Tuesday, March 04, 2003

-Stop That Train!

by Adele Oliveri

Italy is already at war. Nobody would have noticed, had it not been for a handful of trains carrying US military equipment from the military base of Ederle (north-eastern Italy) to Camp Darby (Tuscany); and had it not been, of course, for the mobilizations of a few hundreds of Italian activists who over the past few days have been chasing those trains all along their route, to stop or at least delay their journey, in an attempt to enforce “an embargo against American weapons that will kill civilians in Iraq”.

This week’s protests, following in the wake of the successful demonstrations of February 15, are contributing to the strengthening of the Italian anti-war front, as the presence on the Italian territory of these “trains of death” rekindles the debate over Italy’s logistic role in supporting an attack on Iraq.

Due to its geographic location, since the end of World War 2 Italy has been a key strategic location for the establishment of US and NATO military bases, initially to contain the threats posed by the then Soviet Union. There are currently 6 major US bases and 4 major NATO bases located across the country, plus countless military installation, employing about 13 thousand military and 15 thousand civilian personnel.

Camp Darby, near Pisa, Tuscany, widely considered the largest US arsenal abroad, allegedly hosts 20 thousands tons of artillery ammunitions, missiles, bombs and over 8 thousand tons of high explosives; due to its proximity to the port of Livorno, one of the two largest in Italy together with Genova, Camp Darby is also one of 6 US bases worldwide used for mobilizing troops and equipment. And Livorno is precisely the final destination of the train’s military cargo; from there, it will be shipped to Turkey and to the Iraq war front.

Since the inception of the Iraqi crisis, the US Administration has been pressing the Italian government to grant access to the country’s airspace, bases and transport infrastructure, to facilitate the deployment of troops and equipment towards the Middle East.

Needless to say, Berlusconi and his cabinet proved all too easy to convince. On February 14, the Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Martino, sent a letter to the Italian Parliament informing that he had granted all the US’ request concerning transport infrastructures, both civil and military, specifying that “those requests are not part of actions leading to the preparation of war against Iraq, but of an effort to put pressure on Saddam Husseins’s regime”.

Martino’s letter aroused widespread indignation among the opposition and the anti-war movement, as it was rightly perceived as a declaration of unilateral support to a US military action on Iraq, regardless of any decision taken by the UN Security Council, without giving the Parliament the opportunity to debate Italy’s involvement in the conflict, and in stark opposition to the widespread public opposition to war.

It is not surprising, therefore, that the most militant wing of the anti-war movement, headed by the Disobbedienti ("The Disobedients") decided to step up the confrontation, preparing to intervene with peaceful direct actions at the earliest signs of military maneuvers on the Italian territory.

They didn’t have to wait long. A week later, on Friday 21, the first two trains (out of a planned total of 26), departing from a minor station in North East, were already being loaded with military vehicles and equipment, heading for Camp Darby. Alerted by rail workers, demonstrators made it quickly to the spot, holding up for a few hours one of the two trains while the second managed to depart. But it was not going to be an easy ride.

Thanks to an efficient communication network, protesters, often operating in relatively small groups (20-30 people) set up mobile blockades all along the route, lighting up fires and obstructing the tracks, forcing the train to come to a halt and to change its route several times before it reached its final destination. Their actions didn’t go unchallenged, of course, as the police promptly stepped in to clear the route as the train advanced at a walking pace. The train eventually made it to Camp Darby, with several hours’ delay.

By the end of day one, it was clear that demonstrators were not going to be alone in their pursuit: rail workers, tacitly supported by their unions, immediately declared the would boycott the trains’ operations, refusing to work and providing the demonstrators with all the logistic information required to set up blockades (itineraries, timetables, etc.); the mayors of Pisa and Livorno (the two Tuscan cities near to Camp Darby) formally asked the government to provide detailed information of the military cargo, complaining they had not been notified that such operations were going to take place; and dockworkers in Livorno proclaimed their intention to strike in the event they were asked to load military equipment.

The workers’ resistance received the full support of Sergio Cofferati, former leader of CGIL (the largest Italian trade union) and widely regarded as one of the most influential figures of the Italian left, who on that same day issued a statement encouraging “the use of all possible democratic measures to contrast war”.

Cofferati’s declaration was (unintentionally?) matched by a very similar (yet profoundly different) statement by the Minister of the Interiors Giuseppe Pisanu who, taken aback by the strength of the protests, advocated the “use of all possible measures, and if necessary [...] the full restraining force of the state” against the demonstrators.

Indeed, as actions intensified over the following days, so did police repression: demonstrators were often beaten and forcibly removed from the tracks, and in some cases identified and reported to the local police station. But this was not enough to deter protesters, who partially changed their strategy switching to what they called “creative disobedience”.

