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US approves Iraqi constitution; civil
war feared
Compiled by Eamon Martin
Mar. 10 (AGR)— On Tuesday, Mar. 9, Army Brig. Gen. Mark
Kimmitt, deputy operations director for Combined Joint Task Force 7,
said that in the previous 24 hours, US occupation forces in Iraq had
conducted 1,464 patrols, 26 offensive operations and 13 raids. And 66
“anti-coalition” suspects, he added, were captured during
that time-frame.
Meanwhile, as the United States Army flexed its muscles, US-led occupation
authority administrator L. Paul Bremer III signed a letter approving
the Iraqi interim constitution. In it, Bremer thanked the US-appointed
Iraqi Governing Council President Mohammed Bahr al-Ulloum and the council’s
other 24 members for their efforts.
“The law joins the best traditions of the Iraqi people with the
commitment to democratic ideals under the rule of law...Its adoption
inspires all who share our common goal of forging a free, democratic
and unified Iraq,” read Bremer’s letter.
Meanwhile, Shiite leaders warned that Iraq’s new constitution could
cause problems in the long term, with one senior cleric saying a clause
on federalism had the potential to provoke civil war.
The Governing Council signed the transitional law on Mar. 8 after long
negotiations and two postponements.
But almost immediately after signing, several Shiite leaders said they
were still unhappy with the law — especially a clause they fear
could give minority Kurds too much leverage — and would seek to
introduce changes further down the line.
One of Iraq’s foremost Shiite clerics, Ayatollah Mohammed Taqi
al-Muddaresi, accused the US-led coalition of willfully including the
clause which majority Shiites see as a threat to their numeric dominance.
“The clause in the transitional law relating to federalism is tantamount
to a time bomb which could cause a civil war in Iraq,” he said
in a statement.
Rockets pound Iraq occupation HQ
But while political time bombs were being discussed, a series of attacks
across the country involving real bombs underlined the insecurity still
prevailing in Iraq.
On Mar. 9, a US soldier was killed and another injured by a roadside
bomb near Baquba. The explosion damaged a building housing the Supreme
Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq — a major Shia party.
Their deaths brought to 380 the number of US soldiers killed in action
since the US invaded Iraq.
In the northern city of Mosul, insurgents threw a grenade at government
offices, injuring seven Iraqis in an attack apparently aimed at US soldiers
inside the building.
Also that day, two American civilians working for the US-led occupation
and their Iraqi interpreter were shot dead south of Baghdad, Polish
troops said.
“The attackers, disguised as Iraqi policemen, had set up a false
checkpoint... They stopped the car... They shot them on the spot,”
said Polish military spokesman Zdislaw Gnatowski.
One day before, guerrillas fired 10 rockets at the headquarters of the
US-led administration in Baghdad on the eve of the signing of the interim
constitution.
Mourning mixed with anti-US rage
Following the Mar. 2 bombing and mortar attack upon their fellow Shia,
vast crowds gathered in Karbala and Baghdad. Many in the crowds shouted
slogans against the Americans, who have been blamed almost universally
by the Shia for the disastrous security situation in Iraq which led
to the day’s massacres.
In Karbala, mourners carried 12 or so coffins through the same streets
where the screaming victims ran in panic as explosion after explosion
went off around them a day before. There were only 12 coffins because
so far they have only been able to bury those whose body parts they
have been able to piece together from the carnage. And as they sifted
through the remains, the death toll rose. The head of the United States-appointed
Governing Council put the combined death toll from Karbala and Baghdad
at 271. The Health Minister put it at 169; the Americans said it was
117. Nobody really knows how many people died.
The threat of an all-out civil war -- fueled by Shia revenge attacks
against Iraqi Sunni -- is a growing fear for the Iraqi people. But last
week the anger of the mourners seemed far more directed at the Americans.
“No, no America! No, no terrorism!” they chanted.
Both Sunni and Shia leaders urged their followers to avoid sectarian
violence. “We are facing critical hours and days ... so open your
eyes against the plots of America and Israel to sow dissension,”
said Sheikh Moayad Naimi, a Sunni cleric.
“If the two sides fight it’s the Americans who benefit to
find an excuse to stay in Iraq,” said Sheikh Raed al-Kazemi, a
Shia cleric. In a funeral sermon for those buried in Karbala yesterday.
