruction.'
Addressing the first of these interactive sessions, were Tim Sebastian of BBC's "Hard Talk," who denounced the practice of using war reporting as a yard stick of patriotism. The media should not take anything dished out to them by the officials at face value. A questioning media is a key ingredient of any modern democracy. Nobody should be sent out to war without a reason, he said.ed.
Robert Menard, chief executive officer of the France-based Journalists Sans Frontiers, regretted that even governments who care little for press freedom expects the press to tell them the truth whatever be the risks involved.
Hamdi Qandeel, a television presenter from Egypt, lamented that the situation in the Arab world has not changed much from the 1960s when military used to be the only permissible source of information for the press. However, coverage by Al Jazeera and Abu Dhabi TV during the recent war in Iraq held out a promise for those who strive to put across the Arab point of view to the public, he added.
Khalid Al Maena, editor-in-chief of Arab News, in his brief but comprehensive speech summarised the conflicts and dilemmas faced by the Arab media in taking the message to the rest of the world and in fighting the stereotypes imposed on it. "There's nothing called the Western media but only entities like the US media, European media and the British press. While we do have some suspicion about each other, we can focus on areas of convergence," he suggested.
Nic Robertson of CNN was the moderator at the session while the second interactive session was moderated by Gavin Esler of BBC. Speakers at the second session included Dr Azmi Bishara, Arab member of the Israeli Knesset, Danny Schechter, writer from Washington, Paul-Marie De La Gorce, correspondent from France and Dr Mohammed Al Sayed Saeed of Egypt's Al Ahram newspaper.
Bishara said that the stress on politics of identity was not helping Arabs to project the real issues to the rest of the world. "The Arab media is always concerned with the politics of identity. It is always about 'we' and 'them,' either the Arabs versus the West or the Arabs versus Israel. This disguises the more important issues concerning the oppressed people in the region, for example, the oppressed in Iraq," Bishara said.
Schechter expressed his opposition to grouping together all American journalists as anti-Arab, citing that many of them have been putting up a fight against the wave of misnformation and deception in the US press, as was seen during the recent Iraq war. He, however, admitted that many US journalists almost consider it their "patriotic duty" to accept the establishment's point of view.
De La Gorce termed America's campaign against Iraq on the issue of weapons of mass destruction as one of lies and deception. Sayed Saeed, referring to the American campaign said that countries do not go to war because of interests but due to images.
The summit concludes on Wednesday with the Arab Media Awards ceremony.

Monday, September 29, 2003

Hossein Khomeini in US

pv vivekanand

If there was any trace of doubt that Washington had
enlisted the grandson of the late Ayatollah Ruhollah
Khomeini, who despised the US and declared it was the
greatest enemy of Iran, in seeking "regime change" in
Terhan, then that has been removed by his arrival in
Washington.
Hossein Khomeini, 46, crossed to Iraq from Iran in
July and since then had issued several statements and
granted media interviews castigating the theocratic
regime in Tehran and openly welcoming American
military intervention to topple it.
He arrived in Washington last week and is addressing
Iranian Americans as well as others in gatherings,
explaining his opposition to the Iranian regime and
calling for support for Washington's plans for regime
change in Tehran.
Such calls add to the growing American pressure on
Iran, which the US accuses destabilising the region by
seeking to develop nuclear weapons and supporting
"terrorist" groups in Palestine and Lebanon.
The political clout of Hossein Khomeini, who carries
the title of hojatoeslam -- several rungs down the
ultimate Shiite rank of grand ayatollah that his
grandfather occupied -- is not known.
But his ongoing visit to the US is definitely sending
a signal to Iranians that he is now entrenched in the
American camp and could be the link between Washington
and Iranians opposed to the clerical regime.
Hossein Khomeini used to be a constant companion of
his grandfather, including 14 years of exile in Iraq
during the Shah's reign. His father, Mustafa Khomeini,
was killed by agents of the Shah's dreaded Savak
secret police in the 70s.
Some Iranians content that Hossein Khomeini went
against the regime that followed the death of his
grandfather when it became clear that the ultimate
helm of Shiites was not a hereditary affair.
Others say that Hossein Khomeini was always a liberal
and had disputes with his grandfather, who once jailed
him for a week.
The late Ayatollah Khomeini continues to the most
reverred among Iranians, as well as among Iraq's
Shiites, who comprise almost two-thirds of Iraq's 24
million people.
It is in the course of those interviews that Hossein
Khomeini sent shockwaves through the region and indeed
outside by describing the current regime in Tehran as
"the worst dictatorship... worse even than the
communists."
He contented that the overthrow of Saddam Hussein
would allow newfound freedoms to flourish in the
region and if they did not, US intervention would be
welcomed by most Iranians.
"Iranians insist on freedom, but they are not sure
where it will come from," he said. "If it comes from
inside, they will welcome it, but if it was necessary
for it to come from abroad, especially from the United
States, people will accept it."
Hossein Khomeini accused the regime of oppressing
the Iranian people and committing human rights abuses.

He argued that Iran's reformist movement was finished
and suggested that a referendum to decide how the
country should be governed in the future.
He questioned the principle of velayat faqih, or
Islamic jurisprudence, upon which the Iranian system
is based.
According to Hossein Khomeini, if his grandfather
were alive today, he would have opposed all of Iran's
current leaders because of what he described as their
excesses and wrongdoing.
The reformist camp in Iran is finished, he said.
People who had voted for President Mohammed Khatami in
1997 hoping things would change had seen things get
worse, rather than better, in his second term of
office, he said, adding that those who voted for an
Islamic Republic in Iran more than 20 years ago were
now in a minority.
He is vague about his political ambitions, but affirms
he would like to be involved in politics.
"I would love to be effective in bringing about
freedom with a movement either inside Iran or
outside," he said. "I want freedom for myself and my
children, whether in the leadership or a step away."
"Iran has given an order that I must be assassinated
by whatever means possible," he said. "Their feeling
is: This man is dangerous."

