Twist of American justice

IN a strange twist of American justice, a federal
judge in New York has found Iraq partly responsible
for the Sept. 11 attacks and awarded over $100 million
to the families of two people who died in the aerial
assault against the World Trade Center towers.
However, and despite contradictions, the ruling could
be used by successive US administrations to keep Iraq
under indefinite pressure if the current process in
post-Saddam Hussein Iraq leads to a dilution of the
American grip on the country.
The verdict is expected to trigger hundreds of claims
to be filed with US lawcourts claiming compensation
from Iraq for victims of the attacks, and that would
essentially mean that the Bush administration caught
in its own trap of charges it made implicating Iraq
and Saddam Hussein as sources of international
terrorism with little substantiation.
The ruling was strange because the evidence cited by
lawyers for  the families of George Smith andTimothy
Soulas, two of the nearly 3,000 victims of the attacks
in New York and Washington, was based on public
statements made by senior US officials. These
officials included former CIA director James Woolsey
and from author Laurie Mylroie who have claimed that
Iraq "provided material support" to the Al Qaeda
network of Osama Bin Laden. Also cited was a statement
by US Secretary of State Colin Powell at the UN where
he asserted that Iraq supported "Islamist
terrorism."
The lawyers conceded that the evidence "barely"
established a link
between Al Qaeda and Iraq was enough for a "reasonable
jury," according to a report in the USA Today
newspaper.
The whole episode has an air of superficiality when
seen against the track record of the American
judiciary.
Despite the public claims made by American officials,
no tangible evidence has been found to establish a
link between Al Qaeda and Iraq except unsubstatiated
reports that a senior Iraqi intelligence official had
met with the purported leader of the Sept.11 assault
team, Mohammed Atta, in Eastern Europe in April 2001,
and a claim that was later found to be hollow by an
Iraqi defector that Osama Bin Laden had visited
Baghdad in 1998.
Documents said to have been found in the office of the
Iraqi intelligence ministry in post-war Baghdad
indicated that an unidentified Al Qaeda operative had
visited the Iraqi capital in early 1998, but that
could be hardly be evidence -- in any sense of the
word in a court of law -- that Saddam Hussein had any
role in the attacks in the US that occurred more than
three years later.
Indeed, intelligence findings deliberately suppressed
by the American and British government say that there
could not have been any link between Saddam and Bin
Laden if only because of their ideological
differences.
Bin Laden, who followed a puritanical form of Islam,
has never concealed his distaste for Saddam, whom he
had accused of using the faith for political purposes
and consolidate his grip on power. Bin Laden also
publicly blamed Saddam for having given the Americans
a pretext to military intervene in the Gulf and stay
on in the region by invading Kuwait in 1991.
And, indeed, if Al Qaedd is behind the post-war
bombings in Saudi Arabia and Morocco, then one could
bet that they were carried out not because of any
sense for revenge for Saddam's ouster but in
retaliation for the overall American approach to the
Middle East and what many perceive as American
hostility towards Islam.
However, that does not change the reality that the
ruling has been made by a US court implicating Iraq in
the attacks and Iraq is hardly in a position to defend
itself.
The ruling also found Afghanistan's ousted Taliban
regime partly responsible for the attacks -- again a
case where no defence could be put up.
The verdict has to be seen against the backdrop of a
heavy dose of what could be nothing but American spin
that has led to more than half of Americans believing
that Saddam was behind the Sept.11 attacks as
indicated in opinion polls prior to the US war that
toppled him in April this year.
While the American judicial system could not accused
of being politically influenced, the court ruling
strengthens the argument that George W Bush is bent
upon somehow proving to American voters ahead of 2004
elections that he was right in invading Iraq and
toppling Saddam. The argument gathers more
credibility, given that the US occupiers of Iraq have
yet to produce any evidence that Saddam possessed
weapons of mass destruction -- the prime reason that
Bush cited for his decision to wage war against Iraq
and oust the Saddam regime from power.
How are the families which have been awarded the claim
going to collect?
That may yet prove to be another landmark turning.
Bush has at his disposal billions of dollars in frozen
Iraqi assets transferred to him, but the funds are
earmarked for Iraq's reconstruction. The US president
could hardly be expected to permit those funds to be
used to settle the claims, particularly that hundreds
of similar lawsuits are being prepared and sent to US
lawcourts.
Ironically, Bush would have gladly used the funds to
settle the claims had the verdict came before he
launched the war and ousted Saddam. Now he and his
people could be expected to fight tooth and nail
against any attempt to touch the booty assigned to
rebuild Iraq as a matter of American priority.
Could the US-endorsed regime that would take power in
Iraq be expected to be held responsible for settling
the claim?
Again the answer could not but be no. Washington has a
vested interest in protecting the regime it would
install in post-war Iraq and it is hardly likely that
Bush would allow it to be exposed to a torrent of
claims that could run into tens of billions of
dollars.
If anything, the US is pressing other countries to
write off even the legitimate debts that Iraq incurred
during the Saddam regime's existence in power. Against
that backdrop, the question could all but be ruled out
whether Washington would care much for Sept.11
compensation since it should know well that Saddam
could not have had any role in the attacks.
Indeed, the Bush administration has left a vulnerable
flank in its haste to implicate Iraq in the attacks
when it set up a separate fund for compensation for
Sept.11 attacks and allowed recipients to file claims
against Al Qaeda as well as Iraq.
One of the obvious explanations of the scenario after
the court verdict is that the US administration could
use the Sept.11-linked claims on Iraq as potential
leverage and pressure on the country for decades,
given that at some point Washington would have to
loosen its military grip on Iraqis.

Verdict Iraq and 9/11

PV Vivekanand

IN a strange twist of American justice, a federal judge in New York has found Iraq partly responsible for the Sept. 11 attacks and awarded over $100 million to the families of two people who died in the aerial assault against the World Trade Center towers.
However, and despite contradictions, the ruling could be used by successive US administrations to keep Iraq under indefinite pressure if the current process in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq leads to a dilution of the American grip on the country.
The verdict is expected to trigger hundreds of claims to be filed with US lawcourts claiming compensation from Iraq for victims of the attacks, and that would essentially mean that the Bush administration caught in its own trap of charges it made implicating Iraq and Saddam Hussein as sources of international terrorism with little substantiation.
The ruling was strange because the evidence cited by lawyers for  the families of George Smith andTimothy Soulas, two of the nearly 3,000 victims of the attacks in New York and Washington, was based on public statements made by senior US officials. These officials included former CIA director James Woolsey and from author Laurie Mylroie who have claimed that Iraq "provided material support" to the Al Qaeda network of Osama Bin Laden. Also cited was a statement by US Secretary of State Colin Powell at the UN where he asserted that Iraq supported "Islamist terrorism."
The lawyers conceded that the evidence "barely" established a link
between Al Qaeda and Iraq was enough for a "reasonable jury," according to a report in the USA Today newspaper.
The whole episode has an air of superficiality when seen against the track record of the American judiciary.
Despite the public claims made by American officials, no tangible evidence has been found to establish a link between Al Qaeda and Iraq except unsubstatiated reports that a senior Iraqi intelligence official had met with the purported leader of the Sept.11 assault team, Mohammed Atta, in Eastern Europe in April 2001, and a claim that was later found to be hollow by an Iraqi defector that Osama Bin Laden had visited Baghdad in 1998.
Documents said to have been found in the office of the Iraqi intelligence ministry in post-war Baghdad indicated that an unidentified Al Qaeda operative had visited the Iraqi capital in early 1998, but that could be hardly be evidence -- in any sense of the word in a court of law -- that Saddam Hussein had any role in the attacks in the US that occurred more than three years later.
Indeed, intelligence findings deliberately suppressed by the American and British government say that there could not have been any link between Saddam and Bin Laden if only because of their ideological differences.
Bin Laden, who followed a puritanical form of Islam, has never concealed his distaste for Saddam, whom he had accused of using the faith for political purposes and consolidate his grip on power. Bin Laden also publicly blamed Saddam for having given the Americans a pretext to military intervene in the Gulf and stay on in the region by invading Kuwait in 1991.
And, indeed, if Al Qaedd is behind the post-war bombings in Saudi Arabia and Morocco, then one could bet that they were carried out not because of any sense for revenge for Saddam's ouster but in retaliation for the overall American approach to the Middle East and what many perceive as American hostility towards Islam.
However, that does not change the reality that the ruling has been made by a US court implicating Iraq in the attacks and Iraq is hardly in a position to defend itself.
The ruling also found Afghanistan's ousted Taliban regime partly responsible for the attacks -- again a case where no defence could be put up.
The verdict has to be seen against the backdrop of a heavy dose of what could be nothing but American spin that has led to more than half of Americans believing that Saddam was behind the Sept.11 attacks as indicated in opinion polls prior to the US war that toppled him in April this year.
While the American judicial system could not accused of being politically influenced, the court ruling strengthens the argument that George W Bush is bent upon somehow proving to American voters ahead of 2004 elections that he was right in invading Iraq and toppling Saddam. The argument gathers more credibility, given that the US occupiers of Iraq have yet to produce any evidence that Saddam possessed weapons of mass destruction -- the prime reason that Bush cited for his decision to wage war against Iraq and oust the Saddam regime from power.
How are the families which have been awarded the claim going to collect?
That may yet prove to be another landmark turning.
Bush has at his disposal billions of dollars in frozen Iraqi assets transferred to him, but the funds are earmarked for Iraq's reconstruction. The US president could hardly be expected to permit those funds to be used to settle the claims, particularly that hundreds of similar lawsuits are being prepared and sent to US lawcourts.
Ironically, Bush would have gladly used the funds to settle the claims had the verdict came before he launched the war and ousted Saddam. Now he and his people could be expected to fight tooth and nail against any attempt to touch the booty assigned to rebuild Iraq as a matter of American priority.
Could the US-endorsed regime that would take power in Iraq be expected to be held responsible for settling the claim?
Again the answer could not but be no. Washington has a vested interest in protecting the regime it would install in post-war Iraq and it is hardly likely that Bush would allow it to be exposed to a torrent of claims that could run into tens of billions of dollars.
If anything, the US is pressing other countries to write off even the legitimate debts that Iraq incurred during the Saddam regime's existence in power. Against that backdrop, the question could all but be ruled out whether Washington would care much for Sept.11 compensation since it should know well that Saddam could not have had any role in the attacks.
Indeed, the Bush administration has left a vulnerable flank in its haste to implicate Iraq in the attacks when it set up a separate fund for compensation for Sept.11 attacks and allowed recipients to file claims against Al Qaeda as well as Iraq.
One of the obvious explanations of the scenario after the court verdict is that the US administration could use the Sept.11-linked claims on Iraq as potential leverage and pressure on the country for decades, given that at some point Washington would have to loosen its military grip on Iraqis.

