usa showdown update......
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http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/03/24/1048354541013.html
US media treads Government line
March 25 2003
By Marian Wilkinson
United States Correspondent
Washington
It was the most dramatic news of the day, if not the war. Twelve US military personnel who were missing in action had suddenly appeared on Iraqi television.
Five, including a woman, were clearly captives, prisoners of war, seven others were dead, some possibly shot in the head.
Yet while the images were flashed around the world, most Americans did not see them. The US media censored itself after warnings and threats from US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld who said the Geneva Convention made it illegal for prisoners of war to be "shown and pictured and humiliated".
The major US networks, including the wall-to-wall-war station CNN, and even the public broadcasting network bowed to Mr Rumsfeld's pressure and suppressed the video. CNN ran only a freeze frame from the al-Jazeera Arab cable station, with nothing to identify any soldier.
At US Central Command's forward headquarters in Qatar, the deputy commander, General John Abizaid, told the reporter from al-Jazeera: "I'm very disappointed that you would portray those pictures of our servicemen. I saw that, and I would ask others not to do that."
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At a decisive time for both the country and the media, the US television companies caved in to Government pressure. The US Department of Defence asked that no news organisation air or publish "recognisable images or audio recordings that identify POWs" or use their names until their families were notified. But the US networks did not even run the images with the faces obscured as foreign media did.
It was a powerful insight into the enormous sway that the Bush Administration and the Pentagon exert over the media's coverage of the Iraq war. All stations that morning were in intense competition for Mr Rumsfeld and other key military figures to appear.
Before the capture of the US POWs, the networks and newspapers had little hesitation in running graphic pictures of surrendering, captured, dead or dying Iraqi soldiers. This was usually accompanied by US statements that large numbers of Iraqi troops were unwilling to fight for Saddam Hussein, a theme hammered by the US military and Mr Rumsfeld.
But the censorship on the captured US POWs served to starkly highlight what is and is not acceptable news for US media covering the Iraq war. Virtually uncovered in the US media are Iraqi casualties, especially civilian casualties. While all networks ran the dramatic footage of the "shock and awe" bombing of Baghdad, there is scant coverage of the casualties or wounded in the attacks.
This is despite public statements from the International Red Cross giving figures for the wounded in Baghdad hospitals. And while al-Jazeera has cameras in Basra where Iraqi casualties are more apparent, little of this footage is seen in America.
US television runs much material from "embedded" correspondents on US Navy ships as they fire Tomahawks, from air bases waving off fighter jets and from infantry firing artillery. But there is little commentary or discussion of what happens when these ordnances hit.
Most seem to accept Mr Rumsfeld's line that "precision guided" bombs do not really hurt civilians in Baghdad. -
The Baghdad Goetterdaemmerung scenario
By Marc Erikson
The battle for Baghdad is about to be joined. The military outcome is not in doubt. However, whether this war can be concluded with a minimum of civilian casualties and damage to essential infrastructure (so far one dead, 32 injured in Baghdad according to the Red Cross), does not in the main lie in the hands of coalition forces. In a comprehensive profile of Saddam Hussein in these pages recently (Inside Saddam's mind), my colleague Pepe Escobar documented the megalomaniacal historical ambitions of the Iraqi dictator. No one can rule out that this man, on whose orders tens of thousands of Iraqi citizens have been brutally murdered since 1979, will not in the end adopt "defensive" measures - dispersing military personnel among non-combatants, mining buildings and infrastructure, in effect bringing down the temple on himself - which will bring about mass casualties.
By April 1945, when the Allies had crossed the Rhine river and Soviet forces had reached the Oder river just east of Berlin, World War II was certainly over for the Nazi regime. And yet, one of the largest, most deadly battles of the war, the battle for Berlin, was yet to come. On the night of April 16, well over a million Soviet soldiers with 6,000 tanks and 40,000 artillery pieces commenced the final push to Berlin. Before the Soviet victors hoisted the red flag on the Brandenburg Gate on April 30 and Adolf Hitler shot himself in his bunker, nearly 100,000 more Soviet and 60,000 German soldiers had lost their lives, along with tens of thousands of civilians. Overall, at least 250,000 soldiers and civilians lost their lives in the last two weeks of the war.
Why? The war - in all but formal declaration - was lost. As documented in Nazi propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels' diary (he spent the final weeks of the regime in Hitler's bunker and died there), Hitler was determined to see Germany and the German people destroyed, indeed, deemed them deserving of destruction, if they couldn't win. But that doesn't explain why not only the Waffen SS (Hitler's elite guards), but regular army and Volkssturm (under 18 and over 60-year olds) units fought to the last day. Germans have a term for that, Mut der Verzweiflung - courage (born) of desperation. Rational decision gives way to the elemental fight for identity.
Could this happen in and around Baghdad in coming days? I don't know, but I can't rule it out. One outstanding fact of the war so far is that widely expected mass surrenders haven't occurred. Thousands, yes. Tens of thousands, entire divisions, no. Nor have we seen anti-Saddam uprisings or celebrations in the streets of "liberated" towns. From fear that much as after the Gulf War the US-led forces would depart and leave any uprising to be crushed by Saddam's security forces? That may be part of it, but it's not the whole story. There is an element of defiance and resistance that can't just be explained away. And therein lies the danger that - much like Hitler - Saddam would see justification for going down in a Goetterdaemmerung (Twilight of the Gods) cataclysm and take the believers with him.
This is not a prediction. It's a credible risk to be factored in. The US has tried to avoid civilian casualties. It may find - much as the Allies did during World War II - that to win a war, there's no clean and antiseptic way to do so.
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EC26Ak01.html -
COMMENTARY
Russian weapons and foreign rogues
By Stephen Blank
At the highest level, the Bush administration has protested to President Vladimir Putin about Russian arms sales to Iraq. American reports indicate that Russian firms have sold Iraq night-vision goggles, anti-tank guided missiles and jamming devices to counter the US's global positioning system (GPS). Any such sales would constitute a violation of the United Nations sanctions regime on Iraq, and also raise several disturbing points, many of which, unfortunately are not new.
