Mohamed al-Baradei: Evidence presented by the US and Britain purporting to show Iraqi attempts to purchase and enrich uranium is forged or incredible (Anne Penketh in The Independent, 3/8/03).
al-Baradei: Uranium Claims Spurious Read More »
The UN begins an investigation of charges that the United States has been spying on Security Council delegations to support its campaign for a resolution authorizing war (3/9/03). The US press continues to downplay this story (3/13/03).
UN Investigates Spy Charges Read More »
Maureen Dowd in the New York Times, 3/9/03:
It still confuses many Americans that, in a world full of vicious slimeballs, we're about to bomb one that didn't attack us on 9/11 (like Osama); that isn't intercepting our planes (like North Korea); that isn't financing Al Qaeda (like Saudi Arabia); that isn't home to Osama and his lieutenants (like Pakistan); that isn't a host body for terrorists (like Iran, Lebanon and Syria).
UN Resolution 377, AKA the "Uniting for Peace" resolution, resolves:
that if the Security Council, because of lack of unanimity of the permanent members, fails to exercise its primary responsibility for the maintenance of international peace and security in any case where there appears to be a threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression, the General Assembly shall consider the matter immediately with a view to making appropriate recommendations to Members for collective measures, including in the case of a breach of the peace or act of aggression the use of armed force when necessary, to maintain or restore international peace and security. If not in session at the time, the General Assembly may meet in emergency special session within twenty-four hours of the request therefor. Such emergency special session shall be called if requested by the Security Council on the vote of any seven members, or by a majority of the Members of the United Nations . . .
Resolution 377 was adopted in November 1950 with U.S. sponsorship and near-unanimous support. It was first invoked in 1956, by the United States, in response to the British and French invasion of Egypt during the Suez crisis; and again, later that year, when the Soviet Union intervened in Hungary. An article written about three weeks ago by Michael Ratner (Center for Constitutional Rights) and Jules Lobel (University of Pittsburgh School of Law) is beginning to spread about the Web. (See also material at the Center for Constitutional Rights.) I suspect there will be more discussion of Resolution 377 now that the United States and Britain are calling for Iraq to complete disarmament (by what measure?) before a March 17 deadline -- a deadline that would surely be vetoed by France, Russia, and China in the Security Council.
UN “Uniting for Peace” Resolution Read More »
David Corn, online March 7 for The Nation:
At the moment, what Bush has to say matters little. He has no new evidence to reveal. He has no better case to make. He's got what he's got. Moreover, there's no jury or judge he has to convince. It's his decision, and it appears it has already been rendered. The only answer to this threat (real or potential) is a disarmed Saddam. The only disarmed Saddam is a dethroned Saddam. That requires war. What happens in the UN over the next days seems to have no bearing on what will transpire in Iraq. The question is merely whether Bush has to run a red-light on his way to Baghdad. His foot is already heavy on the gas. Emboldened by his own half-truths and lies, he is heading off to war.
Heading Off to War Read More »
Adam Bulger interviews Hunter S. Thompson, "early March 2003," at freezerbox.com:
[HST] I talk about this all the time to a lot of people: Are you more optimistic about the next ten years than about the last, when you started?
[AB] Who, me?
[HST] Yeah.
[AB] No! I . . . man, to rip you off, I'm full of fear and loathing. I am a citizen in the Kingdom of Fear. I'm scared every waking moment man.
[HST] Well, uh, Jesus, that's horrible! That's a kind of, uh, prevailing sentiment.
[AB] Yeah.
[HST] And you know, you look at fear and people, a population that's uh, just riddled with fear and confusion and, uh, loathing, goddamn. Never did it occur to me when I came up with those words that I would be using them to describe the state of the nation 30 years later or whatever.
A Citizen in the Kingdom of Fear Read More »
Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times, 3/7/03:
So let's take stock of how our invasion of Iraq is going. The Western alliance is ferociously strained, NATO is paralyzed, America is resented by millions, the United Nations is in crisis, U.S. pals like Tony Blair are being skewered at home, North Korea has exploited our distraction to crank up plutonium production, oil prices have surged, and the world financial markets have sagged.
And the war hasn't even begun yet.
Michael Lind on the Bush administration's foreign policy debacle (3/13/03)
Lind on Bush Foreign Policy Read More »
George Packer in the New York Times Magazine (3/3/2003):
More than anything, the president hasn't readied Americans psychologically to commit themselves to a project of such magnitude, nor has he made them understand why they should. He has maintained his spirit of hostility to nation-building while reversing his policy against it. Bush is a man who has never shown much curiosity about the world. When he met with [Iraqi dissident Kanan] Makiya and two other Iraqis in January, I was told by someone not present, the exiles spent a good portion of the time explaining to the president that there are two kinds of Arabs in Iraq, Sunnis and Shiites. The very notion of an Iraqi opposition appeared to be new to him. War has turned Bush into a foreign-policy president, but democratizing an Arab country will require a subtlety and sophistication that have been less in evidence than the resolve to fight.
The Very Notion . . . Read More »
Paul Rockwell, " Who Armed Iraq?" (San Francisco Chronicle, 3/2/03)
Iraq's Weapons Declaration underscores a tragic irony: The United States, the world's leading arms supplier, is taking the world to war to stop arms proliferation in the very country to which it shipped chemicals, biological seed stock and weapons for more than 10 years.
According to the December declaration, treated with much derision from the Bush administration, U.S. and Western companies played a key role in building Hussein's war machine. The 1,200-page document contains a list of Western corporations and countries -- as well as individuals -- that exported chemical and biological materials to Iraq in the past two decades.
Embarrassed, no doubt, by revelations of their own complicity in Mideast arms proliferation, the U.S.-led Security Council censored the entire dossier, deleting more than 100 names of companies and groups that profited from Iraq's crimes and aggression. The censorship came too late, however. The long list -- including names of large U.S. corporations -- Dupont, Hewlett-Packard, and Honeywell -- was leaked to a German daily, Die Tageszeitung. Despite the Security Council coverup, the truth came out.
Zbigniew Brzezinski explains why he wants more time for weapons inspections (3/2/03)
Brzezinski: More Iraq Inspections Read More »
The Observer's March 2 story of a National Security Council memo dated January 31, 2003 laying out plans to surveil UN Security Council delegations to support US efforts to win approval of a resolution authorizing war; and its transcript of the memo.
NSC’s UN Strategy: Memo Read More »