War in making for long

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.
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 occupation of Iraq.

Lockerbie verdict challenged

PV Vivekanand

THE world is awaiting anxiously to hear the prosecutors present their version of how two Libyans planned and executed a plan that resulted in a mid-air explosion on a Pan Am flight from London to New York 12 years ago at the hearings of the case beginning on May 3 at a former US Air Force base in the Netherlands by Scottish judges under Scottish law.
Equally interesting will be how the defence goes about picking holes in every point made by the prosecution, if pre-hearing reports and results if extensive research conducted by the US television network CBS as well as newpapers.
The crash, which took place over the Scottish town of Lockerbie on the night of Dec.21-22, 1988, killed 270 people - 259 of them aboard the plane and 11 others on the ground when the Boeing crashed down on them.
But by the time the case gets even before the half way mark, more questions are likely to be raised than answered at the trial, where a Pandora's box is expected to be opened once it gets into the core of the affair.
Most important of all, the prosecution case is believed to be weak and its arguments have already been found lacking in substantiating evidence before the case went to court.
Particularly of importance here is that under Scottish law the charge of murder is tough to prove and Scottish judges are known to be proud of their independence.
The charge sheet against the two — Abdelbasset Ali Mohammed Al Megrahi and Al Lameen Khalifa Fhima _ says that Megrahi prepared a suitcase containing a bomb rigged into a Toshiba radio cassette player, and Fhima, who worked for the Libyan Arab Airlines, used planted that suitcase on an Air Malta plane to Frankfurt, Germany.
In Frankfurt the unaccompanied suitcase was loaded on to a Pan Am flight to London. At Heathrow, it was finally transferred to the New York-bound Pan Am 747 which exploded in mid-air half an hour after take-off at a hight of 31,000 feet.
The prosecution is expected to argue that the bombing was in relatiation for a 1985 April US air attack on the Libyan cities of Benghazi and Tripoli, which killed up to five people, including the adopted daughter of Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi.
That air raid, which fitted into a pattern of US-Libyan confrontations, was ordered by the then president Ronald Reagan to punish Libya for its alleged role in the bombing of a disco in Berlin frequented by US Marines.
But the alleged Libyan connection to the blast is only one of the many theories that were raised at the very outset of investigations into the crash. These theories varyingly pointed the accusing fingers at Iran, Syria, Libya, the Lebanese drug underworld, and even the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
Every theory appeared to be as strong as any, and there is a widely-held argument in the Middle East was Libya is the scapegoat in the case and the notorious Israeli secret service, Mossad, helped fabricate the case against Tripoli.
The burden of proving the case against Libya beyond any reasonable doubt rests solely with the prosecution. By definition, that helps the the defence because all it has to do is to pick convincing holes in the prosecution case. And that should be relatively easy, given the abundance of theories and red herrings in the case.
The defence strategy, as one of the lawyers for the Libyan suspects hinted during a pre-trial hearing in court last week, is expected to be based on laying out a well-built case where the accusing fingers point in several directions. The defence will seek to prove that several other parties had as good motives and opportunity (supported by circumstantial evidence) as Libya to carry out the bombing.
The key piece of evidence expected to be presented in court in the Lockerbie case is a tiny piece of a timer that allegedly helped detonate explosives in the suitcase aboard Pan Am Flight 103. The timer was rigged into a Toshiba cassettee player and the fragement was found in part of the wreckage of the airliner in Lockerbie, the prosecution says.
That timer, according to the prosecutor, was manufactured and supplied to Libya by a small electronics company called MEBO based in Zurich, Switzerland.
That is the main pillar of the prosecution argument, but it could be shaken at it foundations in court because the company argues that similar timers were supplied to several parties, including the Stasi secret service of former East Germany.
If serious doubts are cast on the alleged link between the timer and Libya, then that pulls the rug from under the feet of the prosecution, according to European legal experts.
Major Owen Lewis, a former British army explosive expert and now an independent security consultant, said in an interview with the US television network CBS that he could not fathom how the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reached the conclusion that the fragment came from the MEBO timers supplied to Libya because of some fundamental differences in the construction of the devices bought by LIbya and those sold by MEBO to others.
The prosecution argument is expected to be weakened further by a challenge to the credibility, a record of misguided conclusions and lack of scientific qualifications of an FBI operative who "established" the alleged link between the timer and Libya.
Edwin Bollier, head of MEBO, told the same CBS programe "60 Minutes" that the fragment could have come from one of two timers he had sold to Stasi. He also reported the theft of blueprints for the timer from his office and affirms that whoever had those blueprints could have manufactured a similar timer.
The Stasi connection opens up another avenue. A Syrian-based group, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), which was among the first suspects named by US authorities in the case but dropped eventually despite other circumstantial evidence, did have close links with the Stasi and could have obtained the MEBO timer from the East Germans.
Again, that is anticipated as another pillar of the defence argument.
The prosecution is expected to present evidence that clothes found in the wreckage and supposedly came from the suitcase that contained the explosives came from a shop in the Mediterrenean island of Malta and purchased by one of the two Libyan defendants.
Defendant Abdel Basset Al Megrahi, who was the head of security for Libyan Arab
airlines, was known for visiting Malta frequently. The second defendant, Al Lameen
Khalifa Fhima, worked for the Libyan airline at the airport in Malta.
The prosecution contends that the two were Libyan intelligence agents and prepared the bomb that exploded the Pan Am plane, and Megrahi bought the clothes found in the suitcase from Mary's Shop in Malta.
A major hole in that argument is expected to be made with the defence arguing that the shopkeeper could not positively identify the purchaser as Megrahi and the description he provided fitted another man, Mohammed Abu Talb, who was a PFLP-GC member.
A former Libyan intelligence is expected to be produced by the prosecution to testify that he saw al Megrahi and Fhima at the airport on that day of the explosion, and to claim that they put the suitcase containing the bomb aboard an Air Malta flight to Frankfurt. From Frankfurt the suitcase was put aboard the ill-fated airliner.
But the ex-agent's testimony could be challenged on grounds that he has a vested interest in lying because is living under a witness protection programme in the US and stands to be rewarded by upto $4 million from the US government.
In strict legal terms, the ex-agent's testimony needs to be corraborated by another witness and that is believed, at this point, to be missing in the prosecution presentation.
Down the line, the prosecution has to prove that the circumstances were also ideal for the accused to put aboard the Air Malta flight the suitcase containing the explosives as unaccompanied baggage.
Air Malta has categorically rejected the possibility of an unaccompanied baggage being aboard the concerned flight to Frankfurt and affirmed that all procedures were strictly followed and the suitcase was not aboard that flight.
A weekly planner is said to contain a phrase allegedly written by Fhima one week before the crash: "Get the taggs from Air Malta." (This has been explained as related to Fhima's routine work, which included getting Libyan Airlines tags printed in Malta and that the reference to Air Malta tag was linked to competitive pricing. There are also other notations in the same weekly planner which refers to an unidentified printer).
The prosecution argues that Fhima used one of these tags to route the suitcase with the bomb from Malta via Frankfurt and London to New York.
But that argument is countered by Air Malta, which points out that if Fhima, with the help of his Libyan Airline security pass, had substituted the suitcase for one belonging to a passenger on the flight, they would have had a claim for a lost bag when the passengers reached
Frankfurt. But no such claim was made, says the airline, adding that every one of the 39 passengers aboard the flight were individually interviewed and they confirmed that there was nothing amiss.
In essence, it has been generally established that there was an unaccounted piece of baggage at Frankfurt that was could have eventually found its way to the Pan Am flight. But there is no concrete evidence that the baggage came from Air Malta - another major dent in the prosecution case.
"If it cannot be stablished that the bomb that blew up Pan Am 103 started in Malta, then the evidence is worthless," Robert Black, who heads the law department at Edinburgh University and who devised the plan to have the two suspects tried under Scottish law in the Netherlands, told "60 Minutes."
According to Black, the Scottish authorities could have "allowed themselves to be bounced into the charges against the two named Libyans, who may very well have been Libyan Intelligence agents, known to the intelligence services of Britain and the United States. It became tempting to bring closure to the Lockerbie incident by bringing charges against them."
The weakness of the prosecution case was seen as having prompted the prosecutors to demand postponement of the beginning of the hearings. The court allowed two deferments, but turned down a third prosecution request last week.
The defence is expected to zero in on suspicions that the PFLP was behind the bombings. Defece lawyers will cite the repeated instances where the Syrian-based group's name cropped up during the investigations.
Initial reports citing US intelligence sources said the PFLP-GC could have carried out the bombing on behalf of Iran, which seeking revenge for the shooting down of an Iranian plane with 290 passengers aboard by an American warship, USS Vinceness, in the Gulf at the height of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
PFLP-GC leader Ahmed Jibril, a Syrian colonel, was named as having personally undertaken the alleged "contract" to bomb an American passenger plane in Europe several months before the actual attack. Reports spoke of warnings emanating from Finland and several other European countries, months before the Pan Am explosion, of an impending attack of similar nature.
Figuring high in the reports was a German police raid of a Frankfurt apartment where several men said to have been PFLP-GC members were staying. The raid yielded several weapons, and, most significantly, a Toshiba radio cassette player rigged with a bomb similar to the one that blasted Flight 103 over Lockerbie.
The Palestinians detained during the raid were freed shortly thereafter.
The presence in Malta of the PFLP—GC'S Abu Talb, who is now serving term in Sweden on unrelated charges, at the time of the purchase of the clothes used to wrap the Pan Am bomb and the shopkeeper's description of Abu Talb as the buyer is seen as another strong nail in the prosecution's case.
If there was enough ground to warrant an investigation whether PFLP-GC — and by implication Syria and Iran — were involved in the blast, why did the US move away from that direction?
Explanations provided by Western media include a theory that the US wanted to "neutralise" Iran in the crisis triggered by the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and "secure Syrian support" for the US-led coalition against Iraq. It meant excluding the two countries from the investigations.
Other theories raised in connection with the bombing involved a covert CIA operation involving druglords in Lebanon whose help the US wanted in order to secure the release of American hostages in Lebanon. This involved allowing drugs to allowed aboard US-bound airplanes without inspection — something the CIA could do with its connections in Europe, says one theory, which is partially supported by the findings of an investigation carried by a private agency hired by Pan Am.
According to the theory, the CIA believed the suspect suitcase contained drugs and allowed its passage through Frankfurt onto the Pan Am flight. Somewhere along the line, somone switched the suitcase with one containing the bomb. It could have been the PFLP-GC or another group with links to the druglords and this group might have been seeking to eliminate the CIA station chief in Beirut, Charles McKee, who was aboard the same flight.
Closely linked to this theory is another which says that CIA agents knew that the suitcase contained explosives and that McKee was the target but they allowed the blast to take place before the CIA station chief was headed for home with a complaint against them that could have led not only to their dismissal from service but prosecution in the US.
"The inference was obvious - Pan Am 103 was sacrificed by the intelligence community to get rid of Major McKee," according to a detailed report carried by the British Guardian newspaper after extensive investigations.
A local farmer from Lockerbie has reported finding a suitcase containing cellophane packets containing white powder among the debris in his fields, but the suitcase was taken away and no explanation was given. It was also discovered that the name the farmer saw on the suitcase did not correspond with any of the names on the passenger list of the crashed plane.

