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Politics : DON'T START THE WAR -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (272)	1/6/2003 10:29:37 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25898

UN Inspectors Fear Bush Will Ignore Them Peter Beaumont, and Ed Vulliamy in New York Observer UK Sunday 5 January 2003 UN weapons inspectors in Iraq fear their work - which has failed to turn up any evidence thus far of weapons of mass destruction - will still be used as an excuse to trigger a US-led invasion of Iraq. Leaks from the inspections teams - and the two agencies in charge of them, Unmovic and the International Atomic Energy Agency - have fuelled an increasingly frenetic diplomatic effort among opponents of the war. The weapons inspection teams in Iraq have visited breweries and former nuclear plants, and raided missile factories and pharmaceutical production lines. They have examined former weapons factories and interviewed scientists and university technicians. As of yesterday they had checked 230 sites in all. If one is to believe the few inspectors who have been prepared to be interviewed anonymously, they have found absolutely nothing. Nuclear weapons sites that the British and the Americans claimed as late as last September had been reactivated have been revealed as rusting, disabled shambles. It may be that Iraq has squirrelled away its most portable weapons and components. But as one inspector complained to the LA Times last week, they had found 'zilch'. He is not alone in his assessment. Another inspector in Baghdad complained to Newsday : 'If our goal is to catch them with their pants down, we are definitely losing. We haven't found an iota of concealed material yet.' Other reports have suggested that there have been just two violations uncovered in Iraq - neither of them involving weapons of mass destruction. And as UN officials in New York prepared to order a final massive blitz to find Iraq's alleged stock of hidden weapons, they told The Observer their conclusion is that either they do not exist or they 'have been outfoxed'. With barely three weeks to go before the inspectors must produce their report to the UN Security Council on 27 January - and with President George Bush pouring new troops and materiel into the region - America and its closest ally, the UK, appear to be losing the propaganda war to Iraq. Iraqi officials have taken to announcing on a daily basis, as each round of inspections finishes, what the inspectors know - that they have found nothing. Neither the vast nuclear and chemical laboratories alleged by the Iraqi opposition and hawks in the US administration, nor the mobile biological laboratories said to be travelling the wastelands of Iraq, have been traced. And as time runs out before the UN deadline, even British Cabinet sources have started to trim their more bellicose statements of last year, admitting in private briefings that the prospect of war was now '60-40 against'. Although Downing Street has refused to comment on reports that Ministers believe a war on Iraq can be avoided, both Tony Blair and the Foreign Secretary, Jack Straw, are still hopeful that military conflict can be avoided by diplomatic means, putting them at odds with Bush, who told cheering US servicemen that Saddam had chosen the path of 'defiance' and that they could be called on to 'liberate Iraq'. The new British assessment comes in the face of ever increasing opposition to an invasion of Iraq in the region, as even Turkey - America's strongest ally and main beneficiary of military aid in the area after Israel - has embarked on a round of energetic diplomacy to avoid a war. Turkish Prime Minister Abdullah Gul arrived in Syria yesterday for a brief visit to reinforce Turkey's relations with the Arab world in view of a prospective war. Turkey says it is opposed to military action in Iraq, its southeastern neighbour. But it also depends on Washington's support for massive IMF loans and has not ruled out allowing American forces to use Turkish bases to launch attacks on Iraq. The Turkish diplomatic effort has come amid increasing evidence of efforts by Iraq's neighbours to formulate a proposal to persuade America and Britain to allow them to persuade Saddam Hussein to step down and - perhaps - seek exile, thus averting war. 'It has been the private view for some time of a number of Iraq's neighbours that there should be a clean regime change without war against Iraq,' said one European diplomat last week. 'There have been suggestions in the last couple of weeks that this is a serious effort and that they would like the opportunity to persuade Saddam to go.' Yesterday, as they set up a new base near Mosul in northern Iraq, UN inspectors were more aware than ever that it was their work that would be likely to trigger a war. Some of the inspectors are understood to be convinced that their mission has become a 'set-up job' and America will attack Iraq regardless of what they find. Hans Blix is due to report to the UN ahead of the deadline, say officials - perhaps as early as a week from now. In the meantime, the inspectors intend to embark on one final round of spot inspections, using a fleet of US and Russian helicopters to swoop on sites identified by new intelligence material finally submitted to them from Washington. truthout.org

