[casi] News, 31/8-6/9/02 (5)

[Peter Brooke <pbrooke@DELETETHISukonline.co.uk>]

News, 31/8-6/9/02 (5)

MILITARY MATTERS

*  Iraq: Blair hawkish as dissent mounts
*  Why did US ignore Saddam's assault?: Use of chemical weapons
*  Enlargement Could Just Make NATO's Problems Worse
*  Iraq reports firing missiles at allies warplanes
*  Blair dossier may tell us what little we already know
*  Hussein's secret world of biowarfare was exposed by a British missile
*  100 jets join attack on Iraq
*  Attacks nothing new, says Iraq


INSIDE IRAQ

*  Slide from the impossible to the apocalyptic
*  Inside Iraq
 *  Report: Iraq OKs communications satellite plan
*  The nuke-free guided tour of Iraq


CULTURAL MATTERS

*  Iraqi Musician Makes Statements with His Lute



MILITARY MATTERS

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=329378

*  IRAQ: BLAIR HAWKISH AS DISSENT MOUNTS
by Jo Dillon
Independent, 1st September

[.....]

The search for a solution in which the Iraqi dictator would re-admit UN
inspectors came ahead of the publication of a report into Iraq's nuclear,
biological and chemical weapons. The report, to be published by the
International Institute for Strategic Studies next week, will show that
claims surrounding Saddam's military capability have been overstated. A
Whitehall source said the report could make it difficult for the Government
to press the case for action.


http://www.dawn.com/2002/09/02/int10.htm

*  WHY DID US IGNORE SADDAM'S ASSAULT?: USE OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS
by Dilip Hiro
Dawn, from The Guardian, 2nd September, 23 Jamadi-us-Saani 1423

LONDON: When it comes to demonizing Saddam Hussein, nothing captures the
popular imagination in America better than the statement that 'he gassed his
own people'. This is an allusion to the deployment of chemical weapons by
Iraq's military in the Iraqi Kurdistan town of Halabja in March 1988 during
the Iran-Iraq war, and then in the territory administered by the
Tehran-backed Kurdish rebels after the ceasefire five months later.

As Iraq's use of poison gases in war and in peace was public knowledge, the
question arises: what did the United States administration do about it then?
Absolutely nothing. Indeed, so powerful was the grip of the pro-Baghdad
lobby on the administration of Republican President Ronald Reagan that it
got the White House to foil the Senate's attempt to penalize Iraq for its
violation of the Geneva Protocol on Chemical Weapons to which it was a
signatory. This made Saddam believe that the US was his firm ally - a
deduction that paved the way for his brutal invasion and occupation of
Kuwait and the 1991 Gulf war, the outcomes of which have not yet played
themselves out fully.

Between October 1983 and the autumn of 1988, Baghdad deployed 100,000
munitions, containing mainly mustard gas, which produces blisters on the
skin and inside the lungs, and nerve gas, which damages the nervous system -
but also cyanide gas, which kills instantly.

That the Pentagon had first-hand knowledge of Iraq's use of chemical agents
during these offensives was confirmed by the New York Times on August 18.
"After the Iraqi army, with American planning assistance, retook the Fao
Peninsula, a Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) officer, Lt Col Rick
Francona, now retired, was sent to tour the battlefield with Iraqi
officers," wrote Patrick Tyler of the Times.

Two years earlier it was with the aim of recapturing the Fao Peninsula,
taken by the Iranians in February, that Saddam's military used chemical
agents so extensively that the UN Security Council stopped accepting its
routine denials. Following an examination of 700 Iranian casualties, UN
experts concluded that Baghdad had deployed mustard and nerve gases many
times.

Instead of condemning Baghdad for this, the Security Council, dominated by
Washington and Moscow, both pro-Iraq, coupled its condemnation of Baghdad
with its disapproval of 'the prolongation of the war' by Tehran, for
refusing a truce until the council had named Iraq the aggressor.

Despite its repeated reiteration of neutrality, the US had all along been
pro-Baghdad.