Unanswered Lockerbie questions

PV Vivekanand

This is an intriguing story that was never presented
in this format. The uninformed part of the world is
now convinced that Libya was behind the 1998 PanAm
bombing after Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi agreed to
pay compensation and accepted responsibility (but not
guilt -- there is a big distinction under
international terms between "responsibility" and
"guilt."). But many in the Arab World, and indeed the
international community, continue to believe that was
much more than met the eye in the episode. The answers
to the very valid questions raised by the sceptics
might never be answered. I am not suggesting Libya was
not behind the blast, but that there have been equally
strong indicators to show someone else was behind the
attack.
This report is about 2,200 words. Perhaps, in my
humble suggestion, it could be split into two or three
and run on consecutive days.
In any event, I leave it entirely to your decision
whether to use it at all..
Thanks and best regards


by pv vivekanand


THE LIBYAN agreement to pay £2.7 billion in
compensation and implicit acceptance of responsibility
for the 1998 bombing of an American airliner that
killed 270 people might close the diplomatic file and
rehabilate Libya into the international circuit, but
many questions remain unanswered.
Libyan leader Muammar Qadhafi's acceptance of
responsibility and compensation payment was a
prerequisite in ending the UN and US sanctions imposed
against his country in 1990 when he refused to hand
over two Libyans suspected of having carried out the
bombing of PanAm Flight 103 over the Scottish town of
Lockerbie.
However, this does not imply acceptance of guilt since
without accepting responsibility and paying
compensation, Libya would have remained under the
sanctions and diplomatically isolated.
Libya, which has been suffering from the sanctions,
need foreign investments and technology to develop its
untapped oil reserves and therefore it was incumbent
upon Qadhafi to end the sanctions through whatever
means.
Now it is expected that at least four US oil companies
would return to Libya and resume their operations and
Libya would also be removed from a US list of
countries supporting "terrorism."
That is too strategic a prize for Qadhafi to let go.
However, the file remains open without the question
satisactorily answered who was behind the bombing of
the American airliner.
Even European experts and analysts have said that the
trial of two Libyans in 1999 after Qadhafi handed them
over to a special Scottish court set up in Camp Zeist
in the Netherlands was flawed. The trial led to one of
the Libyans sentenced to life in a Scottish prison and
the other being cleared of all charges.
Notwithstanding the trial and last month's Libyan
agreement to accept responsibility and pay damages,
many argue that doubts remain open whether Libya was
behind the bombing.
Several other theories remain as strong as the one
that the Panam blast was in revenge for a 1985
American bombing of the Libyan cities of Tripoli and
Bengazhi that killed five people, including Qadhafi's
adopted daughter of four years.
That bombing was ordered by the then president Ronald
Reagan as punitive measure against Libya for having
allegedly ordered a blast at a Berlin disco frequented
by American servicemen. A woman died in that blast.
But the alleged Libyan connection to the Pan Am
bombing is only one of the many theories that were
raised at the very outset of investigations into the
crash. These theories varyingly pointed the accusing
fingers at Iran, Syria, Libya, the Lebanese drug
underworld, and even the CIA and Eastern Europe.
Every theory appeared to be as strong as any, and a
widely-held argument in the Middle East was Libya was
the scapegoat in the case and the notorious Israeli
secret service, Mossad, helped fabricate the case
against Tripoli.
Indeed, the initial investigation into to the PanAm
blast brought out those theories. These include:
-- The bombing was Iranian revenge for the downing of
an Iranian passenger airline in the Gulf by an
American warship at the height of the Iran-Iraq war in
the mid-80s.
-- The blast was the work of fearful Central
Intelligence Agents (CIA) involved in illegal
activities or masterminded by anti-American elements
who penetrated a CIA-endorsed drug running operation;
-- The blast had nothing to do with the Middle East or
Libya since the target of the bombing was two Eastern
European politicians who were travelling to Washington
for talks on former Yugoslavia and that had their
talks been successful the course of events in that
country would have been totally different today.
Surprisingly, the US investigators shut off all other
investigations and focused on Libya instead without
explaining why others were eliminated as suspects.
It is believed that Iran was conveniently removed as a
potential suspect because taking on Tehran would have
been too heavy for the US at that point. Washington
was also seeking to pacify the Iranians after having
extended support to Iraq during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq
war.
Syria, which supported the US in the 1991 war that
ended Iraqi occupation of Kuwait, was off the hook
since Washington needed Damascus to enter the Middle
East peace process launched in late 1991.
All other non-Libya theories about the bombing would
have dented what the US saw as an opportunity to have
a stranglehold on Qadhafi's Libya, one of the most
vociferous critics of US policy in Africa and the
Middle East.
A careful scrutiny of the trial held at Camp Zeist
indicated major loopholes in the prosecution case and
it was surprising that the court found it fit to
approve the evidence.
The key piece of evidence introduced during the Camp
Zeist trial was a tiny piece of a timer that
allegedly helped detonate explosives in the suitcase
aboard Pan Am Flight 103. The timer was rigged into a
Toshiba cassette player and the fragment was found in
part of the wreckage of the airliner in Lockerbie.
That timer, according to the prosecutor, was
manufactured and supplied to Libya by a small
electronics company called MEBO based in Zurich,
Switzerland.
But a company official told the court that similar
timers were supplied to several parties, including the
Stasi secret service of former East Germany.
Experts have questioned how the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) reached the conclusion that the
fragment came from the MEBO timers supplied to Libya
because of some fundamental differences in the
construction of the devices bought by Libya and those
sold by MEBO to others.
Also challenged in court was the record of misguided
conclusions and lack of scientific qualifications of
an FBI operative who "established" the alleged link
between the timer and Libya.
Edwin Bollier, head of MEBO, said that the fragment
could have come from one of two timers he had sold to
Stasi. He also reported the theft of blueprints for
the timer from his office and affirms that whoever had
those blueprints could have manufactured a similar
timer.
The Stasi connection opened up another avenue.
A Syrian-based group, the Popular Front for the
Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC),
which was among the first suspects named by US
authorities in the case but dropped eventually despite
other circumstantial evidence, did have close links
with the Stasi and could have obtained the MEBO timer
from the East Germans.
Also challenged was the testimony of a former Libyan
intelligence that he had seen the two Libyans who were
put on trial in Camp Zeist at Malta airport on the day
of the explosion.
The testimony was challenged on grounds that he has a
vested interest in lying because he was living under a
witness protection program in the US and stood to be
rewarded by up to $4 million from the US government.
Initial reports citing US intelligence sources said
the PFLP-GC could have carried out the bombing on
behalf of Iran, which was seeking revenge for the
shooting down of an Iranian plane with 290 passengers
aboard by an American warship, USS Vinceness, in the
Gulf at the height of the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war.
PFLP-GC leader Ahmed Jibril, a Syrian colonel, was
named as having personally undertaken the alleged
"contract" to bomb an American passenger plane in
Europe several months before the Pan Am attack.
Reports spoke of warnings emanating from Finland and
several other European countries, months before the
Pan Am explosion, of an impending attack of similar
nature.
Figuring high in the reports was a German police raid
of a Frankfurt apartment where several men said to
have been PFLP-GC members were staying. The raid
yielded several weapons, and, most significantly, a
Toshiba radio cassette player rigged with a bomb
similar to the one that blasted Flight 103 over
Lockerbie.
The Palestinians detained during the raid were freed
shortly thereafter.
The prosecution was not seen to have proved
conclusively that the suitcase containing the bomb was
indeed loaded to an Air Malta plane at Valetta airport
which was automatically moved to London's Heathrow
from Frankfurt because it had a "through to New York"
baggage tag. As long as that was not proved, the
Libyan connection should have been dropped altogether.
A key the PFLP—GC activist was present in Malta at
the time of the purchase of the clothes used to wrap
the Pan Am bomb and the shopkeeper's description of
the buyer was seen as another strong nail in the
prosecution's case.
If there was enough ground to warrant an investigation
whether PFLP-GC — and by implication Syria and Iran —
were involved in the blast, why did the US move away
from that direction?
Explanations a theory that the US wanted to
"neutralize" Iran in the crisis triggered by the Iraqi
invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and "secure Syrian support"
for the US-led coalition against Iraq. It meant
excluding the two countries from the investigations.
Other theories raised in connection with the bombing
involved a covert CIA operation involving drug lords
in Lebanon whose help the US wanted in order to secure
the release of American hostages in that country. This
involved allowing drugs to allowed aboard US-bound
airplanes without inspection — something the CIA could
do with its connections in Europe, said one theory,
which was partially supported by the findings of an
investigation carried by a private agency hired by Pan
Am.
According to the theory, the CIA believed the suspect
suitcase contained drugs linked to the Lebanon
undercover operation and allowed its passage through
Frankfurt onto the Pan Am flight. Somewhere along the
line, someone switched the suitcase with one
containing the bomb. It could have been the PFLP-GC or
another group with links to the drug lords and this
group might have been seeking to eliminate the CIA
station chief in Beirut, Charles McKee, who was aboard
the same flight.
Closely linked to this theory is another which says
that CIA agents knew that the suitcase contained
explosives and that McKee was the target but they
allowed the blast to take place since the CIA station
chief was headed for home with a complaint against
them that could have led not only to their dismissal
from service but prosecution in the US.
"The inference was obvious - Pan Am 103 was
sacrificed by the intelligence community to get rid
of Major McKee," according to a detailed report
carried by the British Guardian newspaper after
extensive investigations.
A local farmer from Lockerbie, where the exploded
pieces of the plane landed, had reported finding a
suitcase containing cellophane packets containing
white powder among the debris in his fields, but the
suitcase was taken away and no explanation was given.
It was also discovered that the name the farmer saw on
the suitcase did not correspond with any of the names
on the passenger list of the crashed plane.
"There have been many ambiguities in the case from the
very beginning, and they have not been cleared by the
trial...," says James Weatherby, a British lawyer.
Weatherby cited the "many suggestions and reports
indicating other groups or government(s) had the
motive to carry out the attack and could have been
behind those who planted the bomb" as one of the
reasons for scepticism.
"The prosecution swept off all that under the carpet
and zeroed in on Libya," he said.
The Libyan who was sentenced after the one-year trial
appealed the verdict after fresh evidence emerged that
the rigged suitcase could have been planted by those
who broke into a Heathrow cargo bay.
The defence lawyers produced two witnesses, a security
guard and his supervisor who were on duty at that
time, who testified in court that there was a break-in
at the cargo bay some 16 hours before the flight took
off, that those who broken in had access to genuine
Pan Am baggage tags and could have stashed the
suitcase among the baggage lined up to be placed
aboard Pan Am 103.
Every theory is feasible and every piece of evidence
is as strong as the other.
As a British expert put it, the trial was a "process
intended for public consumption was played out
frontstage while thick curtains sealed off real drama
for no one to see."
And indeed, the world might never know who blasted
Flight 103 out of the skies.




