TO ALL; <very off topic > On our missile raid in Sudan
I got something from the UK that don't look good and
you may not see in the our presses.
, or if so it will be played down.
I think most of us felt we had to do something about the
terrorist, and didn't object to the targets as stated by
our leaders. But now I'm really convinced this was a very
ill convinced wag the dog raid.
I was critical right after hearing it was done with nothing
but cruse missiles, with no follow up, as I did not see how
any real effectiveness could be brought that way alone.
It seems now Clinton clutched at straws and jumped at the chance
to look tough even regardless of the apparent shabby
information he was glad to get.
>Subject: Re: The day after
>
>Read this from British OBSERVER
>
>Clinton not only callously murdered numerous
>innocent Sudanese in this "wag the dog" cruise
>missile strike, but has also condemned
>numerous other Sudanese to death by
>destroying one of the few and precious
>manufacturing plants for medicine in that
>famine- and disease-ravaged country.
>
>Not to mention the innocent Americans who
>will find death unexpectedly visited upon them
>as enraged Islamic terrorists take their revenge
>around the world and within the U.S.'s own
>borders.
>
>What a price to pay for Monica's favours...!
>
>______________________________________
>
>LONDON OBSERVER, Sunday Aug 23, 1998
>
>CLINTON KNEW TARGET WAS CIVILIAN
>
>American tests showed no trace of nerve gas
>at 'deadly' Sudan plant. The President ordered
>the attack anyway
>
>By Ed Vulliamy in Washington, Henry McDonald
>in Belfast , and Shyam Bhatia and Martin Bright
>Sunday August 23, 1998
>
>President Bill Clinton knew he was bombing a
>civilian target when he ordered the United States
>attack on a Sudan chemical plant. Tests ordered
>by him showed that no nerve gas was on the site
>and two British professionals who recently worked
>at the factory said it clearly had no military purpose.
>
>The disclosure will deepen the crisis, following the
>American attacks on Afghanistan and Sudan, in
>relations between the US and its Muslim allies,
>who have called upon Clinton to produce hard
>evidence that the attacks had a legitimate
>relevance to the war against international
>terrorism.
>
>The US claims that the Al-Shifa Pharmaceuticals
>Industries plant in North Khartoum was producing
>the ingredients for the deadly VX nerve gas. But
>Sudan's assertion that it produced 50 per cent of
>the country's drug requirements is much closer
>to the truth.
>
>Several vital pieces of evidence point to this
>conclusion. US forces flew a reconnaissance
>mission to test for traces of gas and reported
>that there were none. Nevertheless Clinton
>immediately authorised the attack. He was
>also told that the absence of gas would avoid
>the horrifying spectacle of civilian casualties.
>Sudan has said 10 people were injured, five
>seriously.
>
>Belfast independent film-maker Irwin Armstrong,
>who visited the plant last year while making a
>promotional video for the Sudanese ambassador
>in London, said: "The Americans have got this
>completely wrong.
>
>"In other parts of the country I encountered
>heavy security but not here. I was allowed to
>wander about quite freely. This is a perfectly
>normal chemical factory with the things you
>would expect - stainless steel vats and
>technicians."
>
>Tom Carnaffin, of Hexham, Northumberland,
>worked as a technical manager from 1992 to
>1996 for the Baaboud family, who own the plant.
>
>"I have intimate knowledge of that factory and
>it just does not lend itself to the manufacture
>of chemical weapons," he said.
>
>"The Americans claimed that the weapons were
>being manufactured in the veterinary part of the
>factory. I have intimate knowledge of that part of
>the [plant] and unless there have been some
>radical changes in the last few months, it just
>isn't equipped to cope with the demands of
>chemical weapon manufacturing.
>
>"You need things like airlocks but this factory
>just has doors leading out onto the street. The
>factory was in the process of being sold to a
>Saudi Arabian. They are allies of the Americans
>and I don't think it would look very good in the
>prospectus that the factory was also
>manufacturing weapons for Baghdad.
>
>"I have personal knowledge of the need for
>medicine in Sudan as I almost died while
>working out there. The loss of this factory is
>a tragedy for the rural communities who need
>those medicines."
>
>The engineer, who has said he will be
>returning to Sudan in the near future to
>carry out more work for the Baaboud family,
>condemned the American attack and its
>resulting loss of life.
>
>"It's a funny feeling to think that I had a cup
>of tea in that place and the security guard
>on the gate who used to say hello to me is
>very probably now dead. The Baabouds are
>absolutely gutted about this. People who they
>knew personally have been killed - it is very
>upsetting."
