The Progressive Response

Volume 8, Number 13
May 7, 2004

Editor: John Gershman, Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC)

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Foreign Policy In Focus	www.fpif.org

The Progressive Response (PR) is produced weekly by the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC, online at www.irc-online.org) as part of its Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF) project. FPIF, a "Think Tank Without Walls," is an international network of analysts and activists dedicated to "making the U.S. a more responsible global leader and partner by advancing citizen movements and agendas." FPIF is joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center and the Institute for Policy Studies. We encourage responses to the opinions expressed in the PR and may print them in the "Letters and Comments" section. For more information on FPIF and joining our network, please consider visiting the FPIF website at http://www.fpif.org/, or email <feedback@fpif.org> to share your thoughts with us.

John Gershman, editor of Progressive Response, is a senior analyst with the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) (online at www.irc-online.org) and co-director of FPIF. He can be contacted at <john@irc-online.org>.

I. Updates and Out-Takes

OF RUMOR AND REALITY
By Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.)

SORRY, MR. PRESIDENT, BUT IRAQ LOOKS A LOT LIKE VIETNAM
By Ronald Bruce St John

THE RELEASE OF MORDECHAI VANUNU AND U.S. COMPLICITY IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF ISRAEL’S NUCLEAR ARSENAL
By Stephen Zunes

INTELLIGENCE QUESTIONS IN NORTH KOREA
By Karin Lee and Adam Miles

EUROPE PROTESTS BITTER CUTS
By David Bacon

II. Letters and Comments

NEOCON AMBITION

I. Updates and Out-Takes

OF RUMOR AND REALITY
By Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.)

(Editor’s Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in full at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0404rumorreality.html.html.)

May 1st marked a full year since President Bush declared major combat to be over in Iraq. At that point, 138 U.S. military personnel had died in Iraq, 115 killed by hostile fire.

Since then, another 598 have died, 456 in combat. Of this latter number, 126 were killed in April alone; that’s 22% of total combat deaths (571) in one month.

Many of these casualties come from the three-week stand-offs at Fallujah and Najaf. Brigadier General Kimmitt, a Coalition Provisional Authority spokesperson, has warned repeatedly in the last ten days that time is running out for peaceful settlement of the confrontations. “Our patience is not eternal,” he remarked on April 28th.

He didn’t address how patient the Iraqi people have been about the slowness in restoring basic services–clean water, sewage and garbage collection, electric water, medical stocks for hospitals, education for children, and above all else, physical security. When these issues or the broader ones of reconstructing Iraq are raised, the stock answer is that the lack of security has affected the pace of reconstruction.

In this atmosphere, distrust is rampant, and so is rumor.

What is not rumor is the death and destruction on both sides. Yet even here, what is “reality” depends on the point of view. In Fallujah, a Sunni cleric told a reporter: “They [Americans] are trying to destroy everything.” Conversely, the U.S. military points to their controlled “precision” fire and efforts to limit casualties among civilians. But as a foreign occupying force, the U.S. version remains unconvincing to ordinary Iraqis even when it is accurate. A recent poll discovered that most Iraqis regard U.S. troop conduct negatively even though only seven percent of those polled had had personal contact with U.S. troops. Iraqi rumor becomes Iraqi reality.

At this point, only high-profile deeds have any chance against rumor. The decision to bring in an all-Iraqi unit commanded by Iraqi officers is a giant leap forward. Moreover, success in Fallujah might just convince the CPA to rely more on Iraq’s ex-soldiers and ex-officers, properly vetted, in building Baghdad’s new armed forces.

Mark Twain once observed that “rumor will die itself if you will only give it three days.” One year after the end of major combat, the military has turned a corner by recognizing that a short-term military resolution will only delay–and increase the human cost of–the needed political solution. Unfortunately, this recognition comes 362 days too late to stifle rumor’s shelf life and avoid the deaths and injuries of thousands–U.S. and coalition personnel as well as Iraqis.

(Dan Smith is a military affairs analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org), a retired U.S. army colonel and a senior fellow on Military Affairs at the Friends Committee on National Legislation.)

For more information see:

The Psychology of War: Iraq and Vietnam
By Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.) (April 7, 2004)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0404iraq-vietnam.html

Rendering an Account on Iraq
By Colonel Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.) (March 18, 2004)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0403iraq-ann.html

Why So Many Were So Wrong for So Long
By Col. Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.) (February 5, 2004)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0402wrong.html

Fighting By the Rules, Not Against Them
By Col. Dan Smith, (Ret.) (December 18, 2003)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0312rules.html

SORRY, MR. PRESIDENT, BUT IRAQ LOOKS A LOT LIKE VIETNAM
By Ronald Bruce St John

(Editor’s Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in full at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0404presidentvietnam.html.)

At the end of the Persian Gulf War, President George H. W. Bush, flanked by then Secretary of Defense Richard Cheney and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Colin Powell, proudly proclaimed we’d finally licked the “Vietnam syndrome.” Is it any wonder then that President George W. Bush, surrounded by the same advisors, refuses to recognize that Iraq increasingly resembles that traumatic Asian conflict? In mid-April 2004, President Bush flatly declared: “The analogy [between Iraq and Vietnam] is false.”

I served a tour of duty in Vietnam in 1970-71 and returned in the late 1980s for the first of several prolonged visits. Based on my experience, Iraq today looks more and more like the Vietnam I knew firsthand as an army intelligence officer more than three decades ago.