___________________________

Galloway targeted

NOTES: George Galloway, a British MP, is a known
sympathiser with Saddam Hussein. He has visited
Baghdad several times and has met with Saddam and
other Iraqi leaders. He opposed the war. He is very
outspoken. He led several anti-war rallies in London.
He was a communist in Scotland before he embraced the
Labour party in the 70s and rose through the ranks to
become an MP from Glasgow, Scotland. He is known for
his support for the Palestinians and other Arab causes
and in fact these positions have given him respect
among liberal Britons. Therefore, the ongoing campaign
against him is widely seen as retribution by his
pro-Israeli defractors.


by pv vivekanand

BRITISH MP George Galloway is fnding himself under
attack from several quarters for his refusal to
endorse the US-British war against Iraq. He might even
face charges of treachery in a court of law for having
"incited" British soldiers against obeying orders to
fight in Iraq.
What is not said in public but what the waves say is
simple: Galloway took his case against war on Iraq
took too far and insulted and humiliated his Labour
party boss and Prime Minister Tony Blair and his
colleagues. And now the Blair camp is itching to get
back at him through whatever means available.
Blair has the option to take party disciplinary action
against Galloway, but he seems to have opted not to do
so if only because it might have a negative bearing on
him as a vindictive man.
The charges, formal and informal, from his pro-Blair
Labour Party members and the media, include:
-- He stepped beyond party lines when he commented
during an interview with Abu Dhabi Television that
Blair and George Bush were "wolves" and urged British
soldiers not to obey "illegal" orders to wage war
against Iraq.
-- His urging to the soldiers could be construed as
treachery under a 1934 act, and that is being touted
by a private group of lawyers representing British
service personnel to file a private case against him.
The Crown Prosecution Service has declined to wage its
own case but has cleared the lawyers' bid to sue
Galloway, an MP from Glasgow long known for his
involvement with Middle Eastern affairs and as a
friend of Saddam Hussein.
-- Galloway is accused of taking money from Saddam -
£375,000 a year -- by the Telegraph newspaper.
Galloway has denied the charge and is suing the paper,
but the paper says it has found documents that suggest
that its report is accurate. It is ready for a fight
with Galloway.
-- Galloway is accused of "misusing" funds he
collected for the Mariam Appeal to fund medical
treatment of Iraqi victims of the UN sanctions against
Iraq. Gallowway has again challenged the charge, but
the attorney general's office has launched an
investigation into the charges.
-- Galloway is accused of having indirectly a member
of the Al Qaeda group who is suspected of having
played a role in plotting bombings against US
embassies in Africa.
That charge stemmed from a visit he paid to Morocco in
1996 in order to explore a possible deal between the
Saudi government and London-based Saudi dissidents of
the Committee for the Defence of Legitimate Rights.
Galloway has admitted in parliament that Saudi
dissident Saad Al Fagih paid for the trip. Later it
was found that Fayigh bought a satellite phone on
behalf of Fagih for Khaled Al Fawwaz, another Saudi
dissident. Fawwaz is currently held in a British
prison fighting a US effort to get him extradited to
stand trial in an American court.
-- The satellite phone bought by Fayigh was shipped to
Mohammed Atta and was used in plotting for the August
1998 bombings of the US embassies in Tanzania and
Kenya, says the Observer newspaper.
Mohammed Atta, according to the CIA, headed the group
of suicide hijackers in the Sept.11, 2001 attacks in
New York and Washington after having plotted the
bombings in Africa in 1998.
However, there is no insinuation that Galloway had any
knowledge of Al Qaeda activities or he had known Osama
Bin Laden at any point.
Galloway, who describes the accusation that he
collected money from
Saddam Hussein as a "lie of fantastic proportions."
has called that the
investigation into the Mariam Appeal resembled a
"witch hunt."
Galloway has always been involved in Middle Eastern
affairs. It was
that involvement which propelled him into the
forefront of leftist
politics in the UK since the 1970s.
Galloway is not fazed by the "incitement charge."
'I hope to have chiselled on my gravestone: 'He
incited them to disaffect'," he says.
"The people who have betrayed this country are those
who have sold it
to a foreign power and who have been the miserable
surrogates of a
bigger power for reasons very few people in Britain
can understand," said
Galloway,
The investigation into the Mariam Appeal funds is
implicitly linked to
charges that Galloway collected money from Saddam
Hussein.
In a response to Lord Goldsmith, the attorney general,
Galloway said:
"Given your, to many, extraordinary decision to
declare the war on Iraq
legal, despite the opinions of the UN secretary
general and
international law experts around the world, it would
be perverse for you to now declare my anti-war work
illegal under British law."
The Telegraph, which levelled the charge that Galloway
took money from
Saddam, says it stands by its report. Furthermore, it
also followed up
the first report by alleging that Saddam tried to
protect the MP from
the potential scandal of being linked to the Iraqi
secret service, the
Mukhabarat.
It says that it had found documents in Iraq suggesting
that Galloway
was given a percentage of Iraqi oil sales -- worth
about £375,000 a year
through the oil-for-food programme.
The Telegraphs says that would "look forward" to a
legal battle with
Galloway.
In yet another charge, another British paper reported
finding the copy of a letter written in 1998 by the
then foreign secretary, Robin Cook. to Galloway
refusing Galloway's allegation that four members of
the UN weapon inspectors in Iraq were Israeli spies.
The copy of the letter, which was found in the
post-war ruins of the foreign ministry building in
Baghdad last week, was allegedly sent by the head of
the Iraqi interest section in London to the deputy
foreign minister. While it was not classified as a
confidential document, the "clinch," says the
newspaper, was that the iraqi diplomat's covering note
to the deputy minister was dated four days after the
date it was sent by Cook to Galloway. It showed
Galloway's collusion with the Iraqi regime throughout,
the newspaper suggested.

Aziz kept out of info

By PV Vivekanand

“What do you mean Yvegny, you need an answer from the
President in 24 hours? It’d take me 48 hours to reach
my president.” These were the words of Tareq Aziz, who
was then foreign minister of Iraq, to Yvegny Primakov,
then a noted Russian journalist, who was on an urgent
mission to Baghdad in late 1990.
He was carrying a message from the then Russian president, Mikhail
Gorbachev, to Saddam Hussein offering a last-minute proposal to avert war over Kuwait.
He wanted a quick response to the offer in order to meet a deadline set
by George Bush senior as a special consideration for Gorbachev.
Aziz did reach Saddam in less than 24 hours and Primakov got his reply in 36 hours: Thanks but no thanks, Iraq would not withdraw from Kuwait.
Well, today the US forces Iraq have Aziz, 67,
under custody and are interrogating him on details of
the toppled Saddam regime’s machinations. Some even
venture to say that Aziz could even provide details
of Saddam’s whereabouts if the toppled leader is alive
or at least give a clear idea about his last movement.
That might indeed be possible. But the interrogators
would stand as much chance in gaining information from
Aziz on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction as
one could extract water from steel.
It is not because Aziz would or could withstand third
degree methods or he is determined not to reveal the
details. It is simply because he might not have any
such information. It is a safe bet that he would not
have known whether Saddam had any weapons of mass
destruction or, even if he did now, their nature, let
alone their alleged storage sites.
It might sound strange that someone who was seen as
close to Saddam as anyone have no idea about the
so-called weapons of mass destruction and does not
know where they are (allegedly) hidden.
That is where what Aziz told Primakov become relevant:
Although Aziz was part of Saddam’s inner circle, he
was informed of the regime’s actions only on a
need-to-know basis.
The reality, according highly informed sources, is that Saddam made sure Aziz never knew anything about the regime’s strategy on its weapons of
mass destruction or anything that could potentially be
extracted from the man, who was deputy prime minister
at the time of the latest US-led war toppled Saddam..
The reason: Saddam did not want to take the chance
that Aziz could be, at some point during his frequent
travels as his diplomatic pointman, coerced into
talking.
“We always knew that Aziz was told as little as
possible – not because Saddam did not trust him but
because Saddam believed in the adage ‘what the mind
does not know the tongue could not tell’,” says a
highly informed intelligence source. “Saddam did not
even discount the possibility that Aziz could even be
induced to part with whatever information he had
through use of truth serums and the like.”
Aziz was one of the most travelled Saddam aides and,
as far as Saddam was concerned, the minister always
carried the risk of being kidnapped by US agents or
even prompted to reveal what he knew without him being
aware of it (through use of truth serum or through any
of the many methods that does not involve the use of
force or torture). All the CIA might have wanted with
him was a few hours.
As such, Saddam never took the risk of even allowing
Aziz to know of his secret bunkers or his personal
security arrangements. And this was accepted by Aziz
if only because it placed him above suspicion of
having ever revealed anything to anyone.
During some personal moments during his frequent
visits to Amman after the 1991 war, Aziz had indicated
that he was often summoned to meetings with Saddam at
short notice, and was even blindfolded when Saddam’s
security men drive him to the president’s presence.
Again, Aziz welcomed the precautions because Saddam or
his people could not accuse him of having disclosed
the whereabouts of the president if only because he
did not know.
Of course, Aziz could reveal a lot about
how the regime worked and what role each of the Saddam
aides played. But he would know very little about
Saddam’s security arrangements with any accuracy. He
could provide clues but even that could be of little
help.
As such, it is definitely a myth that the US would be
able to secure from Aziz details of the locations
where Saddam hid his alleged stockpile of weapons of
mass destruction – if indeed the American claims have
any grain of truth that Iraq did have such weapons in
the first place.