First, reports of Russian proliferation to Iraq are hardly new, nor are
In 2000 it was reported that Iraq apparently had obtained from Russian sources a weapon that jams the global positioning system (GPS) of US missiles and satellites, rendering them useless.
Russia: Proliferation personified (Jan 8, '03)
Asia Times Online
they isolated ones. We know that Russia was selling prohibited technologies for both conventional and nuclear weapons to Iraq in the 1990s. Second, as former UN arms inspector Richard Butler has written, then-prime minister Yevgeny Primakov was instrumental in helping Iraq to stonewall the inspections regime. British and American intelligence agencies have even accused Primakov in public of being on Saddam Hussein's payroll, unprecedented public statements from normally highly reclusive organizations. Nor did this proliferation stop with Primakov.
Russian newspapers have repeatedly reported that Russia's government and arms dealers have established linkages with arms dealers and plants in former Soviet republics like Belarus to sell arms to states like Iraq that could not have been publicly sold by Moscow. Under Putin, Moscow has pursued a systematic policy to tie defense industries in the former Soviet republics to those in Moscow and restore the structure of the old unified Soviet system. One benefit of this policy is Moscow's enhanced ability to hide behind third parties in these kinds of arms sales. Thus proliferation to Iraq is not an isolated case of arms sales gone wild, but rather part of a broader policy that also encompasses Central and Eastern Europe.
For example, virtually every Central and East European government has reported that Russian attempts to subvert East European governments through economic penetration, corruption of politicians, intelligence penetration, etc have continued at least since 1997, if not earlier. Evidence from the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia, Poland and the Baltic states is overwhelming and points to a strategic policy decision in Moscow. These linkages that occur through Russia's embassies abroad are also connected to shadowy ties to illegal arms dealers. We have seen that scandals involving arms deals in Ukraine, Serbia and Bulgaria, to cite only some cases, are connected with the provision of arms to rogue states.
Thus Russia, for all its protestations of innocence, as in the case of its continuing nuclear proliferation to Iran and rumors of collaboration with North Korea, shows no interest in upholding the UN's sanctions regime. Clearly as well it shows little actual concern about the threats posed by the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction worldwide.
Here again it is not alone. China has sold fiber-optic materials to Iraq in violation of the sanctions and has been a major proliferator to Iran, and evidently North Korea as well. Similarly, French arms sales to Iraq or facilitation of third-party arms sales have been described in the New York Times and Washington Times by William Safire and Bill Gertz, respectively. These arms sales cast a lurid light on their rhetoric for opposing the war and for invoking the authority of the UN even as they violate its provisions.
The motives for these sales clearly go beyond the acquisition of money. Russian analysts, for example, regularly announce that arms sales are so tightly controlled by the state that rogue salesmen are no longer a question. Likewise, there is a very strong connection between the arms sales establishment and the government, including the foreign intelligence service (SVR) in Russia, to the point where the arms sales organizations have always been seen as a major source for raising untraceable election funds for Russian politicians. This same connection between arms dealers abroad and Russian intelligence is amply attested to as well in foreign reports. It also is just as unlikely that the Chinese and French arms salesmen are freelancing.
One can only conclude that despite all the protest about the need to uphold the UN and international law, or the anti-terrorist coalition, the temptation to strike surreptitiously at American interests abroad remains too strong for the Russian and other establishments to forego. Unfortunately for these arms dealers this is not an administration that is prepared to forgive and forget. Although some figures of the Russian establishment are either getting rich or staying in business, or gratifying their anti-American reflexes, the gains that they make are inevitably short-term ones. But the costs that they are incurring and which undoubtedly will be exacted by Washington are going to be lasting ones.
Stephen Blank is an analyst of international security affairs residing in Harrisburg, PA.
(©2003 Asia Times Online Co, Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EC26Ak04.html -
Russian Intelligence
U.S. Starting To Resort To "Scorched Earth" Strategy?
March 25, 2003
www.iraqwar.ru
March 25, 2003, 1230hrs MSK (GMT +3), Moscow - As of morning March 25 the situation on Iraqi fronts remains quiet. Both sides are actively preparing for future engagements. Exhausted in combat US 3rd Motorized Infantry Division is now being reinforced with fresh units from Kuwait (presumably with up to 1 Marine brigade and 1 tank brigade from the 1st Armored Division (all coming from the coalition command reserves) and elements of the British 7th Tank Brigade from the area of Umm Qasr. The troops have a stringent requirement to regroup and, after conducting additional reconnaissance, to capture An-Nasiriya within two days.
The Iraqis have reinforced the An-Nasiriya garrison with several artillery battalions and a large number of anti-tank weapons. Additionally, the Iraqis are actively deploying landmines along the approaches to their positions.
However, currently all combat has nearly ceased due to a sand storm raging over the region. Weather forecasts anticipate the storm's end by noon of March 26. According to intercepted radio communications the coalition advance will be tied to the end of the sand storm and is planned to take place during the night of March 26-27. The coalition command believes that a night attack will allow the its forces to achieve the element of surprise and to use its advantage in specialized night fighting equipment.
There have been no reports of any losses resulting from direct combat in the past 10 hours. However, there is information about two coalition combat vehicles destroyed by landmines. Three US soldiers were wounded in one of these incidents.
Positional warfare continues near Basra. The coalition forces in this area are clearly insufficient to continue the attack and the main emphasis is being placed on artillery and aviation. The city is under constant bombardment but so far this had little impact on the combat readiness of the Iraqi units. Thus, last night an Iraqi battalion reinforced with tanks swung around the coalition positions in the area of Basra airport and attacked the coalition forces in the flanks. As the result of this attack the US forces have been thrown back 1.5-2 kilometers leaving the airport and the nearby structures in the hands of the Iraqis. Two APCs and one tank were destroyed in this encounter. According to radio intelligence at least two US soldiers were killed and no less than six US soldiers were wounded.
The coalition forces are still unable to completely capture the small town of Umm Qasr. By the end of yesterday coalition units were controlling only the strategic roads going through the town, but fierce fighting continued in the residential districts. At least two British servicemen were killed by sniper fire in Umm Qasr during the past 24 hours.
