[casi-analysis] casi-news digest, Vol 1 #9 - 5 msgs

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Today's Topics:

   1. Kurds' Wariness Frustrates U.S. Efforts (WaPo) (Daniel O'Huiginn)
   2. Evidence and Implications - Summary of New Carnegie Report (cafe-uni)
   3. DU (Mark Parkinson)
   4. Powell Admits No Hard Proof in Linking Iraq to Al Qaeda (=?windows-1252?Q?Per_Klevn=E4s?=)
   5. Iraqi threat to overturn US broadcasting contract (ppg)

--__--__--

Message: 1
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 12:54:02 +0000 (GMT)
From: Daniel O'Huiginn <do227@DELETETHIShermes.cam.ac.uk>
To: newsclippings@casi.org.uk
Subject: Kurds' Wariness Frustrates U.S. Efforts (WaPo)



Kurds' Wariness Frustrates U.S. Efforts
Reluctance to Yield Autonomy Brings Prospect of Two Governments in Iraq
By Robin Wright and Alan Sipress
Friday, January 9, 2004; Page A13
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A1767-2004Jan8?language=printer

The United States faces the prospect of two governments inside Iraq -- one
for Kurds and one for Arabs -- after so far failing to win a compromise
from the Kurds on a formula to distribute political power when the U.S.
occupation ends, according to U.S. and Iraqi officials.


L. Paul Bremer, the chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, twice met with the
two main Kurdish leaders over the past week to urge them to back down from
their demands to retain autonomy, according to U.S. officials.

But in a new setback for U.S. plans in Iraq, the Kurds have not budged.
They insist on holding on to the basic political, economic and security
rights they have achieved during a dozen years of being cut off from the
rest of Iraq during Saddam Hussein's rule.

"They have a strong hand and they're playing it," a senior administration
official said.

Creation of an autonomous Kurdish region, with its own militia, represents
one of the biggest fears about the ethnically diverse nation -- a problem
that Washington thought had been averted before U.S. intervention.

But the two Kurdish leaders, Jalal Talabani and Massoud Barzani, are
resisting U.S. pressure, in large part out of fear that the vulnerable
Kurdish minority could once again be persecuted by a strong central
government, as it was repeatedly by Arab regimes.

The new crisis over Kurdistan is the latest flap in the increasingly
troubled process of working out a transition to Iraqi rule. The drama is
playing out as the United States rushes to help create a Transitional
Administration Law to govern the country after June 30.

To the surprise of many U.S. and Iraqi officials, the hottest flashpoint
is proving to be the formula for federalism. Iraqis generally agree that
Iraq's 18 provinces, possibly redrawn into a smaller number of states,
should have a federal government, but the details have been divisive.

One possible compromise is deferring decisions on the final status of the
Kurdish north, and its claim on regional oil fields, until the United
States hands over power to a provisional Iraqi government. The Iraqis
would then be left to sort it out. If this fallback option is adopted,
U.S. officials say, they hope that a strong central government in Baghdad
emerges, wins international backing and leads the Kurdish minority and
Arab majority to come to a mutually accepted arrangement.

But Kurds are opposed to creating a set of basic laws for Iraq that
doesn't address those issues. "If you leave everything out, no details,
it's like a time bomb," said Mahmoud Othman, a Kurdish member of the Iraqi
Governing Council. "The sooner one tries to find a solution and some
consensus, the better."

The danger in trying now to make major decisions on Kurdish autonomy, U.S.
officials say, is that the Kurds may be reluctant to alter those terms
later when Iraqis write a constitution after the U.S. political role ends.

"The more time that passes, the more attached the Kurds may become to
keeping the reins of power," a U.S. official said.

Turkey would also oppose autonomy for the Kurdish region, both because of
its own large restive Kurdish community and because of the large Turkmen
minority in northern Iraq.

Other Arab governments are already warning of a dangerous spillover if
ethnicity becomes a central factor in Iraqi government.

"Regimes founded on a confessional or ethnic basis do not help bring
stability and territorial integrity to a country," Saudi Foreign Minister
Prince Saud Faisal said Wednesday. "The danger of starting on the
confessional and ethnic road will consequently partition Iraq, threatening
our own security."

The often feisty debates underway in Iraq are reminiscent of arguments
among America's founding fathers about federation, U.S. officials say.
Like New York, Virginia and Massachusetts in the late 18th century,
Kurdistan does not want to cede full authority to a strong central
government.