Where are Saddam's billions?

by pv vivekanand

International investigators and intelligence agents have yet to come up with the so-called Saddam billions -- bank accounts and assets of Saddam Hussein outside Iraq -- and they could now conveniently argue that the funds would n ever be found.
It was claimed by the US government that Saddam and his sons systematically stashed away a part of the country's income from oil exports; however, from 1990, when the US ordered a freeze on all Iraqi assets and bank accounts of Iraqi leaders, no one has been able to come up with substantiated evidence of such funds.
Some reports have said that Saddam, his sons and some of the close Saddam associates in Baghdad had received kickbacks on oil sales and arms purchases since the 70s and maintained accounts in secretive Switzerland, Germany and other European countries.
It was known among Jordanian businessmen and commodity brokers that Saddam's eldest son Uday, who maintained an office in Amman, Jordan, used to demand up to five per cent of all imports into the country chanelled through the various state organisations. For those who wanted Uday's help in finalising deals and clearing up banking snitches since 1991 had to deal with the manager of the Amman office.
The channel was suddenly closed down in 1996 when the manager, who had served as a senior official of Iraq's Rafidian Bank, "disappeared" with an unspecified amount he had collected as Uday's "commission" for nearly one year.
There had been many estimates of the "Saddam fortunes" -- from $30 billion to $6 billion -- but it has baffled observers that none of these claims was ever proved out, leading some to believe that the toppled Iraqi president never maintained an account outside his country. Some reports argued that Saddam, his sons and associates had hidden the funds in a secret network of offshore bank accounts, front companies and other investments in Europe and elsewhere.
But it is strange that the best efforts of the US government and private investigators never succeeded in unearthing the "billions."
In 1991, unidentified US officials said investigators had identified "dozens" of accounts held in "proxy" names by Saddam and others, but details of such accounts were never released. About $5 billion worth of Iraqi assets were indeed ever frozen, including holdings in America, Britain, Switzerland, France, Luxembourg and Austria.
These included classic cars -- Uday was known for his fascination for expensive cars, particularly sports vehicles -- and an 8.4 per cent stake in Hachette, the French company that publishes Elle. But nothing further was heard of these seized assets after the UN asked for an accounting with a view of taking them over under a Security Council resolution.
If one were to go by Saddam's public statements about Arab economies and petro-dollars, it is difficult to believe that he would maintain foreign bank accounts or investments in the West.
Saddam's two sons-in-law who had defected to Jordan in 1995 and went back after six months and promptly got killed were reported to have brought with them and transferred from abroad some $30 million which was deposited in Jordanian banks. A behind-the-scene dispute developed over that amount after they were killed and their wives filed claims, but the bank concerned said later that it settled the dispute "amicably." That money was supposed to have represented part of wha the sons-in-law had siphoned off from funds allocated for the country's military programmes. One of the sons-in-law was head of the Iraqi Military Industrialisation Commission.
Following the 1991 war, the government of Kuwait hired the New York-based detective agency, Kroll, to trace assets held by the Iraqi government, Saddam Hussein, his family members and other Iraqi leaders. Kroll had come up with the $5 billion figure, but it was never made clear whether these were held in Saddam's name or represented the worth of the country's holdings abroad.
Some accounts say that Saddam's half-brother, Barzan Al Tikriti who served as Iraq's ambassador to the UN's European headquarters in Geneva, used to manage Saddam's money. At the same time, sceptics say, Barzan, who was reportedly killed in an American attack on his residence in Ramadi in Iraq last week, was handling Iraq's arms purchases from Europe during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war and that no significant deals were made after the 1991 war.
According to a report compiled in 2001 by Kroll, a Swiis-based Iraqi who had a European passport, Hassam Rassam, was the pointman in channelling funds for Saddam's family. Again, it remains unclear whether he was questioned at any point. Asked by the media in 1992 whether he was Saddam's banker, Rassam replied "I only hope it was so..."
The massive looting of presidential palaces and other buildings in Baghdad following the apparent fall of the Saddam regime has given rise to assumptions that the "hidden" Saddam billions would never be traced, if only beause the looters threw away "sensitive" papers that might have offered clues to the investigators.
The post-war regime might launch a fresh hunt, and Kroll might be given the job. However, it is highly unlikely that anyone would be able to unearth the "pot of gold" -- if indeed there was one.

Khoei killed.... as implied

pv vivekanand



THE MURDER of a US-British backed Iraqi Shiite
religious leader, Sayyed Abdul Majid Al Khoei, in
Najaf in central Iraq is only the tip of an iceberg in
the Shiite heartland of the shattered country.
At play in the equation are American/British desire
have their own man in charges of Shiite areas in
southern Iraq with a view to having influence over the
people there, the quest of Iranian-supported Iraqi
Shiites to set up a power base there, and Tehran's
wishes to have an Iran-friendly Shiite clergyman to
take charge of Shiite affairs in Iraq. Add to the
bargain the sentiments of the Shiite residents of
southern Iraq.
The killing of Khoei and Haider Kelidar, a caretaker
of shrines in Najaf, and several others at the city's
holiest Shi'ite shrine, Imam Ali Mosque, should not
have been a surprise, given the deep
religious/political currents in the area.
The two and another four were said to have been killed
by a mob in disputed circumstances. Some said the mob
targeted Kelidar for his alleged association with the
toppled Saddam Hussein regime and Khoei, who surfaced
in Najaf last week after more than a decade of life in
exile in London, just happened to be caught in the
crossfire.
Other accounts said Khoei was killed because of
suspicion that he was the man to be installed at the
head of a proposed US-British-backed committee that
would take charge of the Shiite shrines in Najaf.
Khoei had called for Shiite co-operation with the
United States and his appearance in Najaf signalled a
US attempt to promote a "pro-American" current among
Iraq's majority Shiite community as the regime
collapsed.
Khoei was airlifted to Najaf by the coalition forces.
Khoei was the son of Ayatollah Sayyid Abdul Qasim
Musawi Al Khoei, who died in 1992 while under house
arrest since the Baghdad regime crushed a Shi'ite
uprising in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War.
Khoei fled the area to Iran and left for London, where
he assumed charge of the wealthy Al Khoei Foundation
set up by his father.
He also acquired American nationality.
The foundation has blamed "agents of the dictatorial
regime now on its deathbed in Iraq" of being behind
his killing, but it does not seem likely that the
claim could be true.
At the same time, other exile leaders say that Khoei's
killers were angry people who were frustrated from
occupation forces and that exiled opposition members
should not return to Iraq alongside the occupation
forces because they are not going to be welcomed and
will be associated with the invaders.
The Iranian government has condemned the killing, but
it could not be ruled out that hard-line elements in
the country's powerful religious establishment would
have had an indirect role in the killing if only to
pre-empt the pro-Western Khoei being elevated as the
most important Shiite leader in southern Iraq.
The Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq
(SCIRI), the Tehran backed Iraqi Shiite dissident
group, is also seeking to strengthen its influence
among its constituents in southern Iraq. The group,
led by Ayatollah Mohammed Baqer Hakim. could have
deemed Khoei an obstacle to its designs.
Hakim has not revealed his designs in Iraq, but it is
not unfathomable that he would want to have the final
say in Shiite affairs throughout Iraq.
Given the Iranian backing for SCIRI, the US might not
want Hakim to assume that role either.
Prominent among the Shiite residents of Najaf is a
local group led by
Mohammed Baqer Al Sadr, who appears to have his own
plans for the holy city that might run counter the
American and SCIRI plans,
It was reported that the Sadr group wanted to kill the
Saddam-installed caretaker and Khoei pulled a gun and
fired one or two shots. Both men were then rushed by
the crowd and hacked to death with swords and knives,
said the reports.
Khoei, who also in charge of the moderate London-based
Shiite Parliament of Iraq and attended a December 2002
conference in London of the main Iraqi exile
opposition figures, opposed other members of the
Shiite movement, including his father's successor,
Grand Ayatollah Ali Husseini Sistani.
Sistani, who was kept under house arrest until US-led
forces took the city, refused to welcome them,
instead calling for Shiites to remain neutral.
In any event, the killings brought to the surface a
fact the US should have known: It could not afford to
make a false step with the Iraqi Shiites.

