[casi-analysis] casi-news digest, Vol 1 #153 - 4 msgs

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Today's Topics:

   1. Iraq, Saddam and Blair (Muhamed Ali)
   2. [Peace&Justice] Scholars Say Iraq Most Misguided Policy Since Vietnam (IRC Communications)
   3. Why is war-torn Iraq giving $190,000 to Toys R Us? (Mark Parkinson)
   4. Iraq News and Analysis (Muhamed Ali)

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Message: 1
Subject: Iraq, Saddam and Blair
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 12:47:01 +0100
From: "Muhamed Ali" <Muhamed.Ali@DELETETHISHackney.gov.uk>
To: <newsclippings@casi.org.uk>
Cc: <info@worldtribunal.org>


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

1.Blair pleads with centre left to bury differences over Iraq

Patrick Wintour, chief political correspondent
Friday October 15, 2004
The Guardian <http://www.guardian.co.uk>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1328106,00.html
<http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1328106,00.html>



2.Saddam bankrolled Palestinian terrorists



http://thescotsman.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=1199662004



Regards,

               Muhamad



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Message: 2
Date: Fri, 15 Oct 2004 15:01:56 -0600
To: peaceandjustice@lists.riseup.net
From: IRC Communications <communications@DELETETHISirc-online.org>
Subject: [Peace&Justice] Scholars Say Iraq Most Misguided Policy Since Vietnam


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

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Peace and Justice News from FPIF
http://www.fpif.org/

October 15, 2004
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Introducing a new commentary from Foreign Policy In Focus

Security Scholars Say Iraq War Most Misguided Policy Since Vietnam
By Jim Lobe

The U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq has been the ''most misguided''
policy since the Vietnam War, according to an open letter signed by some
500 U.S. national-security specialists.

The letter, released October 12 by a Security Scholars for a Sensible
Foreign Policy (S3FP), said that the current situation in Iraq could have
been much better had the Bush administration heeded the advice of some of
its most experienced career military and foreign service officers.

But the administration's failure to do so has actually fueled "the violent
opposition to the U.S. military presence," as well as the intervention of
terrorists from outside Iraq.

Jim Lobe jlobe@starpower.net is a political analyst with Foreign Policy in
Focus (online at www.fpif.org). He also writes regularly for Inter Press
Service.

See new FPIF commentary online at:
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0410scholars.html

With printer friendly PDF version at:
http://www.fpif.org/pdf/gac/0410scholars.pdf

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Produced and distributed by FPIF:"A Think Tank Without Walls," a joint
program of Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC) and Institute for Policy
Studies (IPS).

For more information, visit www.fpif.org. If you would like to add a name
to the "What's New At FPIF" specific region or topic list, please email:
communications@irc-online.org with "subscribe" and giving your area of
interest.

To add your name to this list, send a blank email to:
peaceandjustice-subscribe@lists.riseup.net

To unsubscribe, send a blank email to:
peaceandjustice-unsubscribe@lists.riseup.net.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Interhemispheric Resource Center (IRC)
http://www.irc-online.org/
Siri D. Khalsa
Outreach Coordinator
Email: communications@irc-online.org





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Message: 3
From: "Mark Parkinson" <mark44@DELETETHISmyrealbox.com>
To: casi-analysis@lists.casi.org.uk
Date: Sun, 17 Oct 2004 19:14:05 +0100
Subject: Why is war-torn Iraq giving $190,000 to Toys R Us?

Is there any concerted campaign on this other than by Jubilee Iraq?

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1328888,00.html

Why is war-torn Iraq giving $190,000 to Toys R Us?

Naomi Klein Iraqis are still being forced to pay for crimes committed
by Saddam

Saturday October 16, 2004
The Guardian

Next week, something will happen that will unmask the upside-down
morality of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. On October 21, Iraq
will pay $200m in war reparations to some of the richest countries
and corporations in the world.
If that seems backwards, it's because it is. Iraqis have never been
awarded reparations for any of the crimes they suffered under Saddam,
or the brutal sanctions regime that claimed the lives of at least
half a million people, or the US-led invasion, which the UN secretary
general, Kofi Annan, recently called "illegal". Instead, Iraqis are
still being forced to pay reparations for crimes committed by their
former dictator.

Quite apart from its crushing $125bn sovereign debt, Iraq has paid
$18.8bn in reparations stemming from Saddam Hussein's 1990 invasion
and occupation of Kuwait. This is not in itself surprising: as a
condition of the ceasefire that ended the 1991 Gulf war, Saddam
agreed to pay damages stemming from the invasion. More than 50
countries have made claims, with most of the money awarded to Kuwait.
What is surprising is that even after Saddam was overthrown, the
payments from Iraq have continued.

Since Saddam was toppled in April, Iraq has paid out $1.8bn in
reparations to the United Nations Compensation Commission (UNCC), the
Geneva-based quasi tribunal that assesses claims and disburses
awards. Of those payments, $37m have gone to Britain and $32.8m have
gone to the United States. That's right: in the past 18 months,
Iraq's occupiers have collected $69.8m in reparation payments from
the desperate people they have been occupying. But it gets worse: the
vast majority of those payments, 78%, have gone to multinational
corporations, according to statistics on the UNCC website.

