[casi] from today's papers: 1-08-02

["Voices uk" <voices@DELETETHISviwuk.freeserve.co.uk>]

A. Iraq 'close to nuclear bomb goal', Guardian, 1 August
B. Let's take him out, Guardian, 1 August [opinion piece by William
Shawcross]
C. Blair is jumping the gun in backing Bush's war on logic, Guardian, 1
August [opinion piece by Hugo Young]
D. Senate told Bush has ruled out attack on Iraq this year, Independent, 1
August
E. Don't rush into Iraq war, Senate urges Bush, Independent, 1 August
F. An exile in London who could become the de Gaulle of Iraq, Telegraph, 1
August [fawning 'profile' of Ahmed Chalabi]
G. US Senate told of Iraq's deadly virus laboratory, The Times, 1 August
H. Bush urged to gain support for action on Iraq, FT, 1 August

Guardian: letters@guardian.co.uk
Independent: letters@independent.co.uk
Telegraph: dtletters@telegraph.co.uk
The Times: letters@the-times.co.uk
Financial Times: letters.editor@ft.com

[Letter-writers: remember to include your address and telephone # and that
The Times require exclusivity for their letters]

All of today's papers report on the US Senate hearings. William Shawcross's
latest (B) also deserves a response.

Best wishes,

Gabriel
voices uk

************************************************
A. Iraq 'close to nuclear bomb goal'
Senate hears dire warnings by dissidents

Julian Borger in Washington
Thursday August 1, 2002
The Guardian

Saddam Hussein will have enough weapons-grade uranium for three nuclear
bombs by 2005, a former Iraqi nuclear engineer told senators yesterday, as
the US Congress held hearings on whether to go to war.
Launching what it called a "national discussion" amid frequent reports that
the Bush administration is honing its plans for an assault on Iraq, the
Senate foreign relations committee was also warned by an expert on the Iraqi
military not to underestimate the strength of Saddam's army and air defences
and not to doubt that any invasion would require overwhelming force.

A succession of expert witnesses at the high-profile hearings argued that
the danger posed by Saddam to the US and the rest of the world was
constantly increasing as the Iraqi dictator attempted to build chemical,
biological and nuclear weapons.

Khidir Hamza, who played a leading role in Iraq's nuclear weapon programme
before defecting in 1994, cited German intelligence in saying: "With more
than 10 tonnes of uranium and one tonne of slightly enriched uranium...in
its possession, Iraq has enough to generate the needed bomb-grade uranium
for three nuclear weapons by 2005."

He also claimed: "Iraq is using corporations in India and other countries to
import the needed equipment for its programme and channel it through
countries like Malaysia for shipment to Iraq."

Mr Hamza, who now works for a New York thinktank, said that the chemical and
biological weapons programmes were making strides and Baghdad was "gearing
up to extend the range of its missiles to easily reach Israel".

His pessimistic assessment was echoed by other witnesses, including the
former UN chief weapons inspector, Richard Butler.

However, experts with dissenting views, such as Scott Ritter, another former
UN inspector, had not been invited.

There were also calls for caution as the media reported that the Bush
administration might be considering a lightning assault on Baghdad and other
command centres using fewer than 80,000 troops.

Anthony Cordesman, a senior analyst at the Centre for Strategic and
International Studies in Washington and the author of a new assessment of
Iraqi military strength, had bitter criticism for hawks in the
administration who portrayed the 400,000-strong Iraqi army as an easy
opponent.

"Iraq might be a far easier opponent than its force strengths indicate," he
said, "but it is also potentially a very serious military opponent indeed,
and to be perfectly blunt, I think only fools would bet the lives of other
men's sons and daughters on their own arrogance and call this force a
'cakewalk' or a 'speed-bump'."

He said that though regular army units had less than 70% manning levels,
Iraq still had 2,200 battle tanks, 3,700 other armoured vehicles and 2,400
major artillery weapons.

He also warned that US warplanes attacking Iraqi cities would fly into a
blizzard of anti-aircraft fire from "one of the most dense air defence
networks around urban and populated areas in the world".

The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, continued to insist yesterday
that no final decision had been taken, but made it clear that he believed
that other initiatives, such as renewed UN weapons inspections, would not
work because Iraq would not agree to a "thoroughly intrusive inspection
regime".

At talks in Vienna last month, the Iraqi government and the UN failed to
agree on terms for the return of inspectors, and Baghdad has since
maintained a defiant stand.

Mr Rumsfeld also said air power alone was unlikely to be enough to destroy
Iraq's chemical and biological weapons programmes as many sites were hidden
and mobile biological warfare laboratories were being used.

Congress has grown uneasy with the slide towards war. On Tuesday, two
Democrat senators, Dianne Feinstein of California and Patrick Leahy of
Vermont, introduced a resolution opposing the use of force against Iraq
without congressional authorisation or a formal declaration of war.