The United States is trying to allow Iraqis to make the critical
decisions. "It was the position of the United States from the very
beginning of this crisis that [Iraq] had to remain one single integrated
country. How it organizes itself, recognizing the major constituencies in
the nation, remains to be determined," Secretary of State Colin L. Powell
told reporters this week.

The Bush administration is sympathetic to the Kurds' concerns, but
unwilling to concede to their demands.

"Clearly the Kurds wish, in some way, to preserve their historic identity
and to link it in some way to geography. But I think it's absolutely clear
that that part of Iraq must remain part of Iraq," Powell added.

Bremer intends to hold further talks with the Kurds to warn of the
potential dangers.

"The transitional law must not lead to secession or create conditions
where secession might be likely or possible," a State Department official
said. "The new central government must have central authority, which means
demobilization of private militias and control over borders, national
finance and foreign policy, including trade and financial policy and
ownership of national resources."

Several key Arab leaders on the Governing Council are expected to meet
soon with Barzani and Talabani to press for compromise. But Kurdish
leaders say they are not convinced of the need to accommodate the United
States or other Iraqis.

"Bremer is committed to a non-ethnic Iraq. But the way the United States
is framing it is not workable or practical here," a senior Kurdish
politician said. "Iraq is not the United States. To make it such requires
time. You can't impose voluntary integration."

The question of the Kurds' role comes on top of an ongoing crisis with
Iraq's leading Shiite leader, the Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani. He demands
that the United States hold direct elections for a provisional government,
rather than selecting a new national assembly through a complicated
process based on provincial caucuses.

The one bit of good news for the United States is that Iraq appears to
have averted a crisis over the role of Islam in its new government. The
Iraqi council has come up with a formula declaring that Iraq is a state
with a majority Muslim community committed to the protection of
minorities. Islamic law, or the Sharia, will be a source of legislation,
but not the only source, Iraqis and U.S. officials say.

In a move pivotal to defining the state, "the Islamic bloc on the
Governing Council agreed to separate religion from the state," said
Yonadam Kanna, the lone Christian on the 25-member council.

Sipress reported from Baghdad.






--__--__--

Message: 2
From: "cafe-uni" <cafe-uni@DELETETHISfreeuk.com>
To: "casi news" <newsclippings@casi.org.uk>
Subject: Evidence and Implications - Summary of New Carnegie Report
Date: Fri, 9 Jan 2004 16:04:16 -0000



"Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed
citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing
that ever has." - Margaret Mead