The coalition command is extremely concerned with growing resistance movement in the rear of the advancing forces. During a meeting at the coalition command headquarters it was reported that up to 20 Iraqi reconnaissance units are active behind the coalition rear. The Iraqis attack lightly armed supply units; they deploy landmines and conduct reconnaissance. Additionally, captured villages have active armed resistance that is conducting reconnaissance in the interests of the Iraqi command and is organizing attacks against coalition troops. During the past 24 hours more than 30 coalition wheeled and armored vehicles have been lost to such attacks. Some 7 coalition servicemen have disappeared, 3 soldiers died and 10 were wounded.
The coalition commander Gen. Tommy Franks ordered his forces to clear coalition rears from Iraqi diversionary units and partisans in the shortest possible time. The British side will be responsible for fulfilling these orders. A unit from the 22nd SAS regiment supported by the US 1st, 5th and 10th Special Operations Groups will carry out this operation. Each of these groups has up to 12 units numbering 12-15 troops each. All of these units have some Asian or Arabic Americans. The groups also have guides and translators from among local Iraqi collaborators, who went through rapid training at specialized centers in the Czech Republic and the UK.
The sand storms turned out to be the main enemy of the American military equipment. Just the 3rd Motorized Infantry Division had more than 100 disabled vehicles disabled. The repair crews are working around the clock to return all the disabled equipment back into service. This is causing serious concern on the part of the coalition command. The M1A2 Abrams tanks are not known for the their reliable engines as it is, but in the sand storm conditions multiple breakdowns became a real problem for the tank crews.
All attempts by the US paratroopers to capture the town of Kirkuk have yielded no result. The Americans counted on the support of the Kurds but the latter refused to take a direct part in the attack and demanded guarantees from the US command that it will prevent a Turkish invasion. The Turkish themselves are avoiding giving any such guarantees.
Additionally, the situation [at Kirkuk] is affected by the lack of heavy weapons on the part of the US paratroopers. The aviation support alone is clearly not sufficient. The northern group of forces commander Marine Brig. Gen. Osman has requested artillery and armored vehicles.
All indications are that so far the US is unable to form a combat-capable strike force in this area.
According to satellite reconnaissance it seems likely that the Iraqis had time to remove the captured Apache Longbow attack helicopter of the 11th Aviation Regiment. The pieces remaining at the landing site following a US bombing strike indicate that the bombs hit a crudely constructed mockup.
Aerial bombardment of Baghdad has so far failed to produce the expected results. All targets designated before the war have been hit 3 to 7 times, but this had almost no effect of the combat readiness of the Iraqi army, their air defenses or the command and control structures.
It seems that during preparation for the war the Iraqis were able to create new, well-protected communication lines and control centers. There is plenty of intelligence information indicating that so far the US electronic reconnaissance was unable to locate and to penetrate the Iraqi command's communications network, which is an indication of the network's high technological sophistication.
A particular point of concern for the US command is the huge overuse of precision-guided munitions and cruise missiles. Already the supply of heavy cruise missiles like the "Tomahawk" has been reduced by a third and, at the current rate of use, in three weeks the US will be left only with the untouchable strategic supply of these missiles. A similar situation exists with other types of precision-guided munitions. "The rate of their use is incompatible with the obtained results. We are literally dropping gold into the mud!" said Gen. Richard Mayers during a meeting at Pentagon yesterday morning. [reverse translation from Russian]
The US experts already call this war a "crisis". "It was enough for the enemy to show a little resistance and some creative thinking as our technological superiority began to quickly lose all its meaning. Our expenses are not justified by the obtained results. The enemy is using an order of magnitude cheaper weapons to reach the same goals for which we spend billions on technological whims of the defense industry!" said Gen. Stanley McCrystal during the same Pentagon meeting. [reverse translation from Russian]
Since the early morning today the coalition high command and the Joint Chief of Staff are in an online conference joined by the Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. This meeting immediately follows an earlier meeting last night at the White House. During the night meeting with President Bush emergency actions were outlined to resolve the standstill in Iraq. The existing course of actions is viewed as "ineffective and leading to a crisis". The Secretary of State Collin Powell warned that, if the war in Iraq continues for more than a month, it might lead to unpredictable consequences in international politics.
The Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff Gen. Richard Mayers reported on the proposed actions and corrections to the plan of the operation in Iraq. George Bush demanded that the military break the standstill in Iraq and within a week achieves significant military progress. A particular attention, according to Bush, should be paid to finding and eliminating the top Iraqi political and military leadership. Bush believes that Saddam Hussein and his closest aides are the cornerstone of the Iraqi defense.
During today's online meeting at the coalition headquarters Gen. Franks was criticized for inefficient command of his troops and for his inability to concentrate available forces on the main tasks.
According to [Russian military] intelligence Pentagon made a decision to significantly reinforce the coalition. During the next two weeks up to 50,000 troops and no less than 500 tanks will arrive to the combat area from the US military bases in Germany and Albania. By the end of April 120,000 more troops and up to 1,200 additional tanks will be sent to support the war against Iraq.
A decision was made to change the way aviation is used in this war. The use of precision-guided munitions will be scaled down and these weapons will be reserved for attacking only known, confirmed targets. There will be an increase in the use of conventional high-yield aviation bombs, volume-detonation bombs and incendiary munitions. The USAF command is ordered to deliver to airbases used against Iraq a two-week supply of aviation bombs of 1-tonn caliber and higher as well as volume-detonation and incendiary bombs. This means that Washington is resorting to the "scorched earth" tactics and carpet-bombing campaign.
