Feb. 24 (AGR)— On Feb. 10, Congressman Jim Moran of Virginia convened a "town hall meeting" near Washington called "Terrorism and the Possible Conflict in Iraq," with Pentagon spokespersons Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Victoria Clarke and Major General Kevin Kuklok. This was the first public meeting concerning the war on Iraq at which the Pentagon supplied official representatives. An eager and well-informed public audience stood in line with notepads, waiting to ask questions to officials answering on behalf of the US Department of Defense. The meeting was broadcast on C-SPAN.

Among the first to speak was a Kurdish-American woman who said her family was chemically attacked by Saddam Hussein, but she is against the current plans for a US-led war on Iraq. Later an Iranian-American woman rhetorically asked where the weapons of mass destruction came from, saying "You supplied it. Does the UN have a mandate for 2/3 of Iraq to be a no-fly zone, attacked every day? Has Israel ever followed UN resolutions?" A Gulf War veteran asked, "What are the ‘smart politics’ that are going to work in the area after we bring the tanks in, when we are throwing a brick in a hornet’s nest? What is [sic] our politics towards the countries where the 911 supporters came from, such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt ?"

Congressman Moran said that nearly 70 percent of people who had contacted his office regarding a war on Iraq were against it, noting that the percentage seemed higher among the public participants of the evening’s event. By the end, no one from the diverse audience had made a statement or posed a question in favor of a new war in Iraq.

Pentagon spokesperson Victoria Clarke answered several different questions by repeating numbers of growing support throughout Europe for Washington’s war plans.

Secretary Clarke was nominated by President Bush to be the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs on Apr. 5, 2001. She was sworn in May 22, 2001.

AGR spoke briefly with Secretary Clarke this week, with follow-up questions in regard to the meeting’s dialogue.

AGR: You mentioned that "18 different European countries" are in agreement with the US. We know that France, Germany, Russia, and China are currently opposed to war in Iraq. What mistakes has Sec. Rumsfeld made in trying to rally international support? Was it a mistake for Secretary [of Defense Donald ] Rumsfeld to compare Germany with Libya and Cuba?

Clarke: Well, two things. I think if you look at the facts you’ll see that increasing numbers of countries in Europe and elsewhere agree with the United States position on the fact that the Iraqi regime must disarm or there will be a coalition of willing countries that will disarm him. So, I think what ought to be focused on is the growing number of countries who are in agreement with [the US on] Saddam Hussein, not on a couple of countries that have taken a different view. So you set it up as a failure.

What I’m saying is, if you look at just European countries, it’s not just the eight countries on Feb. 5 or the ten countries that stood up the next day. There’s growing numbers of countries in that part of the world and other parts of the world who have said this is the course that we need to pursue.

Second -- it’s a technical thing but it’s important -- he did not compare Germany with Libya and Cuba. He was asked a question, and if you go online to Defense Link [www.defenselink.mil] you can get the transcript of the hearings. I think it was a member of Congress from New Jersey who said "can you tell us the countries" or "explain to us the categories of countries that are helping and the kinds of things they’ve offered to do" and Sec. Rumsfeld responded [that] some are with us now, some have said it would be better with a second resolution and those sorts of things, and he said so far there are four who have said they will not participate with a war with Iraq and that is Cuba, Libya, and Germany. He left out North Korea.

AGR: So, he was not drawing a comparison.

Clarke: No.

AGR: Representative Moran, who convened the town hall meeting, said that 69 percent of public correspondence to his office from US citizens regarding a war in Iraq have opposed it. What do you think can be attributed to this heavy opposition to a possible US-led war in Iraq?

Clarke: Well, he was referring to his personal polling of people who contacted his office.

AGR: By your estimation, the opposition just reflects Representative Moran’s constituency.

Clarke: I don’t think you can take that and apply it to any other constituency than what it was: his surveying of people who had contacted his office. It was no more than that. I think what you can do is look at the fact that a couple of months ago the President went to the United States Congress and the United States Congress overwhelmingly said we believe the policy should be that Saddam Hussein must disarm, or the United States and others will disarm the regime. I think that if you look at the fact that the President went to the United Nations and made his case and United Nations Resolution 1441 voted unanimously that the Iraqi regime must disarm or there would be serious consequences. And those were the exact words in the resolution. So, I think if you look at several indicators and you look at the fact that country after country after country has stood up and expressed its support for the policies and positions we’re taking right now you’ll see what’s really going on. I just don’t think, with all due respect, that you can take one individual member’s personal surveying of people who have contacted his office and say that represents everybody.

