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

To: LindyBill who wrote (53045)	10/18/2002 6:29:44 PM
From: Karen Lawrence	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

I wonder what war you ever fought in...hmmm. Harpers Week in Review...OCTOBER 15, 2002 "President George W. Bush claimed in a speech that Saddam Hussein could attack America "on any given day"; he accused Hussein of harboring terrorists, stockpiling weapons of mass destruction, and using such weapons on his own people. "Neither the United States of America nor the world community of nations can tolerate deliberate deception and offensive threats on the part of any nation, large or small," the President said. New documents were declassified concerning tests of biological and chemical warfare agents that were conducted by the United States government on its own soldiers in Alaska, Maryland, Hawaii, Canada, and Britain during the Cold War. Among the substances used on American soldiers were sarin and VX; the tests were given code names such as Green Mist, Red Cloud, Devil Hole, Rapid Tan, and Night Train. George Tenet, the director of central intelligence, sent a letter to Congress in which he appeared to undercut the President's assertions about the purported Iraqi threat, arguing that it was very unlikely that Iraq would supply terrorists with weapons of mass destruction or attempt to attack the United States, except in extreme circumstances, such as an American invasion. Current and former intelligence officials in the CIA, the FBI, and the energy department complained that President Bush's case against Iraq was largely false: "Basically, cooked information is working its way into high-level pronouncements," said Vincent Cannistraro, the former head of counter-intelligence at the CIA. "And there's a lot of unhappiness about it in intelligence, especially among analysts at the CIA." The Iraqi government gave reporters a tour of Al Furat, an old industrial site that President Bush claims is being used to develop nuclear weapons. Seven people died in the bombing of a shopping center in Helsinki, Finland. Almost two hundred people were killed in bomb attacks on two tourist nightclubs in Bali, Indonesia; another bomb went off near the "honorary" American consulate. Two gunmen attacked American marines who were training in Kuwait, killing one. Fifteen people were charged with aiding the attackers, one of whom left a videotape in which he claimed to be a member of Al Qaeda, which last week released two audiotapes, one recorded by Osama bin Laden, to Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite television station, threatening to carry out new attacks on the United States and its allies. Several people died in rioting in Bombay that broke out as a result of Jerry Falwell's comments that the prophet Muhammad was a terrorist, prompting a leading Iranian cleric to declare that Jerry Falwell is a "mercenary" who must be killed for his blasphemy. "The death of that man is a religious duty," he said, "but his case should not be tied to the Christian community." Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah disagreed and said that Muslims should not use physical violence against Falwell because Islam is "a religion of mercy and love." Iraqi citizens were preparing to vote "yes" in a referendum on Saddam Hussein's continued rule; the ballot, which voters must sign, will contain one question: "Do you agree that Saddam should remain president?" Baath Party leaders selected as their campaign theme song Whitney Houston's "I Will Always Love You." Former president Jimmy Carter received the Nobel Peace Prize; Gunnar Berge, the chairman of the prize committee, confirmed that giving the prize to Carter was intended as a comment on George W. Bush's bellicose policies. Two British and one American scientist were awarded the Nobel Prize for their work on cell death, the process by which healthy cells commit suicide. An American undersecretary of state left for Europe to persuade individual nations to go beyond the European Union's agreement to exempt American soldiers from prosecution by the International Criminal Court: "We expect that they will take into account that there is no reason not to exempt all Americans." Bertelsmann, the giant German media company, expressed regret for using slave labor in its printing plants during the Nazi era but failed to apologize. A Serbian military court convicted two Yugoslav army officers of war crimes for killing civilians in Kosovo. The White House chastised Israel for an attack on Khan Unis, a town in the Gaza Strip, that killed 13 civilians. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said the raid had been very successful and promised more just like it: "There is a need to be certain that terrorist organizations will not have the freedom to carry out intentional murder." Israeli settlers were firing on Palestinians who were trying to harvest their olives; at least one man was killed. The Washington sniper continued to shoot people and broadened his targets to include children, and he left a tarot "death card" at the scene of one shooting on which he wrote: "Dear Policeman, I am God." The American Tarot Association posted a list of "fast facts" on its website about the death card and said that the killer obviously knows nothing at all about tarot.