(source: iraqwar.ru, 03-25-03, translated by Venik; Emphasis added)
The IRAQWAR.RU analytical center was created recently by a group of journalists and military experts from Russia to provide accurate and up-to-date news and analysis of the war against Iraq. The following is the English translation of the IRAQWAR.RU report based on the Russian military intelligence reports. -
12:26 2003-03-26
Russia Lost Billions of Dollars in Iraq
A lot of very expensive projects have been swept away with the war
Countless news reports about the army operation in Iraq have pushed into the background the fact that the Russian economy faces a very serious threat on account of the war. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov released an official statement that the Russian Federation would stand for its legal economic interests in the Persian Gulf. However, the foreign ministerÂ’s statement was basically ignored on account of war news and everything that was connected with it. IvanovÂ’s words were basically lost. However, Viktor Khristenko, the Vice Prime Minister of the Russian government, decided to warn OPEC countries yesterday. As Khristenko said, OPEC might stop its existence after the war in Iraq is finished.
According to the officialÂ’s logic, the OPEC's wish to become a political organization as a result of the war in Iraq, will eventually destroy the oil organization. If OPEC starts playing economic games during the Iraqi conflict, the organization will have to face the end of its existence soon. Viktor Khristenko explained his position with the fact that OPECÂ’s quantitative losses that it might suffer during the war, will pale in comparison with the losses that it might have, if it gets implicated in political processes. As it can be seen, Viktor Khristenko is not against OPECÂ’s existence, although he insists that nothing is supposed to change in the international organization. The Russian vice prime minister would like to see it the way it is now.
Of course, Russia achieved very good progress in the oil export field last year. Russia even managed to leave the world leader, Saudi Arabia, behind in this respect (just within several days). It is an open secret that the oil industry of the country had to take very much effort to achieve that. Experts have no doubts that the Russian oil industry experiences a very strong need of modernization. The industry needs a lot of investments for that, although neither the USA, nor other Western countries are ready to provide that. One could borrow something from everyone, from OPEC countries in particular. However, Viktor Khristenko prefers to preach potential investors, taking into consideration the fact that RussiaÂ’s success in the oil field is currently burning in Iraq.
As a matter of fact, OPEC has always had a lot of political functions to fulfil, although it is a purely economic organization. The world order is changing in front of our own eyes now, so any international organization is supposed to change too, if it wants to live further on. It is not ruled out that the increase of OPEC's political role at a crucial moment of discrepancy between exporters and consumers of oil might be very good both for the organization and for the whole world.
Instead of bidding goodbye to OPEC, it would be very good for the Russian government to sit down and to evaluate the countryÂ’s losses on account of the war. Russia has invested a lot in the oil industry of Iraq. All that will be lost, no matter what the Russian Foreign Ministry might do. Russian companies that work in Iraq have already started counting their losses. According to the information that Russian media get, the losses are large. There are no doubts left that no Russian company will manage to preserve its contracts in Iraq after the war is over.
The administration of the company MachineImport acknowledged that it had delivered drilling rigs to Iraq in the sum of $30 million. The company has its base in the city of Rumeila. The city is reportedly on fire at the moment. This means that the Russian unpaid equipment is burning there too. It will never be paid. MachineImport signed a contract with the UN to drill 30 wells on Garaf oil deposit. The cost of the contract was evaluated in the sum of 430 million dollars. The war has virtually cancelled the contract. The Oil for Food program stipulated for other contracts in the total sum of $75 million. They do not cost anything today. MachineImport had to give away all of its property to local authorities – eight drilling rigs, offices and even apartments in Baghdad and Basra. All that property was insured, although it goes without saying that no one will manage to compensate that completely.
Other Russian oil companies had to do the same. Lukoil-Overseas and Zarubezhneft, for example, also left their offices and other real estate at the disposal of “local law-enforcement bodies.” Security guards sealed offices of another Russian company, TechnoPromImport. This company built two large heat and power plants in Iraq. It goes without saying that armed Iraqi soldiers have more important things to do than to guard someone else’s property.
Directors of all mentioned companies stated that they would defend their rights for their property at international courts. However, managers acknowledged that that they will have no shots to win, if the power in Iraq changes. Russian companies already mark their Iraqi property as losses. It deems that the Russian government will have to do the same soon.
Experts of the Russian cabinet of ministers calculated that Russian loss of profit in Iraq made up 40 billion dollars, plus eight billion dollars of the Iraqi debt. The new Iraqi government is not likely to acknowledge that. Oil prices will go down, when Baghdad surrenders. This will cause incredible damage to the Russian budget. Before the war, Russia gained two billion dollars a year within the scope of the international program Oil for Food. That money has been lost too.
The experiences that Russian companies obtained in Iraq will be wasted without any demand. That is why, it is time Russia should think over an opportunity to join OPEC. It is absolutely not good for the country to preach this organization now. However, as Russians say, good ideas always come late.
Akhtyam Akhtyrov
PRAVDA.Ru
Translated by Dmitry Sudakov
http://english.pravda.ru/economics/2003/03/26/45028.html -
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2003/03/26/002.html
Wednesday, Mar. 26, 2003. Page 1
Kremlin Fires Back at Bush
By Simon Saradzhyan and Oksana Yablokova
Staff Writers The Kremlin fired a new salvo in the battle of words between Moscow and Washington over Iraq on Tuesday, insisting that it was President Vladimir Putin rather than his U.S. counterpart who had initiated the discussion of alleged sales of Russian defense equipment to Iraq during their last phone conversation.
The U.S. administration fired this week's first shot when White House spokesman Ari Fleischer announced Monday evening that President George Bush had called Putin earlier in the day to complain about alleged sales of Russian-made GPS jamming devices, night-vision goggles and anti-tank missiles to Baghdad in violation of the international arms embargo.
The Kremlin initially responded by posting a three-sentence statement on its web site Monday evening saying that the two leaders had conversed and that Putin had expressed his concern to Bush over the humanitarian consequences of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
On Tuesday morning, however, Putin's press secretary Alexei Gromov issued a separate statement in which he insisted that it was Putin himself who had brought up the allegations during the phone conversation. Putin told Bush that Russian authorities have repeatedly "supplied information on the absence of such supplies," according to Gromov.
After denying the allegations, first reported Sunday in The Washington Post, Putin launched a verbal counteroffensive and expressed his worry to Bush that "the discussion concerns unproved, public declarations that can damage relations between the two countries," Gromov's statement said.
