The following is an archived copy of a message sent to a Discussion List run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
Views expressed in this archived message are those of the author, not of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq.
[Main archive index/search] [List information] [Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq Homepage]
NEWS SUPPLEMENT, 815/10/00
* Poll shows sanctions helped grease Milosevic's downfall [comparison
between the apparent success of sanctions in achieving US war aims in Serbia
and the lack of success in Iraq]
* Don't Fear Saddam [by Jim Hoagland, recommending tough action of some
unspecified sort]
* Saddam gets bolder as U.N. sanctions get weaker By Eli J. Lake [Is the
sanctions regime unravelling?]
* Six dead in apparent terror attack on U.S. Navy ship in Yemen [though the
figure of six is out of date this gives quite a good account of the
circumstances]
* US closes African embassies
* Petro-euro likely to remain a pipe-dream
* Oil Experts Say Third 'Predictable' Personality [Guess who?] Could Shape
Presidential Election, Send Gas Prices Skyrocketing And Fuel
Israeli-Palestinian Conflict
* Pavlov, Kurds and Global Containment ! [Overview of the situation of
Kurds in Northern Iraq/Southern Kurdistan]
* Persian Gulf, U.S. Danger Zone [account of US deployment in the Gulf]
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/cgi
bin/WebObjects/SeattleTimes.woa/wa/gotoArticle?text_only=0&slug=sanc09&docum
ent_id=134238184&zsection_id=268448413
* POLL SHOWS SANCTIONS HELPED GREASE MILOSEVIC'S DOWNFALL
by Norman Kempster
Los Angeles Times, Monday, October 09, 2000
WASHINGTON - Just when the world had about concluded that economic sanctions
are close to useless against entrenched dictators, the sudden downfall of
Slobodan Milosevic in Yugoslavia has sent a different message: Sometimes the
strategy seems to work.
No analyst is claiming that the economic and political isolation imposed on
Yugoslavia by the United States and its allies is the only reason Milosevic
was forced from power. But there is a growing consensus that the sanctions
were more effective than even their staunchest backers had dared to hope
just a few weeks ago.
A poll taken in Yugoslavia just before massive demonstrations forced
Milosevic to quit indicated the sanctions and their consequences were a
major force for change. In the survey, commissioned by the U.S. National
Democratic Institute, 1,780 Yugoslav voters were asked the most important
issue that determined their choice in the Sept. 24 election won by
opposition leader Vojislav Kostunica.
More than half cited either the economic crisis that was exacerbated by the
sanctions, or the sanctions themselves.
Policymakers in the United States and Europe are pondering a crucial
question: If the sanctions helped topple Milosevic, why have they failed to
oust dictators or force policy changes in Cuba, North Korea, Iraq, Iran,
Libya and elsewhere?
Critics of sanctions, such as much of the U.S. business community, cautioned
that the policy would not necessarily achieve its goals elsewhere.
Gary Litman, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce's managing director for Europe and
Eurasia, said: "Yugoslavs found themselves in isolation while the other
eastern European countries were getting ready to join the European Union.
That showed them that they were on the wrong side of history. We don't have
that anywhere else."
Based on the Yugoslav experience, U.S. officials and nongovernment experts
said sanctions can prove effective when:
They are imposed - and rigorously enforced - by most of the world's
governments.
The target country has nothing that the rest of the world needs, such as
Iraq's oil, which encourages evasion.
The targeted regime is not an ironclad tyranny and has at least some
independent organizations.
The policy is carefully designed to hit hard at the government and its
leaders through visa bans affecting only named individuals and through
restrictions affecting the business interests of the leadership. But some
impact on ordinary citizens is inevitable and possibly even desirable.
Religious and humanitarian groups frequently oppose sanctions because they
say the impact is greater on a country's innocent population than on its
government.
All of these factors came into play in the case of Yugoslavia, while none
pertains to Iraq.
U.S.-imposed sanctions against Cuba, Iran and Libya are not supported by the
rest of the world, and North Korea has the sort of dictatorship that seems
to enjoy its international isolation, making sanctions ineffective.
Most experts, including critics of sanctions, agree that the biggest success
for the policy before the Yugoslav experience was in South Africa, where the
white-minority government was squeezed until it agreed to hold all-race
elections.
Like Yugoslavia, South Africa was a police state with democratic trappings,
the kind of regime most susceptible to sanctions. And, like Yugoslavia, the
isolation - such as exclusion from international sports competition - had a
heavy impact.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A41007-2000Oct9.html
* DON'T FEAR SADDAM
by Jim Hoagland, Tuesday, October 10, 2000; Page A25
The savagery of the Palestinian-Israeli violence of the past 10 days blows
open new opportunities for deadly mischief by Saddam Hussein and other Arab
extremists. The overly cautious effort by President Clinton at containing
Saddam is being rapidly overtaken by the new crisis in the Middle East.
Fear has been a constant companion and a poor counselor for Clinton on Iraq.
Like the raven of Edgar Allen Poe, fear has perched in the Oval Office for
nearly eight years, cawing to Clinton: "Don't."
In its final days, the Clinton administration has been moving to provide new
support to Saddam's democratic opposition and to take baby steps toward
dealing with Iran, the dictator's neighboring enemy. Better in extremis than
never.
But the changes also underscore how needlessly hesitant Clinton was on Iraq
while he had a relatively free hand to act. In an atmosphere of Islamic holy
war on Israel, trying to maintain a coalition against Saddam becomes
infinitely harder.
Fearful of being dragged into war by Iraqi guerrilla forces he once covertly
supported, Clinton abandoned the guerrillas five years ago. Fearful of being
dragged into war over U.N. arms inspections, he abandoned the inspections
two years ago. Fearful of international criticism, he has submitted to
travel and economic sanctions against Iraq being shredded daily by Russia,
France, Turkey and Arab nations "friendly" to Washington.
