Op Ed Feb 24, 2003

Opinion Editorials February 24, 2003 http://www.aljazeerah.info

An Arab press review, By The Daily Star, 2/24/03

Richard Perle tells the Saudi daily Asharq al-Awsat in an exclusive interview that the Bush administration is set to use military force to disarm Iraq “even without a UN resolution” and that the United States plans to take complete, unilateral control of a post-Saddam Hussein Iraq for a transitional period that is neither too long or too short.
Perle, often described as the “prince of darkness,” is the chairman of the Defense Policy Board, an advisory panel to the Pentagon made of leading figures in national security and defense which advocates the overthrow of Saddam through military means. Following is a liberal translation back to English by The Daily Star of excerpts from the interview with Perle, which was conducted by Asharq al-Awsat’s Huda Husseini and published in Arabic:
“People want us to obtain a new UN resolution (authorizing military action against Iraq by declaring it in material breach of Resolution 1441). If we cannot get that because France decides to kill the move with a veto at the Security Council, then we will go it alone without a UN resolution. No American president will allow the president of France to determine American policy … The British too will not let the French be the source of their wisdom.
I have great respect for Iraqi opposition leader Ahmad Chalabi. He could have led an easy life but spent years grouping the Iraqi opposition and winning it support in the US and around the world. Members of Congress hold him in high esteem, after he spent a long time lobbying them to pass the Iraq Liberation Act.
General Tommy Franks, head of the US Central Command, is to maintain military control in Iraq until he makes sure that Iraq is in a position to develop free political institutions. Some suggest that this will take 10 years. I don’t think so at all. I think it’ll be a transitional period. General Franks will be there to make sure that the Iraqis are safe and secure. No one feels secure in Iraq at the moment … We might encounter pockets of resistance here and there. But only a few will be ready to put up a fight for Saddam’s sake … I would say that American presence wouldn’t be long-term.
We wouldn’t be sorry if Saddam were killed or if he fled in disguise across the border. We won’t be concerned if Saddam flees and Iraq is liberated. Yes, the US remains firmly committed to the unity and territorial integrity of Iraq.
Turkey is entitled to seek US aid and guarantees to cushion the effects of war. The US government is prepared to help Turkey and Jordan too. I am certain that Turkey as an ally will be on our side.
I hope what is set to happen in Iraq will inspire the Iranian people, which is also under a dictatorial regime … The mullahs in Iran have no right to claim legitimacy, not even inside Iran. Otherwise they would have stood for election too.
A lot will be required from Syrian President Bashar Assad not only in terms of reform, but also the closure of the offices of terrorist organizations (in Syria) and the return of Lebanon to the Lebanese.
I don’t think the US has to deal with Yasser Arafat … New Palestinian leaders will emerge when genuine elections are held.”
“Now that the United States has completed preparations for waging President George W. Bush’s favorite war and that the countdown for the removal of President Saddam Hussein has started, it is fitting to point out that the first to regret the Iraqi regime’s demise would be its enemies and opponents rather than its lackeys,” according to Lebanese columnist Waleed Abi-Mirshed, writing for Asharq al-Awsat.
The two sides, he says, disagree over the Iraqi regime’s political pluses, “but it is difficult to imagine them disputing its financial merits as proven in the last few years.”
Unlike all the other Arab regimes, Baghdad’s is unique in being a wide-open “source of revenue” for both its adversaries and supporters. Regime change in Baghdad would thus hit the pockets of the two sides concurrently. The question is who stands to lose more.
While Saddam loyalists “from the Atlantic to the Gulf” have been living off the Baghdad regime for nearly three decades, the regime’s detractors have more recently become expert at taking advantage of a more generous benefactor namely, the United States, which has “a deeper pocket” than post-1990 Iraq.
Abi-Mirshed lists those trying to milk US coffers by exploiting Bush’s quest for a “coalition of the willing (to be bought off)” as:
l the offshore Iraqi opposition, which is “standing fast in London’s salons.”
l Israel, which is “blackmailing Washington financially, much the same way it has been blackmailing it politically in the name of fighting terrorism” and is about to extract a large American aid package.
l Turkey, which is demanding an American aid package worth $40 billion in return for allowing US troops to use Turkish military bases to launch the war on Iraq. The Turkish government says it needs the multibillion-dollar aid package to cushion its fragile economy against the sequels of war.
l Russia, whose blackmail focuses on being able to recover $12 billion in Iraqi debt and on winning a guarantee from Washington that Russian companies will be given easy access to Iraqi oil resources after the war.
At the same time, says Abi-Mirshed, “the two Arab countries directly involved in an American war are selling themselves cheap, asking for only $1 billion each.” Although Abi-Mirshed does not name either of the two Arab countries, it is known that the Bush administration has promised to provide $1 billion in assistance to Jordan in exchange for overflight and troop-basing rights.
“Does this rush for financial reward before the war hide a feeling among Baghdad’s adversaries that the Iraqi regime’s fall will put up the shutters on this ‘source of revenue’ once and for all?” he asks. “Perhaps, but the US is serving notice that its occupation of Iraq will last at least three years and that this transitional period would be sufficient to turn revenue from the oil fields of Kirkuk and Mosul into a coveted prize to whoever believes, willingly or otherwise, in the concept of American democracy in the Middle East.
“Nevertheless, and in light of Turkish apprehensions, it is likely that Washington would appropriate the lion’s share of Iraqi oil revenues to cover war reparations first before proceeding to deliver on its generous promises to the regional countries.”
France and Germany’s refusal to bend to Washington on Iraq may severely dent the US-European alliance, and even delay the further development of the European Union, but will not deter a US war on Iraq, says Egyptian analyst Abdullah al-Ashal in the Saudi-run pan-Arab daily Al-Hayat.
The US, in all likelihood, perceives French, German, Belgian and Russian anti-war sentiment as a desire “to limit America’s international authority.” Washington is therefore trying to test the limits of their positions by acting unilaterally in the knowledge that the Arab world will remain silent, Turkey and the Gulf Arab countries will offer practical support and the evidence of the UN arms inspectors and the provisions of UN Security Council Resolution 1441 can both be manipulated to justify invading Iraq.
The position of the Arab peoples and their governments will not obstruct US plans. The Arab governments “feel incapable of standing against the US, even if they wanted to,” Ashal remarks. But the situation with the Arab and Islamic peoples is another matter, and Washington is bracing itself for a “reaction by the (Arab) public and Islamic organizations that are preparing to strike at US interests in the region, and perhaps around the world.”
This will land Arab and Islamic governments in a “serious predicament” because on the one hand they “feel powerless” to confront Washington and limit its control, while on the other they are “incapable of meeting Washington’s expectations of confronting these (Islamic) groups,” he continues.
The implications of a unilateral US attack on Iraq are even bleaker for the UN and will lead to its demise, according to Ashal. He paints one scenario under which the US would withdraw from the world body.
Under another scenario the feeling of “impotence at the inability to prevent or confront US aggression against Iraq, and possible guilt at being used by the US since 1990 as a tool against Iraq and then failing to come to its rescue when it became an innocent victim of aggression may also lead to the UN’s collapse.”
To date, the international body provides “guarantees and psychological security to Third World countries, in spite of US hegemony, because it is the only framework for holding the US to account and scrutinizing its behavior, and possibly influencing its decisions,” Ashal remarks. But Third World countries may be so “frustrated” by US behavior that they could withdraw from an organization “that has been hijacked by America,” and then “discarded by the US eagle” once its inefficacy became apparent.
The anticipated US war on Iraq will also weaken pan-Arab cooperation, but strengthen Arab regionalism, he predicts. The six-member Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) which groups Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, the UAE, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman will “flourish,” Ashal says without elaborating. But the Arab League, which “symbolizes joint Arab action and reflects general Arab feelings opposed to the US attack,” will be “finished” and substituted by regional arrangements consecrating Israel as the region’s hegemony.
Saudi political analyst and commentator Turki al-Hamad presents an even more pessimistic assessment of the Arab world’s prospects in a postwar Middle East.
Writing in Asharq al-Awsat, Hamad says stopping the war has become “impossible” in the light of “US determination to topple the Iraqi regime.” The Arabs “have no cards to play,” nor is there any time left to play them, “now that the decision has been taken in Washington and (US) soldiers are at the doorstep.”
“So how can the Arabs, in their condition, stop the war, even if they wanted to?” Hamad asks, going on to point out that “most of them don’t know what they want.” US forces are deployed “in at least 10 Arab countries” and US military bases exist in several others. So talk of not cooperating with a US invasion of Iraq is meaningless. The truth of the matter is that the Arab states fear change in Iraq “because it is the first step in the US strategy for the region.”
Whether rightly or wrongly, America sees international terrorism as rooted in the cultural heritage of the region the Palestine question and its ramifications; and the region’s “dictatorial governments and their political rhetoric, which promotes a rejection of the other despite actually dealing with the other.” From the US perspective, “terrorism cannot be totally eradicated” without pulling out those roots. Washington thinks that unless this is done, regional, international and US security, the continued flow of oil and Israel’s security cannot be guaranteed and the US “neo-Roman empire” cannot materialize.
How Washington will act once the war on Iraq is over remains unclear. “But it is certain that some regimes in the region will be affected by political change and that some pressures will be exerted on some states to change their internal political and cultural systems,” Hamad adds.
A US military occupation of Iraq and the imposition of a solution to the Palestinian problem that is likely to conform to the Israeli perspective will “breathe new life into politically extreme movements” causing regional political instability.
The war on Iraq may even have a few pros, such as enlivening Arab societies that have long suffered from inertia. But it has many more cons chiefly the fact that it will undermine regional stability. Instead of talking about how to prevent the inevitable conflagration, the Arab decision-makers should busy themselves with making a clear plan to deal with its aftermath, Hamad concludes.

US-EU tug-of-war hides cultural divide

By Joseph Samaha

The Daily Star

Osama bin Laden has been talking his fill of late. He has appointed himself leader of the Iraqi people’s resistance to foreign invasion and accused the Baghdad regime of apostasy. On the whole, he has been repeating his old, worn-out rhetoric safe in the knowledge that he is still a marketable commodity.
Yet on close inspection, it was obvious that not as many people were interested in Osama’s latest outbursts. The position he took regarding America’s imminent war on Iraq seemed tailored for the US propaganda machine. His recent second tape, in which he heaped scorn on “infidels and crusaders,” was broadcast just as millions of them were taking to the streets in Western capitals to protest a war on Iraq.
Bin Laden is adamant that we are in the middle of a clash of civilizations. In spite of the fact that Hizbullah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah tried to repudiate him, it is certain that he won’t change his views. According to bin Laden, the world is split into two halves and the war is a crusade against Islam.
It cannot be said the man is out of touch, for his comments show he is very much au courant. Yet he seems to be in the grip of a manic ideology he cannot shake off. Were he able to do so, he would discover that if a clash of civilizations exists, it is between Europeans and Americans. The number of “old” and “new” European Union members supporting Washington’s policies is not important in this context; what is important is that a sizeable majority of people opposes the policies being pursued by President George W. Bush and his administration. This opposition is put down to cultural differences between Europe and America.
Noticeably, the level of popular opposition to the war varied positively with the degree of support relevant governments extended to Washington. In Britain, Spain and Italy, right- or left-of-center parties which won power with sizeable majorities are having problems persuading their constituencies to prop up what seems to be unjustified and illogical American behavior. In these countries, broad-based coalitions against the war have sprung up, embracing all hues of the political and social spectra. This is not strictly a political phenomenon either; it is in fact an expression of a culture that wants to chart a different course in the world.
The anti-war demonstrators did not seem to care that their actions might undermine institutions that many of them hold in high regard. The European Union is close to the hearts of Italians and Spaniards, while NATO is dear to the British public in particular. Nevertheless, the people of Britain, Italy and Spain came out onto the streets in their hundreds of thousands without fear of impairing these institutions which, because they are in the process of expanding, are particularly vulnerable at this time. It was obvious that large majorities of people refused to support America’s Iraq policy, despite the fact that they sympathized with the US post-Sept. 11, 2001.
A quick glance at the media on both sides of the Atlantic is revealing. Western media, which both reflects and shapes public opinion, has been using Cold War terms in dealing with the conflict between supposed allies. Never in the past 50 years have so many insults sometimes bordering on the obscene been traded between the two sides.
While right-wing “Americanized” Europeans were backing and defending Washington’s positions, left-wing “Europeanized” American intellectuals were supporting European opposition to US policies. Secretary of State Colin Powell, for example, is being described as “European,” while Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi is said to be “American.”
According to opinion polls, the difference is cultural. The US seems to subscribe to Robert Kagan’s view of strength and weakness. According to Kagan, whose book Of Paradise and Power is a study of the cultural differences between Europe and the US, Europe’s flexibility is a sign of weakness that is reflected in a higher degree of tolerance. This, Kagan says, can be ascribed to modern European history. The Europeans were forced to adopt dialogue and make compromises in order to build their common house while America was busy policing the world. Kagan criticizes the Europeans for not paying attention that the rules that hold sway outside the civilized West are the rules of the jungle, where only strength counts.
Donald Rumsfeld was saying virtually the same thing when he chastised “old Europe” recently. The US defense secretary meant that the old continent had grown too senile to be able to confront threats.
The Europeans, for their part, don’t disagree with these assertions, although they don’t see in them the insults that the Americans intended them to be. To them, being “old” means being wiser and more thoughtful. It means seeing war as being the last resort after all other diplomatic and peaceful means are exhausted. They admit that their colonial history has made them much more reluctant warriors than the Americans.
Many Europeans say they had no problem dealing with the previous American administration. On the contrary, they say it was they who pressured Clinton’s administration to intervene in the Balkans. The problem then is with the current Bush administration and its conservative backers. These Europeans never fail to point out that Al Gore won more votes than Bush in the last American presidential election.
This distinction between the Bush administration and America as a whole doesn’t obviate the fact that the Europeans are intent on discovering more cultural differences between themselves and the Americans. According to the Europeans, abandoning international obligations as easily as the Bush administration has done is simply unacceptable. They cannot understand how a civilized nation can still apply capital punishment.
While advocating a market economy, the Europeans are determined never to go as far as the Americans have in dismantling the welfare state and in fighting big government. The Europeans, moreover, make fun of the role played by religion in contemporary American life. It seems strange to them that Bush starts his day by reciting from the Bible, and that he opens meetings with a prayer.
But it is not farfetched that at least some Europeans would find common ground with the US concerning Iraq. But this won’t preclude the fact that the current crisis has unveiled the two sides’ dissimilar perceptions, which cannot be reconciled by political agreement. These dissimilarities will inevitably surface again in different guises.
If a political agreement on Iraq is not found soon, however, the differences will inevitably become deeper still. It is not unlikely that some members of “old Europe” will choose to shun the US completely and raise the slogan: “Whoever is European is part of us, but let whoever is American carve a future outside the European partnership.” In this case, the question will be whether there will remain in the United States anyone who would still look at Europe as a worthwhile model.

Joseph Samaha is the editor of the Beirut daily As-Safir.