Chairing yesterday's committee hearings, Senator Joseph Biden urged the Bush
administration to put more thought into how to deal with the aftermath of
Saddam's fall if a military operation were successful. "If we participate in
Saddam's departure, what are our responsibilities the day after?" he said.

************************************************************
B. Let's take him out

The threat to the world posed by Saddam Hussein's rule of terror is too
great to ignore any longer. There is only one solution, argues William
Shawcross - military action

Thursday August 1, 2002
The Guardian

The new archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has said that it would be
immoral and illegal for the British to support an American war against Iraq
without UN authority. King Abdullah of Jordan has warned against an attack
on Iraq, saying it would open a "Pandora's box" in the Middle East. The
prospect of war against Iraq has provided a field day to anti-Americanism. I
would argue that, on the contrary, the illegality is all on the side of
Saddam Hussein. The real immorality and the greatest danger is to allow this
evil man to remain indefinitely in power, scorning the UN and posing a
growing threat to the world. Tony Blair is both brave and right to support
American demands for a "regime change" in Iraq.
Weapons of mass destruction are the greatest threat to life on earth.
Biological weapons are often called the poor man's atomic bomb. Saddam
Hussein is the ruler who has for decades been making the most determined and
diabolical illegal effort to acquire them.

In the 80s, during Iraq's war with Iran, Saddam used more than 101,000
chemical warfare munitions. In 1988 he killed at least 5,000 Iraqi Kurds
with chemical weapons in the town of Halabja, because he suspected them of
collaborating with Iran.

Before the Gulf war, Saddam was thought to be about three years away from
acquiring nuclear weapons. He would have been much closer if the Israelis
had not bombed his Osirak nuclear reactor in 1981. He had massive stockpiles
of chemical and biological weapons.

His 1990 invasion and annexation of Kuwait was accompanied by murder,
torture and pillage. He launched missile attacks on Saudi Arabia and Israel,
and would have invaded the former had the US not come to its defence. He
still seeks to destroy Israel. There is no real doubt that his long-term aim
is to control the Saudi and Kuwaiti oilfields, with their massive reserves.
That would put him in a position to blackmail the industrialised world.

His defeat in 1991 was supposed to end his ability to threaten his
neighbours. UN security council resolution 687 decreed that Iraq must
unconditionally accept, under international supervision, the destruction of
all its weapons of mass destruction. It created an inspection regime, a UN
special commission, known as Unscom, with freedom of access throughout Iraq,
to see that all illegal weapons were surrendered and destroyed.

Until Unscom certified that Iraq had agreed by the terms of 687, an oil
embargo would remain in place. Iraq signed up to all this but has spent the
past 11 years trying to evade its obligations and defy international law as
written in resolution 687 and subsequent resolutions. Saddam has shown
himself to be far more interested in creating and keeping weapons than in
anything else. The consequent impoverishment of the Iraqi people is a small
price to him.

Unscom found and destroyed masses of illegal weapons, including thousands of
litres of concentrated anthrax and botulinum, the most poisonous substance
in the world. But the inspectors knew there was a lot more the Iraqis
managed to conceal. They could not account for hundreds of chemical
munitions, chemical agent production equipment, a number of long-range
missiles and components, including warheads. Most troubling, they had no
confidence in the disposal of Iraq's extensive biological weapons programme.

Through the 90s, Saddam became more impatient, more intransigent. He
exploited divisions on the security council - where France, China and Russia
were far keener on compromise than the US and Britain - until he created a
series of crises for the inspectors at the end of 1997. The US and Britain
threatened to attack. In February 1998, Kofi Annan put the UN's authority on
the line and flew to Baghdad to try and get the inspections restored.

After meeting privately with Saddam, he thought he had a deal but even
before he arrived back in New York, the Iraqi regime secretly began to
undercut it.

At the end of 1998, Annan acknowledged that Saddam had torn up his deal. In
December 1998, these violations of international law finally resulted in a
short US and British bombing campaign known as Desert Fox. No inspector has
been allowed back since - and there is every reason to suppose that Saddam
has since rebuilt his stocks unhindered. Otherwise why deny the inspectors
access?

In early July, Iraq once again refused, during talks with Annan, to allow
the inspectors back. But if and when an American-led attack appears to be
imminent, Saddam will probably offer to allow them to return, in order to
divide his enemies and diminish international support for the US position.
Their task is likely to be hopeless. The creation and concealment of the
weapons is just too important to the regime. Charles Duelfer, a former
deputy chairman of Unscom, points out that 200-300 engineers, technicians
and scientists are known to have been involved in its weapons programme
before 1998. The UN must be able to interview them - without Iraqi
government minders - if there is to be any hope of understanding just what
Iraq has done with its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons since 1998.