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> WMD IN IRAQ
> Evidence and Implications
> Summary of New Carnegie Report
>
http://www.ceip.org/files/Publications/IraqSummary.asp?from=3D
pubdate
>
> WMD in IRAQ: Evidence and Implications, a new study from
the Carnegie
> Endowment for International Peace, details what the U.S.
and international
> intelligence communities understood about Iraq's weapons
programs before the
> war and outlines policy reforms to improve threat
assessments, deter
> transfer of WMD to terrorists, strengthen the UN weapons
inspection process,
> and avoid politicization of the intelligence process.
>
> The report distills a massive amount of data into
side-by-side comparisons
> of pre-war intelligence, the official presentation of that
intelligence, and
> what is now known about Iraq's programs.
>
> The authors of the report are: Jessica T. Mathews,
president; George
> Perkovich, vice president for studies, and Joseph
Cirincione, senior
> associate and non-proliferation project director of the
Carnegie Endowment
> for International Peace.
>
> SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS
> Changes to U.S. Policy
> =B7 Revise the National Security Strategy to eliminate a
U.S. policy of
> unilateral preventive war, i.e., preemptive war in absence
of imminent
> threat.
> =B7 Create a nonpartisan, independent commission to
establish a clearer
> picture of what the intelligence community knew and
believed it knew about
> Iraq's weapons program.
> =B7 Consider changing the post of Director of Central
Intelligence (DCI) from
> a political appointment to a career appointment, based on
the outcomes of
> the independent commission.
> =B7 Make the security of poorly protected nuclear weapons
and stockpiles of
> plutonium and highly enriched uranium a much higher
priority for national
> security policy.
>
> International Action
> =B7 The United States and United Nations should together
produce a complete
> history and inventory of Iraq's WMD and missile programs.
> =B7 The UN Secretary General should commission a high-level
analysis of the
> strengths and weaknesses of the WMD inspection processes
in Iraq, and how
> inspections could be strengthened in the future.
> =B7 The UN Security Council should consider creating a
permanent,
> international, nonproliferation inspection capability.
> =B7 Make the transfer of WMD a violation of international
law.
>
> Changes to Threat Assessments
> =B7 Recognize distinctions in the degree of threat posed by
the different
> forms of "weapons of mass destruction" - chemical,
biological, and nuclear
> weapons pose vastly different risks and cost-benefit
calculations of actions
> to combat them.
> =B7 Recognize red flags indicating that sound intelligence
practices are not
> being followed.
> =B7 Examine and debate the assertion that the combined
threat of evil states
> and terrorism calls for acting on the basis of worst-case
reasoning.
> =B7 Examine assumption that states will likely transfer WMD
to terrorists.
>
> SUMMARY OF KEY FINDINGS
>
> Iraq WMD Was Not An Immediate Threat
> =B7 Iraq's nuclear program had been suspended for many
years; Iraq focused on
> preserving a latent, dual-use chemical and probably
biological weapons
> capability, not weapons production.
> =B7 Iraqi nerve agents had lost most of their lethality as
early as 1991.
> =B7 Operations Desert Storm and Desert Fox, and UN
inspections and sanctions
> effectively destroyed Iraq's large-scale chemical weapon
production
> capabilities.
>
> Inspections Were Working
> =B7 Post-war searches suggest the UN inspections were on
track to find what
> was there.
> =B7 International constraints, sanctions, procurement,
investigations, and the
> export/import control mechanism appear to have been
considerably more
> effective than was thought.
>
> Intelligence Failed and Was Misrepresented
> =B7 Intelligence community overestimated the chemical and
biological weapons
> in Iraq.
> =B7 Intelligence community appears to have been unduly
influenced by
> policymakers' views.
> =B7 Officials misrepresented threat from Iraq's WMD and
ballistic missiles
> programs over and above intelligence findings.
>
> Terrorist Connection Missing
> =B7 No solid evidence of cooperative relationship between
Saddam's government
> and Al Qaeda.
> =B7 No evidence that Iraq would have transferred WMD to
terrorists-and much
> evidence to counter it.
> =B7 No evidence to suggest that deterrence was no longer
operable.
>
> Post-War WMD Search Ignored Key Resources
> =B7 Past relationships with Iraqi scientists and officials,
and credibility of
> UNMOVIC experts represent a vital resource that has been
ignored when it
> should be being fully exploited.
> =B7 Data from the seven years of UNSCOM/IAEA inspections are
absolutely
> essential. Direct involvement of those who compiled the
> more-than-30-million- page record is needed.
>
> War Was Not the Best-Or Only-Option
> =B7 There were at least two options preferable to a war
undertaken without
> international support: allowing the UNMOVIC/IAEA
inspections to continue
> until obstructed or completed, or imposing a tougher
program of "coercive
> inspections."
>
> Download the report at www.ceip.org/WMD or contact Maura
Keaney at
> 202-939-2372 or mkeaney@ceip.org.
>
>
http://www.ceip.org/files/Publications/IraqReport3.asp?from=3D
pubdate
>
>

>



--__--__--

Message: 3
From: "Mark Parkinson" <mark44@DELETETHISmyrealbox.com>
To: newsclippings@casi.org.uk
Date: Fri, 09 Jan 2004 22:26:08 -0000
Subject: DU


http://www1.iraqwar.ru/iraq-read_article.php?articleId=31847&lang=en

When this war ends, George Bush will have caused the poisoning of
hundreds of thousands more humans than he said Saddam Hussein
poisoned. 07.01.2004 [19:07]


In its 110,000 air raids against Iraq, the US A-10 Warthog aircraft
launched 940,000 depleted uranium shells, and in the land offensive,
its M60, M1 and M1A1 tanks fired a further 4,000 larger caliber also
uranium shells. The Bush administration and the Pentagon said there
is no danger to American troops or Iraqi civilians from breathing the
uranium oxide dust produced in depleted uranium (DU) weapons
explosions.

DU is the waste residue made from the uranium enrichment process.
This radioactive and toxic substance, 1.7 times as dense as lead, is
used to make shells that penetrate steel armor.

Former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, an opponent of DU weapons
use since 1996, again raised his call for a ban on the use of these
weapons in 2001. Since then DU weapons conferences, ironically, in
Baghdad in 1999 and Gijon, Spain in 2000 had demanded a ban on DU
use. "This new outbreak of leukemia among European [NATO] soldiers
has reinforced what we said before," said Clark from New York in
January 2001. "Is it acceptable by any human standards that we would
permit one shell of depleted uranium to be manufactured, to be
stored, to be used? No! Stop it now!"

