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Pastimes : Rarely is the question asked: "is our children learning" -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: John Sladek who wrote (1938)	1/31/2004 8:17:10 AM
From: John Sladek	Respond to of 2171

Rice admits US doubts on WMD Adam Blenford and agencies Friday January 30, 2004 The British government was today facing renewed pressure over the case for war with Iraq after the Bush administration admitted for the first time that Saddam Hussein may never have held stocks of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons. The national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, one of US president George Bush's most trusted lieutenants and a strong advocate of the invasion of Iraq, made the concession during a series of interviews on major American news programmes. Backing off from claims that months of inspections by the US-led Iraq Survey Group would unearth hidden caches of illegal weapons, Ms Rice appeared to be swayed by recent testimony from David Kay, the former chief weapons inspector, who resigned his post last weekend and claimed that such weapons probably never existed. But she continued to defend the war itself, claiming that Saddam Hussein remained a "gathering threat" who the US could not afford to leave in power. "What we have is evidence that there are differences between what we knew going in and what we found on the ground. "With Saddam Hussein, we were dealing with somebody who had used weapons of mass destruction, who had attacked his neighbours twice, who was allowing terrorists to run in his country and was funding terrorists outside of his country," Ms Rice told CBS news. She added: "Given that, and his history of refusing to account for his weapons of mass destruction and his efforts to conceal his programmes, this was a very dangerous man in a very dangerous part of the world. "And the president of the United States had no choice but to deal with that gathering threat and to American interests and to the interests of our friends abroad." Ms Rice's word prompted fresh calls for the British government to clarify its position on Iraq's weapons. Former Foreign Office minister Doug Henderson told the Press Association: "Speculation will continue in this country about this issue unless the government clarifies its position. "Parliament should be told if Britain shared intelligence before the war with the United States and, if so, to what extent; if Britain accepted that its intelligence information contained the same errors as the US; and does Britain now accept, as the US government now seems to believe, that weapons of mass destruction will not be found?" Ms Rice's continued to defend the war despite Mr Kay's calls for an independent inquiry into the intelligence used as the basis for war. In testimony to a congressional committee this week, Mr Kay accused the CIA and other US intelligence agencies of misjudging the extent and sophistication of Saddam's weapons programmes prior to war. "It turns out we were all wrong, and that is most disturbing," he said. But Ms Rice stressed that no inquiry would be considered until the Iraq Survey Group had finished its inspections and reported back from Iraq - mirroring the words of Tony Blair, who has faced similar calls this week against the backdrop of the Hutton Report. "We're going to need to go back and compare what we thought we would find with what we found," she told the ABC network. "And at that time, I think there are important questions about how we deal with the proliferation problem with highly secretive regimes that are using dual-use technologies to acquire weapons of mass destruction." One year ago the US secretary of state, Colin Powell, presented a dossier of evidence to the United Nations security council alleging that Saddam had an extensive programme of seemingly legitimate civilian nuclear, chemical and biological laboratories capable of being adapted to produce illegal weapons. However, subsequent investigations have unearthed no real evidence of large-scale weapons productions. The now infamous British government claim in September 2002 that Saddam had an arsenal of weapons ready to be deployed in 45 minutes was the high watermark of official rhetoric. In his state of the union address earlier this month President Bush referred instead to evidence of "weapons of mass destruction programme-related activities". Special report guardian.co.uk

To: John Sladek who wrote (1938)	1/31/2004 8:24:38 AM
From: John Sladek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 2171

Iraqis still suffering, says Bishop Gumbleton after visiting Iraq Posted Thursday January 29, 2004 at 6:06 p.m. CST Iraqis still suffering, says Bishop Gumbleton after visiting Iraq By Robert Delaney Catholic News Service DETROIT -- Auxiliary Bishop Thomas J. Gumbleton of Detroit said Jan. 24 he was "shocked and discouraged" by what he saw on his most recent visit to Baghdad. "I was overwhelmed with sadness over what is happening to the people of Iraq, and also to the U.S. troops there," said the bishop, who returned to Detroit from an 11-day trip Jan. 22. With unemployment approaching 60 percent and food supplies dwindling, ordinary Iraqis "are humiliated and feel degraded" as they try to cope without electricity, telephones and -- in some places -- running water, he said. "Without exception, people said things were worse now than before the war," said Gumbleton, who was an outspoken critic of U.S. military action both before and during the war. It was his seventh trip to Baghdad, his first since the war. He said U.S. officials live and work in the Coalition Provisional Authority's compound, nicknamed the "Dream Zone," and some of their statements about improved conditions make it appear they never get out to see the reality ordinary people experience. "Inside the Dream Zone, they don't know what is going on in the city. Paul Bremer (U.S. administrator) has said electricity has been restored -- well, in the Dream Zone, sure, but not in the rest of the city," Gumbleton told The Michigan Catholic, newspaper of the Detroit Archdiocese. "They don't know the deprivations the people are putting up with. They don't have jobs. Right now, people are getting the same amount of basic food as they have been getting through the oil-for-food program, but there is the fear that could be running out. The city is just very depressing," he continued. The bishop and the rest of his group were escorted around Baghdad by two staff members of the American Friends Service Committee, the international relief agency of the Society of Friends (Quakers). They acted as interpreters for the delegation, which also included Canadian singer-songwriter Bruce Cockburn, a photojournalist and a physician's assistant. They visited three hospitals, delivering medical supplies they had brought. Gumbleton said conditions were worst at the pediatric hospital, where there were shortages of medicines and no new equipment since before the Persian Gulf War of 1991. He said the two Catholic hospitals, run by the Dominican Sisters, were better equipped, but still in need of supplies. Conditions were too dangerous for the group to travel to the southern city of Basra, as he had hoped, the bishop added. He met with Chaldean Patriarch Emmanuel III. "He was about as upbeat as he could be, but he also said it was not better than it was. The opposite is true; things are getting worse. If the economy doesn't get going pretty soon, I don't know what will happen," Gumbleton said. On Jan. 17, he and the others attended a demonstration outside the Provisional Authority's compound by squatters protesting efforts to force them to move from the bombed-out building where they have been living. On the following morning, a car bomb went off, killing 31 people and injuring 60-70 more at the same spot they had been the previous afternoon, the bishop said. Reuters and other news agencies have reported that in addition to the 517 American soldiers who have died since the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq there have been an estimated 8,000 to 10,000 Iraqi casualties. Gumbleton said he will urge Americans "to be compassionate and pray for" the Iraqi people. "Then, pressure our government to bring the troops home and allow the people of Iraq to move forward, and to bring other nations into it. We should rebuild that country and give its people a chance," he said. The bishop said he would like to see the $1 billion a day being used to support the U.S. military presence in Iraq to be diverted to redevelopment efforts. "The (American troops) we talked to don't understand what they're doing there, and they're always sitting ducks in danger of being killed. They don't speak the language, they don't understand what people are saying all around them, and wouldn't know it if someone were warning them a car bomb was coming at them," he continued. nationalcatholicreporter.org