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

To: tsigprofit who wrote (11093)	4/9/2003 3:50:56 PM
From: Tech Master	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21614

HOW SHOULD THE IRAQI PROBLEM HAVE BEEN SOLVED?

To: tsigprofit who wrote (11093)	4/9/2003 3:55:17 PM
From: Mike M	Respond to of 21614

story.news.yahoo.com <<U.S.: Saddam Likely in Bombed Building Wed Apr 9,12:01 PM ET By JOHN J. LUMPKIN, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - U.S. intelligence had solid information from multiple sources that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) went inside a building and didn't leave before it was struck by an American bomber Monday, U.S. officials said. One intelligence source was believed to be an eyewitness who watched him go inside. No one would discuss the identity or characterize the credibility of the witness. Intelligence officials, who spoke Wednesday on the condition of anonymity, stopped well short of declaring Saddam dead. They described the information as encouraging, but not conclusive. "We may have got him. We just don't know. It's clear that nobody's in charge, that nobody's getting any direction," said one official. "He's gone way underground, literally or figuratively." Military officials in the region said Saddam doesn't appear to be in control. "I don't think the regime is maintaining influence over hardly any of the military forces any more," said Capt. Frank Thorp at U.S. Central Command headquarters. "The fighting we see from the Iraqi military, although sometimes fierce, is not organized in any way shape or form." The U.S. military should maintain a presence in central Baghdad for the foreseeable future to convince the Iraqi people that Saddam is no longer in power, commanders said. "That's the next mental jump, is for the Iraqis to realize that even if he (Saddam Hussein) is still alive, he's not in charge anymore," said Col. David Perkins, commander of the 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, in downtown Baghdad. On Monday, U.S. intelligence learned that Saddam and his sons, Qusai and Odai, were possibly going to attend a meeting with Iraqi intelligence officials in a building in the al-Mansour neighborhood of western Baghdad. The site was in the same general part of Baghdad where Iraqi television had shown Saddam being mobbed by supporters on Friday, officials said. The intelligence information was passed to U.S. Central Command, which directed a B-1B bomber to the site. Forty-five minutes later, it dropped four guided bombs. "We characterize that strike as being very, very effective," Maj. Gen. Stanley McChrystal, vice director of the Pentagon (news - web sites)'s Joint Staff, told a news conference Tuesday. "What we have for battle damage assessment right now is essentially a hole in the ground ... where we believed high-value targets were." Three houses were destroyed. It was unclear who was within, and whether there were any survivors. Tuesday, Iraqi rescue workers recovered bodies from the debris with a bulldozer. The body of a child and part of a young woman were pulled from the site. Two of the bombs dropped were bunker-busters, designed to penetrate underground tunnels. However, officials said they had no specific information that there were underground facilities at the site. The bombs were apparently dropped in case there were. The target was not a restaurant, as some officials had reported, but a site near that restaurant, officials said. The fate of Saddam's sons is also unknown.

To: tsigprofit who wrote (11093)	4/9/2003 3:58:05 PM
From: Mike M	Respond to of 21614