Millions reject Iraq war: ‘not in our name’

By Abdeljabbar Adwan

The Daily Star, 2/24/03

By any standard, the mass anti-war demonstrations that were held in many major Western cities will have ramifications far exceeding this one article’s ability to describe. That is why I decided to write about my own experiences when I became one of more than one million souls who marched in London on Feb. 15, as well as a few rudimentary political observations about the demonstrations that took place in hundreds of towns and cities, and in which tens of millions of people are said to have taken part.
It was noticeable that the largest anti-war protests took place in countries whose governments support the war on Iraq; countries such as Britain, Spain, Italy, Australia, and the US. The Germans and the French (both peoples with a tradition of demonstrating), by contrast, largely stayed at home safe in the knowledge that their governments opposed the war.
This means that local democracy is still alive and well, and is far stronger than globalized democracy.
Voters were telling their representatives: “Enough, not in our name!”
Not all people opposed to the war turned out at the demonstrations, of course. Opinion polls show that opposition to the war in Western countries varies between 70 percent and 88 percent. Nevertheless, police forces in different countries said that the recent anti-war demonstrations were the biggest their cities had seen in more than 50 years.
I can also say from personal observation, and from talking to dozens of participants in London’s five-hour long march that these demonstrations were different where the type of people who took part in them were concerned.
There were elderly people too frail to walk without canes, young mothers pushing prams and teenagers wearing the height of fashion. Most of the demonstrators were middle class, and some were evidently well off. There were no anarchic chants; in fact, so well behaved were the marchers that they even cleared the roads of bottles and other trash that might injure their fellows. Those old and very young people, who withstood the cold and discomfort for hours on end, were braver than any army.
By coming out onto the streets in such numbers, the demonstrators were saying: “We might fail to stop the war, but it will not be fought in our name. We will not let this government get away with it in the next election.”
Practically speaking, we cannot expect more in a democracy. But British Prime Minister Tony Blair had better think hard about the consequences of his actions.
Almost every other demonstrator held up a banner, most of which said things like: no to war, freedom for Palestine, justice for the Palestinian people, and no blood for oil. Many protesters carried banners they had made themselves; I saw at least 10 with a poodle named Blair on them. One girl carried a banner saying “drop Blair not bombs, which was much appreciated by the throngs.
I felt great personal satisfaction when I saw how much solidarity there was between Britons of all races. Over the last few months, Muslims in Britain felt beleaguered, as if their non-Muslim neighbors were watching them. These feelings evaporated completely amid that great wave of humanity; everyone was smiling, and people were offering tea and sandwiches to total strangers as they were all members of one tribe. One particularly attractive banner read: Make tea not war, and had a picture of Blair with a teapot for a helmet.
It must be noted that the London march came only two days after the city was placed on a high state of alert. Londoners were shocked one morning to find tanks and armed policemen at airports and on the streets. Officials spoke of an imminent terrorist attack on the scale of Sept. 11 all this just to scare people away from the march.
Before that, the British government tried to spoil the anti-war march when it said that it would not allow protesters to use Hyde Park “so as not to ruin the grass!” But the peace camp marched on, and the government had to back down.
Within days, Blair’s popularity dipped to unprecedented levels. By contrast, French President Jacques Chirac and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder were riding high in the popularity stakes.
The protesters forced pro-war governments to choose one of two options: either to abide by international legitimacy and refrain from going to war without authorization from the UN Security Council, or else gamble on a unilateral war that would have to be short, victorious, with the least possible number of casualties, and would ensure the downfall of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein without causing Iraq to fall to pieces. Needless to say, it would be impossible to guarantee such an outcome.
The pro-war camp, however, launched a counterattack by alleging that there was a moral case for war, since less people would be killed in an attack than would be killed under Saddam. The choice was stark: you are either with the war or with Saddam.
During the London march, I made a point of talking to the largest number of people possible. I never saw anyone with a Saddam poster; no one supported Saddam’s policies. It is therefore obvious that trying to establish a link between opposing the war and supporting Saddam is ill-intentioned to say the least. Logically, those who say the war would not kill more people than Saddam would are the Iraqi leader’s real supporters, since they would be applying his method of getting rid of opponents by sacrificing the innocent.
Opponents of war also oppose Saddam, but they reject violence (except as a measure of last resort). War should only be waged within the constraints of UN resolutions that determine its beginning, end and means.
US President George W. Bush and Blair have lost the people’s trust. They come up with new justifications for war every day that contradict what they said the day before. First they cited international legitimacy, and then they tried justifying the war on moral grounds. They even tried to convince us that they were embarking on this war to save the children of Iraq the same children their sanctions regime has been killing for more than 12 years. Now they are saying that the dignity of the UN demands going to war. No mention of the dozens of UN resolutions flouted by Israel, though.
All those who oppose war would dearly wish to see the back of Saddam. But that has to be achieved by the Iraqi people with diplomatic and economic help from the outside world. It must also be achieved in the context of an atmosphere that upholds all legitimate causes and ensures the implementation of all UN resolutions. Only thus can world opinion be swayed.
Saddam can be confronted through clearly worded resolutions and with the assistance of Iraq’s neighbors, and not through accusations, lies and the killing of innocents. The West kept silent for 20 years while Saddam continued killing his people and attacking his neighbors. It was only when he wanted to lay hands on Kuwait’s oil that he was finally hit so hard that he was left reeling for 12 years during which millions of Iraqi children starved and Iraq was destroyed because of sanctions.
After Sept. 11, however, it became necessary to get rid of Saddam, partition Iraq and terrorize the entire region. It is such injustice that fuels the anger of Bush and Blair’s enemies.

Abdeljabbar Adwan is a London-based Palestinian analyst.

Revolt of West’s Iraqi puppets bodes ill

The Daily Star, 2/24/03

In the past several days, two separate incidents have highlighted important trends that many in this region have pointed out as decisive reasons for the widespread Middle Eastern opposition to the Anglo-American-led campaign to attack Iraq and change its regime.
First, we have seen two leading members of the Iraqi opposition Kanaan Makiya and Ahmad Chalabi speak questioningly, even critically, of the United States. This is a surprise because for the past decade or so the United States has financed, supported, and generally used the Iraqi opposition in exile in its campaign to oust the regime in Baghdad. Makiya, Chalabi and others in the Iraqi opposition abroad have depended on their links with Washington for most of their credibility. Now, however, the United States has suddenly changed the rules of the relationship. Washington no longer wants the Iraqi exiles to form a provisional government, and suddenly the Iraqi exiles are twice exiled, once from Iraq, and once from Washington.
The moral of the story is not about the quality of the Iraqi exiles’ leadership. It is about the stark reality that for the umpteenth time in the modern history of this region a Western power has conveniently hand-picked and used local actors, financed them, trained, paraded, exploited, and hid behind them, and then, when the local actors were no longer useful, dropped them like a hot potato. It is not for us to judge if the Iraqi opposition deserves support or not that is a question for Iraqis themselves to sort out. Our criticism is about the shamelessly expedient and exploitative nature of the relationship between Western powers and assorted local parties. This is one very timely story about why people in this neighborhood are dubious about the goals of the Anglo-Americans and their capacity to develop coherent policies and effective working relations with indigenous parties in the Middle East.
The second incident was the announcement Sunday by leading Kurdish groups including the Kurdistan Democratic Party and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan that they would oppose any Turkish military advance into the predominantly Kurdish regions of northern Iraq in the wake of an attack against Iraq. They said clashes would break out if the Turks sent in thousands of troops, as Ankara has said it would do. The important point in this situation is that it pits two key “allies” of the US-UK coalition against one another, at a moment when the US-UK coalition is attempting to expand, not implode. Again, it is not for us to tell the Americans and British whom to choose as allies. But it is our role to point out, in policymaking terms, when the emperor camped with his armies outside our frontiers is wearing no clothes. In this case the Anglo-American emperor is experiencing the early pangs of pain resulting from poor policy.
If two of the Anglo-Americans’ prime “allies” are at each other’s throats before a single shot has been fired to “liberate” Iraq, what does this portend for the period after a war? It portends precisely the kind of reckless adventurism and unpredictable regional tensions and violence that every single Middle Eastern party except Israel has pointed to as a major reason not to undertake this adventure in Iraq. All this, by the way, occurred in the span of about five days.

Background about Mr. Powell's presentation to the UNSC

By Stig Froberg/Finland, 2/24/03

Twelve points to clarify about Mr. Powell's presentation to the UNSC on February 5, 2003:

1) The British TV-channel CHANNEL FOUR published on February 6 that most of Mr. Powell`s speech was stolen directly from 3 early published, and to everybody available, articles.

2) From the 19-page long Powell`s "Report", 4 pages were DIRECTLY COPIED from an article, published in September 2002, in the Middle East Review of International Affairs.

The article was based on a Pre-Grad examination, made by Iraqi born, but US nationality Student, Mr. Ibrahim al-Marashin.

3) Mr. al-Marashin`s Pre-Grad examination was based on material from 1990 !!! (Before the Gulf War ).

4) Even the writing errors of Mr. al-Marashin`s 4 -page article were published in Mr. Powell`s "Report", which means, that the 4-page article was DIRECTLY Copied by a Scanner !!!

5) Mr. al-Marashi said : " how can the British people trust their government, if it makes this kinds of tricks ? The people will in the future be very suspicious to everything, the British government will tell them ".

6) 6 pages of Mr. Powell`s "Report" were DIRECTLY copied from 2 articles, based on Jane`s Intelligence Review. The other article was published ALREADY in 1997, and was available to everybody in the World.

7) Mr. Sean Boyne, who works in Jane`s Intelligence Review, said: " I do not like anything, which I have written, to be used as an argument to a war. I'm personally AGAINST any war " .

8) Mr. Powell also claimed (By some satellite pictures) that in the North-East part of Iraq, in a place called KHURMANI, there is a Poison Factory, where the terrorists prepare Poisons.

9) However, the local Kurdish leaders, some of them are allies of US, said, that: " In our area, in Khurmani, there is no Poison Factory " !!!

10) The Khurmani is situated in the No-Fly Zone, controlled by US and UK airplanes, and It is in the Kurdi region, where there are NO Iraqi troops.

11) Also some members of the US Senate, from the "Committee of Foreign Affairs", asked Mr. Powell: "If there is such a Poison Factory and and a terrorist camp in Khurmani, why haven`t we destroyed them? Mr. Powell COULD NOT ANSWER THIS QUESTION !!!

12) Lastly: Western Journalists visited the Khurmani immediately, and: Found no signs of any "Poison Factory" !!!

More details can be found in great many places from the Internet, but here are some:

- Dr. Glen Rangwala articles (www.globalpolicy.org and www.globalresearch.ca)

- The Guardian newspaper article 6.2.2003 (www.guardian.co.uk/online )

- Mr. Rahal Mahajan article (www.counterpunch.org)

- Mr. Stephen Zune article (www.commondreams.org)

- Mrs. Maria Tomchikin article (www.zmag.org)

- www.antiwar.com

- www.neravt.com/left

WE HAVE SEEN THE BIGGEST BLUFFING EVER IN THE HISTORY OF UN AND UNSC. With these lies, Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair are trying to get a moral "Permission" from the UNSC, to start mass-killings of innocent Iraqi people. This has to be prevented.

Mr. Bush ( together with UK+Israel + Turkish forces.) is really going to make a typical Imperialistic war against Arab countries, first Iraq, then both Iran and Syria, and then Saudi-Arabia.

It has been confirmed from many US sources that the US will attack Iraq, be there Mr. Saddam or not. This will inevitably mean that there will start a great guerilla war against US forces in the region, exactly like it is now going in Afghanistan, where the US is rapidly losing the war against Mujahideen guerillas.

We have known for a very long time that the "Hypothetical" Weapons of Mass Destruction (WOMD) is only the MOST TRIVIAL excuse by which the US tries , together with the UK, to get a "public Permission" to start this imperialistic war, against several Arab countries.

History repeats itself: Remember how World War II began. Firstly Hitler attacked Czechoslovakia (Nowadays Czech + Slovakia), which corresponds to Iraq now. Then, Hitler attacked Poland, which corresponds to Iran. And this was how World War II started. This corresponds to guerilla war against US + World War III. (???).

Dr. Stig Froberg is a professor from Finland.

Gulf War Syndrome, Depleted Uranium, and the Dangers of Low-Level Radiation

By Dr. Rosalie Bertell

Desert Storm veterans along with the people of Iraq and Kuwait were victims of one of the latest military experiments on human beings. I believe that the ignorance was culpable and criminal.

Introduction:

I first heard about the military using depleted uranium for bullets from the Native Americans for a Clean Environment (NACE) in Gore, Oklahoma. Kerr Magee was operating a factory there, and in a liquid waste spill a young man, about twenty-one years old, was sprayed with the mixture and died. Many members of the public were also exposed, and were taken to the University in Oklahoma City for medical examination and feces analysis. It seems that the liquid waste contained primarily uranium and other heavy metals.

Local people had found this factory to be very polluting. When I visited the town to see what was happening and to decide whether or not I could help, they showed me rust marks scattered over the surface of their automobiles where the toxic corrosive spray released from the factory routinely had impacted on the paint. People complained of burning throats and eyes, some with even more serious complaints, but little systematic information which would show that the factory was the source of their problem.

I met a young boy who showed me a frog he had caught--the frog had nine legs. It was in a bottle of formaldehyde. I wanted to take it for some tissue and bone analysis but it was his prize possession and he would not part with it.

I learned that the Kerr Magee plant had been disposing of its waste by deep-well injection in this rural, primarily farming area. The people, becoming alarmed at this practice which threatened the water table, got a court injunction to stop it. In an action, which seemed to the local farmers to be a retaliation, Kerr Magee had applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to call their waste an "experimental fertilizer" and just spread it over the top of the land. The stories were quite strong evidence that this so-called fertilizer was sometimes just released into the local river, or released in one place on the factory property, with no pretense even to spread it.

The young boy had found his nine-legged frog on the hill which served as the "experimental plot." Hunters had found a rabbit with two hearts, and the local taxidermist told me that he had tried to mount two deer heads and the fur came off in his hands in clumps. He had never seen anything like it in his whole career.

As local people became sick and started to complain, Kerr Magee bought them out, and took over their land. The Native people, who were determined to preserve their land, formed a Coalition of White and Natives Concerned, and began the long legal fight with the company. They learned about environmental assessment hearings, licensing hearings, etc. and began to seriously participate. They also undertook a human health survey of all families -- there were about four hundred of them -- living within four miles of the factory. Every family was included in the survey, which was very comprehensive and carefully administered.

The International Institute of Concern for Public Health agreed to analyze this data for the citizens. The outstanding illnesses in the area were respiratory and kidney problems. There were significantly more persons with respiratory illnesses down wind of the plant, and significantly more with kidney problems down stream of the plant.

We intended to do a clinical follow-up of this survey, and designed the study with the cooperation of the Occupational Health and Respiratory Units at the University Medical School of New Jersey. We were not able to obtain funding for this study. Nevertheless, with the health survey and a great deal of local perseverance, Kerr Magee moved out. A second multinational tried to take over the factory--I think it was General Dynamics--but it failed.

I learned many things about the uranium bullets in the process of this research:

They are incendiary, that is after piercing the object they can burst into flame.
They are fragmentary, they disintigrate into small fragments inside the body, and cannot be removed.
They are more dense than lead, and can pierce a bullet- proof vest, or a light armored car or tank.
Because the "enemy" might also use them, the military made uranium armor as a protection.
They were cheap, because the depleted uranium was a waste product of the nuclear-bomb program.
They were radioactive, which meant that even handling them was risky, but no one seemed to be worrying about this!

