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SPECIAL BUSH POWELL SUPPLEMENT, 10-17/12/00 * Bush, foreign policy novice, has set out principles ['He says he will maintain tough sanctions on Iraq'] * At last, a US president who won't meddle [Simon Jenkins being very optimistic: 'This suggests ... that sanctions might be lifted from Iraq.' They won't be. But they might be modified in a positive way] * Powell's speech - excerpts [quite a full account] * Powell says foreign commitments will be reviewed [short extract] * US spies likely to move out of 'cushy' Europe [On Powell's British connection] URL ONLY: http://www.jpost.com/Editions/2000/12/15/News/News.17452.html Friday, * President-elect Bush to avoid personal Mideast role, say aides by Janine Zacharia Jerusalem Post, December 15 2000, 18 Kislev 5761 Israeli view of what to expect with Bush. Mainly that he should be fine. NB: 'Bush thanked the prime minister [Ehud Barak] and said he has great respect for the way the people of Israel have over the last few months handled the test that has been placed on the way to peace. 'http://news.excite.com/news/r/001214/07/bush-foreign * BUSH, FOREIGN POLICY NOVICE, HAS SET OUT PRINCIPLES by David Storey WASHINGTON (Reuters) - George W. Bush, who takes over as U.S. president in January after squeaking through a protracted contest with Democrat Al Gore, did not get the job for his foreign policy expertise. The Texas governor, wealthy son of a former president who had served as ambassador to China and as CIA Director, has shown little interest in the world outside the United States, traveling abroad only a handful of times in his 54 years. But since the Nov. 7 election, he has publicly given special attention to foreign policy, perhaps to assure a nervous world that despite weeks of uncertainty over the result there will be no hiatus in U.S. policy. He will choose his national security team from a pool of well-seasoned advisers, including retired Army Gen. Colin Powell as secretary of state, to make up for his inexperience and boost his legitimacy after a knife-edge election win. In a campaign dominated by domestic issues Bush staked out some principles on which his foreign policy would differ with that of outgoing President Clinton, in particular a greater reluctance to intervene in foreign conflicts. Bush will continue U.S. commitment to free trade and to NATO, although he worried European allies by suggesting withdrawing U.S. peacekeeping forces from the Balkans, saying American troops are for "fighting wars" not peacekeeping. He says he will maintain tough sanctions on Iraq and engagement with China, although he sees the communist giant more as a "strategic competitor" than as a "strategic partner" and promises more emphasis on traditional ties with Japan. Bush has a host of foreign policy advisers, many of whom served his father and former President Ronald Reagan and will recall some of the enduring foes, like Yugoslavia's Slobodan Milosevic and Iraq's Saddam Hussein, from the old days. Many analysts believe a more pronounced "America-first" attitude adopted by some of those advisers, particularly those who built their careers during the Cold War, could emerge, contrasting with a globalist approach under Clinton. NO AMERICAN ISOLATIONISM This could be encouraged by some powerful isolationist members in the Republican-led Congress. In his first interview after the election, Bush sought to dispel such fears, going out of his way to stress the United States must accept its responsibilities in the world, not retreat into isolationism, and build up the major alliances. "America can't go it alone," he told CBS television's 60 Minutes II. "The principal threat facing America is isolationism," he said, adding: "We've got a build our alliances, we've got to work with our friends." Bush has vowed to press ahead with a controversial National Missile Defense system, expanding it to protect not just the United states but also U.S. allies and troops around the world, despite threats from Russia that it would wreck existing international arms treaties. Bush's comments have prompted concern in Moscow that the era of formal arms agreements, a basis of world stability during the Cold War, may be over and that a Bush White House would move toward a more unilateralist strategy. Bush also supports Congress's decision last year not to ratify the nuclear Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which was seen by many allies as undermining U.S. leadership in the struggle to halt the spread of nuclear weapons in the world. His close aide, Condoleezza Rice, who is expected to become his national security adviser, said the treaty would inhibit the United States in maintaining its own nuclear stockpile and would do little to stop the proliferation of such weapons. Apparently to head off fears that as president he might encourage an American swagger, Bush says the United States must show humility while being firm