csmonitor.com <<Specials > War in the Gulf from the April 09, 2003 edition 'Smoking gun' may not affect world's opinion By Liz Marlantes and Howard LaFranchi \| Staff writers of The Christian Science Monitor WASHINGTON – As coalition troops move closer to victory in Iraq, they are facing an unexpected, and possibly uncomfortable, scenario: The war may be over before any weapons of mass destruction - the primary justification for the conflict in the eyes of many - are uncovered. Three weeks into the invasion, the few discoveries the coalition has made may turn out to be nothing more than simple pesticides. US officials say the bulk of the search may be put off until the country is secured. Even then it may take months. monitortalk Vote in the MonitorTalk poll: How important is it that the US find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? Related stories 04/02/03 New find in 'smoking gun' search 03/19/03 Iraq flexes its military trump card Archive packages Looking Back: The First Gulf War $ E-mail this story Write a letter to the Editor Printer-friendly version Permission to reprint/republish Despite the fixation on finding a "smoking gun," experts say in the end it may not make that much difference in the way the world perceives the justification for the war. At home, polls show that a vast majority of Americans not only approve of the invasion, but that most no longer regard finding weapons of mass destruction as essential to the war's success. Likewise, in the international arena, analysts say perceptions about the war have hardened to the point where discoveries of weapons may have little impact on public opinion. Ultimately, American and international opinion may turn out to be similar in that it is strong - though divergent - core values that underpin support or opposition to the war, and not what is now increasingly perceived as the "secondary" issue of chemical and biological weapons. Still, as the coalition moves into the messy postwar period - when the full costs of the conflict become more apparent - its ability to back up its initial claims about hidden weapons with evidence could be important in determining future levels of support both abroad and at home. "At this point, [finding weapons of mass destruction] is not essential to the public's continuing support," says Steven Kull, director of the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland. "But it probably would be essential to a retrospective confidence that the war was necessary once we get into the more difficult postwar phase." To some extent, it may already be too late to win over critics in the international community, weapons or no weapons, say experts. Much of the opposition in Europe and the Middle East "has to do with the fact that this is being done by the world's superpower," says Karlyn Bowman, a public-opinion expert at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. The discovery of banned weapons "probably won't change that." And some experts note that opposition to the war is so strong and suspicion of US motives so pervasive that many in the international community may question any major weapons discoveries that are made. "Even if large amounts of these weapons were found, I could imagine the public in Germany and around Europe questioning whether the finds were true or simply planted evidence," says Jens Van Scherpenberg, a security expert at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin. Some war opponents may even excuse Iraq's possession of banned weapons as the country's only means of standing up to American aggression. "In France, there are people who think Saddam Hussein had some reason to want to hide his arms, if that was the only way to confront American might," says Philippe Moreau Defarges, a senior fellow at the French Institute of International relations in Paris. While the discovery of weapons may do little to win over critics, some analysts say a failure to uncover them could intensify international opposition to the war. "You would get a reverberation from abroad - the I-told-you-sos, saying that the US didn't have the sort of evidence they claimed to have," says Eric Larson, an expert on public opinion and war at RAND. Some of this criticism could seep into US public opinion, he says. Certainly, at the start of the conflict, finding weapons of mass destruction was a top priority for most Americans as well as for the international community. A Gallup poll taken just after the fighting began found that only 38 percent of Americans thought the war would be justified if the coalition did not uncover any forbidden weapons. But in a new Gallup survey, that number jumped to 58 percent. To some extent, this shift may reflect that the hunt for weapons has moved to the back burner, as the military - and the media - has focused on more immediate battle objectives. The shift may also have been hastened by the rhetoric of US officials, who in speeches and press briefings have moved away from emphasizing the importance of disarming Iraq to focusing on the liberation of the Iraqi people. Some analysts argue that uncovering weapons of mass destruction was never a top priority for Americans, and that most will remain supportive of the war regardless of the outcome of the weapons hunt. "There's really only one non-negotiable thing that the US has to accomplish," says Mr. Larson. "And that is getting rid of Saddam and his regime." Yet others believe that the current lack of demand for weapons evidence merely reflects an overall "rally effect," in which the public is inclined to support the president and the troops, and is loath to question the purpose of the conflict. "Once you have a kind of investment - once blood has been spilled - there is going to naturally be a tendency to not say that it was done in vain," says Mr. Kull. Polls show that the public still largely expects chemical and biological weapons will be found. According to a recent Los Angeles Times survey, 75 percent of Americans are confident that coalition troops will uncover weapons of mass destruction. And as the rally effect wears off, the search for weapons may reemerge as an important focus in the postwar period - particularly since it was a key component behind many people's original decision to support the war, Kull says. Many Americans overcame their initial uneasiness about invading without UN support by concluding that the US was acting in self-defense: "The public had to kind of stretch to get there, but that was a key element in their coming round," he says. If no evidence of forbidden weapons emerges, that argument may no longer hold up. Indeed, one place where finding WMDs is still important is at 10 Downing Street. "It will be very embarrassing for [British Prime Minster Tony] Blair if they are not found," notes Gary Samore, a nonproliferation expert at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London. Why change regime? Among Americans who approve of the war in Iraq, disarmament is listed by 86 percent as a 'major' reason to oust Saddam Hussein. But high percentages also see other reasons as major: Reason/Percent Disarmament of Iraq 86% Iraq's ties to groups like Al Qaeda 80 Regime change 79 Liberation of Iraq 74 Iraq poses an imminent threat to U.S. interests 72 Iraq poses a threat to US-friendly Arab nations 66 Iraq poses a threat to Israel 55 Source: Christian Science Monitor/TIPP poll, April 1-6

