Posted on 06/07/2003 9:25:40 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.
Weapons of Mass Destruction ( or Distorsion or Deception? You decide...)
Here are a few of the initial links:
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various FR links | 06-07-03 | The Heavy Equipment Guy
Posted on 06/07/2003 3:28 PM PDT by backhoe
What about all this stuff?
WARNING: Gathering WMD storm a crock. See what Clinton told nation in 1998...
The Guardian Fully Retracts BOTH Powell/Straw Story AND Wolfowitz "It's All About Oil" Story
CIA convinced truck-trailers held bioweapons labs ^
IRAQ: WMD source 'was senior Iraqi officer'
FAS (Fed Am Scientist) Report: Iraqi Precursor Chemicals Stored Separately for Weapon-side Mixing
THE ROAD ENDS FOR WMD ON WHEELS
Coalition forces enter possible WMD site
Initial tests suggest WMD "cocktail" found in Iraq (**Of special note--post #58, by Archy)
U.S. finds new evidence of Iraqi WMD (NBC training school, antidotes)
Latif Yahia now lives in exile with his wife and bodyguards.
I Was Saddam's Son by Karl Wendl, Latif Yahia
Description Providing a unique window on a closed society, this remarkable document reveals the horrors of Iraq's despotic regime and provides a chilling portrait of the man whom many consider to be Saddam's heir apparent.
When Latif Yahia, scion of one of Iraq's wealthiest families, was summoned from the front in the Iran-Iraq War to Saddam Hussein's inner sanctum, the Palace of the Republic, he was given a choice: become the double of Saddam's eldest son, Uday . . . or die. Latif underwent surgery to modify his appearance and was trained to move, speak, and behave exactly like Uday. As the stand-in for one of Iraq's most powerful and hated men, he participated in affairs of state, made public appearances, and during the Gulf War, visited the troops on the front lines while Uday stayed safely in Switzerland. He also saw firsthand the horrors and absurdities of a regime based on corruption and intrigue. He was privy to unbridled scenes of debauchery, and witnessed repeated instances of torture, terror, rape and murder. When Saddam's soldiers plundered Kuwait, Latif was there, both the tool of his master and the recorder of Iraqi crimes.
In this exposé, he tells what he saw and heard.
After years of service to Uday, Latif escaped through Kurdistan, where he found refuge with American forces. His co-author, Karl Wendl, the journalist who broke his story to the world, has written an epilogue covering key events in Iraq and within the regime since Latif's flight, culminating in the attempted assassination of Uday on December 12, 1996, and its aftermath. Because of Iraqi manipulation of the news media, it is still unclear how debilitating Uday's wounds are, though he appears to have recovered from them sufficiently to resume his former activities and again be a dangerous man. Should he inherit Saddam's power, whether alone or with his brother, he may prove to be more destablizing to the region, more of a threat, than Saddam ever was.
Uday seen in Baghdad, too scared to surrender - War on Iraq
Saddam Hussein's elder son, Uday, was in hiding in Baghdad 13 days ago and had considered giving himself up to United States forces, a former body double has said.
Latif Yahia, who is in Ireland awaiting a visa to rejoin his family in England, said on Tuesday that he had spoken to a mutual friend in Baghdad 12 days ago.
The friend had told him that Uday and two bodyguards had stayed at his house on the two previous nights.
Mr Yahia said he did not know where Uday was now.
"He wants to surrender but keeps changing his mind. He sits in his wheelchair crying, he can't go outside because he knows he'll be killed," said Mr Yahia, who had extensive plastic surgery to act as a body double for Uday for more than four years before fleeing Iraq in 1991.
"Uday spent two nights at [the friend's] house. He said Uday was in bits - he needs medicine for his injuries but he has none."
Mr Yahia said Uday, who was left partially paralysed after an attempt to kill him in 1996, has been accused of brutal human rights abuses, including torture and rape. Nothing has been heard of him or other family members since US-led forces overthrew the former Iraqi regime in April.