Research into Gulf War Syndrome

Six years after the Gulf War there is still deep controversy over the causes of the severe health problems observed in the veterans. Reluctantly, the U.S. government has been slowly releasing data on possible Iraqi chemical exposures of the veterans, but many physicians, some of whom have reported that their jobs are being threatened, have said that this information does not explain the variety of symptoms observed.

Shortly after the Gulf War, at the request of Staff Sargeant Carol Picou, San Antonio, Texas, who was herself a victim, Patricia Axelrod undertook research into the possible causes of this illness.

The research was jointly sponsored by the U.S. National Institutes of Health, Office of Women's Health. It was submitted to the Department of Health and Human Services on May 10, 1993, and was labeled: for internal distribution only. The research was intended to be a guide to further research into the problem, so its limitation to internal distribution did not make sense.

Our journal, International Perspectives in Public Health, published the document in full in 1994.

At the time, the U.S. Department of Defence was treating this illness as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and advising military doctors to treat it with muscle relaxants and sleeping pills, while ordering a mental illness assessment. Most of the information in Ms. Axelrod's Guide to Gulf War Sickness comes from interviews with Dr. Thomas Callender, a toxicologist; Dr. Barry Wilson, of Battelle Pacific Northwest Laboratories; and Commissioner Rudy Arredondo, Maryland's Commission on Black and Minority Health. Ms. Axelrod also interviewed many veterans and reviewed the journal articles and reports available in the public press. Information on leishmaniases was provided by the World Health Organization.

Potential Causes of Gulf War Syndrome

In this complex situation, any or all of the following factors may have interacted to bring about specific symptoms in veterans. Obviously, the combinations of factors differ with individuals, hence it is likely that there is not one single explanation of the whole spectrum of symptoms. However, the following main categories are candidates for causal relationships with illnesses reported by veterans:

Administration of three vaccines intended as protection against nerve and biological warfare agents. These were:
1. Pyridostigmine, normally prescribed for myasthenia gravis and known to have serious side effects, especially when the person taking it is exposed to heat. It is also known that exposure to pesticides and insecticides (Baygon, Diazinon and Sevin) should be avoided when taking pyridostigmine because they can accentuate its toxicity. Some women who took this drug during pregnancy and have breast-fed infants have seen side effects in their child.
2. Botulinum Pentavalent, an unproven vaccine intended to counteract botulism. It is unlicensed in the United States.
3. Anthrax, to protect against the disease anthrax. This was apparently selectively administered to troops during the war, and women receiving it were warned not to have children for three or four years.
Depleted uranium was used for the first time in this war. It was incorporated into tank armor, missile and aircraft counterweights and navigational devices, and in tank, anti-aircraft and anti-personnel artillery. The scientific information on this deadly chemical has been reported in "Radium Osteitis With Osteogenic Sarcoma: The Chronology and Natural History of Fatal Cases" by Dr. William D. Sharpe, Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, Vol. 47, No. 9 (September 1971). There was no excuse for this human experimentation because the effects of this exposure were known.
Smoke and chemical pollutants released by the continuous oil- well fires. Levels of soot, carbon monoxide and ozone have been studied by an Environmental Protection Agency Task Force. The National Toxics Campaign, Boston, Massachusetts, found five different toxic hydrocarbon products in the smoke (1,4-dichlorobenzine, 1,2-dichlorobenzene, diethyl phthalate, dimethyl phthalate and naphthalene), any one of which could induce serious health effects.
Old World leishmaniasis, a parasitic disease transmitted by the bite of many species of sand fly indigenous to the region. Non-indigenous people who enter an infected area are known to be more seriously affected by this parasite than the inhabitants. If left undiagnosed, and therefore untreated, it can be fatal. Diagnosis requires bone and spleen biopsy, and the disease can have a three-year incubation period without causing symptoms. It can be transmitted by blood transfusion, and transmitted by a woman to her unborn child. Leishmaniasis was reported as widespread in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. This disease is thought to be responsible for the Pentagon ban, November 1991, against blood donations from Gulf War veterans. This ban was lifted, for unknown reasons, on January 11, 1993.
Pesticides and insecticides were used extensively throughout the war to protect against pestilence. It is known that large quantities of DDT, malathion, fenitrorthion, propuxur, deltamethrin and permethrin were used. They are all toxic nerve agents, and many are suspected carcinogens and mutagens.
Destruction by allies of Iraqi chemical, nerve and biological warfare weapons resulting in widespread distribution of these toxins in the environment. This problem has now been, at least in part, documented by the U.S. Department of Defense. They are focusing on this potential cause as if it were the only candidate cause.
The electromagnetic environment which permeated the battlefield during the war. Veterans were exposed to a broad spectrum of electromagnetic radiation created by electricity generated to support the high-tech instruments, thousands of radios and radar devices in use. This intense electromagnetic field causes both thermal and non-thermal effects, and potentially interacts with the other hazardous exposures and stresses of the battlefield. Electromagnetic radiation can alter the production of hormones (neurotransmitters), interact with cell membranes, increase calcium ion flow, stimulate protein kinase in lymphocytes, suppress the immune system, affect melatonin production required to control the "body clock," and cause changes in the blood-brain barrier.

The Hazards of Low Level Radiation

In the past few years the information available on the health effects of exposure to low levels of radiation has increased. We are no longer dependent on the commercial or military nuclear researchers who since 1950 have claimed that studies of the effects of low-level radiation are impossible to undertake. The new information is unsettling because it proves the critics of the industry to have been correct as to its serious potential to damage living tissue.

There have also been significant new releases of findings from the atomic bomb research in Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the self-acclaimed "classical research" of radiation health effects. I will list these findings toward the end of this article, along with studies from the nuclear industry.

In reviewing these research papers one is struck by the high-dose response when the radiation is delivered slowly, with low total dose. The conventional wisdom has claimed that at low dose/slow-dose rate the body is well able to repair most of the harm caused by the radiation. Some nuclear apologists go so far as to claim such exposures are "beneficial."

Because the nuclear industry has always maintained that the effects of low-dose radiation exposure are so small that it is impossible to study them, they proposed extrapolating the effects from those observed at high dose, using a straight line to zero (zero dose, zero effect), together with "correction factors" for low dose/slow-dose rate.

The effect of this "correction" is to reduce the fatal cancer estimates calculated by D.L. Preston, then Director of the Radiation Effects Research Foundation at Hiroshima, using the new dosimetry, from seventeen fatalities per million people per rad exposure, to five fatalities per million people per rad exposure. The corresponding estimates based on actually observed rates for nuclear workers is between ten and thirty fatalities per million per rad. Obviously, for the adult healthy male, the dose-response estimate should be about twenty for fatal cancers per million per rad.

However, although we can make a strong case for increasing the "official" estimates of harm by a factor of four, this fails to deal with non-fatal cancers, depressed immune systems, localized tissue damage (especially the respiratory, digestive and urinary tracts), damage to skin, and reproductive problems. Radiation can cause brain lesions, damage to the stem cells which produce the blood and, when the radiactive material is carried in a heavy metal (uranium) it can be stored in bone, irradiating body organs and nerves within its radius.

A Book by Dr. E.B. Burlakova

Detailed studies of dose-response at the low dose/slow-dose rate level:

Dr. E. B. Burlakova has provided me with a copy of the book, of which she is editor: Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe: Human Health. In one Chapter of this book, Dr. Burlakova and fourteen other scientists publish their findings on animal and human studies of the health effects of low dose/slow- dose rate, exposure to ionizing radiation. They examined carefully the following biological phenomena under ionizing radiation exposure situations:

alkaline elution of DNA of lymphocytes and liver
neutral elution and adsorption of spleen DNA on nitrocellulose filters
restriction of spleen DNA by EcoRI endonuclease
structural characteristics (using the ESR spin probe technique) of nuclear, mitochondrial, synaptical, erythrocyte and leukocyte membranes
activity and isoforms of aldolase and lactate hydrogenase enzymes
activity of acetycholine esterase, superoxide dismutase, and glutathione peroxidase
the rate of formation of superoxide anion radicals
the composition and antioxidizing activity of lipids of the above mentioned membranes
the sensitivity of cells, membranes, DNA, and organisms to the action of additional damaging factors.

"For all of the parameters a bimodal dose-effect dependence was discovered, i.e. the effect increased at low doses, reached its [low-dose] maximum, and then decreased (in some cases, the sign of the effect changed to the opposite, or "benefit" effect) and increased again as the dose was increased" (Burlakova, page 118). Dr. Burlakova has speculated that at the lowest experimental doses used in this research, the repair mechanism of the cells was not triggered. It became activated at the point of the low- dose maximum, providing a "benefit" until it was overwhelmed and the damage began again to increase with dose. This may well be the case.

However, the unexpected effects of low dose/slow-dose rate exposure to ionizing radiation can also be attributed to biological mechanisms, other than the direct DNA damage hypothesis usually used by radiation physicists. These secondary mechanisms are specific to the low-/slow-dose conditions. Three such secondary mechanism have been observed by scientists: the Petkau effect, monocyte depletion, and deformed red blood cells.

The Petkau effect: discovered by Abram Petkau at the Atomic Energy of Canada Ltd. Whiteshell Nuclear Research Establishment, Manitoba, Canada in 1972 (Ref.1). Dr. Petkau discovered that at 26 rads per minute (fast-dose rate) it required a total dose of 3,500 rads to destroy a cell membrane. However, at 0.001 rad per minute (slow dose rate), it required only 0.7 rad to destroy the cell membrane. The mechanism at the slow-dose rate is the production of free radicals of oxygen (O₂ with a negative electrical charge) by the ionizing effect of the radiation.
The sparsely distributed free radicals generated at the slow-dose rate have a better probability of reaching and reacting with the cell wall than do the densely crowded free radicals produced by fast-dose rates. These latter recombine quickly. Moreover, the slight electrical charge of the cell membrane attracts the free radicals in the early stages of the reaction (low total dose). Computer calculations have shown that the attraction weakens with greater concentrations of free radicals. The traditional radiation biologist has tested only high-dose reactions, and looked for direct damage to the membrane by the radiation.
Monocyte depletion: Nuclear fission produces radionuclides which tend to be stored by humans and animals in the bone tissue. In particular, strontium-90, plutonium and the transuranics have this property. Stored in bone, near the stem cells which produce the white blood cells, these radionuclides deliver a chronic low/slow dose of radiation which can interfere with normal blood- cell production. A few less neutrophils or lymphocytes (the white blood cells which are most numerous, and are usually "counted" by the radiophysicist) are not noticeable. In the normal adult, there are about 7,780 white cells per microlitre of blood. Of these, about 4,300 are neutrophils and 2,710 are lymphocytes. Only 500 are monocytes.
If, for example, stem cells in the bone marrow are destroyed so as to reduce total white blood count by 400 cells per microlitre due to the slow irradiation by radionuclides stored in the bone, this would represent a depletion of only five percent in total white cells, an insignificant amount. If all of the depletion was of neutrophils, this would mean a reduction of only 9.3 percent, still leaving the blood count well in the normal range. The lymphocytes would also be still in the normal range, even though they were depleted by 400 cells per microlitre, or 14.8 percent. However, there would be a dramatic depletion of the monocytes by 80 percent. Therefore, at low doses of radiation, it is more important to observe the monocytes, than to wait for an effect on the lymphocytes or neutrophils (as is now usually done). The effects of serious reduction in monocytes are:
- Iron deficient anemia, since it is the monocytes which recycle about 37-40 percent of the iron in the red blood cells when they die;
- Depressed cellular immune system, since the monocyte secretes the substance which activates the lymphocyte immune system. [2]
Deformed red-blood cells: Dr. Les Simpson, of New Zealand, has identified deformed red-blood cells, as observed under an electron microscope, as causing symptoms ranging from severe fatigue to brain dysfunction leading to short-term memory loss. He has identified such cells in elevated number in chronic fatigue patients, and speculated that because of their bloated or swollen shape, they are obstructed from easily passing into the tiny capillaries, thus depriving muscles and the brain of adequate oxygen and nutrients. The chronic fatigue syndrome has been observed both at Hiroshima and Nagasaki, called bura bura disease, and at Chernobyl. [3]

In the official approach to radiobiology, only direct damage to DNA has been recognized as "of concern," and only high dose/fast-dose rate experiments or observations have been accepted for use in estimating the dose-response rate. As was noted, it is the "common wisdom" that effects of low doses/slow- dose rates cannot be studied, but must be extrapolated from the officially accepted high dose/fast-dose rate studies. This approach is rejected by the work of Dr. Burlakova, and the other research noted below.

Basing one's theory on claims that is impossible to study the phenomenon is certainly a peculiar way to do science! This myth has now been clearly shown to have been rash and criminally negligent.

Unfortunately, the Desert Storm veterans were victims of one of the latest military experiments on human beings. The people of Iraq and Kuwait were also the victims of this misguided experiment. I believe that the ignorance was culpable and criminal.

Recent Reports on Low-Level Radiation

I would like to bring your attention to the following significant new reports on the effects of low-level radiation:

Health Consequences of the Chernobyl Accident, Results of the IPHECA Pilot Projects and Related National Programs, Scientific Report, World Health Organization, Geneva 1996.
Consequences of the Chernobyl Catastrophe: Human Health, E.B. Burlakova, ed. Co-published by the Center for Russian Environmental Policy and the Scientific Council on Radiobiology Russian Academy of Science, ISBN 5-88587-019-5, Moscow 1996.
Volume 137, Supplement, Radiation Research 1994, which published for the first time the dose-response data on cancer incidence rate observed in the atomic bomb survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Prior to this publication, only cancer death data was reported.
Biological Effects of Ionizing Radiation V (BEIR V), U.S. National Academy of Sciences, Washington 1990. This provides new radiation risk estimates based on the newly assigned doses of radiation in this atomic bomb survivor study.

Also available now are the long term follow-up of workers in the nuclear industry. This industry has now been operating more than fifty years in the United States and about fifty years in the United Kingdom. These include:

"Inconsistencies and Open Questions Regarding Low-Dose Health Effects of Ionizing Radiation", by R. Nussbaum and W. Kohnlein. Environmental Health Perspectives, Vol. 102, No. 8, August 1994.
RERF Technical Report TR9-87, by D.L. Preston and D.A. Pierce, Hiroshima 1987.
"The Effects of Changes in Dosimetry on Cancer Mortality Risk Estimates in Atomic Bomb Survivors" Radiation Research, Vol. 114, 1988.
"Mortality and Occupational Exposure to Irradiation: First Analysis of the National Registry for Radiation Workers" by G.M. Kendall. British Medical Journal, Vol. 304, 1992.
"Mortality Among Workers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory" by S. Wing. Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 265, 1991.
"Reanalysis of the Hanford Data, 1944-1986 Deaths" by G.W. Kneale and A. Stewart. American Journal of Industrial Medicine, Volume 23, 1993.

References:

The Petkau Effect, Revised Edition, 1990, by Ralph Graeub, Translated from German by Phil Hill, and Published by Four Walls Eight Windows, New York, 1994. ISBN: 1-56858-019-3.
Bertell, R. "Internal Bone Seeking Radionuclides and Monocyte Counts", International Perspectives in Public Health, Vol. 9, pp 21-26, 1993
Les Simpson has published several papers in the New Zealand Medical Journal, and wrote a Chapter in the Medical Textbook on Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (MI), edited by Dr. Byron Hyde.