Starting in July 1986, aided by the Pentagon, which clandestinely seconded
its air force officers to work with their Iraqi counterparts, Saddam's air
force greatly improved its targeting accuracy, striking relentlessly the
enemy's power plants, factories and bridges, and extending the range of its
strikes to Iran's oil terminals in the lower Gulf. Under the rubric of
escorting Kuwaiti oil tankers, the US built up an armada in the Gulf, which
clashed with the small, under-equipped Iranian navy and sank two Iranian
offshore oil platforms in the lower Gulf in retaliation for Iran's missile
attack on an American-flagged supertanker docked in Kuwaiti waters.

Against this background Iraq started hitting Tehran with its upgraded Scud
ground-to ground missiles in late February 1988. To retake Halabja from Iran
and its Kurdish allies, who had captured it in March, Iraq's air force
attacked it with poison gas bombs. The objective was to take out the
occupying Iranian troops, and instead the assault killed 3,200 to 5,000
civilians. The images of men, woman and children, frozen in instant death,
relayed by the Iranian media, shocked the world. Yet no condemnation came
from Washington. It was only when, following the ceasefire with Iran in
August, Saddam made widespread use of chemical agents to recapture 4,000
square miles controlled by the Kurdish insurgents that the Security Council
decided to dispatch a team to find out if Baghdad had resorted to chemical
arms. Saddam refused to co-operate.

But instead of pressuring him to reverse his stand, or face a ban on the
sale of American military equipment and advanced technology to Iraq by the
revival of the Senate's bill, US Secretary of State George Shultz chose to
say only that interviews with the Kurdish refugees in Turkey, and 'other
sources' (which remained obscure), pointed towards Iraqi use of chemical
agents.

That was the end of the story - until the hawks in the Bush administration
recently began bandying about the revolting phrase of 'gassing his own
people' for their partisan ends.


http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=9/2/02&Cat=2&Num=15

*  ENLARGEMENT COULD JUST MAKE NATO'S PROBLEMS WORSE
Tehran Times, 2nd September

BRUSSELS -- Imagine if freedom and security spanned the European continent,
from the Atlantic and the Mediterranean to the Baltic Sea and the Black Sea.

It's a cheery vision in this post-September 11 age.

And it's one that U.S. President George W. Bush is peddling hard ahead of
NATO's summit in Prague this November, when up to seven nations which once
lurked behind the iron curtain will be invited to join the team that won the
cold war, Reuters reported.

But the "robust enlargement" which now seems inevitable could be disastrous
for NATO, diluting its military capability, threatening its cohesion and
stoking debate about its relevance.

"None of the candidates meets any established military criteria for alliance
membership," wrote Sean Kay of Ohio Wesleyan University in an opinion column
that appealed to U.S. senators to think before giving a green light to
enlargement. "Most importantly... NATO's (diminished) capacity to make
effective decisions based on consensus will make the organization even less
attractive for U.S. leadership."

Washington's decision effectively to go it alone in Afghanistan with its
military response to the attacks of September 11 has already reinforced an
impression of U.S. indifference to NATO as a fighting force.

Far ahead of Europe in military technology and defense spending, the United
States now looks unlikely to involve the alliance collectively in future
wars.

Even NATO Secretary General George Robertson, who has tirelessly defended
NATO's relevance since September 11, warns that America's allies face a
stark choice between military modernization or marginalization.

Guillaume Parmentier of France's Institute for international Relations
believes that if Washington no longer considers NATO the institution of
choice for political and military engagement in Europe, it risks becoming
"merely a forum for discussion and a source of useful and interesting
analysis". "The danger of moving down this ... path becomes greater the more
and the quicker that the alliance enlarges," he wrote in the latest NATO
review. "This is because many countries aspiring to join NATO have poorly
equipped militaries with the result that their practical contribution to
overall alliance capabilities is likely to be minimal."

But advocates of NATO enlargement say September 11 demonstrated a need to
build the broadest possible coalition of countries which share democratic
values to tackle new threats such as terrorism and weapons of mass
destruction.