No. 3 on the US "most wanted" list, Uday was commander of Iraq's feared paramilitary unit known as the Saddam Fedayeen, and was also chairman of the Iraqi Olympic Committee.
Mr Yahia has written extensively of his time with Uday. His autobiography, The Devil's Double is due out this week.
Mr Yahia said the friend in Baghdad was his former neighbour and that the two went to school with Uday.
Mr Yahia said Uday had asked the friend to act as a go-between with the US military to negotiate his surrender.
"This man [the friend] was afraid to do that. He said if I go to the US, they will arrest me because they will think I am part of Uday's group."
Mr Yahia said Uday was unlikely to take his own life and would eventually surrender. "He's not strong enough to kill himself - I know what he's like through years of living with him."
He said he felt no sympathy for his former boss.
"He made my life hell. He forced me to leave my country and destroyed my personality. I want him brought to justice."
Lieutenant Colonel Joar Fjellstad, leader of the Norwegian contingent to the International Security Force in Afghanistan (ISAF) says that the Norwegian soliders may be sent home, due to the risk of military attacks.
On Saturday, four German soldiers were killed and 29 wounded by a suicide attack on ISAF forces outside Afghanistan's capital Kabul.
On May 13th, two Norwegian officers came under attack, and one was seriously wounded.
Lieutenant Colonel Fjellstad says Saturday's attack could just as easily have involved Norwegian ISAF soldiers.
-If the risk is considered too high, we must either reduce the activity, or completely cease operations. Our point in being here is to help, not participate in a war. If we are prvented from helping, we'd better return home, Fjellstad says.
Foreign Office spokesman Karsten Klepsvik says a decicion to send home the troops would have to be taken by Defence Minister Kristin Krohn Devold
AT least three Palestinians opened fire with automatic weapons early today on the Erez checkpoint between the Gaza Strip and Israel, killing or wounding several people before being shot down by Israeli troops, Israeli public radio reported.
The radio said at least six Israeli soldiers were hit in the shooting near the Erez industrial zone where thousands of Palestinian workers are employed.
Late yesterday the Israeli army reimposed its tight control over the West Bank, but not over the Gaza Strip, following warnings of terrorist attacks.
London,Sunday, June 08, 2003: In a new twist to the saga of Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction, a leading daily today claimed that the deposed Iraqi President ran a network of secret cells that carried out chemical and biological research but produced no weapons.
"The laboratories were hidden in basements in houses around Baghdad with teams of just three or four people," a top Iraqi security official, who had procured supplies for the programme through an international network of front companies told 'The Sunday Times'.
"But it was all just theory. The aim was to keep us up to date and ready so that if the (United Nations) sanctions were lifted or we needed to produce chemical or biological weapons again, we could start up immediately."
The claims of the general, who spoke on condition that he would not be identified, came as the 1,400-strong US-led Iraq survey team reached Baghdad to step up the hunt for weapons of mass destruction, amid allegations that British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W Bush may have exaggerated the weapons threat to justify going to war.
The new team will broaden the search, looking for documents and interviewing factory workers and lorry drivers as well as scientists.
The newspaper, in a report today, claimed that Downing Street, the Prime Minister's Office-cum-Residence, scrapped a six-page dossier drawn up by intelligence officials in March last year because it failed to establish that Saddam posed a growing threat.
Blair claimed six months later that Saddam was continuing to produce chemical and biological weapons.
(PTI)
09:52 IST
THE intelligence agencies of Saddam Hussein ran a network of secret cells that carried out chemical and biological research but produced no weapons, according to a top Iraqi security official.
"The laboratories were hidden in basements in houses around Baghdad with teams of just three or four people," said a general who procured supplies for the programme through an international network of front companies.
"But it was all just theory. The aim was to keep us up to date and ready so that if the [United Nations] sanctions were lifted or we needed to produce chemical or biological weapons again, we could start up immediately."
