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

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Invasion of Iraq is inevitable ­ with or without a second UN resolution

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.

 

 

 

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Background about Mr. Powell's presentation to the UNSC

By Stig Froberg/Finland, 2/24/03

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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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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

By Dr. Rosalie Bertell

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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:

     

  1. 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.
  2. Bertell, R. "Internal Bone Seeking Radionuclides and Monocyte Counts", International Perspectives in Public Health, Vol. 9, pp 21-26, 1993
  3. 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 ]

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.
 
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.
 
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?
 
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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Rumsfeld was on ABB Board During Nuclear Deal with North Korea

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

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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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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WHERE IN THE WORLD IS BARBRA OLSON?

By: Art Bishop

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

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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
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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