[ Findings on Uranium Tailings ]

[ Uranium: A Discussion Guide ]

[ Uranium Sub-Directory ] [ COMPLETE DIRECTORY ]

http://www.ccnr.org/bertell_book.html

Desert Storm veterans along with the people of Iraq and Kuwait were
victims of one of the latest military experiments on human beings.
I believe that the ignorance was culpable and criminal.

http://www.all-natural.com/riley.html

I returned back to Houston to my job, where I was a heart, lung, kidney and liver transplant nurse in Houston, Texas. I became very ill and I could get no answers. I didn't know why I was sick. No one would talk with me about it. No one would help me with it, and I had to find out the answers myself, alone.

http://www.nexusmagazine.com/gws.html

Already, more than 10,000 are dead and 250,000 are sick from Gulf War syndrome. What secret is so terrible (or embarrassing) that necessitates a cover-up of the facts?

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/DailyNews/gulfwarsyndrome_000202.html

Illness Without Answers

But almost a decade later, there are still no answers on why many Gulf War veterans report a variety of mysterious illnesses.
A new report from the federal government’s General Accounting Office is highly critical of the government’s research effort.
“We spent $120 million in a two-year period and we have nothing to show for it,” said Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., chairman of a House of Representatives subcommittee on veterans’ affairs.

Rumsfeld was on ABB Board During Nuclear Deal with North Korea

by Jacob Greber, swissinfo SRI, 2/21/03

The Swiss-based ABB on Friday told swissinfo that Rumsfeld was involved with the company in early 2000, when it netted a $200 million (SFr270million) contract with Pyongyang.

The ABB contract was to deliver equipment and services for two nuclear power stations at Kumho, on North Korea’s east coast.

Rumsfeld – who is one of the Bush administration’s most strident “hardliners” on North Korea – was a member of ABB’s board between 1990 and February 2001, when he left to take up his current post.

Wolfram Eberhardt, a spokesman for ABB, told swissinfo that Rumsfeld “was at nearly all the board meetings” during his decade-long involvement with the company.

Maybe, maybe not

However, he declined to indicate whether Rumsfeld was made aware of the nuclear contract with North Korea.

“This is a good question, but I couldn’t comment on that because we never disclose the protocols of the board meetings,” Eberhardt said.

“Maybe this was a discussion point of the board, maybe not.”

The defense secretary’s role at ABB during the late 1990s has become a bone of contention in Washington.

The ABB contract was a consequence of a 1994 deal between the US and Pyongyang to allow construction of two reactors in exchange for a freeze on the North’s nuclear weapons program.

North Korea revealed last year that it had secretly continued its nuclear weapons program., despite its obligations under the deal with Washington.

The Bush government has repeatedly used the agreement to criticize the former Clinton administration for being too soft on North Korea. Rumsfeld’s deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, has been among the most vocal critics of the 1994 weapons accord.

Dirty bombs

Weapons experts have also speculated that waste material from the two reactors could be used for so-called “dirty bombs”.

Rumsfeld’s position at ABB could prove embarrassing for the Bush administration since while he was a director he was also active on issues of weapons proliferation, chairing the 1998 congressional Ballistic Missile Threat commission.

The commission suggested the Clinton-era deal with Pyongyang gave too much away because “North Korea maintains an active weapons of mass destruction program., including a nuclear weapons program.”.

From Zurich to Pyongyang

At the same time, Rumsfeld was traveling to Zurich for ABB’s quarterly board-meetings.

Eberhardt said it was possible that the North Korea deal never crossed the ABB boardroom desk.

“At the time, we generated a lot of big orders in the power generation business [worth] around $1 billion…[so] a $200 million contract was, so to speak, a smaller one.”

When asked whether a deal with a country such as North Korea – a communist state with declared nuclear intentions – should have been brought to the ABB board’s attention, Eberhardt told swissinfo:

“Yes, maybe. But so far we haven’t any evidence for that because the protocols were never disclosed. So maybe it was a discussion point, maybe not,” says Eberhardt.

A Pentagon spokeswoman, Victoria Clark, recently told “Newsweek” magazine that “Secretary Rumsfeld does not recall it being brought before the board at any time”.

It was a long time ago

Today, ABB says it no longer has any involvement with the North Korean power plants, due to come on line in 2007 and 2008.

The company finalized the sale of its nuclear business in early 2000 to the British-based BNFL group.

WHERE IN THE WORLD IS BARBRA OLSON?

By: Art Bishop

rumormillnews.net, 8/15/02 REVISED/UPDATED 2/21/03

Given the FACT that 17 months after the "PENTAGON CRASH" no BLACK BOXES have been made public , not to mention ANY debris of the fuselage wings or engine of the alleged American Airlines crash, the French theory that there was no crash seems to hold true. For those of you who do not subscribe to this theory and would like to show us "proof" w/ 2 pictures the pentagon released of two SHINY parts of the Boeing 757,please spare us those photos ,we have seen them and that’s not ENOUGH proof. We need the black boxes for proof. We'd like to know what was said in the hour and a half between takeoff and the alleged crash.

Alleged. (We'll believe it when we see it)

If we hold that thought for a second, if there was no crash YET there was a call from one of BUSH'S CLOSEST FRIENDS, Barbara Olson "Mrs. Olson braved the wrath of the terrorists to make the first telephone call immediately after the hijacking and was then cut off. She managed to dial out again and told her husband that all the 58 passengers, four crew members and two pilots had been herded to the rear of the plane. She said she saw that the hijackers were carrying knives,(which later became the infamous box cutters) but had not seen any other weapons. She asked her husband what instruction she should give the pilot, but since he was held captive at the back of the aircraft there was nothing that he could do. Mr. Olson promptly called the Justice Department, which knew nothing about the incident."
Now if YOU are Teddy Boy Olson and your best buddy is the President of the US of A who you just saved his ass in court in florida thru your brilliant performance who owes you one BIG TIME and your beloved wife just called you on the phone saying her plane had been hijacked by terrorist with boxcutters,wouldnt YOU call the president and tell whoever to put you thru PRONTO or youll have their heads?Have HIM give the ORDER to scramble a plane or two to SAVE YOUR WIFE? Thats if you didnt have W's cell phone number which Olson most likely has.

The WORLD first heard the SEMI OFFICIALWORD from one of Bushes CLOLSEST friends who was "thought to have perished in the aircraft that hit the pentagon. Many firmly believe that it was either a bomb that was planted in the pentagon or it was hit by a missile (the latter being more likely following reports of something flying over head seconds before the EXPLOSION.

EXPLOSION . NOT CRASH. We were fed footage of ONE security camera that showed us the "crash" and we have looked at it over a dozen times and see no plane. We see an explosion. What we'd like to know is WHY is that the ONLY FOOTAGE we got of the "crash"? If you go to any supermarket or mall in the USA, you will find more than one security camera. How do you expect us to believe that the most powerful intelligence complex in the WORLD had only one little parking lot camera that showed us a NON CRASH? What is clear is that the do NOT have any footage of any plane that crashed cause there was no plane. If there was they would have shown it by now. They would have beaten us to death w/ it. Truth is they HAVE footage and they are even fuzzier than the only one they showed us where we saw no plane.

We have strained our weary old eyes to see every single picture of the Pentagon from every single source on the web (and will not bother you w/ a list of them now you must have seen a few yourselves like these:
http://www.asile.org/citoyens/numero13/pentagone/erreurs_en.htm
http://www.bosankoe.btinternet.co.uk/mathpage.htm

We yet have to see ANYTHING that resembles a plane in the pentagon "CRASH". We have yet to see any pictures that resemble a plane in Pittsburgh for that matter but that’s another story, this one deals w/ the Pentagon "crash" that BARBARA OLSON WAS ON. But lets get it off our chests right now: We dont believe the Pittsburgh plane "crash" since we saw no plane.There were many helicopters hovering over the crash and not one video fottage or picture of the crash from above.Where are the sattelite photos?We mean no disrespect to the victims.They are heroes.They will be even greater heros when we learn who really killed them.

So if Olson was on that plane, the plane that DISAPPEARED into the pentagon, not crashed into the pentagon, where in the world is the plane and where in the world is Barbara Olson? The Pentagon was so tightly cordoned by the FBI CIA FEMA ETC that NO ONE could get in and out of the "crash" site without clearance.Ordinary firemen who came to help were ordered around the perimiter of the Pentagon and saw NOTHING.Having said this,there must have been hundreds of FBI ETC who were there who were in on the non plane crash who did NOT see any plane debris and who were all part of this incredible conspiracy.YES CONSPIRACY!
Same goes for the FBI men who cleared the Pittsburgh "crash".
A conspiracy.

"Last call from plane tells of hijackers carrying knives"

"THE death toll in the worst terrorist atrocity in America’s history included the wife of one of President Bush’s most important political allies. Barbara Olson made TWO desperate calls to her husband, Theodore, the Solicitor-General, from her mobile telephone during the course of the hijack of the American Airlines flight from Washington Dulles to Los Angeles. The well known right-wing political commentator is thought to have perished in the aircraft that struck part of the Pentagon. There were 64 people on board with no reports of any survivors."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,21-111590,00.html

"Barbara Olson, American lawyer, author and political pundit, was born in 1956. She died aged 45 on board American Airlines flight 77 when it crashed into the Pentagon on September 11, 2001."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22-114255,00.html

Going thru the TIMES Terrorism Special was a fascinating walk thru what really happened day by day since that fatal 9-11 day and what they "SAY happened". Here is something we missed back then in our shock and bewilderment. Now that the fogs lifted ten months later things are in a MUCH clearer perspective. Gary Hart (OF ALL PEOPLE GARY HART): We said America would face such an attack September 13, 2001

America will become “increasingly vulnerable to hostile attack on our homeland and our military superiority will not entirely protect us. Americans will likely die on American soil, possibly in large numbers.” This conclusion of the US Commission on National Security in the 21st Century, delivered to the political leadership and people of the United States in the autumn of 1999, was followed, on January 31, 2001, with recommendations to President Bush and his Cabinet to create a National Homeland Security Agency. Alas, neither the Clinton nor the Bush Administrations, nor the Congress, acted quickly enough to prevent Tuesday’s disaster.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,22-112085,00.html

On the other hand Mother Jones reported that Clinton was spending $11 Billion,WAY TOO MUCH for counterterrorism.There was NO WAY Bush and his team could not have connected the dots.Read this article carefuly:
http://www.motherjones.com/mother_jones/SO00/phantom.html
THE POINT we're driving at is we don’t believe for ONE MINUTE the Olson Phone Call. We never bought it from day one. She and her husband THEODORE is an equally controversial figure. He led the legal team that blocked a recount of Florida's presidential election votes, thereby ensuring George Bush's victory, and Democratic senators believe that he was a pivotal figure in what Mrs. Clinton once labeled a "vast right-wing conspiracy" to discredit her husband were too close to Bush for credibility. And now that there is no doubt whatsoever (in our minds at least) that there was NO pentagon crash from the plane that Olson was supposed to be on. And if there was no crash then the whole kakamaney story was STAGED and she is alive somewhere in some safe house in Israel somewhere and sooner or later if this theory is true, will sooner or later be reading this too.

Barbara and Theodore would not only lie for Bush, Theo was hired to lie for him as the scheming LAWYER who stole the election for BUSH. There is no way for him to be a credible impartial witness. His impartiality reeks all the way to Kennebunkport Maine.His every move and phone call should be traced by the FBI.
http://www.tbwt.com/krtdata/courtmedia/court_hearing.asp

That’s the only likely scenario that we can believe today. The other possible scenario which we like more than this one would be that MR.OLSON (who was not getting along w/ his wife Barbra found the perfect way to get rid of her and he and the BUSH conspirators made sure that BARBARA got ON on that plane so she could be the, if not THE MOST PROMINENT PERSONALITY on the plane who were "killed". He Then he could come out w/ his ALLEGED PHONY PHONE CALLS from her and the story about the ALLEGED hijackers. "Mrs. Olson, who wrote a damning biography of Hillary Clinton, is the first confirmed high-profile victim of the four hijack attacks in New York and Washington. She had delayed her departure to have breakfast with her husband yesterday, his 61st birthday.” This is a case worthy of Colombo. Come to think of it didn’t Colombo solve a case like this once?

She was leaving earlier, OLSONS BIRTHDAY MADE HER postpone and take or make it look like she boarded AA flight 77.

http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/09/11/pentagon.olson
http://www.csmonitor.com/2001/0912/p1s1-usju.htm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2001%2F09%2F12%2Fwwife12.xml
http://www.usatoday.com/graphics/news/gra/gpentagondetail/frame.htm

We will not get into what they did w/ Barbra and the OTHER PASSENGERS who were on the "pentagon crash”. And by them we don’t mean the hijackers. There were NO hijackers. After they herded all the passengers on that plane that never took off? After they possibly taxied it into some secret service hangar run by the SHADOW GOV at the end of the runway? How about after they flew it to another shadowy air base?

"Reports put the departure time of American Flight #77 from Dulles at 8:10 or 8:21 a.m. At 9:25 a.m., One hour later,Barbra Olson allegedly calls her husband Solicitor General Ted Olson from Flight #77 to say the plane has been hijacked. He tells her of the other hijackings. It crashes at 9:45. Dulles is in suburban Maryland outside DC. WHERE WAS THIS PLANE FOR ONE HOUR???? Where in the world was Barbara Olson really?

How can we ever know? How can we know what ever happened to that flight that did NOT crash? When we saw no plane at the crash site and have heard no black box up to this day 17 months later.What did they do w/ the passengers? Did they kill them in cold blood? Or are they part of the conspiracy like BARBRA was? Where are they by the way? Where are the families of the passengers? Were bodies ever recovered? Was Barbara's body recovered or was it "burned beyond recognition?"

We can DEMAND that the DULLES WASHINGTON airport authorities provide us w/ the FOOTAGE of the airport security cameras that should show us the 64 victims of American Airlines Flight #77 that departed Washington, DC's in suburban Virginia for Los Angeles at 8:10 a.m. The families of those POOR victims that were on OLSONS plane should DEMAND that they be shown footage of their loved ones in the final hour before boarding and while boarding the AA flight. If we were one of the families we would PICKET the white house DEMANDING to see the tape and we would not LEAVE till BUSH gave us an answer or is IMPEACHED for his complicity in 911.

While that tape can show the 64 passengers and crew and BARBARA OLSON boarding the plane, we can almost guarantee you that tape WILL NOT show us the 5 "HIJACKERS" that we were TOLD were onboard too. Where is the airport security cameras footage of ALL the hijackers?

Something is terribly WRONG here. We were LIED to by THEODORE OLSON and We are being lied to by our President and our government. On second thought make that "lied to by THE president. He is most certainly Not OUR president.