AGR: What about last Saturday’s anti-war rally that was simultaneously coordinated throughout the world, including Antarctica, as one of the largest in history? What do you think can be attributed to that level of opposition?

Clarke: I say a couple of things. I say one, they are people who are very lucky and very fortunate to live in democracies where they can do that. And when we’re talking about the Iraqi regime, they certainly would not be allowed to do that. I think it’s important to focus on the context in which they were expressing their views.

Secondly, it’s understandable. These are tough, tough, tough complex issues without easy answers and so it is understandable that people want dialogue and debate and discussion. That’s a very healthy thing.

AGR: Context is important. One participant in the meeting recalled US weapons deals with Iraq under President Reagan. What is Sec. Rumsfeld’s position about the sale from the US of biological agents to Iraq?

Clarke: I always want to direct you to [Rumsfeld’s] words whenever possible. <pause> It is absolutely ridiculous for someone to say or suggest that it was the policy of the United States in any way to help or aid or abet the chemical or biological weapons programs of the Iraqis. Just flat untrue. Just flat untrue. There’s documented evidence and State Department reports of warnings to them back in the early 80s about the use and the potential use of chemical and biological weapons. For anyone to suggest that in any way with policy is just nonsense.

AGR: So, is it incorrect to say that chemical weapons were sold with the approval of the United States government to Iraq?

Clarke: Absolutely.

[Note: Clarke’s assertion to AGR contradicts documented evidence that the administrations of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush authorized the sale of numerous biological and chemical weapons components to Iraq, including anthrax and bubonic plague cultures. Rumsfled was a special envoy for Reagan in 1983 when he met Saddam Hussein to smooth the road for US companies to sell Baghdad such components. See "Saddam Hussein: Made in the USA"]

AGR: You said that Saddam Hussein will use his own people as human shields. Is the US willing to inflict harm upon these civilian hostages in order to remove Hussein from power?

Clarke: Any harm to civilians in Iraq is the fault of Saddam Hussein and Saddam Hussein only. He is responsible for recruiting people to be human shields. There is no one to blame but him.

AGR: Are there standard channels through which the number of possible civilian casualties is predicted before a particular military attack? If so, is there a point at which an attack is reconsidered or altered because of this figure?

Clark: All military planning takes into very serious account what non-combatant casualties may occur. And the military goes to extraordinary lengths to avoid civilian casualties; that applies to what targets they choose, what weapons they employ and, as you suggest, whether or not a target is struck at all. Counter that against what the Iraqi regime does, the use of human shields, which is one of the most horrible and cynical manipulations of civilians the world has seen.

AGR: You’ve made the case that Iraq poses an inevitable, "imminent" threat partly due to intelligence gathering linking Iraq with terrorists, though no specific links to the events of 9/11/01 have been cited or suggested. In the days following 9/11/01, it was reported that there was a solid lead on tracking the terrorists responsible. This lead came in the form of highly irregular and suspicious stock trading, a dramatic increase in sales of put options, on both United and American Airlines just days before 9/11. Today, as America is expanding the war on terrorism with the leadership of the Pentagon, we see no traces of this apparent lead. Can you comment on this?

Clarke: I don’t know anything about that.

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US plans for new nuclear arsenal

By Julian Borger

Washington, DC, Feb. 19— The Bush administration is planning a secret meeting in August to discuss the construction of a new generation of nuclear weapons, including "mini-nukes," "bunker-busters," and neutron bombs designed to destroy chemical or biological agents, according to a leaked Pentagon document.

The meeting of senior military officials and US nuclear scientists at the Omaha headquarters of the US Strategic Command would also decide whether to restart nuclear testing and how to convince the American public that the new weapons are necessary.

The leaked preparations for the meeting are the clearest sign yet that the administration is determined to overhaul its nuclear arsenal so that it could be used as part of the new "Bush doctrine" of preemption, to strike the stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons of "rogue states."