"Moreover, in reply, the American side was addressed with questions on analogous problems, which have not been answered yet," it said.
In his statement, Gromov did not elaborate on what these "analogous problems" were, although just hours earlier, Nuclear Power Minister Alexander Rumyantsev and Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov had teamed up to express concern over the alleged sale of nuclear equipment to Iran by a West European company.
Speaking to reporters at Russia's prime nuclear weapons research center in Saratov, Ivanov and Rumyantsev pointed the finger at Urenco, a British-Dutch consortium that reportedly supplied centrifuges to Iran that could be used to produce weapons-grade uranium.
The allegations that three Russian companies had supplied defense equipment to Iraq first appeared in The Post on Sunday. The newspaper quoted Bush administration sources as saying that the Instrument Design Bureau of Tula and Aviakonversia of Moscow have supplied anti-tank missiles and jamming equipment, respectively.
White House spokesman Fleischer added fuel to the fire by repeating these allegations and demanding that Russian authorities put an end to the alleged sales. According to Fleischer's account of Monday's conversation, Bush expressed his concern over the sales to Putin.
After seeing news agencies lead their reports of the conversation with the White House's version, the Kremlin decided to expand on its initial account of the conversation. In an effort to win broader coverage of Gromov's statement, Kremlin spokesmen took the unusual step of calling news agencies Tuesday to dictate Gromov's statement rather than faxing it and posting it on the Kremlin's web site as is usually done, The Associated Press reported.
Even though the two presidents have regularly discussed Iraq in recent weeks, Monday's trading of barbs was the first time that Bush and Putin have allowed their official spokesmen to release details of their talks.
Russian newspapers, which have been critical of the U.S.-led military operation, have portrayed the verbal exchanges between U.S. and Russian officials as a sign that relations are becoming seriously strained. Nezavisimaya Gazeta on Tuesday said it was reminiscent of the Cold War and warned that Russia would suffer more if relations reached the freezing point.
The decision by Bush and Putin to let their differences spill all over the press demonstrates how strained U.S.-Russian relations have become over Iraq, political observers said.
"The mere fact of the publication of the accusations means that the ties have become less honeylike," said Dmitry Trenin, deputy head of the Moscow Carnegie Center.
The airing of the defense sales accusations indicates that the United States is trying to find a scapegoat for its military setbacks in Iraq, according to Alexei Arbatov, deputy head of the State Duma's defense committee and member of the liberal Yabloko faction.
"After five days of war it has become clear that the U.S. is losing the war politically. The more difficulties the U.S. encounters in Iraq the more inclined it will be to look for someone to blame," Arbatov said at a news conference.
"In this situation, the U.S. will be more pressing with its demands for support from Russia and Europe."
Arbatov predicted that U.S.-Russian ties will deteriorate as the war unfolds in Iraq and the conflict may lead to concrete steps, such as suspension of U.S.-funded programs to safely dispose of Russia's excess nuclear materials and to safeguard nuclear weapons.
Should the tensions take an ugly turn Russia may lose a good deal of U.S. support for its domestic reforms, while the United States may lose a key partner in its anti-terrorist coalition, according to Trenin.
The honeymoon in U.S.-Russian relations began after Moscow supported Washington in the aftermath of 9/11 and lasted thanks to friendly relations between Bush and Putin until the Iraqi crisis came to a head, Trenin said.
Interestingly, the Bush administration lodged an official complaint over the alleged sales of GPS jammers, nighttime vision goggles and missiles back in September, according to the Post. Back then, however, relations between Russia and the United States were still constructive, if not rosy, and this was, perhaps, the reason the U.S. side did not leak the complaint to the press.
Once Russia toughened its stance over Iraq, however, the White House decided to "punish" the Kremlin as it punished Ukraine by slapping on sanctions over alleged sales of Kolchuga radar equipment to Iraq, according to Alexander Pikayev of the Carnegie Center.
Indeed, the alleged Kolchuga sales occurred in the summer of 2000, whereas the White House did not go public with the accusations until the fall of 2002 when U.S.-Ukrainian relations were strained. Relations have normalized since then, however, with Ukraine even contributing a chemical warfare protection battalion to the U.S.-led coalition.
Russia's public protests over flights of U.S. U-2 spy planes near Russia's border with Georgia last week could have factored into the White House's decision to publicize the alleged sales of GPS jammers and other equipment. -
U.S.: Iraq Chemical Suits Reinforce Fears
10 minutes ago
By NICOLE WINFIELD, Associated Press Writer
CAMP AS SAYLIYAH, Qatar - A U.S. general said Wednesday the discovery of 3,000 chemical suits in a hospital in central Iraq (news - web sites) that had been used as an Iraqi base raised concern that Saddam Hussein (news - web sites)'s regime was prepared to use chemical weapons.
"What we found at the hospital reinforces our concern," said Brig. Gen. Vincent Brooks. "We are well-prepared to deal with the potential use of chemical weapons."
In addition to the chemical suits, the Central Command reported earlier that Marines found and confiscated gas masks and nerve gas antidote injectors in the hospital near An Nasiriyah.
Asked about 14 civilians killed in Baghdad on Tuesday in what Iraq said was a U.S. bombing, Brooks said that he had no information on the incident.
"We don't have a report that corroborates that, so I can't confirm it," he said. "We do everything physically and scientifically possible to be precise in our targeting."
Asked about reports that a large contingent of Iraq's elite Republican Guard were headed south toward U.S. Marines in central Iraq, Brooks said, "We've not seen any significant movements of the type of force you've described.
"There have been local positionings and survival positionings, but not serious attacks and we certainly remain, we believe, well in control of the situation at hand," he said.
Brooks showed images of an Iraqi military vehicle hidden under a bridge and a military base near a mosque and school. Also shown was communications equipment positioned in ancient ruins marked with the international symbol denoting it was a historical site.
Intelligence officers with the 1st Marine Expeditionary Force said the Republican Guard units were headed with a 1,000-vehicle convoy from Baghdad on a route that avoids advancing U.S. Army forces but leads directly to the Marines who have been fighting in recent days around the city of An Nasiriyah.