The Crusading Bush gang must be impeached tried and brought to justice BEFORE they can do more harm. World War III for example. NUCLEAR WORLD WAR III.
San Francisco Bay Area Independent Media Center
Original article is at http://www.sf.indymedia.org/news/2002/06/135143.php The Phantom Menace
by artbishop

$11 BILLION Proof that Bush & co. could not have "NOT KNOWN" about 9-11.
The Phantom Menace?
Proof that in the 8 Clinton years it didnt happen cause they were on TOP of things."David Stockwell, a spokesman for the National Security Council, says the administration is following a philosophy of better safe than sorry. "You have to plan for what an enemy is likely to do, but also for what is the worst thing he can do," he says. "I think the administration would prefer that 10 years from now someone says, 'Well, they did too much.'"
Proof that Bush and co. had an $11 BILLION budget a year for counterterrorism that the Clinton years built up to make sure it didnt happen under HIS watch.Bush & co. not only knew ,they made SURE it happened.$11 BILLION is proof that Bush & co. could not have "NOT KNOWN" about 9-11.
http://www.motherjones.com/mother_jones/SO00/phantom.html
With $11 BILLION a year budget for counterterrorism there was NO WAY BUSH could not have connected the dots.He had the whole plan in technicolor.
"Those "worst-case scenarios" have provided the military and defense agencies with a much-needed rationale to sustain high levels of spending in the wake of the Cold War. With so much money being spread around, virtually every agency of the U.S. government is fast developing an antiterrorism program to cash in. And in an ominous move, the Clinton administration has given the Pentagon and the FBI sweeping new powers that threaten to erode civil liberties. Counterterrorism laws have allowed the FBI to expand surveillance of American dissidents and U.S. backers of Third World guerrilla groups, while U.S. armed forces have set up special commands that enable uniformed soldiers to erect domestic roadblocks, make arrests, and engage in house-to-house searches in response to an alleged terrorist act or threat."
"No agency has benefited as much as the FBI. Under the Clinton administration, the bureau's antiterrorism budget has soared from $78 million to $609 million, while the number of agents devoted to counterterrorism has jumped from 550 to nearly 1,400. Twenty percent of the FBI's budget now goes to fight terrorism, up from just four percent in 1993. The money has paid for a Counterterrorism Center that works closely with its CIA equivalent, five Rapid Deployment Teams featuring airlift capability, a federal clearinghouse for information on government response to terrorism, and a brand-new counterterrorism division at FBI headquarters."
"Other federal agencies have carved off smaller but significant slices of the antiterrorism pie. This year alone, seven separate agencies -- FEMA, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the departments of Defense, Justice, Energy, Veterans Affairs, and Health and Human Services -- are spending $611 million to train and equip local and state police, fire departments, and emergency medical teams. In all, budgets for such "domestic preparedness" programs have skyrocketed from $42.6 million in 1997 to $1.3 billion this year."

http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/ARTICLE5/index.html
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=3612
http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,2001310020-2001350302,00.html
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=388
http://www.voxnyc.com
http://www.independent.co.uk/story.jsp?story=323958
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=2212
http://www.rumormillnews.net/cgi-bin/config.pl?read=22083
http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=6751
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2001/09/16/pentagon-timeline.htm

Where indeed?
MoonShadow; Thankyou for keeping these questions alive. It's obvious you put alot of work into this piece. Well done!

When I first started posting here; I remember, it was your voice that gave me my initial encouragement on one of my thoughts.

I didn't get a chance to thank you then, cause I was too new to this posting thing, and was a bit nervous.

But now my feet are wet, and my powder's dry; so I'll just say thanks alot for helping to get me started.

And by the way: My bet is that Barbara Olsen is in Israel, as a Mossad Agent???????????

appreciating your good work,

wb
Re: Where indeed?

thanks WB...heres more!

http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=182551&group=webcast

This was a comment at another post, I thought worthy of briging up to the wire for discussion as well as NOTIFICATION! original at:
"winged missle;757 Boeing;Predator;small jet"-witnesses differ yet data points!
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=182127

Sounds as mysterious as all the dozens of missing or dead microbiologists in the past several months. Was someone getting rid of alot of sensitive witnesses? or are these people successfullly disappeared?
I know what happened to flight 77

I started researching FLight 77 and its passengers. Approximately 16 to 21 of the 58 passangers work at classified positions in the defense sector!!!! Look at how many of them are aerospace engineers. One is a lifetime CIA operative who works for veridian as an aerospace engineer, Yamnicky is his last name. The first passenger listed, Caswell, led a team of 100 scientists for the navy. Several work for Boeing and Raytheon on the Global Hawk in El Segundo, California.

I think many people faked their deaths. Perhaps a remote control center was riding with these folks on the C130 transport plane many witnesses saw at the same time as the missile attack on the pentagon. Here's is the list of people in aerospace/defense/bush associates that were on the plane that disappeared (into the shadow gov?). I'm sorry this is a rough draft, these are all excerpts from AP, Boston Herald, W Post, NYT, and other mainstream sources. The passenger list must be scrutinized to figure out what happenned to the alleged flight 77.

Interesting Passangers of Flight 77 (rough draft)

1. JOHN D. YAMNICKY SR., 71, of Waldorf, Md., was a retired naval aviator, but worked as a defense contractor for Veridian Corp. since his retirement as captain in 1979. His son, John Yamnicky, said his father worked on the development of the F/A-18 fighter jet. John Yamnicky Sr., was on a business trip on American Flight 77. After graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1952, he became a Navy test pilot, flying an A-4 attack plane and would sometimes tell stories of his travels and Navy service in Korea and Vietnam. "He crash-landed five times and walked away from them each," said Cindy Sharpley, a friend of the family. "But not this last one."
Copyright أ‚آ© 2001 The Associated Press
---
John D. Yamnicky Sr., a retired naval aviator who lived in Waldorf, was 71.

Mr. Yamnicky had worked for Veridian Corp., a defense contractor, since his retirement as a captain in 1979. He was working with military aircraft and weapons systems, said his son, John, 39.

Mr. Yamnicky was en route to California on a business trip, his son said. He took Flight 77 to California several times a month.

"He never talked about his work," said Cindy Sharpley, who has known the Yamnicky family for about 20 years.

But Mr. Yamnicky, a 1952 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy who became a Navy test pilot, flying an A-4 attack plane, would sometimes tell stories from his travels and Navy service in Korea and Vietnam.

"He crash-landed five times and walked away from them each," Ms. Sharpley said. "But not this last one."

Mr. Yamnicky graduated from the Navy Test Pilot School at Patuxent River in 1960.

"He had done a number of black programs -- which means top-secret," said his son. "We were given no details."

Mr. Yamnicky worked on the development of the F/A-18 fighter jet, said his son.

Mr. Yamnicky, who served on aircraft carriers, became a captain in 1971, when he was stationed at Patuxent River, then worked the office of the Secretary of Defense. Among the many decorations displayed on the walls of his Waldorf home, Ms. Sharpley said, are the Defense Superior Service Medal, Distinguished Flying Cross, Combat Action Ribbon and the Navy Expeditionary Medal.

A native of Barren Run, Pa., Mr. Yamnicky received a master's degree in international relations from George Washington University in 1966.

He is survived by his wife, Jan; four children; and eight grandchildren.
----
John Yamnicky, 71, of Waldorf, Md., graduated from the Naval Academy and spent 30 years with the Navy, including a stint flying jets in Vietnam. His passions, said Janet, his wife of 41 years, were "flying and his children and grandchildren and traveling. We live on a farm. He loved riding the tractor and doing farmwork." An aeronautical engineer for Veridian, he also leaves four children. Yamnicky left home for the airport at 4:30 a.m. Tuesday. "He told me goodbye," his wife says
---
Yamnicky was flying to Los Angeles on business for Veridian Engineering, a Virginia-based military contractor, where he worked on fighter aircraft and air-to-air missile programs.
--
2. William E. Caswell was a third-generation physicist whose work at the Navy was so classified that his family knew very little about what he did each day.

They don't even know exactly why he was headed to Los Angeles on the doomed American Airlines Flight 77.

"It was a trip he often took," his mother, Jean Caswell, said Friday. "We never knew what he was doing there because he couldn't say. You just learn not to ask questions."

It was an unusual feature of life in their family, which Caswell's parents described as very warm and close-knit. The Boston-born Caswell, 54, was very close to his wife, also named Jean, and to her son from a previous marriage, Sean O'Connor.

And nothing mattered more to him than the education of his 17-year-old daughter, Jennifer, a senior at a Silver Spring, Md., magnet high school with a specialty in science. Together, the two had been looking into colleges for her.
Profile courtesy of THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE.
-------------------

In a Princeton University publication, Caswell's PhD advsior said that in the 1980s "I knew that the Navy needed a really smart scientist to advise on a classified advanced technology project and suggested Billأ¢??s name. I was not privy to his day-to-day progress, but by all accounts, it was his thesis project all over again: Starting from zero, he rapidly rose to a position of overall scientific responsibility, leading a team of more than 100 scientists in some of the Navyأ¢??s most challenging research. His technical and management skills were held in the highest esteem by his colleagues and were officially recognized by major Navy awards and commendations. In a tragic irony, he was traveling for this project as a passenger on hijacked American Airlines Flight 77, and perished with all aboard when it crashed into the Pentagon."

---------------------------
3,4: Wilson Flagg, 63, of Millwood, Virginia, a U.S. Navy Admiral and pilot with American Airlines before his retirement.
Wilson Flagg, a retired rear admiral who was one of three admirals censured by the Navy over the 1991 Tailhook sexual-assault scandal, died in the American Airlines plane that crashed into the Pentagon, his family said yesterday. His wife, Darleen, also died in the crash. Both were 62.

On Oct. 15, 1993, the secretary of the Navy, John H. Dalton, censured Admiral Flagg along with Vice Adm. Richard Dunleavy and Rear Adm. Riley Mixson for failing to prevent misbehavior by junior officers at the 1991 Tailhook Association naval aviators convention, at which women were sexually molested. Admiral Flagg was one of Admiral Dunleavy's deputies in organizing the convention. The letter of censure in his file effectively blocked further promotion and led to his retirement from the Navy. He became an American Airlines pilot and retired from that job. His brother-in-law Ray Sellek said that he was still called on by the Pentagon for technical advice and had an office there.

--
"I just can't imagine what went on in those last moments," said his niece Ramona Reiss, of Huntington Beach, Calif., breaking into sobs. "I suppose part of him was prepared for something like this. I'm sure that plane didn't go down without a struggle."

Flagg, who used the nickname "Bud," was a decorated Vietnam War pilot and retired American pilot with 35 years' experience. He and Darlene, his high-school sweetheart who became his wife, died on the Boeing 757 when it was commandeered Tuesday by terrorists and crashed into the Pentagon. They were flying from their home in Millwood, Va., to a family get-together in Orange County, Calif.

He continued to work as a consultant to the Pentagon after his retirement as admiral.

An Annapolis graduate, Flagg rose to the rank of rear admiral in the Naval Reserve, Reiss said.

He was one of two senior officials censured by the Navy for being aware of crude sexual conduct in the scandal known as Tailhook and failing to stop it. His boss, Vice Adm. Richard Dunleavy, was cited by officials as bearing more blame for Tailhook than any other individual in the service. Dunleavy received a reduction in rank after he retired as head of naval warfare.

Ultimately, the scandal claimed the career of Adm. Frank Kelso II, the Navy's highest ranking officer.

Reiss said a memorial for Flagg will be held at Arlington National Cemetery with full military honors.

5. Stanley Hall, 68, of Rancho Palos Verdes, California, director of program management with Raytheon Co.

Stanley Hall, 68, of Clifton, Va., was "our dean of electronic warfare," said a colleague at Raytheon, a defense contractor. Hall, director of program management for Raytheon Electronics Warfare, helped develop and build anti-radar technology. He was quiet, competent and something of a father figure. "We have a lot of young engineers who looked up to him as a mentor," Raytheon spokesman Ron Colman said. He leaves a wife, a son and two daughters.

6. Bryan Jack, 48, of Alexandria, Virginia, budget analyst/director of the programming and fiscal economics division with the Defense Department.Bryan Jack, 48, was from Alexandria, Va. Jack, who worked at the Pentagon, was headed to California to give a lecture at the Naval Postgraduate School when American Airlines Flight 77 slammed into the Pentagon. Colleagues say Jack, 48, was a brilliant mathematician. As head of programming and fiscal economics in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, he was a top budget analyst. He had worked at the Pentagon 23 years. He was also a devoted son who called his parents every Wednesday and Sunday
---
Had Bryan Jack gone to his Pentagon office and settled at his computer at 8 a.m. Tuesday as he normally did, he might be alive today.
But in a cruel twist of fate, Jack was headed to California to give a lecture at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. He was aboard American Airlines Flight 77 when it slammed into the Pentagon at 9:40 a.m.
"You have the question of 'Why Bryan?' " says his older brother, Terry Jack. "But then, you have the question of 'Why anyone?' "
Colleagues like Pentagon economist Carla Tighe say Jack, 48, was a brilliant mathematician. As head of programming and fiscal economics in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, he was a top budget analyst. He had worked at the Pentagon 23 years.
He was also a devoted son who called his parents every Wednesday and Sunday.
"Actually, he was planning a trip to visit us, which he does every 3 months," says his father, James Jack, 84, who is retired from the Air Force in Tyler, Texas. "He'd already purchased his tickets."
Jack had married artist Barbara Rachko last June. Rachko spent weekdays at her studio in New York and the two saw each other on weekends, either at their home in Alexandria, Va., or their apartment in New York. Rachko has a commercial pilot's license and spent 7 years as a naval officer. She resigned from active duty but is a commander in the Naval Reserve. They have no children.
Jack enjoyed photography and hiking and had been remodeling his Alexandria home.
"I never met anyone who I thought was kinder than he was," says his father, who still proudly recounts his son's achievements: Texas debate champion in high school; an MBA from Stanford University; a Ph.D. from the University of Maryland.
His father is philosophical about his son's fate.
"There are things you can't explain," he says. "It's ironic that this is the way it happened, but it's the way it happened."
------------------------------------
7. Keller, Chandler "Chad" Raymond Chad was born in Manhattan Beach, California on October 8, 1971 and died September 11, 2001, on board the hijacked American Airlines Flight #77 that departed from Dulles International, Washington D.C. bound for Los Angeles. Chad was a lead Propulsion Engineer and a Project Manager with Boeing Satellite Systems. He lived life to the fullest and never missed an opportunity to be with friends. He loved to surf, ski, snowboard, cook, and had a wonderful sense of humor. Mixed with that humor was a very down to earth and genuine man. He and his wife Lisa were married on July 22nd at the Old Mission in Santa Barbara. He was a loving husband, respected by his coworkers, admired by his brothers and an immense pride and joy to his parents. He is survived by his wife Lisa Hurley Keller of Marina del Rey, his parents, Kathy and Dick Keller of Del Mar, and his brothers Brandon and Gavin. A memorial mass will be held for Chad on Saturday, September 22nd at 10:30 am at The Church of the American Martyrs in Manhattan Beach at 624 15th Street. The family requests that, in lieu of flowers, contributions be made to the Chandler R. Keller Scholarship Fund at the University of Colorado Foundation, P.O. Box 1140, Boulder, CO 80306.
Paid Notice published in THE LOS ANGELES TIMES on September, 21, 2001.