The claims of the general, who spoke on condition that he would not be identified, came as the 1,400-strong US-led Iraq survey team arrived in Baghdad to step up the hunt for weapons of mass destruction, amid allegations that Tony Blair and President George W Bush may have exaggerated the weapons threat to justify going to war.
The new team will broaden the search, looking for documents and interviewing factory workers and lorry drivers as well as scientists.
Inquiries by The Sunday Times have established that Downing Street scrapped a six-page intelligence dossier drawn up by intelligence officials in March last year because it failed to establish that Saddam posed a growing threat.
Blair claimed six months later that Saddam was continuing to produce chemical and biological weapons. Iraqi scientists are understood to have told British and US intelligence that production of poison gas and biological weapons stopped before the 1991 Gulf war.
The general insisted that search teams would find no weapons. "I challenge anyone in Iraq, from north to south, to find anything," he said.
According to the general, the research programme was set up in 1996 with members of the Mukhabarat intelligence agency and the Special Security Organisation. "The orders came directly from Saddam, what we called a red order, and his words were we must keep the victory going," he said.
"We did small trials, experiments in basements or rooms. From the outside nobody would guess. But because of these cells we could start up production again very easily."
The existence of the programme was confirmed by Dr Ala Saeed, who was head of quality control at the Al-Muthanna State Establishment, Iraq's main chemical weapons complex.
"We knew the Mukhabarat had small laboratories around Baghdad but not where or what they were doing," he said. Referring to it as "the forbidden programme", his voice dropped to a whisper and his hands shook as he said: "We were completely away from it. The SSO and the Mukhabarat didn't trust anyone."
Last night American and British officials were conducting house-to-house searches for the laboratories.
Attacks on American forces in Iraq continued yesterday when a soldier was killed near Saddam's former stronghold of Tikrit. Five bodies of men said to have been killed in the closing stages of the war were recovered from a mass grave south of Baghdad, where local people claimed that more than 100 people had been buried.
U.S. President George W. Bush's resolve to move the Israeli-Palestinian peace process forward surprised many Israelis, who believed that the current administration in Washington fears stepping into the Middle East quagmire and will make do with diplomatic lip service only.
But Bush has undergone a change, as discovered by Prime Minister Ariel Sharon at their meeting in Aqaba last Wednesday. Bush had spoken of his desire for an Israeli-Palestinian accord in the past too, but not with much enthusiasm. This time, Sharon discerned a messianic passion he hadn't seen before.
The practical expressions of U.S. involvement have been the multitude of trips to the region made by high-ranking U.S. officials since the war in Iraq, the Israeli government's forced acceptance of the road map, the meticulous staging of the Aqaba summit, and the decision to place the handling of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the top of the agendas of National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Blindfolded and handcuffed Palestinian prisoners are escorted by Israeli police officers before being released outside the Huwara checkpoint, in the outskirts of the West Bank town of Nablus, Saturday, June 7, 2003.
3 Palestinians Killed in Gaza Gunfight
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Three Palestinians disguised as Israeli soldiers sneaked into an Israeli army post Sunday and shot several bystanders before being killed by troops — the first deadly attack since last week's Mideast summit.
The shooting was a major setback to a U.S.-backed peace plan and came just hours after Palestinian militant groups affirmed they would not halt attacks on Israelis. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.
Three armed groups — Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade — claimed joint responsibility for the shooting. A leaflet gave the names of the gunmen, all in their early 20s, one from each group.
"This joint operation was committed to confirm our people's united choice of holy war and resistance until the end of occupation over our land and holy places," the leaflet said.
The Israeli military declined comment on Israeli dead and wounded. Israel Radio and an Israeli settler spokesman reported eight casualties, including one person seriously wounded and three lightly hurt.
The gunmen, who wore Israeli army uniforms, attacked the army post under cover of heavy mist, opening fire on troops and civilians, radio reports said. The post is near an Israeli-run industrial zone at the northern end of the Gaza Strip.