A trickle of international flights, border openings and calls for lifting
the economic embargo on Iraq has turned into a flood since violence erupted
in the West Bank and Gaza on Sept. 28. Saddam has actively sought to exploit
the poisonous atmosphere, promising Arabs he will send guns and troops to
help Palestinians exterminate Israelis. What Clinton feared, his policies
have helped produce.
Fear itself becomes a weapon that foes can learn to wield against America.
Saddam has bought two years of unimpeded work on weapons of mass destruction
by manipulating Clinton's valid but overdrawn concerns.
Those concerns have centered on the (undeniable) dangers of confronting this
Arab dictator directly and on the less tangible impact of his fall on the
region. The Arabist-leaning bureaucracies of the State Department and the
Pentagon fear Iraq's possible disintegration, Iran's rise in the Persian
Gulf power sweepstakes and the impact of democracy, should that come to
Iraq, on neighboring Arab oil monarchies.
Such concerns underpin the roadblocks the administration has thrown up to
Republican-led congressional efforts to get money, guns and training to
Saddam's foes. Now, some of the roadblocks are being bypassed, under
pressure from Vice President Al Gore.
After months of stalling, the State Department announced last week agreement
to provide $4 million over five months to the Iraqi National Congress, the
most significant anti-Saddam dissident organization. Another $4 million
grant for the INC may follow early next year.
Details of the funding were not released. But they were outlined to me by
INC and State Department sources. Getting a satellite television station and
a new radio network broadcasting into Iraq this autumn is the INC's most
urgent priority in its $1.8 million public information budget.
The State Department will also provide $425,000 to fund INC distribution of
humanitarian relief in southern Iraq, with food and medicine likely to come
from the Pentagon. And State offers the INC $190,580 to open regional
offices in Tehran and Damascus.
Chicken feed as these things go? Yes. The CIA used to spend $300,000 a month
on the INC. But the funding puts out new lines to countries with a serious
interest in Saddam's downfall. Syria has a new leader in Bashar Assad, and
Iran's leadership has been dancing an increasingly complex minuet of opening
to the world, including the United States.
The INC will handle all contact with Iran to establish its office. But the
U.S. funding for the office will be seen in Tehran--and by Saddam--as a step
forward in the U.S.-Iran minuet. It will drive Saddam nuts, which is fine
with Secretary of State Madeleine Albright. Albright is not cowed by the
bureaucracy's Iranophobia, and she seems to understand the perils of
allowing fear to dictate policy.
So perhaps does Gore, who broke with the Democratic Party leadership to vote
for Operation Desert Storm a decade ago. As he gradually gets control of
administration policy through the election campaign, it tends to reflect his
more hawkish views.
Or this may be a ploy, a $4 million investment in reducing Gore's
vulnerability: The INC would have nothing today if Senate Republicans had
not pushed and harried the Clinton-Gore team to give them support. And
George W. Bush's foreign policy advisers include people who have understood
and fought Saddam's evil every step of the way, even when others on the Bush
team did not.
But Gore should get the benefit of the doubt at this stage. Whether he or
Bush wins, an era of policy stained by fear should be coming to an end.
Saddam should soon be deprived of his most effective weapon.
http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=126998
* SADDAM GETS BOLDER AS U.N. SANCTIONS GET WEAKER by Eli J. Lake
WASHINGTON, Oct. 11 (UPI) -- Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, near the top of
the U.S. enemies list and the greatest threat to Israel in the region, has
become emboldened in recent weeks in the face of the near collapse of the
U.N. sanctions against his country.
U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has repeatedly said that the
sanctions have kept Saddam in a metaphorical box, where he does not have
access to his oil revenues, remains diplomatically isolated and cannot
restock his war machine. And while a case can be made that the bulk of the
sanctions remain, the facts on the ground suggest a different story.
Jordan's leading newspaper reported Wednesday that Amman was ready to expel
Lloyds of London, the auditor in charge of cataloguing Jordan's exports to
Iraq at the port of Aqaba. Aqaba is not only a central point for Jordan's
shipments to Iraq, but also a point for the reexport of other goods from the
region to Iraq.
Turkey, a NATO ally, threatened Wednesday to reopen a dormant petroleum
pipeline to Iraq if the U.S. House of Representatives passed a resolution
condemning the Turk's alleged genocide of Armenians in World War I. The
House was expected to vote on the resolution soon. Rumblings from Ankara of
reopening relations with Iraq are particularly troubling in light of
American dependence on the Incirlik airbase, the Turkish installations
American fighter jets use to enforce the no-fly zone in northern Iraq.
David Wurmser, an Iraq analyst at the conservative American Enterprise
Institute said the Turkish posturing on Iraq is to expected in light of
recent U.S. policy. "Either we are serious or we are not and if we are not
they'll make their own deals. This is another demonstration of the collapse
of an America-centric security structure in the region."
These developments take place in the context of 15 "humanitarian flights"
to Baghdad from countries including Turkey that have normally observed the
strict sanctions against Iraq in the last five weeks. The United Nations
prohibits commercial air flights, unless authorized by a special panel.
France, Russia, Egypt and Syria did not even bother to ask that committee
for permission. And while those flights have contained medical supplies and
food, they also brought businessmen and political leaders ready to renew
ties with Iraq.
Take the Syrian flight that arrived Monday. Saddam rolled out a red carpet
for the Syrian delegation and had his trade and communication ministers meet
them at the airport. Iraqi Trade Minister Muhammad Mahdi Saleh said the
visit would "improve the brotherly relations between the two countries."
