Posted on 06/08/2003 8:52:19 PM PDT by null and void
Good Morning.
Welcome to the daily thread of Operation Infinite Freedom - Situation Room.
It is designed for general conversation about the ongoing war on terror, and the related events of the day. Im addition to the ongoing conversations related to terrorism and our place in it's ultimate defeat, this thread is a clearinghouse of links to War On Terrorism threads. This allows us to stay abreast of the situation in general, while also providing a means of obtaining specific information and mutual support.
TOKYO (Reuters) - South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun told Japan's parliament on Monday that Seoul would not tolerate the possession of nuclear weapons by communist North Korea, but added that the problem must be resolved peacefully.
"We will never tolerate North Korea possessing nuclear weapons," Roh said in a speech. "At the same time, I believe that this problem must be resolved peacefully through dialogue."
Roh was speaking on the final day of a four-day visit during which he and Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi confirmed they would seek a peaceful solution to the North Korean crisis, but diverged on how to achieve that goal.
Roh also said he would cement South Korea's alliance with the United States. The former labor and human rights lawyer has worked hard since taking office in February to dispel perceptions that he was soft on North Korea and hostile to the United States.
Mon June 9, 2003 12:07 AM ET SEOUL (Reuters) - North Korea said Monday it wanted to have nuclear weapons to allow the communist state to reduce the size of its huge conventional forces and divert funds into an economy foreign analysts say is close to collapse. In a Korean-language commentary, the North's official KCNA news agency said if the United States did not give up its hostile policy Pyongyang would have no choice but to have a nuclear deterrent.
"We are not trying to possess a nuclear deterrent in order to blackmail others but we are trying to reduce conventional weapons and divert our human and monetary resources to economic development and improve the living standards of the people," KCNA said.
It was the first time North Korea had linked its nuclear program to the idea of cutting conventional forces -- North Korea has one of the largest armed forces in the world with 1.1 million troops, many of them forward-deployed near the Demilitarized Zone that bisects the Korean peninsula.
Washington originally wanted any talks with Pyongyang to include conventional forces but later dropped that precondition. The main focus is now on how to get North Korea to ditch its nuclear weapons program.
TOKYO (Reuters) - Sri Lanka's prime minister moved to revive stalled peace talks with Tamil Tiger rebels Monday, offering to meet their key demand for an interim administration for the island's Tamil-majority northeast.
Speaking at the start of a donors' conference in Tokyo, Ranil Wickremesinghe also said his government would consider calling a referendum to endorse changes to the country's constitution that could be part of a final solution to the 20-year conflict.
"We will introduce constitutional reforms when we have negotiated a final political solution, which we are fully committed to take to the people of Sri Lanka through a referendum for the ultimate decision," he told the conference, itself seen as a crucial step toward cementing the fragile peace process.
WASHINGTON - Because Iraq concealed its banned weapons so well, it will take time to interview scientists and pore over seized documents to find the hiding places, say Bush administration officials who reject charges the White House overplayed prewar intelligence to justify the invasion.
Answering claims that the administration exaggerated the threat posed by Saddam Hussein, Secretary of State Colin Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice expressed confidence Sunday that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction will be found.
"I'm sure more evidence and more proof will come forward as we go down this road," he told "Fox News Sunday."
Powell said his prewar statement to the United Nations — that there was no doubt Saddam had the capability to produce and use such weapons — had been vetted for days by U.S. intelligence analysts.
"We spent four days and nights out at the CIA, making sure that whatever I said was supported by our intelligence holdings," Powell said.
But weeks of searches in Iraq by military experts have not validated the administration's portrayal of Iraq's weapons capabilities.
Alleged stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons have not turned up, nor has significant evidence of nuclear weapons program.
The discovery of two Iraqi truck trailers, equipped with fermenters, is the strongest evidence yet that Saddam had a biological weapons program. Still, no actual biological weapons have been found.
The lack of evidence has raised questions about whether the intelligence, which led to the war, was inaccurate or inflated.