To: tsigprofit who wrote (11093)	4/9/2003 4:02:02 PM
From: Mike M	Respond to of 21614

csmonitor.com <<World > Europe from the April 09, 2003 edition Blair, Bush: the power to persuade By Linda Feldmann and Mark Rice-Oxley WASHINGTON AND LONDON – They seem an unlikely pair: One is a Clintonian "third way" pragmatist, the other a die-hard conservative. One has an intellectual passion for ideas, the other is more simple and direct. One is acutely attuned to international sensibilities, the other has adopted a more "take it or leave it" tone to the rest of the world. But in their joint conviction on the need to depose Saddam Hussein, British Prime Minister Tony Blair and President George W. Bush share important elements in their governing styles: Both have held fast to their belief - rooted in deep religious faith - that they are doing the right thing, and both have shown meticulous care in nurturing domestic public support. monitortalk Vote in the MonitorTalk poll: How important is it that the US find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq? "They've taken great pains with [opinion]," says Bruce Buchanan, a political scientist at the University of Texas at Austin. "They're very concerned with losing the public." Each has reaped the rewards. Though President Bush's war support is higher (around 70 percent), Prime Minister Blair's newfound pro-war majority in British polls seems the greater achievement, as he has climbed up from single digits. To be sure, the rally-behind-the-troops effect is at play in both countries, buoyed by successes on the ground. But analysts also see the power of personal persuasion at play. "There is a kind of admiration for Blair as someone who does what he thinks is right," says Prof. Wyn Grant of Warwick University. "In the past, he has been accused of ... doing what is popular." The key moment for Blair was a speech to Parliament on the eve of war. Some observers called it the best speech by a prime minister in living memory. A third of lawmakers were antiwar, many of them from Blair's own Labour Party. And even if his impassioned oratory did not win them round, it made it very clear that he believed he was right and would not be shaken in his course. Since then, the prime minister has played a deft hand. Blair has also focused intensely on the aftermath of war, knowing that his party will look more kindly on him if he secures a clear UN role for rebuilding Iraq and uses the Iraq outcome to push for lasting peace in the Middle East. His shuttle diplomacy has thus incorporated not only President Bush, but UN Secretary General Kofi Annan. To those who would call him Bush's poodle or the MP for Texas North, he could point to the location and outcome of this week's Belfast summit as a sign of influence. "If anybody has influence on George W. Bush, it's Tony Blair," says Will Marshall, president of the Progressive Policy Institute in Washington, the think tank of the New Democrats and "third way" politics. "There's a deep well of affection for Blair in this country... The image of Tony Blair in Congress right after 9/11 is indelible." An isle apart, a similar path For both leaders, the involvement in Iraq has represented a venue of activism less constrained than the domestic arena, where legislators are in the thick of debate. In Washington, Bush skillfully maneuvered Congress into approving possible war with Iraq back in October, in the heat of the 2002 midterm campaign, and most Bush opponents have been lying low since. But Bush faces a challenge from his own party on his economic package, and may well not win the full tax cut he proposed. In London, like previous prime ministers for a generation, Blair has been attracted to the international scene because it holds greater opportunity for political payback than the awkward, highly charged domestic scene, says Patrick Dunleavy, a professor of government at the London School of Economics. With his righthand man, Gordon Brown, wielding effective control over the domestic agenda, Blair has been casting around for a wider, more presidential role. "It's terribly easy for British prime ministers who have come up through mundane domestic politics to get sucked into international politics," Professor Dunleavy says. Professor Grant says the Iraq war is all part of the ideological makeup of a prime minister who espouses deep Christian beliefs and strikes a high moral tone. "He just thinks it was the right thing to do," he says. "He wasn't worried about the political consequences, and was prepared to take some damage. It's a consequence of having the most religious prime minister in Number 10 since Gladstone. He does the things that he thinks are right." Blair himself has said pretty much the same thing. "I've never claimed to have a monopoly of wisdom," he said in a recent newspaper interview, "but one thing I've learned in this job is you should always try to do the right thing, not the easy thing. Let the day-to-day judgments come and go. Be prepared to be judged by history." Of God and country But if religious belief underpins the international activism of both leaders - the Methodist Bush and the Anglican Blair - their domestic contexts are strikingly different. Most Americans seem comfortable with Bush's regular use of religious language, while in England, Blair's faith stays largely private. "England is an aggressively secular country," says George Edwards III, a presidential scholar at Texas A & M. He recalls a "horrible moment" recently when a British reporter asked with disdain whether Blair had prayed with Bush. "I don't remember the answer," he says. "It was the question, and the way it was asked, that made an unfortunate impression."