Sunday, September 28, 2003

Beans are spilled..

pv vivekanand


THE BEANS are out now. It has now been made clear that
the Bush administration took the decision to invade
Iraq on Sept.17, 2001, six days after the aerial
assaults in New York and Washington offered the
perfect opportunity to wage war against America's
enemies and bag the biggest oil price of all - Iraq.
The only question that remained was the timing of the
war and the build-up to justifying military action.
The administration tried to link Sadddam Hussein with
Osama Bin Laden but failed; then it was suggestions
that Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction was a
terrorist threat and this suited the US well since no
one could prove whether Saddam had WMD or otherwise.

On Sept.17, 2001, President George Bush signed a top-
secret directive to the Pentagon to
begin planning military options for an invasion of
Iraq, according to highly reliable sources in
Washington.
The directive was signed at a meeting attended by
hawks like Defence Secretary Ronald Rumseld and
National Security Advisor Condaleeza Rice. Secretary
of State Colin Powell had reservations about the move
and he was bluntly told that he was free to quit the
administration if he did not like the decision, said
the sources. Obviously, Powell opted to stay on and
became part of the plot as anyone else involved.
Since then, it was a question of justifying the
planned invasion and building up the scenario to
launch the invasion of Iraq and a group of pro-Israeli
hawks were more than glad to oblige by fabricating
evidence and drumming up Israeli-inspired political
influence in Congress and intellgence services to do
the groundwork of the war.
However, Afghanistan figured in between; military
experts say that the war that the US waged against
Afghanistan beginning in October 2001 was as much as
a "dress rehearsal" for the invasion of Iraq as
military action aimed at destroying Osama Bin Laden's
Al Qaeda and its Taliban backers. Never mind that not
a single hijacker on Sept.11 came from Afghanistan.
Part of that build-up to war against Iraq was
establishing reasons. And that entailed dramatic
reversals of Washington's firm assertions that Saddam
Hussein was a caged lion that could be manipulated at
will and was kept "contained" since the 1991 war that
ousted Iraq from Kuwait.
Bush administration officials had declared before
Sept.11, 2001 that Saddam Hussein was no longer a
threat to anyone - the international community, the
Middle East and the Gulf states.
After all, it was then an American need to convince
the world that Washington's stragey of "containing"
both Iraq and Iran were working.
In February 2001, Powell said in Cairo: "He (Saddam
Hussein) has not developed any significant capability
with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is
unable to project conventional power against his
neighbours."
In May 2001, Powell reiterated that Saddam had not
been able to "build his military back up or to develop
weapons of mass destruction" for "the last 10 years."
Washington's firm policy, he claimed, had been
successful in keeping the Iraqi leader "in a box."
In June 2001, Rice said iraq had been rendered weak,
divided and militarily defenceless, with Saddam
deprived of control the northern part ofthe country.
"We are able to keep his arms from him. His military
forces have not been rebuilt," she said.
How come the situation changed so dramatically in less
than a few months, with the same Powell and Rice, as
well as Bush himself and others in Washington,
declaring that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction
and posed a threat not only to his neighbours but also
to the region and the international community,
including mainland US?
In November 2001, more than a month into the war, the
writing was clear on the wall that the US was going to
invade Iraq, when Bush included Iraq in his "war
against terror" by saying that any country which had
weapons of mass destruction to "terrify its
neighbours" was a legitimate target.
The broader plot came to the fore a few months later,
when Bush described iraq, iran and North Korea as the
"axis of evil."
The course of events since a few hours after the
Sept.11 attack has been brought out by investigations,
interviews and research that went into making a
British television documentary -- Breaking the
Silence. It makes clear that the Bush administration
as well as the British government of Tony Blair
collaborated and created falsehoods and reasons
justifying the invasion of iraq and hoodwinking the
American public and distracting the media from
exposing the real reason for the military action.
In secret meetings that were never reported in the
mainstream media, US officials had indeed referred to
the real reasons, starting with Rumsfeld himself.
According to John Pilger, who made the documentary,
the idea that the Sept.11 attacks could be turned into
a reason for attacking Iraq came from Rumsfeld.
Pilger writes in London's Mirror newspaper:
"At 2.40pm on September 11, according to confidential
notes taken by his aides, Donald Rumsfeld... said he
wanted to 'hit' Iraq  — even though not a shred of
evidence existed that Saddam Hussein had anything to
do with the attacks on New York and Washington. 'Go
massive,' the notes quote Rumsfeld as saying. 'Sweep
it all up. Things related and not.'
"Iraq was given a brief reprieve when it was decided
instead to attack Afghanistan," writes Pilger. "This
was the 'softest option' and easiest to explain to the
American people - even though not a single September
11 hijacker came from Afghanistan. In the meantime,
securing the 'big prize' Iraq, became an obsession in
both Washington and London."
Pilger also says that in April last year Condoleezza
Rice said in a secret meeting in April last year that
the the Sept.11 attacks were an "enormous
opportunity" and said America "must move to take
advantage of these new opportunities."
Indeed, Iraq, with 11 per cent of the world's oil
known oil reserves and with immense potential to
challenge Israel - the US' strategic partner in the
Middle East -- was on top of all those "new
opportunities."
How did Blair enter the picture?
It is almost certain that Blair was told of the
American resolve to invade Iraq in a few weeks after
the decision was made in Washington, and the British
prime minister plunged into campaigning for war
immediately there after.
At times Blair appeared to be more determined that
Bush himself to invade Iraq and topple Saddam. That
should explain the series of British government
efforts, including proved falsification of
intelligence documents and "sexing up" of a dossier on
Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, that
followed.
In September, Blair told his parliament that
intelligence documents showed that Iraq's "weapons
of mass destruction programme is active, detailed and
growing.
"The policy of containment is not working. The weapons
of mass destruction programme is not shut down. It is
up and running now."
It has now been established beyond any reasonable
doubt that Saddam did not have any weapons of mass
destruction and former chief UN weapon expert Hans
Blix has publicly stated that the ousted Iraqi leader
could have destroyed whatever he had in 1991 itself.
The Iraq Survey Group, an Anglo-American team of 1,400
scientists, military and intelligence experts, which
searched through US-occupied Iraq since June has
failed to uncover any evidence of weapons of mass
destruction. Subsequently, it was not surprising that
the US and UK decided to delay indefinitely the
publication of the team's report, which was supposed
to have been released in mid-September.
American efforts to link Saddam with Al Qaeda also
failed miserably, and it was ironic that Rumsfeld said
in September 2003 that he had never said that the
Iraqi leader had ties with Osama Bin Laden. In
reality, Bush himself and all his aides, including
Rumsfeld, had clearly stated or implied that Saddam
was in collusion with Bin Laden in the Sept.11 attacks
and further plans for similar attacks. It was those
assertions and implied affirmations that led more than
two-thirds of Americans to believe -- as pre-war
opinion polls showed -- that Saddam was the mastermind
of the Sept.11 attacks.
In mid-September 2003, Rumsfeld was asked at a press
encounter why he thought most Americans still believed
Saddam Hussein was behind the attacks of Sept.11, he
replied: "I've
not seen any indication that would lead me to believe
I could say that."
In the Breaking the Silence documentary, Ray
McGovern, a former senior CIA officer and personal
friend of George Bush senior, the president's father,
says on record that a group of "crazies" were behind
the plot to invade Iraq.
"They were referred to in the circles in which I
moved when I was briefing at the
top policy levels as 'the crazies'," he says.
"The crazies," says McGovern citing "plenty of
documented evidence," were planning the (invasion of
iraq) for a long time and that 9/11 accelerated their
plan. (The weapons of mass
destruction issue) was all contrived, so was the
connection of Iraq with al Qaeda. It was all PR...
Josef Goebbels had this dictum: If you say something
often enough, the people will believe it."
The "crazies" – or "neoconseratives" —  as it has
turned out since theen, could be seen to include
Vice-President Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, John Bolton,
under-secretary of state, Douglas Feith,
under-secretary of defence, Paul Wolfowitz, a deputy
to Rumsfeld, Richard Perle, former chairman and
current member of the Defence Advisory Board, and I.
Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, and Stephen
Hadley, the deputy national security adviser.
Collaborating with the "neocons" from outside the
administration are former CIA chief James Woolsey and
Kenneth Adelman, a former official in the Ford and
Reagan administrations.
L Paul Bremer, the current head of the US occupation
of Iraq, has come from the ranks of the "neocons."
Reports in the American media have said that the
"neo-cons" had set up their own intelligence network
-- taking in material provided by Israel's Mossad
agency -- to build a case for military action against
Iraq and often overlooking or ignoring CIA-gathered
information that would not have suited their case for
US invasion and occupation of Iraq.