in its principles. ARROGANT AMERICA The U.S. role in the world must be "not an arrogant presence, but a humble presence, yet a consistent presence," he said in the 60 Minutes II interview. The message would be: "When we say something, we mean it, and we're going to back up our word. We have great opportunities to help make the world more peaceful, but we can't do so if we become isolationists," he said. Attacks on U.S. interests abroad would prompt a tough response, he said, saying: "The best way for our nation and other free nations is to punish those who would harm our citizens." Referring specifically to the bombing of the USS Cole warship at Aden in October, which has been linked to Saudi exile Osama bin Laden, he said: "If we find out who did it, there's going to be a consequence." Rice, a Russia expert who served with Bush's father, President George Bush, has condemned Clinton's Moscow policy as based on "a romantic view of Russia" in the 1990s. "Pouring IMF funding into an unreformed and corrupt economy in fact weakened Russia and helped to lead to the 1998 crash," she said in an interview earlier this year. She said Washington must support "real economic reform, not pretend economic reform," although she did not elaborate. In President Vladimir Putin, Bush will have to deal with a leader apparently intent on reviving Russia's lost world clout. One of the strongest points Bush repeated during his year-and-a-half of campaigning for the presidency has been a belief that Clinton has sent U.S. troops abroad too often, weakening the U.S. military's core role to defend America. LEAVE REGIONAL CONFLICTS TO ALLIES He and Rice have said he would let regional allies take the strain in regional conflicts, like the Balkans, while massing force to overwhelm enemies in major conflicts directly affecting the United States, like in the Gulf or in East Asia. This matches the approach of the charismatic and widely respected Powell, who directed U.S. forces in the Gulf War. Bush has generally adopted a similar approach to the Middle East as Clinton and Gore. On one significant point they differ -- Bush says he will begin preparations for moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv once he is inaugurated, while Clinton argues this should await a resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. One issue that will confront Bush immediately will be North Korea, the Stalinist Asian wild card whose nuclear program and unrestrained sale of missiles to potential U.S. enemies made it a top priority for Clinton's national security team. Clinton spent years brokering a deal to defuse its nuclear program and appears on the brink of a missile agreement, but some Republicans have accused him of appeasement and Bush will be under pressure to take a more cautious approach. http://www.independent.ie/2000/349/y16g.shtml15-December-2000 * AT LAST, A US PRESIDENT WHO WON'T MEDDLE by Simon Jenkins Irish Independent, 15th December [the article also appeared in The Times] PRAISE be, the age of cynical Western interventionism may be past. Yesterday saw the final election of a new United States President, George W Bush. The event could mean little or it could mean much. That is always the case when an empire changes hands. Millions may plod the same weary furrow, or they may suddenly die. Let us be optimistic. Yesterday the old era displayed itself in symbolic finery. Bill Clinton visited Shakespeare's county of Warwickshire on his final lap of honour. His latest interventions have been predictable failures, but that does not matter. These are the fanfares of a demi-paradise. "Let's purge this choler without letting blood," cries Mr Clinton to the cameras. In Belfast he tells the IRA to lay down its arms, the British to "demilitarise" and the unionists to be patient. It is that easy. Everyone hugged and wept and was photographed. All was for show. Mr Clinton told Belfast to "opt for peace," as last month he had said the same to the Arabs and Israelis, and previously to the Kosovans, the Vietnamese and the Colombians. To Mr Clinton, foreign policy is a series of rhetorical trophies, chosen at random from the crisis boutique to adorn the White House wall. Travelling American statesmen no longer shoot bears, just bear-hugs. Since the end of the Cold War the Western alliance, and America in particular, has failed to find a rationale, even a language, for intervening in the affairs of foreign states, whether by diplomacy, economic sanctions or cruise missiles. Mr Clinton yesterday recalled that America had never enjoyed so few internal crises and so little external threat. Yet he and his predecessors have sent the West lurching into one fidgety adventure after another, with little thought of exit, let alone of long-term consequence. The one success of the past decade, the Gulf War, honoured a quite different principle of intervention, that of the United Nations restoring the territorial integrity of states. It