According to a May 2003 article in the Christian Science Monitor, the
first partial Pentagon disclosure of the amount of DU used in Iraq, a
US Central Command spokesman admitted that A-10 Warthog aircraft --
the same planes that shot at the Iraqi planning ministry -- fired
300,000 bullets. The normal combat mix for these 30-mm rounds is five
DU bullets to 1 -- a mix that had left about 75 tons of DU in Iraq.

A Monitor reporter had seen only one site where US troops had put up
handwritten warnings in Arabic for Iraqis to stay away. A 3-foot-long
DU warhead from a 120-mm tank shell had been found to produce
radiation at more than 1,300 times background levels.

"If you have pieces or even whole [DU] penetrators around, this is
not an acute health hazard, but it is for sure above radiation
protection dose levels," says Werner Burkart, the German deputy
director general for Nuclear Sciences and Applications at the UN's
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Vienna. "The important
thing in any battlefield -- especially in populated urban areas -- is
somebody has to clean up these sites."

Many scientists believe that uranium oxide dust inhaled or ingested
by U.S. troops in the Gulf War is the cause, or a contributing cause,
of the "Gulf-War Syndrome." Of the approximately 697,000 U.S. troops
stationed in the Gulf during the war, more than 100,000 veterans are
now chronically ill. Cancer rates in southern Iraq have increased
dramatically. For example ovarian cancer in Iraqi women of the
southern region has fully increased by 16-fold.

More recently, the Bush administration's reassurances were vigorously
challenged by nuclear physicists and physicians at a scientific
meeting, the World DU/Uranium Weapons Conference held in Hamburg,
Germany during October 2003. The data presented in Hamburg of the
long-term medical effects from DU exposures during the 1990s in
Kosovo, Sarajevo, southern Iraq, and from American veterans of the
Gulf War, reveal a frightening reality.

According to the Conference, the mobility of the ceramic uranium
oxide particles from DU weapons explosions is due to their re-
suspension in dry weather. Measuring isotope ratios of U-238 and Pa-
234m/Th-234 in water and air measurements by UNEP in Kosovo, Bosnia
and Montenegro has showed this. Uranium oxide particles are available
for inhalation long after the war is over. Anyone in the general area
of their prior use is at risk, several years after their use or
contamination. This had been proven by urine measurements in Kosovo
in 2001. All of the people sampled showed contamination from DU. This
was also shown by urine tests of Gulf War veterans made 10 years
after their exposure.

Conference scientists criticized as decades obsolete the Pentagon
models used for reassuring the public about the long-term effects of
inhaling uranium oxide particles from DU weapons. Citing the Pentagon
model, the official 2003 Conference Statement concluded: "The
knowledge on which this [Pentagon] model is based is faulty and
outdated. This is like comparing [someone] sitting in front of a fire
with [them] eating a hot coal."

After the Gulf War, Iraqi and international epidemiological
investigations enabled the environmental pollution due to using this
kind of weapon to be associated with the appearance of new, very
difficult to diagnose diseases (serious immunodeficiencies, for
instance) and the spectacular increase in congenital malformations
and cancer. This had been found both in the Iraqi population and also
among several thousands of American and British veterans and in their
children, a clinical condition now called Gulf War Syndrome. Similar
symptoms to those of the Gulf War have been described for a thousand
children living in Bosnia where American aviation similarly used DU
bombs in 1996, the same as in the NATO intervention against
Yugoslavia in 1999.

It is estimated that already about 300 tons of radioactive debris
from DU weapons were deposited in target areas during the 2003 Iraq
War, affecting over 250,000 Iraqis. By comparison, Saddam Hussein --
who Bush had called an evil murderer -- gassed about 5,000 Iraqi
Kurds in 1988. But by Bush launching his war on Iraq with DU weapons
of mass destruction, he multiplied the casualties to the Iraqis, and
also to American troops, by factors of hundreds relative to the
infamous gassing of the Kurds.

By the time American troops finally pull out of Iraq, Bush will have
poisoned hundreds of thousands more humans with depleted uranium than
he has accused Saddam Hussein of poisoning with gas.


