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Politics : Impeach George W. Bush -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RockyBalboa who wrote (1883)	2/25/2001 12:17:30 AM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 93284

Europe is upset with us over the bombing of IRAQ and so is China, Egypt, Turkey and other countries. Mr. Bush and his cronies like to play war games. His secretary of defense, Rumsfeld feels that the Missile Defense Shield will undermine NATO. I haven't followed the Big War Toys that Mr. Bush and associates want to build. If you want to sign a petition against it, I've included a post that tells you where to go.

To: RockyBalboa who wrote (1883)	2/25/2001 12:19:34 AM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 93284

petitiononline.com To: President Bush and Congress We, the undersigned, urge you to stop all plans to build, test and deploy the Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD) system, and the space-based laser program -- the real Star Wars. We are deeply concerned that the U.S. Space Command, in their goal to "control and dominate" space, is creating a costly and deadly new arms race in space. Once begun it will be virtually impossible to stop. The United Nations Outer Space Treaty states that no nation should be allowed to put weapons into space and that space must be preserved for the benefit of all humankind. We pledge to work to stop the bad seed of war, greed, and environmental contamination from being moved intothe heavens. Sincerely, The Undersigned The STOP STAR WARS Petition to President Bush & Congress was created by Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space and written by Bruce K. Gagnon. This petition is hosted here at www.PetitionOnline.com as a public service. There is no express or implied endorsement of this petition by Artifice, Inc. or our sponsors. The petition scripts are created by Mike Wheeler at Artifice, Inc. For Technical Support please use our simple Petition Help form.

To: RockyBalboa who wrote (1883)	2/25/2001 12:32:06 AM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 93284

Missile Defense System Won't Work by David Wright and Theodore Postol Published on Thursday, May 11, 2000 in the Boston Globe (Since this article was published last May, I don't know what Congress of Mr. Clinton reached a decision on this system b4 Mr. Clinton left office----MEPHISTO) The United States is on the verge of deploying a national missile defense system intended to shoot down long-range missiles. The Clinton administration is scheduled to decide this fall whether to give the green light to a system that is expected to cost more than $60 billion, sour relations with Russia and China, and block deep cuts in nuclear arsenals. But the real scandal is that the defense being developed won't work - and few in Washington seem to know or care. The chief difficulty in trying to develop missile defenses is not getting vast systems of complex hardware to work as intended - although that is a daunting task. The key problem is that the defense has to work against an enemy who is trying to foil the system. what's worse, the attacker can do so with technology much simpler than the technology needed for the defense system. This inherent asymmetry means the attacker has the advantage despite the technological edge the United States has over a potential attacker such as North Korea. We recently completed, along with nine other scientists, a year long study that examined in detail what countermeasures an emerging missile state could take to defeat the missile defense system the United States is planning. That study shows that effective countermeasures require technology much less sophisticated than is needed to build a long-range missile in the first place - technology that would be available to the potential attacker. This kind of analysis is possible since the United States has already selected the interceptor and sensor technologies its defense system would use. We assessed the full missile defense system the United States is planning - not just the first phase planned for 2005 - and assumed only that it is constrained by the laws of physics. We examined three countermeasures in detail, each of which would defeat the planned US defense. A country that decided to deliver biological weapons by ballistic missile could divide the lethal agent into 100 or more small bombs, known as ''bomblets,'' as a way of ispersing the agent over the target. This would also overwhelm the defense, which couldn't shoot at so many warheads. The Rumsfeld panel, a high-level commission convened by Congress in 1998 to assess the ballistic missile threat to the United States, noted that potential attackers could build such bomblets. We show this in detail. An attacker launching missiles with nuclear weapons would have other options It could disguise the warhead by enclosing it in an aluminum-coated Mylar balloon and releasing it with a large number of empty balloons. None of the missile defense sensors could tell which balloon held the warhead, and again the defense could not shoot at all of them. Alternately, we showed that the warhead could be enclosed in a thin shroud cooled with liquid nitrogen - a common laboratory material - so it would be invisible to the heat-seeking interceptors the defense will use. These are only three of many possible countermeasures. And none of these ideas is new; most are as old as ballistic missiles themselves. How is it possible that this problem is being ignored? The Pentagon, saying it must walk before it can run, has divided the missile defense problem into two parts: getting the system to work against missiles without realistic countermeasures and then hoping to get it to work against missiles with countermeasures. Few doubt the first step could eventually be done, but such ''walking'' would be useless against an actual attack by North Korea or any other country. The second step - getting the defense to work against countermeasures - is the one that matters. And our study showed in detail that the planned defense won't be able to do this. Unfortunately, the debate in Washington revolves around only the first step. The Pentagon plans to determine the ''technological readiness'' of the system this summer after three tests that lack realistic countermeasures. And President Clinton's decision whether to deploy will be based on that assessment. The deployment decision is simply being made on the wrong criteria. This situation is similar to a group of people deciding to build a bridge to the moon. Instead of assessing the feasibility of the full project before moving forward, they decide to start building the on ramps, since that's the part they know how to do. The reality is that any country that is capable of building a long-range missile and has the motivation to launch it against the United States would also have the capability and motivation to build effective countermeasures to the planned defense. To assume otherwise is to base defense planning on wishful thinking. David Wright is a researcher at the Union of Concerned Scientists and the MIT SecurityProgram. Theodore Postol is professor of science, technology, and national security at MIT. Both are physicists. © Copyright 2000 Globe Newspaper Company. ###