Given that the trains of death were transiting on the same tracks and at the same time as regular trains, what easier way to block the former than by arresting the latter? The “put a brake to war” campaign was launched: activists would get on board civil trains and operate the emergency brake, creating further delays to the trains of death that were following on the same tracks.

(Interestingly enough, there weren’t reports of any complaints by travelers and commuters affected by the delays, who on several occasions where seen to be very supportive and encouraging, cheering up the activists with rounds of applauses.)

Blockades, rallies, occupations and sit-ins spread like wildfire, also thanks to alternative media such as global radio, radio sherwood and indymedia italy, that provided live coverage of the protests, advised demonstrators on how to reach the hot spots along the rail tracks, invited to report the sighting of trains, offered the necessary legal advice and even acted as forums for discussing methods and forms of civil disobedience (on indymedia, a rail worker was explaining how to turn the semaphores red without hurting oneself).

By Tuesday 25 February it was apparent that the blockades were being successful in creating some serious disruptions to the military maneuvers: the Ministry of Interior and the Public Security Department had decided to make trains travel at night, in an attempt to escape the blockades, while some of the military cargo was being deviated on the highways causing severe delays and long queues.

On the same day, demonstrators also learnt that the US military were negotiating with Slovenia the possibility of redirecting the remaining trains across their borders, to reach Turkey through Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria. While initial instructions (later classified) mentioned 26 trains, only 8 had made it to their final destination by Tuesday. And no trains were spotted on the following day either, as the demonstrations reached their peak with a 10,000 people march in Pisa and blockades, occupations and demonstrations all across the country, even in those regions where no trains of death were due to travel.

Are there any lessons we can learn from these events? First, there are acts of civil disobedience capable of bringing together a wide range of social forces, beyond the most radical constituencies. By joining forces with rail workers and their trade unions, not only did demonstrators get access to key logistic information, but their actions gained a greater credibility among the general public, large sections of which have until recently been quite cautious in supporting acts of civil disobedience.

Second, successful action does not necessarily require rigid, centralized organizational structures. Indeed, last week’s train blockades were the outcome of the efforts of diverse groups, mainly from social centers and militant organizations, sharing a long history of coordinated actions while maintaining their own identity and organizational autonomy.

Third, there is no point in sitting around waiting for the next big demo to be arranged, before we mobilize over and over again. Small local actions, if cleverly organized, can be equally powerful and effective in showing our determination to stop the war. It didn’t take thousands to obstruct the plans of the American military in Italy: a handful of courageous and determined people was all that was needed. As the African proverb goes, “if you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping in a small room with a mosquito.”

PS - as i write, i learn that, according to the Minister of the Interior, “the shipment of US military equipment was regularly completed” with the arrival of the last train in Pisa, and that “police managed to guarantee at the same time public security and the right to demonstrate”. In the meanwhile, however, il Manifesto (Italian left-wing daily) is reporting the sighting of at least 10 “ghost” planes, carrying military personnel and equipment, that have been stopping over at night at the Roman civil airport of Fiumicino, directed to Kuwait…

-So, Bush Wants Civil Disobedience?

by Naomi Klein

The U.S. President is urging Iraqis to rise up against Saddam Hussein. It’s time to turn the domestic tables and—voil$B!&(B—escalate the war against the war

At the Pentagon, they call it the Voil$B!&(BMoment.

That’s when Iraqi soldiers and civilians, with bombs raining down on Baghdad, suddenly scratch their heads and say to themselves: “These bombs aren’t really meant to kill me and my family, they are meant to free us from an evil dictator!” At that point, they thank Uncle Sam, lower their weapons, abandon their posts, and rise up against Saddam Hussein. Voil$B!&(B

Or at least that’s how it is supposed to work, according to the experts in “psychological operations” who are already waging a fierce information war in Iraq. The Voil$B!&(BMoment made its first foray into the language of war last Monday, when a New York Times reporter quoted an unnamed senior U.S. military official using the term.

This peppering of military jargon with bon mots could be Colin Powell’s latest plan to win over the French on the Security Council. More likely, it’s the product of the Bush administration’s penchant for hiring advertising executives and flaky management consultants as foreign policy advisers (doesn’t the Voil$B!&(BMoment sound suspiciously like the Wow Factor—sold to millions of corporate executives as the key to building a powerful brand?).

Wherever it came from, the Pentagon has Voil$B!&(Bin its sights, and it is sparing no expense to hit its target. Airborne transmitters are flying over Iraq broadcasting radio propaganda. Iraqi business, military and political officials have been bombarded with e-mails and phone calls urging them to see the light and switch sides. Fighter planes have dropped more than eight million leaflets informing Iraqi soldiers that their lives will be spared if they walk away from their military equipment. “It sends a direct message to the operator on the gun,” says Lieutenant-General T. Michael Moseley, commander of allied air forces in the Persian Gulf.

