"Among the people instrumental in
tilting U.S. policy toward Baghdad during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq
war was Donald H. Rumsfeld, now defense secretary, whose
 December
1983 meeting with Hussein as a special presidential envoy paved
the way for normalization of U.S.-Iraqi relations. Declassified
documents show that Rumsfeld traveled to Baghdad at a time when
Iraq was using chemical weapons on an 'almost daily' basis in
defiance of international conventions."
-Washington Post, Dec 30, 2003
"To all of the men and women of the United States armed
forces now in the Middle East, the peace of a troubled world
and the hopes of an oppressed people now depend on you. The
enemies you confront will come to know your skill and bravery.
The people you liberate will witness the honorable and decent
spirit of the American military." - President Bush, 3/20/03
71% of Americans Support War,
Poll Shows
Support for going to war with Iraq surged to 71 percent after
Bush's  nationally
televised speech, up from 59 percent a week ago, according
to the poll. Nearly two in three — 64 percent —
approve of the way Bush is handling the confrontation with
Iraq, an increase of 9 percentage points in the past eight
days.
"An American invasion of Iraq is already being used as
a recruitment tool by Al Qaeda and other groups," a senior
American counterintelligence official said. "And it is
a very effective tool."
How a War Became a Crusade
President Bush's war plans are risky, but Mr. Bush
is no gambler. In fact he denies the very existence of chance. "Events aren't moved
by blind change and chance," he has said, but by "the
hand of a just and faithful God." From the outset he
has been convinced that his presidency is part of a divine
plan, even telling a friend while he was governor of Texas,
"I believe God wants me to run for president." ...The
power of providentialist thinking persists, drawing strength
from the fervent beliefs of Christian, Islamic and Jewish
fundamentalists. The more humane interpreters of those traditions
are increasingly ignored, and the ideologues take command,
convinced that they are doing God's will.
"In the coming weeks, all signs indicate, President
Bush will launch the first war without direct provocation
in the nation's history."
So Who's In Charge?
GEORGE BUSH SR.: THE DECISION MUST BE MADE BY ONE PERSON:
THE PRESIDENT
Donald Rumsfeld: "The decision for war or peace does
not rest in Washington or even at the U.N. It rests in the
hands of Saddam Hussein." -1/22/03
Scholars Urge Jihad In Event of Iraq
War — Cairo Center Declares All Muslims Threatened
Agent Who Saw 9/11 Lapses Still Faults
F.B.I. on Terror
The veteran F.B.I. agent who exposed the bureau's failure
to heed evidence of terrorist plots before the Sept. 11  attacks
is now warning her superiors that the bureau is not prepared
to deal with new terrorist strikes that she and many colleagues
fear would result from an American war with Iraq.
"But we can't forget that war is inherently violent.
People are going to die. As hard as we try to limit civilian
casualties, it will occur. We need to condition people that
that is war. People get the idea this is going to be antiseptic.
Well, it's not going to be." -Gen
Richard Myers,
Ad Executive Beers Resigns
State Department Post
Charlotte Beers, the Madison Avenue executive imported
to improve the United States' image abroad — particularly
in the Muslim world — has resigned for health reasons,
the State Department announced yesterday.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell told his surprised assistants
about Beers's departure at his morning staff meeting. He later
credited Beers with taking "our values and our ideas
to  mass
audiences in countries which hadn't heard from us in a concerted
way for years."
Beers made a fortune marketing products for such companies
as Sears and Procter & Gamble. During the 1990s, she ran
two of the world's largest advertising agencies — Ogilvy
& Mather and J. Walter Thompson. She described her new
job as "the most sophisticated brand assignment that
I have ever had."
When Beers took office in October 2001, many pundits mocked
the hiring of an ad executive by the State Department. Some
said the United States suffers image problems more likely
to be repaired by diplomatic successes and policy changes
than advertising campaigns. Powell, however, was one of Beers's
biggest boosters.
"Guess what?" Powell told a television interviewer.
"She got me to buy Uncle Ben's rice. So there is nothing
wrong  with
getting somebody who knows how to sell something."
NORTHERN IRAQ
The village of Khurmal was mislabeled as a terrorist camp,
raising fears of a U.S. bombing. "In an address to the
United Nations Security Council on Feb. 5, Secretary of State
Colin L. Powell displayed a photograph of what he described
as a terrorist camp in the Kurdish village of Khurmal. The
camp in question, however, is actually in Sarget, a 35-minute
drive away."
—
E.J. Carroll, 79,
Antinuclear Admiral, Dies
Eugene J. Carroll Jr., a retired rear admiral of the Navy
who became an outspoken expert witness for opponents of nuclear
weapons, high military budgets and new armaments, died on
Feb. 19 in Washington. He was 79.