To: RockyBalboa who wrote (1883)	2/25/2001 12:40:58 AM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 93284

A little background on the Bushes Bombs in Iraq. What's weird is that the FBI considers Osama bin Laden as the most wanted terrorist. Military Analysis: New Bush, Old Team, Ponder Saddam Hussein By MICHAEL R. GORDON February 18, 2001 Excerpt from Mr. Gordon's article: L ONDON, Feb. 17 — Soon after the 1991 Persian Gulf war came to an end, senior aides to President George Bush predicted that Saddam Hussein would be overthrown within six months. A decade later, much of the old Bush national security team is back in power — and still trying to fashion a plan to contain the ambitions of the Iraqi leader. The American and British air strikes carried out Friday against radar installations and anti-defense sites near Baghdad will reduce the growing risk to pilots who patrol the southern no-flight zone. And they also send the message that the new Bush administration is determined to keep the pressure on Iraq — even as Washington ponders its options. Since Iraq fired more surface-to-air missiles in January at American and British patrols than in all of last year, officials here say a riposte was necessary. But Friday's air strikes do not decisively change the military situation in the Persian Gulf or provide a guide for how the incoming Bush administration hopes finally to dispense with the man whose survival has haunted Washington for years. The United States has been reasonably successful in containing Iraqi power. But it has yet to figure out how to oust Saddam Hussein, or compel him to allow unfettered United Nations weapons inspections. The latest high-tech air strikes are more of a signal than a strategy. ……………………………………**************………………………….. For now, Saddam Hussein may not even be America's most dangerous foe. Osama bin Laden, the Saudi-born extremist who is the FBI's most wanted terrorist suspect, has in recent years struck with more deadly effect at American interests, orchestrating the August 1998 bombing of two American embassies in East Africa, and is suspected of being behind last October's bombing of the destroyer Cole in Yemen. Saddam Hussein**, in contrast, is confined within his country, visibly defiant, seemingly determined to preserve some modicum of Iraq's programs for developing chemical, biological or nuclear weapons — and apparently interested in shooting down an American or British pilot. That Mr. Hussein has held onto power for so long is a testimony to the ruthless way in which he runs Iraqi society. While the first Bush administration never explicitly set his ouster as an objective in the 1991 conflict, American military planners did what they could to loosen his grip on power. American warplanes and missiles struck his bunkers, intelligence services and political apparatus in the hope that his regime would be shattered. But he hung on without major internal challenges. In one of history's perhaps more curious twists, the first Bush administration relaxed the military pressure against the Saddam Hussein regime at a time when it was in the best position to squeeze the Iraqi leader. Concerned that the American military would be portrayed by the media as piling on in a one-sided rout, the Bush administration halted the 1991 ground war at 100 hours, a move that allowed much of the Republican Guard in Iraq, the most effective and loyal force in Saddam Hussein's military, to escape. Nor did the Bush administration rush to impose a no-flight zone in southern Iraq when Shiite rebels were attacked by Iraqi helicopters in the wake of the Gulf war. The Bush administration did not declare a southern no-flight zone until August 1992, some 18 months after the end of the war. Bush administration officials later explained that they were initially wary of establishing an air-exclusion zone in the south to parallel the one they set up in northern Iraq in 1991 to protect the Kurds. A second no-flight zone, officials initially worried, might entangle the United States in an Iraqi civil war or encourage the breakup of Iraq, which Bush strategists saw as a counterweight to Iran. Having put the world on notice that it has the will to keep the pressure on Iraq, the new Bush team faces the task of explaining its broader strategy, particularly when General Powell visits the Middle East later this month. President George W. Bush, however, is not the only one to make Iraq the target of his first major military action. President Clinton's first military strike was also against Iraq: a June 1993 attack in which 23 cruise missiles were fired at an intelligence headquarters in Baghdad. Mr. Clinton ordered the strike in retaliation for an assassination attempt against George W. Bush's father, which Saddam Hussein was accused of sponsoring. General Powell is familiar with that attack as well. He was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time and delivered the Pentagon briefing on the raid. nytimes.com