Ayatollah Hadi al-Muddaresi, a senior Shia cleric, said: “Those
who did this want a civil war in Iraq, but we will not be drawn into
it.” As he spoke, supporters of the radical cleric, Moqtada al-Sadr,
shouted him down: “We want our revenge against Saddam the infidel
and against America,” they screamed.
As for who was behind the attacks, that remains far from certain.
As US detains Iraqis, families plead for news
Sabrea Kudi cannot find her son. He was taken by American soldiers nearly
nine months ago, and there has been no trace of him since.
“I’m afraid he’s dead,” Kudi said.
In Abu Sifa, a village north of Baghdad, entire swaths of farmland have
been cleared of males — fathers, sons, brothers, cousins.
Iraq has a new generation of missing men. But instead of ending up in
mass graves or at the bottom of the Tigris River, as they often did
during the rule of Saddam Hussein, they are detained somewhere in American
jails.
As US forces continue daily raids, bursting into homes and sweeping
up families, more than 10,000 men and boys are jailed in US custody.
According to a detainee database maintained by the military, the oldest
prisoner is 75, the youngest 11.
Often they were led away in the middle of the night, with bags over
their heads and no explanation. Many Iraqis reported that when they
asked soldiers where their family members were being taken, they were
told to shut up.
Military officials say some of the detainees have been accused of serious
offenses, including shooting down helicopters and planting roadside
bombs. But the officials acknowledge that most of the people captured
are probably not dangerous.
Adil Allami, a lawyer with the Human Rights Organization of Iraq, said
security detainees had essentially no rights. None have lawyers, and
most are denied visits.
“Iraq has turned into one big Guantánamo,” Allami said,
referring to the United States military prison in Cuba where hundreds
of terrorism suspects are being held, most without charges.
Several men recently released from American jails in Iraq have said
they were kicked in the head, choked and put in cold, wet rooms for
days at a time.
Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad, is a nucleus of despair. Every day,
crowds of women in black shrouds jam the front gates, squinting up at
the guard towers, clutching worn pieces of paper, pleading with guards
to see their missing men.
“Move! Move! Move!” an American sergeant shouted at them on
a recent day.
Kudi has been to Abu Ghraib more than 20 times. The huge prison is the
center of her continuing odyssey through military bases, jails, assistance
centers, hospitals and morgues. She said she had been shoved by soldiers
and chased by dogs.
“If they want to kill me, kill me,” Kudi said. “Just
give me my son.”
Malaika Hassan said American soldiers took her four adult sons. “Couldn’t
they have left me one?” she asked.
Most of the village teachers were led away, too.
Saba Muhammad, an Abu Sifa elder, began to count them on his hands:
Salah, Faisal, Ahmed, Ayub, Emad, Raad.
Soon he ran out of fingers.
“Eleven,” Muhammad said. “Eleven teachers. Now you tell
me how we’re supposed to feel about Americans.”
Sources: American Forces Press Service,
Associated Press, BBC, Independent (UK), New York Times, Reuters
Marshalls test victims say US turning
its back
By Giff Johnson
Majuro, Marshall Islands, Feb. 27 — Fifty years after America
tested its most powerful hydrogen bomb at Bikini Atoll, many Marshall
Islanders watch in anger as the world’s most powerful nation lavishes
billions of dollars on Iraq and Afghanistan but has halted funding for
a medical program for nuclear test victims and is dragging its feet
on a request for $2 billion in compensation.
“Why should we have to beg the United States to get funding for
our medical problems that are directly related to their nuclear bombs
they tested on us?” asks Rongelap Islander Lijon Eknilang, who
was eight years old when radioactive fallout rained down on her unsuspecting
island village in 1954.
Eknilang, like many of the 86 Rongelap Islanders exposed to massive
levels of radiation from the March 1, 1954 Bravo hydrogen bomb test,
has had surgery for thyroid cancer and breast cancer, and says she is
also suffering from liver problems.
In their haste to show the Russians that America had a deliverable H-bomb,
United States officials ignored warnings that winds were blowing toward
inhabited islands and detonated Bravo, irrevocably affecting thousands
of Marshall Islanders with a radioactive legacy that 50 years on has
not been put to rest.
Mar. 1 is now marked as a national holiday in the Marshall Islands,
and known globally as “Bikini Day.”
The day of the fallout is a bittersweet memory for nuclear test victims
now that they have received some nuclear test compensation but who largely
believe that America is now turning its back on people whose health
and land it damaged with a total of 67 nuclear weapons tests.