Vice Adm. Lowell Jacoby, head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, acknowledged last week that he had no hard evidence of Iraqi chemical weapons last fall, but believed Iraq had a program to produce them. Powell said parts of the DIA report have been taken out of context.
"The sentence that has gotten all of the attention, in this two-page, unclassified summary, talked about not having the evidence of current facilities and current stockpiling," Powell said. "The very next sentence says that it had information that weapons had been dispersed to units. Chemical weapons had been dispersed to units."
Rice said the justification for war was grounded in information from CIA directors, intelligence reports from abroad, information from U.N. weapons inspectors and efforts by Saddam's government to conceal what it was doing.
Rice also pointed to former President Clinton's statement in Dec. 16, 1998, to explain missile strikes he ordered against military and security targets in Iraq. "I have no doubt today, that left unchecked, Saddam Hussein will use these terrible weapons again," Clinton said then.
"No one ever said that we knew precisely where all of these agents were, where they were stored," Rice told on NBC's "Meet the Press."
But she acknowledged that Bush erred when he talked, in his State of the Union address, about how the British government had learned that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa to build weapons.
"We did not know at the time — maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the agency — but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery. Of course, it was information that was mistaken," Rice said.
Rice expressed confidence that the weapons will be found.
"We have thousands and thousands and thousands of documents that we've not yet gone through," she said on CBS' "Face the Nation." "We have many, many people; we've interviewed just a fraction of them. There are sites to visit.
"We will put together this whole picture, but the preponderance of evidence is that this was a regime that had the capability, that had unaccounted-for stockpiles and unaccounted-for weapons."
Rice dismissed allegations that Vice President Dick Cheney, during several visits to the Central Intelligence Agency, applied political pressure to get intelligence officials to exaggerate their reports of the Iraqi threat.
"Simply not true," Rice said.
One Democrat running for president, Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri, said Sunday he thought the weapons would be found. But, he added, if Bush, the United Nations and international leaders were "all duped, or if they didn't have the right information, then this is the most colossal hype that ever was."
Sen. Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said a congressional investigation of how intelligence was used in the run-up to the war is premature. "There's a little tad bit of politics being played here," Roberts, R-Kan., told CNN's "Late Edition." "I think it's very, very counterproductive." Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, said he wants a full-blown congressional investigation.
"I think that the nation's credibility is on the line, as well as his," Levin said, referring to Bush. "This nation has got to lead in this world. If we're going to really lead in a war against terrorism, we must have people who believe in us, who, when we say that something is true, believe that it is true.
"And there is real doubt now that that is the case, because there's too much evidence that intelligence was shaded."
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Nearly two months after the U.S.-led war to topple Saddam Hussein's government, relief agencies are still struggling to control widespread health problems aggravated by the conflict, U.N. officials said Sunday.
Geoffrey Keele, Baghdad spokesman for UNICEF, the U.N. children's fund, said 66 cases of cholera have been confirmed in the southern Iraqi city of Basra, with three of them being fatal. He blamed the country's damaged infrastructure.
The incidence of diarrhea has increased 250 percent among Iraqi children, worsened by war-related damage to Iraq's health and sanitation facilities, Keele said.
A survey last month showed 72 percent of children suffered from diarrhea in the previous month, he said. That is 2 1/2 times the normal rate.
The incidence of diarrhea often is used as a barometer of public health.
Meanwhile, U.N. Special Envoy Sergio Vieira de Mello held discussions with prominent Iraqi political figures, including former Foreign Minister Adnan Pachachi.
Vieira de Mello, on leave from his job as the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, told reporters outside Pachachi's home that his job was to "listen to, interpret and assist" Iraqis.
American forces in Iraq have denied the United Nations a leading role in rebuilding the country's government and infrastructure. But international agencies have been working to improve Iraqis' health, nutrition and housing woes.
Authorities have registered nearly 2,500 homeless families, with many in Baghdad, said Robert Painter, a U.N. official. The homeless include orphans, widows, pensioners, the mentally ill and the physically disabled.
"We don't have a handle on this situation," he said.