As deputy director of the Center for Defense Information,
a research and lobbying organization, after he retired from
the Navy in 1980, he criticized missile defense as counterproductive,
the military budget as uncontrollable and the stockpiling
of nuclear weapons as ludicrous.
Pentagon Seeking to Deploy Missiles
Before Full Testing
The Pentagon wants to begin deploying its missile defense
system on the West Coast next year, before it is fully tested,
an idea that has drawn fire from several Democratic lawmakers.
The request to skip the required testing regimen, included
in an appendix to the Bush  administration's
2004 budget, is necessary to meet President Bush's goal of
having the first missiles in place beginning next year, defense
officials said. At a Senate hearing on Feb. 13, Defense Secretary
Donald H. Rumsfeld said that a missile threat from North Korea
warranted the quick deployment and that the Pentagon often
learns how to improve weapons systems by simply using them.
"I happen to think that thinking we cannot deploy something
until you have everything perfect, every 'i' dotted and every 't' crossed,
is probably not a good idea," Mr. Rumsfeld told members
of the Armed Services Committee. "In the case of missile
defense, I think we need to get something out there, in the
ground, at sea, and in a way that we can test it, we can look
at it, we can develop it,  we
can evolve it, and find out - learn from the experimentation
with it."
And then there are cruise missiles. A growing number of countries,
including Pakistan and Iran, have anti-ship cruise missiles
that, if stolen or diverted, could be converted into land-attack
cruise missiles. These missiles can be transported in nondescript
containers and guided by inexpensive Global Positioning System
devices to targets mapped with available satellite imagery.
Freighters provide the ideal platform for launching these
cruise missiles, which can travel more than 100 miles; Al
Qaeda is reported to have 15 such vessels.
Al Qaeda Lurking in U.S., FBI Warns
Hundreds of terrorists are plotting attacks, but the agency
has no idea where many are. L.A. Times, February 12 2003
Hundreds of
Al Qaeda operatives are in hiding throughout the United States
planning potentially catastrophic attacks, and the FBI does
 not
know who or where many of them are, FBI Director Robert S.
Mueller III told lawmakers Tuesday.
Mueller's warning was the latest in a flurry of dire pronouncements
from top counterterrorism officials, all but predicting attacks against
Americans both overseas and on U.S. soil.
CIA Director George J. Tenet, appearing alongside Mueller
on Capitol Hill, said the government's recent decision to
alert the nation of a "high risk" of terrorist attacks
was based on intelligence reports that are  "the
most specific we have seen," including indications that
Al Qaeda might be planning to use chemical, biological and
radioactive weapons.
"The information we have points to plots aimed at targets
on two fronts - in the United States and on the Arabian Peninsula,"
Tenet told members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.
"The intelligence is not idle chatter."
CIA Head Predicts Nuclear Race
Small Nations Pursuing Arms
CIA Director George J. Tenet warned yesterday that
the "desire for nuclear weapons is on the upsurge"
among small countries, confronting the world with a new nuclear
arms race that threatens to dismantle more than  three
decades of nonproliferation efforts.
"The 'domino theory' of the 21st century may well be
nuclear," Tenet said in reference to the doctrine that
led the United States militarily into Vietnam in the 1960s
to try to prevent a communist takeover of Southeast Asia.
"We have entered a new world of proliferation."
Nuclear Testing Report Is Valid, Council
Says
A draft report that estimated 11,000 people died from cancers
related to nuclear testing during the Cold War was well done
and should be published, the National Research Council said
yesterday.
Bush Links Faith and Agenda In Speech
to Broadcast Group
NASHVILLE, Feb. 10 — President Bush has addressed countless
audiences as
commander in chief. Today, he was introduced as "our
friend and brother in Christ."
Appearing at the National Religious Broadcasters convention,
before a backdrop that read "Advancing Christian Communications,"
the president was hailed as a man who "unapologetically
proclaims his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ." Bush,
in a strikingly religious  address
even for a president long comfortable with such speech, cast
the full range of his agenda — foreign, domestic and
economic — in spiritual terms. "I welcome faith,"
Bush said after he was greeted with rock star adulation. "I
welcome faith to help solve the nation's deepest problems."
Attendees called out "amen" as Bush spoke, and some
waved rhythmically as they did during the hymns that preceded
his speech.
About the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Bush said: "We're
being challenged. We're meeting those challenges because of
our faith...We carried our grief to the Lord Almighty in prayer."
Bush assigned religion a role in the economy ("There
are some needs that prosperity can never meet"), in a
possible attack on Iraq ("Liberty is God's gift to every
human being in the world"), and in coping with the Columbia
space  shuttle
accident ("Faith assures us that death and suffering
are not the final word").