“The United States promised us that as soon as it was finished
at Bikini, it would return us safely to our home islands,” said
Bikini Sen. Tomaki Juda, who was four years old when the US Navy evacuated
Bikini Islanders in 1946 for the first post-World War II nuclear weapons
tests. “We’re still waiting for that promise.”
The four atolls acknowledged by the US government as “exposed”
(Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap, and Utrik) have received a portion of the
$270 million compensation package in the first Compact, and in the case
of Bikini and Rongelap, additional nuclear clean up funding. But according
to a ruling by the US-funded Nuclear Claims Tribunal, this is but a
fraction of the hardship, loss of use and nuclear cleanup compensation
these islands deserve.
The Tribunal has already awarded Bikini and Enewetak an additional $1
billion; claims for Rongelap and Utrik are pending and are expected
to add close to another billion dollars to the compensation price tag.
Meanwhile, the US gave the Tribunal only $45 million, to satisfy both
personal injury claims (already in excess of $70 million) and the land
damage claims.
Since Sept. 2000, the Marshall Islands has had a petition before the
US Congress asking for $2 billion more in compensation. The Congress
asked the Bush administration in March 2002 to review the nuclear test
compensation petition, but two years later, there is still no response
from the administration.
Despite the contamination of the test sites and downwind islands, islanders
are determined to go home if it’s safe.
In a country with only 72 square miles of land on 1,200 scattered islands,
land is precious. “If you don’t have land, you are nothing,”
says Juda. The Bikinians still live in exile nearly 60 years since moving,
Enewetak Islanders can only live on the southern half of their atoll
because the northern islands are still too “hot,” and Rongelap
Islanders have lived in exile since 1985, when, fearful of continuing
radiation exposure, they organized a self-evacuation with the aid of
the Greenpeace vessel Rainbow Warrior.
Utrik Islanders, the farthest from the Bravo test fallout and who in
the Cold War days of the 1950s were said to have received a “low-level”
exposure, are now demanding a cleanup fund for their islands. They had
the misfortune to have been returned home within three months of the
Bravo test and, say independent scientists hired recently by Utrik Islanders
to assess the safety of these islands, the people who had not been there
during the Bravo test but who moved back later actually received a higher
radiation dose from continuously living in and eating food from a still
radioactive environment.
Rongelap Islanders were just 100 miles from Bikini and within a few
hours of the Bravo test were standing ankle deep in fallout ash. “The
whole island was covered with the powder, all the leaves on the trees,
our water catchments,” recalls Rokko Langinbelik, a Rongelap councilwoman
who was 12 years old in 1954.
“The ash that fell on us really itched and burned our skin. My
skin was blistered and later half my hair fell out.”
Rongelap and Utrik islanders were finally evacuated two-to-three days
after Bravo, beginning an ordeal that has seen both populations experience
astronomically high rates of thyroid tumors and cancers, and many other
health problems.
Today, Rongelap Islanders may be the closest to going home as a US-funded
resettlement program is expected to begin building houses on Rongelap
later this year, following preliminary construction work over the past
several years to establish basic infrastructure on the abandoned island,
including an airfield, dock, and a power plant.
But test victims say the American obligation to these islands cannot
just suddenly end.
“I would love to return to my home island,” says Eknilang.
“If they said it is safe, I will go home. But they [the US] need
to take care of my sickness until I die.”
Juda and other islanders see an irony in the US government’s promise
of tens of billions of dollars for Iraq and Afghanistan, but the apparent
unwillingness of the US government to resolve the problem that its nuclear
tests caused.
US officials, when asked about Marshall Islanders’ demands for
more compensation, say emphatically that the $270 million in the first
Compact was a “full and final” settlement.
“President Bush has told the entire world that the damage in Iraq
and Afghanistan is a US responsibility,” says Juda. “What’s
difference between Bikini and Iraq?”
“I’m just hoping that those who caused this realize the hardship
that they caused us,” says Eknilang. “They hurt us, and now
they don’t want to take care of us.”
The recent cut off of $2 million in annual US funding for a comprehensive
health care program for the people from the four nuclear test-affected
atolls has incensed islanders.
“March 1 is a sad day not only for Bikinians but for all Marshallese
affected [by the bomb],” says Juda. “We didn’t understand
that these H-bombs would bring a big sorrow to us. When older people
think about what these bombs did to our islands it brings tears to their
eyes.