And it may keep Eastern Europe on the path of reform, a path which over the
past decade has steered poverty-stricken, authoritarian countries towards
democracy and market reforms.

Taking in the three Baltic states -- Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania -- would
build a bridge to Russia, which is now cooperating more closely with its old
enemy on security issues.

Slovakia would consolidate NATO's Eastern flank, while Slovenia, Romania and
Bulgaria would give the alliance a foothold in the Balkans, a region of
stubborn ethnic tension and organized crime and a potential source of
terrorism.

Romania and Bulgaria would also fill the gap between Central Europe and
NATO's only Muslim member, Turkey, which could play a key role if there was
a U.S.-led operation against Iraq.

For the United States there is the promise of over flight rights and
facilities for missions reaching into Russia's soft underbelly and Central
Asia, and there is also the prospect of extending its sphere of influence to
Europe's furthest corners.

Two other candidates for NATO membership, Albania and Macedonia, are widely
expected to be turned away at Prague.

Many believe the new members, with their minimalist or bloated militaries,
will be passive recipients of NATO's security guarantee and a millstone
around its neck.

"For the foreseeable future -- I mean over the next decade or so -- none of
those seven countries which are likely to be invited into NATO this November
in Prague are going to bring anything of value with them other than
infrastructure and airspace access," Rand Institute Researcher Thomas Szayna
told Reuters.

One NATO official said even now only two of the 19 allies, the United States
and Britain, can reliably field forces quickly and for a sustained period in
far-flung hotspots like Afghanistan.

Such missions require a range of capabilities from support ships packed with
groceries to air-to-air refueling.

"There are a couple of others trying," said the official, who requested
anonymity. "The rest are struggling in the mud, still pointlessly focused on
defense of national territory. "The new members will bring the same
conservative European mind-set with them -- and they'll bring
disillusionment with the Warsaw Pact, which could mean a nationalistic
approach and discomfort in an alliance."

Backsliding --- The precedent is not comforting.

Szayna said Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic, stalwarts of the former
Warsaw Pact which joined NATO when it first expanded eastwards in 1999, have
still not filled all the posts within the organization they were supposed to
fill and many of their officials' English language skills are poor.

All three have failed to live up to promises to increase and refocus
military spending once inside the alliance.

"The first round of enlargement demonstrated that, while outside the
alliance, candidate countries will do much to appear willing to bear costs
and burdens of membership," Kay said. "However, once inside, they will
behave like the many other NATO free-riders."

Hungary conceded in July that it would miss a deadline to supply NATO with a
declaration of its military strength, postponing it until it had carried out
a major review of its armed forces and how to pay for them.

The NATO official said he was tempted to open a bottle of champagne in
August when he heard that Prague, facing huge costs from flooding, had
scrapped plans to buy 24 Gripen jets.

"The reason they went for a supersonic aircraft was old-fashioned Machismo.
NATO just doesn't need it," he said.

Each of the aspirant countries follow a membership action plan (map) which
demands a democratic political system, armed forces under civilian control,
a military contribution to NATO and a willingness to achieve
inter-operability with NATO allies.

The problem is that political and strategic considerations can override the
map accession criteria, making entry possible for countries even if they are
far from ready.

Szayna said it may now be too late to back out of inviting seven candidates
to join at Prague, but the map criteria should be enforced and membership
delayed until they are all met.


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=20906914

*  IRAQ REPORTS FIRING MISSILES AT ALLIES WARPLANES
Times of India, from AFP, 2nd September

BAGHDAD: Iraq said on Sunday it had fired surface-to-air missiles at US and
British warplanes overflying the south of the country, forcing them to
"flee" to their bases in Kuwait.

"Missiles and ground defenses opened up on enemy warplanes that staged armed
sorties" over 18 localities in southern Iraq, "forcing them to flee to their
bases in Kuwait," said a military spokesman quoted by the official INA news
agency.

Iraq had also reported firing missiles at US and British aircraft over the
south of the country on Saturday.