In an interview Wednesday, the assistant Secretary of State for
International Organization Affairs, C. David Welch, told UPI, "The recent
humanitarian flights and political gestures from some countries toward Iraq
do not change the fundamental viability of the sanctions regime." Welch went
on to point out that Iraqi leader still does not have unfettered access to
revenues from oil sales and that countries are still prohibited from sending
uninspected "dual use materials" to Iraq, items that could be used for
military purposes but also have domestic uses, such as chlorine filters.
But the United Nations has no way of verifying what items are coming in and
out of Iraq, according to Ewen Buchanan, the spokesman for the U.N.
Monitoring Verification and Inspection Commission, or UNMVIC. The commission
has been blocked from entering Iraq since 1998. "We are receiving
notifications but we don't know what we are not receiving," Buchanan said.
"There is concern but that has been there all along, we are now denied the
other end of the system in terms of verification. Under the old system if
things were not notified and we discovered them we had the right to destroy
them."
The sanctions and the weapons inspections are linked by a 1999 U.N.
resolution, sponsored by the United States, that keeps sanctions on Iraq as
long as the UNMVIC is barred from inspecting the warehouses and weapons
compounds in that country. While all five permanent members of the U.N.
Security Council have urged Iraq to abide by this resolution, Baghdad
remains obstinate.
And Saddam's resistance to weapons inspectors has not bore a price
diplomatically in the region. Arab leaders last weekend invited Hussein to
an Arab Summit to take place later this month to discuss the violence that
has engulfed the Jewish State in the last ten days. The invitation was the
first time Hussein was invited to an Arab League meeting at the head of
state level since the Gulf War in 1991.
On Wednesday State Department spokesman, Richard Boucher discounted the
invitation and its impact on the peace process. "Iraq's position on the
peace process is well known and I think heavily discounted," he said. "The
fact is the parties remain engaged. The parties keep working with us, and we
keep proceeding despite some of these voices that are trying to tear down
the peace process."
But on Oct. 3, Saddam had this to say on Iraqi radio with regard to the
flare ups in Israel. "We will not wait until the day comes when the blockade
is lifted to put an end to [the Israelis]. No, from this day we can put an
end to them, and we want nothing from them (other Arabs). If they say this
is an honor for everybody, then let us all rely on God and put an end to
Zionism. They know that the Iraqi people are great and ready to put an end
to Zionism from this moment."
http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=127335
* SIX DEAD IN APPARENT TERROR ATTACK ON U.S. NAVY SHIP IN YEMEN By Pamela
Hess, Thursday, 12 October 2000
WASHINGTON, Oct. 12 (UPI) -- At least five sailors were killed, with 36
wounded and 12 still missing, in an apparent suicide bomb attack Thursday on
a U.S. Navy ship preparing to refuel in a harbor in Yemen.
Officially, the U.S. government has not labeled the incident a terrorist
attack, but Defense Secretary William Cohen, Secretary of State Madeleine
Albright and Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Vernon Clark all say it was
likely the work of terrorists and vowed to retaliate.
"From a personal point of view, and what I know about the ship and the
events that have been described to me, I have no reason to think that this
was anything but a senseless act of terrorism," Clark said at a Pentagon
news conference with Cohen.
"If ... we determine that terrorists attacked our ship and killed our
sailors, then we will not rest until we have tracked down those who are
responsible for this vicious and cowardly act," Cohen said.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack and Cohen would not
speculate as to who might be responsible.
"I think it's just premature to make any link between Osama bin Laden or
anyone else at this point until we have more information," Cohen said. Bin
Laden is suspected by the United States of involvement in several acts of
terrorism against American targets.
Cohen struck a similarly cautious tone when he said that President Saddam
Hussein has troops on the move in Iraq. He noted this is a normal training
cycle for that country.
"But we're watching it very closely, because of the ambiguity of the
situation, to make sure that Saddam is not using any training cycle in order
to take advantage of any developments in the Middle East or elsewhere," the
secretary said. "But we have not seen any specific move that would indicate
that he ... intends to cause any major controversy."
The destroyer USS Cole had been in the Mediterranean Sea, passed through
the Red Sea into the Gulf of Aden and was on its way to the Persian Gulf.
The Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer pulled up to a floating
refueling dock at 12:15 p.m. local time in the harbor off Aden. A group of
small boats from Yemen's port authority approached to help tie the ship to
buoys.
One of these small harbor boats tied off a single line, then pulled up
along the Cole and apparently detonated a "significant" explosive package,
the Navy said. It blew an 800-square-foot hole at the midpoint of the port
side of the ship, tearing apart the Cole's half-inch-thick steel hull.
The explosion destroyed an engine room and an auxiliary room and damaged
the chief petty officers' dining room and the crew galley.
The small boat seemed to be part of the local crew that greets large ships
and helps them navigate the harbor and tie up, and the commander of the
Cole, Kirk Lippold, had no reason to suspect it was out to do harm,
according to Clark. These kinds of refueling operations take place on almost
a daily basis in foreign ports.
Clark said it would be almost impossible to defend a ship from this kind of
attack. There was no warning or threat made, he said.
"The scenario that I've described to you is that it would be
extraordinarily difficult to have ever observed in time to do anything about
this kind of situation and to have stopped it," Clark said.
Whether the Navy will suspend use of the port is up to the commander of the
U.S. Central Command, Gen. Thomas Franks.
That the Cole would be refueling in Aden was no secret. A Yemeni "pilot"
would have been on the bridge of the U.S. destroyer helping it navigate into
the port, the Navy said.
Moreover, Clark said the port authority at Yemen had 10 to 12 days' notice
from the U.S. Embassy of Cole's refueling.
"We don't automatically suspect people that are sent forward to help us in
an official way," Clark said. "This kind of support takes the tone of -- the
arrangements made -- we send our request to the embassy and they deal with
the local people there."