“We spent years waiting to return home. Then, in the early 1970s,
the Americans told us it was safe, so some of us returned. But they
had to be evacuated a short time later [because of high radiation levels].
It broke our heart.” This, Juda says, is why the Bikinians will
not return home until they receive a “guarantee” from the
US that Bikini is safe.
“America is number one in education, in rich people and” —
Juda pauses for emphasis — “in lies.”
“It is trying to run away from its promise to us. That’s why
many people are angry with the United States.”
Source: Marianas Variety
2,500 displaced in Nigerian violence,
says Red Cross
Lagos, Nigeria, Mar. 4 -- At least 2,500 people have fled Plateau
State in central Nigeria following a fortnight of violence between Muslims
and Christians that has left 62 dead and more injured, the Red Cross
said Mar. 4.
Patrick Bawa, a spokesman for the Red Cross in Nigeria, told IRIN that
his organization had registered 2,500 displaced people in neighboring
Bauchi State by Wednesday afternoon and more were still arriving.
“We had 2,500 in five camps spread around Bauchi in the afternoon,
but more people arrived last night that are not yet included in our
figures,” Bawa said.
Around 100 of the arrivals were injured and in need of treatment. The
Red Cross provided first aid, and 16 people with severe injuries were
sent to hospital, he added.
While troops and policemen have restored calm in most of the affected
areas, people were continuing to flee the districts “because they’re
not too sure of their security,” Bawa said.
Police said the latest outbreak of religious clashes in the Shendam
and Langtang districts of Plateau State had claimed at least 62 lives
over the past two weeks.
The victims include 48 people who were killed last week during a Muslim
raid on the town of Yelwa on Feb. 24. Most were killed as they sought
refuge in a church compound.
The bloodletting appeared to be in reprisal for a Christian attack on
a nearby Muslim village in which 10 people were killed.
Four policemen have so far died in the fighting which has involved automatic
rifles as well as bows and arrows.
Plateau State Police Commissioner Innocent Ilozuoke said security agencies
had uncovered a plot by unnamed groups to unleash fresh violence around
the town of Yelwa. He warned the police would “deal decisively”
with such people if they went ahead with the plot.
The Red Cross said it had provided drugs and dressings to hospitals
in Bauchi State to improve medical treatment for the displaced. The
organization said it was also distributing food, tents, blankets, and
buckets in the makeshift camps of displaced people.
However, the Red Cross said it required further assistance to meet the
needs of the displaced people, some of whom had sought refuge in schools
and other public buildings.
Muslims and Christians had coexisted peacefully in these rural communities
for decades, but that all changed in 2001 when a complex mixture of
religious issues, arguments over land tenure, and politics lead to a
spate of tit-for-tat killings and communal attacks.
During one week in September that year more than 1,000 people were killed
in religious violence that gripped the state capital Jos.
However, ethnic and religious violence is not restricted to Plateau
State.
Tens of thousands of people have died in ethnic and religious clashes
across Nigeria since President Olusegun Obasanjo came to power in elections
in 1999.
Squabbles over the distribution of oil revenue in the Niger Delta have
frequently led to fatal ethnic clashes. In the north of Nigeria, the
decision by 12 largely Muslim states to adopt strict Islamic Sharia
Law has led to several large-scale confrontations between Muslims and
Christians.
Source: UN Integrated Regional Information
Networks
Fourteen die as Israeli tanks and gunships
raid Gaza refugee camps
By Donald Macintyre
Jerusalem,Mar. 8 — Fourteen Palestinians were killed yesterday
in more than six hours of fighting after Israeli forces, including tanks
and helicopter gunships, mounted their deadliest incursion into Gaza
for almost 18 months. The heavy exchanges of fire in two densely populated
refugee camps claimed the lives of four civilians -- including a boy
aged 10 -- and 10 militants, nine of them Hamas activists. No Israeli
casualties were reported.
The raid began in darkness at 3;30am when Israeli forces, with at least
two Apache helicopter gunships hovering overhead, advanced slowly along
alleys and side streets on the fringes of the Bureij and Nusseirat refugee
camps.
In a series of subsequent battles, several hundred Palestinians armed
with assault rifles, anti-tank missiles, and grenade launchers engaged
with Israeli troops firing from helicopters, tanks and commandeered
rooftop positions. Palestinian sources said some of the heaviest fighting
had been in the area of Al Daewa Ila Allah Street, site of the biggest
mosque in the Gaza Strip.