Friday, September 19, 2003

Arafat in Sharon gunsights

PV Vivekanand

FEARS are high that despite Israeli utterances to the contrary, plans should definitely be afoot to physically eliminate Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. It is only a question of how and when the plans would be implemented.
No Israeli might be directly involved in a possible operation and the accusing finger might be pointed at a Palestinian or Arab. Israel's notorious spy and security agencies, including Mossad and Shin Bet, have a record of having "arranged" such killings, prominent among them the murder of Salah Khalaf (Abu Iyad) in Tunis in January 1991.
It was a Palestinian bodyguard who shot and killed Abu Iyad and it was then alleged that he was acting upon the orders of the Abu Nidal group. However, the Palestine Liberation Organisation (PLO) could not get to the bottom of the affair or did not choose to release to the public what it had learnt. That left a deep impression among the people of the Middle East that it was indeed an Israeli mind that went to planning and executing the attack on Abu Iyad.
There could be many scenarios in Ramallah to serve Israel's goal of eliminating Arafat from the political equation.
With Tuesday's American veto of a UN Security Council resolution that called on Israel to refrain from expelling Arafat from Palestine or harming him otherwise, it is clear that no international pressure will force Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon to abandon his plans to remove Arafat from the political scene.
Removing Arafat from theequation is one the central pillars in Sharon's strategy to eliminate all sources of Palestinian resistance.
Despite all the shortcomings attributed to him, Arafat symbolises the Palestinian struggle for independence and represents a rallying point for Palestinians. Sharon knows this well and hence his campaign to expel Arafat.
Sharon also hopes that the disappearance of Arafat from Palestine will destroy all traces of the Olso agreements and do away with any commitment to retain whatever has been achieved under the 1993 accords.
Notwithstanding its veto of the draft resolution, Washington is opposing Sharon's plan to deprive Arafat of a physical presence among his people not because it has any sympathy for the Palestinian cause or finds any use for the Palestinian leader as far as American interests are concerned; if anything, the US has
been the first to push the idea of easing Arafat out of
the equation.
Howeve,r Washington realises that exiling Arafat would give him the international scene to press his cause for Palestine and this would only bring about more headaches and pressure on the US administration.
It will be a folly to expect any revival of the "roadmap" for peace notwithstanding the reality that it is the only proposal on the table for the parties to pursue.
We could issue repeated calls for its revival, but, in effect, it remains only on paper and will remain so as
along as there is no change in the Israeli mindset.
Obviously, Sharon does not believe that he should be making any compromises with the Palestinians. He is convinced that it is only a matter of time before the Palestinians succumb to military assaults, ruthless killings and targeted assassinations and agree to accept his version of a peace agreement.
Against the backdrop of that mindset, Sharon might only put off his plans against Arafat and wait for the opportune time to strike at the Palestinian leader.
It will clear the ground for Sharon to make his rejection of the Oslo accord complete and set his own terms for peace with no reference to the 1993 Oslo agreements.
Obviously, the resignation of Mahmoud Abbas as prime
minister citing lack of Israeli co-operation and "internal problems" -- meaning fueds with Arafat -- has offered Sharon the opportunity he has been waiting for.
he could cite the Abbas resignation as the most vivid example of Arafat's machinations against peace and smoother, to an extent, European opposition against removing him from Palestine.
The Europeans and rest of the international community
will find their backing for Arafat somewhat undefensible in view of what Sharon could cite as the Palestinian leader's stands against the implementation of the "roadmap."
Had it not been for fears of unprecedented and perhaps uncontrollable Palestinian retaliation, Sharon would not wait for one second to order a death strike against Arafat if he thought he could get away with it.
Sharon is not worried about world pressure or condemnation of his actions since he knows he could defend himself saying he was
only acting in the interest of peace against a man
who, according to his argument, has done everything
to block the effort for peace.
The real and immediate danger is Sharon and his spychiefs and notorious agencies staging a repeat of the Abu Iyad killing in 1991.
Sharon has already crossed the point of no return with his public declaration that every Hamas leader is marked for death.
His posture indicates that he could not care less for the backlash that would come from the fiercely loyal supporters of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin and other leaders of the group.
Had Sharon been successful in killing Yassin and others through the missile and bombings of their homes in Gaza in September, then it would have meant waves of suicide attacks; for such would have been the height of Palestinian rage, fury, sorrow, grief, despair and frustration at Israel's arrogance that it could get away with anything in Palestine.
The danger is very much alive today. We could only hope against hope that sense will prevail and Sharon would realise, sooner or later, that violence begets violence and he would never be closer to his "dream" of acquiring Palestine without the Palestinians even if he manages to eliminate Arafat and Yassin and other leaders of the Palestinian struggle.