Saddam's options...

by pv vivekanand

LIVING UP TO his own promise, Saddam Hussein has brought in American soldiers into urban warfare in Baghdad, who were on Monday facing stiff resistance from his Republican Guards, Feyadeen militia and Baathist party loyalists, but his options remained unclear except that his strategy appeared to be eventually engaging the allied forces in guerrilla warfare.
It is subject to speculation where he could be based in guiding the guerrilla warfare if the ongoing urban warfare fails to result in massive American casualties that Saddam obviously hopes might prompt his nemesis George W Bush to stop in his tracks and reconsider his course. An unlikely scenario indeed, given the way the war has unfolded itself.
Reports from the southern city of Basra that one of his closest aides and cousins, Ali Hassan Al Majid, a former defence minister, had died in a British attack on his home there might have dealt Saddam a blow. But then, the president could not have but known that he was sending Majid to certain death when he assigned the former defence minister to defend the Basra area, one of the four military zones that he carved out before the war started.
Despite reports in the British press that the president had fled the capital to the north, all indications were that he remained very much in Baghdad. That is the kind of person that Saddam is, judging from his track record. He is not the type to cut and run and go down in history as a man who engaged only in rhetoric and let himself down in the final moment.
A man who wanted to etch himself in the history of his country by engraving his name in every brick of many buildings in Baghdad, Saddam would want to be known as a man who fought to his last and went down fighting and not cowering before invaders.
Saddam, 66, is a proud man and it is highly unlikely that he would abandon Baghdad and thus signal defeat to his people since his very bet to counter the US forces is his people.
Sources close to Saddam have always maintained that he had reserved "the last bullet for himself" if capture became inevitable. Repeated hints and suggestions by US officers, and backed by the media, that he was killed or wounded have been proved wrong by his public appearance and television messages.
The hypothesis that he had moved to Mosul in the north does not hold much water since tens of thousands of Kurdish fighters backed by American airpower and a small US contingent are pushing towards that town from the north. At the same time, there is also a school of thought that says he could opt to make his "last stand" in Mosul instead of Baghdad.
That thought is based on the loose argument that if the Iraqi Kurds led the march on Mosul and Kirkuk, the major oil centre in the north, then Turkey might intervene to block them for considerations of its own.
But then, the US could opt to block the Kurds from taking over Mosul and Kirkuk by inserting its own forces on the front-line and thus pacify the Turks.
From the very outset of the war that began on March 20, Saddam and his close aides, including his deputy Taha Yassin Ramadan, Deputy Prime Minister Tareq Aziz and Information Minister Mohammed Saed Al Sahhaf, have maintained the invading forces would meet their graves in Baghdad.
On Monday, several hours into an assault launched by the American forces, Iraqi fighters were bunkered down to fighting the invaders in several parts of the capital while US officers claimed advances. They said they had taken two presidential palaces and were closing in on the information ministry and the famous Al Rasheed Hotel.
As those claims were made, Sahhaf made a dramatic appearance at Baghdad's Palestine Hotel, where most foreign journalists are located, and categorically rejected all American assertions. He said Iraqi defenders had taught a "lesson" to the "mercenaries" and had massacred many American soldiers.
The US leaders in Washington have sent their soldiers on "suicide missions" to Baghdad, he declared.
"As our leader Saddam Hussein said, God is grilling their stomachs in hell," said Sahhaf. "Fighting is continuing in the main battlefields. Baghdad is secured and fortified and Baghdadis are heroes."
That was like giving the Americans a triple dose of their own medicine, given that US spokesman had made tall claims in the initial days of the conflict and these claims were proved to be half-truths and propaganda strategies later on.
It remains to be seen how far Sahhaf and others like him could continue to send such messages to the outside world since their options are getting narrowed even in terms of physical space as the Americans fought their way into the heart of the capital.
As for Saddam himself, it seemed likely that he remained tucked away in secret at some place known only to those immediately around him. It could be anywhere.
Saddam learnt one lesson from the 1991 war when foreigners who built secret bunkers for him during the 80s provided the details and diagrams of those structures to the allied forces. As such, it is highly like that his own most trusted people have built new structures about which even members of his inner circle might not know about.
There have been "mysterious" disappearances of engineers and technicians over the past years in Iraq, and speculation is that they were eliminated once they accomplished the task of building secret bunkers for the president.
It was speculated that Saddam would cross the border to Syria and regroup there to wage a war of attrition against entrenched American forces in Iraq. Indeed, Syria is about all the only place he could opt for.
At the same time, Syria, mindful of American warnings and fearful of getting dragged into direct confrontation with the US, is unlikely to offer refuge to Saddam.
In view of the 1980-88 war he waged on Iran, a sanctuary endorsed by the Iranians is all but ruled out. His other neighbours are Jordan and Turkey, both in the American camp although not as combatants, and Saudi Arabia, which had secretly offered him refuge before the war began.
One thing is certain: He would not accept a refuge anywhere where he would not have the freedom of mounting resistance against the Americans in his country, and that leaves out opting for Bahrain, which said it would shelter the Iraqi leader if he were to abdicate in order to save his people the agony of war.
There was talk in Baghdad last week that Saddam was in touch with Russian leaders with a view to seeking refuge in Russia. Informed sources said the idea had surfaced in the Egyptian media, which is known for shots in the dark in the past.
As the day dragged on in Baghdad, the urban warfare that Saddam promised the invaders unfolded itself.
The main bridges that cross the Tigris River appear to be under the control of forces loyal to Saddam.
Two of the bridges across the Tigris which bisects the capital were destroyed on Sunday, denying the invaders their use. Other bridges were said to be under Iraqi control and it seemed almost certain that these would also be blown by the defenders when the going gets tough.
Again, that does not answer the key question among the Arabs at large today: Where and how exactly does Saddam plan to stage his promised slaughter of the invaders? Or was it just tough talk?

Deadly Khoei factor

by pv vivekanand

A BITTER feud is brewing behind the scenes between
allied forces on the one hand and Iran and
Iranian-backed Iraqi Shiites on the other over what is
emerging as a secret American plan to install
Washington's man in charges of religious affairs at
Shiite shrines in the occupied Iraqi towns of Najaf
and Karbala.
The feud adds to the rift in American-Iranian
relations and to apprehension in Tehran that the US is
seeking to marginalise Iran's strategic religious
interests in the area.
The US could not afford to make a false step with the
Shiites in the south and US commanders are obviously
been coached well. That explains why American officers
and soldiers went out of their way to point their gun
downwards and appeal to Iraqi Shiite crowds that they
were not hostile when they took over Najaf last week.
The crowds were so worked up believing that the
invaders would enter the holy mosque in Najaf that
they challenged the American soldiers and preventef
them from going near the mosque.
Another lesson for the Americans: The Shiites are a
different breed and would not be intimidated even by
military power when it comes to religious affairs and
this is a point they might remember if and when they
try to take on Iran -- the next in President George
Bush's "exis of evil."
The first sign of a secret American plan in southern
Iraq came when Sayyed Abdul Majid Al Khoei, son of
the late Ayatullah Al Uzma Sayyid Abul-Qasim Al Khoei,
appeared in Najaf last week.
Abdul Majid Al Khoei, who fled Iraq in 1991, was based
in London and runnng the affairs of the Khoei
Foundation. His return to Najaf amidst the war gave
immediate rise to suspicion that the US wanted him as
the supreme Shiite leader in Iraq.
Najaf, which lies about 150 kilometres south of
Baghdad and Karbala, which is located about 70
kilometres southwest of the Iraqi capital, have been
the scene of intense fighting between coalition troops
and Iraqi forces, are the holiest in Shiite Islam
after Mecca and Medina.
The Ali Bin Abu Talib Mosque in Najaf is deemed by the
Shiites as the ultimate seat of Shiite authority and
it is a dream of Shiites around the world to see a
grand ayatollah reign supreme there away from the
influence of all non-Shiite elements.
It was this desire that prompted Iran to take
advantage of the war chaos in 1991 to send up to
55,000 Iran-based Iraqi Shiites and elements from the
Iranian military across the border to Najaf with a
view to wrenching control of the holy city from the
Saddam regime. That attempt failed from Saddam struck
back, resulting in fierce clashes in Najaf and the
invaders expelled from the city.
As such, the sudden emergence of Abdul Majid Al Khoei,
who is known to be friendly with the US, has upset the
Iranians as well as the main Iraqi Shiite opposition
group, the Supreme Council of Islamic Revolution in
Iraq (SCIRI), which is backed by Iran.
The underlying fear is that the US, in view of the
SCIRI's close ties with Iran, is seeking to
marginalise the group and install its own man -- Khoei
-- in Najaf.
It was to SCIRI's fighting force, Badr Brigade, that
US Defence Secretary Donald Rusmsfled referred to when
he accused Iran of allowing Iraqi Shiite rebels to to
penetrate across the border into Iraq and create
troubles for the US-British force waging war to oust
Saddam Hussein.
SCIRI has little interest in what is happening in the
north of the country. It maintains a token presence of
some 1,000 fighters near the border in
Kurdish-controlled territory. That force is staying
put and is not part of the Kurdish-American advance
towards Baghdad from the north.
It is no accident that Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani,
former Iranian president and still an influential
figure in Iran, warned the US against causing any
damages to the Shiite shrines in southern Iraq.
"I am warning the White House and Britain: let not
your vanity or your fervor harm Shiite Islam's holy
sites because Shiites will never forgive you and
they, as well as God, will avenge it in due time," he
said on Friday.
The late Ayatullah Al Uzma Sayyid Abul-Qasim Al Khoei
was one of the most respected Shiite leaders. Known to
be one of the most benevolent and visionaries of
Shiite Islam, he established many welfare centres and
charity organisations whose services were not limited
to Shiites.
Abul-Qasim Al Khoei had been under constant pressure
from the Sunni-led Saddam regime to issue fatwas
favouring the government. In March 1991, following the
quelling of the Shiite revolt in south linked to the
failed attempt to seize Najaf, Abul Qasim Al Khoei was
forced to appear on television with Saddam and pay
tribute to the Iraqi strongman.
The Khoei Foundation says that he was being held under
house arrest -- for having resisted Saddam's demands
following the 1991 chaos -- when he died of a heart
attack in August 1992.
When Khoei died, some of his followers in Iran and
elsewhere accused the Saddam regime of having
engineered his death. They pointed out that the
government had cut telephone lines to his residence in
Kufa on the morning of his death. Later, it became
clear that the lines were cut after the ayalollah died
and the regime had wanted to pick its own time to
announce his demise.
At present, the Shiite religious leader in Najaf is
Grand Ayatollah Mirza Ali Sistani, whose official
title is "religious scientist at Scientific Haoza
(Religious Society) in Holy Najaf Province."
Sistani has denied a US military report that he had
issued a fatwa calling on the Shiites of the town
not to impede coalition military forces.
In fact, on April 1, Mirza Ali Sistani issued a fatwa
calling on "Muslims all over the world" to help Iraqis
in "a fierce battle against infidel followers who have
invaded our homeland".
As the only grand ayatollah of Iraq, Sistani, one of
the give grand ayatollahs alive today, is the most
senior cleric for Iraqi Shi'ites, who form 70 per cent
of ethnic Arabs in Iraq and about 55 per cent of
Iraq's population.
There is not much love lost between the Sunni regime
in Baghdad and the southern Shiites, but the Shiites,
taking a cue from Iranian stands, loathe the Americans
more than they do Saddam.
Contrary to the widespread belief that the Shiites
would opt to embrace Iran at the first given
opportunity, their track record shows that Saddam
managed to retain the loyalty of the Iraqi army, where
Shi'ite conscripts formed a majority during the
1980-88 war with Iran.
Saddam has offered much-publicised prayers at the
Shi'ite shrines in Najaf, Karbala and elsewhere. He
has even published his family tree, which supposedly
showed him to be a descendant of Imam Ali, a cousin
and a son-in-law of the Prophet Mohammed, entitling
him to the honorific of sayyid (lord or prince)
accorded to the male descendants of the Prophet
Mohammed. The authorities distributed millions of
copies of Sayyid Saddam Hussein's family tree to
emphasise his religious credentials.
Ali is revered by both Shi'ites and Sunnis. Shi'ites
regard him as the only legitimate caliph after the
Prophet Mohammed and Sunnis address him by the
honorific of caliph.
The Iran-backed Shiite opposition group has vowed that
Shiites of Iraq would stay out of the ongoing war to
topple Saddam "until they are certain that the Iraqi
regime's repressive machine has been annihilated."
From the very outset of the war, SCIRI leader Mohammed
Baqer Hakim urged Shiites to remain neutral, blaming
both the Americans and Saddam for the war.
Baghdad countered that call by putting on Iraq
Television Sistani and four other top Shiite clerics
at Najaf calling on Iraqis of all beliefs and ethnic
groups to unite in the defence of their country
against "the enemies of God and humanity."
Against tug-of-war comes the apparent American designs
to control Shiite power in southern Iraq.
According to a SCIRI official, if Washington "tries
to exclude us, we will see what our position will
be."However, "so far this is not the case," said the
official.
That might indeed be the case at this point in time.
But the US would soon find out it has opened not only
a Panadora's box which it won't be able to close but
also stirred a deadly hornest's nest if it tries to
tamper with the sentiments of the Shiites of southern
Iraq.