According to the senior military official quoted in the Times, Central Command will know it has reached Voil$B!&(Bwhen “we see a break with the leadership.” In other words, the U.S. military is advocating nothing less than mass civil disobedience in Iraq, a refusal to obey orders, or to participate in an unjust war.

Will it work?

I’m skeptical. There was, after all, a Voil$B!&(BMoment during the last gulf war, when many Iraqis living near the Kuwaiti border believed U.S. promises that they would be supported if they rose up against Saddam Hussein. It was followed shortly after by a Screw You Moment, when the rebels watched U.S. forces abandon them to be massacred by Saddam Hussein.

But all this Voil$B!&(Btalk got me thinking: The civil disobedience the U.S. military is hoping to provoke in Iraq is exactly the sort of thing the antiwar movement needs to inspire in our countries if we are really going to stop, or at least curtail, the pending devastation in Iraq. What would it take for large numbers of people in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Canada—and any other country assisting with the war effort—to truly break with our leaders and refuse to comply? Can we create thousands of Voil$B!&(BMoments back home?

That is the question facing the global antiwar movement as it plans its follow-up to the spectacular marches on Feb. 15. During the Vietnam War, thousands of young Americans decided to break with their leaders when their draft cards arrived. And it was this willingness to go beyond protest and into active disobedience that slowly eroded the domestic viability of the war.

What will today’s conscientious objectors and military deserters look like? Well, all week in Italy, activists have been blocking dozens of trains carrying U.S. weapons and personnel on their way to a military base near Pisa, while Italian dockworkers are refusing to load arms shipments. Last weekend, two U.S. military bases were blockaded in Germany, as was the U.S. consulate in Montreal, and the air base at RAF Fairford in Gloucester, England. This coming Saturday, thousands of Irish activists are expected to show up at Shannon airport, which, despite Irish claims of neutrality, is being used by the U.S. military to refuel its planes en route to Iraq.

In Chicago last week, more than 100 high-school students demonstrated outside the headquarters of Leo Burnett, the advertising firm that designed the U.S. military’s hip, youth-targeted Army of One campaign. The students claim that in underfunded Latino and African-American high schools, the army recruiters far outnumber the college scouts.

The most ambitious plan has come from San Francisco, where a coalition of antiwar groups is calling for an emergency non-violent “counterstrike” the day after the war starts: “Don’t go to work or school. Call in sick, walk out: We will impose real economic, social and political costs and stop business as usual until the war stops.”

It’s a powerful idea: Peace bombs exploding wherever profits are being made from the war—gas stations, arms manufacturers, missile-happy TV stations. It might not stop the war but it would show that there is a principled position between hawk and hippy—a militant resistance for the protection of life.

For some, this escalation of the war against war seems extreme. There should simply be more weekend marches, bigger next time, so big they are impossible to ignore.

Of course, there should be more marches, but it should also be clear by now that there is no protest too big for our politicians to ignore. They know that public opinion in most of the world is against the war.

What our politicians are carefully assessing before the bombs start falling, is whether the antiwar sentiment is “hard” or “soft.” The question is not “do people care about war?” but how much do they care? Is it a mild consumer preference against war, one that will evaporate by the next election? Or is it something deeper and more lasting—a, shall we say, Voil$B!&(Bkind of care?

On one end of the caring spectrum, Levi’s Europe has decided to cash in on the antiwar fad by releasing a limited-edition teddy bear with a peace symbol attached to its ear. You can clutch and hug it while watching the scary terror alerts on CNN.

Or you could turn off CNN, refuse to be a soft and cuddly peacenik, get out there and stop the war.

Naomi Klein is the author of No Logo and Fences and Windows.

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- War by Howard Zinn

Published on Thursday, February 27, 2003 by CommonDreams.org

As I write this, it looks like war.

This, in spite of the obvious lack of enthusiasm in the country for war. The polls that register “approve” or “disapprove” can only count numbers, they cannot test the depth of feeling. And there are many signs that the support for war is shallow and shaky and ambivalent.. That’s why the numbers showing approval for war have been steadily going down.

This administration will not likely be stopped, though it knows its support is thin., In fact, that is undoubtedly why it is in such a hurry; it wants to go to war before the support declines even further.

The assumption is that once the soldiers are in combat, the American people will unite behind the war. The television screens will be dominated by images showing “smart bombs” exploding, and the Secretary of Defense will assure the American people that civilian casualties are being kept to a minimum. (We’re in the age of megadeaths, and any number of casualties less than a million is no cause for concern).

This is the way it has been. Unity behind the president in time of war. But it may not be that way again.

The anti-war movement will not likely surrender to the martial atmosphere. The hundreds of thousands who marched in Washington and San Francisco and New York and Boston - and in villages, towns, cities all over the country from Georgia to Montana - will not meekly withdraw. Unlike the shallow support for the war, the opposition to the war is deep, cannot be easily dislodged or frightened into silence.