Frederick Sweet is Professor of Reproductive Biology in Obstetrics
and Gynecology at Washington University School of Medicine in St.
Louis. You can email your comments to Fred@interventionmag.com


????????: By Frederick Sweet


Mark Parkinson
Bodmin
Cornwall




--__--__--

Message: 4
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 13:23:09 +0000
From: =?windows-1252?Q?Per_Klevn=E4s?= <per.klevnas@DELETETHIScasi.org.uk>
To: newsclippings@casi.org.uk
Subject: Powell Admits No Hard Proof in Linking Iraq to Al Qaeda

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/09/politics/09POWE.html

Powell Admits No Hard Proof in Linking Iraq to Al Qaeda

By CHRISTOPHER MARQUIS

ASHINGTON, Jan. 8 =97 Secretary of State Colin L. Powell conceded Thursday
that despite his assertions to the United Nations last year, he had no
"smoking gun" proof of a link between the government of Iraqi President
Saddam Hussein and terrorists of Al Qaeda.

"I have not seen smoking-gun, concrete evidence about the connection,"
Mr. Powell said, in response to a question at a news conference. "But I
think the possibility of such connections did exist, and it was prudent
to consider them at the time that we did."

Mr. Powell's remarks on Thursday were a stark admission that there is no
definitive evidence to back up administration statements and
insinuations that Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda, the acknowledged
authors of the Sept. 11 attacks. Although President Bush finally
acknowledged in September that there was no known connection between Mr.
Hussein and the attacks, the impression of a link in the public mind has
become widely accepted =97 and something administration officials have
done little to discourage.

Mr. Powell offered a vigorous defense of his Feb. 5 presentation before
the Security Council, in which he voiced the administration's most
detailed case to date for war with Iraq. After studying intelligence
data, he said that a "sinister nexus" existed "between Iraq and the Al
Qaeda terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist
organizations and modern methods of murder."

Without any additional qualifiers, Mr. Powell continued, "Iraq today
harbors a deadly terrorist network, headed by Abu Musaab al-Zarqawi, an
associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda lieutenants.=
"

He added, "Iraqi officials deny accusations of ties with Al Qaeda. These
denials are simply not credible."

On Thursday, Mr. Powell dismissed second-guessing and said that Mr. Bush
had acted after giving Mr. Hussein 12 years to come into compliance with
the international community.

"The president decided he had to act because he believed that whatever
the size of the stockpile, whatever one might think about it, he
believed that the region was in danger, America was in danger and he
would act," he said. "And he did act."

In a rare, wide-ranging meeting with reporters, Mr. Powell voiced some
optimism on several other issues that have bedeviled the administration,
including North Korea and Sudan, while expressing dismay about the
Middle East and Haiti.

But mostly, the secretary, appearing vigorous and in good spirits three
weeks after undergoing surgery for prostate cancer, defended his
justification for the war in Iraq. He said he had been fully aware that
"the whole world would be watching," as he painstakingly made the case
that the government of Saddam Hussein presented an imminent threat to
the United States and its interests.

The immediacy of the danger was at the core of debates in the United
Nations over how to proceed against Mr. Hussein. A report released
Thursday by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a
nonpartisan Washington research center, concluded that Iraq's weapons
programs constituted a long-term threat that should not have been
ignored. But it also said the programs did not "pose an immediate threat
to the United States, to the region or to global security."

Mr. Powell's United Nations presentation =97 complete with audiotapes and
satellite photographs =97 asserted that "leaving Saddam Hussein in
possession of weapons of mass destruction for a few more months or years
is not an option." The secretary said he had spent time with experts at
the Central Intelligence Agency studying reports. "Anything that we did
not feel was solid and multisourced, we did not use in that speech," he
said Thursday.

He said that Mr. Hussein had used prohibited weapons in the past =97
including nerve gas attacks against Iran and Iraqi Kurds =97 and said that
even if there were no actual weapons at hand, there was every indication
he would reconstitute them once the international community lost interest.

"In terms of intention, he always had it," Mr. Powell said. "What he was
waiting to do is see if he could break the will of the international
community, get rid of any potential future inspections, and get back to
his intentions, which were to have weapons of mass destruction."

The administration has quietly withdrawn a 400-member team of American
weapons inspectors who were charged with finding chemical or biological
weapons stockpiles or laboratories, officials said this week. The team
was part of the 1,400-member Iraq Survey Group, which has not turned up
such weapons or active programs, the officials said.

The Carnegie report challenged the possibility that Mr. Hussein could
have destroyed the weapons, hidden them or shipped them out of the
country. Officials had alleged that Iraq held amounts so huge =97 hundreds
of tons of chemical and biological weapons, dozens of Scud missiles =97
that such moves would have been detected by the United States, the
report said.

The Washington Post this week reported that Iraq had apparently
preserved its ability to produce missiles, biological agents and other
illicit weapons through the decade-long period of international
sanctions after the Persian Gulf war, but that their development had
apparently been limited to the planning stage.