Brooks said that there had been fighting between different groups of Iraqis in the contested southern city of Basra, where British reports suggested there may have been an uprising against Saddam Hussein's regime.
"We saw fighting in the city between Iraqis — some of them in uniform, some not," he said.
He said Iraqi paramilitary forces were "shooting into the town of Basra" and compared their behavior to "global terrorists."
"It was a very confusing situation, to say the least," Brooks added.
He said U.S.-led forces hold more than 4,000 prisoners of war and that the coalition had contacted the International Committee of the Red Cross to arrange a visit.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=540&ncid=721&e=7&u=/ap/20030326/ap_on_re_mi_ea/war_briefing -
Russian diplomat: US trying to 'completely destroy' Iraq, waging propaganda campaign
By Vladimir Isachenkov, Associated Press, 3/26/03
MOSCOW -- Russia's foreign minister accused the United States on Wednesday of waging a propaganda campaign by alleging that Russian companies sold banned military equipment to Saddam Hussein.
In an appearance before the legislature, Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said the United States was trying to "completely destroy" Iraq and reiterated Moscow's intention to block any attempts to legitimize the war through the U.N. Security Council.
"They say that the Iraqi people are oppressed by the tyrant, must be liberated and given democracy. And look how they are trying to achieve this goal: by using the most powerful weapons in history," Ivanov said.
"What democracy are they talking about when they are trying to completely destroy the country? I strongly doubt that democracy can be enforced by the Tomahawk (cruise missiles)."
This week the White House said Russian companies provided Iraq with anti-tank guided missiles, night-vision goggles and satellite jamming devices in violation of U.N. sanctions against Iraq. The allegations first surfaced Sunday in The Washington Post.
President Bush had called Russian President Vladimir Putin to complain about the alleged sales.
"We are seriously concerned by the attempts of certain circles in the United States to drag Russia into an information war over Iraq by making unfounded accusations that Russian companies supplied some military equipment to Iraq, bypassing the sanctions," Ivanov said.
U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell said Tuesday he provided Ivanov with more information to back up the allegations.
However, Ivanov said Wednesday, "No one has given us any proof."
Ivanov called the war illegitimate and said only international inspectors could determine whether Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction -- an apparent attempt to deflect future claims of weapons finds by the U.S. and British military to shore up their argument that war was necessary.
Ivanov also accused the U.S.-British coalition of hypocrisy and of endangering the entire Persian Gulf region.
"If such massive bombardment continues, a humanitarian, economic and environmental catastrophe will become inevitable in the near future, not only in Iraq but in the whole region," Ivanov said. -
USWAR/Indian defense expert comments on US war on Iraq
New Delhi, March 27, IRNA -- An Indian defense expert said on Thursday
that a week -long war in Iraq has shown that resistance from the Iraqi
forces against the American and British forces are more than it was
being anticipated in the military circles.
Prof. T. Shreedhar, a member of Institute of Defense and Strategic
Analyses told IRNA in an exclusive interview while analyzing the
development of war in Iraq that Iraq's war tactics is to prolong this
war and make it attritive by people's resistance and dragging the
battle into the urban areas.
On the other hand America will try to remove Saddam Hussein's
regime and bring the war to an end and claim their victory at the
earliest in accordance with the promises made by many senior American
officials before the war, said Shreedhar who also teaches at the
Center of West Asian Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi.
He said that in case of stiff resistance by the Iraqi forces,
American forces may resort to carpet bombing which will result in
more casualties especially among the civilians.
Talking about the consequences of war he said, if the war
prolonged then people in the Arab countries will stand against their
governments who have shown soft stance with regard to American attack
and the region will witness the political and social instability.
If America and Britain did not succeed in achieving their objective
in short time they will lose their credibility among their own nations
and people in these countries and countries that are supporting
America will react sharply against the war, he added.
Regarding the economic consequences of war, Prof. Shreedhar said
that even if the war is of short time it will have negative impact on
globalization because the increase in oil price will effect the world
economy and will be very difficult to boost it.
About the status of the UN he said the current war has exposed the
limitation of the UN against the big and adventurous powers and now it
is necessary to create a UN Task Force to contain such powers, he
added.
IND/RR
End
http://www.irna.com/en/head/030327182126.ehe.shtml -
After Iraq: The Ongoing Crisis
Apr 10, 2003
Stratfor Intelligence
Summary
As the war in Iraq moves toward a conclusion, the expectations are that the end of the war will bring at least a pause in international tensions. We do not believe this will be the case. Given U.S. war goals, crises -- inside Iraq, with nations along Iraq's border and between Europe and the United States -- can be expected to flow directly from war termination, whenever it comes. As we have said, Iraq is a campaign in a much larger war and not a war in itself. We now will see what that means.
Analysis
Stratfor has argued that the United States had two fundamental reasons for invading Iraq:
1. To transform the psychology of the Islamic world, which had perceived the United States as in essence weak and unwilling to take risks to achieve its ends.
2. To use Iraq as a strategic base of operations from which to confront Islamic regimes that are either incapable of or unwilling to deny al Qaeda and other Islamist groups access to enabling resources.
The war in Iraq is not over: There are extraordinarily complex politico-military missions to confront. This is particularly true in the north, where some substantial Iraqi forces appear to remain and where the political situation among various players -- Kurdish, Turkish, Iranian and Syrian -- remains complex, dynamic and opaque. Nevertheless, it is possible to make some assessment of the intended and unintended consequences of the war.
There already has been a strong impact on the psychology of the Arab world in particular. During the run-up to the war and until the last week, there existed a sense of growing anger and radicalization. With the collapse of resistance in Baghdad, this has given way to a sense of stunned disbelief. The Arab press appears to be filled with four themes:
1. A sense of denial, and an insistence that resistance continued but was being hidden by the world press.
2. A sense of betrayal by Saddam Hussein, whose failure to resist effectively was seen as a sign of corruption.
3. A sense of hopelessness, expressing the view that resisting the United States is beyond the capacity of Arabs. This was coupled at times with an expression of determination to rectify the situation.