8. Dong Lee, 48, of Leesburg, Virginia, an engineer with Boeing Co.

9. Ruben Ornedo, 39, of Los Angeles, a propulsion engineer with Boeing Co.
Ruben Ornedo, 39, of Los Angeles, was a propulsion engineer for Boeing. He was scheduled to board a plane next week but a lull in an extended business trip in Washington, D.C., gave him an opportunity to go home for a day or two. He wanted to see his wife of three months, Sheila, who is pregnant. "He thought it was worth the trip just to see her," said his brother, Dr. Eduardo Ornedo of Los Angeles. Born in the Philippines, he graduated from University of California, Los Angeles and loved to travel. He and his wife had just bought a house in the Eagle Rock section of Los Angeles and one of his favorite hobbies was going to Home Depot, according to his brother.
Ruben Ornedo, 39, senior project engineer, Boeing Satellite Systems, El Segundo, Calif.
---
10.Robert Penninger, 63, of Poway, California, an electrical engineer with BAE Systems. Robert Penninger, 63, of Poway, Calif., was an electrical engineer who had worked for defense contractor BAE Systems in San Diego since 1990. According to his neighbor, Kit Young, Penninger lived life to the fullest. He and his wife, Janet, often took motorcycle trips and he loved his souped-up, emerald-green Mustang convertible. They have one daughter, Karen Penninger. "He brought a lot of joy to this neighborhood," said Young, who had lived next to Penninger for eight years. "He was a wonderful neighbor. Best we've ever had."

-------------------------

11 AND 12?. Robert R. Ploger III, 59, of Annandale, Virginia, a software architect with Lockheed Martin Corp.
Robert R. Ploger III, 59 and his wife, Zandra Cooper were from Annandale, Va. Ploger worker for 20 years at Lockheed Martin, where he was a manager in the systems and software architecture department, said colleague Matt Kramer. "He was a terrific guy, always upbeat, always had a smile on his face," Kramer said. His daughter, Wendy Chamerblin said, "He was a combination of intellectual and physical intensity and he had a keen sense of humor."...

13. John Sammartino, 37, of Annandale, Virginia, a technical manager for XonTech Inc.
John Sammartino of Annandale, Va., was a platinum frequent flier on American Airlines. A technical manager for XonTech, an Arlington, Va., science and technology firm, he was heading to company headquarters in Van Nuys, Calif., with colleague Leonard Taylor. "John and Lennie had very similar personalities," says their boss, Bob D'Alessandro. "They had a tremendous amount of patience. They were soft-spoken and reserved. Just top-drawer guys. ... I depended on them so much." Sammartino leaves a wife and daughter. Taylor is survived by wife Karyn and their two young daughters.
--
John Sammartino, 37, an engineer at XonTech Inc. in Rosslyn, left his Annandale home just after dawn Tuesday for Dulles International Airport. With a colleague, he boarded American Airlines Flight 77 to attend a conference in Los Angeles. By Tuesday night, his wife, Deborah Rooney, and other family members were getting ready to tell 4-year-old Nicole Sammartino that her father was dead.

"We're not holding up well," said Sammartino's sister, Valerie Personick, an economist at the U.S. Treasury Department. "We're not holding up well, but we're fair."

The last time the relatives had gathered, it was a far happier occasion. Over the Labor Day weekend, John Sammartino showed them the window frames and cabinets he had carved with his 83-year-old father, Frank, and was installing in the family's home. "It was terrific," Personick said.

Woodworking was a hobby Sammartino had cultivated since moving to the neighborhood five years ago, Personick said. He was born in New York and came to Washington in the 1980s to study at George Washington University, then earned a master's degree at Johns Hopkins University.

Out of college, Sammartino was hired as an engineer at the Naval Research Lab; he had worked 11 years at XonTech, a research and development firm involved in defense issues. His father and mother, Ann, live in the Mount Vernon area of Fairfax County.

14. Leonard Taylor, technical manager
By Globe Staf, 9/27/2001
A memorial Mass will be said Saturday for Leonard E. Taylor of Reston, Va., a technical manager at XonTech, a research and development firm specializing in sensor technologies for defense and industry.

A former resident of Andover, Mr. Taylor died Sept. 11 in the crash of American Airlines Flight 77 in Washington, D.C. He was 44.
He was born in Pasadena, Calif. He graduated from Andover High School in 1975 and Worcester Polytechnic Institute in 1979.

15. Vicki Yancey was on her way to Reno for a business conference but hadn't planned to be on Flight 77, which crashed into the Pentagon on Tuesday. Yancey, a former naval electronics technician, worked for a defense contracting company and had planned to leave Washington earlier, but ticketing problems delayed her departure, her husband, David, told the Washington Post. She called her husband 10 minutes before the flight boarded, to tell him that she got a seat on the plane.
Profile courtesy of THE CHICAGO TRIBUNE.

--Vicki Yancey, of Springfield, was an eager worker and an even more eager traveler. The former naval electronics technician, bound for a business conference in Reno, Nev., was on the first of what she hoped would be many trips for Vredenburg, a Washington-based defense contractor for which she worked. She wasn't supposed to be on American Airlines Flight 77, however. Ticketing problems delayed her departure on an earlier flight, and she made it onto the American plane with minutes to spare. When she called her husband, David Yancey, to let him know, each said, "I love you," before hanging up.

The 43-year-old mother of two daughters -- Michelle, 18, and Carolyn, 15 -- loved politics, figure skating and the beach.

In 1991, she wrote a letter to The Washington Post lamenting the demise of the one-income family. That led to an appearance before the Senate Finance Committee, where she testified about the struggles of middle-class families. USA Today, CNN and PBS followed up with stories.

Above a picture of her on her Web page, Yancey wrote: "I love politics -- here's me testifying before the Senate Finance Committee in 1991. What an exciting day that was!"

-- Steven Ginsberg
Vicki Yancey was never supposed to be on Flight 77 in the first place. But about 10 minutes before it boarded, she called her husband to tell him that she was able to get a seat. The former naval electronics technician needed to be in Reno for a business conference, and ticketing problems had prevented her from leaving earlier.

"I told her to be safe and that I loved her, and she told me she loved me back," David Yancey said yesterday from his Springfield home.
About an hour later -- not knowing his wife's flight number -- he watched the television footage of the disaster at the Pentagon. He began frantically searching the Internet, trying to learn whatever he could about morning departures from Dulles.

Then her defense contractor company called. "They said they were under the belief that she was on Flight 77," Yancey said. "At that point I was in a panic. I tried to call her cell phone again and again."
-------------------------

16. Charles Burlingame A 1971 graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, Charles F. Burlingame III was captain of American Airlines Flight 77.

He would have celebrated his 52nd birthday yesterday, said his brother, Mark W. Burlingame of Lancaster, Pa.

Mark Burlingame said his brother was in the Navy Reserve and had worked in the same area of the Pentagon where the airliner crashed. He also was organizing a 30th reunion for his Naval Academy class.

He leaves a wife, Sheri, a daughter and a grandson
------
Burlingame's family says he would not have given up the cockpit without a fight. If he were still in the cockpit, they say, he would not have been alive as the plane circled back from southern Ohio and flew toward the Pentagon.
Burlingame's father had spent 23 years in the Navy and Air Force, and he and his wife are buried at Arlington National Cemetery, just across the highway from the military headquarters.
While a Navy reservist, Burlingame worked in the Pentagon not far from the crash site.
-----------------------------------

17. Barbara Olson, Advocate and Conservative Commentator, Dies at 45
By NEIL A. LEWIS

WASHINGTON, Sept. 12 - Barbara K. Olson, who was killed on Tuesday on the commercial jetliner that was hijacked and flown into the Pentagon, was well known to television viewers across the nation as a combative and confident political commentator representing the conservative Republican point of view.

Mrs. Olson, 45, was also half of a highly influential couple on Washington's social-political scene; her husband, Theodore B. Olson, an appellate lawyer, successfully argued the Florida election case for George W. Bush before the Supreme Court. President Bush named Mr. Olson the nation's solicitor general, the official who formulates the administration's strategy before the nation's courts.

Mr. Olson was in his Justice Department office on Tuesday morning when he received two calls from Mrs. Olson, who was using her cell phone aboard American Airlines Flight 77 to tell him the plane had been hijacked. Her description of what was occurring in her last moments provided what officials said was valuable information about the incident. She reported that the flight crew had been herded to the back of the plane with the passengers, and she asked her husband what she should tell the pilot who was apparently beside her while the hijackers were in control of the cockpit.

Mrs. Olson's friends and her husband said her efforts to "do something" on the doomed plane were exquisitely in character. " She never sat back," her husband said in an interview.

The Olsons, who were married four years ago, complemented each other in style. Mrs. Olson was the more outspoken of the two in her televised commentaries, while Mr. Olson presented a more deliberative face in his role as the reigning constitutional litigator for the Republican establishment.

Although Mrs. Olson was generally a take-no-prisoners advocate, Mr. Olson recalled on Tuesday that she recently told him she had come to believe that the national political debate had become too acrimonious. He recalled that she said that during one television appearance, she believed those who called in comments to her and her liberal counterpart, Bill Press, were far too harsh.

Barbara Kay Bracher Olson was born on Dec. 27, 1955, in Houston, and trained to be a teacher at the University of St. Thomas in her hometown. But, she had told friends, she wanted to save enough money to go to law school and decided a quicker way to do so than teaching was to become a part of the film industry.

With no experience in the field but an abundance of self-confidence, she moved to Hollywood and began telephoning production companies connected to well-known actors, offering herself as an all-around helper. Stacy Keach finally offered her a job, Mr. Olson recalled this week, and when she saved enough money to go to law school, she moved to New York to attend the Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law at Yeshiva University.

Mrs. Olson turned down jobs in New York after law school because she yearned to live in Washington. As chief counsel for the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee's Republican majority from 1995 to 1996, Mrs. Olson led the investigation into President Bill Clinton and Hillary Rodham Clinton's role in firing longtime employees of the White House travel office. She became a caustic and relentless critic of the Clintons.

Mrs. Olson wrote "Hell to Pay" (Regnery, 1999), a highly critical book about Mrs. Clinton, and recently finished a sequel, "Final Days," about the Clintons' last weeks in the White House. Mr. Olson said it would be published by Regnery.

Mrs. Olson is survived by her brother, David Bracher, and her sister, Antoinette Lawrence, both of Houston, as well as her husband.
Editorial Obituary published in THE NEW YORK TIMES on September 13, 2001

18. Karen Kincaid, 40, of Washington, D.C. An Iowa native, she was a partner at the Washington law firm of Wiley Rein & Fielding, which specializes in communications law. She was flying to Los Angeles to attend a wireless industry conference. She was training to run in the Marine Corps Marathon Oct. 28 with her husband of 5 years, Peter Batacan, a lawyer at another firm. "She was very self-effacing," says Richard Wiley, head of the firm. "She was really one of the nicest most genuine individual you would hope to meet."
[Wiley Rein & Fielding is a powerful Republican law firm that was part of the Bush Cheney Transition team 2001 as well as important white collar crime defense counsel]

19. Steven 'Jake' Jacoby was chief operating officer of Metrocall Inc., one of the nation's largest paging companies. "The fact that Metrocall's technical operating network continued to function and provide critical communications during this horrific event was a tribute to Jake," said Vince Kelly, the firm's chief financial officer. Jacoby, who was in the American Airlines flight that slammed into the Pentagon, recently oversaw the development of a two-way paging device for critically ill people to use in emergencies, Metrocall spokesman Timothy Dietz said. The company has handed out devices to emergency personnel working the scene in Washington and New York. "I understand they're being used," Dietz said. "That would make Jake happy." Jacoby is survived by his wife, Kim, and three children.-------

---At 7 a.m. on Sept. 11, Mike Scanlon [MetroCall spokesperson and long-time friend of Bush adviser, Karl Rove] was asleep in a hotel bed in San Diego. The senior vice president of marketing and communications for Alexandria-based Metrocall was on the West Coast for a trade show - one of two exhibitions of interest that day to his firm, the second-largest provider of wireless pagers in the nation. Steven D. "Jake" Jacoby, the company's chief operating officer, was going to cover the other show in Los Angeles. The two men had been close colleagues for 20 years. "I can't tell you how many times I sat next to him on an airplane," says Scanlon who left Dulles airport for the coast the night before. Jacoby was due to leave from Dulles to Los Angeles on American Flight 77 that morning.
As Scanlon slept peacefully, the pager on his bed stand suddenly blared. "All hell had broken loose," he says. He tried to call his office, but the lines were jammed. Soon, he learned the stunning news. Terrorists had hijacked Jacoby's airliner and slammed it into the southwest side of the Pentagon. All on board, including Jacoby, had died. Metrocall officials, using their name-brand pagers, frantically tried to account for the rest of their executive staff.
---
But there was a incredible irony in Chief Operating Officer Jake Jacoby's death, company officials say.
The wireless messaging system that Jacoby designed went into maximum overdrive as his life came to a devastating end when his plan crashed into the Pentagon. Jacoby was one of the key architects of a multiple-frequency wireless messaging system that has 15 redundant backup frequencies at any given time. Metrocall has 6.2 million customers nationwide, many of them in the medical or emergency services field.
"He's the guy who had more to do with setting up the systems, and we lose him when our systems are taxed to the max," says Mike Scanlon, vice president of marketing and communications for Metrocall
http://www.metrocall.com
"His system may have saved lives at the Pentagon."
Even as it mourned the loss of one of its top executives, Metrocall donated 4,000 pagers and wireless messaging services to relief efforts in New York and Arlington. Those devices were more reliable than the overloaded telephone and cellular networks Sept. 11, and may have saved a few lives, Scanlon says.
"Nationwide, 75 percent of the hospital, emergency worker and medical field use our services," Scanlon says. "Many of them were made aware of the attack through our system and our devices."
While it's not clear whether the reliability and availability of Metrocall's services during the disaster will have a positive economic impact on the already struggling company (Nasdaq: MCLL), Scanlon says its one-way and two-way messaging devices have been in high demand around the search and rescue operations in New York and Arlington.
too many victims

There was also a group of classmates that died..mostly around the age of 13 yrs.

A mother who lost her 13 yr old son...
was told by him, that he did not want to board the plane, and felt he would die.
He complained days before the trip, of his fear.
She sent him anyway.
She worked with my daughter...
and never returned to her job after 9/11.

nan.
Re: too many victims
nana your friend and the other parents of the classmates that died should SUE the bushes for EVERY CENT THEY HAVE for ALLOWING 911 to happen and SEND them to JAIL for the MURDER of their sons and daughters.
thanks for the kind words WB

Tony Blair’s March of Folly
Neil Berry, Special to Arab News
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LONDON, 24 February 2003 — Unable to ignore the historic, million-strong anti-war demonstration which took place in London on Feb. 15, Tony Blair tried hard to turn the event to his advantage.

Like some priggish school master, Britain’s prime minister pointed out that such a demonstration would never have been allowed in a country like Iraq: Those who took part in it did well to remember just how lucky they are to live in a free society.

It is Blair’s holier-than-thou attitude, his self-righteous sense of himself as a champion of democracy, free speech and the highest civilized values, that many find increasingly hard to stomach. Here, after all, is a British leader who — in the teeth of concerted public opposition — persists in pledging seemingly blind loyalty to the militaristic US administration of George W. Bush.

Last week, Blair was received by the Pope, a religious leader whose office is based on the doctrine of papal infallibility. British people could be forgiven for thinking that their prime minister has formulated his own personal version of that doctrine.

Blair’s plunging opinion poll ratings stem in no small measure from his high-handed brushing aside of mass resistance to his pro-war, pro-US posture.