Given the way that Saddam has always lied before, there is every reason to
fear that new inspections will fail to disarm him. How else are we then to
enforce international law and eliminate the threat which Saddam represents,
except by military action to change the regime?

Obviously there are dangers and difficulties in attacking Saddam. Iraq is
not a failed state like Afghanistan. It is a ruthless and tenacious
dictatorship which terrifies, tortures and murders its opponents. It has a
large army with a supposed elite, the Republican Guard. The determination of
the regime to survive a reign of terror should not be underestimated.

The nervousness of most of America's European allies is real. So far, only
Britain has offered support for the overthrow of Saddam. Others have been
evasive or downright hostile. After September 11, Gerhard Schroder, the
German chancellor, promised the American people unlimited solidarity. He has
heavily qualified that since.

The opposition of Iraq's neighbours must be acknowledged. King Abdullah of
Jordan's concerns are real but don't forget that his father, King Hussein,
supported Saddam and opposed the Gulf war in 1990-91. Other Arab regimes
would be happy to see Saddam go but do not dare be associated with the
military action necessary to achieve that - at least not until it succeeds.
Then there is the question of how the US would do it. There are not the same
regional bases on offer as in the Gulf war of 1991. There is no equivalent
of the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan. The risk of Saddam launching a
pre-emptive attack against Kuwait or Israel during an American build up have
to be taken into account. But that would represent desperation on his part,
given the retribution which would follow. On the plus side, the Iraqi armed
forces are much weaker than in 1991. Most of Iraq's tanks are obsolete. Its
air force is virtually non-existent.

Faced with the ruthless, terrorist nature of the regime, the Iraqi people
alone cannot change their government. Only outside intervention can do that.
If war begins, Iraqis at all levels will understand that the cost of keeping
Saddam is too high. The question then is: who will succeed him? Any
immediate successor will probably come from the military. That need not be
bad. The first and most important thing is to get rid of Saddam's regime.
When he falls there will be dancing in the streets of Baghdad, as there was
in Kabul when the US drove out the Taliban. The Iraqis will be rid of a
monstrous incubus.

There is also a compelling regional argument for removing Saddam - the
Israel-Palestine impasse. Many believe that we cannot take on Saddam as long
as the current state of war exists. I would argue the opposite: So long as
Saddam is in power there can be no realistic hope of a solution.

In 1991 Israel endured attacks by Iraq with 39 Scud missiles, with exemplary
restraint. Saddam still wishes to destroy Israel. Like other Arab regimes,
the Iraqis preach and practise anti-semitic hatred. Tariq Aziz, the deputy
prime minister who dealt with Unscom, told Richard Butler, its director, "We
made bioweapons in order to deal with the Persians and the Jews." One of his
senior officials said at an Arab summit in 2000, "Jihad alone is capable of
liberating Palestine and the rest of the Arab territories occupied by dirty
Jews in their distorted Zionist entity." Yet we continue to ask Israel to
take risks for peace while the Iraqi threat remains unchecked. The removal
of Saddam would give Israel greater confidence in its prospects of peaceful
co-existence with a Palestinian state. It should also temper the
anti-semitic zeal of Syria and other neighbours of Israel.

Some of the critics of war - such as the Archbishop of Canterbury
designate - voice honest concerns. But when you consider the nature of the
beast, it is the consequences of the failure to act which should terrify us.
It will be much harder to take him on in 10 years' time - his nuclear and
other weapons will be far more dangerous.

If September 11 and America's response to it had not happened, think of the
world we would still be living in: the Taliban would still be in power,
terrorising Afghans; Bin Laden and al-Qaida would still be planning other
outrages unrestricted. The same is true of Saddam today. He not only
oppresses his own people savagely but also represents untold dangers to the
region and to the world. His defiance also makes a mockery of the
international legal system as represented by the UN. The UN's basic
responsibility for the "maintenance of international peace and security" is
daily undermined by a dictator of whose malign intent there is no doubt. To
appease him endlessly is to weaken the UN. That, too, is both dangerous and
immoral.

While it would be preferable to have a new UN security council resolution
authorising military action against Saddam Hussein, as Rowan Williams
argues, it is not strictly necessary. Saddam is already in defiance of
existing resolutions and article 51 of the UN charter provides the right to
self-defence against the threat he poses to all of us.

Moreover, we all know that the security council, a political body, does not
always provide an adequate defence against evil. The council refused to help
Rwandans during the genocide of 1994. Nato's 1999 action in defence of
Muslims in Kosovo was conducted without a council resolution - because
Russia and China would have vetoed it. Weighing the risks of action against
Iraq is entirely proper. It is very difficult for the international
community to deal with intransigent evil.