Indeed, the anti-war feelings are bound to become more intense. To the demand “Support Our GIs”, the movement will be able to reply: “Yes, we support our GIs, we want them to live, we want them to be brought home. The government is not supporting them. It is sending them to die, or to be wounded, or to be poisoned by our own depleted uranium shells”.

No, our casualties will not be numerous, but every single one will be a waste of an important human life. We will insist that this government be held responsible for every death, every dismemberment, every case of sickness, every case of psychic trauma caused by the shock of war.

And though the media will be blocked from access to the dead and wounded of Iraq, though the human tragedy unfolding in Iraq will be told in numbers, in abstractions, and not in the stories of real human beings, real children, real mothers and fathers - the movement will find a way to tell that story. And when it does, the American people, who can be cold to death on “the other side”, but who also wake up when “the other side” is suddenly seen as a man, a woman, a child - just like us - will respond.

This is not a fantasy, not a vain hope. It happened in the Vietnam years. For a long time, what was being done to the peasants of Vietnam was concealed by statistics, the “body count”, without bodies being shown, without faces being shown, without pain, fear, anguish shown. But then the stories began to come through - the story of the My Lai massacre, the stories told by returning GIs of atrocities they had participated in.

And the pictures appeared - the little girl struck by napalm running down the road, her skin shredding, the mothers holding their babies to them in the trenches as GIs poured rounds of bullets from automatic rifles into their bodies.

When those stories began to come out, when the photos were seen, the American people could not fail to be moved. The war “against Communism” was seen as a war against poor peasants in a tiny country half the world away.

At some point in this coming war, and no one can say when, the lies coming from the administration - “the death of this family was an accident”, “we apologize for the dismemberment of this child”, “this was an intelligence mistake”, “a radar misfunction” - will begin to come apart.

How soon that will happen depends not only on the millions now - whether actively or silently—in the anti-war movement, but also on the emergence of whistle blowers inside the Establishment who begin to talk, , of journalists who become tired of being manipulated by the government, and begin to write to truth. . And of dissident soldiers sick of a war that is not a war but a massacre --how else describe the mayhem caused by the most powerful military machine on earth raining thousands of bombs on a fifth-rate military power already reduced to poverty by two wars and ten years of economic sanctions?

The anti-war movement has the responsibility of encouraging defections from the war machine. It does this simply by its existence, by its example, by its persistence, by its voices reaching out over the walls of government control and speaking to the consciences of people.

Those voices have already become a chorus, joined by Americans in all walks of life, of all ages, in every part of the country.

There is a basic weakness in governments, however massive their armies, however wealthy they are, however they control the information given to the public, because their power depends on the obedience of citizens, of soldiers, of civil servants, of journalists and writers and teachers and artists. When these people begin to suspect they have been deceived, and withdraw their support, the government loses its legitimacy, and its power.

We have seen this happen in recent decades, all around the globe. Leaders who were apparently all-powerful, surrounded by their generals, suddenly faced the anger of an aroused people, the hundreds of thousands in the streets and the reluctance of the soldiers to fire, and those leaders soon rushed to the airport, carrying their suitcases of money with them.

The process of undermining the legitimacy of this government has begun. There has been a worm eating at the innards of its complacency all along - the knowledge of the American public, buried, but in a very shallow grave, easy to disinter, that this government came to power by a political coup, not by popular will.

The movement should not let this be forgotten.

The first steps to de-legitimize this government are being taken, in small but significant ways. The wife of the President must call off a gathering of poets in the White House because the poets have rebelled, because they see the march to war as a violation of the most sacred values of poets through the ages.

The generals who led the Gulf War of 1991 speak out against this impending war as foolish, unnecessary, dangerous. The C.I.A. contradicts the president by saying Saddam Hussein is not likely to use his weapons unless he is attacked.

All across the country - not just the great metropolitan centers, like Chicago, but places like Boesman, Montana, Des Moines, Iowa, San Luis Obispo, California, Nederland, Colorado, Tacoma, Washington, York, Pennsylvania, Santa Fe, New Mexico, Gary, Indiana, Carrboro, North Carolina—fifty-seven cities and counties in all—have passed resolutions against the war, responding to their citizens.

The actions will multiply, once the war has begun. The stakes will be higher. People will be dying every day. The responsibility of the peace movement will be huge - to speak to what people may feel but are hesitant to say. To say that this is a war for oil, for business. Bring back the Vietnam-era poster: “War Is Good For Business - Invest your Son”. (In this morning’s Boston Globe, a headline: “Extra $15 Billion for Military Would Profit New England Firms")

Yes, no blood for Oil, no blood for Bush, no blood for Rumsfeld or Cheney or Powell. No blood for political ambition, for grandiose designs of empire.