was limited and it worked. For the rest, the record is miserable. With a confusion of motives, the West has been charging about the Middle East, the Gulf, the Balkans and Latin America, with jerky diversions to Africa and Asia. In between has been Mr Clinton's excursion to Northern Ireland. The involvement of the White House and the trumpeting of a "peace process" is supposed to alter the balance of a civil war. The evidence suggests that it more often destabilises and prolongs conflict and corrupts any final solution. It is simply wrong to claim that Mr Clinton has brought "peace" any nearer in Northern Ireland, the Gulf or the Middle East. As Michael Ignatieff has argued in his book, Virtual War, the advent of smart weapons and "clean wars" has not lessened the inclination of the West to intervene. It has rather increased it. A President can order a bomber from Wisconsin to kill and flatten a target with impunity, in time for the evening news. Diplomacy, power projection and media manipulation all swill in the same opportunistic stew, without theme or legality. It is war as spectator sport, the politics of the Colosseum. Where next will a President wish to "walk tall"? Modern America can do what it likes, when it likes, where it likes, "born not to sue but to command." Any policeman needs a mission. He needs the consent of the policed under a recognised law. He must show consistency, for without consistency there is no deterrence. There has been neither consistency nor deterrence in the interventions of the past decade. Hence the survival of Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Castro, the Iranian ayatollahs and the Colombian drug barons. Hence the chaos of the Caucasus and the horrors of Rwanda Burundi. Those who criticise such cynical interventionism are dismissed as isolationists and appeasers. They would have been "soft on Hitler and soft on communism". Such is the dumbness of modern foreign affairs. George W Bush has indicated, albeit in vague terms, an opposite tendency. He wants to see American troops return from Kosovo and Bosnia. He is sceptical of the buckets of aid tipped by the West into corrupt former communist regimes. He wants a European defence system firmly coupled to NATO. He wants American defence geared to America's interests, not to some "feel-good" humanitarianism. The woman tipped as his National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and the probable new Secretary of State, Colin Powell, offer a distinct foreign policy from Mr Clinton's. According to a recent article by Ms Rice in the Stanford Journal of International Relations, the new Administration's priorities are military stability, world free trade and the spread of democratic values, in that order. The Clinton/Blair humanitarian aggression is not on that list. This suggests a vast improvement. It explains why in future American troops should not find themselves briefly "policing" the Balkans or Africa. It suggests that sanctions might be lifted from Iraq. Distant civil wars might be left to resolve themselves unaided. Some of this may be wishful thinking. Every President must head a coalition, Mr Bush more than most. The global intervention lobby will still be strong, a bizarre alliance of United Nations, aid agencies, arms manufacturers, soldiers and media propagandists. Against such imperialism, the voice of realpolitik and pragmatism will be small. The cry will always be "something must be done." Yet every ideology has its antithesis. Mr Bush does not appear to be a man of bombast and show. He has (as yet) shown no sign of yearning the glamour and adulation of the foreign stage. His aides have shown themselves cautious men and women, capable of understanding the limits of "appropriate" intervention, of humility in the exercise of power. We can only hope. http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/americas/newsid_1074000/1074090.stm * POWELL'S SPEECH - EXCERPTS BBC, Saturday, 16 December, 2000 Below are excerpts of Colin Powell's acceptance speech after the announcement of his appointment as the US secretary of state in the George W Bush White House. "It's a great pleasure to be with you this afternoon, and I'm honored, honored, to be given the opportunity to return to public service as the 65th secretary of state of the United States of America. Mr President-Elect, I thank you for the confidence that you have placed in me, and I look forward to serving you, the American people, and the cause of peace and freedom around the world. And it is a special privilege for me to once again to serve with Vice-President-elect Dick Cheney. We have been through many adventures together and many more adventures await us in the future. Mr. President-elect, during your administration you'll be faced with many challenges, and crises that we don't know anything about right now will come along. 