Much less legitimate is the anti-American abuse from, for example, the
infantile Daily Mirror, the singer George Michael and those journalists
(some on the Guardian) who depict Blair as Bush's poodle. They disgrace
themselves by demeaning the argument. I repeat: the decision of how to deal
with Saddam is not an easy one. Much depends on how you perceive the threat.
In my view, the threat from Saddam is intolerable. Washington is right - the
regime must be changed. And Tony Blair is right to support Washington.

© William Shawcross. The writer is the author of Deliver us from Evil:
Warlords and Peacekeepers in a World of Endless Conflict. He is on the board
of the International Crisis Group.

*************************************************************
C. Blair is jumping the gun in backing Bush's war on logic
The body of opposition to a campaign against Iraq is too great to ignore

Hugo Young
Thursday August 1, 2002
The Guardian

If President George W Bush goes to war against Iraq, the ensuing conflict
will be without a close modern precedent. Each of the main western wars of
the last 20 years, however controversial, was perceivable as a response to
manifest aggression. The Falklands war in 1982 was one such case, the 1991
Gulf war another. The military actions in Bosnia and Kosovo were conducted
for the defence of ethnic groups facing aggression at the heart of Europe.
Each had a measure of international approval.
A war to unseat Saddam Hussein would proceed on a different basis,
encompassed in the seductive word "pre-emptive". The attack would be
unleashed to stop Saddam doing something he has not yet started to do with
weaponry whose configuration and global, or even regional, potency is hard
to determine but might be serious. The Pentagon civilians pressing the case
envisage a gratuitous attack - one not preceded by an act of aggression - by
one sovereign country on another to get rid of a leader who happens to worry
and enrage them.

Europeans who opposed all those earlier conflicts will certainly oppose this
one. The usual suspects are already mobilising for peace. But now we have
something new. Many Europeans who supported the Balkan wars and the Gulf
war, and even the Falklands absurdity, are getting ready to oppose a
pre-emptive attack on Iraq. They suspect its political provenance. They
reject its moral justification. They look in vain for the interna tional
support it needs. They see nothing predictably good in its practical
outcome. And if they are British, they fear the prospect of being sucked
into all these absences of reason, these diplomatic and moral black holes,
at the behest of a different country, with different political impulses,
3,000 miles away.

Nobody pretends that Saddam Hussein is other than a murderous tyrant. He has
committed terrible crimes against his own people. He's a threat to his
neighbours and a source of instability, one of many, in the region. There
are signs he has restored some of the chemical and biological weapon-making
capacity that was destroyed under the lengthy aegis of UN inspectors. It may
well be the case that he is trying to acquire the capacity to build nuclear
weapons.

But nobody is certain about the size of any of this. These ambitions, and
some of these weapons, can be assumed to be there, but the advantage of the
pre-emption doctrine is that its believers do not need to be specific. In
Washington there's disagreement between the Pentagon civilians and both
military and intelligence officials over how many, if any, ready-to-go
missiles by which chemical and biological bombs could be delivered actually
exist. No evidence has been published that begins to make the case for
attack, as against the containment policy that has worked pretty well for 11
years. We're simply supposed to accept that it's there. Washington and
London say airily that they have it. One begins to sense, in their
reluctance to accompany the build-up to war with a display of evidence, the
absence, in truth, of any justification enough to satisfy open-minded
sceptics.

Until this is rectified, scepticism can only deepen. The moral case for
pre-emptive attack needs to address issues of proportionality and collateral
civilian damage. The protagonists have not even broached them. The legal
case needs to take the UN seriously. So far, UN backing for an attack has
been the object of casuistic evasion in both capitals. Conceivably this
could be a negotiating tactic, winding Saddam up to concede. But nobody who
has talked to any of the principals who are about to be involved in this
decision can imagine them willing to risk losing in the security council as
their juggernaut assembles at the gates of Baghdad.

The practical case hasn't been made either. What happens afterwards? Field
Marshal Lord Bramall asked the question the other day. There are as many
theories about this as there are operational plans for different modes of
attack. A puppet regime of westernised Iraqis? A different sort of military
dictator? A government that includes the Kurds, the greatest victims of
Saddam's brutality: or, more likely, one that's guaranteed to exclude them
in order to keep Turkey happy, and thus open Turkey as a base for the
attack? These and many other scenarios are on the table. Washington is awash
with them. There's a leak a day in the New York Times. With each one that
appears we become aware not just of indecision, but of the colossal risks
this speculative operation runs, and the divided assessments made by serious
military men.

One faction, however, is indifferent to the arguments. The civilians driving
the Pentagon have a less analytical agenda. They seem ready to sweep through
all objections. A group of hard, obsessive officials, all much cleverer than
the president, exploit the instincts he shares, which include the instinct
to secure vengeance in a family feud after what Saddam did to his father.
Their cocksure certainty that they have a mightier military force than
Saddam, which of course is true, extends into a blithe assumption that the
solution to Palestine lies through a cleansed and puppetised Baghdad. These
are people who have shown many times how little they respect international
law, still less the spirit of international collaboration. Having come to
dominate the world, they tend to despise it. Faced with allies they can
ignore, they duly prepare to do so.