No action should be seen as too small, no non-violent action should be seen as too large. The calls now for the impeachment of George Bush should multiply. The constitutional requirement “high crimes and misdemeanors” certainly applies to sending our young halfway around the world to kill and be killed in a war of aggression against a people who have not attacked us.

Those poets troubled Laura Bush because by bringing the war into her ceremony they were doing something “inappropriate”. That should be the key; people will continue to do “inappropriate” things, because that brings attention - the rejection of propriety, the refusal to be “professional” (which usually means not breaking out of the box in which your business or your profession insists you stay in).

The absurdity of this war is so starkly clear that people who have never been involved in an anti-war demonstration have been showing up in huge numbers at recent rallies. Anyone who has been to one of them can testify to the numbers of young people present, obviously doing this for the first time.

Arguments for the war are paper thin and fall apart at first touch. Weapons of mass destruction? Iraq may develop one nuclear bomb (though the UN inspectors find no sign of development) - but Israel has 200 nuclear weapons and the US has 20,000 and six other countries have undisclosed numbers. Saddam Hussein a tyrant? Undoubtedly, like many others in the world? A threat to the world? Then how come the rest of the world, much closer to Iraq, does not want war? Defending ourselves? The most incredible statement of all. Fighting terrorism? No connection found between Sept. 11 and Iraq.

I believe it is the obvious emptiness of the administration position that is responsible for the unprecedentedly quick growth of the anti-war movement. And for the emergence of new voices, unheard before, speaking “inappropriately” outside their professional boundaries. 1500 historians have signed an anti-war petition. Businessmen, clergy, have put full page ads in newspapers. All refusing to stick to their “profession” and instead professing that they are human beings first.

I think of Sean Penn traveling to Baghdad, in spite of mutterings about patriotism. Or Jessica Lange, speaking at a movie festival in Spain: “I despise George Bush and his administration.” The actress Renee Zellweger spoke to a reporter for the Boston Globe, about “how public opinion is manipulated by what we’re told. You see it all the time, especially now....The good will of the American people is being manipulated. It gives me the chills...I’m so going to go to jail this year!”

Rap artists have been speaking out on war, on injustice. The rapper Mr. Lif says: “I think people have been on vacation and it’s time to wake up. We need to look at our economic, social and foreign policies and not be duped into believing the spin that comes from the government and the media.”

In the cartoon, “The Boondocks”, which reaches 20 million readers every day, the cartoonist Aaron Magruder has his character, a black youngster named Huey Freedman, say the following: “In this time of war against Osama bin Laden and the oppressive Taliban regime, we are thankful that OUR leader isn’t the spoiled son of a powerful politician from a wealthy oil family who is supported by religious fundamentalists, operates through clandestine organizations, has no respect for the democratic electoral process, bombs innocents, and uses war to deny people their civil liberties. Amen.”

The voices will multiply. The actions, from silent vigils to acts of civil disobedience (three nuns are facing long jail terms for pouring their blood on missile silos in Colorado), will multiply.

If Bush starts a war, he will be responsible for the lives lost, the children crippled, the terrorizing of millions of ordinary people, the American GIs not returning to their families. And all of us will be responsible for bringing that to a halt.

Men who have no respect for human life or for freedom or justice have taken over this beautiful country of ours. It will be up to the American people to take it back.

Dr. Howard Zinn is Professor Emeritus of Political Science at Boston University.

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-Turkey’s Refusal Stuns US

by Matthew Lee

WASHINGTON—US officials appeared stunned by the Turkish parliament’s refusal Saturday to allow the deployment of 62 000 US troops for a possible war with Iraq.

The officials, who had been prepared to hail the parliament’s approval of the deployment based on initial reports that the vote had succeeded, expressed consternation when told that it had in fact been defeated.

“They did what?” blurted one State Department official.

That official and others declined to comment on the nullification of the close vote and were seeking clarification from the US embassy in Ankara as well as Turkish authorities.

“We are seeking clarification and waiting to see what the Turkish parliament’s decision is,” said Tara Rigler, a department spokesperson.

In Ankara, the embassy said US ties with Turkey would not be threatened by the vote, calling it democratic and one that would be respected by Washington.

Look elsewhere

“We respect this as a democratic result,” embassy spokesperson Joseph Pennington said. “We will live with that. US ties with Turkey are not threatened in any way.”

Washington had placed great importance on the vote and had lobbied the Turks relentlessly to approve the deployment, sweetening the pot by offering some $6bn in aid to the Muslim nation, where public opposition to a possible war with Iraq is overwhelming.

On Friday, the State Department said negotiations over the aid package were “substantially completed” and could not be revised much further, making clear Washington was losing patience with repeated delays in the vote.

“It’s now up to Prime Minister (Abdullah) Gul and his cabinet to complete the Turkish political process,” spokesperson Richard Boucher said.