On Friday, Baghdad said allied warplanes patrolling "no-fly" zones over
northern and southern Iraq launched the fifth bombing raid in a week.

An Iraqi spokesman said the targets were civilian ones, although a US
statement insisted they were military.

The US military's Central Command blamed Iraq for the increase in British
and US air strikes in recent days, saying coalition aircraft had come under
missile or artillery fire on more than 120 occasions.

But Baghdad has accused London and Washington of targeting civilian
facilities.

Iraq does not recognise the air exclusion zones which Britain and the United
States set up after the 1991 Gulf War and which are not sanctioned by any UN
resolution.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-403356,00.html

*  BLAIR DOSSIER MAY TELL US WHAT LITTLE WE ALREADY KNOW
by Bronwen Maddox
The Times, 4th September

[......]

As far as Scud missiles go, those weapons that so dominated Iraq's 1991
response, Western intelligence experts believe they have identified many of
the sites where they are located, particularly in western Iraq, closest to
Israel. But they warn there is considerable margin of error. UN analysts
claim to have identified 817 out of 819 Scud imports, according to
Cordesman, but as he notes "the claims . . . are extremely soft and may well
have an error of 60 weapons". On the state of weapons of mass destruction
even less is known. In the absence of detail there is some comfort; many UN
analysts remain sceptical that the nuclear programme has advanced much
beyond 1991. Even then, they point out, it was more rudimentary than it
first seemed.

Iraq was experimenting simultaneously with the three established ways of
enriching uranium to the point where it can make a nuclear bomb: spinning
the material in a centrifuge, using electromagnetic beams to deflect and
separate it, or using chemicals.

In none of these had Iraq achieved enough sophistication. It knew what it
was trying to do but had not got there, by a long way. It had, though, seen
rather more success in the art of designing a nuclear warhead, a formidable
technical obstacle itself, requiring very carefully shaped charges to
compress the nuclear material to the point where it will yield a nuclear
explosion.

For that reason, analysts have surmised that Iraq has concentrated on trying
to import weapons-grade uranium to use in its own warheads ‹ and, probably,
that so far it has failed.

[......]


http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/2002/09/05/news/world/4004461.htm

*  HUSSEIN'S SECRET WORLD OF BIOWARFARE WAS EXPOSED BY A BRITISH MISSILE
by Joby Warrick
Miami Herald, 5th September

In the waning hours of Operation Desert Fox in 1998, a British missile
sheared off the top of a military hangar in southern Iraq and exposed a
closely guarded secret.

Plainly visible in the rubble was a new breed of Iraqi drone aircraft -- one
that defense analysts now believe was specially modified to spread deadly
chemicals and germs.

Up to a dozen of the unmanned airplanes were spotted inside the hangar, each
fitted with spray nozzles and wing-mounted tanks that could carry up to 80
gallons of liquid anthrax. If flown at low altitudes under the right
conditions, a single drone could unleash a toxic cloud engulfing several
city blocks, a top British defense official concluded. He dubbed them
"drones of death."

Today, Iraq's drones loom even larger as the Bush administration weighs a
possible new strike against Saddam Hussein. The United States and Britain
have charged that the Iraqi president is working to obtain chemical,
biological and possibly nuclear weapons. A key unanswered question is
whether Iraq has the means to deliver such weapons.

According to U.S. and allied intelligence officials and U.N. documents, Iraq
has worked with apparently mixed success to diversify a patchwork collection
of delivery vehicles that now includes not only Scud missiles, which it
launched during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, but also a variety of novel
machines for spraying pathogens and poisons from aircraft. Iraq deployed but
never used chemical and biological weapons in the 1991 war.

The military significance of the threat posed by such an arsenal is less
clear. Drones are easy to shoot down, and it is far from certain that an
aircraft-mounted chemical or biological attack would work -- especially
against troops, experts familiar with the weapons systems note.

Meanwhile, Iraq's missile industry, which struggled to tame the unreliable
Scud before the 1991 war, is hobbled by U.N. trade sanctions, which are now
in their 12th year.