The Cole submitted the required "force protection" plan in advance of its
port visit, indicating all reasonable measures for security were taken,
Clark said.
Cohen said force protection is his highest priority as defense secretary.
In 1997, he opposed the promotion of the general who was in charge of the
U.S. air base in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, when a terror attack on the Khobar
Towers housing complex took place, killing 19.
The casualty toll from Thursday's bombing could have been far higher;
because the sailors were on "sea and anchor" detail, performing duties
particular to pulling into a harbor, few sailors would have been in the
areas damaged.
The damage is at the waterline, so the ship's crew was continuing to pump
out water. The Cole was listing 4 degrees to port. Clark said the crew was
"fighting for their ship."
A Navy official added later that the Cole is not yet out of danger, as a
bulkhead could still give way.
Cohen confirmed that five sailors had died, and more casualties could be
found as there are still missing sailors. CNN reported Thursday night that
the number of deaths was six.
The U.S. military flew in a surgeon and a small medical team from Bahrain,
and more medical teams were to follow. Britain and France also provided
medical help.
Cohen said the attack would not stop the United States from pursuing its
interests abroad.
"We will continue to protect our national interests around the world, in
the Middle East and elsewhere," he said. "No one should doubt our resolve to
remain a force for peace and for stability, and no one should assume that
they can force us to retreat. No one should assume they can attack us with
impunity."
He added, "We will take appropriate measures to hold those responsible."
Secretary of State Albright said she had been in touch with President Ali
Abdullah Saleh of Yemen, and the Yemeni government "was being very
cooperative in the investigative process."
"If it turns out, as it appears, to have been a terrorist act, we will
hold those who committed it accountable and take appropriate steps,"
Albright said
Sen. Charles Robb, D-Va., said he would support a retaliatory strike
against the perpetrators if one were launched when details become clearer,
and suggested the magnitude of the attack indicates it was state-sponsored.
"It appears the attack could have no origin outside of terrorist activity,"
Robb told reporters on Capitol Hill. "Because of the level of explosive
charges used ... and the structure of the port, it appears that (this act)
would have required state cooperation or state sponsorship. Someone in the
port authority either failed miserably or was complicit."
Sen. John Warner, R-Va., chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee,
told CNN the attacking craft was not ''put together in a garage overnight.
There had to be careful planning.''
The chairman of the House International Relations Committee, Rep. Benjamin
A. Gilman, R-N.Y., called for an armed response to the attack.
"It is not enough to make tough speeches and bomb rocks or pharmaceutical
factories, as the administration did in response to the attack on our
embassies in Kenya and Tanzania," he said, referring to the 1998 that are
among the acts in which bin Laden has been implicated. "Our enemies must
understand that they will be found and they will be dealt with, if they
attack U.S. troops."
Yemeni radio reported that Saleh had said the explosion was caused by an
ammunition explosion on the Cole, and not an outside attack.
However, Navy spokeswoman Lt. Meghan Mariman told United Press
International, "There is absolutely no indication it was an internal
explosion."
Attorney General Janet Reno said an FBI team was headed for a port in Yemen
to investigate. Officials from the State Department were also going.
The entire George Washington carrier battle group has been ordered out of
port for safety reasons, and troops around the world are on heightened
alert, the Pentagon announced.
Yemeni security and military forces, contacted by UPI in Aden, refused to
give any information on the incident. The authorities in Yemen were expected
to release a statement later.
Yemen is a known locus of terrorist organizations and has been the scene of
a number of terror attacks and kidnappings of Westerners. Terrorist
financier bin Laden, who is part Yemeni, is believed to have a training camp
in the country, and the militant group Hamas has an office in Yemen.
However, Yemen is not on the State Department list of countries suspected of
sponsoring terrorism. The Yemeni government vehemently opposed the Gulf War.
The Navy has been using the "defense fuel support point" facility in Yemen
for just 15 months; it has only been used 12 times by U.S. vessels. Use of
the port was initiated by the military's Central Command chief in 1999 as
part of a larger effort to improve relations with Yemen.
"We have been working to improve our relations with Yemen for some time.
And I'm sure that that was at the heart of the motivation of the unified
commander as they are improving our relations in that part of the world,"
Clark said.
The Navy considers port visits an integral part of its job. A well-armed
ship makes a powerful public statement about U.S. commitment to a region;
the Navy calls that mission "presence." It is also a reward to a country,
boosting the local economy when sailors go ashore.
The Cole is 505 feet long and 148 feet high at its tallest point. It
displaces 8,300 tons of water and can reach speeds of more than 30 knots. It
boasts an arsenal containing standard missiles, Tomahawk cruise missiles and
several large guns. The Cole was commissioned in June 1996. Its homeport is
Norfolk, Va., where it is part of the George Washington carrier battle
group. It carries more than 300 sailors.
This appears to be the first attack of its kind on a U.S. naval vessel. In
1987, the USS Stark was hit by Iraqi missiles, killing 37 and wounding five.
In 1982, one sailor from the USS Pensacola was killed and three were injured
in a terrorist attack on land in San Juan, Puerto Rico. A terrorist's truck
bomb killed 241 Marines in their barracks in Lebanon in 1983.
In June 1996, a terrorist truck bomb attack killed 19 members of the Air
Force in their living quarters in Dhahran. In November 1995, an attack in
another Saudi city, Riyadh, killed five Americans working with the Saudi
Arabian National Guard.
In 1898, the USS Maine sank in Havana harbor, killing 266; the incident is
sometimes attributed to hostile action. It was one of the catalysts that led
to the Spanish-American War.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/africa/newsid_970000/970561.stm
* US CLOSES AFRICAN EMBASSIES
Friday, 13 October, 2000
The United States has ordered the temporary closure of seven diplomatic
missions in Africa as a result of increasing tension in the Middle East. The
embassies in South Africa, Kenya,Tanzania, Mauritania, Nigeria, Senegal and
Djibouti closed this morning. A spokesman at the US embassy in Nairobi told
the BBC the closures would be reviewed on a day-to-day basis.