4. Bitterness at Europe -- particularly France and Russia, which abandoned Iraq to its fate.
U.S. leaders understand that the result of the war will be increased bitterness, although some argue that Arab bitterness was already maxed out anyway. What they are driving for with this operation is a psychological capitulation -- a sense that accommodation with the United States is the only path.
The United States certainly has inflicted a massive blow on the Arab, if not the Islamic, psyche. The only comparable moment was in June 1967, when Israeli forces defeated the Egyptians, Syrians and Jordanians. It should be remembered that the defeat had unintended consequences: Not only did Egypt and Syria attack Israel with some effect in 1973, but the consequences of the defeat energized the Palestinian movement. The Israelis have begun warning the Palestinians to think through the lessons of Iraq. On the other side, the United States must carefully think through the lessons of 1967.
The simplistic idea that resentment of the United States will generate effective action by Arabs misses a crucial point. Two scales are at work here: the radicalism scale and the hope scale. On the radicalism scale, the level of radicalism and anti-Americanism in the Arab world has been off the chart for months. Increasing the level would be difficult. However, radicalism by itself does not lead to action. There must also be hope -- a sense that there are weaknesses in the U.S. position that can be exploited, that there is some possibility of victory, however distant. So long as the hope scale tends toward hopelessness, radicalism can be intense.
The United States was prepared to allow the radicalism scale to go deep into the danger zone, but Washington has been trying to keep the hope scale deeply in the green zone. Israel's failure after 1967 was inherent in its position: The Israelis depended heavily on outsiders for national security. The Arab perception was that the Israelis could be attacked by splitting them from their patrons. This sense of vulnerability led to an active response to defeat.
The task facing the United States now is to avoid projecting a sense of vulnerability. This is easier for Washington than it was for Israel. The United States comes out of the war less dependent on others; it also has a strong domestic consensus in favor of the war. The United States presents, at the moment, a seamless face to the Arab world: It is hated but feared. Washington now must act now to maintain the fear, while reducing hatred. How it manages Iraq will determine the outcome. If the United States loses control of the situation, it quickly could lead to a perception of vulnerability. It must control the situation in Iraq while maintaining a benign administration. This will not be as easy it sounds: Where Washington can choose between unrelenting strength and the risk of perceived weakness, it will have to carefully choose strength. That is implicit in the strategy.
From a geopolitical perspective, we already have seen the United States transiting from the Iraqi war phase toward confrontation with the surrounding states. Saudi leaders capitulated in fundamental ways before the United States went to war, permitting U.S. aircraft to fly air strikes against Iraq and allowing U.S. forces to pass through Saudi territory. Jordan and Kuwait are not problems. But there are three issues: Syria, Turkey and Iran.
· Syria: Syrian behavior has become unpredictable. The Syrians have long understood that, as a consequence of the war, their country would be surrounded by three enemies: the United States, Turkey and Israel. Rather than trying to reach an accommodation with the United States, Damascus stepped up its aggressive behavior during the war, permitting volunteers to go into Iraq to fight coalition forces and apparently permitting Iraqi personnel to seek shelter in Iraq. The Bush administration has made it clear that it finds Syrian behavior intolerable, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has refused to rule out assertive action against Syria. There was no question but that the United States was going to confront Syria at some point from its bases in Iraq, but the Syrians seem to have chosen to accelerate the process -- perhaps feeling that a better settlement could be reached earlier in the game.
· Turkey: Washington needs to defuse the bad end to the pre-war confrontation. Turkey is a geopolitical foundation of U.S. strategy -- not only in the Middle East, but also north of the Caucasus, in southeastern Europe and Iran. A permanent rift with Turkey would be intolerable. Similarly, the United States remains the foundation of Turkish national security policy. Without it, Turkey has fundamental problems. The two countries may not be friends at the moment, but they share fundamental interests. Both nations now will attempt to extract themselves from the unacceptable situation they created for each other. The key will be limiting Kurdish expectations.
· Iran: the extraordinarily complex game that Tehran is playing makes Syrian foreign policy transparent. Iran has positioned itself in such a way that its pro-Iranian Shiite groups in Iraq could wage a guerrilla war against the United States, while Tehran holds open the possibility of reaching implicit accommodations with the United States -- all at the same time. Iranian subtlety notwithstanding, Washington regards Iran as the single most potentially dangerous regime in the region, because of both its resources and the complexity of its politics and policies. Iran has positioned itself to be fundamentally unpredictable -- and having achieved this goal, it concerns the United States tremendously.
Therefore, if the goal of the United States was to create a base of operations in Iraq from which to influence the dynamics of the region internally, the game is in play even before the war is formally ended. The Syrian situation will probably be contained, but it represents a fundamentally destabilizing factor to the region. The Iranian situation is much more difficult to predict in the long run, even as the Iranians practice their traditionally complex prudence in the short run.
In a similar sense, unintended consequences of the war must be managed. The U.S. relationship with Britain is fundamental to U.S. national strategy -- and Britain, for a host of its own reasons, does not want an outright breach either with the Franco-German bloc or with multilateral organizations like the United Nations. The United States must accommodate the British without losing control of the situation in Iraq.
The primary purpose of the April 11-12 summit in St. Petersburg between Russian, German and French leaders is to find a way to limit the consequences of U.S. victory in Iraq. All of them opposed the war, and the United States prosecuted it any way. This demonstrated that Washington needs neither material support from Europe nor political validation. For all three countries, this represents a fundamental redefinition of their place in the world. There had been a fixed assumption that in some sense, the United States remained dependent on them, that they were necessary enablers for global actions. Alliance for them was not an American choice, but a necessity. Iraq represented a very public demonstration that they were irrelevant to U.S. policymaking, either individually or collectively. This represents a geopolitical crisis of the first order to them.