Turning to matters overseas, the president said America's
enemies "hate the thought [that]...we can worship the
Almighty God the way we see fit."
...Today's speech brought the most thorough linkage yet between
Bush's worldly policies and Christian faith — including
a pronouncement that an American attack on Iraq would be "in
the highest moral traditions of our country."
WASHINGTON, Feb. 10 - The Bush administration issued detailed
advice today on how the public should prepare for a possible
terrorist attack using chemical, biological or nuclear weapons,
insisting that it was motivated by a sense of caution, not
any specific intelligence that such an attack was imminent.
The mostly common-sense guidelines urged families to prepare
a "disaster supply kit" that included a three-day
supply of water, one gallon per person  per
day; food; a battery-powered radio; a change of clothes; an
extra set of car keys; and cash.
Other advice was not so obvious, including the recommendation
that people keep a supply of duct tape and plastic sheeting
in their homes to seal off windows in the event of a chemical
or biological attack.
Bush and Sharon Nearly Identical
On Mideast Policy
Running for reelection last month, Prime Minister Ariel
Sharon of Israel
repeatedly boasted of the "deep friendship" he has
built with the Bush
administration — "a special closeness," he
called it. He thanked President Bush for understanding Israel's
security needs and for providing "the required leeway
in our ongoing war on terrorism." He praised Bush's latest
proposals for reaching a Palestinian-Israeli  peace
agreement — a plan, said Sharon, that he and Bush had
agreed on together.
Sharon was describing what his American supporters call the
closest relationship in decades, perhaps ever, between a U.S.
president and an Israeli government. "This is the best
administration for Israel since Harry Truman [who first recognized
an independent Israel]," said Thomas Neumann, executive
director of the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs,
a think tank that promotes strategic cooperation with Israel
as vital to U.S. security interests.
For the first time, a U.S. administration and a Likud government
in Israel are pursuing nearly identical policies. Earlier
U.S. administrations, from Jimmy Carter's through Bill Clinton's,
held Likud and Sharon at arm's length, distancing the United
States from Likud's traditionally tough approach to the Palestinians.
But  today,
as Neumann noted, Israel and the United States share a common
view on terrorism, peace with the Palestinians, war with Iraq
and more. Neumann and others said this change was made possible
by the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and their aftermath.
...Said a senior official of the first Bush administration
who is critical of this one: "Sharon played the president
like a violin: 'I'm fighting your war, terrorism is terrorism,'
and so on. Sharon did a masterful job."
Rumsfeld Warns He Will Ask Congress for
More Billions
WASHINGTON, Feb. 5 - Days after the administration
asked Congress for the biggest military budget since the Reagan-era
buildup, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld told a Congressional
panel today that the administration would soon request
additional billions to fight terrorism and for any conflict
with Iraq.
U.S. Economy in Worst
Hiring Slump in 20 Years
The economy has fallen into its worst hiring slump
in almost 20 years, and many business executives say they
remain unsure when it will end.
Arrests of al Qaeda terrorists disrupt
plans for attack
Al Qaeda is planning a mass-casualty attack to rival
September 11, but
preparations have been disrupted by  arrests
of terrorists during the past several months, according to
U.S. intelligence officials. Recent intelligence reports indicate
that communications among clandestine cells of al Qaeda members
are being restored gradually, the intelligence officials said.
"The attack will be large-scale," one official said.
In his autobiography, "Warrior," Mr. Sharon wrote
that while he was leading Israel's crack paratroopers in the 1950's, he decided that
a policy of mere retaliation or deterrence was not enough
to secure a haven for Jews in a region dominated by Arabs.
His goal, he said, "was to create in the Arabs a psychology
of defeat, to beat them every time and to beat them  so
decisively that they would develop the conviction that they
would never win."
In March of last year, Mr. Sharon said of Israel's response
to Palestinian
terrorism: "The aim is to increase the number of losses
on the other side. Only after they've been battered will we
be able to conduct talks."
'I Am Actually Smiling,' Hussein Tells
Officers
Bush's Policy on Iraq Labels U.S. as
'Belligerent Bully,' Byrd Says
WASHINGTON — Democratic Sen. Robert C. Byrd blasted
President Bush on Friday, saying he gives the United States
the image "of a belligerent bully." He said Bush's
contrasting handling of  threats
posed by North Korea and Iraq revealed major flaws in his
foreign policy.
Byrd of West Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations
Committee that oversees federal spending, said Bush appeared
eager to apply his doctrine of taking preemptive military
action against less powerful countries, such as Iraq, but
not against countries that may pose a nuclear threat, such
as North Korea.