Coalition forces asked Painter to visit the Bani Sa'ad prison, taken over in the weeks since the war by a tribe of 1,500 Arabs evicted from their farms near Khaneqin by Iraqi Kurds. The Americans want to use the prison.
"Clearly these people have occupied the prison illegally," Painter said. "But they are internally displaced people, and they need some kind of shelter."
U.N. officials said they have not been able to define the exact scope of Iraq's humanitarian afflictions because Iraq's health-care system has largely collapsed.
But Keele also said many of Iraq's problems predate the war, including the pumping of hundreds of thousands of tons of raw sewage a year into Iraq's freshwater supply.
Although Keele said the diarrhea problems may have peaked for now, July and August are the high season for dangerous gastrointestinal illnesses such as cholera and typhoid.
For most people, it's unimaginable to think of physicians assuming the role of torturers and executioners. Yet under Saddam Hussein this is what took place. Whether the complicity was forced or voluntary, physicians participated for years in the state's apparatus of cruelty and terror. As researchers for Physicians for Human Rights in Iraq, we spoke to many doctors who reported on complicity in these heinous acts. The state wanted them to have "dirty hands," said one senior surgeon, who told us that they acted on a government mandate ordering all surgeons to participate in cutting off the ears and branding the foreheads of army deserters. In one hospital, all surgeons -- general, orthopedic, plastic, cardiac and neurosurgeons -- were reportedly required to perform the mutilation.
There is something surreal about the charges flying that President Bush lied when he claimed Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. Yesterday The Post continued the barrage, reporting that Defense Intelligence Agency analysts claimed last September merely that Iraq "probably" possessed "chemical agent in chemical munitions" and "probably" possessed "bulk chemical stockpiles, primarily containing precursors, but that also could consist of some mustard agent and VX," a deadly nerve agent.
Powell: Varied U.S. Role on Palestinians
SANTIAGO, Chile - The United States, eager to put the Palestinian Authority on the fast track to good governance, will be closely involved in developing police capabilities and revitalizing the moribund economy of the territories, Secretary of State Colin Powell says.
Powell said the first order of business for special envoy John Wolf and his team when they arrive in the region in a few days will be to ensure that Israel and the Palestinians are carrying out the promises they made during last week's summit with President Bush in Jordan.
Speaking to reporters while flying here Sunday for a hemispheric gathering, Powell said the mission also will try to get a start on developing the Palestinians' capacity to deal with terrorism as well as on promoting a viable economy.
"We want to see if we can do things to get the Palestinian economy started and not just as a deliverer of aid," he said.
Powell promised "hands-on involvement" in achieving the goals of the administration's "roadmap" to peace.
He said Wolf and his team "can't get derailed by acts of terror that are intended to derail. We can't let them (the terrorists) win."
Powell is attending the annual meeting of Organization of American States foreign ministers in Santiago. He returns home Tuesday after a brief stop in Argentina where he will meet with newly installed President Nestor Kirchner.
Before he left Washington, Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza Rice also discussed the Middle East on Sunday television talk shows.
Both said Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat should not be allowed to spoil Bush's peace initiative for the region. Lingering support for Arafat in Europe and the Middle East has complicated U.S. and Israeli efforts to marginalize him.
Powell will be back in the Middle East in two weeks for an international economic conference in Jordan. He will use the opportunity to convene a "quartet" meeting involving himself and representatives of the three other architects of the roadmap — the United Nations, European Union and Russia.
As for the Wolf team, Powell raised the possibility that it will be expanded as demand increases for its work.
He said he was increasingly confident of the Palestinian Authority's ability to utilize revenues "in a way that can be seen as accountable, transparent, so that the Palestinian people can see that their money is being handed properly."
The Bush administration is beginning its push for a settlement with the confidence of the two sides in each other at a low point, the product of nearly two years of violence.
Powell's trip started hours after the first serious episode of violence in the region since last week's Middle East summit. Three Palestinians dressed as Israeli soldiers killed four Israeli troops at an army post before being killed themselves.