>
>Meanwhile, an assurance that British targets
>will not be included in any retaliatory strikes
>has come from sources close to Osama bin
>Laden, the multimillionaire Saudi
>fundamentalist believed to be behind the twin
>bombings of US embassies in East Africa.
>
>Bin Laden, who survived the American
>air-strikes on his training camp inside
>Afghanistan, telephoned the editor of the
>London-based Arabic daily newspaper al
>Quds al Arabi to declare he was only
>interested in hitting the US and Israel.
>+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
> THE "SECRET" CHEMICAL FACTORY THAT NO ONE TRIED TO HIDE
>
> By David Hirst in Khartoum
>
> The Observer - Sunday, August 23, 1998
>
>Whatever Al Shifa Pharmaceuticals Industries Company did produce -
>precursors for the VX nerve gas, according to the United States, or
>50 per cent of Sudan's drug requirements, according to its own staff -
>it was very precisely targeted indeed.
>
>The projectiles that smashed into it at about 7.30 local time on
>Thursday evening went unerringly to the heart of the plant, and
>nothing else - not even the Sweets and Sesame factory so physically
>close that, at first sight it looks like an integral part.
>
>Al Shifa certainly did not try to hide its existence. Signs in plenty
>direct you to it long before you get there. But to find it with such
>pinpoint accuracy from the air was no small achievement.
>
>The Khartoum North district in which it is located is an amorphous,
>dismal suburbia, semi-residential, semi-industrial without obvious
>landmarks; steeped in dust for most of the year, its largely unpaved
>roads and alleyways ankle-deep in the rainy season's mud.
>
>The factory's core is flattened. The roof is almost on the ground.
>Here and there smoke still rises from the debris; the still burning
>chemicals give it a mildy unpleasant odour. There is no sign amid the
>wreckage of anything sinister. Of course, for the layman, there
>probably wouldn't be anyway.
>
>But there is no sign of anyone trying to hide anything either. Access
>is easy. Much of Khartoum seems to have come to take a look. Women in
>long bright dresses, and even high heels, pick their way through the
>mud and jump across roadside gutters to get a closer view. Most stare
>in what seems to be disbelieving silence.
>
>"I still can't quite believe it's gone," said Dr Alamaddin Shibli,
>the factory's export manager. "I still have to knock my head into
>realising that when I come here I'm coming to a complete ruin." He
>pointed to his office on the third floor of the administrative
>building. "On Thursday, I had gone home earlier than I usually do."
>He was not the only lucky one. "If the Americans had chosen Wednesday
>evening, instead of Thursday, it would have been a disaster."
>
>About 300 people worked in the factory, he said, but on Wednesday
>evening a shift of 50 had been working on a special assignment of
>veterinary products.
>
>These were destined for Iraq, commissioned by the United Nations
>under its food-for-oil programme. "I suppose the Americans would say
>that one Arab producer of chemical weapons was supplying them to
>another - Saddam Hussein."
>
>He says the factory was one of the biggest and best of its kind in
>Africa. It was privately owned, and had changed hands since it went
>into production two years ago; the new owner was a Sudanese living in
>Saudi Arabia. It had been partly financed by the Eastern and Southern
>African Preferential Trade Association, a thoroughly respectable
>body.
>
>It produced the full range of antibiotics, medicines for malaria,
>rheumatism, tuberculosis and diabetes, you name it. Samples of its
>products lay around the reception area: Shifatryp, Shifamol, and in a
>plastic bag with the picture of an eagle on it, Shifacef proclaimed
>its Continued Efficiency Over the Years.
>
>Apart from the administration block, only two parts of the factory
>were not unrecognisably demolished. One was the water-cooling works,
>which Shibli called the most modern in Africa, with its equipment
>from Italy and the United States. The other was the laboratory - for
>him, the most important loss. It is very badly damaged, but amid the
>rubble rows of phials remained discernibly intact.
>
>The Sudanese government, which the US accuses of sponsoring
>international terrorism, seems to think it now has all the evidence
>it needs to incriminate the US. It wants a United Nations team to
>investigate.
>
>"This is what we will show them," Shibli said. "In those bottles are
>the reagents that will prove what we really produced here - and it
>wasn't chemical weapons."
>
>
>U.S. BOMBING RAIDS
reports.guardian.co.uk
Clinton needs to resign, it's going to be
one mess after another. |