Greg Mello, the head of the Los Alamos Study Group, a nuclear watchdog organization that obtained the Pentagon documents, said the meeting would also prepare the ground for a US breakaway from global arms control treaties, and the moratorium on conducting nuclear tests.

"It is impossible to overstate the challenge these plans pose to the comprehensive test ban treaty, the existing nuclear test moratorium, and US compliance with article six of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty," Mello said.

The documents leaked to Mello are the minutes of a meeting in the Pentagon on Jan. 10 this year called by Dale Klein, the assistant to the defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, to prepare the secret conference, planned for "the week of August 4, 2003."

The National Nuclear Security Administration (NNSA), which is responsible for designing, building and maintaining nuclear weapons, yesterday confirmed the authenticity of the document. But Anson Franklin, the NNSA head of governmental affairs, said: "We have no request from the defense department for any new nuclear weapon, and we have no plans for nuclear testing.

"The fact is that this paper is talking about what-if scenarios and very long range planning," said Franklin.

However, non-proliferation groups say the Omaha meeting will bring a new US nuclear arsenal out of the realm of the theoretical and far closer to reality, in the shape of new bombs and a new readiness to use them.

"To me it indicates there are plans proceeding and well under way ... to resume the development, testing, and production of new nuclear weapons. It’s very serious," said Stephen Schwartz, the publisher of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, who added that it opened the US to charges of hypocrisy when it is demanding the disarmament of Iraq and North Korea.

"How can we possibly go to the international community or to these countries and say ‘How dare you develop these weapons’, when it’s exactly what we’re doing?" Schwartz said.

The starting point for the January discussion was Rumsfeld’s nuclear posture review (NPR), a policy paper published last year that identified Russia, China, North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Syria, and Libya as potential targets for US nuclear weapons.

According to the Pentagon minutes, the August meeting in Strategic Command’s bunker headquarters would discuss how to make weapons to match the new policy. A "future arsenal panel" would consider: "What are the warhead characteristics and advanced concepts we will need in the post-NPR environment?"

The panel would also contemplate the "requirements for low-yield weapons, EPWs [earth-penetrating weapons], enhanced radiation weapons, agent defeat weapons" -- types of weapons being actively considered by the Pentagon.

"Low-yield" refers to tactical warheads of less than a kiloton, or "mini-nukes," which advocates of the new arsenal say represent a far more effective deterrent than the existing huge weapons, because they are more "usable."

Earth-penetrating weapons are "bunker-busters," which would break through the surface of the earth before detonating. US weapons scientists believe they could be "agent defeat weapons," used to destroy chemical or biological weapons stored underground. The designers are also looking at low-yield neutron bombs or "enhanced radiation weapons," which could destroy chemical or biological weapons in surface warehouses.

According to the leaked document, the "future arsenal panel" in Omaha would also ask the pivotal question: "What forms of testing will these new designs require?"

The Bush administration has been working to reduce the amount of warning the test sites in the western US desert would need to be reactivated after 10 years lying dormant.

Source: Guardian (UK)

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Questionable Heritage:
Thirty years of a right-wing think tank

By Robert Borosage

Feb. 23— The Heritage Foundation celebrates its 30th anniversary this week, marking its growth from a New Right seed bed to an established conservative think tank with a $25 million annual budget. Naturally, the organization is using the occasion to trumpet its contributions over the years, taking credit for much of Reagan, Gingrich, and Bush policymaking.

Too much can be made of this. Heritage has always focused more on communications, talking points, and rapid-response and attack politics than on ideas. Its most significant contribution to Beltway politics wasn’t a specific policy idea; it was the "briefcase memo" — a short memo on an issue of the day, summarizing the right-wing line, a hot fact or two, sound bites, and brief refutations of liberal arguments — all churned out inside the news cycle, largely by a bullpen of grad students toiling under a good editor. Conservative legislators and pundits could read the memo in the limo on the way to the evening radio or TV talk shows, or in response to a local reporter’s phone calls. Devoting almost half of its budget to communications, Heritage has always been more of a propaganda mill or message machine than a research or policy center.

Upon its founding, it gave a home to the New Right’s agenda — a renewed Cold War and military buildup, laissez-faire economics, the assault on "big government" in all forms (except policing of the bedroom and clamping down on political dissent), and a social agenda that has always been a mix of Comstockian prudery and Dickensian depradation of the poor.