First, there are the obvious strategic and tactical similarities. American troops are fighting a guerrilla war in Iraq. The terrain is difficult, and the insurgents know it better than we do. The enemy attacks at a time and place of its own choosing, avoiding troop concentrations where U.S. firepower can be brought to bear. Urban warfare has become the norm with insurgents staying close to U.S. troops, often engaging civilians to support or shield their operations. As a result, the uncertain battleground of Iraq poses enormous challenges for American soldiers, seeking to separate combatants from civilians without alienating most Iraqis. We face in Iraq, like we did in Vietnam, an enemy who refuses to play by our rules and is clearly willing to die for his beliefs.

Before we finished in Vietnam, we had dropped more bombs on Indochina than had been dropped on the remainder of the world in all the wars to that time. The U.S. military continues to believe in the might of firepower. But it also wrestles with the difficult task of establishing the appropriate balance between winning hearts and minds with aid and reconstruction and using force to root out insurgents. In Iraq, we have moved from “shock and awe” to building schools and hosting soccer games. We’re now back to block-to-block searches of cordoned cities.

In the process, the U.S. military has generally refused to account for civilian casualties in Iraq, in part because they are frequently huge. As in Vietnam, 600 dead or dying Iraqis too often appear as 600 “insurgents” in army press accounts. The refusal to acknowledge civilian casualties, while meticulously accounting for our own, has another downside. It suggests to Iraqis that American lives are more important than those of the people we supposedly came to liberate.

(Ronald Bruce St John, an analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus, has published widely on Middle Eastern issues. His latest book on the region is Libya and the United States: Two Centuries of Strife (Penn Press, 2002).)

For more information see:

It’s Time to Engage, Not Isolate, Syria
By Ronald Bruce St John (March 12, 2004)
http://www.presentdanger.org/commentary/2004/0403syria.html

In Iraq, Timing is Everything
By Ronald Bruce St John (January 13, 2004)
http://www.fpif.org/commetary/2004/0401transition.html

Lessons From Qadaffi
By Ronald Bruce St John (March 14, 2003)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2003/0303qaddafi.html

THE RELEASE OF MORDECHAI VANUNU AND U.S. COMPLICITY IN THE DEVELOPMENT OF ISRAEL’S NUCLEAR ARSENAL
By Stephen Zunes

(Editor’s Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in full at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0404vanunu.html.)

The recent release on April 22 of Mordechai Vanunu from an Israeli prison provides an opportunity to challenge the U.S. policy of supporting Israel’s development of nuclear weapons while threatening war against other Middle Eastern states for simply having the potential for developing such weaponry.

Vanunu, a nuclear technician at Israel’s Dimona nuclear plant, passed along photographs he had taken inside the plant to the Sunday Times of London in 1986. His evidence demonstrated that Israel had developed up to two hundred nuclear weapons of a highly advanced design, making it the world’s sixth-largest nuclear power. For his efforts, agents from the Mossad, Israel’s intelligence service, kidnapped him from Rome and brought him to Israel to stand before a secret tribunal that convicted him on charges of espionage and treason and sentenced him to eighteen years in prison under solitary confinement.

Though labeled a spy and a traitor, he was in fact simply a whistle-blower who became “a martyr to the causes of press freedom and nuclear de-escalation.” He never received any money for this act of conscience, which he took upon recognizing that Israel’s nuclear program went well beyond its need for a deterrent and was likely offensive in nature. A former strategic analyst at the Rand Corporation observed that Vanunu’s revelations about Israel’s nuclear program demonstrated that: “Its scale and nature was clearly designed for threatening and, if necessary, launching first-use of nuclear weapons against conventional forces.” Prior to Vanunu’s revelations, many suspected that Israel’s nuclear program was limited to tactical nuclear artillery and naval shells.

Israel is one of just four countries--the others being Pakistan, India, and Cuba--that has not signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. UN Security Council resolution 1172 urges all countries to become parties of the treaty.

It is noteworthy that Israel finds whistle-blowing more threatening than actual spying. None of the half dozen spies convicted in Israel for nuclear espionage served as much time in prison as has Vanunu.

Vanunu, who has been referred to by Daniel Ellsberg as “the preeminent hero of the nuclear era,” has been awarded the Sean McBride Peace prize, the Right Livelihood Award, and an honorary doctorate from a Norwegian university. He has also been repeatedly nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The European parliament, former President Jimmy Carter, the Jewish Peace Fellowship, the Federation of American Scientists, and many other prominent individuals and organizations have long called for Vanunu’s release. By contrast, with few notable exceptions--such as the late Senator Paul Wellstone of Minnesota --there has been virtually no support in Congress. The four administrations in office during Vanunu’s confinement have been even less supportive. For example, in response to an inquiry by Tom Campbell, the former Republican Congressman from California, Clinton’s assistant secretary of State Barbara Larkin claimed that Vanunu had had a fair trial and was doing well in prison.

This lack of U.S. support for Vanunu is just one part of the longstanding U.S. acquiescence of Israel’s nuclear program.

(Stephen Zunes is a professor of Politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco. He serves as Middle East editor for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at www.fpif.org) and is the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (Common Courage Press, 2003). He is currently conducting research in Israel and the Israeli-occupied West Bank.)

For more information see:

Bush Endorsement Of Sharon Proposal Undermines Peace And International Law
By Stephen Zunes (April 26, 2004)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0404sharon.html

Defense of Israeli Assassination Policy by the Bush Administration and Democratic Leaders an Affront to International Law and Israeli Security
By Stephen Zunes (April 2, 2004)
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0404yassin.html

INTELLIGENCE QUESTIONS IN NORTH KOREA
By Karin Lee and Adam Miles

(Editor’s Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in full at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0404iqnorthkorea.html.)