To: tsigprofit who wrote (11093)	4/9/2003 4:12:49 PM
From: Mike M	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 21614

story.news.yahoo.com << U.S. National - AP Iraqis in U.S. Hail Crumbling of Regime 1 hour, 10 minutes ago Add U.S. National - AP to My Yahoo! By DEBORAH KONG, AP Minority Issues Writer Iraqis in Michigan paraded through the streets waving American and Iraqi flags, while others around the nation greeted signs that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime is crumbling with tears of joy. Worries about relatives in their homeland persisted, but a wave of relief washed over many in the Iraqi-American community Wednesday as they saw news reports of collapsing opposition to U.S. troops in Baghdad. "This is a day we've been waiting for 35 years," said Feisal Amin Al-Istrabadi, a Chicago lawyer who went in late to work after watching events unfold on television. "It's a tremendous relief that it seems that this is the beginning of the end. I'm very, very proud to be an American today, as well as an Iraqi." In Dearborn, Mich., a crowd of about 200 people and dozens of honking cars paraded by the Karbalaa Islamic Center in the largely Arab Detroit suburb. Some people stood on car roofs, others chanted slogans in Arabic, including "Hey hey, Saddam, hey Saddam, where are you going to escape to?" and "Saddam is dead, long live Iraq (news - web sites)." At one point, the crowd used candy to pelt a large cardboard drawing of Saddam, took the picture out into the street, jumped on it and eventually tore it in half. "Today is my birthday," said Ali Al-Ghazali, 46, a native of southern Iraq. "But it's also the birthday for all Iraqis." Salah Flaih, who decorated his Manchester, N.H., convenience store with American flags and a life-sized cardboard cutout of President Bush (news - web sites), hopped up and down as he watched television images of U.S. Marines and Iraqis topple a 40-foot statue of Saddam that stood in the center of Baghdad's Fardos Square. "Oh, the Iraqi people are happy now," said Flaih, 49, who moved to New Hampshire with his wife and sons 2 1/2 years ago. "It's the happiest moment in my life. It's my liberation day." In Lincoln, Neb., Omar Younis watched the same images. "It's exciting, it's very great," said Younis, who has family living in Mosul. "I wish I was there to participate with the people." Ithaar Derweesh, who hasn't been able to sleep more than three hours a night since the war started, said he woke up early to "the adrenaline rush of watching history unfold," seeing television images of people throwing flowers at American tanks, waving flags and removing symbols of Saddam's regime. "It's beautiful," said Derweesh, 32, a Cleveland surgeon whose family left Iraq when he was 9 years old. "I cried tears of joy." But not all Iraqi-Americans shared those feelings. Hadi Jawad, vice president and board member of the Dallas Peace Center, said he sees coalition forces not as liberators, but as subjugators of Iraq's people and resources. "They have resorted to war, to violence, to killing thousands of Iraqi civilians," he said. "The means they have resorted to to accomplish the removal of the regime is unconscionable. It's a criminal act." As Iraqi-Americans watched the looting in the streets of Baghdad, they also are concerned about relatives living there, and whether they have electricity or running water. "I'd like to see calm restored," said Al-Istrabadi, whose cousins, aunts and uncles live in Iraq. "One of my nephews is 20 years old. He has never known a regime other than Saddam's. So this is where the future of Iraq lies — how are they going to be able to engender and maintain these democratic institutions?" Now, the hard work begins, said Al-Istrabadi, who is vice president for legal affairs at the Iraqi Forum for Democracy. "The liberation of Baghdad is in many respects the easy part," he said. "How do you go about reconstructing a civil society? How do you go about reintroducing the rule of law? While I'm optimistic about the future, I also realize that it's going to be a herculean effort."