He would not say whether Washington had set down a deadline for the vote, but a senior department official said if it was postponed any longer it would be in effect “too late” and would force troops now massing in the region to consider alternatives.

“If they wait longer than Saturday, we’re going to have to look elsewhere,” the official said.

After hearing the first incorrect reports on Saturday that the parliament had approved access for US troops, Washington was set to laud the move and praise the Turkish government for its courage, according to a reaction prepared by the State Department.

‘No longer operative’

“We warmly welcome the decision of the Turkish parliament to permit US forces to enter Turkey for possible military operations towards Iraq,” it said. “We applaud the courageous leadership of the Turkish government.”

“This vote is a further sign of the strong strategic partnership between our countries and our joint commitment to ensure that the Iraqi regime complies with UN Security Council Resolution 1441 and eliminates its weapons of mass destruction.

“The United States and Turkey share a common vision of an Iraq free of all forms of oppression on the way to a free, peaceful and prosperous future in accordance with the principles of the UN charter,” it said.

After it became clear the vote had failed, one US official said the earlier State Department language was “no longer operative”.

The speaker of the Turkish parliament, Bulent Arinc, said the motion to allow the deployment had failed because it had not received the necessary majority of MPs present in the chamber.

Of the 533 MPs present for the vote, 264 supported the motion, 250 voted against it and 19 abstained, Arinc announced.

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-Bush and Blair to Ditch UN if France Blocks Intervention

by James Cusick

AS hopes fade of winning a second UN resolution, Britain and the United States are now preparing the ground to argue that both governments already have the implied authority of the UN for conflict.

Sources close to Foreign Secretary Jack Straw yesterday admitted that if ‘there was no prospect of winning a second resolution’—due to the use of a UN Security Council veto by potentially France, Russia or China—‘then we may consider abandoning it altogether’.

Washington also yesterday altered its strategy in exactly the same manner when Pres ident George Bush, referring to the existing Security Council resolution 1441, said the US was determined to enforce its terms, which demand that Saddam Hussein surrender his country’s weapons of mass destruction.

Condoleezza Rice, the US national security adviser, called the new draft resolution presented to the UN last week simply ‘an affirmation of the council’s willingness to enforce its own resolution’.

Over the coming week, Tony Blair is expected to reinforce the message that it is the ‘authority of the UN’, already explicit in the unanimously agreed resolution 1441, that must be upheld.

In effect, the Prime Minister is preparing the ground for the political mayhem both inside his party and beyond should a second UN resolution fail to materialise and he takes British forces into war alongside the US.

Key to winning support in the Security Council would have been Iraq’s defiance and obstruction of UN orders to disarm. But yesterday Iraq, reluctantly, agreed to the destruction of four of its outlawed al-Samoud 2 missiles. At a military base just outside Baghdad, bulldozers were brought in to crush the missiles under supervision of the UN.

A potential timetable to destroy the remaining 100-plus al-Samoud 2 missiles was also discussed with the UN. Around 50 of the missiles are with Iraqi forces scattered around the country and will have to be brought in to be destroyed.

And for the first time in a month, Iraq agreed to unsup ervised interviews with Iraqi scientists, a small number of which have taken place already.

Although Dr Hans Blix, the UN’s chief weapons inspector, described Iraq’s move on its missiles as ‘a very significant piece of real disarmament’ both the US and UK remained sceptical.

If Blix reinforces a signif icant positive shift in Iraq’s level of co-operation when he delivers his latest report to the UN this Friday, it may put the final nail in the coffin for any hope of agreement on a second resolution.

France’s foreign minister, Dominique de Villepin, said yesterday that the destruction of the missiles ‘confirms that inspectors are getting results’. He said Iraq’s decision to comply was an important step in the disarmament process.

As one of the harshest critics of the US-UK position, and having already demanded inspectors be given more time, it now seems inconceivable that France will now not use its veto in an attempt to avert war.

However, the White House said Iraq’s compliance was ‘propaganda wrapped in a lie inside a falsehood’.

Straw warned the international community that it ‘should not be taken in’ by Saddam. He dismissed Iraq’s promise to destroy all its al-Samoud 2 missiles as ‘a cynical attempt to divide the Security Council’. To end the crisis Straw said Saddam only had to say he was in ‘complete, immediate and full compliance of resolution 1441’.

Iraqi foreign minister Naji Sabri said: ‘We are co-operating because we want to co-operate, because we think it is to our benefit. We don’t need anyone to tell us to co-operate.’

A senior source in the Foreign Office said that following Blix’s report this Friday: ‘It will probably be towards the end of the following week that the UK-backed second resol ution will be formally put to the Security Council. It is likely we will demand a formal vote, essentially to confront France or whoever and flush out their use of their veto. We would want to make it evident who had halted the resolution. But if there is no prospect of winning, that strategy may be abandoned altogether.’