As the United States continues to struggle with the intelligence failures that led to war in Iraq and preceded 9/11, the Bush Administration’s politicized, inconsistent use of new intelligence coming out of Pakistan is complicating an already challenging assessment of North Korea’s nuclear weapons.

The New York Times recently published CIA intelligence on North Korea’s nuclear weapons based on the interrogation of Dr.Abdul Qadeer Khan by Pakistani authorities. Khan admitted in February to supplying nuclear weapons technologies and materials to Iran, Libya, and North Korea. The intelligence reported in the New York Times will potentially affect the U.S. diplomatic position at the next round of six party talks in June.

On March 13, the Times reported that classified CIA intelligence “detailed for the first time the extent to which Pakistan’s Khan Research Laboratories provided North Korea with all the equipment and technology necessary to produce uranium-based nuclear weapons.” According to the Times, the CIA report concludes that North Korea received all of the necessary components for the enrichment of uranium into weapons grade material, including completed centrifuges and uranium hexafluoride, and one or more weapons designs. Unnamed American officials confirmed the information in the article.

On April 12, the New York Times published a story with more dramatic information from the interrogation of Khan. Reportedly, Khan told his interrogators that he was invited to view three nuclear devices on one of his trips to North Korea. This would be the first account of any foreigner inspecting a North Korean nuclear weapon.

Because the administration has not had access to Khan, the intelligence presented in the Times article is, at best, third-hand information: first passed from Khan to his Pakistani interrogators, then on to U.S. officials, and finally to the New York Times. Throughout this game of intelligence “telephone,” the information could easily be subject to political interpretation and motives, not the least of which is Pakistani eagerness to deflect international proliferation concerns away from Khan. Further, U.S. officials acknowledge that Khan (a trained metallurgist, not a nuclear physicist) may not have the technical expertise to ascertain whether the bombs he saw were, in fact, nuclear weapons. Detailed tests would be necessary to conclude confidently either way. Stated simply, it is unlikely that Khan had the ability to determine exactly what he saw and the U.S. has no way of authenticating the information.

Despite this, the Times reported that during his recent trip to Asia, Vice President Cheney used the new intelligence to pressure China for “stronger actions” against North Korea. According to an April 15 New York Times article, “Cheney Presses Beijing on North Korea Nuclear Program,” the Vice President “‘brought to the attention’ of Chinese leaders a report in The New York Times…about the North’s nuclear program.” Juxtaposed with Mr. Bolton’s statements concerning the intelligence previously reported in the Times—not to mention the somewhat dubious claims of the latter report—Cheney’s rationale for “pressing” China is deeply troubling.

The existence of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program presents an incontrovertible proliferation and security threat that the U.S. must address–and with more flexibility and urgency than the Bush administration has demonstrated thus far. However, what that program has actually produced remains an open question. It is extremely difficult to assess the extent of North Korea’s nuclear weapons program, and therefore, determine the surest route to a peaceful, negotiated settlement of this crisis. Hundreds of thousands of lives are at stake, should the situation on the Peninsula deteriorate into a military confrontation. The Administration should seek only the highest quality intelligence to guide U.S. policy decisions vis-à-vis North Korea. As we have seen in Iraq, the price of miscalculation can be very high.

(Karin Lee is a Senior Fellow with the East Asia Policy Program and Adam Miles is a legislative intern at the Friends Committee on National Legislation. They wrote this for Foreign Policy in Focus (www.fpif.org).)

EUROPE PROTESTS BITTER CUTS
By David Bacon

(Editor’s Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in full at http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0404workers.html).

Europe's war between unions trying to protect the remnants of the welfare state, and governments bent on shredding them further, brought a million people into the streets on Sunday. Half a million came out in both Berlin and Rome, while smaller numbers demonstrated in France and other German cities. For the first time, they've coordinated demonstrations in a multi-country response.

This is no longer a simple war of left versus right. In Italy and France, labor federations are defying the rightwing Berlusconi and Chirac governments. But in Germany, unions are fighting with the party they themselves created, and its chancellor, Gerhard Schroeder.

Left or right, European governments have been proposing similar reforms, from Paris to Stockholm, Berlin to Rome. They want to cut payments to retired workers, and ask people to work longer. They want benefits to the unemployed to drop as well, even while unemployment rates average over 8% in Germany and 10% in Italy.

In front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, thousands of workers created a sea of red flags and banners, carrying the symbols of IG Metall, the German industrial federation, and Ver.di, the social services and public sector union. But in a most un-German fashion, many came with their own hand-lettered signs, voicing deep resentment and a growing scorn for the chancellor their votes put into office.

On one, the abbreviation of the Social-Democratic Party, which in German is SPD, was given another meaning: Social Plunder Party. Another made an ironic comparison between the death benefit Schroeder's relatives will get when he dies, about 20,000 Euros ($25,000) and the average benefit a worker's relatives receive, about 500 Euros ($625). Schroeder's Agenda 2010 reform package would cut this benefit. A third banner demanded that the well-paid university economists, who provide the scholarly justification for cuts, take the medicine they prescribe for those further down the salary scale.

The most common hand-made sign had no slogan--just an extended middle finger with Schroeder's name on the palm. Voicing the sentiment of the huge crowd, Jurgen Peters, the head of IG Metall, declared, “we're fed up with so-called reforms that we pay for, but which benefit others."

Wolfgang Mueller, a union representative for IG Metall in high-tech industry, explained the anger. “In Germany right now the so-called welfare state is being destroyed,” he said. “It started a long time ago with minor cuts. Now the Red/Green government is starting to do real damage, with big cuts.”