The shooting was a major setback for the so-called "road map" to Mideast peace, formally launched at last week's Mideast summit in Jordan. The attack underscored the determination of militant groups to derail the plan.
Success of the plan depends to a large extent on Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas' ability to rein in the militant groups — Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade linked to his own Fatah movement.
Abbas has said he will not use force against the armed groups for fear of civil war, and as recently as last week appeared confident that he could negotiate a truce with them.
However, Hamas, the largest and most deadly of the groups, announced Friday that it would leave truce talks because it believes Abbas has made too many concessions in his speech at the Mideast summit, also attended by President Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon. In the speech, Abbas condemned violence against Israelis and called for an end to the "armed intefadeh."
On Saturday evening, Hamas met with the violent Islamic Jihad group and other radical factions, and participants agreed they would not stop bombings and shootings.
"All agree on our peoples rights to resist occupation," a Hamas leader, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, said Saturday.
Islamic Jihad official Mohammed Hindi said that "no changes have been made in the previous position concerning the cease-fire."
Reflecting the continuing tension, Israel reimposed a closure on the West Bank, banning Palestinians from entering Israel, except for humanitarian cases. The military said the closure was in force as of midnight, "due to serious security alerts."
After Sunday's shooting, Gaza crossings into Israel were also closed.
Israeli security sources said there have been dozens of warnings of planned terror attacks. Israel had lifted its last closure just a week ago after a meeting between Abbas and Sharon.
Palestinian Foreign Minister Nabil Shaath said Saturday that Abbas would never use force against Hamas. That meant Hamas' decision to leave the truce talks could derail the peace plan, he said.
"We either reach a voluntary cease-fire ... or there will be no deal with Israel or road map," Shaath said in an interview with Future TV, based in Lebanon. "Our friends in Hamas and Jihad should acknowledge this and act responsibly."
Shaath accused Hamas leaders of jumping the gun by pulling out of the talks before Abbas could meet with them to explain what happened in closed-door meetings at the summit.
Palestinian officials said before Sunday's attack that the Hamas walkout may not be final and there's still a chance for a truce. Hamas, known for its pragmatism, would not risk a confrontation with security forces and would quickly resume talks, they said.
Palestinian Information Minister Nabil Amr, speaking before a Palestinian Cabinet meeting Saturday, urged Hamas to return to the negotiations and give Abbas a chance to defend his actions at the summit.
"The only way to resolve the issue ... is through dialogue and whoever leaves the negotiating table is the loser," he said.
The Palestinian parliament plans to hold a special session soon to hear a report from Abbas on the latest developments, Amr said.
BAGHDAD, Iraq - An Iraqi civilian was killed by U.S. troops during an ambush in the troubled city of Fallujah, the military said Sunday.
It said gunmen attacked a U.S. patrol with automatic weapons and a rocket propelled grenade late Saturday. Soldiers returned fire and killed one of the assailants, while the other fled, said a statement released by the Central Command.
None of the U.S. soldiers was injured.
"Pockets of resistance remain in the region between Fallujah and Ramadi and they appear to be coordinated at the local level," it said.
Fallujah, a Sunni Muslim stronghold about 30 miles west of Baghdad, has been the scene of almost constant clashes since U.S. troops shot dead 18 demonstrators and wounded 78 others in two confrontations in April.
More than 1,500 troops from the 3rd Infantry Division were added to the area between Fallujah and the nearby town of Ramadi to prevent unrest and quell the attacks.
Dozens of U.S. troops have been killed or injured in central Iraq since the end of the war nearly two months ago.
SPC Shoshana Johnson, who was wounded and held prisoner in Iraq, is welcomed by Lt. Colonel Terrence Marsh during a ceremony honoring Johnson at First United Christian Church in Los Angeles, Friday, June 6, 2003. Johnson and other members of the 507th Maintenance Company were captured in a March 23 ambush near Nasiriyah in which nine soldiers died. Johnson, who was shot in the ankles, and five others were rescued after 21 days.