Saturday, September 13, 2003

Unravelling lies and growing crisis

PV Vivekanand

Has the US found its second Vietnam in Iraq?
Although some experts already see a Vietnam-like scenario emerging in Iraq, others think the situation has not reached that point but that it is definitely a possibility. General consensus is that it would take a few more attacks claiming casualties in double digits to drive home the reality that the US has failed to "pacify" Iraqis, and this would intensify the war of attrition.
Is it possible for the US to shift strategy and hope to win over the people of Iraq to its side as a benevolent occupier?
It seems difficult, given that the US military is in a vengeful mode and treats Iraqis will brutality, contempt and hostility.
The US military does not accept that it has a responsibility to bring about normal life for Iraqis in an atmosphere of safety and security.
American soldiers storm houses without discrimination, haul away people without justification and subject even women to humiliating bodysearches, reports from Baghdad say.
The growing hostility towards Americans among Iraq was perhaps summarised in the words of Abdullah Oman, 18, carried by the Associated Press this week.
"They are watching us die and laughing. They humiliate us. They handcuffed me and arrested me in front of my parents late one night because I stood on my house porch after curfew."
The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) underlined the dilemma the US faces in a recent report that warns of growing popular support for the forces challenging the US occupation of Iraq and says efforts to rebuild the country could collapse without immediate corrective action.
The CIA analysis reportedly suggests that the escalation of the US military campaign against guerrillas could cause new civilian casualties and drive more Iraqis to the side of the insurgents. It also says that the inability of US forces to crush the guerrillas is convincing growing numbers of Iraqis that the occupation can be defeated. The report is said to warn that none of the postwar Iraqi political institutions and leaders has shown an ability to govern the country or even make progress on drafting a constitution or holding an election.
The American strategists and decision makers might need a CIA report like that to understand, if they wish to, the realities on the ground in Iraq. But people in the region do not have to read such reports to draw up a clear picture of the situation in Iraq and realise what is going wrong where for the Americans, starting with the very decision that seems to have been made years ago to invade and occupy Iraq citing whatever reasons and justifications they could cite.
It is essential to note here that none of the reasons that the US cited as having left Washington with no choice but to wage war on Iraq has been proved true.
It is surprising that US President George W Bush and his senior aides continue to insist that the reasons they cited for the war were very valid. There are a few questions that many are desparate to ask them without any trimmings and demand clear-cut, non-evasive and truthful answers. They include:
-- You had said Iraq possessed and was continuing to produce massive stocks of weapons of mass destruction which was a threat to American security and indeed the world. Now, six months after securing absolute military control of the country, where are those weapons of mass destruction?
-- You had said Iraq was linked to Al Qaeda and was somehow involved in the Sept.11 attacks and the invasion of that country was part of the US-led war against terrorism. Where is the proof?
-- Your argument today is that the ouster of Saddam Hussein meant liberation for the people of Iraq. Aren't today the people of Iraq subjected to brutal occupation that seems like a leaf taken from the Israeli occupation of the Palestinians?
— You argue that the Iraqi Governing Council is in charge of things in Iraq. But, as members of the council have affirmed, they are taking orders from the US overseer in Iraq, Paul Bremer, who retains absolute authority over anything and everything concerning the council's purported mission. How could you blame the council for the slow pace in work towards a constitution and general elections?
In the meantime, the ground reality in Iraq is a vicious circle. As American soldiers seeth with fury and hit back at suspected Iraqis with a vengeance after every resistance attack, they are making it all the more difficult for moves to convince the Iraqis that the US means "well" for them. If anything, the US military is making more enemies in Iraq every day.
Who is behind the mounting attacks against US and other coalition forces in Iraq?
It is difficult to say. No doubt, Saddam loyalists have a role in the operations but it would be a gross exaggeration to conclude that the ousted president is running the war of resistance. He might want to do that and might even think he is doing it, but his circle of influence is relatively limited but is indeed effective in inflicting casualties among the American forces.
It is certain that non-Iraqi Arabs play a prominent role the attacks, but it is unclear whether Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda is the leading force among them.
US officials and members of the Washington-backed Iraqi Governing Council (IGC) have said foreign volunteers, including some from Al Qaeda, have slipped across the borders into Iraq to take part in a "holy war" against the US-led occupation.
"We're seeing Yemenis, we're seeing Sudanese, we're seeing Syrians and Egyptians, to name a few," according to a senior US commander.