(David Bacon is a reporter and photographer specializing in labor issues. He wrote this for Foreign Policy in Focus (www.fpif.org).)

II. Letters and Comments

NEOCON AMBITION

Re: Neocons Aim Beyond Baghdad

The author is right; the neocons don't lack ambition. Luckily for the rest of us, however, the world does not work according to their ambitions! (For reference, see the situation in Iraq).

Pipes claims to be associated with "a group of anti-Islamist Muslims. What an oxymoron! Islam is a religion and its followers are Muslims; how can there be followers of a religion which are against it? His desire to have, "Islam in America must be American Islam," begs the following question: Has a similar demand ever been made of Christianity or Judaism?

Pipes’ grant proposal might be able to raise funds for his institute from those who don't know who Muslims in America are, how they live, and what they believe. However, it is as unconvincing to an objective mind as was the case to invade Iraq. It is clear to anyone who understands the Muslim community in America, that their religion is as varied as a practice in the private lives of Muslims, as any other religion in the US. No one is "dictating the form of Islam that will be followed in America" and if someone is, the American Muslims are not listening.

Pipes’ assertion about Muslim communities in the United States, Canada and Western Europe, being dominated by Wahhabism and other radical trends makes an effective marketing soundbite to raise money for an institute, however is far from reality. He mentions the intimidation in these communities, which is even farther from the truth. Muslims in these communities are not intimated by Wahhhabis and radical elements but by those like Pipes and his followers, who have created a myth in the U.S. society by asserting that all Muslims, unfortunately, are suspects.

The dilemma of the average American Muslim is that his religion has been hijacked by a few who use it for their own political purposes. These people are the likes of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and of course, Daniel Pipes. The only difference among these people is that those falling into the category of the first two named individuals are Muslims using the religion for their political pursuits, while Pipes and others like him are using Islam to make a darn good living by spreading ignorance among the American populace.