'WE HELD STEADFAST' But I believe that these challenges and these crises will pale in comparison to the wonderful opportunities that await us: Opportunities that have been brought about by the end of the Cold War; by the spread of democracy and the free enterprise system around the world; opportunities that come to us because we held steadfast in our belief in democracy; opportunities that will come to us become of the information of technology revolutions that are reshaping the world as we know it, destroying political boundaries and all kinds of other boundaries... THE NEW MAP IS A MOSAIC, A MOSAIC OF MANY DIFFERENT PIECES The old world map as we knew it of a red side and a blue side, that competed for something called the Third World is gone, and the new map is a mosaic, a mosaic of many different pieces and many different colors spreading around the world, a world that has seen that communism did not work, fascism did not work, Nazism did not work. If you want to be successful in the 21st century, you must find your path to democracy, market economics, and a system which frees the talents of men and women to pursue their individual destinies. 'INSPIRATION' TO THE FREE WORLD And at the centre of this revolution, America stands, inspiration for the world that wants to be free, and we will continue to be that inspiration by uniquely American internationalism, as President-elect Bush has stated it. Not by using our strength and our position of power to get back behind our walls, but by being engaged with the world. By first and foremost, letting our allies know that we appreciate all we have been through over the last 50 years, and our alliances are as strong now as they ever have been, and they are as needed now as they ever have been, and we'll work with our allies to expand and make those alliances the centre of our foreign policy activity. RELATIONS WITH CHINA, RUSSIA We will work with those nations in the world that are transforming themselves, nations such as China and Russia. We will work with them not as potential enemies, and not as adversaries, but not yet as strategic partners, but as nations that are seeking their way. We will have areas of agreement and areas of difference, and we will discuss them in rational ways, letting them know of our values, letting them know of the principles that we hold dear. For those nations that are not yet on this path of democracy and freedom, for those nations who are poorly led, led by failed leaders pursing failed policies that will give them failed results, we will stand strong. We will stand strong with our friends and allies against those nations that pursue weapons of mass destruction, that practise terrorism. We will not be afraid of them. We will not be frightened by them. We will meet them. We will match them. We will contend with them. We will defend our interests from a position of strength. That strength comes to us from the power of our system, the democracy and free enterprise system. It comes to us from our economic power. It comes to us from our military power. And as we go into this new century, and as we begin this new administration, we have to make sure that all of those elements of power are protected and allowed to thrive even more. So I think these are promising times, times of great opportunity, but times, also, of challenge and danger. We are up to the task. WORKING WITH CONGRESS President-elect Bush has given us the guidance we need. We are going to pull together a great team. We're going to communicate with the American people to make sure that we are crafting a foreign policy that reflects their values and their will. We will work with Congress in a bi-partisan fashion, so that we can arrive at consensus and that the world can see us united behind our foreign policy. I'm especially pleased that he [Bush] chose to hold this ceremony in a school in Crawford, Texas. I was, frankly, glad it wasn't at the ranch. Nothing wrong with ranches, but I don't yet do ranch-wear very well.Hey, I'm from the South Bronx, and I don't care what you say, those cows look dangerous. Finally, I would just like to note that in the newspaper stories that will be written about this occasion, they will say that Colin Powell, first African-American to ever hold the position of secretary of state. And I'm glad they will say that, and I want it repeated. INSPIRATION TO 'ALL AMERICANS' I want it repeated because I hope it will give inspiration to young African-Americans coming along, but beyond that, all young Americans coming along, that no matter where you began in this society, with hard work and with dedication and with the opportunities that are presented by this society, there are no limitations upon you. And I also want to pay tribute to so many people who helped me reach this position in life: African-Americans who came before me, who never could have risen to this position because the conditions weren't there, and they had to fight to change those conditions. For me, this isn't history. It's my lifetime. I was exposed to these things