The US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were both bombed on 7 August 1998 in
attacks which the US blamed on Islamic militant Osama bin Laden. More than
220 people, mostly Kenyans, were killed in the explosions, and more than
5,000 wounded.
On 6 October more than 10,000 members of a Nigerian Islamic movement staged
a demonstration in the northern city of Kano burning US and Israeli flags
and calling for the government to cut diplomatic links with Israel. In South
Africa about 200 supporters of the ruling African National Congress
demonstrated in Cape Town on Thursday with placards calling for "Free
Palestine". President Thabo Mbeki condemned what he termed Israel's
"excessive and disproportionate" use of force against Palestinians.
In the Mauritanian capital Nouakchott more than 2,000 demonstrators on
Thursday demanded the government break diplomatic ties with Israel.
Mauritania supported Iraq in the Gulf War in 1991 and only established
relations with Israel in 1999.
A US warship in the Gulf of Aden was bombed in a suicide attack on Thursday
which some US officials have blamed on Osama bin Laden.
In 1998 the US launched a cruise missile attack on a factory in the Sudanese
capital Khartoum in retaliation for the embassy bombings. The Sudanese
factory bombing sparked major protests. It claimed the factory was involved
in the production of chemical weapons and was linked financially to Mr bin
Laden. The owner is suing the US Government for compensation saying the
allegations were totally without foundation.
Anti-American sentiment ran high after the attack. American involvement in
the Gulf War also prompted high levels of anti-American feeling in a number
of African countries, particularly Nigeria, Niger and Senegal.
http://www.gulf-news.com/13102000/BUSINESS/business11.htm
* PETRO-EURO LIKELY TO REMAIN A PIPE-DREAM
London (Reuters) - European policy-makers wrestling with the weakness of
the single currency might appreciate the boost of global oil trade
denominated in euros, but that is likely to remain a pipe-dream. Iraq said
yesterday it was asking for crude oil payments in euros, rather than
dollars, from November. Iraq accounts for five per cent of internationally
traded crude oil, and its exports of 2.2 million barrels per day at current
prices earn about $57 million a day.
Analysts said Iraq's decision, which is dependent on United Nations
approval, was politically motivated and would not in itself inspire similar
action by other oil producers, particularly while the dollar was strong.
But it rekindled memories of past discussions about the pricing of oil in
currencies other than dollars, a proposal never implemented due to the
dollar's entrenched position as the currency of global energy and
commodities trade.
"It's not the first time this kind of thing has cropped up," said Paul
Horsnell of the Oxford Institute for Energy Studies. "In the 1980s Opec
countries talked about changing to yen, or anything else because the dollar
was weak. But once you have come around to a certain way of doing things,
it's hard to push people towards something else."
The euro could do with the benefits won for the dollar from recent 10-year
highs in oil prices. Surging oil prices have gone hand in hand with the
euro's decline to record lows against the dollar in recent weeks, and oil
priced in euros would at the least remove the currency risk incurred by the
euro zone's oil importers.
-"You can see the problem in the German trade data - the bulk of the
worsening data has been down to oil," said Kirit Shah, chief market
strategist at Sanwa International in London. -Data released this week showed
Germany's trade surplus shrinking, as oil prices increase and the weak euro
drives up the price of imports.
Oil trade denominated in euros would also increase demand for the single
currency from oil consumers, going some way towards stemming the outward
investment and corporate merger and acquisition flows from which the euro
has suffered since its launch in January, 1999.
"There is certain dollar demand out there to pay for oil, and if dollars
were no good to them, people would need to sell dollars and buy euros to buy
some of their oil," said Lee Ferridge, head of global currency strategy at
Rabobank in London.
But analysts said oil producers' outgoings were too closely aligned with the
dollar to make it sensible for the producers to switch their invoice
currency. "Most of the oil industry's costs are going to be
dollar-denominated - expat employees are paid in dollars, rig services and
pumps are usually from the United States," said Horsnell. "If your are costs
are dollar-denominated, revenues should be dollar-denominated."
Meanwhile, the euro will continue to battle with problems of labour market
inflexibility, outward merger-related flows and the relative outperformance
of the U.S. economy, analysts said.
"Two-thirds of global trade is in dollars, and that is even out of the Fed's
control," said Shah. "It has developed over the past 100 years."
There was only one other place outside Iraq where the euro was ever likely
to become a petro-euro, analysts added - the home base of the Rotterdam oil
products market, within the heart of the 12 nation euro zone.
http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/001013/tx_oil_exp.html
* OIL EXPERTS SAY THIRD 'PREDICTABLE' PERSONALITY COULD SHAPE PRESIDENTIAL
ELECTION, SEND GAS PRICES SKYROCKETING AND FUEL ISRAELI-PALESTINIAN CONFLICT
HOUSTON, Oct. 13 /PRNewswire/ -- The depth of Arab animosity toward the West
-- and the United States as the clearest target of that animosity -- is
exemplified by Thursday's attack on a U.S. warship in Yemen, according to
Michael J. Economides and Ronald E. Oligney, professors at the University of
Houston and energy advisors to Fortune 500 companies. ``There is a palpable
and clearly undesirable sense that Iraq's Saddam Hussein will do something
to ignite the situation,'' say the experts.
Over a year ago, when oil was $14 a barrel, Economides and Oligney
accurately predicted with much skepticism that oil would be going for $30 a
barrel by year's end. The two oil and energy experts now feel the current
extraordinarily tight energy situation, presidential politics in the United
States, the erupting Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and one crazy but almost
predictable Middle East dictator could spell disaster for the United States
this fall. His most potent weapon: oil.