Sources in Ammans said Jordanians and Palestinians were also among those fighting the Americans in Iraq.
What the Americans fail to realise and accept is that it does not need Bin Laden or Al Qaeda to fuel anti-US sentiments or orchestrate attacks. There are millions who see the American approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict and Muslims in general as totally biased and thus consider Washington as part of the problem at par with Israel.
If anything, the US, by maintaining the presence of over 15,000 soldiers in Iraq, has offered a perfect target for attacks. It might not be an exaggeration to say that some of the guerrillas in Iraq are more concerned with inflicting as much damage to the US military than worrying about the US occupation of the country. For many of them, dying while staging an attack against the US is only performing their duty in defence of the Arab and Muslim causes.
The Iranian role, if any at all, in anti-occupation attacks in Iraq is at best murky. It is deemed highly unlikely that the Iranian government would involve itself in such actions, particularly given that Tehran is acutely aware that it is being targeted for "regime change" and anything and everything it does could be used in the US-led campaign against it.
At the same time, Tehran would not sit idle if Iranian interests among the 15 million and plus Shiites of Iraq are undermined. It would like to use its influence through the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) and ensure that its interests are protected. So far, there is no evidence that SCIRI has undertaken any anti-US attack in Iraq and it is clear the group wants a major share of power in post-war Iraq.
There are indeed hardline groups within Iran with enough influence and financial clout to support anti-US attacks across the border in Iraq. Again, no evidence has emerged of such activities yet.
Tehran would also like to eliminate the main Iranian opposition group, Mujahedeen e-Khalq, which had upto 30,000 members in camps in Iraq with the blessing of the Saddam regime. The group has been disarmed by the US, but Washington is not ready to accept the Iranian demand that its members be handed over to Tehran. It remains a serious sore point in the tense relationship between Washington and Tehran.
Syria has rejected American charges that it is allowing anti-US guerrillas to enter Iraq along its borders; so has Saudi Arabia. It is highly unlikely that either of them would allow such infiltration, but it is a possibility that the porous desert frontier is being used by guerrillas to enter Iraq. The same applies to Jordan, which has always found it difficult to patrol its border with Iraq against drug and weapon smugglers.
Turkey has its own interests to protect in northern Iraq and the Ankara government could be expected to check infiltration across the border to Iraq. However, there are militant anti-US groups in Turkey and it cannot be ruled out that some of them are active in Iraq.
Kuwait recently imposed controls over access to areas near its border with Iraq, apparently after intelligence reports indicated guerrilla infiltration.
What are the prospects for an American decision to quit Iraq?
Very little at this point in time.
Reports in the mainstream American media have exposed that hardliners in the Bush administration had planned the invasion and occupation of Iraq as part of an American strategy to control the international oil market, maintain a strong American military presence in the Arabian Gulf as a deterrent, and remove Saddam Hussein as a potential threat to Israel, Washington's "strategic ally" in the Middle East.
Having accomplished the three objectives through the war against Iraq, Washington has just set out to implement other actions that would entrench the US in the region. Against that reality, there is no room whatsoever for entertaining any thought of withdrawal from Iraq no matter what cost Washington has to pay in American soldiers' lives.
That is definitely the impression one gets from reading between the lines of the affirmations of President Bush and his aides that the US would not be forced into "prematurely" leaving Iraq. While, for all technical purposes, the "maturity" will be accomplished when "democracy" is established in Iraq and Iraqis assume control of their country. For practical purposes, in the view of many Arabs, the "maturity" that the US seeks would be a stage where whoever is in power in Iraq would take orders from Washington without raising any question whatsoever.
As such, for those Arabs and a majority of Iraqis, and indeed many others in the world, there is little sincerity in American promises. They view any American move in the Middle East as aimed solely at serving American and Israeli interests.
Given the documentary evidence that have appeared even in the American press showing that grabbing control of Middle Eastern oil wells as a strategic weapon was being planned as far back as 1975, it would take much more than words from Washington to convince the Arabs that Bush and his aides mean it when they affirm their resolve to "rebuild" Iraq. For the sceptics, their words only mean that they are using "rebuilding" Iraq as a pretext to maintain and expand the American presence in the region and achieve absolute US domination of the world.
For the world at large, it is a matter of the sole superpower of the world challenging anyone and everyone. "We are the United States of America and we intend to accomplish whatever we wish. Dare us at your peril" -- this is message they are seeing in American actions around the globe.