To: RockyBalboa who wrote (1883)	2/25/2001 3:13:20 AM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 93284

Beware bellicose Bush, Mr Blair His warmongering will not work Special report: George Bush's America Sunday February 18, 2001 The Observer America has just tested the limits of international law, killing and injuring a number of innocent civilians in a military adventure of dubious purpose. It has been assisted by another government, our own, which should have a much better sense of the dangerous ramifications of such an exercise of force. However, raids such as the bombing of Baghdad on Friday night have been carried out routinely for the past 10 years. What has changed is the decision of President Bush and his colleagues to court publicity for them. He is sending an early signal about how 'tough' he intends to be on rogue states like Iraq. What this sea-change brings into sharp focus is the futility of an Anglo-American policy which has continued for a decade. Military pressure and sanctions have left Saddam Hussein more, rather than less, powerful, while seriously undermining the legitimacy of Western governments in the Middle East. We risk an Arab payback for what is seen as partisan highhandedness. We need a better policy than bombing. President BUSH sees it differently. He appears to believe that the US is encircled by danger that must be contested to the last, hence the signal to Saddam. It is part of a disturbingly unilateralist world view that extends beyond defence. This weekend, the new US Treasury Secretary, Paul O'Neill, will tell fellow finance ministers at the G7 meeting in Italy that he is unconvinced of the merits of intervention in financial crises, and of economic co-ordination generally. In these circumstances, Tony Blair should treat Mr Bush's new administration with great caution. He wants to prove himself the loyal ally, winning the trust of the US and upstaging our own hawkish Conservative Party. But it is a dangerous policy. Bombing Iraq is purposeless. The new US National Missile Defence System, to which we fear the Government has already privately agreed, will be dangerously destabilising. And international response to financial crises is an imperative to limit the contagion of panic and financial losses. This is not just The Observer 's view, but the view of all European governments, except our own. Mr Blair should now make common cause with the rest of Europe and assert his entitlement to shape American policy rather than be shaped by it. guardian.co.uk

To: RockyBalboa who wrote (1883)	2/25/2001 3:18:35 AM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 93284