Heritage can take credit for particular elements of this broad agenda that it chose to champion. And a brief review of its history exposes what it has helped inflict upon this nation and others. Here are some of the causes Heritage has championed:

Faith-based missile defense: Heritage has been a tireless hawker of Star Wars, Reagan’s fantasy of a technological lid over America that would leave us free to operate abroad without worrying about military retribution. Over $100 billion dollars has been squandered pursuing this Holy Grail. Now Heritage leads those applauding the administration for its decision to deploy a system that doesn’t work against a threat that doesn’t exist. Ironically, the horrors of 9/11 that exposed the true folly of this peculiar faith have only redoubled Heritage’s zealotry for it.

The Reagan military buildup: Heritage was one of many right-wing centers decrying the utterly nonsensical "window of vulnerability" in the late ’70s and demanding a massive military buildup as part of a new Cold War. They painted dire images of the Soviet Union as an aggressive global adversary with a fearsome military prowess, and mocked liberal analysts who rightfully saw it as economically stagnant, politically sclerotic, and headed towards an internal crisis. Their campaigning contributed to Reagan’s commitment to double the military budget in peacetime and waste, by the conservative estimate of former Senator John Glenn, over $300 billion on weapons like the MX missile that were not needed and never used. To justify this folly, Heritage then helped to popularize the inventive fiction that Reagan’s build-up was the key factor that forced Gorbachev to fold the Soviet hand in the Cold War.

The CIA’s covert wars: Heritage was a particular hotbed for the conservative fascination with funding terrorist groups to attack governments deemed to be operating on behalf of the Soviet empire. They labeled Nelson Mandela as a terrorist and embraced the apartheid regime of South Africa. They campaigned for U.S. support for thugs like Jonas Savimbi in Angola. They elevated tiny Nicaragua into the most important country in the world and pushed the contra war that earned the US condemnation in the World Court. Most destructively, they championed the confronting of Soviet forces and clients in Afghanistan by arming, training, and funding fundamentalist Islamic terrorists — including, most notoriously, Osama bin Laden. They learned only too late that the Islamic fundamentalists never had an any interest in the New Right’s agenda.

The attack on international institutions: The Bush administration is infamous for its scorn of everything from arms control agreements to the Kyoto Accords. Heritage can take credit for being one of the first to focus its venom on international institutions from the United Nations (UN), to the UN Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization, to the International Labor Organization. For years, Heritage spearheaded efforts to cut the UN off, get the United States out of arms control accords, and sabotage everything from the Law in the Sea Treaty to the Kyoto Accords. Heritage can rightly take credit for the increasing American estrangement from civilized opinion across the world.

Using deficits to cripple government: Heritage was one of many conservative institutions pumping tax cuts, deregulation, free trade, and small government. But its particular contribution to the mix was to promote supply-side economics, which continues to allege that upper-end tax cuts will generate sufficient growth to pay for themselves. This, of course, is nonsense. But Heritage understood that "deficits as far as the eye could see" is the perfect instrument for crippling government. So it crushed a rear-guard effort against Reagan’s increase in regressive payroll taxes and fought for more inventive schemes to lower taxes on the wealthy and the corporations. Heritage was not alone, but it bears a piece of the responsibility for the creation of Gilded Age-style wealth disparity, the crisis in low-income housing, the increasing indebtedness of kids coming out of college, the doctors who flee Medicare because of inadequate payments, and the seniors who are unable to afford the drugs that they need.

Freeing corporations from accountability: Heritage owes its rapid growth in part to its shameless promoting of deregulation, of dismantling protections for consumers, investors, workers, and the environment. It has been a hotbed of ideas on how to free up corporations, weaken unions, and limit accountability. The fruit of its efforts was one of the worst corporate crime waves this country has seen, in which unfettered executives literally looted companies, misled investors and abandoned workers and communities. Heritage is now turning its attention to "health-care reform." It hopes to shield HMOs and insurance companies from civil suits by patients who have been injured by negligence and malpractice. The list goes on; Heritage has championed many other ideas — school vouchers, the assault on welfare moms, a return to the pre-New Deal constitutional order. And what has resulted? The vast majority of Americans have — and will continue to — pay dearly for this behemoth’s heritage.

Source: TomPaine.com

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