Sunday, September 07, 2003

Wolfowitz knows the game

by pv vivekanand


OF THE many American officials and members of Congress who passed through the Middle East — including Iraq — in recent weeks, Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz stood out as the most man who zeroed in on Arab satellite channels like Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya for broadcasting statements and videotapes of Iraqi groups waging attacks on the US forces occupying Iraq.
Why should Wolfowitz be the one too perturbed by Al Jazeera and Al Araibya?
The reason is clear: Wolfowitz stands out among the so-called neoconservatives, or, to be more accurate, pro-Israelis, who orchestrated the war against Iraq, and he would definitely like the link to be kept away from public debate. Therefore, it is not as much the anti-US "incitement" broadcast by the two television channels that is distressing him as the pointed debates on the two channels on the short, medium-term and long-term implications of the US-led war against Iraq and how Israeli interests are served more than American interests by the US occupation and "containment" of Iraq.
There might or might not be truth in Wolfowitz's contention that the statements and videotapes attributed to Iraqi groups encourage further attacks on US forces occupying Iraq. But then, to warn the channels against broadcasting them goes against the grain of the very freedom of the media that is held high in the United States and elsewhere in the world.
Indeed, would Wolfowitz dare to accuse American television and radio stations or newspapers of anything? Of course, he might find no compelling reason to do so since it is unlikely that the same material transmitted by Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya will be carried by any US media in the same context and analysis.
An easy (hypothetical) example is: An American channel might carry a video-tape or statement issued by an Iraqi group vowing more attacks against the US forces in Iraq with an American commentary explaining that the group was obscure, unheard of before and suggesting that it could be nothing but terrorist and paid for by Saddam Hussein from his hideout, wherever that might be.
In contrast, the Al Jazeera or Al Arabiya commentary that would go with the same message or tape would say that it is an example of the growing Iraqi resistance against the US occupation and the group might or might not be linked with Saddam. Such portrayals are invariably picked up international news agencies and newspapers -- including American publications -- and reach American readers although with the typical twists and narrow interpretations.
The above summation is rather simplified. The key factor that complicates the American viewpoint here is the fact that it fails to take into account that the situation in Iraq today is very much an Arab concern and the Arab media are projecting the Arab viewpoint through lengthy debates that expose what many commentators describe as the hidden American/Israeli agenda in the invasion and occupation of the country.
To a large extent, American officials and even some of the media outlets see Arab newspapers, television and their enemy and embedded in the same camp with those resisting the American occupation of Iraq not because of Iraq alone but also because of Arab resentment over Washington's biased approach to Middle Eastern and Arab issues in general and Palestine in particular.
People like Wolfowitz are not willing to take in that Western media also portray the US presence in Iraq as occupation (that is the way even the UN describes it) and the attacks against US forces in Iraq as armed resistance.
They are overlooking that debates carried on American channels describe Palestinians fighting the Israeli occupation of their land as terrorists and such descriptions are an insult to the Arab cause in Palestine.
They do not want to acknowledge that Arab media do carry comments by American officials without censoring them.
They would never affirm -- perhaps they are incapable of doing so -- that the Arab media representation of events in Iraq are more accurate than that presented by their American counterparts.
As well-known Middle Eastern commentator Rami Khouri notes:
"At the technical level, the Arab media do exactly what the mainstream American media have done since March: They mirror and pander to the dominant emotional and political sentiments of their own public opinion, because they seek to maximise their market share of audience and advertising.
"In choosing, framing and scripting their stories, Arab and American television stations alike unabashedly and unapologetically cater to their respective audiences' sentiments: The flag-adorned US media emotionally support the US troops, and the Arab media are equally fervent in opposing America's occupation of Iraq."
Parallel to that analysis is indeed the American neoconservatives' anxiety to hide their pro-Israeli stand and activities away from the public eye and ear. It might even be argued that their concerns in this context are more intense than their alarm that Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya is "inciting" attacks against US soldiers in Iraq. They know that reports and debates focusing on how far Israel's interests were and are being served in the war against and occupation of Iraq are doing them damage by exposing their pro-Israeli priorities and, at some point, they could be held accountable.

Wolfofitz knows the game

by pv vivekanand


OF THE many American officials and members of Congress who passed through the Middle East — including Iraq — in recent weeks, Deputy Defence Secretary Paul Wolfowitz stood out as the most man who zeroed in on Arab satellite channels like Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya for broadcasting statements and videotapes of Iraqi groups waging attacks on the US forces occupying Iraq.
Why should Wolfowitz be the one too perturbed by Al Jazeera and Al Araibya?
The reason is clear: Wolfowitz stands out among the so-called neoconservatives, or, to be more accurate, pro-Israelis, who orchestrated the war against Iraq, and he would definitely like the link to be kept away from public debate. Therefore, it is not as much the anti-US "incitement" broadcast by the two television channels that is distressing him as the pointed debates on the two channels on the short, medium-term and long-term implications of the US-led war against Iraq and how Israeli interests are served more than American interests by the US occupation and "containment" of Iraq.
There might or might not be truth in Wolfowitz's contention that the statements and videotapes attributed to Iraqi groups encourage further attacks on US forces occupying Iraq. But then, to warn the channels against broadcasting them goes against the grain of the very freedom of the media that is held high in the United States and elsewhere in the world.
Indeed, would Wolfowitz dare to accuse American television and radio stations or newspapers of anything? Of course, he might find no compelling reason to do so since it is unlikely that the same material transmitted by Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya will be carried by any US media in the same context and analysis.
An easy (hypothetical) example is: An American channel might carry a video-tape or statement issued by an Iraqi group vowing more attacks against the US forces in Iraq with an American commentary explaining that the group was obscure, unheard of before and suggesting that it could be nothing but terrorist and paid for by Saddam Hussein from his hideout, wherever that might be.
In contrast, the Al Jazeera or Al Arabiya commentary that would go with the same message or tape would say that it is an example of the growing Iraqi resistance against the US occupation and the group might or might not be linked with Saddam. Such portrayals are invariably picked up international news agencies and newspapers -- including American publications -- and reach American readers although with the typical twists and narrow interpretations.
The above summation is rather simplified. The key factor that complicates the American viewpoint here is the fact that it fails to take into account that the situation in Iraq today is very much an Arab concern and the Arab media are projecting the Arab viewpoint through lengthy debates that expose what many commentators describe as the hidden American/Israeli agenda in the invasion and occupation of the country.
To a large extent, American officials and even some of the media outlets see Arab newspapers, television and their enemy and embedded in the same camp with those resisting the American occupation of Iraq not because of Iraq alone but also because of Arab resentment over Washington's biased approach to Middle Eastern and Arab issues in general and Palestine in particular.
People like Wolfowitz are not willing to take in that Western media also portray the US presence in Iraq as occupation (that is the way even the UN describes it) and the attacks against US forces in Iraq as armed resistance.
They are overlooking that debates carried on American channels describe Palestinians fighting the Israeli occupation of their land as terrorists and such descriptions are an insult to the Arab cause in Palestine.
They do not want to acknowledge that Arab media do carry comments by American officials without censoring them.
They would never affirm -- perhaps they are incapable of doing so -- that the Arab media representation of events in Iraq are more accurate than that presented by their American counterparts.
As well-known Middle Eastern commentator Rami Khouri notes:
"At the technical level, the Arab media do exactly what the mainstream American media have done since March: They mirror and pander to the dominant emotional and political sentiments of their own public opinion, because they seek to maximise their market share of audience and advertising.
"In choosing, framing and scripting their stories, Arab and American television stations alike unabashedly and unapologetically cater to their respective audiences' sentiments: The flag-adorned US media emotionally support the US troops, and the Arab media are equally fervent in opposing America's occupation of Iraq."
Parallel to that analysis is indeed the American neoconservatives' anxiety to hide their pro-Israeli stand and activities away from the public eye and ear. It might even be argued that their concerns in this context are more intense than their alarm that Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya is "inciting" attacks against US soldiers in Iraq. They know that reports and debates focusing on how far Israel's interests were and are being served in the war against and occupation of Iraq are doing them damage by exposing their pro-Israeli priorities and, at some point, they could be held accountable.