No contest in the battle for Arab hearts and minds Special report: George Bush's America Brian Whitaker and Suzanne Goldenberg in Jerusalem Monday February 19, 2001 The Guardian In the Middle East, Saddam Hussein appeared to have won the public relations battle yesterday in the aftermath of the US-British air strikes on radar stations around Baghdad. Western arguments that the attacks were necessary to protect patrols in the no-fly zones have cut little ice with Arab leaders or the public, allowing President Saddam Hussein once again to portray himself as victim rather than aggressor. Egypt described the strikes as "a serious negative step" which endangered Iraq's "safety and sovereignty" and could not be justified. In 1991 Egypt provided troops for the international coalition against Iraq's occupation of Kuwait and helped to ensure that other Arab countries supported the effort. The Egyptian foreign minister, Amr Moussa, said Friday's attack could undermine talks on resuming weapons inspections and lifting UN sanctions on Iraq. The talks are due to begin on February 26. In the West Bank, hundreds of Palestinians took to the streets within minutes of the air strikes, and television reported protests in Ramallah, Tulkaram, Qalqiliya and other towns. In the four-month uprising, Saddam Hussein has been held up as a heroic figure for Palestinians. He has sent payments of $10,000 (about £7,000) to the families of every "martyr" and $1,000 to those wounded by Israeli gunfire. At the weekend, some analysts predicted that the attack near Baghdad could ratchet up the rhetoric of war, feeding into the tense situation that has seen the uprising in the West Bank and Gaza intensify since the election of the hardline Ariel Sharon as Israel's prime minister. Iraq launched 39 Scud missiles at Israel during the 1990-91 Gulf war, but yesterday official Israeli reaction to the attack was relatively muted. The outgoing prime minister, Ehud Barak, said: "Israel need not take any steps at the current stage." Reports said Israel had no prior notice. Arab citizens in Israel protested against the US and British air strikes in front of the US consulate in Jerusalem. Placards read: "From Baghdad to Gaza, we are all one people." Syria, Qatar, Jordan, Yemen and Algeria also criticised or condemned the attack. Jordan's foreign minister, Abdulilah al-Khatib, was quoted by the state news agency, Petra, as saying that the western-imposed no-fly zones in Iraq were illegal. "Jordan has always rejected the use of force and violation of the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Iraq and always calls for an end to all acts that take place outside the framework of UN resolutions," he said. Yemen described the raids as "a dangerous development that threatens the security and stability of the Gulf region" which violated UN resolutions. Several Iraqi opposition groups joined the chorus of criticism. Libeid Abbawi of the Damascus-based Iraqi Communist party said the air strikes "would never help our people in their struggle against the dictatorship but would rather foment Arab feelings against the United States". Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, the Arab countries with most to fear from Iraq and which provide the US and Britain with facilities for patrolling the southern no-fly zone, made no immediate comment. Meanwhile, a prominent Saudi businessman, Abdul-Aziz Mohammed al-Rafidi, complained: "Bush has uncovered his ugly face and all the hate and spite he has for the Arabs." In Baghdad, one of the official newspapers, al-Qadissiya, declared that the reason for the attack was Iraq's support for the Palestinian uprising against Israel. But while state-run TV showed homes and shops said to have been damaged in the raids, protests in the Iraqi capital were curiously small: more than 2,000 people, including the deputy foreign minister, Nabil Najim, protested in central Baghdad and at least 1,000 others gathered across the city near the offices of the ruling al-Baath party. "This dangerous aggression shows how much the Americans and Britons hate Iraqis and do not respect any international law," Mr Najim told the crowd guardian.co.uk

To: RockyBalboa who wrote (1883)	2/25/2001 3:22:27 AM
From: Mephisto	Respond to of 93284

Most western bombs missed Iraqi targets Special report: Iraq Michael Ellison in New York Friday February 23, 2001 The Guardian Fewer than half the missiles fired by Britain and the United States at radar installations around Baghdad a week ago hit their targets, the Pentagon disclosed yesterday. It indicated that computer software used in the missiles' guidance system was being considered as one possible cause for the failure rate, with bombs landing up to 50 metres from the sites. "We have detectable damage on 38% to 40% of the radars and we still have some data coming in," said a Pentagon official who rated the results as mediocre at best. The details emerged as US planes struck in northern Iraq for the first time since last week's attack, which was the biggest in more than two years. The US European Command said that yesterday's assault was in retaliation against Iraqi artillery which fired at western aircraft patrolling the northern zone where Britain and the US have prohibited Iraqi aircraft from operating. A Pentagon spokesman had said earlier that last week's attack on five radar and communications installations - which Iraq now says killed three people and injured 25 - had achieved its objective of disrupting and degrading Iraq's air defences but would say little more for fear of helping Baghdad to prepare for any further bombing. The 24 British and American planes were deployed because of intelligence that Iraq was integrating its air defences with fibre-optic links that would give it more chance of bringing down enemy aircraft. The US says the work is being done by the Chinese. Baghdad denies this. "We have some concerns about the performance in about half the weapons because of what appears to be a consistent offset from the aim point," an American defence official said of last week's attack on on the radar centres. "It implies a common cause whether environmental like wind, whether software or guidance, because it is consistent." Only eight strikes on about 22 radar units had been confirmed; eight others showed no apparent damage. There was not enough information to be sure about six more. He bypassed some of the embarrassment over the missed radar units by saying that there was greater success against the nodes that link these units to command centres controlling the anti-aircraft system in southern Iraq. "The way to disrupt the integrated air defence system is to go after computer vans, the electronics that link these things," he said. "The radar is less important. I don't think we've taken the possibility of further strikes off the table at all." Colin Powell, the US secretary of state ,who is visiting the Middle East this weekend, has two main options for dealing with Iraq: sanctions and military action. "Containment [of the regime] has been a successful policy and I think we should make sure that we continue it until such time as Saddam Hussein comes into compliance with the agreements he made" at the end of the Gulf war, he said. But the secretary of state said six years ago in his autobiography: "Sanctions work best against leaders who have the interests of their country and their people at heart." He put the Iraqi leader in a different category, of those consumed by their own interests. guardianunlimited.co.uk