- Jay Malik, jmalik@ptd.net

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<table width="600" border="0" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="0"> <tr valign="top"> <td width="539"><h1 align="left">The Progressive Response</h1> Volume 8, Number 4 February 9, 2004 Editor: John Gershman, Interhemispheric Resource Center (<a href="http://www.irc-online.org/" target="_parent">IRC</a>) </td> <td width="61"><a href="javascript:openTafWindow('/?action=etfform&url=http://www.fpif.org/progresp/volume8/v8n13_body.html','TellAFriend','scrolling=yes,resizable,width=600,height=400')"><img src="../../images/icon_share.gif" width="38" height="27" border="0"></a> <a href="../../form_feedback.html" target="_parent"><img src="../../images/icon_feedback.gif" width="51" height="22" border="0" alt="Give us your feedback"></a></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"><table width="600" cellpadding="5"> <tr> <td colspan="2"><div align="center"><a href="https://secure.iexposure.com/fpif.org/donate.cfm" target="_parent">We Count on Your Support!</a></div></td> </tr> <tr> <td>Foreign Policy In Focus</td> <td> <div align="right"><a href="http://www.fpif.org/" target="_parent">www.fpif.org</a></div></td> </tr> </table></td> </tr> <tr> <td colspan="2"> <div align="center"></div> <blockquote> <div align="left"> The Progressive Response (PR) is produced weekly by the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC, online at <a href="http://www.irc-online.org/" target="_blank">www.irc-online.org</a>) as part of its Foreign Policy in Focus (FPIF) project. FPIF, a "Think Tank Without Walls," is an international network of analysts and activists dedicated to "making the U.S. a more responsible global leader and partner by advancing citizen movements and agendas." FPIF is joint project of the Interhemispheric Resource Center and the Institute for Policy Studies. We encourage responses to the opinions expressed in the PR and may print them in the "Letters and Comments" section. For more information on FPIF and joining our network, please consider visiting the FPIF website at <a href="../../index.html" target="_parent">http://www.fpif.org/</a>, or email <<a href="mailto:feedback@fpif.org">feedback@fpif.org</a>> to share your thoughts with us. John Gershman, editor of Progressive Response, is a senior analyst with the Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) (online at <a href="http://www.irc-online.org/" target="_parent">www.irc-online.org</a>) and co-director of FPIF. He can be contacted at <<a href="mailto:john@irc-online.org">john@irc-online.org</a>>.   </div> </blockquote> <h2>Table of Contents</h2> <h3>I. Updates and Out-Takes</h3> <blockquote> <a href="#nepal">NEPAL & THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION: INTO THIN AIR</a> By Conn Hallinan <a href="#iraqiwomen">IRAQI GOVERNING COUNCIL PLANS LATEST ASSAULT ON WOMEN'S RIGHTS IN IRAQ</a> By Jim Lobe <a href="#wrong">WHY SO MANY WERE SO WRONG FOR SO LONG</a> By Col. Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.) <a href="#unbacking">THE U.S. BEGS FOR UN BACKING IN IRAQ</a> By Phyllis Bennis <a href="#libyan">LIBYAN DISARMAMENT A POSITIVE STEP, BUT THREAT OF PROLIFERATION REMAINS</a> By Stephen Zunes <a href="#blair">BLAIR'S PYRRHIC VICTORIES</a> By Ian Williams </blockquote>   <h3>II. Letters and Comments</h3> <blockquote> <a href="#best">THE BEST WE CAN DO</a> <a href="#interesting">VERY INTERESTING</a> </blockquote>   <hr size="1" noshade> <h3>I. Updates and Out-Takes</h3> <a name="nepal" id="nepal"></a>NEPAL & THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION: INTO THIN AIR By Conn Hallinan <blockquote> (Editor’s Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary at <a href="../../commentary/2004/0402nepal.html" target="_self">http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0402nepal.html</a>). </blockquote> Tucked into the upper stories of the Himalayas, Nepal hardly seems ground zero for the Bush administration's next crusade against “terrorism,” but an aggressive American ambassador, a strategic locale, and a flood of U.S. weaponry threatens to turn the tiny country of 25 million into a counter-insurgency bloodbath. More than 8,000 Nepalese have died since a civil war broke out in 1996, and the death rate has sharply increased with the arrival of almost 8,400 American M-16 submachine guns, accompanied by U.S. advisers, high-tech night fighting equipment, and British helicopters. For most Americans, Nepal, birthplace of the Buddha and home to Everest, the world's highest mountain, is a charming tourist haven. For the native Nepalese, 42% of whom, according to the World Bank, live below the poverty line, Nepal is a land enchained by caste, riven with ethnic rivalries, and dominated by a feudal landlord class. The central protagonists in the current war are King Gyanendra, who abolished an elected parliament last year, the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) (CPNM), which is leading a rural insurrection, and a group of five political parties that found themselves out in the cold when the monarchy took over. The Bush administration has concluded that the civil war threatens to make Nepal a “failed state” and a haven for international terrorists, leading it to place the CPNM on the State Department's “Watch List,” along with organizations like al Qaeda, Abu Sayyaf, and Lebanon's Hezbollah. U.S. Ambassador to Nepal, Michael E. Malinowski, compares CPNM leader, Baburam Bhattarai, to Nazi propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels. Malinowski, whose track record includes service in Afghanistan and Pakistan, advocates an all-out military offensive aimed at the insurgency, and recently told the New York Times that the CPNM, “literally have to be bent back to the table.” But it was the Nepalese government's attempt to crush rural unrest that sparked the civil war in the first place, and virtually no one thinks there is a military solution to the insurrection. “The government forces, under the present policies, could win a couple of battles here and there,” writes analyst Romeet Kaul Watt in The Kashmir Tribune, “but will never win the war.” (Conn Hallinan <a href="mailto:connm@cats.ucsc.edu" target="_blank"><connm@cats.ucsc.edu</a>> is a provost at the University of California at Santa Cruz and a political analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at <a href="../../index.html" target="_parent">www.fpif.org</a>).)   <a name="iraqiwomen" id="iraqiwomen"></a>IRAQI GOVERNING COUNCIL PLANS LATEST ASSAULT ON WOMEN'S RIGHTS IN IRAQ By Jim Lobe <blockquote> (Editor’s Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary at <a href="../../commentary/2004/0402iraqwomen.html" target="_parent">http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0402iraqwomen.html</a>). </blockquote> Iraq's governing council (IGC) has quietly approved a plan to replace some existing legal women's rights with Islamic law or “Shariah,” according to 44 U.S. lawmakers, who warn Washington of a “brewing women's rights crisis” in the U.S.