___________________________

'Battle for Baghdad'

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Hani Baghdad

MIsc







Following are the English versions of my writings in
Manorama. Very unfortunately, the translators have not
done justice to the central themes. It is being
explained to me as lack of knowledge of Mideastern
issues on the part of the translators.

pv vivekanand
The US-British war on Iraq has marked two weeks. A
massacre of civilians is in the offing when the
invaders come closer to Baghdad. Defenders of the
Iraqi capital are prepared. The US is sending massive
reinforcements for the decisive battle. In the
meantime, the stakes have gone up with US and Israeli
threats against Syria. To cap it all, strong signs
have emerged of how Israel is seeking to turn the
situation into its favour.
However, the danger lurks that US intelligence, with
help from Iraqi exiles, has already bribed senior
Iraqi generals and officers to desert at the most decisive moment.
PV Vivekanand writes


AS THE FRONTLINE SITUATION in the US-British war stood
on Thursday, the "battle for Baghdad" could begin in a
few days in the most crucial phase of the military
action aimed at toppling Saddam Hussein.
Both sides have affirmed that the military
confrontation for control of Baghdad is going to be
tough.
While the American and British forces were careful in
their assessment of the expected battle, the Iraqi
leadership appeared to be confident that their forces
would be able to inflict enough casualties on the
invading force in street battles in Baghdad to
persuade US President George W. Bush to call off the
war.
The Iraqi calculation seems to be rather simple:
Saddam could afford to absorb high casulaty rates
among Iraqi defenders of the capital while Bush and
his ally British Prime Minister Tony Blair would be
held accountable for every American and British life
lost in the war that does not have international
legitimacy.
At the very outset of the war, the war suffered a
setback. Turkey refused to allow the US to use Turkish
territory as a springboard for a "northern front"
against Baghdad.
The US-British expectations that the "oppressed
people" Iraq would welcome the invading forces with
open arms have been shattered, and along them one of
the central pillars of their strategy.
Another major setback is the mounting civilian
casualty. Again, that is going to figure prominently
in the battle for Baghdad.
Obviously, the Iraq's strategy is to inflict the
maximum casualties among the invading American and
British forces. The only hope, as seen from
Saddam's vantage point, is that massive American
casualties could, at some point, dissuade Bush.
However, Bush is as determined as Saddam and it is
highly unlikely that he would step back and put an end
to the war with his goal of regime change unachieved.
A withdrawal from Iraq is not at all in the cards.
The war would soon reach a point where Bush and his
military commanders would have to either open up
their big guns indiscriminately in the battle for
baghdad. They would be left with no option but to do
with because
they would not be able to trust anyone not to be a
suicide bomber.
Civilian casualties would be high, raising the tempo
in the international rejection of the war, and this is
one of the key cards that Saddam believes he has up
his sleeve.
The time element, according to the iraqi thinking, is
in its favour. as every day passes, pressure would
mount on Bush to finish the war or call it off, but
the US president would not be in a position to do call
the shots on the ground.
With natonalist fervour at its height in Iraq whipped
up by official rhetorics and pledges to turn Baghdad a
cemetery for the invaders, thousands are ready to
strap explosives around them or rig vehicles with
bombs and explode themselves and take as many American
and British soldiers with them.
Iraqi officials say that up to 6,000 people, both
Iraqis and other arabs, are waiting for orders to turn
themselves "martyr" for Iraq by staging suicide
attacks.
Waves of such attacks would come when the allied
forces get closer to their strategic prize - Baghdad
-- and would hit their peak when the siege of the
Iraqi capital is launched.
Under Saddam's strategy, every nook and corncer and
every building in the capital would be turned into a
trap for the American and British soldiers; Republican
Guard soldiers, regular army soldiers, Baathist party
militiamen, "suicide bombers" and Iraqis and Arab
volunteers would be posted in every building.
The challenge that the invaders would face is: how to
"take out" the military elements without causing
civilian casualties? Any hesitation would indeed be
exploited by the defending fighters and thus result in
American and British casualties. That is the core of
the Iraqi strategy. .
Saddam could not but be counting on the haste with
which the US withdrew from the UN peace-keeping force
in Somalia when 18 American soldiers were killed in
1993. Somalis downed the US helicopter soldiers were
flying on a mission and attacked other soldiers who
sent to rescue their comrades.
On the other end, Bush and his commanders seem to
hoping that they would not have to actually take
Baghdad in a conventional military sense because
theywould have to confront at least 50,000 Republican
Guards and an unknown number of Baathist Party
militiamen to contend with once they try to enter the
capital.
Hopes that Iraqis would rise up in revolt against the
regime and make it easy for the invaders to make a
beeline for Saddam and his inner circle are no longer
entertained.
The US is now adding more strength to the campaign.
Bush has ordered another 120,000 soldiers to join the
225,000 already in and around Iraq; and, if need be,
it would appear, Bush is ready to pour in more.
The US strategy at this point to move towards Baghdad
and stay put on the
ground and continue air assaults until the units are
reinforced for a direct confrontation.
In the meantime, US military commanders are hoping
that the "northern push" would reach the capital. As
of this week, there was not enough American soldiers
in the north, and there the US strategists seem to be
hoping to use the 80,000 plus Kurdish fighters to lead
the advance and use them as the US did with the
Northern Alliance in Afghanistan,
The Iraqi retreat from northern lines seems to be
aimed at luring the Kurdish forces into a military
trap, some reports say.
That strategy, if true, would prove out this week.

Reports from Baghdad so far indicate a systematic
destruction of every symbol of government and
suspected premises that help the Saddam Hussein
regime run the state and military apparata.
A major tragedy is in the waiting, local residents
say, when the allied bombs and missiles might miss
their target and crash into heavily populated areas.
In one attack, at least 55 people were killed last
week when two missiles crashed into a market area.
A death toll of 55 is just a scratch on the surface
when compared with the five million or more of the
population of Baghdad, where massive complexes house
thousands of families.
The fear is indeed true that a missile or a bomb
hitting any of the state-built housing complexes where
damage would not be limited to a single building.
Officials are putting up a brave face, as reports from
Baghdad indicate. "Historically Baghdad is known to
resilient and it has sprung back to its
feet everytime after it everyone thought it had become
part of history," said an official. That is a history
that dates back to the 7th century when an invading
force obliterated the city, which sprang back into
life in less than 20 to 30 years, according to history
books.
Hit so far in the war that began on March 20 are
presidential palaces, key government buildings
including those which used to host parliament and
cabinet meetings, offices used by senior figures like
the vice-president and deputy prime minister, several
ministries, and complexes used for military purposes
by Saddam's son Uday and Qussai as well as
headquarters of the elite Republican Guard have been
wrecked.
Sprawling compounds on the banks of the River Tigris
have been on the main targets of the attacks.
Several missiles and bombs have crashed into civilian
areas, resulting in the death of at least 80 people
and causing injuries to more than 300 in what the
allied forces had promised to be a "clean war with
minimum collateral damage."