To: RockyBalboa who wrote (1883)	2/25/2001 3:32:59 AM
From: Mephisto	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 93284

Powell Gets Quick Lesson in Arab Mistrust Saturday February 24, 2001 By Jonathan Wright JERUSALEM (Reuters) - On a Middle East mission to restore a broad front against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein,Secretary of State Colin Powell is quickly learning the depths of Arab mistrust of American motives. ``I know there is some unhappiness,'' Powell told a news conference in Cairo, the first stop on a four-day tour that includes Jerusalem, Ramallah in the West Bank, Amman, Kuwait, Damascus and Riyadh. Egyptian commentators tried to rip U.S. policy to shreds, both on the impact of U.N. sanctions on the Iraqi people and on last week's U.S. and British air strikes on air defense installations near Baghdad. Those strikes have been widely condemned in the Arab world as a sign of U.S. belligerence. The victory of Likud hawk Ariel Sharon over Ehud Barak in Israeli premiership elections on Feb. 6 added to the potent mix, given that most Arabs see Sharon as a war criminal. ``Arab leaders should tell Powell openly that the issue is not Iraq but Palestine, where the people are starving under the blockade of Israeli criminals,'' columnist Kamal Abdel Raouf wrote in the pro-government weekly Akhbar el-Youm. At the Cairo news conference, Egyptian Foreign Minister Amr Moussa of Egypt, whose country receives about $2 billion a year in U.S. aid, disagreed openly with Powell's view that the Arab-Israeli conflict should be seen as only one part of the whole picture of Middle East problems. Moussa said the Arab-Israeli conflict was of paramount importance. Powell's position is one of the new elements in the Bush administration's Middle East policy. A Syrian official reiterated Syria's criticism of the air strikes against Iraq, saying they were aimed at diverting attention from Israel's harsh treatment of the Palestinians. Sanctions A Sensitive Issue Moussa was also openly critical of the sanctions still in place against Iraq, saying they had more effect on the people than on Iraqi rulers. ``Sanctions should be reconsidered as a weapon or as one of the procedures the Security Council resorts to,'' Moussa said. Powell said the sanctions had largely succeeded in depriving Saddam Hussein of weapons of mass destruction and preventing it from threatening its neighbors. But Powell has shied away from the original phrase for his objective -- to ``re-energize'' sanctions against Iraq by rebuilding the Gulf War alliance of which he was a part as chairman of the U.S. joint chiefs of staff 10 years ago. A senior State Department official said on Saturday the United States was now looking at requests to ease up on Iraq imports of items which can have both civilian and military uses. ``People are telling us that some of the dual-use stuff that is not getting through does contribute to an impact on the civilian population and that's the area that he (Powell) said we would be looking at,'' the official said. ``We're quite willing to look at the sanctions to try to eliminate any impact (on ordinary Iraqis), if there is an impact like that,'' he added. One example is refrigerated trucks, which former U.N. weapons inspectors have implicated in Iraq's biological weapons program before the Gulf War. Diplomatic Feathers Ruffled Powell was also mildly apologetic about the lack of diplomatic action in conjunction with last week's air strikes. NATO ally Turkey, where the United States bases planes patrolling Iraq, has complained that Washington did not consult it in advance. Arab commentators said it made no sense to advocate an alliance when Washington acted unilaterally. ``It (the reaction) has certainly sensitized us to the need to do a better job of making our friends aware of the kinds of plans we are executing,'' Powell said. A U.S. official said Powell did not mean that the United States would tell Arab countries of such attacks in advance -- an offer that would dismay the U.S. military -- but that it would explain better the rules of engagement for the ``no-fly zones'' the United States and Britain enforce over Iraq. The new secretary of state will not, however, try to sell Arab leaders on the idea of overthrowing Saddam through support for the opposition Iraqi National Congress (INC). He has not brought on the trip the State Department official in charge of ``regime change'' and U.S. officials said he would not make much of the INC in talks with Gulf leaders. Powell will find a sympathetic ear in Israel, his current stop, but that will not help much in the region as a whole. The complaint at the root of Arab grievances is that the United States does not treat Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Golan Heights, and its treatment of the Palestinians, by the same standard as it treats Iraq. The accusation of a ``double standard'' is likely to come to a head when Powell visits Syria on Monday, with a request that Syria stop importing Iraqi oil outside the sanctions system. The Syrians will tell him that the key to peace and stability in the Middle East is Israeli withdrawal to the borders as they stood before the 1967 war. dailynews.yahoo.com