Tony Blair doesn't like to hear any of this, and is disposed to deny it. He
says that Bush is in charge in Washington, and Bush is a sensible as well as
honourable man. Complaining that everyone who asks a question is getting
ahead of the action and should pipe down, he asserts privately that he will
not be pushed around by the president but act, as always, in the national
interest.

But his interpretation of this is disturbing. We read, from Bush's aides,
that Blair has already promised the president to commit British troops to
action in Iraq. In private he talks more of the morality than the risks of
doing this. Indeed, he sees so many dangerous immoralists around that, in an
ideal world, there would be interventions against the lot of them. Very few
of his closest diplomatic advisers support a war against Iraq or the
manoeuvres now leading up to it, though the Ministry of Defence, with its
frantic Washingtonitis, may be slightly different. Yet Blair is in danger of
seeming helpless before the ferocious logic of Donald Rumsfeld.

I think he forgets the uniqueness of what is being prepared: its gratuitous
aggression, its idle optimism, its moral frailty, its indifference to
regional opinion, the extraordinary readiness of those proposing it to court
more anti-American terrorism as a result. Is Britain really destined to tag
along uncomplaining, behind an extended act of war that few people outside
America and Israel consider necessary, prudent or justified? Very many
British, I surmise, more than Mr Blair would ever expect, will say No.

*****************************************************
D. Senate told Bush has ruled out attack on Iraq this year
By Rupert Cornwell in Washington

Independent
01 August 2002

The Senate opened the first serious public debate over the merits and
consequences of an American attack on Iraq, amid strong signs yesterday that
if one does come in President's George Bush's first term it will be in the
early part of next year or not at all.

Senator Joseph Biden of Delaware, stressing his belief that no decision on a
military operation had been taken by the White House, said he would be
astonished if "there's any such attempt ... between now and the first of the
year". Mr Biden, head of the Senate foreign relations committee, which is
holding the hearings, seemed to suggest that the Bush administration has
told key congressional leaders and close allies including Britain that there
will be no "October surprise" over Iraq, that is, an attack just before the
mid-term elections on 7 November.

If so, the generally accepted window for a military move has now shrunk to
the first three or four months of next year, exactly the same point in the
presidential election cycle for this George Bush as when his father launched
Operation Desert Storm in January 1991.

After that, the hot Iraq summer rules out large-scale ground operation until
late autumn or winter of 2003-04. But at that time the presidential election
primary season would be in full swing, making it politically difficult for
Mr Bush to move. In the meantime the White House says it will send senior
administration officials to testify to Mr Biden's committee only after the
summer congressional recess, which starts this weekend.

Yesterday's session was reserved for expert witnesses, led by Richard
Butler, the former chief United Nations arms inspector, who said President
Saddam Hussein could once more be close to developing a nuclear device.

What Mr Biden calls the start of a "national dialogue" on Iraq is part of
the dawning realisation here that a military campaign may have far reaching
and very uncomfortable consequences. Writing in The New York Times
yesterday, Mr Biden and Richard Lugar of Indiana, the senior Republican on
the committee, drew the comparison with Afghanistan where, they said, the US
had not followed up its successful war with an adequate commitment to
security and reconstruction.

President Saddam could use germ or chemical weapons to try to provoke a
regional war, while an invasion could damage the American economy. "Given
Iraq's strategic location, its large oil reserves and the suffering of the
Iraqi people, we cannot afford to replace a despot with chaos," they wrote.

Those misgivings are shared by many on Capitol Hill, Republicans as well as
Democrats – not to mention US allies in the region and beyond.

Today King Abdullah of Jordan will become the latest Arab visitor to
Washington to warn against an attack on Iraq that could open a "Pandora's
box" of problems. In keeping with most EU leaders, the King believes
progress towards resolving the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is much more
urgent.

Even within the Pentagon debate rages not just over the shape of an attack,
of which a host of blueprints have been leaked to the US press, but over
whether an attack should be launched at all. Some senior uniformed officials
believe the present policy of containment has worked reasonably well and
should continue.

But, in public at least, the administration is as fixated as ever with the
removal of Saddam Hussein. Though Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary,
repeated that no decision had been taken on whether to use force, he warned
this week that more than air power alone would be needed to destroy Iraq's
suspected stocks of chemical and biological weapons.

*********************************************************
E. Don't rush into Iraq war, Senate urges Bush
By Toby Harnden in Washington

Daily Telegraph
(Filed: 01/08/2002)

The American national debate over whether Saddam Hussein should be toppled
began in earnest yesterday with leading senators urging President George W
Bush not to rush into an ill-judged military adventure.