Wanted: 5 Men — The Terror Alert
That Wasn't
FBI Went With Information From Canada
That Turned Out to Be Fabricated
The mug shots went up on the FBI's Web site the Sunday
before New Year's Eve:
SEEKING INFORMATION, WAR ON TERRORISM," the notice proclaimed.
Two days later, President Bush said he had personally authorized
the "all-points bulletin" for five men who might
have been smuggled across the Canadian border in connection
with a terrorist plot.
"We need to know why they have been smuggled into the
country, what they're doing in the country," Bush said
from Texas. "And the American people need to know there's
a lot of  good
people working hard, whether it be on New Year's Eve or any
other time, to protect the American people."
Within the week, however, authorities had concluded that
the tale was a
fabrication, the invention of a man arrested in Canada on
charges of trafficking in stolen traveler's checks and running
a passport counterfeiting ring. In fact, as some FBI officials
had suspected all along, no such group had attempted to enter
the United States.
Most Back Wartime Media Restrictions
Poll Finds Support for Military Secrecy
Two-thirds of the public believes the government should
have the right to stop the media from disclosing military
secrets, according to an ABC News poll released yesterday.
Fifty-six percent of those surveyed also say news organizations
are more obliged to support the government in wartime than
to question the military's handling of the war.
War's Cost May Dwarf Stimulus Effect
Mindful of his pending reelection bid and his father's
political mistakes,
President Bush is plowing ahead with an ambitious 10-year,
$674 billion
 economic
stimulus plan even as U.S troops pour into the Persian Gulf
region preparing for war.
The president's determination to push more tax cuts as the
nation prepares for war has struck some economists as folly,
since the economic shock of war would likely dwarf the impact
of Bush's stimulus plan. Moreover, no tax policy at the moment
could actually address what many economists believe to be
the greatest drag on the nation's economy: the uncertainty
of war.
Bush Tells Troops: Prepare For War
'We Are Ready,' President Says
FORT HOOD, Tex., Jan. 3 — President Bush somberly
warned 4,000 young soldiers today to prepare for war with
Iraq, promising to unleash the full force of the U.S. military
if Saddam Hussein does not seize a final chance to disarm.
Bush invoked a moral imperative for an attack on Iraq after
U.N. inspectors report findings Jan. 27, telling members of
the Army's 1st Cavalry  Division
that they "will be acting in the finest traditions of
America, should we be forced to act."
"We are ready. We're prepared," Bush told cheering
soldiers in a gymnasium at the nation's most populous military
base. "Should Saddam Hussein seal his fate by refusing
to disarm, by ignoring the opinion of the world, you will
be fighting not to conquer anybody, but to liberate people."
The commander in chief, with first lady Laura Bush at his
side, teared up as the troops sang: "The Army's on its
way. Count off the cadence loud and strong. Two! Three!"
Russia Says Bush to Blame for North
Korea Crisis
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russia accused President Bush on
Monday of having ignited a crisis over North Korea by antagonizing
the nuclear-capable Stalinist state and playing on its dire
economic situation.
Deputy Foreign Minister Georgy Mamedov said Bush was to blame
for North Korea's erratic policies, including steps to unfreeze
its nuclear program,  because
of his decision to brand it part of his "axis of evil"
of hostile nations.
"How should a small country feel when it is told that
it is all but part of forces of evil of biblical proportions
and should be fought against until total annihilation?"
Mamedov told the Vremya Novostei daily newspaper.
U.S. Had Key Role in Iraq Buildup
Trade in Chemical Arms Allowed Despite Their Use on Iranians,
Kurds
High on the Bush administration's list of justifications
for war against Iraq are President Saddam Hussein's use of
chemical weapons, nuclear and biological programs, and his
contacts with international terrorists. What U.S. officials
Rarely acknowledge is that these offenses date back to a period
when Hussein was seen in Washington as a valued ally.
U.S. Missile Intercept Test Fails
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A Raytheon Corp.-built "kill
vehicle" designed to destroy incoming warheads failed
to separate from its booster on Wednesday in a test over the
Pacific, setting back a multibillion-dollar system under development
to shield against ballistic missiles from countries such as
Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
New Tax Plan May Bring Shift In Burden
Poor Could Pay A Bigger Share
As the Bush administration draws up plans to simplify
the tax system, it is also refining arguments for why it  may
be necessary to shift more of the tax load onto lower-income
workers.
Veterans Lose Health Care
Suit Against Pentagon
A divided, reluctant federal appeals court denied claims
yesterday by World War II and Korean War veterans who said
the government reneged on promises to provide free lifetime
health care if they stayed in the service for 20 years.
Although the government conceded that military recruiters
made the promises, the Defense Department convinced the court
that there was no valid contract because the assurances were
not backed up by law. 
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