Powell said it won't be easy to persuade the two rivals to opt for peace in an atmosphere of terrorism and violence.
On the plus side, he said the renunciation of violence by Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas is a recognition that such tactics won't "take the Palestinian people where they want to go. He knows that Israel will do what it has to defend itself ... Even in the presence of violence we have to do what we must do to implement provisions of the roadmap."
Powell acknowledged that a decision by the militant Hamas group to call off discussions with the Palestinian Authority was a setback.
"I am concerned that Hamas doesn't get it and that their activities will increasingly be seen by the international community as not allowing us to move forward toward peace."
He expressed hope that Hamas can be persuaded to re-engage with Abbas.
The violence was the first since the summit, but Rice said in Washington that it came as no surprise.
"There's no doubt that there are going to be those who try to scuttle" any work to bring about an end to the hostilities between the Israelis and Palestinians, she said.
"But this is the best chance that we've had in quite a long time and the Palestinian people have had in quite a long time for peace and for progress toward Palestinian statehood," Rice added
Arab leaders can help by cutting off the flow of money to terrorist organizations, as they have pledged to do, she said.
"Actually, (only) about 33 priceless vases, statues and jewels were missing."
"George conceded that during the 48 hours when his museum was being looted, he was extremely upset with the Americans....
I was very angry at the time, so much anger," George said. "But we should stop blaming each other. We're working together now."
NY Times
(Maybe it's not true? But, but it's also in the WashPost.)
Senator Blocks 850 Air Force Promotions
Senator Larry E. Craig of Idaho is blocking the promotions of more than 850 Air Force officers, including young pilots who fought in Iraq and the general nominated to bail out the scandal-plagued United States Air Force Academy, in a rare clash between the Pentagon and a senior Republican lawmaker.
Mr. Craig's price to free the frozen promotions now awaiting final Senate approval? Four C-130 cargo planes for the Idaho Air National Guard.
Re. VX, WMDs, bombing campaigns, "aspirin factories", Presidents, terrorism and the press:
US: The factory produced VX nerve gas [re.Sudan aspirin factory]
Aug. 25, 1998
The Pentagon considered releasing spy satellite photos Monday showing the damage to targets in Afghanistan, but decided not to do so. "We've said all we are going to say," said one Pentagon official. The Pentagon's tight hold on information contrasts with previous cruise missile strikes. After strikes on Iraq and Bosnia, U.S. military officials provided background briefings for reporters, specifying the number of missiles launched and the targets hit.
"We're operating in a different kind of war," said one military officer. "If the bad guys don't know what hit them, we're not going to tell them."
Many Pentagon officials describe the level of secrecy surrounding the attacks as "unprecedented."
At least two members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff office did not learn of the attacks until President Clinton announced them Thursday afternoon.
~~~
"We've said all we are going to say," said one Pentagon official.
The same day - Aug. 25, 1998 - Hillary, Bill and Walter Cronkite went out in Uncle Walty's sailboat for the cozy Martha's Vineyard PR campaign - just after Monica confessed.
The same day, Clinton added "racism" to the "war" as casually as the international anti-American leftist groups add the volatile charge of "racism" to their 'cause' by comparing himself to Nelson Mandella in a speech on Civil Rights before the press.
It was a busy day, as Vernon Jordan, who's law firm later represented the Sudan aspirin factory, also met privately with his friend, the President. There was no clamouring on the Hill for an investigation. The Sudan aspirin factory's owner had his bank assets frozen, he was accused of helping to finance terrorism. The assets were later unfrozen and the matter quietly dropped.
COALITION RESPONDS TO FICTIONAL AL SA'AH NEWSPAPER ARTICLE [VLWC+Jihadists=crimes against humanity!]
CENTCOM ^ | June 9, 2003
Posted on 06/09/2003 9:41 AM EDT by Ragtime Cowgirl
French Pluck Foreigners from Liberian Fighting
MONROVIA, Liberia (Reuters) - French special forces swooped into Monrovia by helicopter Monday to airlift hundreds of foreigners to safety as rebels crept closer to the center of the Liberian capital.