in my lifetime. And I will work with President-elect Bush and with Vice President-elect Cheney to do everything I can do to help them, to show to America, as President-elect Bush said the other evening, that this will be an administration, he will be a president for all the people, all the time. I know that is the deepest emotion in his heart. The American people will see that in due course. We'll get over these difficulties that we have seen in recent days, and we'll come through this a stronger, greater nation on the way to that more perfect union that we always dream about. Thank you, very much. IN RESPONSE TO QUESTIONS: ELUSIVE SOLUTION IN MID-EAST It is absolutely a given that under a Bush administration, America will remain very much engaged in the Middle East. I expect it to be a major priority of mine, and of the department. It will be based on the principle that we must always ensure that Israel lives in freedom, and in security and peace. But at the same time, we have to do everything we can to deal with the aspirations of the Palestinians and the other nations in the region who have an interest in this. And so I think America will continue to be a friend to all sides. America will continue to put forward ideas. America will remain engaged until we can find that solution to this most difficult problem. But at the end of the day, it's going to be the parties in the region who will have to find that solution and come into agreement. They are going to have to live with each other, and hopefully, in the near future, we can find ways that they can accommodate their differences, and find that elusive solution. It is elusive, but it is out there somewhere, and hopefully, if it doesn't happen in the very near future and becomes something for us to manage, you can be sure that we'll be fully engaged in trying to find a solution to that problem. IRAQ SANCTIONS They [the Iraqis] have not yet fulfilled those agreements [on accounting for all weapons of mass destruction] and my judgment is that sanctions in some form must be kept in place until they do so. We will work with our allies to re-energise the sanctions regime. And I will make the case in every opportunity I get that we're not doing this to hurt the Iraqi people, we're doing this to protect the peoples of the region, the children of the region, who would be the targets of these weapons of mass destruction if we didn't contain them and get rid of them. Saddam Hussein is sitting on a failed regime that is not going to be around in a few years' time. The world is going to leave him behind, and that regime behind, as the world marches to new drummers, drummers of democracy and the free enterprise system. And I don't know what it will take to bring him to his senses, but we are in the strong position, he is in the weak position. BALKANS TROOPS REVIEW Our plan is to undertake a review right after the president is inaugurated, and take a look not only at our deployments in Bosnia, but in Bosnia and Kosovo and many other places around the world, and make sure those deployments are proper. Our armed forces are stretched rather thin, and there is a limit to how many of these deployments we can sustain. So, we're going to take a look at that. We're going to talk to our allies. We're going to consult. We're going to make on-the-ground assessments of what we're doing now, what's needed now, but also, what is really going to be needed in the future, and see if we can find ways that it is less of a burden on our armed forces, not as a way of running out, but as a way of substituting others, or substituting other kinds of organisations and units and perhaps police organisations to handle the remaining missions. So, we're not cutting and running. We're going to make a careful assessment of it in consultation with our allies, and then make some judgments after that assessment is completed. MISSILE DEFENCE SYSTEM I think a national missile defence is an essential part of our overall strategic force posture, which consists of offensive weapons, command and control systems, intelligence systems and a national missile defence. And I still hearken back to the original purpose of such a defence, and that is to start diminishing the value of offensive weapons. So, we're going to go forward. We have to spend time discussing it with our allies, discussing it with other nations in the world that possess strategic offensive weapons and don't yet understand our thinking with respect to national missile defence. These will be tough negotiations; I don't expect them to be easy. But they will have to come to the understanding that we feel this is in the best interests of the American people, and not only the American people, the people of the world, to finally start to move in the direction where we can take away the currency associated with strategic offensive weapons, and the blackmail that is inherent in some regime having that kind of weapon and thinking they can