-occupied country. This comes as women are facing broader assaults on women's rights and political power in Iraq. For example, while three women serve on the IGC, only one is in the cabinet and no women serve on the 24-member constitutional committee. One of the three female members of the IGC, a champion of women's rights, was killed this past fall and her replacement is widely viewed as a conservative. According to the Rocky Mountain News, when the adviser on human rights issues for the U.S. Coalition Provisional Authority, Salwa Ali, tried to be a part of the local elections in Baghdad, she found that the neighborhood was plastered with fliers stating that women were not allowed. In a letter sent to President George W. Bush on February 2, the national political leaders, led by Representatives Carolyn Maloney, Eddie Bernice Johnson, and Darlene Hooley, complain the move will reverse legal guarantees for Iraqi women, who were among the most liberated in the Arab world. “To prevent this order from taking effect, we strongly urge you and your administration to take steps now to protect the rights of Iraqi women,” wrote the lawmakers, who represent both the Republican Party and the Democrats. The White House had no immediate comment. The letter follows earlier reports from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and other human rights groups critical of the Bush administration's failure to adequately protect women's rights in occupied Iraq. The lawmakers were referring to IGC resolution 137, approved by the 25-member body Dec. 29, which replaces Iraq's 1959 personal-status legislation with religious laws to be administered by clerics from the country's different religious faiths, depending on the sect to which the parties in any dispute belonged. That change could affect everything from the right to education, employment, and freedom of movement, to property inheritance, divorce, and child custody, according to the letter's authors. The resolution must still be approved by the de facto government in Iraq, the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), headed by Ambassador L. Paul Bremer III, in order to become legally binding. In a letter to Bremer on Jan. 30 MADRE, a New York-based international rights advocate for women, argued that IGC's action lacked transparency and was taken without any public debate or open consultation, with only a minority of council members present. “In less than 15 minutes of discussions, the IGC--none of whose members were elected by Iraqis--passed Resolution 137, effectively abolishing women's legal rights in 'liberated' Iraq,” said MADRE's associate director, Yifat Susskind. “Under the direct authority of the Bush administration, the IGC has privileged sectarianism over inclusiveness and violated core principles of democratic governance,” she said. Iraqi women are also protesting the resolution, according to recent press reports. “This will send us home and shut the door, just like what happened to women in Afghanistan,” Kurdish lawyer Amira Hassan Abdullah told the Washington Post last month. “The old law wasn't perfect, but this one would make Iraq a jungle. Iraq women will accept it over their dead bodies.” (Jim Lobe is a political analyst with Foreign Policy in Focus (online at <a href="../../index.html" target="_parent">www.fpif.org</a>). He also writes regularly for Inter Press Service.) For More Information: MADRE Letter <a href="http://www.madre.org/art_iraq_resolution137.html%20" target="_blank">http://www.madre.org/art_iraq_resolution137.html </a> Paul Wolfowitz, “Women in the New Iraq,” Washington Post, February 1, 2004 <a href="http://usinfo.state.gov/dhr/Archive/2004/Feb/03-11242.html%20" target="_blank">http://usinfo.state.gov/dhr/Archive/2004/Feb/03-11242.html </a> Amnesty International, Iraq's Women: Occupied Territory <a href="http://www.amnestyusa.org/amnestynow/iraqi_women.html" target="_blank">http://www.amnestyusa.org/amnestynow/iraqi_women.html</a> Woodrow Wilson Center conference on the role of women in Iraq: <a href="http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1411&fuseaction=topics.item&news_id=28266" target="_blank">http://www.wilsoncenter.org/index.cfm?topic_id=1411&fuseaction=topics.item&news_id=28266</a> Open Society Institute, Casualties of War: Iraqi Women's Rights and Reality Then and Now (November 17, 2003) <a href="http://www.soros.org/initiatives/women/events/casualties_20031117%20" target="_blank">http://www.soros.org/initiatives/women/events/casualties_20031117 </a>   <a name="wrong" id="wrong"></a>WHY SO MANY WERE SO WRONG FOR SO LONG By Col. Daniel Smith, USA (Ret.) <blockquote> ( Editor's Note : Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary at <a href="../../commentary/2004/0402wrong.html" target="_parent">http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0402wrong.html </a>). </blockquote> It may have been fortuitous that David Kay's testimony about U.S. intelligence failures in Iraq came just before the Super Bowl. Watching the game--and the “flash dance” finale of the halftime show--the everyday observer could begin to understand the truth in the caution: “Don't believe everything you think you see.” Or in the case of instant replays, “re-see”--as in, “Did the Patriots really get those few inches and a first down?” David Kay has flatly stated that U.S. and other national intelligence agencies with which the U.S. has close ties essentially got it wrong on Iraq 's weapons of mass destruction. Kay traced the main failure to December 1998. Then the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM) looking for weapons, toxic stockpiles, and missile delivery systems since 1991 was forced to withdraw because of the U.S.-UK Operation Desert Fox bombing campaign. Suddenly, the on-the-ground eyes and ears on which the U.S. intelligence community had relied since Operation Desert Storm vanished, leaving only easily spoofed optical and communications “spies in the skies.” Why were so many so wrong for so long? Essentially, because no one could fathom the wheels within wheels that existed within Saddam's inner circle, beginning with Saddam himself. In short, the most basic rule of intelligence--know your opponent--wasn't observed. George Tenet conceded as much in his speech at Georgetown on February 5, 2004 , in which he defended the pre-war performance of U.S. intelligence. And he specifically contradicted David Kay on individual points, leaving the public wondering where the truth lies. The baseline the intelligence agencies seemed to work from rested on two “irrefutable” premises. First, Saddam had produced, stockpiled, and used chemical weapons, had been working on developing a nuclear weapon capability, had produced biological agents, and had surface-to-surface missiles. Second, Saddam knew everything that happened in Iraq and was ruthless when someone crossed him. Flowing from the first premise was the assumption that Iraqis would not adjust to post-1991 realities. These included sanctions and the intrusive inspections by the International Atomic Energy Agency and UNSCOM--and the latter's 2002-2003 successor inspection agency. The second premise carried an implicit assumption that in a rigid, highly centralized society like Iraq , everything would be documented. Thus, the absence of documents detailing destruction of weapons and agents “proved” that large stockpiles still existed somewhere. David Kay said he could find no evidence that the assessments of analysts were influenced by or changed in response to pressure from any official. Given that Vice President Cheney paid multiple visits to CIA headquarters to speak to analysts and that an independent intelligence “unit” created in the Office of the Secretary of Defense fed raw information and its “analysis” directly to the White House, a red flag should have gone up the highest flagpole. Because of these and quite possibly other, unknown, visits and pressures, analysts would be prone to weave into assessments any information supporting their long-held suspicions as a “defense” against the extremist positions (e.g., Saddam is an imminent threat) of Bush administration officials. Similarly, analysts may have omitted the usual caveats to make their case more convincing. But the price of defending a “rational” position resting on old premises was to be so wedded to history that the actual situation, which occasionally was glimpsed, was not even considered to be possible. If Kay is right about the corruption in Iraq and the extent of the deception practiced on Saddam and others in the Baathist and military elites, in effect Iraq was on the verge of becoming a failed state ready to disintegrate at the slightest push. That push came in March 2003, and the resulting and continuing inter-ethnic, inter-confessional, and jihadist carnage attest to the danger Iraq has become to its neighbors as a result of the U.S.