According to Economides and Oligney, ``pulling one or two million barrels
per day from the world oil supply, even if it would essentially amount to a
starvation policy for the hapless Iraqis, would propel the price of oil to
$50 per barrel overnight and wreak havoc with the U.S. energy-intensive
lifestyle. The U.S. presidential election provides him (Sadaam) with an
additional and compelling impetus.'' This, coupled with the fact that,
according to the two, ``Saddam Hussein's entire raison d'etre is to appear
relevant and powerful both inside his country and in the entire Arab and
Moslem worlds'' giving him an even wider agenda of manipulating the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The two experts have stated publicly that no action by the U.S.
Administration short of a military response can really counteract a sudden
cut of oil production by Iraq and the credibility of tapping the Strategic
Petroleum Reserve would be questioned: all shaping factors in the
Presidential election.
Economides and Oligney are currently on an OTEK (Australia) sponsored
national media tour for their new book The Color of Oil, with expected
November reviews in both the journal Energy and Oil Week Magazine, America's
and Canada's most prestigious energy periodicals, respectively.
http://members.home.net/kurdistanobserver/11-10-00-opinion-royee.html
* PAVLOV, KURDS AND GLOBAL CONTAINMENT !
By Chalak Jewan Royee
The Kurdistan Observer , Oct 11, 2000
{I have put in theparagraph divisions in this article which may be a little
arbitrary PB]
What Pavlov did early in the 20 th Century has given the Western
Intelligence branches of each Government an added avenue into the game of
manipulation . Pavlov, a Russian Physiologist did his research on dogs,
looking for relationships between stomach secretions and the nervous
system. His work gave him International recognition and was called
²Conditioning². The methods he used were somewhat more humane than the
brainwashing techniques imposed on prisoners of war and slaves.
Nonetheless, Pavlov has added a valuable piece to the puzzle of control and
manipulation. His basic experiment dealt with a dog under a harness,
subjected to several stimulus: a bell, a light in addition to food. The
same experiment, when linked to other conditioning discoveries, the outcome
became a new weapon, serving the purposes of any intelligence agency which
wished to deploy, in manipulating a state or a people.
Food played a significant role in shaping the Middle East in the 20 th
century. Most Governments (modern Laboratories called states) were
encouraged to buy Western wheat, corn and barley at depressed prices. To be
used, in tern, by each Government to better control their people!
Although depressed prices on the surface suggested humane approach to the
growing needs of countries with large populations , but the ulterior
motives were, as we learned , very alarming! Conditioning steps were part
of a wider scheme of political practices of the provider of that aid, be
it from a foreign source or a domestic one. Iraq, especially occupied south
KURDISTAN, for example, was considered to be the breadbasket of the
surrounding regions prior to 1961.
The Kurdish area produced all needed staples with surplus sold to others.
State subsidy programs compelled many farmers to work less and become
dependent more on the Government handouts. Villagers who did not wish to
relinquish their farming and growing practices, because they could produce
better crops and products themselves and much cheaper, soon had to face
various pressures to end their efforts! It was soon apparent that the
Government was not interested in the peoples¹ welfare but in their
control. The worst was to come from the central Government which demanded
an end to all forms of domestic productions and thus demanded their
dependence on the Government.
When the people of south KURDISTAN resisted, we all know what the results
were. Eventually the Government in Baghdad destroyed over four thousand
productive villages! When further resistance to the Government's plot was
shown, Baghdad used increasingly more radical courses. For example,
mining the Kurdish homeland with millions of mines, maiming farmers, men,
women , their children and livestock. Making it impossible for any farmer
to return to his fertile land without having to fear the consequences of
such calamity which has befallen others before them!
Sadly, most people reading about the crisis in Iraq think that Saddam was
and is behind it all. He is, beyond a shadow of a doubt, a trigger man.
A ³dog² who was encouraged to be free in the Laboratory invented by the
British called the ³modern² state of Iraq. He was handpicked by the
West in late 1959 to destroy the other dogs that went out of control,
namely the communists! Ironically, Saddam was permitted to break out of
his harnesses, so that Western dog-catchers could have the pretext to
further interfere in the Laboratory, Iraq! Pretentious or real, some
Western countries are plotting to bring him to International Courts facing
charges of genocide and other war crimes! Crimes he committed on their
behalf! Better late than never! Pavlovís electric bell worked with his
strapped dog in providing useful information, however, the bombing of Iraq
failed to achieve a positive end, at least not for the Iraqi peoples.
Neither Saddam nor Pavlovís dog were destroyed in the experiments. Both
survived the ordeals, may be Saddam for the longest time !
Failure of Saddam to enlist South KURDISTAN in his Arab nationalism
agenda, is an indication that he was neither smart nor aware of Pavlovís
positive conditioning style. The same position Israel had with the
Palestinians. Both the Kurds and the Palestinians where considered lower
level life forms! Saddam applied all the negatives he picked up from
oppressive Governments. Tactics mostly used by his former Soviet Block
friends against Jews and the ³undesirables²! On top of it, most of his
biochemical component materials needed to manufacture his weapons of mass
destruction came from the Western world! The question is why was this
permitted? Western style conditioning appeared more boldly when food,
fear, fratricide and sanctions were put to use after the 1991 Gulf War.
South KURDISTAN was especially hard hit and that conditioning continues
till this day in the new lab called ³Safe Haven². The word CONTAINMENT
must be remembered with the word CONDITIONING whenever the West gives aid
to a state or a people. Even at the time of a calamity, man-made or natural,
these two terms are intended to complement one another. Some times it may
be even presented in a blunt way, in a package deal, so to speak, saying
your ³oil is for our food and medicine,etc². Refined conditioning and
sophisticated methods of delivery have been tried in South KURDISTAN
since 1992.