hold us hostage. http://www.wn.com/?action=display&article=4878500&template=worldnews/search. txt&index=recent * POWELL SAYS FOREIGN COMMITMENTS WILL BE REVIEWED UPI, Sat 16 Dec 2000 [.....] Iraq has sought to convince the United Nations to allow more flexibility in how it spends its oil revenues, and Secretary of State Madeleine Albright has been unwilling to use force in recent years in response to Iraq's obstinance in response to UN demands that weapons inspectors be allowed to resume their work. Powell's comments could be a not-so-subtle hint that a Bush administration will be more willing to fund a Hussein opposition group known as the Iraqi National Congress. Legislation passed in 1998 requires the Pentagon to arm and fund the group, but under President Bill Clinton it has yet to receive what is known as "lethal aide," the military hardware that opposition leaders say they will be needed to topple Saddam. [.....] http://www.sunday-times.co.uk/news/pages/sti/2000/12/17/stifgnusa01003.html * US SPIES LIKELY TO MOVE OUT OF 'CUSHY' EUROPE Sunday Times, December 17 AS SECRETARY of state, Colin Powell is expected to recommend an overhaul of America's dealings abroad, including the diversion of spies from comfortable, European postings to more arduous tasks in countries such as Iraq, writes Matthew Campbell. Powell, who will succeed Madeleine Albright, the first female occupant of the post, next month, declined last week to be drawn into a discussion of foreign policy under the Bush administration. "There's only one foreign secretary at a time," he told The Sunday Times. However, the reorganisation of intelligence-gathering is one of a series of recommendations he made with Condoleezza Rice, who is expected to be-come national security adviser, in a lengthy report for a Washington think tank. "It is a mistaken notion to believe that the break-up of the Soviet bloc has rendered intelligence collection less necessary," says the report, Equipped for the Future, which is considered a blueprint for a shake-up of foreign policy management under George W Bush. "Meeting today's priorities may require a redirected and more targeted deployment of intelligence officers outside of west European democracies, where intelligence reporting and State Department reporting are most likely to overlap." Europe may welcome the prospect of spies being diverted elsewhere: relations with Washington have been strained by reports of American intelligence using a communications network called Echelon to eavesdrop on European businesses. Powell, the son of Jamaican immigrants, has personal reasons for feeling favourably disposed towards Britain. He has cousins in London, including Ethan Bent, a retired British Rail guard who lives in Brixton and met the general at a book signing in London five years ago. "I see no reason why he will not be drawn closer to Britain," said Bent. "We are a close family. He knows we are here." McElroy Powell, 42, a Lloyds TSB bank manager and the son of one of the general's cousins, said: "We're all very overjoyed and elated." Whether or not this heralds a golden new chapter in the so-called "special relationship", Powell brings gravitas to the fledgling administration of Bush, whose lack of international experience has been criticised. According to opinion polls, Powell's involvement in the Bush team has helped to reverse public apprehension at the prospect of Bush - who in campaign appearances depicted a world full of "madmen, missiles and terror" - dealing with an international crisis. Powell is one of the most respected figures in America. Born in Harlem in 1937, he served twice in Vietnam, an experience that greatly affected him. During his second tour of duty he came to the aid of a soldier, "just a kid", he wrote, who had stepped on a mine. He died in Powell's arms. Embittered by official "lies and self-deception" over Vietnam, Powell concluded later that "war should be the politics of last resort". Rather than oppose the establishment, however, he joined it, serving in the Nixon administration before rising to national security adviser under President Ronald Reagan. To those familiar with Powell, his ascent came as little surprise. Asked if race would hinder Powell's career, a fellow officer once said: "Powell would succeed if he were green." As chairman of the joint chiefs of staff under former President George Bush, he questioned whether liberating Kuwait from Iraq was worth American lives, opposed overthrowing Saddam Hussein and argued against intervention in the Balkans, saying he feared "half hearted warfare for half-baked reasons". The so-called Powell doctrine has it that when America goes to war it should be for a clear purpose and the outcome should be overwhelming victory. This has led some to question whether he will be willing to use force as an instrument of diplomacy. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 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