-led invasion. (Dan Smith is a military affairs analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at <a href="../../index.html" target="_blank">www.fpif.org </a>), a retired U.S. army colonel and a senior fellow on Military Affairs at the Friends Committee on National Legislation.)   <a name="unbacking" id="unbacking"></a>THE U.S. BEGS FOR UN BACKING IN IRAQ By Phyllis Bennis <blockquote> (Editor’s Note: Excerpted from a new set of Talking Points available in full at <a href="../../commentary/2004/0402un.html" target="_self">http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0402un.html</a>). </blockquote> The U.S. is eager for the UN to return to Iraq to provide political cover for its occupation. The quagmire on the ground in Iraq plus recognition that the rest of the world, and most Iraqis themselves, reject Washington 's claim of legitimacy, is the basis for the Bush administration reversing its earlier anti-UN positions to beg the international organization for help. Kofi Annan's decision to send a technical investigative team to Iraq is partly in response to mounting pressure from the U.S., but also a response to shifting sentiments among Iraqis, particularly the call from Ayatollah al-Sistani for a UN assessment of political conditions. While Annan's announcement indicated he was responding to the request of the U.S. occupation authorities and its hand-picked “governing council” to determine whether elections could be held by Washington's June 30th deadline, he left open the possibility of a broader definition of “what alternative arrangement would be acceptable” if not. Why Did the Bush Administration Change Their Line on the UN? 1) The utter and all-too-public failure of the U.S. occupation (especially the continuing deaths and mounting injuries of U.S. soldiers) in Iraq seems to have led to an internal power shift within the Bush administration, with the Pentagon ideologues tactically (and almost certainly temporarily) giving way to electorally focused considerations. In the battle between Rumsfeld/Cheney and Karl Rove, the Rumsfeld/Cheney team seems to have blinked first. 2) There is no doubt that unilateralist, anti-UN sentiments continue to dominate the Bush White House. But hypocrisy aside, changes are afoot. One piece of evidence is Dick Cheney's unexpected European foray. While arrogantly refusing to even hint at an apology for launching Washington's war in the face of UN and broad international opposition, the fact that he left his undisclosed location at all to travel to European capitals urging greater international support for the U.S. in Iraq, even calling on (though only once) the UN to respond to the request of the Iraqis, indicates a significant level of pressure on Cheney's longstanding antagonism to multilateralism and the UN. What is the Danger to the United Nations if it Refuses to Return to Iraq Under U.S. Terms? What is the Danger to the United Nations if it Agrees to U.S. Terms? 1) If the UN completely rejects the U.S. proposal that it return to Iraq under the auspices of the U.S. occupation, it faces the possibility of escalating marginalization by the Bush administration, further threats to its independence, and the likelihood of being deemed “irrelevant” by the world's sole super-power. Washington might make additional cuts in dues to the world organization and the humanitarian agencies, reduce its already insufficient political support, and increase its threats and punishments of UN member states who stand defiant. 2) If the UN agrees to return to Iraq under terms set by the U.S. occupation, the dangers are even higher. The global organization risks a serious loss of international credibility, and the danger of being deemed an agent for or facilitator of occupation. Aside from the credibility factor itself, UN staff in Iraq would again face the likely possibility of physical attack, based on the opposition's view that the UN was acting as an agent of an illegitimate occupation. Passed under extreme U.S. pressure, Security Council resolution 1483 arguably provides a kind of forced legality to the U.S. occupation of Iraq; it does not provide any legitimacy. So, What Should Be Done 1) There should be an immediate end to U.S. occupation, and withdrawal of American troops. Because the U.S. invasion destroyed the governing capacity in Baghdad and undermined security for civilians throughout much of the country, the withdrawal of the U.S. forces should be followed by a temporary combined mandate for the United Nations, Arab League, and OIC (Organization of the Islamic Conference) to provide direct support for Iraq's reclaiming of sovereignty. That would include election assistance, humanitarian and reconstruction aid (including control over all international funds, including those coming from the U.S. Congress, designated for Iraqi rebuilding), and peacekeeping/security deployment. 2) The UN investigation team should reject the artificial U.S.-imposed June 30th deadline, and broaden its mandate to examine what conditions would have to change before an election could be organized, assess what time frame would be required to accomplish those changes, and determine whether any election conducted under foreign military occupation could be free and fair. (Phyllis Bennis <<a href="mailto:pbennis@compuserve.com">pbennis@compuserve.com</a>> is a Fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and is a contributor to Foreign Policy in Focus (online at <a href="../../index.html" target="_parent">www.fpif.org</a>).)   <a name="libyan"></a>LIBYAN DISARMAMENT A POSITIVE STEP, BUT THREAT OF PROLIFERATION REMAINS By Stephen Zunes <blockquote> (Editor’s Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in full at <a href="../../2004/0401libya.html" target="_parent">http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0401libya.html</a>). </blockquote> In a world seemingly gone mad, it is ironic that one of the most sane and reasonable actions to come out of the Middle East recently has emanated from the government of Muammar Qaddafi, the Libyan dictator long recognized as an international outlaw. Libya's stunning announcement that it is giving up its nascent biological, chemical, and nuclear weapons programs and accepting international assistance and verification of its disarmament efforts is a small but important positive step in the struggle to curb the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs). It would be a big mistake, however, to accept claims by the Bush administration and its supporters that it was the invasion of Iraq and other threatened uses of force against so-called "rogue states" which pursue WMD programs that led to Libya's decision to end its WMD