The Kurds were given an opportunity, under duress, to become subjects in a
new lab called ³Safe Haven², or, remain in Saddam¹s crude lab called the
Iraqi state. To accept, the Kurdish region was subjected to shocks ranging
from helicopter gun ship attacks to daily killing of opposition people to
repeated fratricide wars! Unlike Pavlovís dogs who were exposed to LIGHT,
Bell and food as stimuli, the Kurds were and are subjected to life
threatening agents. Halabja¹s chemical attack is an historical reminder!
Please, visit http://www.halabja.org . When the people continued to
resist, Saddam¹s security forces separated the masses by gender, all males
were sent to his Laboratories where weapons of mass destruction were being
developed. They ultimately ended up as experimental subjects, under full
view of the Western Intelligence communities!
The Safe Haven region is still being subjected to conditioning experiments.
Western political biases, many believe, are behind and encouraging
fratricide among the Kurds, especially the on going PKK and PUK
infighting. One Washington insider source informed me that the only two
happy Governments about this fratricide is Ankara and Washington! In the
name of democracy and multi-political parties, one party is encouraged to
fight another to further weaken the unity of the Kurdish Nation.
The Governments which are behind the disturbances in the Safe Haven
region, the ³Lab Masters² (LM) are ever ready to continue experimentations
there. For example, when the PUK engaged the Islamists in 1993, the
outcome was not to the liking of the LM, it was ordered to stop with a
hearty apology from the PUK leadership to the Islamists!. And, when the PUK
engaged the KDP, the ³dog² in Baghdad was invited in by the KDP! None
of the fallout from these confrontations were fully anticipated by the
LM. Nonetheless, America gained over seven thousand professionals,
brought in to Guam, then dispersed around the U.S.
Capitalism¹s primary objective is to gain from confrontations, be it oil
for free or human resources which enriches its labor markets! Therefore,
it becomes imperative no lab to be torn down unless another can replaces
it. The Kurdish enclave called Safe Haven is only good until capitalism
finds a better foothold in the region! They will, however, strongly
support it and avert its collapse at present because it is the mini
containment lab necessary to have, to justify Western presence there!
Periodic interventions by the LM are to be manufactured to insure that LMís
³National Interests² are saved. For instance, the KDP and the PUK were
invited to Western Capitals to relief them of their angers toward one
another. Unlike those attempts described above, the recent fratricide
between the PUK and the PKK shall not see an end until the conditioning
criteria is fully met by the LM. After all, the LM declared the PKK to be a
³terrorist² organization! Thus, pleasing the Turkish Lobbyists in all
Western capitals! Influenced by kickback money ( in the U.S., taxpayers¹
money given in foreign aid to Turkey, being laundered politically!) and by
virtue of other forms of bribery the LM governments turned a blind eye to
the excesses of the military in North KURDISTAN!
The PKK forces in South KURDISTAN are there to escape terror from Turkey.
Being political refugees in south KURDISTAN should give them the protection
they were not offered when they were in the north. Political refugees are
to be protected and not forced to defend themselves in their new
geographical areas! So, if we hear LM governments claiming Saddam is an
evil person, why aren¹t they thinking the same way about the military in
Turkey, a highly conditioned killer machine producing terrorists?!
Concluding this article, Global Containment is a by -product of
Conditioning. The problem is that weapon manufacturers are part of the
stimuli set up by the LM! The military and their weapons suppliers do not
believe in converting their factories to plow shears and construction
tools making enterprises, they do however, unfortunately, believe in
destruction and creating false hopes in the mind of aggressors and naive
people. For this the innocent masses who wish to live in peace are
victimized! Chalak Jewan Royee Americans for a Free KURDISTAN (AFK)
Contact us : Sarbasti@hotmail.com
c.royee@worldnet.att.net
The Kurdistan Observer, www.kurdistanobserver.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10189-2000Oct14.html
World Health Org.
* PERSIAN GULF, U.S. DANGER ZONE
by Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, October 15, 2000
For 10 years, the mission that brought the USS Cole to a Yemeni port has
enjoyed an unusual distinction: It has proven to be one of the most
dangerous for U.S. troops, and yet it has been virtually immune from the
criticism that has surrounded other overseas deployments.
Navy ships are always in or near the Persian Gulf, usually in the form of a
carrier battle group of about 10 major warships, plus support craft. Dozens
of Air Force fighters fly almost daily over northern and southern Iraq,
taking off from bases in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Turkey to patrol two
"no-fly" zones and occasionally drop bombs.
The Army keeps hundreds of armored vehicles, artillery pieces and attack
helicopters at Camp Doha, a 500-acre facility in Kuwait, and has thousands
of troops exercising there almost continuously. A second brigade's worth of
Army equipment has been stored in Qatar, and a third is kept afloat aboard
ships in the Indian Ocean.
Overall, the United States usually maintains about 20,000 military personnel
in the region, at a cost of at least $1.5 billion a year.
The policy of stationing thousands of soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen
across the Middle East has its origins in the Persian Gulf War, almost
exactly a decade ago. Since then it has grown into an open-ended commitment,
largely unexamined in public. Scrutiny may grow in the aftermath of the
bombing of the destroyer Cole, which claimed the lives of 17 sailors on
Thursday. Members of Congress have called for a thorough investigation of
the apparent terrorist attack, including whether security precautions were
adequate and why the Navy sent the ship to refuel in Aden on its way to the
Persian Gulf.
"I suspect that most Americans have no sense of the number of personnel we
have in the Gulf region, or that they regularly engage hostile targets,"
said David Segal, a specialist in military affairs at the University of
Maryland.