Meanwhile, Turkey’s parliament, after a day of high drama and confusion, yesterday finally denied US forces use of Turkish territory to launch a northern attack on Iraq. US supply ships and armaments had been waiting outside Turkish ports, with troops in the US also awaiting final authority to fly into Turkey. However, the Turkish parliament will reconvene on the issue this week.

The US—which has promised a massive financial aid and trade package to Turkey—are said to be furious at the potential logistical chaos this will bring to its battle plans. A northern front is regarded as crucial to the prospects of a quick, short war.

©2003 smg sunday newspapers ltd

###

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This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

-US Prepares to Use Toxic Gases in Iraq

by Geoffrey Lean and Severin Carrell

The US is preparing to use the toxic riot-control agents CS gas and pepper spray in Iraq in contravention of the Chemical Weapons Convention, provoking the first split in the Anglo-US alliance. “Calmative” gases, similar to the one that killed 120 hostages in the Moscow theatre siege last year, could also be employed.

The convention bans the use of these toxic agents in battle, not least because they risk causing an escalation to full chemical warfare. This applies even though they can be used in civil disturbances at home: both CS gas and pepper spray are available for use by UK police forces. The US Marine Corps confirmed last week that both had already been shipped to the Gulf.

It is British policy not to allow troops to take part in operations where riot control agents are employed. But the US Defense Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, has asked President Bush to authorize their use. Mr Bush, who has often spoken of “smoking out” the enemy, is understood to have agreed.

Internal Pentagon documents also show that the US is developing a range of calmative gases, also banned for battlefield use. Senior US Defense sources predict these could be used in Iraq by elite special forces units to take out command and control bunkers deep underground.

Rear Admiral Stephen Baker, a Navy commander in the last Gulf War who is now senior adviser to the Center for Defense Information in Washington, told The Independent on Sunday that US special forces had knock-out gases that can “neutralize” people. He added: “I would think that if they get a chance to use them, they will.”

The Pentagon said last week that the decision to use riot control agents “is made by the commander in the field”.

Mr Rumsfeld became the first senior figure on either side of the impending conflict to announce his wish to use chemical agents in a little-noticed comment to the House of Representatives Armed Services Committee on 5 February ?Ethe same day as Colin Powell’s presentation of intelligence about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction to the UN.

The Defense Secretary attacked the “straitjacket” imposed by bans in international treaties on using the weapons in warfare. He specified that they could be used “where there are enemy troops in a cave [and] you know there are women and children in there with them”. General Richard Myers, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke of using them against human shields.

The revelations leave the Bush administration open to charges of double standards at a time when it is making Iraq’s suspected arsenal of chemical and biological weapons the casus belli. Charles Kennedy, leader of the Liberal Democrats, said last night: “This all adds to the confusion over how the war will be conducted. If the argument with Saddam Hussein is over disarming him of weapons of mass destruction, it is perverse of the US to push the boundaries of international chemical warfare conventions in order to subdue him.”

Leading experts and Whitehall officials fear that using even pepper spray and CS gas would destroy the credibility of the Chemical Weapons Convention, provoke Iraqi chemical retaliation and set a disastrous legal precedent. Professor Julian Perry Robinson, one of the world’s foremost authorities on the convention, said: “Legally speaking, Iraq would be totally justified in releasing chemical weapons over the UK if the alliance uses them in Baghdad.

“When the war is over and these things have been used they will have been legitimized as a tool of war, and the principle of toxic weapons being banned will have gone. The difference between these weapons and nerve gas is simply one of structural chemistry.”

The Ministry of Defense has warned the US that it will not allow British troops to be involved in operations where riot control agents are used, or to transport them to the battlefield, but Britain is even more concerned about the calmatives. This is shown by documents obtained by the Texas-based Sunshine Project under the US Freedom of Information Act. These reveal that the US is developing calmatives ?Eincluding sedatives such as the benzodiazapines, diazepam, dexmeditomide and new drugs that affect the nervous system ?Eeven though it accepts that “the convention would prohibit the development of any chemically based agent that would even temporarily incapacitate a human being”.

A special working group of the Federation of American Scientists concluded last month that using even the mildest of these weapons to incapacitate people would kill 9 per cent of them. It added: “Chemical incapacitating weapons are as likely as bullets to cause death.”

The use of chemical weapons by US forces was explicitly banned by President Gerald Ford in 1975 after CS gas had been repeatedly used in Vietnam to smoke out enemy soldiers and then kill them as they ran away. Britain would be in a particularly sensitive position if the US used the weapons as it drafted the convention and is still seen internationally as its most important guardian.

The Foreign Office said: “All states parties to the Chemical Weapons Convention have undertaken not to use any toxic chemical or its precursor, including riot-control agents. This applies in any armed conflict.”