To: tsigprofit who wrote (11093)	4/9/2003 4:18:21 PM
From: Mike M	Respond to of 21614

story.news.yahoo.com <<Saddam's Rule Collapses in Baghdad, Scenes of Joy By Hassan Hafidh and Sean Maguire BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s rule over Iraq (news - web sites) collapsed on Wednesday as U.S. troops swept into the heart of Baghdad and helped jubilant residents celebrate by toppling a huge statue of their ousted leader and dragging its severed head through the streets. Amid chaotic scenes of rejoicing, looting and scattered gunfire, Iraqis danced and trampled on the fallen 20-foot high metal statue in contempt for the man who had held them in fear for 24 years in which the country sustained massive human losses and economic damage from three wars. But U.S. control over the city was still not complete. As night fell, the streets emptied and tank and artillery fire sounded on the western bank of the Tigris river. There was no word on the fate of Saddam or his sons, targeted by U.S. planes that bombed a western residential area of the city on Monday. A CIA (news - web sites) official said he did not know if the Iraqi leader had survived the attack. U.S.-led forces have yet to occupy northern cities such as Mosul, Kirkuk and Tikrit, Saddam's birthplace and tribal power base, 110 miles north of the capital. U.S. and Kurdish forces dislodged Iraqis from a mountain used to defend Mosul, their biggest victory yet in the north. Earlier, in scenes recalling the 1989 fall of the Berlin Wall, Iraqis hacked at the marble plinth of Saddam's statue with a sledgehammer. Youths hooked a noose around the statue's neck and attached the rope to a Marine armored vehicle, which dragged it over. The crowd swarmed over what was left of the statue, waving their arms and fists in the air and dancing for joy. The scenes came three weeks after President Bush (news - web sites) began the war to topple Saddam and seize control of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction. Saddam's government denied having any such weapons and so far there is no definitive word that any have been found, although U.S. experts are testing some suspicious substances discovered earlier this week. The war has so far cost 96 U.S. dead, 30 British dead and unknown thousands of Iraqi military and civilian casualties. It has left behind a heavily damaged country which faces growing humanitarian needs. STARS AND STRIPES As Marines drove into Baghdad through the vast eastern township of Saddam City, home to about two million impoverished Shi'ite Muslims, jubilant crowds threw flowers and cheered . "No more Saddam Hussein," chanted one group, waving to troops as they passed. "We love you, we love you." U.S. soldiers briefly draped a Stars and Stripes flag on the face of the giant Saddam statue as they prepared to topple it. It was quickly replaced with an Iraqi flag that was placed on the plinth. The war has provoked enormous Arab anger and resentment and any display of the U.S. flag could add to those feelings. All over the Arab world, people gathered to watch scenes from Baghdad on television and reacted with a mixture of awe, disbelief, disappointment and contempt both for Saddam and the Americans. "It seemed that Iraqis were all with Saddam, now it looks like many didn't like him. Maybe those destroying the statue are rebels against Saddam's rule," said Egyptian engineer Magdy Tawfiq who watched the Saddam statue dragged down in Cairo. Top U.S. officials held off from a victory dance and cautioned that the Iraq war was not over yet. Still, a wave of euphoria swept through the administration as Bush and almost everybody else tuned in to the dramatic television images. Bush saw the beginning of efforts to drag down the statue on