Israeli troops finally withdrew at 10am but the army said its pullback
had been delayed by militants harassing it with rocket-propelled grenades
and mortars. Officers said that an earthmover that became stuck was
attacked by dozens of homemade missiles.
Palestinian sources named the dead civilians as Ahmad Zuraiq, 13, Muhammad
Badawi, 15, Yousef Yunis, 10, and Haitham Issawi, 16. Of 80 people said
to have been injured in the fighting, 23 were taken to Shifa hospital
in Gaza City including three said to be critical.
The Israeli army said the incursion had been intended to “prevent
acts of terrorism” against Israeli targets -- among them settlements
in Gaza from which Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has said he wants to
withdraw the Israeli residents.
Ari Pazner, an Israeli government spokesman, said that “terrorism
is pouring out of this refugee camp, and we have to stop it,” adding:
“We believe that by doing so we have prevented acts of terror in
Israel and saved many human lives.” Pazner strongly denied a link
between the raid and the planned withdrawal. “We are now fighting
terrorism. This has nothing to do with any future plan about Gaza,”
he said.
But with some commentators suggesting that both sides may be preparing
to depict any Israeli pull-out as a victory, yesterday’s incursion
is likely to fuel speculation that Sharon -- facing criticism from the
extreme Israeli right for his withdrawal plan -- is determined to show
that he is tougher than ever in cracking down on suspected militants.
Saeb Erekat, a Palestinian cabinet minister, condemned the raid, calling
for a return to negotiations on the floundering US-backed road-map.
“At a time when they’re speaking about withdrawing from Gaza,
they’re destroying Gaza,” he said.
As Hamas and Islamic Jihad vowed vengeance for the raid and many thousands
joined the funeral procession for the 14 killed earlier in the day,
Ghazi Hamad, the editor in chief of al Risala, a pro-Hamas weekly newspaper,
insisted that despite Israeli military superiority, militants “do
not want to surrender. They prefer to die as martyrs. More fighters
will join Hamas after each operation.”
After what some observers saw as a new tactic of seeking to draw out
militants on to the streets, the Israeli army said that the incursion
had been directed at “uncovering terrorist cells” in Bureij,
which it held responsible for repeated mortar and rocket attacks on
Israeli settlements, including Netzarim in central Gaza. The army insisted
the incursion was unrelated to Saturday’s foiled but elaborately
planned operation by Palestinian militants at the Erez crossing into
Gaza on Saturday.
In that attack, four militants and two Palestinian policemen were killed
when a convoy of three vehicles -- including at least one jeep disguised
as an Israeli army vehicle -- drove at the crossing points.
The first vehicle, a booby-trapped taxi apparently driven by a suicide
bomber, exploded on the Palestinian side of the crossing, and a jeep,
also heavily laden with explosives, blew up at the Palestinian outpost
nearest to the Israeli side of the crossing.
Senior Israeli officers said that the Palestinian Authority policemen
had been killed as they tried to halt the vehicles from moving further
north towards the Israeli border posts. The third jeep, bearing Israeli
military insignia, then drove at speed towards the Israeli post nearest
to the Palestinian side.
As it crashed into a barrier, Israeli sources said, a gunman wearing
an Israeli uniform left the car and opened fire on Israeli soldiers
who returned fire, killing the gunman and his fellow passenger. Hamas
said that the “self-sacrifice operation” had been jointly
carried out with Islamic Jihad and the al Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade,
which is linked to Yasser Arafat’s Fatah.
Source: Independent (UK)
Recall dispute continues in Venezuela
Compiled by Greg White
Mar. 10 (AGR)— Tens of thousands of Venezuelans marched
through Caracas in an opposition rally on Saturday, Mar. 6 to demand
a referendum on President Hugo Chavez’s rule. Negotiations continued
between the Chavez administration and the opposition over the disputed
petition required for a presidential recall referendum.
Thousands marched in Caracas on Saturday, Mar.6, to protest the National
Electoral Council’s (CNE) ruling last week that an opposition petition
for the recall vote lacked enough valid signatures. At least eight demonstrators
have been killed recently -- but the latest march passed off peacefully.
Opponents turned in more than 3 million signatures in December of last
year, but the council ruled only 1.8 million were valid. More than 140,000
signatures were rejected outright. The signatures in question were placed
“under observation” amid allegations that they had signs of
similar handwriting. The CNE requested that more than 1 million citizens
come forward to confirm they signed the petition.