© 2003 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a ‘fair use’ of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, the material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. For more information go to: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.shtml If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond ‘fair use’, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.

-Revealed: US Dirty Tricks to Win Vote on Iraq War

Secret document details American plan to bug phones and emails of key Security Council members

by Martin Bright, Ed Vulliamy in New York and Peter Beaumont

Published on Sunday, March 2, 2003 by the Observer/UK
Revealed: US Dirty Tricks to Win Vote on Iraq War
Secret document details American plan to bug phones and emails of key Security Council members

by Martin Bright, Ed Vulliamy in New York and Peter Beaumont

The United States is conducting a secret ‘dirty tricks’ campaign against UN Security Council delegations in New York as part of its battle to win votes in favor of war against Iraq.

Details of the aggressive surveillance operation, which involves interception of the home and office telephones and the emails of UN delegates in New York, are revealed in a document leaked to The Observer.

The disclosures were made in a memorandum written by a top official at the National Security Agency - the US body which intercepts communications around the world - and circulated to both senior agents in his organization and to a friendly foreign intelligence agency asking for its input.

The memo describes orders to staff at the agency, whose work is clouded in secrecy, to step up its surveillance operations ‘particularly directed at… UN Security Council Members (minus US and GBR, of course)’ to provide up-to-the-minute intelligence for Bush officials on the voting intentions of UN members regarding the issue of Iraq.

The leaked memorandum makes clear that the target of the heightened surveillance efforts are the delegations from Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan at the UN headquarters in New York - the so-called ‘Middle Six’ delegations whose votes are being fought over by the pro-war party, led by the US and Britain, and the party arguing for more time for UN inspections, led by France, China and Russia.

The memo is directed at senior NSA officials and advises them that the agency is ‘mounting a surge’ aimed at gleaning information not only on how delegations on the Security Council will vote on any second resolution on Iraq, but also ‘policies’, ‘negotiating positions’, ‘alliances’ and ‘dependencies’ - the ‘whole gamut of information that could give US policymakers an edge in obtaining results favorable to US goals or to head off surprises’.

Dated 31 January 2003, the memo was circulated four days after the UN’s chief weapons inspector Hans Blix produced his interim report on Iraqi compliance with UN resolution 1441.

It was sent by Frank Koza, chief of staff in the ‘Regional Targets’ section of the NSA, which spies on countries that are viewed as strategically important for United States interests.

Koza specifies that the information will be used for the US’s ‘QRC’ - Quick Response Capability - ‘against’ the key delegations.

Suggesting the levels of surveillance of both the office and home phones of UN delegation members, Koza also asks regional managers to make sure that their staff also ‘pay attention to existing non-UN Security Council Member UN-related and domestic comms [office and home telephones] for anything useful related to Security Council deliberations’.

Koza also addresses himself to the foreign agency, saying: ‘We’d appreciate your support in getting the word to your analysts who might have similar more indirect access to valuable information from accesses in your product lines [i.e., intelligence sources].’ Koza makes clear it is an informal request at this juncture, but adds: ‘I suspect that you’ll be hearing more along these lines in formal channels.’

Disclosure of the US operation comes in the week that Blix will make what many expect to be his final report to the Security Council.

It also comes amid increasingly threatening noises from the US towards undecided countries on the Security Council who have been warned of the unpleasant economic consequences of standing up to the US.

Sources in Washington familiar with the operation said last week that there had been a division among Bush administration officials over whether to pursue such a high-intensity surveillance campaign with some warning of the serious consequences of discovery.

The existence of the surveillance operation, understood to have been requested by President Bush’s National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, is deeply embarrassing to the Americans in the middle of their efforts to win over the undecided delegations.

The language and content of the memo were judged to be authentic by three former intelligence operatives shown it by The Observer. We were also able to establish that Frank Koza does work for the NSA and could confirm his senior post in the Regional Targets section of the organization

The NSA main switchboard put The Observer through to extension 6727 at the agency which was answered by an assistant, who confirmed it was Koza’s office. However, when The Observer asked to talk to Koza about the surveillance of diplomatic missions at the United Nations, it was then told ‘You have reached the wrong number’.

On protesting that the assistant had just said this was Koza’s extension, the assistant repeated that it was an erroneous extension, and hung up.

While many diplomats at the UN assume they are being bugged, the memo reveals for the first time the scope and scale of US communications intercepts targeted against the New York-based missions.

The disclosure comes at a time when diplomats from the countries have been complaining about the outright ‘hostility’ of US tactics in recent days to persuade then to fall in line, including threats to economic and aid packages.

The operation appears to have been spotted by rival organizations in Europe. ‘The Americans are being very purposeful about this,’ said a source at a European intelligence agency when asked about the US surveillance efforts.

© Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003

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