The thunder of mortars and heavy artillery echoed across the city as French troops shuttled expatriates, many of them aid workers, to a naval vessel waiting off the West African coast.
Smoke billowed over Monrovia's northwestern suburbs, under rebel attack for the fourth day running. A report from the U.N. regional information service IRIN said more than 100 bodies were lying by one of the capital's main roads.
"I feel pity, I feel pity about the country and the general situation," said Vladislav, a Red Cross doctor from Belarus as he was taken to safety by the French forces.
"You feel relieved as a human being because you are leaving, but Liberia deserves a better life," he said.
Military sources said the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation and Democracy launched a dawn strike on the city, despite promises to halt their offensive and give peace talks in Ghana a chance. LURD negotiators in Ghana declined comment.
The rebels met with a government delegation for informal talks Monday, but mediators from the West African regional body ECOWAS said negotiations were unlikely to get under way wholeheartedly until Wednesday.
A team of mediators planned to set off on a diplomatic shuttle to Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia, where it would meet President Charles Taylor.
"We will tell Taylor that ECOWAS is the only chance. He has to cooperate with us," Ghana's Foreign Minister Nana Akufo-Addo told Reuters.
The rebels Sunday gave Taylor a 72-hour ultimatum to step down. LURD and another rebel faction known as Model control around two thirds of Liberia, a country of three million.
CIVILIANS HUDDLE AT STADIUM
In Monrovia, thousands of people fleeing the fighting huddled outside the city's main soccer stadium, after wandering in the streets for days in search of shelter without food or drinking water.
Fearing a repeat of the battles which left Monrovia's streets littered with bodies in the 1990s, many called for a foreign force to stop the mayhem.
"There's no food anywhere. People are dying. The Americans must come. We want peace," said Fanny, after trudging for two days to reach the stadium.
Taylor has few friends within the international community. He has long been accused of orchestrating more than a decade of conflicts in West Africa and is accused of exporting Liberia's own strife into neighboring Sierra Leone and Ivory Coast.
Last week he was indicted by a U.N.-backed war crimes court for Sierra Leone.
In spite of the pressure, regional diplomats say Taylor is likely to fight to the very end. They worry about the prospect of a three-way battle for Monrovia among forces split on tribal lines.
Fleeing civilians say the rebels are as brutal as Taylor's militias.
"We want peace. That's what we want. No more armed conflict," said one fighter in a Michael Jackson T-shirt.
"Otherwise, everyone's going to die." Then he jumped back into a pickup truck to race back to the battle.
Mon June 9, 2003 10:47 AM ET WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The FBI said on Monday it was draining a pond in a forest near Frederick, Maryland as part of its investigation into the 2001 deadly anthrax attacks.
The FBI is in the process of searching public land located near the city of Frederick, just 50 miles from Washington, D.C., to try to determine who sent anthrax-laced letters mailed in September and October 2001, which killed five people.
"To facilitate the search activity, one pond will be drained," the FBI said in a brief statement. "This pond is located in a municipal forest owned by the city of Frederick."
"Based on extensive environmental testing already conducted, there is no indication of any threat to public health or safety associated with our search activities," it said.
Letters containing anthrax spores were mailed to news media offices in Washington, New York and Florida. Anthrax-laced letters were also sent to the offices of Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, a Democrat from South Dakota, and Sen. Patrick Leahy, a Vermont Democrat.
Law enforcement officials have declined to link the draining of the pond to Steven Hatfill, a former U.S. Army scientist who as been identified as a "person of interest" in the investigation.
Hatfill, whose former home in Frederick was searched twice last year, has denied any involvement in the anthrax attacks and has lashed out at the government for its handling of the case.
A germ warfare expert, Hatfill used to work for the Army Medical Institute of Infectious Disease at Fort Detrick, which is also located in Frederick and is the center of the nation's biological warfare defense research.
Hatfill, who has said he never worked with anthrax, has said reports that he was a suspect in the attacks have ruined his reputation and hurt his career.
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