Opening public hearings into the wisdom of tackling Iraq, Senator Joe Biden,
Democratic chairman of the Senate foreign relations committee, said the
nature of the threat posed by Saddam, the human and economic costs of
overthrowing him and the question of what regime would come afterwards all
had to be examined.

He also questioned whether "attacking Saddam Hussein would precipitate the
very thing we are trying to prevent - the last resort to weapons of mass
destruction".

Senator Chuck Hagel, a Republican, said before the hearings: "In the 1960s
we got into Vietnam by not asking the right questions . . . This is a
serious issue, because there will be unintended consequences here. We need
to answer some questions."

Another Republican, Senator Richard Lugar, echoed their caution. "We must
estimate, soberly, the human and economic cost of war plans and post-war
plans," he said. "This is a time for all of us to think through the cost and
the dangers."

The holding of the hearings, due to be concluded today, was a sign of
growing impatience on Capitol Hill at the secrecy surrounding the Bush
administration's intentions towards Iraq.

Senators and congressmen have also been dismayed at the leaking of versions
of two military plans in the New York Times and complained that the only
information they are getting about Iraq is what they read in the newspapers.

There is a growing call for any military action to be authorised by
Congress, as it was before the 1991 Gulf war. While this is not a
constitutional requirement, Mr Bush may find it a political necessity.

Mr Biden said: "The decision to go to war can never be taken lightly. I
believe that a foreign policy, especially one that involves the use of
force, cannot be sustained in America without the informed consent of the
American people."

Americans remain broadly supportive of taking action against Saddam. Senator
Sam Brownback, a Republican, said there was "pretty strong unanimity in the
Congress that at some point in time we're going to have to deal with this
guy".

Mr Bush has been cool towards the idea of the hearings and declined to send
administration officials to testify.

Outside the hearings, senior Bush advisers have been increasingly open about
the intention to oust Saddam by military means.

On Tuesday, Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, spelt out the
seriousness of the threat Saddam is believed to present. "They [the Iraqis]
have chemical weapons and biological weapons and they have an appetite for
nuclear weapons."

Richard Butler, a former head of the United Nations arms inspection body
Unscom, told the hearings: "The key question now is: has Iraq acquired the
essential fissionable material, either by enriching indigenous sources or by
obtaining it from external sources?

"There is evidence that Saddam has reinvigorated his nuclear weapons
programme in the inspection-free years."

The policy of containing Saddam, he said, was not enough to prevent the
Iraqi leader increasing his capability to produce weapons of mass
destruction and fanning the flames of violence in the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict.

Mr Butler said it was also possible that Saddam was considering using
smallpox, Ebola or plague as biological weapons.

Khidir Hamza, a former director of the Iraqi nuclear weapons development
programme who defected in1994, said Saddam could be just three years away
from building nuclear weapons.

Citing German "intelligence sources", he said: "Iraq has enough to generate
the needed bomb-grade ureaium for three nuclear weapons by 2005."

*****************************************************
F. An exile in London who could become the de Gaulle of Iraq
By Daniel Johnson

Daily Telegraph
(Filed: 01/08/2002)

Saddam Hussein's most implacable enemy is not President Bush, father or son,
but an Iraqi businessman in exile in London: Ahmad Chalabi. A decade ago,
after the Gulf war, Mr Chalabi founded the Iraqi National Congress (INC) to
unite the fractious opposition; he has led it ever since. This week, I spoke
to him at his closely guarded headquarters in Knightsbridge.

Leading the Iraqi opposition has not been easy. It has survived the
bitterness of betrayal by the West more than once: first in 1991, when
George Bush Snr encouraged it to revolt, then let Saddam's forces massacre
it; then again in 1995, when Bill Clinton suddenly withdrew American support
just as the INC launched a rebellion. The INC has long been distrusted by
the Arabists of America's State Department and the Foreign Office.

Now, however, Mr Chalabi has the air of a man who senses that victory may be
within his grasp. He has been joined in his mission to oust Saddam and, no
less important, to create a democratic Iraq, by the most powerful man in the
world. President George W. Bush has invited him and five others to a summit
in Washington on August 9. With the arsenal of democracy at last arming
itself for a showdown with Saddam, this looks like Mr Chalabi's
breakthrough.

What irks him most is the absence of solidarity with his cause among fellow
Arabs. This week, King Abdullah of Jordan came to Downing Street to warn
Tony Blair that he and other Arab states "do not support any military action
against Iraq". Mr Chalabi is evidently exasperated by the young monarch.
Three generations of his family have served the Hashemite dynasty - a branch
of which also ruled Iraq until the coup of 1958 - and he was latterly on
good terms with Abdullah's father, Hussein, and still is close to Abdullah's
uncle, Hassan.