programs. While Saddam Hussein was less than cooperative with United Nations Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM) efforts in the 1990s, it appears that they were successful in ridding the country of its chemical and biological weapons and related facilities. The Iraqi regime was more cooperative during that period with the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), with the IAEA announcing in 1998 that Iraq's nuclear program had been completely dismantled. When IAEA inspectors returned in the fall of 2002 as part of UN Security Council resolution 1441, they reported that no signs that the program had been revived. Iraq also allowed the return of a revived and strengthened inspections regime for chemical and biological weapons systems (known as UNMOVIC) at that time, which also found no evidence of any proscribed weapons or weapons programs. Despite this, the United States invaded Iraq and overthrew the government. As a result, Libya presumably knows that unilateral disarmament and allowing UN inspectors does not necessarily make you less safe from a possible U.S. invasion. More likely, Libya simply recognized that they would not get anything worthwhile as a result of continuing with an expensive, dangerous, and complex process of weapons development and would instead continue to face international isolation and difficulty obtaining certain dual-use technologies which could enhance the country's economic development. (Stephen Zunes is an associate professor of Politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco. He serves as Middle East editor for Foreign Policy in Focus (online at <a href="../../index.html" target="_blank">www.fpif.org</a>) and the author of Tinderbox: U.S. Middle East Policy and the Roots of Terrorism (online at <a href="http://www.commoncouragepress.com" target="_blank">www.commoncouragepress.com</a>).)   <a name="blair"></a>BLAIR'S PYRRHIC VICTORIES By Ian Williams <blockquote> (Editor’s Note: Excerpted from a new global affairs commentary available in full at <a href="../../commentary/2004/0402blair.html" target="_parent">http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0402blair.html</a>). </blockquote> On the face of it, Tony Blair had an almost Clintonesque week as he walked away from two separate train wrecks seemingly unhurt. However, beneath the surface, there are deep internal injuries that have left him seriously weakened. His escape on the University fees issue by the tiniest handful of defections among Labor rebels was only contrived by Gordon Brown exercising his influence on some of the more prominent of them. Brown is preparing the ground for a “more in sorrow than in anger” replacement of an unelectable Blair before the next elections. He has pre-emptively cleared himself of disloyalty by acting as the, strictly temporary, king-saver. The leadership conflict in the Labor Party has been brought forward all the more sharply by the other “victory,” the Hutton Report. The Law Lord may have done British Prime Minister Tony Blair no favors at all, since public opinion overwhelmingly sees the report as a whitewash, and thus that the government has something to hide. Even the Report's attack on the integrity of the BBC has backfired. Three times as many British people polled trusted the BBC as compared to trusting the government. Indeed almost the only supporters the government and the Report had were the Murdoch press, the Sun and Times. And even their readers may wonder whether a media empire that has never allowed the truth to interfere with the smooth flow of proprietary prejudices really has the proper standing to attack the BBC's journalistic standards. There was a germ of truth in some of the Report's criticisms of the BBC's journalism. Ironically, under Thatcherite and New Labor pressures, it has relaxed its previous standards. The news is no longer scripted and read, based on “balance,” airing both sides. The good aspect is that, even though nominally a state-owned body, it has proved far more skeptical of the government than its privately owned counterparts in the USA. But if Andrew Gilligan had but just a shade more balance and qualifications in his initial report, as in fact he did in later versions, then he would not have left the Achilles Heel that Blair's media minders and Hutton got a noose into. Without some admission on his part, the public has to decide whether the Prime Minister was sincere, but either misled or stupid. Or he could have been so desperate to please George W. Bush that he persuaded himself that more evidence actually existed than there really was. Or he was so mendacious, that to conceal his real agenda of regime change, he marshaled a set of excuses that later failed. None of these positions actually strengthen his position, so he may follow the example of the BBC's bosses and do the honorable thing. Resign before the election. But like them, he will need a shove. Brown is waiting. (Ian Williams <<a href="mailto:uswarreport@igc.org">uswarreport@igc.org</a>> contributes frequently to Foreign Policy in Focus (online at <a href="../../index.html" target="_parent">www.fpif.org</a>) on UN and international affairs.)   <hr size="1" noshade> <h3>II. Letters and Comments</h3> <a name="best" id="best"></a>THE BEST WE CAN DO Re: <a href="../..papers/03petropol/development.html">The Global Record on Oil</a> The best we European and American would do to end the waste of oil is to build smaller cars, go by bike, walk or take public transport electrically driven. And instead of spending money for exploring the Mars, we better invent electrically driven cars and use Earth Energy. And airplanes are, sorry to say, vehicles of the last century. Consumer must change their habits, above all. - Edwin Wagner, <a href="mailto:aewagth72@bluewin.ch"><aewagth72@bluewin.ch></a> --------------------------------------------------------------------------- <a name="interesting"></a>VERY INTERESTING Re: <a href="../../commentary/2003/0305roh.html" target="_parent">Eyes on Different Prizes </a> I found this article to be very interesting. Although I am young, I do have an interest in what happens in our world and how we would go about dealing with those issues. What I thought was the most interesting about this article was that how the U.S. and N. Korea have different goals set in my mind, I am pleased to hear that N. Korea abd S. Korea are working on their peace issues, and how we are building a better relationship then the one that we have with S. Korea already. Things obviously get rough but through our efforts and our patience we can get it all worked out. And with this article I think that's what we are doing with our best abilities. - Tina Dickerson, <a href="mailto:Wolfsreign@Wapda.com"><Wolfsreign@Wapda.com</a>>   <hr size="1" noshade> Please consider supporting Foreign Policy In Focus (FPIF). FPIF is a new kind of think tank&#151one serving citizen movements and advancing a fresh, internationalist understanding of global affairs. Although we make our FPIF products freely available on the Internet, we need financial support to cover our staff time and expenses. Increasingly, FPIF depends on you and other individual donors to sustain our bare-bones budget. Click on <a href="https://secure.iexposure.com/fpif.org/donate.cfm" target="_parent">https://secure.iexposure.com/fpif.org/donate.cfm</a> to support FPIF online, or for information about making contributions over the phone or through the mail. We Count on Your Support. 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