Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Gold/Mining/Energy : Strictly: Drilling and oil-field services -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: excardog who wrote (87761)	2/19/2001 9:34:37 PM
From: excardog	Respond to of 95453

Chinese helping the Iraq's lay a little fiber optic cable. Iraq: Chinese Working to Link Iraqi Air Defense Sites: Pentagon Feb. 19-MAR-- By Agence France-Presse Washington--Feb. 19--Chinese workers have been laying fiber optic links at the Iraqi air defense sites targeted in last week's air strike near Baghdad, a Pentagon official said Monday. Analysts said that would suggest a previously undisclosed role by the Chinese government in helping Iraq improve its military communications. * * * The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said concern over possible Chinese casualties was among the reasons the strike was launched Friday evening, at the end of the Moslem holy day when few people were working. "There was some concern with Chinese working on fiber optic cables," the official told AFP. Many other factors also played a role in the timing of the strike, he emphasized. The attack -- the biggest near Baghdad in more than two years -- targeted Iraqi radar and command and communication facilities north of the 33rd parallel, the upper boundary of a U.S. and British-enforced no-fly zone over southern Iraq. The possibility of Chinese casualties would be particularly sensitive for Washington, which has never fully persuaded Beijing that its bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in May 1999 was accidental. Chinese companies in the past have had UN-approved contracts to repair Iraq's electrical grid, severely damaged by allied bombardments during the 1991 Gulf War. The Pentagon official was unable to provide much detail on the fiber optics work the Chinese were doing at the air defense sites, but said, "It's all part of the air defense command and control infrastructure." The Washington Post, citing Pentagon officials, said the fiber optic network being built by the Chinese was about to link parts of the air defense system. A Pentagon official told the newspaper Chinese military officers as well as civilians were involved in the work. End