"It is unfortunate that Abdullah has hitched his throne to Saddam's wagon,"
Mr Chalabi declares. "He is under pressure from Saddam to do something about
Hassan's decision to show solidarity with the Iraqi people by visiting the
conference we held in London on July 12." Hassan's appearance at this
meeting was laden with symbolism, for Hassan would be a prime candidate for
any restoration of the monarchy in Iraq.

The only explanation for Abdullah's "bad manners" towards his uncle is that
"he is so much under the thumb of Saddam". Mr Chalabi claims that Abdullah
has been friendly with Uday, Saddam's son, for a long time: before
Abdullah's accession, they were fishing companions, and Uday presented the
new king with three Porsches. Mr Chalabi accuses Abdullah of evading
sanctions and playing a "double game" with the West, allowing intelligence
agencies to recruit Iraqi agents in Jordan, but also passing sensitive
information to Saddam, including warnings of an impending coup in 1996.

"King Abdullah has become Saddam's lawyer in America. He defends Saddam and
uses every opportunity to warn off any American attempt to help the Iraqi
people liberate themselves. I think it is time that people here know what
their supposed friends are doing to shore up Saddam's regime."

Why, though, should Britain become embroiled in the murky politics of
Mesopotamia? One answer is Saddam's record of terrorism, and his development
of chemical, biological and nuclear capabilities. Mr Chalabi is dismissive
of the UN weapons inspectors, who were "fooled". Saddam, he says, gave up
low-tech weapons such as mustard gas, but kept the most dangerous, such as
VX poison gas. "Saddam is a major threat. You have the choice of using
military force to liberate Iraq or of having your own civilians killed in
their thousands."

Is there any alternative to invasion? Mr Chalabi points out that the CIA's
pursuit of a putsch has proved a mirage. Iraq is "not a tin-pot
dictatorship, but a modern totalitarian state. Saddam has far more money to
spend on his survival than any intelligence agency on removing him. The idea
that one could find a general to mount a coup has been tried and found
wanting."

While Tony Blair is said to be sympathetic to the INC aim of replacing the
Ba'athist party apparatus with parliamentary democracy, British diplomats
and brass-hats are still sceptical. In a letter to The Times, Field Marshal
Lord Bramall, adapting a dictum of General Gerald Templer at the time of
Suez, asks, "What the bloody hell do we do when we get [to Baghdad]?" Lord
Hurd, in the Financial Times, asks: "Is there something peculiar about the
Middle East that distorts the democratic doctrine? Sadly, the overwhelming
evidence suggests that there is."

Mr Chalabi is incensed by such a "slur" from "a man of Lord Hurd's
eminence". "Does he think Arabs are racially incapable of democracy?"
Baghdad, once the heart of the Islamic world, is still the capital of a
cultured nation. "The Iraqis have had their fill of dictatorship. President
Bush is completely right: the way to remove the threat is to establish
democracy."

What, though, of the opposition, divided as it is on sectarian and ethnic
lines? Might not the fear of vengeance drive Iraqis to fight for Saddam? Mr
Chalabi says the prospect of imminent action has helped to unite the
opposition, and that only Saddam, his sons and his immediate entourage will
be tried for their crimes. Separatism is a "bogeyman", he says: the Kurds
have pledged to support a "federal" Iraq.

Who would succeed Saddam? "I am not a candidate for anything," Mr Chalabi
insists. "I want to live in Iraq and to see my children grow up there.
That's enough." Nor will he be drawn on who else might take over. He has no
wish to be seen as an "Iraqi Karzai". Rather than Afghanistan, he prefers
analogies with post-war Germany and France. There is, though, no Iraqi
Adenauer or de Gaulle in sight.

That is one reason, perhaps, why George W. Bush wants to meet Ahmad Chalabi.
There are times when ambition becomes a patriotic duty.

**********************************************************
G. US Senate told of Iraq's deadly virus laboratory
>From Roland Watson in Washington

1st August
The Times

SADDAM HUSSEIN is producing deadly plague viruses in an underground
laboratory beneath a hospital, evidence put before a congressional hearing
indicated yesterday.

Richard Butler, the former head of the United Nations weapons inspections
team in Iraq, said recent signs that the Iraqi President was manufacturing
the plague and the highly contagious Ebola virus were “very credible”. He
also said that Iraq was close to developing a nuclear capability.

Khidir Hamza, a former Iraqi nuclear engineer who defected in 1994, said
that Saddam was within three years of equipping three nuclear weapons with
bombgrade uranium.

Iraq has more than ten tons of uranium and one ton of slightly enriched
uranium, he said, quoting German intelligence. The nuclear programme, like
the chemical and biological programmes, were pursued by apparently civilian
bodies.

“Saddam has managed to create the perfect cover, and in effect turn the
whole Iraq science and engineering enterprise into a giant weapon-making
body,” Mr Hamza said.