television before going into meetings. When the meetings were over, the statue had been toppled. "He watched it dragged through the streets of Baghdad. He walked out, saw it on the ground and exclaimed, 'They got it down'," said White House spokesman Ari Fleischer (news - web sites). The most triumphant note came from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, a key architect of the war. "Saddam Hussein is now taking his rightful place alongside Hitler, Stalin, Lenin, Ceausescu in the pantheon of failed brutal dictators, and the Iraqi people are well on their way to freedom," he declared. Saddam, who led Iraq through eight years of war with Iran as well as two military defeats at U.S. hands after taking power in 1979, had vowed to crush a U.S. and British invasion launched three weeks ago to overthrow him. RAMPANT LOOTING But looters on Wednesday gutted official buildings, hauling off anything from air conditioners to flowers. The Finance Ministry was ablaze late in the day, though it was unclear how the fire had started. "People, if you only knew what this man did to Iraq," yelled an old man standing in the road, thrashing at a torn portrait of Saddam with his shoe -- a traditional Arab insult. "He killed our youth, he killed millions." Rumsfeld warned that "difficult and very dangerous days" laid ahead in which fighting would continue. "We still must capture, account for or otherwise deal with Saddam Hussein, his sons and the senior Iraqi leadership," he told a Pentagon (news - web sites) briefing. Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites) told a meeting of U.S. newspaper editors in New Orleans that U.S. and Iraqi officials would meet soon to begin planning for an interim Iraqi government. Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmad Chalabi told Reuters the meeting would take place on Saturday at the Ali ibn Abi Talib airbase outside the town of Nassiriya. The United States plans to install a civil administration under a retired U.S. General to prepare for the eventual creation of an interim government run by the Iraqis. Saddam's hometown of Tikrit, 110 miles north of Baghdad, a nerve center for Iraqi security services and command-and-control infrastructure, emerged as the next potential target of the invasion. Many of the most trusted members of Saddam's clan-based government and military leadership are Tikritis. Bush's war ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites), said it was too early to declare military victory in Iraq. "This conflict is not over yet. There is still resistance, not broadly spread among the Iraqi people, but among those parts of Saddam's regime that want to cling on to power," he said. SECRET POLICE HEADQUARTERS SEIZED Marines seized a headquarters of Saddam's feared secret police in Baghdad, correspondent Sean Maguire reported. The deserted Directorate of General Security building in an eastern district was already being looted when the Marines arrived. Sporadic shooting in parts of Baghdad prompted the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) to suspend its operations, citing "chaotic and unpredictable" conditions and the death of a staffer on Tuesday. As word of events in Baghdad spread, rejoicing crowds took to the streets in the Kurdish-held northern city of Arbil. Iraqi Kurds hate Saddam for his ferocious campaigns against them. His forces used poison gas on Halabja and other Kurdish towns in 1988 in a crackdown that killed tens of thousands. In Halabja, tears streamed down the face of Fakhradeen Saleem, who lost three children in the 1988 chemical attack, as he watched television images of Saddam's government crumbling. "How can I feel happiness or sadness after what I have been through?" the 54-year-old teacher said.