UN Nuclear Experts Check Out Iraq's Tuwaitha Site
TUWAITHA, Iraq (Reuters) - U.N. nuclear experts in white protective suits surveyed a looted storage facility at Iraq's main nuclear site Sunday, witnesses said.
A Reuters cameraman said the seven-member International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) team was working under tight U.S. military escort at the vast Tuwaitha site, about 20 km (12 miles) south of Baghdad.
U.S. soldiers confiscated the cameraman's video, saying no media coverage was permitted near the nuclear research compound.
The IAEA team arrived in Iraq Friday on a limited mission to check on looting from the site where low-enriched uranium, known as yellow-cake, was stored in barrels.
Looters emptied some of the barrels and sold them to local people for $2 each. U.S. forces say they paid $3 a barrel to recover the stolen items and five radiological devices.
Some locals who unwittingly washed clothes or stored food in the barrels say children are falling ill, but IAEA and U.S. military officials say they believe the health risk is low.
The IAEA team is operating under strict guidelines from the Pentagon, which does not want to open the door to a renewed role for the agency in postwar Iraq.
The United States is expanding its own team to hunt for Saddam Hussein's alleged arsenal of weapons of mass destruction and wants to exclude the IAEA and other U.N. arms inspectors.
The failure of the United States and Britain to find any banned weapons since their March 20 invasion has fueled a political furor over whether they misled the world by arguing that Iraq posed a deadly threat to international security.
U.N. Nuclear Experts Arrive in Iran
TEHRAN, Iran - Iran has not breached an international nuclear nonproliferation agreement and is not bothered by accusations to the contrary, an Atomic Energy Organization of Iran spokesman said Saturday.
Khalil Mousavi made the comments as a team of International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors arrived in Iran to assess the nation's controversial atomic activities. The Vienna, Austria-based agency has published a report claiming Iran has not kept promises to safeguard nuclear material.
"We have not violated the NPT (Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty). A person who hasn't done anything wrong will not be worried about such allegations," Mousavi told The Associated Press.
Washington accuses Tehran of wanting to build a nuclear bomb and wants the IAEA to declare Iran in violation of the international treaty.
Iran has said it has no plans to develop nuclear weapons.
"Repetition of U.S. allegations will not make it true," Mousavi said.
Iran will study the IAEA report once it officially receives the document and will respond to it when the agency's board meets June 16, Mousavi said.
A diplomat from an IAEA member state said Friday the report indicated Iran had not declared the import of some nuclear material and its subsequent processing.
"Iran has failed to meet its obligations under its safeguards agreement with respect to the reporting of nuclear material, the subsequent processing and use of that material and the declaration of facilities where that material was stored and processed," the diplomat quoted the report as saying.
Mousavi said the visit by the IAEA inspectors would make clear Iran's "transparent nuclear policy."
The visit is seen widely as a chance for Iran to counter accusations of a nuclear weapons program and show it is eager to cooperate with the IAEA.
In February, Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the IAEA, visited the incomplete Natanz plant about 200 miles south of Tehran. Diplomats accompanying him said he was taken aback by the advanced stage of a project there using hundreds of centrifuges to enrich uranium.
A senior U.S. administration official recently said on condition of anonymity that the technology was invented by URENCO, a British-German-Dutch consortium, but suggested it was not provided through the firm but rather was stolen and sold to Iran.
Asked if Iran used URENCO technology to produce centrifuges in Natanz, Mousavi said: "We have not obtained technology from a particular place. Iran's nuclear technology is locally made.
"However, we will make use of the world's advanced science wherever necessary."
Iran also has an $800 million contract with Russia to build a 1,000-megawatt light-water reactor in Bushehr, and the United States has expressed strong concerns that Iran potentially could extract plutonium from the reactor's spent fuel for use in nuclear weapons.