These countries' solution will be to try to manipulate the United States into accepting the United Nations as the primary manager of Iraqi affairs. To do so, they will use the British desire to maintain bridges to the Franco-German bloc as a means of forcing the United States to shift policy. The United States cannot abandon control of Iraq without abandoning the goals for which it fought the war. This undoubtedly will lead to another round of unpleasantness with the Euro Three, which would not bother Washington a bit. U.S. President George W. Bush is positioned domestically to take advantage of resentment -- particularly of France -- so that their demand to participate in governing Iraq will be taken as wanting the fruits of victory without taking the risks. The British, however, will be another matter. We expect to see growing strains between the two countries as Britain tries to find balance.
What we are getting at is that no postwar lull is possible here, even if there does emerge a clear-cut end to the war. The two goals of the war need immediate management. The management of Arab and Islamic public opinion requires exquisite care in the management of internal Iraqi affairs. It also requires that U.S. power in the region be perceived as irresistible. This means that U.S. relations with Syria and Iran must be managed aggressively but without crossing the line to unwarranted belligerence. It means that the U.S.-Turkish relationship must be managed dispassionately, in spite of underlying tensions. All of this is urgent. None of it will wait. Finally, the pre-war battle with the Europeans, while undoubtedly more subdued, still will define much of the global rhetoric -- save that given its stakes in the Islamic world, the United States will be even less able and less inclined to cooperate with European demands.
Now things get really tricky. -
U.S. Reacts to Criticism on Iraq Looting
WASHINGTON - The military on Friday rejected criticism that it is allowing a wave of looting and violence in its wake in Iraq (news - web sites), saying troops must remain focused on combat, not restoring order.
now pentagon starts to panic...
Looting of Iraq Offices Concerns Pentagon -
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=283293&contrassID=2&subContrassID=4&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y
It's not the Berlin Wall
By Gideon Levy
There's no denying it: The United States has impressive military and technological capabilities. It defeated Iraq within a short time and at a low price. There have been relatively few Iraqi civilian casualties and the scale of destruction has not been massive.
From this point of view, the doomsayers were wrong. But does that mean those who opposed the war were mistaken? Does the rapid victory make the war more just? Will the Iraqis henceforth be more free than they were, and will the world be a better place?
On the weekend, the London Sun ran a drawing of a target with the faces of the "traitors" on it - Jacques Chirac, Gerhard Schroeder, Kofi Annan and the other war opponents. Members of the public were invited to fire their slings and arrows at them. But that's not what they deserve.
In the immediate aftermath of the war, a wave of euphoria is sweeping its fomenters and supporters. Commentators have rushed to acclaim George W. Bush as one of America's greatest presidents. But history is filled with examples of wars that ended with easy, quick victories that blinded the victors and left protracted disasters in their wake. After the 1967 Six-Day War, for example, a wave of victory celebrations swept Israel; but 36 years later, the blood of both the winners and the losers continues to be shed.
The United States went to war because of the danger Saddam Hussein's regime posed to the security of the world. So far, nothing to back up that claim has been found in the form of nonconventional weapons. They may yet be discovered and maybe the UN weapons inspectors would have found them without a war. But, in any event, it is impossible to ignore the fact that Iraq did not use such weapons in the war, not even when the leadership's back was against the wall, as many had predicted.
The second declared goal of the war, the "liberation of Iraq," has also not yet been achieved. A despotic regime was toppled, but no one knows whether its successor will also be a tyranny, perhaps even a worse one. Saddam was not Hitler or even Stalin, contrary to the opinion of U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Saddam was a brutal dictator, though there are many like him elsewhere. Having been released from Saddam's oppression, Iraq is liable to find itself under a fundamentalist Shiite regime that is even darker and will constitute a greater threat to the world's peace. A country that was not a center of international terrorist activity is liable to become one.
From the point of view of the Iraqi people, too, the cries of joy are premature. It is easy to understand the celebrators, but a liberation that begins with looting and anarchy does not bode well.
Those who likened the smashing of the statues of Saddam to the toppling of the Berlin Wall should consider the differences between the two events. The East Germans knocked down the wall that imprisoned them with their own hands and then went westward to freedom. The statues of Saddam were destroyed by foreign tanks and the liberated people went to loot his palaces. The Iraqi people could soon find themselves caught up in a vicious civil war. The fact that both dramatic events, in Berlin and Baghdad, were broadcast live on television does not necessarily make them similar. In contrast to the toppling of the wall, if the smashing of the statues does not herald a deeper change, it will become no more than a footnote in the history books.
The promulgators of freedom the United States is so far bringing to Iraq - dubious figures such as Ahmed Chalabi, who was sentenced in absentia in Jordan to 22 years in prison for embezzlement, and his 60 mercenaries, are no cause for joy as far as the Iraqis are concerned.
It is also wishful thinking to believe a new dawn is about to break in the Middle East. It is still not clear whether democracy will be established in Iraq and it is certainly impossible to predict at this time that democracies will be set up in other Arab countries. Moreover, with or without democratic Arab countries, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict remains one of the bloodiest and most prolonged conflicts in the world, and continues to pose a serious threat to global order because it is a breeding ground for international terrorism. That conflict will be resolved only if the Israeli occupation comes to an end.
If the American victory in Iraq generates a deep change in U.S. policy toward Israel and the administration dares to take the chance, for the first time in its history, of putting heavy and unrelenting pressure on Israel to make it leave the occupied territories, and if peace is achieved, it will then be possible to talk about a "new Middle East."
From this point of view, as from every other, the victory celebrations are coming too soon. It's possible that something good will come of a bad situation and that an unjust war will develop into a truly positive change.
At the moment, though, those who are basking in the easy victory that produced the conquest of Iraq and the smashing of the statues are far from being able to promise that change.
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After a successful beginning, the rating of the Russian-language channel Israel Plus has plummeted, and the losses are piling up.
By Sara Leibovich-Dar
Family Affair
A look at a day in the life of Ming Jai Liu, a foreign worker from China who has been in Israel for the past five years.
By Avner Avrahami
A camera, a cult
Natalie Zwillinger's Lomo photos are on show in Tel Aviv - and are being snapped up by appreciative vistors.
By David Rapp -
This is what post war Iraq will be. Freeing Iraqi oil (naturally a simplistic view but hell, it is one popular one.)