But his falling esteem is also bound up with a general loss of public faith in his capacity to tell the truth. Blair’s credibility was badly injured by the recent British government report which purported to comprise up-to-the-minute “intelligence” about Iraq’s secret weapons but which turned out to have been drawn from out-of-date information found on the Internet. Consider, too, the suspiciously shifting nature of his rationale for waging war against Iraq: One moment he is maintaining that the reason for ousting Saddam Hussein is that he possesses weapons of mass destruction, the next he is arguing that the case for toppling the Iraqi leader is essentially a moral one, based on the fact that he is a tyrant who has visited unspeakable crimes on his own people.

The result is that Blair seems less like a high-minded leader than an importunate salesman — quick to adopt a fresh marketing ploy the minute it is apparent that the previous one has failed.

Many Britons have reached the point where they simply do not trust a word that he says. A young woman who is undecided about whether war is justified or not told BBC’s Radio 4 that her biggest problem in making up her mind was the prime minister himself.

“If Tony Blair told me it was raining,” she said, “I’d have to go outside and check.”

So much for the Blair who entered office projecting himself — in sharp contrast to his discredited Conservative predecessors — as the epitome of honesty and plain-dealing.

Blair’s calculation is that if and when war begins the bulk of British people will rally behind the 27,000 British troops who are being deployed in the Gulf. But they are unlikely to do so unless military action has been unequivocally endorsed by a second UN resolution.

A war fought by Britain without such a resolution may well prove fatally unpopular; indeed, it could split the Labour Party and undermine Blair’s authority as the party’s leader. One British political columnist has envisaged a scenario in which an ever more isolated Tony Blair is kept in office by his pro-war Tory opponents.

Blair might have found himself less beleaguered had he offered clearer evidence of having thought through the consequences of attacking Iraq. But on this score he continues to be evasive and unconvincing.

At a press conference the other day, he devoted more time to condemning anti-Americanism than he did to addressing the issue of the fate of Iraq following the planned deposition of its present leader. As for the wider implications for the Middle East of a US-led invasion of Iraq — these seem scarcely to have engaged the British prime minister’s attention.

It is not just civilians who worry about the wisdom of Tony Blair’s bellicosity and unwavering support of the US. There are respected military figures who question the prime minister’s stand. In an article in the London Review of Books (an extract from which was published in the Guardian), the British Gulf War veteran, David Ramsbotham, argued that — leaving aside the pros and cons of declaring war on Iraq in the first place — Blair is contriving circumstances in which the British Army is in danger of becoming disastrously overstretched.

Ramsbotham writes that some 15,000 British troops will be required to police Iraq following the prospective war. But given existing British commitments (and the need to relieve those who have seen military action), he is hard-pressed to work out where they are going to come from. Anxious to sustain their country’s pretensions as a great world power, successive British governments have maintained armed forces designed to enable Britain to “punch above its weight”. Now, according to Ramsbotham, there is a real possibility that the British Army could soon end up barely able to punch at all.

It is impossible not to wonder what became of the Tony Blair who rose to power six years ago preaching consensus and reconciliation.

How did the affable new prime minister of 1997 turn into the divisive warmonger who has provoked such dissension in his own country, such dissension in Europe and such dissension between Europe and the US? It is impossible not to wonder, too, about the peculiar psychology of a British politician so furiously insistent that he is right to be pursuing a course of action which great numbers of his fellow countrymen believe to be wrong — and which he himself did not initiate.

In the 1980s, the American historian, Barbara Tuchman, wrote a best-selling book detailing how throughout history the world’s leaders have regularly set in motion catastrophic chains of events — even as they affected to be acting out of rational self-interest.

Tuchman’s book was entitled “The March of Folly”. The topicality of its theme needs no underlining.

The Iraq War Began in 1991 and Still Continuing
Ramzy Baroud, Special to Arab News

Feb. 13 was a strange day. I found myself disagreeing with Professor Noam Chomsky, and in a peculiarly twisted way appreciating Thomas Friedman.

New York Times famed columnist Friedman is an interesting journalist. He comes out, often, as one who is simply presenting different scenarios in the American effort to invade Iraq, without a shred of objectivity, but in reality offers no option other than war. It’s a clever warmongering tactic.

Iraq could become another Vietnam, he tells us, only if we wish to make it that way once we occupy it. Otherwise, he asserts, it could become a pillar of democracy and economic achievement, the way we made Germany and Japan following World War II. This was the core of the man’s presentation on the Oprah Show, which was dedicated to the subject of war on Iraq on Feb. 13.

What Friedman intentionally omitted from his talk was any condemnation of the moral and legal right to invade and occupy another sovereign country in the first place. Such disregard renders Friedman’s options meaningless, even deceptive.

Needless to say, despite my lack of respect for Friedman’s arrogant depiction of almost everyone else, except of the United States and his strong support of the ruthless policies of the US and Israel governments, I am glad that he spared us the time to rebut his potential argument that a war on Iraq is motivated by any other reason than oil.

I am still wondering why the big fuss over Friedman. But my lack of respect for the man’s intellectual discourse was no reason for me not to appreciate the fact that he is open in thinking of Iraq as an oil field. “We will own Iraq,” he kept on uttering, not only on the Oprah Show, but in other venues as well. Friedman has no ethical problem with “owning” someone else’s country as cheap real estate, but his challenge is how the US can consolidate such ownership in a way that could make the difference between Vietnam scenario on one hand, and Germany and Japan on the other.

With a related yet slightly different angle, Professor Noam Chomsky was interviewed by the Guardian on Feb. 4, about the anti-war movement.

The American intellectual, who is considered one of the leading forces that shaped the opposition to successive US governments’ imperial foreign policies, surprised me a bit by stating: “There’s never been a time that I can think of when there’s been such massive opposition to a war before it was even started.”

Chomsky, like Friedman, also resorted to the Vietnam comparison, again with a different twist. If you compare the opposition to the Iraq war “with the Vietnam War, the current stage of the war with Iraq is approximately like that of 1961 — that is, before the war actually was launched, as it was in 1962 with the US bombing of South Vietnam and millions of people being driven into concentration camps and chemical warfare and so on, but there was no protest. In fact, so little protest that few people even remember it.”

On a personal level, the opposition to war across the world, despite the prevailing fear that war is imminent, is one of the reasons that gives me urgently needed hope in a time that I often cannot help but despair. However, with all due respect, the anti-Iraq war movement, unlike the Vietnam War is overdue by at least 10 years.

The Iraq war has never completely ended to start once more. The 1991 US-led war on Iraq continued unabated using various forms of killing, focusing mostly on depriving the Iraqis of food and medicine. The United Nations’ own studies testify to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis as a result of the genocidal sanctions during the last decade. Meanwhile, hundreds of air raids on Iraq have always satisfied the requirement of war from a traditional warfare point of view.

The fact that the world is now opposed to the unleashing of a newer stage in the US war on Iraq is a direct result of 10 years of devastating attacks.

When people from across the world march in opposition to war, they don’t carry abstract images of dying Iraqi children, but real photos of victims of the war on Iraq that has never ended.

I worry that overcrediting ourselves for the anti-Iraq war movement, over 10 years after the war began, might compel some of us to rest with the assumption that the war is yet to begin.

The only factor that is uniquely different between this stage of the war in comparison to the earlier stages is that the coming stage involves the complete invasion of the country, the installing of a puppet government and the killing of many more people, at a much faster pace.

Needless to say, I am impressed and proud at the vigor of the anti-war movement all over the world, and in the US in particular. Despite the fantastic “Showdown with Saddam” propaganda that assaults every American, all day every day, and despite the vicious attempts by the US government, in collaboration with the media, to instill fear in the heart of Americans to ease the way toward a “pre-emptive war” against an unreal threat, there are still millions of Americans who refuse to follow the US government’s oil-motivated logic.

There are still millions of Americans whocare for a nation thousands of miles away; there are many Americans who see the tragedy of Sept. 11 as a reason for compassion and peace, not endless wars and invasions; and thank God, there are still millions of Americans, who, unlike Friedman, don’t want to “own Iraq”, and who would rather pay a few more pennies to fuel their cars than to cut short the lives of almost an entire generation of Iraqis.

Two days ago in a television interview in New York, I had the honor of meeting a young man whose father was killed in the Sept. 11 tragedy.

The man is now a leader in the anti-war movement and proudly advocates peace in response to the death of his father. The young man was a true inspiration, although he never made it to the Oprah Show. After all, unlike Friedman, he had nothing to do with the real estate business.

Pro-War Leaders Anti-War People
Hassan Tahsin, Arab News, 2/24/03

Leaders and politicians too often ignore their citizens’ opinions and ideas in the mistaken belief that the ruler knows the country’s strategic interests better than the man in the street.

America’s obstinacy and insistence on invading Iraq recalls the horrors of the Vietnam War and has resulted in the emergence of serious differences between citizens and leaders.

It is neither possible nor logical for the American administration to ignore the American street’s anti-war sentiments or the global rejection of the American military operation. Twenty million protesters in 600 cities around the world on the same day is a phenomenon which the world has never before seen.

The surprise for the supporters of war came when reports confirmed that there is no evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq nor is there evidence that the country has a nuclear weapons program. The reports also said that the Iraqi government has been cooperating with the inspectors which makes their jobs much easier.

When the reports were made, the Security Council turned into a battle of diplomatic wit not seen since the Korean War — the foreign ministers of France, Germany, Russia, China and Syria clearly opposed the American stand.

It became apparent to the American secretary of state that his theatrical show had failed to convince his allies and world opinion of the rightness of America’s view. In the UK, popular pressure affected Britain’s pro-America stand; Tony Blair was forced to withdraw some of his wholehearted support for an immediate war on Iraq and he said that he still hoped for a peaceful resolution to the matter from the UN.

The Iraqi invasion will not begin World War III because its significance is not comparable with the causes that led to World War II. By the same token the conflict between the great countries inside the Security Council — and more especially inside the European Union — is indicative of the world’s refusal to accept American domination which aims solely at protecting its strategic interests without care or concern for anyone else.

And so the Security Council decided to continue its diplomatic war until March 14, in accordance with France’s wishes, and to delay the Iraqi invasion until after that date. On the official front, all the American administration could do was attempt to minimize the importance of what has happened in the Security Council’s last meeting. The administration’s hope is that Washington will once again be able to influence the countries opposed to war and make them bend to its will as it usually does by either convincing them or by threatening economic penalties. Finally we can say that the American administration is at a crossroads; either it retreats from war, which is difficult since it would shake American public opinion and the political organization’s credibility in the current administration at a time when the American budget had been practically depleted in preparation for armed conflict. It is also an armed conflict the cost of which the American taxpayer will bear alone. Or Washington could begin the war without approval from the Security Council and in so doing break international law, isolate itself from the international community thus threatening its interests not only around the world but also in its own territory. None of this has been thought through very carefully at all.

Elusive Peace
Arab News, 24 February 2003
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If peace is left to Ariel Sharon, there will never be any. The Israeli prime minister has thrown up more hurdles to a settlement by ruling out the division of Jerusalem or the return of Palestinian refugees from negotiations. While Sharon reiterated what is still his vague motto about being prepared to make “painful compromises” for a lasting peace settlement, he was not prepared, he said, to surrender control of the city even if half of it is Palestinian. “We are guardians of Jerusalem for future generations,” Sharon said in recent public statements.

He also rejected the right of return for Palestinians. As for the Palestinian state Sharon has always spoken of, it would be smaller than ever proposed and would have only limited sovereignty, including complete demilitarization. Israel would control its borders and air space and it would be forbidden to establish diplomatic ties with any “enemy” of Israel.

Finally, Sharon has long made his core requirements for a peace deal clear — the removal of Yasser Arafat and the overhaul of the Palestinian political system.

This take-it-or-leave-it political stance is coupled with like-minded toughness on the field of battle. The toll has been brought to at least 30 Palestinians killed since activists blew up an Israeli tank on Saturday. The Israeli use of massive military force could pave the way for a reoccupation of the Gaza Strip. A reconquest of Gaza, taken together with last year’s reoccupation in the West Bank, would mean the fall of the last remnant of the Palestinian Authority and the Oslo peace process, placing all major Palestinian population centers under Israeli control.

However, the get-tough strategy is hurting Sharon domestically, preventing him from wooing the Labour Party into his government, a party he needs to make his coalition stable. In order to get the party to join, Sharon has shown signs of conciliation.

In recent days, he has held rare talks with senior Palestinian officials and has overturned his ban on Palestinian officials attending international conferences, allowing a delegation to attend the current talks in London. He even sent an Israeli team to London in the hopes that this tentative diplomacy is enough to persuade Labor to sign up to his government.

Despite the concessions, Mitzna is insisting on an acceptable timetable for negotiations with the Palestinians and the establishment of a Palestinian state. Sharon has repeatedly refused to commit himself to dates, a stand which serves him well with regard to the road map to peace. The quartet officials meeting in London have been urged to present their road map for setting up a Palestinian state as soon as possible. Publication of the final version was delayed by elections in Israel. Now it seems the US administration feels it should be put off further because a new Israeli government has not been formed.

The road map is the only available political tool which can bring the parties out of the abyss and back to the negotiating table. But to confirm the fears of skeptics on both sides who say Sharon is not serious about peace, he is demanding more than 100 changes to the road map and wants the timetable for implementation of the road map scrapped in favor of progress according to performance.

That could drag the process out for years, benefiting only hard-line groups who want blood to continue to flow.

No Media Freedom During Wartime, Please
David Thomson, The Independent, Arab News, 2/24/03
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Was it Gibbon or Carlyle who said, “Nothing in history is as mysterious as the congruence of apparently diverse ideas which yet come together like two modest rivers and make a great flood”? Or was that Groucho Marx?

Whatever, I can only report the white-hot e-mails that are now passing between Washington DC and the headquarters of several television networks. The fertile minds in those two places are quietly agog (I say “quietly” because secrecy is everything in security — they will all of them dismiss this column as preposterous!) over plans to harness the imminent regime-changing excursion to places east of Cairo (they keep an open mind there, which is a kindness to the poverty of their geography) with the frenzy that exists in these United States for what is now known as “reality TV”.

Dialogue, story construction, artful photography, acting — these are things of the past now in the mob of talent shows, game shows, survival epics, and fraud-testing money-makers. Joe Millionaire, in which a bevy of attractive young women who seem to have packed only bikinis and thigh-slit evening gowns go to visit an alleged millionaire hunk (who is really a con!), is to be applied in the next few months to nearly every one of the solid American professions (stopping short of DC, of course — there is still room for tact and taste).

At the same time, the American public more or less has the understanding that sophisticated firepower and illiterate speeches are shortly to be dropped upon Arab heads, dhows and minarets. Sooner or later, it is supposed at television headquarters, the public will display some concern for such matters and will want the best possible live coverage of those corkscrew “clever” missiles seeking out every fleeing camel.

In other words, in the greatest of all nations, and in the cockpit of media modernity, we want to be there with “our boys”, “getting it done” and “going the long haul” — at least for six or seven weeks (before the return of The Sopranos).

Well, DC learns its lessons, such as it’s all the harder nowadays to fight a proper war if you’re subject to the intrusive journalistic techniques (not to mention the amendments to the Bill of Rights) that afflict a modern nation. The inside story on the 1991 war was that it was a triumph of keeping the media in the dark. And that is essential if you want to keep the public happy.

Thus we will have the chemistry, the synergy, of excluding television news reporting from the territories east of Cairo, while allowing the entertainment wings as much freedom as possible.