Friday, September 05, 2003

US rider on UN

BY PV VIVEKANAND

PV Vivekanand

IT IS NOT surprising that US President George W Bush has agreed to accept an increased United Nations role in post-war Iraq although he has attached a condition that a UN-authorised military force in the counrty should be placed under American command.
The Bush administration's initial projections went wrong in Iraq, and now, nearly five months after a US-led military force toppled Saddam Hussein in war, Washington has come to realise that it is indeed slipping into a deeper abyss as every day passes with increased attacks on American soldiers and growing unrest among Iraqis that bode ill for the occupation authorities.
There would be backlashes in Washington and some heads might roll, particularly of those pro-Israeli hawks who orchestrated the war with predictions that Iraqis would be eternally grateful to the US for having ousted the Saddam regime.
That is indeed a problem for Bush and his people and we would be seeing its manifestations sooner than later
From the vantage point in the Middle East, Bush's change of mind was expected although he had all but ruled out any effort or a new Security Council resolution that could give a UN umbrella for hesitant countries prompted to contribute troops to keep peace in post-war Iraq. His advisers have come to appreciate the reality that it is impossible to keep Iraq under the US feet for long without facing the risk of the toes being blown away.
The conservative Financial Times of London commented this week: “Facing resistance by forces they have yet to identify with any conviction, the US-led occupation authorities are unable to control the roads or the borders, the water or the electricity supply. It is now increasingly clear they are also unable to defend the allies and institutions they need to rebuild Iraq.”
Few people in the Middle East and Asia needed to be told of the analysis that it was only a matter of time that the US strategists would realise the enormity of the task in Iraq and would want a face-saving formula, and that is what the Bush administration is trying to do by securing a UN resolution that would alleviate the risks that the US and allied forces are currently facing in Iraq.
According to the New York Times, the administration has already drawn up a draft resolution that has only been shown to the British government. Details of the draft are not available yet, but it is believed to contain language that clearly grants the US the overall command and authority to take important decisions on its own.
However, France and Russia, among others, might not want to grant that kind of authority to the US for several reasons, the first being of course allowing the US to have a largely free hand in Iraqi affairs under a UN umbrella. They are also aware that a UN-mandated force with majority American participation and under American command would not be accepted by many Iraqis who would find little difference between the Blue Berets and the American-led now occupying Iraq.
According to Ellie Goldsworthy, a military expert at London's Royal United Services Institute, Washington wanted to appear willing to compromise, while keeping military control.
"There is no solution that anyone will leap at," she told Reuters, but argued that even opponents of the US-led war recognised that Iraq could not be allowed to spin out of control.
"It's in everyone's interest to see internationalisation," she said. "It spreads the emotional as well as the military burden and would alleviate the political pressure on Bush and (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair."
India, Pakistan and Turkey are three countries which have adopted a position that their contribution to a military force would come only under a UN umbrella; all the three governments face bitter opposition to sending troops to Iraq even under a UN resolution.
The International Crisis Group, a body of experts in various aspects of governance, military affairs and international politics, has recommended a division of labour between the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), the United Nations and the interim Iraqi Governing Council.
Under the proposal, the CPA should keep control of military security, law and order, and restoring basic infrastructure; the UN would oversee the Governing Council and the constitutional process, organise elections and coordinate humanitarian aid, among other responsibilities.
The council would take on day-to-day governance of Iraq, including a role in reconstituting the police and armed forces.
According to the group, only such a balanced approach could help resolve the problem of who governs Iraq during the occupation.
Regional experts say that an enhanced UN role with full authority in shaping post-Saddam Iraq is an absolute necessity in order to change the perception that Iraq has become an American colony.
Some analysts argue that Iraqis have lost faith in the UN: They believe that although the Security Council did not explicitly authorise the US to go to war, it is seen to have led the US into it.
The UN is seen by many Iraqis as being responsible for the sanctions imposed in 1990, which is said to have cost the lives of half a million Iraqi children. The Iraqis see the UN as responsible for the humiliating weapons inspections, which disarmed the country and delivered it up defenceless to the American attack. By setting up deadlines on non-existent weapons of mass destruction, the UN helped provide the excuses that the Bush government desperately needed in order to sell the war to the American public.
And now the world boy has legitimised the US occupation of Iraq. That is how some commentators see the Iraqi mindset.
This week, a contingent led by Poles and including brigades that are commanded by Ukrainians and Spaniards replaced a US Marines unit in southwestern Iraq.
Other countries which have sent troops or have agreed send troops to post-war Iraq include Japan, Bulgaria, Denmark, the Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Hungary, Kazakhstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Mongolia, Nicaragua, Norway, the Philippines, Poland, Romania, Slovakia and Thailand.
At present there are 150,000 American, 11,000 British and 10,000 other soldiers in Iraq.
Apart from the human cost of occupying Iraq -- at least 67 American soldiers have been killed since Bush announced a formal end to combat in Iraq in May -- Washington is burdened with spending $125 million a day in the country, according to some accounts.
Bush's decision to go for a UN resolution came after several rounds of intense meetings with his advisers and key cabinet official.
"While not unexpected, it was a tacit admission that the current American-dominated force is stretched too thin," said the New York Times. "It also amounts to one of the most significant changes in strategy since the end of major combat in Iraq."
A Congressional study has showed that the US Army lacked the active-duty troops to keep the current occupation force in Iraq past March, without getting extra help from either other services and reserves or from other nations, or without spending tens of billions to vastly expand its size, according to the Times.
The New York Times also quoted a senior official as saying that Bush's national security team hopes to start withdrawing the majority of American forces now in Iraq within 18 months to two years, and "making this peacekeeping operation look like the kind that are familiar to us," in Kosovo, Bosnia and other places where the United Nations has taken the major role.
Another senior administration official told the paper that Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell had discussed "ways to persuade the Security Council members to create such a force, and added that Mr. Powell "is going to be working with our colleagues and allies to talk about language that can bring maximum, effective resources to bear" in Iraq.



