US hawk admits Iraq invasion was illegal
In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal, telling an audience in London: “I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing.”
President Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal either because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq – also the British government’s publicly stated view – or as an act of self-defense permitted by international law.
But Perle, a key member of the defense policy board, which advises US defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said that “international law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone,” and this would have been morally unacceptable.
Rabinder Singh, a deputy high court judge in Britain, said that Perle’s views underlined “a divergence of view between the British government and some senior voices in American public life [who] have expressed the view that, well, if it’s the case that international law doesn’t permit unilateral pre-emptive action without the authority of the UN, then the defect is in international law.” (Guardian (UK))

Israel threatens strikes on Iranian nuclear targets
As the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)prepared to meet again this week to discuss the alleged development of nuclear weapons in Iran, Israeli defense minister Shaul Mofaz told Washington that Israel is prepared to act alone and launch a strike on Iran similar to its 1981 bombing of a nuclear reactor near Baghdad.
Iran said recently that it is suspending its uranium enrichment program and that its atomic energy program is only for peaceful purposes. Washington insists that Iran has been hiding a nuclear weapons program and is concerned that this week’s IAEA meeting will end without referring the matter to the UN Security Council.
Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Iranians protested against Israel, the US, and Britain on Nov. 21, the last Friday of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Iran does not recognize Israel and advocates the creation of a single multi-faith state comprising Israel and the Palestinian territories, whose rulers would be elected not only by its inhabitants but also the five million Palestinian refugees living across the world. This would give Palestinian voters a clear majority. (AFP, The Scotsman)

Bush to nominate oil crony as ambassador to Saudi Arabia
President George W. Bush has selected a prominent Texas oil industry lobbyist with close ties to the Bush family to become the new US ambassador to Saudi Arabia.
The nominee, James Oberwetter, is an executive of Hunt Oil Co., one of the world’s largest independent oil producers, and a chairman of the American Petroleum Institute (API), the main oil industry lobby in Washington. API represents more than 400 companies and business associations involved in all aspects of the oil and natural gas industry.
Prior to joining Hunt Oil 28 years ago, he worked at the US Environmental Protection Agency after serving as press secretary to then US Congressman George H. W. Bush, the current US president’s father. When Bush senior was elected president in 1988, Oberwetter served on his transition team in Washington.
The Saudi royal family prefers that US ambassadors be political appointees with close ties to the president, rather than career diplomats schooled in the complexities of the Middle East, analysts say. The outgoing ambassador, Robert Jordan, a partner at the Baker Botts law firm, represented Bush during a Securities and Exchange Commission inquiry into his sale of stock in Dallas-based Harken Energy Co., where Bush had been a director. (AFP, Dallas Morning News)

Nigerian navy seizes ChevronTexaco oil platforms from armed youths
Youths armed with automatic weapons seized two oil platforms in the offshore waters of Nigeria belonging to ChevronTexaco on Nov. 19. The youths were employees of a security firm recruited from the local ethnic Ijaw community by ChevronTexaco to protect oil wells and pipelines. 18 workers aboard the two platforms were taken hostage.
Local newspapers said the youths wanted $1.9 million for security duties they claim to have performed on the two platforms. They also wanted jobs for community members as well as schools, health centers and roads, the reports said.
ChevronTexaco informed the Nigerian government and the security agencies of the situation, which forced it to shut down crude oil production of 300 barrels per day. The Nigerian navy stormed the platforms on Nov. 20, freed the hostages, and arrested 30 youths. One was allegedly killed.
About 2,000 oil workers have either been held hostage or abducted for ransom in the past five years by gangs in the Niger Delta. Nigeria is Africa’s largest producer of crude oil, with a daily export quota from the OPEC oil cartel of more than two million barrels. But the communities living in the Niger Delta remain impoverished and angry. (AFP, IRIN)

Italian resigns from CPA; thousands in Italy demonstrate against Iraq war
Marco Calamai, a special counselor from Italy to the US-led Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq, resigned his post in the province of Dhi Qar on Nov. 17, saying the CPA is mismanaging reconstruction, out of touch with Iraqis and only fueling their anger.
He said the CPA doesn’t understand Iraqi society and has muddled reconstruction projects by delaying financing. He said its policies were in part to blame for last week’s attack on the Italian Carabinieri barracks that killed 19 Italians, as well as 14 others.
The CPA has created “delusion, social discontent and anger” among Iraqis and allowed terrorism to “easily take root,” Calamai told Italian journalists Nov. 16 in Nasiriyah.
Days later in Italy, on Nov. 22, thousands of demonstrators marched through Rome, Milan, and Florence to protest the war in Iraq and to demand more job security. (AFP, AP)

UK bill to mimic USA PATRIOT Act
Britain will soon face its own version of the USA PATRIOT Act:: the Civil Contingencies Bill. Some of the proposals in the draft version of the bill, drawn up in the summer and to be announced in the Queen’s Speech this week, have alarmed civil rights activists, notably a clause that gives government the power to suspend parts or all of the Human Rights Act without a vote by Parliament.
Once an emergency has been proclaimed, government can order the destruction of property, force people to evacuate an area or ban them from traveling, and “prohibit assemblies of specified kinds” and “other specified activities.”
If these rules had been in force during the Iraq war, critics say, they could have been used to ban street demonstrations, making anyone who traveled to protest guilty of a criminal offense.
An “emergency” is defined by the Cabinet Office as any event that represents a serious threat to the population, the environment, or the political or economic stability or security of any part of the UK. This includes wars, floods, a breakdown of power supplies, outbreaks of animal diseases or any situation that “causes or may cause disruption of the activities of Her Majesty’s Government.” (Independent (UK))

Greenpeace under attack by UN and US
The UN’s International Maritime Organisation (IMO) is moving to lift Greenpeace’s “consultative status,” which permits the environmental group to submit briefs to and address the UN agency – responsible for ensuring “safer ships” and “cleaner seas” – after several states charged in June 2002 that the group practices unsafe seamanship. A number of the complaining countries have been targets of Greenpeace protests for operating unsafe oil tankers or carrying unsafe cargoes.
Not even Intertanko, the industry association of supertanker owners, whose members have been responsible for such catastrophic spills as the Exxon Valdez in Alaska and the Prestige spill off Spain, has had its consultative status withdrawn.
Concurrently, US Attorney General John Ashcroft is pressing a criminal case against Greenpeace for allegedly violating an obscure 1872 law against individuals who lured sailors to their establishments with offers of liquor or prostitutes.
The Justice Department says Greenpeace violated the law when it shadowed and then boarded a vessel it suspected of illegally importing manogany into the US in 1992. If convicted, Greenpeace could lose its tax-exempt status, which would likely close it down. (OneWorld.net)