Mr Butler and Mr Hamza were among expert witnesses appearing before the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee as America opened a debate about the
merits of attacking Iraq amid a sobering assessment of what the task would
involve.

Bush Administration officials have declined to appear before the committee,
but after weeks in which leaks from the Pentagon have spoken of a
bewildering variety of war plans, senior figures on Capitol Hill have begun
to ask the White House for answers.

As yet, no congressman or woman has expressed outright opposition to
military conflict with Iraq, which Mr Bush has identified as part of an
“axis of evil”, along with Iran and North Korea. Most are in favour of
toppling Saddam, in line with US public opinion.

But there were the first stirrings of doubt yesterday as senators expressed
concern that the White House had yet to make a convincing case for a war
that could be costly in terms of lives and dollars, or had shown that it had
a vision for a post-Saddam Iraq.

Joe Biden, Democratic chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee,
said: “If we attack, we’ll win. But what do we do the day after?” Chuck
Hagel, a Republican from Nebraska who sits on the committee, drew parallels
with America’s war in Vietnam, saying that the time had come for a national
debate. “In the 1960s we got into Vietnam by not asking the right questions.
This is a different situation. But this is a serious issue, because there
will be consequences here.”

In the absence of any links between Baghdad and the September 11 terrorists,
Mr Bush has criticised Iraq over the issue of weapons of mass destruction.
Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, signalled earlier this week that it
was too late for Saddam to try to avoid conflict by making concessions by
allowing UN weapons inspectors access.

Mr Butler told the committee yesterday that all the evidence suggested that
Saddam had reinvigorated his chemical and biological programmes since
inspectors left Iraq four years ago, and was trying to build a “dirty” bomb.
He said that the Iraqis continued to try to increase the range and number of
their missiles, and that the mobility of weapons launchers and laboratories
had greatly increased.

Mr Butler said he doubted that Saddam would pass on his weapons to terrorist
groups, one of the arguments used by the White House in favour of
confrontation. Mr Butler said: “I suspect that . . . Saddam would be
reluctant to share what he believes to be an indelible source of his power.”

But he said he believed the Iraqi leader to be close to developing a nuclear
capability. The question for the US, he said, was: “If you defer the
solution to a problem it will be harder and costlier in the end”.

Witnesses before the committee underlined yesterday the enormity of the task
involved. Anthony Cordesman, senior fellow at the Washington-based Centre
for Strategic and International Studies, said that the 400,000-strong Iraqi
army would be “no cake-walk” for US forces.

He said: “Only fools bet the lives of other men’s sons and daughters on
their own arrogance. I see every reason for the reservation of the American
military and joint chiefs. Efforts to dismiss the military capability of
Iraq is irresponsible.”

**********************************************
H. Bush urged to gain support for action on Iraq
By Richard Wolffe in Washington

Financial Times
Published: July 31 2002 18:35 | Last Updated: July 31 2002 18:35

The Bush administration faced questions from Republicans and Democrats on
Wednesday about the cost and effectiveness of US military strikes to topple
Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq.

As the administration continues to develop its policies on Iraq over the
summer, senators expressed deep concerns at the lack of support among US
allies for military action.

Speaking at the start of two days of hearings, Joseph Biden, chairman of the
Senate foreign relations committee, said: "The containment strategy pursued
since the end of the Gulf war has kept Saddam boxed in.

"Some fear that attacking Saddam would precipitate the very thing we are
trying to prevent - his last-resort use of weapons of mass destruction."

Many senators also urged the president to build political support in the US
by seeking congressional authorisation for a new war in Iraq, suggesting it
was premature to assume it would win their approval.

In written statements, Republican senators questioned the administration's
approach in building support for action against Iraq.

Chuck Hagel, the Nebraska Republican, compared the lack of public debate
with the inadequate preparations for war in Vietnam. "I can think of no
historical case where the United States succeeded in an enterprise of such
gravity and complexity as regime change in Iraq without the support of a
regional and international coalition," he said.

Mr Hagel also cited the warnings from US allies in the region against
unilateral military action. King Abdullah of Jordan, one of the most
outspoken US allies against strikes on Iraq, meets President George W. Bush
at the White House today. The extent of political concerns about US policy
contrasts with the consensus supporting the military strikes in Afghanistan
after last year's terrorist attacks in the US.

There was broad agreement on Wednesday among senators that Mr Bush ought to
seek congressional support. Dick Lugar, the leading Republican on the Senate
foreign relations committee, urged the president to follow his father's
example in seeking approval from Congress. "Ten years ago, the United States
had done the military and diplomatic spadework in the region," he said.
"Most importantly, we had the support of the American people. We have not
yet determined if those same conditions are present today."

Officials insist Mr Bush has not yet decided how or when to topple the Iraqi
regime









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