According to a US Congressional study, if the Defence Department pushed ahead with its plan of rotating active-duty army troops out of Iraq after a year, it would be able to sustain a force of only 67,000 to 106,000 active duty and reserve forces. A larger force would put at risk the military's operations elsewhere around the globe, according to the study.
It said the Pentagon did not have enough personnel to keep the troops fresh and still conduct operations in Afghanistan, Kosovo, Bosnia and Korea.
The study was requested by Democrat Senator Robert C. Byrd, a critic of the Iraq war, after the Bush administration refused to discuss the long-term cost of a sustaining the occupation force in Iraq.
Senator Joseph R. Biden Jr., also a Democrat, said recently: "We're 95 percent of the deaths, 95 percent of the costs, and more than 90 percent of the troops.
"The costs are staggering, the number of troops are staggering, we're seeing continuing escalation of American casualties, and we need to turn to the UN for help, for a UN-sanctioned military operation that is under US command."
The congressional study also analysed the financial cost of the occupation. It said the US could maintain in Iraq a force of up to 106,000 if it uses Marine Corps units, Army Special Forces groups and National Guard combat units. Such units have generally not been used for peacekeeping, and the budget office said using them would bring the cost of the occupation to $19 billion a year compared with the $46.8 billion projected by the Pentagon.
According to the study, if the Defence Department stuck with its present plans of using army unit, then recruiting, training and equipping two new divisions would require an up-front cost of up to $19 billion and take five years; it would cost an extra $9 billion to $10 billion a year to put the units in place in Iraq raising the total cost of the occupation force up to 129,000 troops and cost up to $29 billion a year.
Byrd used the report to argue that the Bush administration failed to inform the nation of the true costs of invading Iraq, and said the United States must now get support from the international community to sustain the occupation.
Evidently, the Americans have not heard the last about the issue from Byrd. Come election time next time, every "shortcoming" of the Bush administration would be used to its full strength.

The pro-Israeli camp, or the so-called neoconservatives, in Washington might be feeling heat of the situation, after having stood firm on their suggestions that occupying Iraq was not a risky proposition. After all, Bush is coming to grips with the realities of the situation on the ground in Iraq and should be turning around to ask who pushed him into it.
"It reflects a reality check for the neo-conservatives, who now feel exposed," said Jonathan Stevenson, a security expert at London's International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS).
"The post-conflict situation is proving much more fraught than the United States anticipated, but the Pentagon is still less inclined than the State Department to yield real authority to the United Nations. They are not ready to capitulate." Stevenson told Reuters.
The hawks who pushed Bush into invading Iraq on easy assumptions are believed to include
Vice-President Dick Cheney, Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and his deputy Paul Wolfovitz.
"The neo-conservatives had certainly followed the belief that Iraq would fall easily, the Americans would be welcomed as liberators and Iraq would become a democracy," according to Gareth Stansfield, an Iraq expert at Britain's Exeter University,
"The Americans are now trying to identify the least worst solution," Stansfield said. "They are looking for an exit strategy by internationalising the situation."
Worse still, reports from Washington indicate, the neoconseratives convinced Bush before the war that the UN was a teethless tiger and the US had the ability to take and implement unilateral US action.
It was under their advice that the UN would condemn itself to "irrelevance" unless it endorsed military action. But now Bush has to go back to the UN, and that is not something he would like to forget in a hurry.
According to Dana Allin, a senior fellow for transatlantic relations at the IISS, , returning to the UN represented "a defeat for the idea that the US can do this more or less on its own, without seeking a compromise on the Security Council on defining the legitimacy of the US occupation of Iraq."
But that view is not shared by the hawks in the Bush administration who are seen ready to expose the US to more risks in order to achieve their strategy of transforming the Middle East into an area that serves Israeli interests and propel the Jewish state as the dominant power in the region at American expense. They need a puppet regime in Iraq that would be ready to use as brutal force as that was employed by the Saddam regime; for them, the well-being of the people of Iraq is not a priority at all.
As such, a battle is brewing within Washington circles for and against granting the UN real authority in Iraq. That posts a key question: Could Bush's pointman Powell be able to work out a deal that pleases everyone now, but increases the risks for foreign troops landing in Iraq at a later stage?
Equally important is the question how "aggressive" would the proposed UN force be?
Given the presence of groups hostile to foreign presence, notably American, in post-war Iraq, the UN force might not be able to pursue a pacifist approach. Would than mean the Blue Berets storming houses and suspected hideouts with their guns blazing as the Americans are doing today?