Unlike other missions during the Clinton administration, such as
interventions in Haiti and the Balkans, the deployment in the Middle East
appears to enjoy broad support within the U.S. military. "It is essential to
regional stability. . . . Without it, a vacuum would be created--and no one
would like who filled it," said retired Marine Lt. Gen. Carol Mutter.
"So long as our economy remains grounded in petroleum-based energy, we are
going to be there for the foreseeable future," added Air Force Col. Charles
Dunlap. "To me, U.S. interests in the Gulf in a very real way are about
whether or not a grandmother freezes to death in Boston some winter, whether
fuel costs drive another family farm out of business, or if a working-class
family can afford to send a kid to college."
This large and long-term presence is a sharp contrast to just 15 years ago,
when the U.S. military operated infrequently in the Mideast, and then only
in small numbers. Moreover, the Mideast over the last decade has been far
more dangerous for American personnel than other places where the United
States maintains troops, such as Korea, Japan, Bosnia and Kosovo. Several
radical Islamic groups have said their primary mission is to drive U.S.
forces out of the region.
In discussing the Cole attack in his weekly radio address yesterday,
President Clinton referred to the ever-present threat, saying, "This tragic
loss should remind us all that even when America is not at war, the men and
women of our military risk their lives every day in places where comforts
are few and dangers are many."
Since the Army went into Bosnia in 1995, only one American soldier has died
violently there, from touching a land mine. None has been killed by hostile
fire in Kosovo. By contrast, since the Gulf War ended in February 1991, 56
American troops or related personnel have died violently in the Mideast,
including the casualties on the Cole:
* In April 1994, two U.S. Army Black Hawk helicopters were shot down over
Iraq by U.S. Air Force jets, killing all 26 people aboard, including 15
American service members.
* In November 1995, a car bomb in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, killed five American
contractors involved in training Saudi security forces.
* Seven months later, a truck bomb exploded outside a U.S. military barracks
in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 service members.
Over the same period, the United States has launched at least six major
offensive operations:
* In January 1993, 100 U.S., British and French aircraft bombed Iraqi radar
and surface-to-air missile sites.
* Less than a week later, U.S. warships fired 46 Tomahawk cruise missiles
into a nuclear fabrication site just outside Baghdad.
* In June 1993, U.S. ships fired 24 Tomahawks into Iraq's intelligence
headquarters in retaliation for a plot to assassinate President George Bush.
* In September 1996, after Iraq attacked Kurds in northern Iraq, U.S. forces
fired 27 cruise missiles against Iraqi military targets.
* In August 1998, in retaliation for the terrorist bombings of two U.S.
embassies in East Africa, U.S. warships in the Red and Arabian seas fired
missiles at targets in Sudan and Afghanistan.
* In December 1998's "Operation Desert Fox," the military dropped more than
600 bombs and launched more than 400 cruise missiles at Iraq in 70 hours of
strikes.
After Desert Fox, Iraq began firing antiaircraft guns and surface-to-air
missiles at American warplanes enforcing the no-fly zones. Throughout most
of 1999, the no-fly zones effectively became small wars, with U.S. planes
dropping bombs that Iraq claims have killed hundreds of civilians. The
latest strike occurred Tuesday afternoon, even as the Cole was steaming down
the Red Sea toward Yemen, when U.S. jets launched missiles at what the
Central Command described as "a surface-to-air missile support facility in
southern Iraq."
At first, the U.S. military was strained by the continuing operations in the
Gulf region. They were harder on the Air Force than on the Navy and Marine
Corps, which already were built around six month deployments. The Navy's
adjustments were fairly bureaucratic, such as establishing a new "Fifth
Fleet" for the Gulf with a headquarters in Bahrain in 1995.
But Air Force pilots, who tired of life in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia and
complained that patrolling the no-fly zones was boring, began quitting in
favor of lucrative jobs with commercial airlines. In response, the Air Force
gave up its policy of simply grabbing available forces willy-nilly and
restructured its combat units into 10 "Air Expeditionary Forces" that have
clear deployment schedules.
This new structure does not make the missions any more interesting, but it
at least has given Air Force personnel some predictability in their lives. A
pilot can know, for example, that he will be at his home base for the next
year but on tap to go to the Mideast in 18 months.
"As the Gulf presence has become more routine and predictable, it has become
more manageable," noted Gordon Adams, a former national security expert at
the Office of Management and Budget who now advises the Gore campaign on
defense issues.
Watching the Pentagon struggle with open-ended deployments, some academic
defense experts have argued that the U.S. military should embrace its new
role as the world's "imperial constabulary force." The requirement to
maintain a large, continuous presence in the Gulf and to execute other
nonwar missions, such as peacekeeping in the Balkans, is forcing the
military "to rethink its purpose," said Andrew Bacevich, a professor of
international relations at Boston University who has become a leading
advocate of the "imperial military" view.
While the military may find this rethinking disagreeable, it is unavoidable,
contends Bacevich, a retired Army colonel. "This issue, not the phony
readiness issue, is what the presidential candidates should be addressing,"
he said.
But some inside the military worry that adapting to new roles could distract
the military and lead to disaster if a major adversary emerges in a decade
or two. They point out that the last military to take on an imperial
constabulary mission was the 19th-century British Army, which fought Queen
Victoria's small wars in places such as Sudan and Afghanistan. Most of the
time its operations were largely ignored by British society.
But it was woefully unprepared when World War I erupted and brought a new
sort of high intensity, industrialized combat to the European continent.
Partly because British generals failed to adapt to this new form of warfare,
they led a generation of youth to slaughter.
--
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
This is a discussion list run by the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq
For removal from list, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk
Full details of CASI's various lists can be found on the CASI website:
http://www.casi.org.uk