But at minimum, the analysts agree, Iraq's expanded capabilities appear to
offer new ways to terrorize civilian populations, including the cities of
Israel, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, among others that could bear the brunt of
Iraqi retaliation.

"These aircraft are intended to fly below radar so the Israelis can't detect
them. The Iraqis themselves have said so," said a British bio-warfare expert
who investigated Iraq's experiments with aircraft-mounted biological
weapons. "From that altitude, you can do a lot of damage over a very large
area."

The delivery systems believed to be available for such an attack include at
least some of the dozen drones targeted in the British raid four years ago.
The L-29 aircraft, as the drones are known, are one of at least three types
of pilotless planes Iraq has tested for use in biological and chemical
attacks, according to U.S. intelligence officials and U.N. documents.

In addition, Iraq is known to have converted crop-dusting gear into a
germ-spaying device mounted on helicopters, U.N. files show. It also has
developed bio-warfare "drop tanks" that can be mounted on Iraq's fastest
fighter aircraft.

These little-noticed innovations -- many of them discovered by U.N. weapons
inspectors in Iraq -- supplement an established Iraqi ballistic missile
program that Pentagon officials say is being rebuilt after being nearly
destroyed in previous U.S.-led attacks.

Both the CIA and the Pentagon's Defense Intelligence Agency believe that
Iraq's missile arsenal now includes two types of short-range missiles and a
small number of medium-range Scuds that Iraq's military managed to hide from
U.N. inspectors after the Gulf War. In addition, they say, Iraq probably
retains dozens of missile warheads and possibly many more rockets and
artillery shells that were filled with biological or chemical weapons years
ago.

But large gaps exist in the West's knowledge of each of these programs.

The unknowns are critically important, because they bear directly on the
central question in the Iraq debate: whether Iraq's weapons of mass
destruction pose a significant threat to the United States and its allies.

The precise nature of Iraq's arsenal of nuclear, chemical and biological
weapons is also unclear. The CIA maintains that Iraq has residual stocks of
biological and chemical weapons it manufactured before the 1991 war. Former
U.N. inspectors say Iraq was only months away from making a crude nuclear
device when Operation Desert Storm began.

U.S. intelligence officials also believe Iraq is secretly seeking to acquire
new weapons, citing accounts by Iraqi defectors and satellite photos showing
old weapons factories being rebuilt.

Before inspections abruptly ended in 1998, U.N. officials crisscrossed Iraq
searching for a rumored new drone that could carry biological and chemical
munitions. But not a shred of evidence turned up until Dec. 17 of that year,
when British Tornado jets swooped over Iraq's Talil air base southeast of
Baghdad and reaped an intelligence bonanza.

Photos of the ruined base revealed rows of the new drones, which Iraq had
hidden inside a hangar at the remote base. The aircraft were identified as
Czech-made L-29s, a light trainer jet Iraq had purchased years before and
converted to unmanned flight. The tanks for spraying biological and chemical
agents appeared to be a unique Iraqi adaptation.

Small and maneuverable, the drones in theory could fly low over troop
concentrations or cities and release a deadly mist of toxins. After
reviewing the data, then-British Defense Minister George Robertson concluded
that the aircraft were intended to inflict massive casualties on civilians.

U.S. intelligence officials are more skeptical of the L-29's capability, but
they acknowledge that the drones and similar devices have given Iraq an
array of options for using whatever biological and chemical resources it
still has.


http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/09/06/wirq06.xml&s
Sheet=/portal/2002/09/06/ixport.html&secureRefresh=true&_requestid=46085

*  100 JETS JOIN ATTACK ON IRAQ
by Michael Smith, Defence Correspondent
Daily Telegraph, 6th September
[Friday, 6th September]

About 100 American and British aircraft took part in an attack on Iraq's
major western air defence installation yesterday in the biggest single
operation over the country for four years.

The raid appeared to be a prelude to the type of special forces operations
that would have to begin weeks before a possible American-led war. It was
launched two days before a war summit between President George W Bush and
Tony Blair in America.