THE US has dramatically increased the stakes in the
war by issuing an implied threat of military action
against Syria if it helped its Arab neighbour to
resist the American-British invading force.
Syria countered by declaring that it has chosen to
align itself with the people or Iraq.
Syrian President Bashar Al Assad also made scathing
comments against the US.
As far as these statements remain as a war of words,
the risk is minimal of Syria being targeted for
attack.
However, danger signals have started flashing after
Israel pitched in and warned Syria by reminding it of
Israel's military might.
Israeli Defence Minister Ahahul Mofaz has ratcheted
the tension by saying that Washington and Tel Aviv
viewed as very grave the wartime aid Damascus was
allegedly supplying to Baghdad.
Israel has has claimed that Iraq may be hiding
surface-to-surface missiles and chemical or biological
weapons in Syria.
Mofaz said Israel was monitoring statements made by
Syrian officials includingAssad that suggested that
peace with Israel was impossible.
"Bashar Assad has recently engaged in and expressed
himself in two spheres that in the view of the
Americans and in our view are very grave, " said
Mofaz.
"Israel's first concern is the very fact of their
(Syria's) granting physical aid to the Iraqis," he
said. "The second is his (Assad's) remark about
Israel, in which he says in essence that no peace
agreement can be reached with Israel," mofaz said.
"We must follow both his remarks and his actions in a
very, very thorough manner, " he added.
The writing was indeed on the wall that Syria could be
targeted when the US said last week that Russian
companies were supplying night goggles and
communication jamming gear to Iraq.
The implication was then clear that Russian firms
could have supplied such equipment to Syria while the
Moscow government kept a blind eye and Damascus could
have sent the gear to Iraq.
Given the rising unilateralism in American actions and
words as represented by President Bush and his aides
like Defence Secretary Donald Rumseld, it would
appear that Washington might be willing to take on
Syria -- and probably Iran at a later stage -- in what
many Arab commentators see as a grandoise plan to
reshape the entire Middle East to suit American and
Israeli interests, and not necessarily in that order
either.
While it does not appear that the US has any
intentions to widen the war, the natural course of the
bellicose approach would inevitably trigger
unexpected developments.
However, it is widely expected that the US would
switch its gunsights to Syria and Syrian-backed
Lebanese hardline groups like Hizbollah as well as
Palestinian factions based in Damascus after it "takes
care" of the Saddam regime in Baghdad.
Syria has rejected Rumsfeld's charges and described
them as prompted by America's "failures" in the ground
offensive in Iraq and the "blunders" it made in view
of the high civilian casualties in the war. However,
Damascus has very good reasons to remain on guard,
given the implicit Israeli threats.
Israel does indeed have a vested interest in military
action against Syria.
The Damascus-backed Palestinian groups -- Hamas,
Islamic Jihad, the Democratic Front for the Liberation
of Palestine, the Popular Front for the Liberation of
Palestine, Fateh Uprising -- a breakaway group from
Yasser Arafat's mainstream Fateh - the Arab Liberation
Front, and the Palestine Liberation Front among others
-- are a constant source of problems for Israel.
Israel has accused Syria of extending logistic and
tactical support for these groups to stage armed
attacks against Israeli targets and of encouraging
Hizbollah and other groups in Lebanon to keep the
tempo high across the Lebanese-Israeli border even
after Israel left southern Lebanese territory after a
disasterous 17-year occupation in 1999.
The Israeli argument is that Syria wants to keep a
front alive with the Jewish state so that the
outstanding dispute over Israel's occupation of
Syria's Golan Heights does not get pushed back in
regional priorities.
It has for long pressured the US to act against
Damascus.
With the tempo of war high in the region, the US
might be goaded into taking action against Syria in
order to serve Israeli interests.
And that is the danger to be see in Mofaz's comments.

In practical terms, the US, with the additional
120,000 soldiers ordered into the Middle East to store
up the war against Iraq in view of unexpected Iraqi
resistance, could be tempted to take on Syria.
The natural candidate to do the job on behalf of the
US is of course Israel, which is itching for action to
remove Syria as a military power in the equation and
thus do away with Syria's insistence that it return
the Golan Heights in its entirety.
Despite half-hearted overtures in the past that came
to nought, it is a foregone conclusion that Israel has
no intention whatsover of returning the Golan Heights
to Syria.
While the conventional argument is that the Heights
would give Syria a strategic military advantage, the
prime reason for Israel's refusal to retun it is the
very fact that it represents the main source for water
for the Jewish state. It has to be taken note here
that Israel's has an almost fanatic obsession with not
only securing its water sources but also seeking to
increase the quanity of water available to it.
In a wider context, it is not ruled out that the US
would and could call on Israel for help if the going
gets tough in the region.
There is an argument that the US might not favour
invovling Israel in a widened version of the war since
would lead to further strain in US-Arab relations,
However, such a consideration might not be key to any
decisions taken by the US, which has pulled all the
plugs in striving towards war against Iraq, including
dumping the UN Security Council and alienating many
European countries,
Waging a war on two fronts -- Iraq and Syria might
not appear feasible for the US at this point, it need
not be so. The US might simply assign Israel to "take
care of Syria" while it concentrates on Iraq.
If that happens, then the region would have to deal
with an unprecedented wave of Arab nationalism which
would only turn the situation worse and restrict all
diplomatic options.
The wild card in the game will be Iran, which would
step in if Syria is targeted. Rusmfeld accused Iran
of allowing Iraqi exiles opposed to the Saddam regime
were crossing the border into Iraq and this was
complicating the US war to topple Saddam Hussein.
What he stopped short of mentioning is the American
fear that the Iran-backed Iraqis might put up stiff
resistance to the US plans for post-war Iraq.
Both Syria and Iran appear in the American list of
countries that support "international terrorism" and
this would justify any action that Rumsfeld might
order against them. Iran has so far remained mostly
vocal in its barrage against Israel, but its backing
for the Palestinian struggle, training of Islamic
Jihad members, funding Hamas fighters, arming
Hizbollah with rockets is undeniable.
Israel fears Iranian military advances and its
nuclear programme would and would gladly welcome a
chance to have a go at Iran.
Overriding all these considerations are the emerging
signs of Israeli designs on Iraq's oil and water
wealth.
Israel has already issued a call for reopening
decades-old oil pipeline running from the northern
Iraqi city of Mosul to the Israeli port of Haifa on
the Mediterranean after the US-led war on Iraq ends.
Such are the strategic prizes sought by Israel from a
post-war Iraq that the call for Iraqi oil to be pumped
to Israel will be followed by another for a pipeline
to pump Iraqi water to Israel.
Seen against the obvious "invisible" US objective of
removing Iraq as a potential military threat against
Israel, there is little doubt that there could be
pre-determined plans to address the Jewish state's
various concerns, including its oil and water needs.
With the US in absolute control of Iraq, it would be
free to use Iraqi territory to convey water Israel
through Jordan, which has signed a peace treaty with
the Jewish state and has strong economic and trade
links with the US,
According to a report in Israel's Haaretz newspaper,
Israeli Infrastructure Minister Joseph Paritzky wants
to reopen the Mosul-Haifa pipeline so that Israel
could save the cost of importing expensive crude from
Russia.
The minister also expressed confidence that the US
administration, which hopes to take control of
post-war Iraq, would support the Israeli call.
Indeed, Paritzky's confidence comes from the deals
Israel appears to have already made with the US on
how to divide the spoils of the war against Iraq. No
doubt Iraqi oil and water figure high among them.
The Mosul-Haifa pipeline was built during the British
mandate over Palestine, and Iraq stopped pumping oil
through it when the state of Israel was created in
1948 when Haifa came under Israeli control.
Since the 60s, Israel was engaged in deceptive efforts
to arrange some deal under which the oil flow from
Mosul could be resumed. But Iraq, which stood firm
against recognising the Jewish state and backed the
Arab and Palestinian struggles to regain their
occupied land from Israel, steadfastly refused. It
switched pumping to the Mediterranean through a
pipeline to the Syria port of Latakia and to a Turkish
terminal in the Mediterranean.
Syria, which backed Iran during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq
war, closed the pipeline during the 1980s in response
to a request from Tehran. Iran had blocked Iraqi oil
exports through the Gulf during the war and wanted to
choke off Iraqi oil revenues.
During that period, Israel, obviously seeking to
exploit the Iraqi dilemma, suggested through the US to
Baghdad that the Mosul-Haifa pipeline could be
reopened. But again Saddam Hussein refused.
Interestingly, the main pointman in those discussions
was none other than the current US defence secretary,
Rumsfeld, who reportedly raised the issue with Saddam
during a visit he paid to Baghdad in 1983 only to face
Iraqi rejection of the proposal.
Israel also tried in vain through various third
parties, including the Europeans, to convince Iraq to
build a pipeline to pump Iraqi oil to Jordan's Red Sea
port of Aqaba; again, the idea was to pump Iraqi oil
from Aqaba to Israel's port of Eilat, only three
kilometres away, from where it would be sent to the
refinery in Haifa on the Mediterranean.
By 1946, two pipelines were built to pump Iraqi oil to
serve the British naval and military bases in the
Eastern Mediterranean: the first a 25-centimetre line
running direct from Iraq to Palestine, and the second
a 40-centimetre line running from Iraq to Palestine
via Jordanoil needs while it is situated a few hundred
kilometres from some of the richest oil deposits in
the world; and it is only natural that Israel would
want to devise some means to get that Arab oil. What
better means than using its US connections to get
Iraqi oil through the existing pipeline?
Now comes the turn of Iraqi water.
International experts have assessed that Iraq has the
most extensive river system in the Middle East.
The country has an impressive system of dams and river
control projects, the largest being the Darbandikhan
dam in the northern Kurdish area.
Israel tried in the 1990s to encourage the realisation
of a so-called Peace Pipeline that would bring the
waters of the Tigris and Euphrates south to the Gulf
states, and to Israel by extending it through Jordan.
Under the proposal, Turkey was dam up the Euphrates
and sell the water to the region's countries,
including Israel.
Turkey on the one hand and downstream Syria and Iraq
had been for long locked in disputes over the
Euphrates since Turkey slowed down the flow of the
river through dams build upstream. In the 90s, it
built the Ataturk Dam, which has considerably reduced
the flow.
Israel never gave up its efforts through various means
to increase its availability of water but the
geopolitics of the region -- mainly the Arab-Israeli
dispute with the Palestinian problem and Israel's
occupation of the Golan being the central issues --
made all such efforts a non-starter.
Now, with the expectation of a US-controlled
administration taking charge in post-war Iraq, Israel
is free to have the run of the country as it always
wished.