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Three Palestinians disguised as Israeli soldiers sneaked into an army post Sunday and killed four Israelis before being killed by troops — the first deadly attack on Israelis since last week's Mideast summit.
The shooting could be a major setback to a U.S.-backed peace plan and came just hours after Palestinian militant groups affirmed they would not halt attacks on Israelis.
Three armed groups — Hamas, Islamic Jihad and the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade — claimed joint responsibility for the shooting. A leaflet gave the names of the gunmen, all in their early 20s, one from each group.
"This joint operation was committed to confirm our people's united choice of holy war and resistance until the end of occupation over our land and holy places," the leaflet said.
The Al Aqsa militia is linked to the ruling Fatah (news - web sites) movement, and its involvement in the shooting was a direct challenge to Palestinian Prime Minister Mahmoud Abbas, a senior Fatah member, who has been trying to persuade militants to halt attacks on Israelis.
The Israeli military declined comment on the Israeli dead and wounded. However, medics and an Israeli settler spokesman said four Israelis were killed and four were wounded in the shooting.
Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim told Israel radio the attacks proved the militant groups "are not ready to accept this (peace) process."
The gunmen, who wore Israeli army uniforms, attacked the army post near the Erez crossing into Israel just after dawn. The post is near an Israeli-run industrial zone at the northern end of the Gaza Strip.
The shooting underscored the determination of militants to derail the so-called "road map" to Mideast peace, which envisions a Palestinian state by 2005.
A top Hamas official, Abdel Aziz Rantisi, said the attack was intended to send a message to the Palestinian leadership that Palestinians will continue to fight Israel and will not "surrender to the pressure exerted by Israel and the United States of America."
"We are unified in the trenches of resistance," he said.
The three-stage peace plan was formally launched at last week's Mideast summit in Jordan, with President Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Abbas attending.
Success of the road map depends to a large extent on Abbas' ability to rein in the militant groups. Abbas has said he will not use force against the armed groups for fear of civil war, and as recently as last week appeared confident he could negotiate a truce with them.
However, Hamas, the most deadly of the groups, on Friday walked away from truce talks, saying Abbas made too many concessions at the summit, where he condemned violence against Israelis and called for an end to the "armed intefadeh."
On Saturday, Hamas met with Islamic Jihad and other radical factions, and participants agreed they would not stop bombings and shootings. "All agree on our peoples rights to resist occupation," Rantisi said after the meeting.
Reflecting the continuing tension, Israel reimposed a closure on the West Bank, banning Palestinians from entering Israel, except for humanitarian cases. The military said the closure was in force as of midnight, "due to serious security alerts."
After Sunday's shooting, Gaza crossings into Israel were also closed. Israeli security sources said there have been dozens of warnings of planned terror attacks.
Sharon had eased a previous closure a week ago as a goodwill gesture to Abbas ahead of the summit.
Palestinian officials had said before Sunday's attack that the Hamas walkout may not be final and there's still a chance for a truce. Hamas, known for its pragmatism, would not risk a confrontation with security forces and would quickly resume talks, they said.
"The only way to resolve the issue ... is through dialogue and whoever leaves the negotiating table is the loser," Palestinian Information Minister Nabil Amr said Saturday.
The Palestinian parliament plans to hold a special session soon to hear a report from Abbas on the latest developments, Amr said.
Five Palestinian radical groups say will pursue intifada
GAZA CITY (AFP) - Five Palestinian radical movements vowed Saturday to continue their armed intifada against Israel, a participant at a joint meeting in Gaza City said.
"We decided to pursue the armed intifada because we reject the conclusions of the Aqaba summit where resistance was equated with terrorism," Mohammed el-Hindi of the Islamic Jihad told AFP.
At the summit in the Jordanian Red Sea resort with his Israeli counterpart Ariel Sharon and US President George W. Bush, Palestinian prime minister Mahmud Abbas declared there was "no military solution" to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and called for an end to the "armed intifada."