Away from media scrutiny, this has been going on for years. Of course
there are many legitimate claims for losses that have come before the
UNCC: payments have gone to Kuwaitis who have lost loved ones, limbs,
and property to Saddam's forces. But much larger awards have gone to
corporations: of the total amount the UNCC has awarded in Gulf war
reparations, $21.5bn has gone to the oil industry alone. Jean-Claude
Aim=E9, the UN diplomat who headed the UNCC until December 2000,
publicly questioned the practice. "This is the first time as far as I
know that the UN is engaged in retrieving lost corporate assets and
profits," he told the Wall Street Journal in 1997, and then mused: "I
often wonder at the correctness of that."

But the UNCC's corporate handouts only accelerated. Here is a small
sample of who has been getting "reparation" awards from Iraq:
Halliburton ($18m), Bechtel ($7m), Mobil ($2.3m), Shell ($1.6m),
Nestl=E9 ($2.6m), Pepsi ($3.8m), Philip Morris ($1.3m), Sheraton
($11m), Kentucky Fried Chicken ($321,000) and Toys R Us ($189,449).
In the vast majority of cases, these corporations did not claim that
Saddam's forces damaged their property in Kuwait - only that they
"lost profits" or, in the case of American Express, experienced a
"decline in business" because of the invasion and occupation of
Kuwait. One of the biggest winners has been Texaco, which was awarded
$505m in 1999. According to a UNCC spokesperson, only 12% of that
reparation award has been paid, which means hundreds of millions more
will have to come out of the coffers of post-Saddam Iraq.

The fact that Iraqis have been paying reparations to their occupiers
is all the more shocking in the context of how little these countries
have actually spent on aid in Iraq. Despite the $18.4bn of US tax
dollars allocated for Iraq's reconstruction, the Washington Post
estimates that only $29m has been spent on water, sanitation, health,
roads, bridges, and public safety combined. And in July (the latest
figure available), the Department of Defence estimated that only $4m
had been spent compensating Iraqis who had been injured, or who lost
family members or property as a direct result of the occupation - a
fraction of what the US has collected from Iraq in reparations since
its occupation began.

For years there have been complaints about the UNCC being used as a
slush fund for multinationals and rich oil emirates - a backdoor way
for corporations to collect the money they were prevented from making
as a result of the sanctions against Iraq. During the Saddam years,
these concerns received little attention, for obvious reasons.

But now Saddam is gone and the slush fund survives. And every dollar
sent to Geneva is a dollar not spent on humanitarian aid and
reconstruction Iraq. Furthermore, if post-Saddam Iraq had not been
forced to pay these reparations, it could have avoided the $437m
emergency loan that the International Monetary Fund approved on
September 29.

With all the talk of forgiving Iraq's debts, the country is actually
being pushed deeper into the hole, forced to borrow money from the
IMF, and to accept all of the conditions and restrictions that come
along with those loans. The UNCC, meanwhile, continues to assess
claims and make new awards: $377m worth of new claims were awarded
last month alone.

Fortunately, there is a simple way to put an end to these grotesque
corporate subsidies. According to United Nations security council
resolution 687, which created the reparations programme, payments
from Iraq must take into account "the requirements of the people of
Iraq, Iraq's payment capacity, and the needs of the Iraqi economy".
If a single one of these three issues were genuinely taken into
account, the security council would vote to put an end to these
payouts tomorrow.

That is the demand of Jubilee Iraq, a debt relief organisation based
in London. Reparations are owed to the victims of Saddam Hussein, the
group argues - both in Iraq and in Kuwait. But the people of Iraq,
who were themselves Saddam's primary victims, should not be paying
them. Instead, reparations should be the responsibility of the
governments that loaned billions to Saddam, knowing the money was
being spent on weapons so he could wage war on his neighbours and his
own people. "If justice, and not power, prevailed in international
affairs, then Saddam's creditors would be paying reparations to
Kuwait as well as far greater reparations to the Iraqi people," says
Justin Alexander, coordinator of Jubilee Iraq.

Right now precisely the opposite is happening: instead of flowing
into Iraq, reparations are flowing out. It's time for the tide to
turn.


Mark Parkinson
Bodmin
Cornwall





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Message: 4
Subject: Iraq News and Analysis
Date: Mon, 18 Oct 2004 13:14:22 +0100
From: "Muhamed Ali" <Muhamed.Ali@DELETETHISHackney.gov.uk>
To: <newsclippings@casi.org.uk>


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

Dear colleagues,

                             Enclosed below are news item and analysis
by the BBC and The Observer, respectively.

 Muhamad

Bomb blast shatters Baghdad cafe



Iraq's police force is a regular target for insurgents

Seven people are now known to have died and more than 20 injured when a
suicide car bomb exploded outside a Baghdad cafe popular with Iraqi
police.







http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/3751642.stm



2.Comment

  _____

This futile fundamentalism

Champions of Islamic revolution are fooling themselves; they have
nothing to offer contemporary Muslims

William Pfaff
Sunday October 17, 2004
The Observer <http://www.observer.co.uk>

http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,1329250,00.html





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