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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: stockman_scott who wrote (43486)	9/12/2002 1:14:24 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 281500

'The world be damned' is Pres Bush's stance. Sept. 12, 2002, 11:43AM Bush tells U.N. that Iraq must disarm or action 'unavoidable' Copyright 2002 Houston Chronicle UNITED NATIONS -- President Bush demanded today that world leaders force Saddam Hussein to destroy his weapons of mass destruction, saying the lives of millions of people will be at risk and the United Nations "will be irrelevant" unless it confronts Iraq. Associated Press President Bush speaks to the General Assembly at the United Nations headquarters today. "The just demands of peace and security will be met -- or action will be unavoidable," Bush warned. "And a regime that has lost its legitimacy will also lose its power." "We cannot stand by and do nothing while dangers gather," Bush told the U.N. General Assembly. "We must stand up for our security and for the permanent rights and hopes of mankind." Bush made his case against the backdrop of widespread hesitation among U.S. allies -- and American lawmakers -- to use force against Baghdad. U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan cautioned the United States against taking action on its own without Security Council backing. Bush's speech amounted to a challenge to the United Nations to live up to its responsibility. Iraq's U.N. Ambassador Mohammed Al-Douri sat in Iraq's seat in the General Assembly chamber, headphones on, listening to Bush's speech. The ambassador said Bush's speech has no credibility and was motivated by revenge and political ambitions. "Iraq has answered a decade of U.N. demands with a decade of defiance," Bush said. "All the world now faces a test ... and the United Nations, a difficult and defining moment. Are Security Council resolutions to be honored and enforced ... or cast aside without consequence? Will the United Nations serve the purpose of its founding ... or will it be irrelevant?" Bush offered to work in concert with other nations on a resolution "to meet our common challenge." And, he said, "if the Iraqi regime defies us again the world must move deliberately and decisively" against the Iraqi leader. Bush's expression of willingness to act through the United Nations appeared to respond to a growing chorus of opposition to unilateral U.S. military action to topple Saddam. A senior U.S. official said Secretary of State Colin Powell would work on Friday with the four other permanent members of the Security Council -- Russia, China, France and Britain -- on a resolution that would set a deadline for Iraq to comply with demands that it admit weapons inspectors. A failure to act, Bush said, would mean betting the lives of millions in a reckless gamble. "And this is a risk we must not take," he declared. "By heritage and by choice, the United States of America will make that stand," the president said. "Delegates to the United Nations, you have the power to make that stand, as well!" Bush said that if Iraq defies a new U.N. resolution demanding the return of inspectors, "the world must move deliberately and decisively" against Saddam. Before Bush spoke, Annan warned against unilateralism and said any action against Iraq required the legitimacy of U.N. approval. The senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, did not say what deadline would be set in a new resolution. But he did say the resolution would demand compliance within weeks, not months. Already, U.S. military forces are being moved into position to strike against Iraq. Core staff of the U.S. military command responsible for operations in the Persian Gulf and Central Asia will be shifted from their headquarters in Florida to the Gulf nation of Qatar in November, defense officials said Wednesday. In his speech, Bush denounced Iraq for a decade of defiance of U.N. resolutions calling for weapons inspections and disarmament. "The conduct of the Iraqi regime is a threat to the authority of the United Nations and a threat to peace," he said. On a personal note, Bush said that Iraq's violence and terrorism led to the attempted assassination of his father, former President George H.W. Bush and the emir of Kuwait in 1993. "Saddam Hussein has made the case against himself," Bush said. Reflecting long-standing impatience among some Americans with U.N. inaction on various fronts, Bush said, "We created a United Nations Security Council so that -- unlike the League of Nations -- our actions would be more than talk." In fact, Bush said, "We want the resolutions of the world's most important multinational body to be in force. Right now these resolutions are being unilaterally subverted by the Iraqi regime." On another front, Bush reiterated his commitment to establishment of a Palestinian state and "to human dignity challenged by persistent poverty and raging disease" around the world. Bush backed his call on the other nations to pressure Iraq to comply with a hefty document accusing Saddam of a decade of deception and defiance of 16 U.N. resolutions. His administration has made clear it feels justified in going it alone if necessary and contends it does not need new legal authority to use force to try to oust Saddam. "For more than a decade, Saddam Hussein has deceived and defied the will and resolutions of the United Nations Security Council," said the document, circulated in advance of Bush's speech. It warned that Iraq has stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb. In the past 14 months, it said, Iraq has tried to purchase thousands of specially designed aluminum tubes that officials believe were intended as components of centrifuges to help produce weapons-grade uranium. Bush wants the nations of the U.N. -- there are 190 of them -- to pressure Saddam to readmit international inspectors after a lapse of more than 3 1/2 years. He wants inspectors to look for hidden arms and then to compel Saddam to disarm. These demands are rooted in resolutions adopted during and after the 1990-91 Persian Gulf war -- policy declarations which forced Iraq to reverse its annexation of Kuwait. Iraq denies that it is developing weapons of mass destruction. In a speech to the nation Wednesday night, Bush said, "We will not allow any terrorist or tyrant to threaten civilization with weapons of mass murder." U.N.-Iraq talks since March have failed to get Saddam to agree to the return of inspectors, who left in December 1998 ahead of U.S. and British airstrikes to punish Saddam's government for not cooperating with inspections. Iraq said it wants to continue the dialogue -- but with a broad agenda on outstanding issues which Annan has rejected. Britain is solidly in the U.S. camp. But German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder has dismissed military action as an "adventure" and other foreign leaders have expressed doubts. At home, the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee said Wednesday that he did not think the time had run out for diplomacy. Moving alone against Iraq would be the worst option, said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del. "I will be extremely disappointed if the president goes and enunciates a unilateral approach: 'The world be damned, here we go.' That is not in our interest," Biden said told the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia.

