[casi] News titles, 19-26/4/02

[pbrooke@DELETETHISukonline.co.uk]

News, 19-26/4/02

These mailings have been largely justified these
past weeks by the Pepe Escobar
pieces, so sorry I seem to be missing number
eleven this time (it could easily be found
by going to the website addresses of the other
ones). Perhaps it will appear next time,
but next time threatens to be even later than
usual, since my problems are not yet at
an end. Otherwise note the scandalous expulsion
of Jose Bustani from the UN
Chemical Weapons inspection body as the most
important event of the week.

MILITARY MATTERS

*  RAF and US warplanes bomb Iraq
*  British pilots face more Iraqi missiles [poor
dears]
*  Size of force on ground key in plan for Iraq
war [Includes the idea that many Arab
leaders told Richard Cheney privately that they
would support a strike against Iraq.
UAE, Qatar and/or Oman would provide the
necessary landing strips. Prince Abdullah
of Saudi Arabia has recently gone to Crawford,
Texas for five hours of talks with Mr
Bush. All this implies that these leaders are
lying outrageously to their own people.
The champions of freedom and democracy don’t seem
to find anything here that is
objectionable.]

OIL POLITICS

*  Senate kills Bush's plan for Alaska drilling
*  Iraq to propose OPEC candidate
*  Iraq Diary Part 10: Using the oil weapon [Pepe
Escobar]
*  Iraq oil deal not probed [On the effects of
the boycott on the recent contract with
South Africa]


AND IN NEWS, 19-26/4/02 (2)

IRAQI/MIDDLE EAST-ARAB WORLD RELATIONS

*  Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat and the dynamism
of the Arab street [Article from
Lebanese Daily Star arguing that the US and
Israel, who complain that the Arabs are
incorrigible religious fanatics, are the very
ones who destroyed the chances of the
once very lively Arab liberal secular democracy.
Finds a source of hope in the
liveliness of Arab democracy in the form of ‘the
street’.]
*  Egyptian trade fair opens in Baghdad
*  Iraq, Somalia, Sudan owe $595m to AMF [Arab
Monetary Fund]
*  Iraq gives cash for lost homes
*  New border openings between Saudi Arabia, Iraq

IRAQI/US RELATIONS

*  Bush wants death for 'spy who offered secrets
to Iraq'
*  Jacksonvillians aim to collect $18.8M judgment
against Iraq for prison terms [A Mr
Daliberti, traumatised by four months in an Iraqi
jail, was upset on September 11th
and is demanding millions of dollars compensation
from the Iraqi government,
without much consideration for the traumas
experienced by the inhabitants of
Baghdad and Basra at seeing the destruction of
the entire infrastructure of their
country. Question. If the US succeeds in
installing a puppet government in Iraq will it
be obliged to pay these compensation claims which
the world would be treating with
justifiable derision if they were advanced in any
country other than the US?]
*  Spy Trial for Retired Officer Is Postponed


AND IN NEWS, 19-26/4/02 (3)

NORTHERN IRAQ/SOUTHERN KURDISTAN

*  Top 2 Kurdish factions in Iraq met with U.S.
on Hussein ouster [One would have
thought that by now the Baltimore Sun would know
that the Kurds are NOT ‘the only
armed Iraqi opposition groups.’ The only armed
Iraqi opposition group actually active
in Iraq (the Kurds in the autonomous zone are
doing nothing to help their brothers
still living under the oppression of the Iraqi
government in the area reound Kirkuk) is
the Shi’i fundamentalist SCIRI. Somehow the US
doesn’t seem to want to
acknowledge the existence of a radical Islamist
opposition to SH. It rather confuses
their simple notions of Good and Evil. Another
curious thing to note: ‘Barzani and
Talabani also discussed with US officials plans
for merging their two governments.’
We keep on being told that the problems between
them are resolved and that a united
administration has been formed ...]
*  Islamic militants find haven in Iraq [The
article leaves one with the impression that
this Kurdish fundamentalist group - William
Safire’s current best hope of finding a
Saddam/Al Qaida link - is quite marginal and
undefined.]

IRAQI/UN RELATIONS

*  US forces ouster of UN body's chief
[Dismissal of Jose Bustani for trying to
arrange a politically neutral system of chemical
weapons inspections. Dawn and The
Guardian say only 6 or 7 countries voted against
US pressure while 43 moral cowards
of the first order abstained. The Washington
Times says 43 voted against the US
while only 6 abstained. It all seems very odd
after he had been unanimously
reappointed last year and won a no-confidence
motion only last month. What new
pressures were brought to bear by the Masters
of ‘International Law’?]
*  Anti-Chemical Chief Sacked [This to some
extent tries to answer the above
question.]
*  UN-Iraq talks to start on May 1

IRAQI/BRITISH RELATIONS

*  Brown accuses PM over ‘gung-ho’ Iraq policy
*  Iraq dossier not pulled, says PM


AND IN NEWS, 19-26/4/02 (4)

INSIDE IRAQ

*  Business as usual in Iraq [First of an, I
think, rather good series of on-the-spot
reports from the BBC’s Kim Ghattas]
*  Iraq's middle class wiped out [BBC]
*  Saddam: Sentimental, terrifying and ruthless
[Account of an in-depth psychological
study of President Hussein in the Atlantic
Monthly. It was written by the author of
Black Hawk Down which doesn’t augur well for a
sophisticated understanding of
international affairs. To judge from this review
its just a rehash of material from
pretty familiar sources.]
*  Iraqis seek refuge in religion [BBC. It seems
that the Iraqi government is engaged
in ‘an attempt to use religion to try to erase
religious differences inside Iraq’, which is
an interesting sociological experiment.]
*  Play goes on for Saddam, still the survivor at
65
*  Iraq Diary Part 12: The Carthaginian solution
[All Pepe Escobar’s articles on Iraq
have been worth reading but here he really hits
his stride. He is helped by a splendid
quotation from Noam Chomsky on the desirability
of reducing the population size of
oil producing countries. An article to be cut out
and framed on the wall.]

IRAQI/INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS

*  Belgian MP confers with Iraqi officials



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