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Politics : Stop the War! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (8784)	4/6/2003 8:17:59 PM
From: Emile Vidrine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21614

U.S.: Iran working on nuclear weapons IAEA: Nuclear facilities not a surprise Friday, CNN, December 13, 2002 [ Zionist activism has been pushing the U.S. to attack Iran after Iraq -- two of Israel's major enemies; here's the beginning of the softening of the American public to the idea of more invasions in the Islamic world] "The United States accused Iran Friday of 'actively working' on a nuclear weapons program and said that recent satellite photographs of a massive nuclear power construction project 'reinforce' that belief. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said two facilities seen in the photographs 'are not justified by the needs of Iran's civilian nuclear program.' 'There is no economic gain for a state that's rich in oil and gas like Iran to build costly nuclear fuel cycle facilities,' he said. 'I point out that Iran flares more gas annually than the equivalent energy its desired reactors would produce.' Boucher added: 'We've reached the conclusion that Iran is actively working to develop nuclear weapons capability.'"

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (8784)	4/6/2003 9:38:20 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Respond to of 21614

So? That's hardly the degree of control needed for a real search. But let me let you in on a secret: WE'RE GOING TO STEAL THE OIL! :-) Of course, if that is the motivation, we had Kuwait and the southern Iraqi oil fields 12 years ago. Why didn't we just keep them? With the degree of cooperation the UN was getting from Iraq, the amount of warning and preparation time time Saddam had, the fact that he controlled the schedule as to when inspections started, and Hans Blix's record, how could anyone possibly expect UN inspection to turn up anything? Another reason: OBL cited US troops in Saudi as the reason for 911, right? Why are those troops there? Because of Iraq. Remove Iraq's threat and you can remove the troops and defang OBL. Another reason: Currently the US is heavily dependent on Israel for military support and action in the ME. With a friendly regime in Baghdad, that changes. And the US can come down much harder on Israel about its actions that are to a fair extent the root cause of the mess in that area. But I'm sure you still think it was a lousy idea.

To: Lizzie Tudor who wrote (8784)	4/6/2003 10:05:37 PM
From: Lazarus_Long	Respond to of 21614

Suppose it actually happens this way. Would you feel better about the whole thing? U.S. could run Iraq for more than 6 months Wolfowitz insists Iraqis will choose their leaders NBC NEWS AND NEWS SERVICES April 6 — It will take more than six months for an Iraqi government to be created to run the country after President Saddam Hussein’s regime has been defeated, U.S. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz said Sunday. However, he stressed that the United States would not install the country’s new leaders and would allow the Iraqi people to decide on the makeup of their new government. “OUR GOAL is to have a legitimate Iraqi government that represents the Iraqi people,” Wolfowitz said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press”. “This interim authority ... is a bridge to that legitimate government. But the goal is not to install some particular group as the new leaders of Iraq.” Asked on Fox News on Sunday whether the Iraqis could set up a new government as quickly as the Kurds set up a territory in northern Iraq they began governing in 1991 after the first Gulf War, Wolfowitz said it would take longer. “Six months is what happened in northern Iraq. This is a more complicated situation. It will take more than that,” he said. Wolfowitz has been involved in the Pentagon’s creation of the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, which is preparing within days to begin operations in the southern Iraq port city of Umm Qasr. Headed by retired Army Gen. Jay Garner, who reports to U.S. war commander Gen. Tommy Franks, the new office will spearhead humanitarian assistance and reconstruction. Over European objections, the Bush administration has ruled out a leading role for the United Nations in immediate postwar Iraq, saying that Washington and its allies had earned top status after having given “life and blood” to the war effort. SHAPE OF THE GOVERNMENT Wolfowitz insisted that the United States would not appoint the Iraqi government and would allow Iraqis to choose their leaders. “Our goal is to have a legitimate Iraqi government that represents the Iraqi people,” said Wolfowitz on “Meet the Press.” “But the goal is not to install some particular group as the new leaders of Iraq. That absolutely contradicts the whole notion of democracy.” Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had urged Bush to name Iraqi exiles to an interim authority in southern Iraq, but White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice has insisted that any authority include Iraqis currently living in the country, as well as prominent exiles. The new Iraqi authority could be installed even before Saddam’s government is toppled. Wolfowitz told Fox the United Nations can be particularly helpful in bringing humanitarian assistance to Iraq, but that a major effort must be made to establish a new government run by the Iraqis. “The U.N. can be a mechanism for bringing that assistance to the Iraqi people, ... but our goal has to be to transfer authority and operations of a government as quickly as possible, not to some other external authority but to the Iraqi people,” he said. BUSH, BLAIR MEETING Postwar Iraq will also be on President Bush’s agenda Monday when he meets with British Prime Minister Tony Blair for their third summit in three weeks. The two will review battlefield plans and achievements along with thorny issues such as the pace of deliveries of humanitarian aid to Iraqi civilians and plans for the country’s postwar reconstruction, especially the much-debated role of the United Nations, said Bush press secretary Ari Fleischer. But agreeing on those issues may be tricky for the allies. U.S. reluctance to give a leading role to the United Nations in immediate postwar Iraq and Washington’s apparent plans to appoint interim U.S. administrators there have been sharply criticized around the world. They also make it much harder for Blair to reach his aim of healing the breach between the United States and Europe and divisions in the United Nations. Blair was at Bush’s mountain retreat of Camp David in Maryland just more than a week ago and also went to Washington for a “war council” at the end of January. Bush, not a great fan of foreign travel, came halfway across the Atlantic to meet Blair and Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar at the Azores on the eve of war. SECURITY COUNCIL TO MEET Also on Monday, the U.N. Security Council will meet on Iraq at the request of Secretary-General Kofi Annan, a U.N. spokeswoman said Sunday. “This is an informal meeting that the council’s 15 members are going to have in the morning with the secretary-general,” a spokeswoman for the Mexican U.N. mission told Reuters. Mexico holds the council presidency for April. The U.N. spokeswoman could give no reason for why Annan called the meeting, set to begin at 11 a.m. Meanwhile, Rice arrived in Moscow on Sunday for talks to soothe relations strained by differences over the Iraq war, a U.S. Embassy spokesman said. Moscow has been staunchly opposed to the U.S.-led war, which President Vladimir Putin has called a mistake. But Putin has toned down his antiwar rhetoric in the last few days and appeared keen to repair Russia’s relationship with its former Cold War rival and return to the close ties that followed the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. msnbc.com