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (272)	1/6/2003 10:57:21 PM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25898

Why Invade Iraq? By G. Simon Harak nonviolence.org

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (272)	1/6/2003 11:49:10 PM
From: stockman_scott	Respond to of 25898

Could The Pentagon be wasting our valuable tax dollars...? _______________________________________ Throwing Money At The Pentagon peace-action.org

To: Raymond Duray who wrote (272)	1/7/2003 5:03:33 AM
From: stockman_scott	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 25898

There are alternatives to war in Iraq By SEAN GONSALVES SYNDICATED COLUMNIST Tuesday, January 7, 2003 How do you explain the president's threat to invade Iraq, in keeping with the "preventive" war prescription laid out in the September 2002 National Security Strategy Directive, while he talks about diplomacy in dealing with North Korea? That United States policy-makers are preparing for war against an Iraqi military that analysts say we can easily crush while going the diplomatic route with North Korea -- a country we can't beat up on as easily -- is evidence of an ugly principle at work: might makes right. The contrast between the course of action being followed in the Near East versus the Machiavellian power moves being made in the Middle East reveals the bankruptcy of the war-is-our-only-option idea and affirms what the popular clergyman and author Max Lucado points out: "Conflict is inevitable, but combat is optional." How to deal with North Korea? A good starting point would be a re-evaluation of questionable policy decisions made over the past few decades, as East Asian specialist Chalmers Johnson suggested last week. Johnson argues that U.S. policy-makers have enflamed tensions in the region through our rebuff of South Korean President Kim Dae-jung's peace initiative, President Bush's "axis of evil" remark in his 2002 State of the Union speech and the National Security Strategy supporting "preventive" war. Why is South Korea complaining more about U.S. policy than about its kin to the north? Johnson says it's largely because South Korea is "a genuine democracy, created in 1987 when Koreans revolted against 25 years of American-supported military dictators. The United States still has more than 100 military bases in South Korea. . . . How would we feel if it were reversed? "Another source of resentment is the South Korean economic meltdown a few years ago, which was essentially caused by the IMF, largely controlled by the U.S. government. South Korea has recovered brilliantly but it still resents American interference and arrogance." What about Iraq? Let's be clear. This isn't about when we should go to war. We've been at war with Iraq since 1991. The economic blockade, coupled with regular bombings in the no-fly zones, is war. Critics of the peace movement ask what's the alternative to war in Iraq? It must be a rhetorical question because I can think of six off the top of my head. Allow the weapons inspectors to do their job, which includes sharing intelligence with Hans Blix, pointing out where the smoking guns are being hidden by Saddam, if, in fact there are any. Keep the weapons sanctions in place but immediately lift the economic embargo -- an 11-year-old failed policy that has only further entrenched Saddam while killing a half-million Iraqi children under the age of 5 in a country that prior to the Gulf War was a nation whose biggest pediatric problem was childhood obesity. Pledge to rebuild the civilian infrastructure U.S. bombs destroyed in Iraq during the 1991 war, which is what has been fueling Iraq's incredible infant morality rate. Damaged and destroyed water-treatment facilities, plus the use of depleted uranium weapons, has led to a humanitarian crisis in which little children are dying of preventable water-borne diseases and related birth defects. Have the Bush administration sign on to the International Criminal Court and pursue an indictment of Saddam for crimes against humanity, which would gain the support of the international community for a multi-national coalition force to apprehend Saddam, if necessary. Investigate potential punitive action against the U.S. corporations that sold and profited from the sale of nuclear, chemical and biological materials as well as missile technology to Iraq during the period when Saddam was committing the atrocities that made him infamous and is the historical "proof" upon which the Bush administration justifies its "preventive" war doctrine. Fully and fairly implement U.N. Resolution 661, which calls not only for the disarmament of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction but stipulates that the Middle East be a nuclear-weapons-free zone. That means, of course, insisting that Israel rid itself of its nukes. Apply international pressure on the Israeli government to dismantle all settlements in the West Bank and Gaza, establish a viable Palestinian state and deploy an international peace-keeping force to separate the two sides. And finally, keep in mind the thoughts of two esteemed statesmen. The late Yitzhak Rabin said, "Peace is not made with friends. Peace is made with enemies." Nelson Mandela adds: "If you want to make peace with your enemy, you have to work with your enemy. Then he becomes your partner." seattlepi.nwsource.com