On North Korea, he said he had received "encouraging signals" from his
Asian counterparts that the North might be close to agreeing to another
round of six-party talks. But he said the administration would not yield
on its insistence that the North first state its willingness to bring
its nuclear program to a verifiable end.

Mr. Powell was equally hopeful about a peace agreement to end a grueling
civil war in Sudan. "The key here is that after 20 years of most
terrible war, Sudanese leaders have come together and are just one or
two steps short of having a comprehensive peace agreement," he said.

On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said the United States and the
three other nations promoting peace talks had expected more movement
ending hostilities and establishing a Palestinian state. "They are as
disturbed as I am that we haven't seen the kind of progress that we had
hoped for," he said.

Turning to Haiti, where a decade ago Mr. Powell took part in a
delegation that sought to persuade plotters in a military coup to step
down, he voiced frustration at the failure of President Jean-Bertrand
Aristide to reach agreement with his political foes. Violence has flared
in recent days as anti-Aristide protesters demanded an end to a
political deadlock that has paralyzed the government. The country's
Catholic Bishops Conference has tried to broker a new agreement.





--__--__--

Message: 5
From: "ppg" <ppg@DELETETHISnyc.rr.com>
To: <casi-news@lists.casi.org.uk>
Subject: Iraqi threat to overturn US broadcasting contract
Date: Sat, 10 Jan 2004 13:59:46 -0500


[ Presenting plain-text part of multi-format email ]

Financial Times Jan 10 http://tinyurl.com/2p643

      Iraqi threat to overturn US broadcasting contract
      By Nicolas Pelham in Amman and Joshua Chaffin in Washington
      FT.com site; Jan 09, 2004



      Iraq's communications minister on Friday threatened to overturn a pol=
itically sensitive contract awarded to an American company to run Iraq's na=
tional broadcasting service.

      The Harris Corporation, a US manufacturer, was selected on Friday wit=
h the Lebanese Broadcasting Company and a Kuwaiti-Iraq group, Al-Fawares, t=
o carry out a $100m (=A360m, ?78m), one-year contract to rebuild and operat=
e a newspaper and a group of Iraqi television and radio stations used by Sa=
ddam Hussein's regime.

      But Haider Abadi, communications minister, said he was not consulted =
about the contract and threatened to overturn it when the US-led administra=
tion hands power to a sovereign Iraqi government in July. "We very much wel=
come the help of others to reshape our media, but to relinquish our respons=
ibilities and to give control to foreign media is politically and socially =
wrong," said Mr Abadi. He called the contract "temporary".

      If the handover goes to plan Iraqi ministers will have responsibility=
 for deciding the fate of the licences.

      The contract was awarded by the Pentagon and funded from the $87.5bn =
Congress appropriated for funding reconstruction and the US operations in I=
raq and Afghanistan.

      Under the deal, Harris, which manufactures broadcasting transmitters,=
 will rebuild the country's national broadcaster. The LBC and Al-Fawares wi=
ll train 1,000 Iraqis to run two television channels and two radio stations=
. Al-Fawares will also publish the state newspaper, Al Sabah.

      Microsoft, the computer giant, will aid the consortium.

      Danny Benjamin, a vice-president at Al-Fawares, said that as an Iraqi=
-American, he respected Mr Abedi's comments. "This is a very strategic job.=
 It's not like rebuilding a road or a bridge." He promised to preserve Iraq=
i culture, and said he had not received any pressure from the Pentagon to c=
ensor or slant news coverage.

      The media contract has been a source of controversy for the US-led co=
alition. SAIC, a US defence contractor first recruited by the Pentagon, was=
 widely criticised for poor quality and pro-American bias. Critics dubbed i=
ts television operation "the Pentagon's Pravda" for its broadcasting of Eng=
lish-language press conferences with an Arabic voiceover.

      Several prospective bidders, including the BBC, withdrew from the ten=
dering process amid concern that the contract would not guarantee the indep=
endence of the broadcaster from state interference.

      Without firm regulations, broadcasters said they feared they would be=
 subject to political influence from both the Pentagon, which provided the =
funds, and an incoming Iraqi sovereign government expected to be anxious to=
 assert its authority.

      "The GC [Governing Council] wants a role in running the IMN, because =
the culture of the people needs someone who knows what is going on," says a=
 participant on the Governing Council's media committee.








      Find this article at:
      http://search.ft.com/s03/search/article.html?id=3D040109006100

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