Among the groups which attended Saturday's meeting with the Islamic Jihad were the hardline Islamic movement Hamas, Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat's Fatah as well as the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine and the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
The Palestinian factions had met to discuss the outcome of the Middle East peace summit where Abbas pledged to end the uprising against Israel.
Their meeting comes ahead of another one set for this week, according to the Palestinian Authority, between Abbas and the factions.
"We succeeded in discussing the recent summits while waiting for clarifications which will be provided by Abu Mazen," Ibrahim Abou Naja, a spokesman for the umbrella organization which groups all the factions told reporters earlier, using the premier's nickname.
"The intra-Palestinian differences on the questions raised (at the summits) should not prevent us from gathering and discussing them," he said.
Hamas earlier ruled out any new talks with Abbas on the ceasefire unless he renounced his statements from the summit with Bush and Sharon on Wednesday.
Another summit the day before grouped Bush and Abbas with moderate Arab leaders at the Egyptian Red Sea resort of Sharm El-Sheikh.
But an Islamic Jihad representative, Khaled al Batch, said he had "proposed an enlarged meeting between the Palestinian factions and the government of Mr. Abbas and not separate meetings."
Iraq's Aussie farm chief hits back at US dismissal calls
BAGHDAD (AFP) - The Australian heading the US-led coalition's agriculture team in Iraq hit back at charges by American wheatgrowers that he was looking out for his country's farm interests at their expense.
Iraqi agriculture department coordinator Trevor Flugge said the accusation by US Wheat Associates chief Alan Tracey was "absolute rubbish," and that a demand for his dismissal was a "revolting" slur.
"It is very easy to sit in air-conditioned offices in Washington and fire off letters to the secretary of state," Flugge told AFP.
"We have got a team of people here -- Americans and Australians -- who are working 15 hours a day to try and stand up agriculture in this country which is nearly broken."
Flugge said that as the coalition's top farming adviser he did not even deal with wheat imports.
The only food imports which he was responsible for were chicken feed and soya beans for livestock, neither of which Australia exported.
The United States was in any case barred from competing for contracts for either as it had been decided to keep Iraq free of genetically modified products until a new Iraqi government was in place to set its own policy.
The only food currently being imported was under contracts signed under Saddan Hussein's now ousted regime, Flugge said.
"No new contracts are currently being written by anyone for almost anything."
He acknowledged that there were outstanding wheat contracts on which "someone is going to have to take a decision in the next couple of months."
But he said the decision on whether to break them despite the "serious legal ramifications" would certainly not fall to him, and probably not to the far larger number of US advisors in the occupation authority either.
"I don't think there will be any decisions that are going to be made until the (Iraqi) interim administration is in place," he said.
US wheatgrowers have been keen to move in on a lucrative market which earned Australia some 800 million Australian dollars (528 million US dollars) a year before the war under the United Nations oil for food programme.
But their demands for the dismissal of the sole Australian senior adviser here have undermined the close alliance during the conflict.
"US Wheat Associates is not prepared to accept Australian decision-making on wheat-buying processes for the Iraqi people," Tracey said.
The accusations against Flugge came after US Wheat Associates accused their Australian rivals of achieving their pre-war dominance of Iraqi imports by paying kickbacks to Saddam's family.
The Australian Wheat Board threatened to sue over the "ludicrous" allegations and Trade Minister Mark Vaile officially informed the US embassy that his government found them insulting.
Jun 7 2003 A SECOND Intelligence Corps sergeant has been arrested in Iraq after child porn pictures were allegedly found on a military laptop computer.
The soldier is being quizzed in the southern port of Umm Qasr by Special Investigations Branch officers. The Mirror revealed yesterday how officers are already quizzing another sergeant from the same unit.
He was held on Thursday after a superior officer reportedly used the suspect laptop.
The two soldiers, who led "eyes and ears" interrogation teams during the conflict, will be flown home for a fuller investigation this weekend.
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