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

To: Dayuhan who wrote (101222)	6/12/2003 12:59:07 AM
From: Ilaine	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

>> I also get the feeling that if it was Clinton in the hot seat, a lot of the people now urging patience would be shrieking "LIARLIARLIAR" at the top of their lungs.<< Maybe some, but not me. I've been reading about the damned things for years, not just starting post 9/11. Personally, I'd be ticked pink if they didn't exist, and it was all a fantasy or a fabrication. I wish, desperately, that Saddam was really a misunderstood pussy cat, that there are no WMD, and that nobody in the Ba'ath regime ever played footsie with Al Qaeda. As a cynic, though, it strikes me as rather odd that after many years of the US military complaining about Gulf War Syndrome, this war resolves without any CBW exposure. Where are the allegedly disabled vets yelling "coverup!"? My guess is that they're coming.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (101222)	6/12/2003 1:06:29 AM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

won't go as far as some here, but I definitely get the feeling that something is rotten I basically agree with Mark Steyn's argument, the idea that Bush and Blair made up weapons they knew weren't there so they could fight a war that would expose them as liars is a fairly absurd idea. There were plenty of other arguments, even to go to the UN with; they could have focused on the failure of containment and Saddam's public and private support of terrorism. So if they're something rotten here, I think it's the quality of our intelligence, and that is worrisome. Of course, Saddam had that fourteen-month "rush to war" to make his preparations in, and a Stalinist country is hard to penetrate.

To: Dayuhan who wrote (101222)	6/12/2003 2:09:15 AM
From: Jacob Snyder	Respond to of 281500

US plays aid card to fix war crimes exemption Ian Traynor in Zagreb Thursday June 12, 2003 The Guardian The US is turning up the heat on the countries of the Balkans and eastern Europe to secure war crimes immunity deals for Americans and exemptions from the year-old international criminal court. In an exercise in brute diplomacy which is causing more acute friction with the European Union following the rows over Iraq, the US administration is threatening to cut off tens of millions of dollars in aid to the countries of the Balkans unless they reach bilateral agreements with the US on the ICC by the end of this month. The American campaign, which is having mixed results, is creating bitterness and cynicism in the countries being intimidated, particularly in the successor states of former Yugoslavia which perpetrated and suffered the worst war crimes seen in Europe since the Nazis. They are all under intense international pressure, not least from the Americans, to cooperate with the war crimes tribunal for former Yugoslavia in the Hague. "Blatant hypocrisy," said Human Rights Watch in New York on Tuesday of the US policy towards former Yugoslavia. Threatened with the loss of $73m (£44m) in US aid, Bosnia signed the exemption deal last week just as Slovenia rejected American pressure and cut off negotiations. Of all the peoples of former Yugoslavia, the Bosnians suffered the most grievously in the wars of the 1990s, from the siege of Sarajevo to the slaughter of Srebrenica. The Bosnians signed reluctantly, feeling they had no choice. Former Yugoslavia is particularly central to the US campaign to exempt Americans from the scope of the ICC because there are US troops in Bosnia and Kosovo. Washington is vehemently opposed to the permanent international criminal court, arguing that US soldiers, officials and citizens will be targeted for political reasons, an argument dismissed by the court's supporters, who point out that safeguards have been built into the rules governing the court's operations. Under President Bill Clinton, Washington signed the treaty establishing the court. But the US did not ratify the treaty and Mr Bush rescinded Mr Clinton's signature. While the Slovenes have said no to the Americans, probably forfeiting $4m in US aid, Croatia, Serbia and Macedonia are now being pressed to join the 39 other countries worldwide with which Washington has sealed bilateral pacts granting Americans immunity from war crimes. "While the United States rightly insists that the former Yugoslav republics must fully cooperate with the [Hague tribunal], it is turning the screws on the very same states not to cooperate with the ICC," said Human Rights Watch. Croatia is sitting on the fence, refusing to accept what the prime minister, Ivica Racan, dubbed "an ultimatum", but still hoping to reach a compromise with the US. The American ambassador in Zagreb published a letter in the Zagreb press last week warning that Croatia would lose $19m in US military aid if it did not capitulate by July 1. In Serbia, too, where the issue of war crimes is explo sive, the US pressure is being attacked as a ruthless display of double standards. The EU has sent letters to all the countries in the region advising them to resist the US demands and indicating that surrender will harm their ambitions of joining the EU. Regional leaders are waiting to see what kind of offers or promises this month's EU summit in Greece makes to the region before deciding on their stance towards the ICC. One idea being floated is that the EU could make up the lost US aid money in return for Balkan refusal to toe the American line. Although the eight east European countries joining the EU next year are expected to follow the Brussels policy and reject the US demands, the Poles in particular are also being pressed to reach an immunity deal with Washington. Sources in Warsaw say that the US state department has made several requests in recent weeks for a deal by July 1. Poland is the biggest American ally in the region but has not yielded to the US requests. guardian.co.uk

To: Dayuhan who wrote (101222)	6/12/2003 11:10:05 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

We were specifically and repeatedly told that US officials knew what weapons existed and where they were. The quantities were alleged to be large. I don't know about us knowing where they were located, or else it would have been a simple matter of mandating that UNMOVIC inspectors pay a trip to those locations over the winter. Thus, that's not the impression I've had. What has been clear, as I've been discussing, is that two sets of books have been kept. That's what got UNSCOM "kicked-out" after Saddam announced he would no longer cooperate. It was the fact that UNSCOM was getting too close to knowing the truth and that Saddam's people hadn't covered their tracks as thoroughly as they had thought. But the intelligence we've had, HUMINT, SIGINT, IMINT, and MASINT, obviously have their strengths and weaknesses. With HUMINT, we have seen that the US has major deficiencies throughout the world. Rather than having our own long-term "assets" in place, we rely upon paying for information and then attempting to obtain confirmation through other means. And there's always the possibility that Iraqi intelligence was engaged in a massive counter-intelligence operation, spreading disinformation.. etc, to make the US and UNSCOM believe they still held chemical weapons. But I just don't see the benefit from this kind of operation. It would not be in Saddam's interest to continue to have sanctions exist against Iraq.. So if he was going to destroy all of his WMDs, then why not just do so and find other ways to exact his revenge against the West (because revenge is/was a major motivator in Saddam's psychological profil, I've read). Thus, I have a hard time in accepting that that Iraqi Air Force document discovered in July, 1998 was a deliberate plant. All CI operations have to have a goal, and nothing positive for Iraq would be gained by creating the impression that two sets of "books" were being kept relating to chemical weapons. And btw, were this Clinton or Gore in office engaging in this invasion (I don't think we'd be doing it, under those circumstances), I wouldn't be criticizing either of them. It anything, I criticized Clinton's timing for Operation Desert Fox because it appeared to be a "wag the dog" scenario that would not end the ongoing intransgence by Saddam. The only thing that could accomplish that was regime change, intiated externally as Bush has done, or internally, as Clinton refused to permit (see Robert Bauer). Hawk