Maria Corina Machado, a spokeswoman for Sumate, the US-backed organization
responsible for the petition drive, said that the task would be “physically
impossible. Especially if we have to defend each and every one of these
signatures. The way the government has it now, none of the challenged
signatures are valid unless a person shows up and says, ‘Yes, that’s
my signature.’”
Chavez insists the recall petition is fraud-ridden. In a speech to foreign
ambassadors on Friday Mar. 5, he displayed copies of petition forms
bearing the names of foreigners, minors and dead people. But he promised
to respect the council’s final decision on whether to hold a referendum
— and to abide by the outcome of any vote.
Street violence abated last week after the Organization of American
States and Carter Center promised to help ensure that citizens would
have a chance to prove they had signed the petitions. Negotiations over
the process continued Saturday.
On Sunday, Chavez promised his government would investigate the deaths
and injuries from last week’s violence. Opposition leaders accuse
National Guard troops of committing abuses while trying to keep rock-throwing
protesters from blocking roads with burning tires. Chavez accuses his
opponents of instigating chaos.
Large pro-government rallies have been held in the past week in Caracas
as well. At the National Electoral Council’s headquarters, pro-Chavez
demonstrators waved banners saying “CIA out of Venezuela.”
One demonstrator, Otilio Bencomo, charged the US with plotting to remove
Chavez by any means in order to cheaply obtain Venezuela’s oil.
“[Washington] wants a government which will kneel down before them,
in order to take Venezuela’s natural resources,” he said.
President Chavez has continued to criticize US funding of opposition
groups. He said the protest movement is being manipulated by the US,
and has called on Washington to “get its hands off” Venezuela.
He said on Sunday that “US citizens could forget about ever getting
Venezuelan oil” if the United States ever tried to invade. Chavez
accused the United States of ousting former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide and warned Washington not to “even think about trying
something similar in Venezuela.”
Sources: Associated Press, BBC, Christian
Science Monitor, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post
Admit WMD mistake, survey chief tells
Bush
By Julian Borger
Washington, DC, Mar. 3 — David Kay, the man who led the
CIA’s postwar effort to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq,
has called on the Bush Administration to “come clean with the American
people” and admit it was wrong about the existence of the weapons.
In an interview with the Guardian, Kay said the administration’s
reluctance to make that admission was delaying essential reforms of
US intelligence agencies, and further undermining its credibility at
home and abroad.
He welcomed the creation of a bipartisan commission to investigate prewar
intelligence on Iraq, and said the wide-ranging US investigation was
much more likely to get to the truth than the Butler inquiry in Britain.
That, he noted, had “so many limitations it’s going to be
almost impossible” to come to meaningful conclusions.
Kay, 63, a former nuclear weapons inspector, provoked uproar at the
end of January when he told the Senate that “we were almost all
wrong” about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD).
He also resigned from the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), which he was appointed
to by the CIA to lead in the hunt for weapons stockpiles, saying its
resources had been diverted in the fight against Iraqi insurgents.
“I was more worried that we were still sending teams out to search
for things that we were increasingly convinced were not there,”
Kay said.
His call for a frank admission is an embarrassment for the White House
at the start of an election year. The defense secretary, Donald Rumsfeld,
has dismissed Kay’s assertion that there were no WMD at the start
of the Iraq war as a “theory” that was “possible, but
not likely.”
In his State of the Union speech in January, Bush did not refer to his
claims that Iraq was an “immediate threat” but instead said
the ISG had found “weapons of mass destruction-related program
activities.”
Kay, who was formerly a UN weapons inspector, called for the president
to go further. “It’s about confronting and coming clean with
the American people. He should say we were mistaken and I am determined
to find out why,” he said.
A White House official said it was too early to draw conclusions: “The
ISG is still working, and the commission on this has not even started.”
However, Kay said that continued evasion would create public cynicism
about the administration’s motives, which he believes reflected
a genuine fear of WMD falling into the hands of terrorists. He also
said that if the administration did not confront the Iraq intelligence
fiasco head-on, it would undermine its credibility with its allies in
future crises “for a generation.”
Kay said that he had become convinced there were no WMD to be found
several months ago, before presenting an interim report to Congress
last October saying no stockpiles had been found, but he said the CIA
and the Blair government were nervous about the impact of his conclusions.