To: stockman_scott who wrote (43486)	9/12/2002 1:21:30 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Respond to of 281500

Afghanistan still a mess, fugitive warlord - once an ally - threatens stability...could this happen in Iraq should we attack? OF COURSE!!! US trying to work out an agreement between Palestinians and Isrealis AND we're going to start a world war. feer.com AFGHANISTAN Pashtun Push A warlord joins up with Taliban and Al Qaeda fugitives to take on the U.S.-backed government By Ahmed Rashid/LAHORE Issue cover-dated September 19, 2002 HE WAS ONCE Washington's most important ally in Afghanistan, but today Gulbuddin Hekmatyar is seen as one of the biggest threats to internal stability and to the rule of beleaguered President Hamid Karzai. And the fugitive warlord appears to be gaining support among Islamic extremists and the majority Pashtun population, who feel that they are being discriminated against. The growing danger within Afghanistan was starkly illustrated on September 5, when a gunman tried to assassinate Karzai in the southern city of Kandahar just hours after a huge car bomb ripped through a busy central Kabul street, killing at least 30 people. These were just the latest and deadliest challenges to Karzai's rule. And while no one has claimed responsibility, analysts say the indiscriminate nature of the Kabul blast was reminiscent of the handiwork of the ethnic Pashtun Hekmatyar, who killed thousands of civilians in a vain bid to capture the city in the early 1990s. Moderate Pashtuns, moreover, say the attack on Karzai was a grim reminder of his precarious support among his own people. Karzai, himself a Pashtun, was attacked in his hometown by a Pashtun. The fact that he was saved by his American bodyguards only served as an embarrassing reminder of whom he depends upon for his security. Karzai tried to brush off the threat. "These incidents do not indicate any problems. They are done by terrorists in an isolated manner. This means they are no longer capable of mobilizing as groups," he told reporters. But Afghan officials and Western diplomats in Kabul beg to differ. They say there is clear evidence that Hekmatyar has joined forces with remnants of Al Qaeda and the former ruling Taliban in the south and east, where they are receiving support from the Pashtuns. "The Pashtuns are fed up and there is seething unrest in the eastern and southern provinces," says an international aid worker in Kandahar. The officials and diplomats say Hekmatyar has emerged as the key leader of anti-government Pashtun extremism since slipping back into Afghanistan from exile in Iran earlier this year. He is believed to be hiding in the east. In a clear attempt to whip up nationalist fervour, he recently accused the United States of genocide against the Pashtuns. "All true Muslim Afghans who want an Islamic government in their country must know it is possible only when the U.S. and allied soldiers are forced out. We must all unite and rise against them," said Hekmatyar in a taped message sent to the Associated Press on September 4. He is tapping resentment among the Pashtuns, which is fuelled by continuing raids on their villages by U.S. forces hunting for Taliban and Al Qaeda fugitives; by the paltry Pashtun representation in the ethnic Tajik-dominated central government and security apparatus; and by the donor community's failure to deliver on promised reconstruction aid. But the U.S. has clearly started taking the threat from Hekmatyar seriously and he is becoming the focus of U.S. military efforts in the east of the country, where special forces have been hunting the Taliban and Al Qaeda. American troops launched an offensive in the eastern province of Kunar more than a month ago, primarily to try to capture their former ally against the Soviet occupying forces in the 1980s, according to United Nations officials. Washington has also just dropped its opposition to expanding the Kabul-based 4,500-strong International Security Assistance Force, or ISAF, and deploying foreign troops in other cities in a bid to ensure stability. The Americans are also now calling for reconstruction efforts to be speeded up. But the Pentagon is not ready to take the initiative. It would like to see the ISAF expand, but wants others to provide troops and leadership. Others, including Karzai, the UN and the European Union, say a direct U.S. role is vital. "We cannot simply stand on the sidelines," says Bill Durch of the Stimpson Centre, a Washington-based think-tank. "The longer the United States waits to take steps to close the security gap, the more responsibility for doing so is likely to fall on its shoulders, in an unplanned fashion. For example, sending a special forces detail to guard President Karzai." If the U.S. waits too long, Hekmatyar and his allies will seize the moment to further weaken the government.