No small contributor to this policy shift was the startling success of a radically experimental Nickelodeon show, aimed at the under-eights, Find a Wog at Your Airport, which achieved viewing figures that the production company called “statistically impossible”, and which is also reckoned to be instrumental in the bankruptcy of three major airlines.

As a spokesman from the Department of Homeland Security put it, “Do we have these kids on red alert!” (So far no terrorists have been identified as part of the show but there are damage suits pending for over $400 billion. When asked about this outrageous sum, the same spokesman said, “We’re here to teach spineless Americans that they can’t expect to have the law look after them!”)

At press time, I could gather no official confirmations for this, but I have every reason (and the pilot proposals) to look forward to at least three new shows: Jeopardy — Behind Saddam’s Lines, in which an all-girls lacrosse team (with bikinis and thigh-slit dresses etc) crash near to Bagdad and have to survive.

There are reports that Jennifer (Alias) Garner will be part of the team; So You Want to be a Tank Commander?, in which high-tech, call-in cable patching may actually allow an on-the-couch viewer the full sensation of driving a tank across the desert and picking off enemy targets; and “Bring Me the Head of Saddam Hussein” — not quite the blood-thirsty trip it sounds like, but an authentic Pentagon-assisted maneuver to get Saddam out of Iraq.

(It is said that independent agents have already got the dictator’s promise to play ball in return for guaranteed protection, a walled residence in Palm Springs and a show of his own.) Michael Eisner, the head of Disney and thus the effective leader of the ABC network, is quoted as saying, “In a summer without Olympics or an election, this is a very American compromise. I see big numbers.”

Unofficially, an Al-Qaeda spokesman responded by saying, “It’s nice to think that our guys, from San Diego to Salford, can look forward to a summer of good old-fashioned entertainment — but how shameful that American women have so little to wear. What a lousy empire!”

Human Rights During Conflict – 1
Dr. Muhammad Al-Awwa, Arab News, 2/24/03
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Perhaps it is neither mistaken nor an exaggeration to define man as a fighting creature. In certain aspects, human history is that of civilization and progress, the rise and subsequent fall of states and kingdoms, scientific progress, and geographical discovery. However, from a different angle, human history highlights fighting between different communities, ever since human beings grouped in tribes and nations.

In its military history, human progress is not measured by degrees of victory and defeat, or by the number of casualties inflicted or suffered. Human progress in this area is based on the principles each party to a conflict aims to defend and the good brought to people at the time of victory, while backwardness is related to the evil imposed on the vanquished. A further measure to determine progress or backwardness in this area is based on the rules fighting armies apply in their treatment of the enemy. An important aspect in this area is the treatment armies mete out to non-combatants with whom they have to deal, or whose lands such armies traverse during an armed conflict.

In these four articles we will try to shed light on Islamic rules governing the treatment of civilians during armed conflict. It is not our purpose to draw any comparison between Islamic rules and contemporary international agreements covering this area.

We only wish to outline Islamic rules in fulfillment of the duty the Qur’an assigns to scholars: “God has made a covenant with those who were granted revelations (when He bade them): ‘Make it known to mankind and do not conceal it.’” (3: 187) The Prophet emphasizes this duty as he orders us to spread what he has taught us, ‘even a single verse.’ He also states that ‘a person who is informed of a statement may be better able to understand it than one who heard it directly.’ And that ‘a person may carry information to one who is a better scholar than him.’

Furthermore, current international events require such explanation. Ever since the events of Sept. 11, 2001, Islam has been subjected to an avalanche of false accusations leveled at our faith by its enemies, and even by some people who claim to be Muslims. Remaining silent at such a time contributes to all this falsehood. However, Islamic views and attitudes should be outlined by competent scholars, the only people who can present the true image of Islam.

Article 4 of the Geneva Convention on the protection of civilians in time of war, adopted on August 12, 1949, defines civilians as those persons who somehow and in any form find themselves, in the case of conflict or occupation, under the authority of a party to which they have no affiliation, or under an occupying power of which they are not subjects.

The same article distinguishes those who have protection under the Convention and those who do not because they may be citizens of a state which is not party to the Convention, or of a neutral state, or a combatant state which retains diplomatic relations with the country under whose authority they find themselves.

Armed conflict is actual fighting whether between two regular armies, or one army and an armed dissident or rebel group, or between irregular armed forces not affiliated to the army of any state. All these are covered by the definition of armed conflict from which civilians need to be protected.

From the Islamic point of view, civilians are all those who carry no arms and take no part in fighting, whether they are citizens of a Muslim or non-Muslim state. The code Islam lays down for the treatment of civilians during armed conflict – as outlined by Islamic religious texts and in Islamic law – cover all such people without exception.

Armed conflict may be a war between Muslims and non-Muslims, which is permissible only when undertaken for God’s cause. Such a war may take place either to ensure the freedom of belief and free advocacy of the Islamic faith when an armed enemy tries to prevent such advocacy, or to repel aggression in order to protect and defend the faith or the land. It is this very kind of war that Muslims were not allowed to engage in until their enemies committed aggression against them: “Permission to fight is given to those against whom war is being wrongfully waged. Most certainly, God has the power to grant them victory.

These are the ones who have been driven from their homelands against all right for no other reason than their saying, ‘Our Lord is God!’ Were it not that God repels some people by means of others, monasteries, churches, synagogues and mosques – in all of which God’s name is abundantly extolled – would surely have been destroyed. God will most certainly succor him who succors God’s cause. God is certainly most powerful, almighty.” (22: 39-40) In both cases, war is termed jihad for God’s cause. Fighting may also be against a group of Muslims who resort to wrongful measures. This is a fight against those who act wrongfully, as explained in Verse 9 of Surah 49. It is the only case in which fighting between two Muslim groups is permitted. In all these cases non-combatants have the same status which makes it forbidden to expose them to any aggression. But more of this later.

The basis on which we may define what Islam requires in the treatment of civilians during armed conflict is derived form the Qur’an and the authentic Sunnah. The Qur’an addresses the believers, pointing out God’s orders: “Fight for the cause of God those who wage war against you, but do not commit aggression. Indeed, God does not love aggressors.” (2: 190) When fighting is over and the aggressor stops aggression against the Muslims, the Qur’an states: “If they desist, let there be no hostility except against the wrongdoers.” (2: 193)

Thus, fighting is the measure taken against aggressors so as to repel their aggression and to cause them to stop it. Thus, it is a measure of retaliation, not pre-emption: “Fight against the idolaters all together as they fight against you all together, and know that God is with those who are God-fearing.” (9: 36)

The aggression mentioned in Verse 2:190 quoted above has been explained as to include killing non-combatants, disfiguring the bodies of killed fighters, laying land to waste, killing animals and destroying property without reasonable justification.

When fighting occurs between two Muslim groups, it generally aims to stop the wrongdoing group from carrying on with its wrongdoing: “If two groups of believers fall to fighting, make peace between them. But then, if one of the two goes on acting wrongfully toward the other, fight against the one that acts wrongfully until it reverts to God’s commandment; and if they revert, make peace between them with justice, and deal equitably with them. Indeed, God loves those who act equitably.” (49: 9)

Thus, fighting is allowed here only to achieve its rightful objective, which is to stop the wrongdoers from carrying on with their wrongful actions, so that the principles of truth and justice are upheld. This is what is meant by the clause included in this verse: “fight against the one that acts wrongfully until it reverts to God’s commandment.”

Next week, God willing, we will continue this outline of the Islamic principles on civilians caught up in the midst of armed conflict.

When Will America Fight Israel?
Abdullatif Abdullah Al-Maymani/Okaz, Arab News, 2/24/03

American foreign policy in the Middle East before Sept. 11 was generally against its national interest because of its total support for Israel. The American government claims that Israel was — and is — a strategic ally, especially during the Cold War. During that time, Israel never played any role in America’s interest or against its enemy at that time: Russia.

Nevertheless, American propaganda continued saying that Israel was an ally. Then came Iraq, Saddam and the invasion of Kuwait in 1991. The war to liberate Kuwait proved that Israel was not a strategic American ally. Israel was a real burden on the United States during the war.

Now, when America is again preparing to attack Iraq and trying to form an international coalition, Israel supports the war but has said that it will not participate in it. In other words to believe that Israel is America’s first strategic partner in the area is false. How could it be so, when Israel will not participate when America sends troops into Iraq?

A few days ago, the US secretary of state said that one purpose of the war against Iraq was to reshape certain aspects of the Middle East. The question is what kind of reshaped Middle East was he talking about. What is the plan? We do not have the information to answer these questions. What used to be secret about American interests in the area is now said aloud. The former head of the CIA did not hesitate when he said that the main goal is to strip the Middle East of its power derived from oil. By taking away that power, do they plan to control quantities and influence prices by controlling Iraq which has the second largest reserves after the Kingdom, or by drawing a new map?

It is all clear now that the main goal of the war is to draw a new regional map. It is too early and we do not have enough information to know what the map will be like. But we have to remember the long-term strategic Israeli goal in the area is to be the region’s supreme power and to weaken Arab countries by creating small Arab states built on ethnic and tribal lines. Israel will then be the strongest country in the area both politically and economically. If Israel cannot achieve its goal, America, the only superpower, will achieve the goal under the false premise of American interest. If Israel becomes a superpower, then sooner or later it will clash with America. That is inevitable when two predators are after the same prey.

From ceasefire to Palestrinian-Israeli talks

Jordan Times, 2/24/03

THE PALESTINIAN National Authority's official acceptance of a one-year ceasefire is an important step that could land the peace process back on course. The idea of a limited ceasefire to allow time for the reexamination of the prospects for peace talks between Israel and the PNA was originally proposed by Egypt and endorsed by many Arab capitals as the only remaining viable formula to give peace a chance on the Palestinian front. The PNA has long been considering such an offer but was unable to convince all the Palestinian factions of the prudence of the move. Unfortunately Hamas and Islamic Jihad dismissed the initiative as a manoeuvre meant to keep them in line. Both organisations vowed to continue their armed struggle against Israeli occupation, using all means available to their forces. Hamas and Islamic Jihad have yet to recognise that their ways have shoved the Palestinians farther away from their national aspirations. They are determined to pursue their methods and means at all costs. At this point then, the PNA will require both material and political support to reign in all the Palestinian groups who are opposed to its official policies. Again an opportunity presents itself. The Arab governments can speak up, with one voice, in favour of the ceasefire proposal and call on all Palestinian factions to respect the official declarations of the PNA.

But Israel too must endorse the ceasefire idea and do all it can to stop its military incursions into Palestinian territories to eliminate Palestinian resistance groups. Neither Hamas nor Islamic Jihad can be persuaded to toe the official line of the PNA as long as Israeli forces continue to engage them in bloody battles that take a heavy toll on the lives of Palestinian civilians. The "roadmap" for peace, drafted by the quartet of the UN, EU, US, and Russia, requires that a sense of normalcy return in the Palestinian territories before it can begin to offer real peace prospects for both sides. Presumably the official declaration of the "roadmap" has been delayed yet again, this time till Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon concludes his contacts with the various Israeli parties in a bid to form his new government. Still, with a ceasefire in effect and a broader-based Israeli government in office, the resumption of the peace process is possible. Neither the Palestinians nor the Israelis must let this opportunity slip by.

The rise and fall of globalisation

Fahed Fanek

Jordan Times, 2/24/03

THE ANTI-globalisation movement, which accuses the globalised world of making the rich richer and the poor poorer, grew up and is largely concentrated in the industrialised nations of the West. Those who travel the world in pursuit of WTO and IMF conferences to disrupt are mainly well-off Americans and Europeans, with scarcely a poor Asian or African among them.

It is a foregone conclusion that the fruits of globalisation would not be divided equally among all nations; the freer and more open a political system is, the more benefit it gains from globalisation.

At a certain time, countries with closed political systems, such as Albania and North Korea, believing that advanced countries were growing at the expense of the poor Third World, tried to cut themselves off from the global economy. The results to them were catastrophic.

Globalisation was also accused of favouring richer countries by pushing up prices of their manufactured products while driving down prices of raw materials exported by Third World countries. This theory was proved to be not strictly true either.

In other words, there is an old, traditional, reactionary and isolationist school of thought that confirmed its bankruptcy in practice (as has been demonstrated by some less successful Third World economies), and another, successful, progressive and globalised school, epitomised by such countries as China, India and the “tiger economies” of Southeast Asia.

In Jordan, for example, there is a strong reactionary current calling for customs protection, government control of the economy and a quest for self-sufficiency, such that the country only imports essential goods and does not rely on tourism and exports, which are directly affected by external factors. In fact, this current sees the size of foreign trade as a measure of weakness rather than strength.

The intellectual battle between the reactionary and progressive sides has not been settled yet. The Old Guard is still fighting their corner. Fortunately, though, the government has already come down on the side of globalisation. As a country, we in Jordan are determined to be part of the global economy and to join the march of progress and technology in the fields of production, communications and services.

If there are arguments about which path to take in some countries, then the issue should be clear in nations that are not rich in natural resources. Unlike most oil-rich Arab states, Jordan's major resource is its people.

However, globalisation that was imposed on the Third World by the American-led “Washington Consensus” is being obstructed by the US itself. Instead of more freedom and encouragement, Washington is creating obstacles to the growth of free trade.

Globalisation is nothing new; some of its features have been known since the industrial revolution. It reached its climax in the 1990s, and seems to be declining since. It does not appear that it will last long.

The event that caused the globalisation movement we know today to really take off was the fall of the Berlin wall in November 1989. It continued to grow until Sept. 11 with the fall of another edifice: the Twin Towers of New York's World Trade Centre.

The rise of globalisation, which occurred in the last decade of the 20th century, was reversed in the first year of the 21st — before the process had reached its full potential.

In 1989, the US did not win; rather it was the Soviet Union that was defeated; the events surrounding the fall of the Berlin wall did not prove the superiority of capitalism — only the inferiority of socialism. America, which led the march of globalisation in the 1990s, was the same America that destroyed it 10 years later.

Globalisation needs peace and an absence of threat to thrive. This was achieved with the abolition of the cold war. Now, however, America is waging war, which bodes ill for globalisation.

The free movement of goods and people is a prerequisite for globalisation. Yet, the United States has made the movement of people so difficult that it now needs weeks for a US visa to come through — if it comes through at all. The transfer of funds, meanwhile, has become a fraught business because of fears that the money might be used to fund terrorism.

Even the modern forms of communication that transformed the world into a small village have been subjected to strict monitoring. It is enough for a person to utter a specific word for his/her entire conversation to be recorded by satellite for analysis and scrutiny. Needless to say, that person is considered guilty until proven otherwise.

There has been a severe downturn in the performance of globalisation recently. The volume of world trade, which grew at a rate of 15 per cent in 2000, shrank by 4 per cent in 2001. Foreign direct investment, which stood at $1.27 trillion in 2000, tumbled to less than half that figure in 2001, as did the value of mergers. The value of equity trading on world stock markets tumbled from $50 trillion in 2000 to a third of that figure the following year.

America promoted globalisation when it felt it was to its advantage to do so; it dealt it a mortal blow, however, when it discovered that globalisation was a two-edged sword that could also be used by terrorists.

It is not clear yet whether the current crisis facing globalisation is a passing phase that would be defeated by the movement of history — or that the entire globalisation experiment was nothing more than a blip after which humanity would return to isolationism once again, thus proving that national security always takes precedence over economic prosperity.

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