“I think the greatest concern about the report was in London rather
than in Washington. It was a different political issue in London than
it was here,” he said, referring to the storm around the death
of his former UN colleague Dr. David Kelly.
Kay said he had been expecting Kelly’s arrival in Iraq to help
the search for biological weapons programs, and had spoken to him shortly
before his death. “He never had any doubts about Iraq’s programs,”
Kay said.
Source: Guardian (UK)
Blix: Iraq war was illegal
By Anne Penketh and Andrew Grice
Mar. 5 — The former chief United Nations (UN) weapons inspector
Hans Blix has declared that the war in Iraq was illegal, dealing another
devastating blow to Tony Blair.
Blix, speaking to The Independent, said the Attorney General’s
legal advice to the government on the eve of war, giving cover for military
action by the US and Britain, had no lawful justification. He said it
would have required a second UN resolution explicitly authorizing the
use of force for the invasion of Iraq last March to have been legal.
His intervention goes to the heart of the current controversy over Lord
Goldsmith’s advice, and comes as the Prime Minister begins his
fight back with a speech on Iraq today.
An unrepentant Blair will refuse to apologize for the war in Iraq, insisting
the world is a better place without Saddam Hussein in power. He will
point to the wider benefits of the Iraq conflict, citing Libya’s
decision to give up its weapons of mass destruction, but warn that the
world cannot turn a blind eye to the continuing threat from WMD.
But, in an exclusive interview, Blix said: “I don’t buy the
argument the war was legalized by the Iraqi violation of earlier resolutions.”
And it appeared yesterday that the Government shared that view until
the eve of war, when it received Goldsmith’s final advice.
Sir Andrew Turnbull, Britian’s Cabinet Secretary, revealed that
the government had assumed, until the eve of war in Iraq, that it needed
a specific UN mandate to authorize military action.
Blix demolished the argument advanced by Lord Goldsmith three days before
the war began, which stated that resolution 1441 authorized the use
of force because it revived earlier UN resolutions passed after the
1991 ceasefire.
Blix said that while it was possible to argue that Iraq had breached
the ceasefire by violating UN resolutions adopted since 1991, the “ownership”
of the resolutions rested with the entire 15-member Security Council
and not with individual states. “It’s the Security Council
that is party to the ceasefire, not the UK and US individually, and
therefore it is the council that has ownership of the ceasefire, in
my interpretation.”
He said to challenge that interpretation would set a dangerous precedent.
“Any individual member could take a view -- the Russians could
take one view, the Chinese could take another, they could be at war
with each other, theoretically,” Blix said.
The Attorney General’s opinion has come under fresh scrutiny since
the collapse of the trial against the GCHQ whistleblower Katharine Gun
last week, prompting calls for his full advice to be made public.
Blix, who is an international lawyer by training, said: “I would
suspect there is a more skeptical view than those two A4 pages,”
in a reference to Clare Short’s contemptuous description of the
358-word summary.
It emerged on Mar. 3 that a [UK] Foreign Office memo, sent to the Foreign
Affairs Select Committee on the same day that Lord Goldsmith’s
summary was published, made clear that there was no “automaticity”
in resolution 1441 to justify war.
Asked whether, in his view, a second resolution authorizing force should
have been adopted, Blix replied: “Oh yes.”
In the interview, ahead of the publication next week of his book Disarming
Iraq: The search for weapons of mass destruction, Blix dismissed the
suggestion that Blair should resign or apologize over the failure to
find any WMD in Iraq.
But he suggested that the Prime Minister may have been fatally wounded
by his loss of credibility, and that voters would deliver their verdict.
“Some people say Bush and Blair should be put before a tribunal
and I say that you have the punishment in the political field here,”
he said. “Their credibility has been affected by this: Bush too
lost some credibility.”
He repeated accusations the US and British governments were “hyped”
intelligence and lacked critical thinking. “They used exclamation
marks instead of question marks.”
“I have some understanding for that. Politicians have to simplify
to explain, they also have to act in this world before they have 100
percent evidence. But I think they went further.”
“But I never said they had acted in bad faith,” he added.
“Perhaps it was worse that they acted out of good faith.”
The threat allegedly posed by Saddam’s WMD was the prime reason
cited by the British government for going to war. But not a single item
of banned weaponry has been found in the 11 months that have followed
the declared end of hostilities.
Blair will argue that similar decisive action will need to be taken
in the future to combat the threat of rogue states and terrorists obtaining
WMD.
Source: Independent (UK)
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