The Prime Minister promised that Britain would be alongside the Americans
"when the shooting starts".

The raid seemed designed to destroy air defences to allow easy access for
special forces helicopters to fly into Iraq via Jordan or Saudi Arabia to
hunt down Scud missiles before a possible war within the next few months.

Although only 12 aircraft dropped precision-guided bombs on to the H3
airfield, 240 miles west of Baghdad and close to Jordan, many support
aircraft took part.

The strikes were carried out by nine American F15 Strike Eagles and three
RAF Tornado GR4 ground attack aircraft flying from Kuwait.

At least seven types of aircraft took part. Fighter cover was provided by US
F-16 Fighting Falcons and RAF Tornado F3s from Saudi Arabia. RAF VC10 tanker
aircraft flying from Bahrain were among the support aircraft.

These also included EA6b Prowlers, which send out signals to confuse enemy
radar, and E3a Awacs aircraft that co-ordinate operations and carry out
reconnaissance of any response.

RAF Tornados also took part in the reconnaissance. American central command
refused to go into detail about the number of aircraft involved in the raid.

It said: "Coalition strikes in the no-fly zones are executed as a
self-defence measure in response to Iraqi hostile threats and acts against
coalition forces and their aircraft."

The Pentagon said that the raid was launched in "response to recent Iraqi
hostile acts against coalition aircraft monitoring the southern no-fly
zone".

Iraq had made 130 attempts to shoot down coalition aircraft this year.

The Ministry of Defence in London refused to confirm that RAF aircraft had
taken part, but defence sources said that Tornado ground attack and
reconnaissance aircraft played a key role. The attack on what the American
central command described as an "air defence command and control facility"
was the first time that a target in western Iraq had been attacked during
the patrols of the southern no-fly zone.

Until yesterday, all strikes had been against air defence sites in the
south, around Basra, Amara, Nassairya and Baghdad.

Central command said it was still assessing the damage caused by the attack.
If the air defence installation was not destroyed, a second raid is
expected.

As well as blinding Iraqi radar to any special forces helicopters, the loss
of the H3 installation would allow allied aircraft mounting major raids on
Iraq a trouble-free route into the country.

In a further sign that America was preparing for war, a Pentagon official
confirmed that heavy armour, ammunition and other equipment had been moved
to Kuwait from huge stores in Qatar.

Thomas White, the army secretary, said: "We have done a lot with
pre-positioned stocks in the Gulf, making sure that they are in the right
spot to support whatever the president wants to do."

Any war on Iraq is likely to begin with a gradual intensification of attacks
on air defences. But yesterday's raid appears more likely to be related to
the special forces Scud hunts.

It was the SAS which specialised in the attempts to hunt down the Scuds
during the Gulf war. Although the raids were largely unsuccessful, they
spawned a series of rival books by former members of the regiment.

Mr Bush, speaking in Louisville, Kentucky, said that, besides having talks
with Mr Blair, he would be meeting the leaders of France, Russia, China and
Canada over the next few days. He would tell them that "history has called
us into action" to oust Saddam Hussein, the president of Iraq.

He said he was looking forward to the talks, but suggested that the US could
do the job on its own if need be.

"I am a patient man," he said. "I've got tools; we've got tools at our
disposal. We cannot let the world's worst leaders blackmail, threaten, hold
freedom-loving nations hostage with the world's worst weapons."


http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=21361593

*  ATTACKS NOTHING NEW, SAYS IRAQ
Times of India, 6th September

NEW DELHI: The attack by the American and British aircraft on military
installations in Iraq is not a prelude to a possible special forces ground
operations, said an official spokesperson of the Iraq Embassy.

The US and British aircraft have been bombing Iraq over the last 10 years
and Thursday's attack is a continuation of this campaign, said the
spokesperson.

"Iraq has been suffering at the hands of the US and Britain, it is a
day-to-day affair. It is just that the attacks yesterday were heavier than
usual," said the spokesperson.

The spokesperson further added that there was no communication from Baghdad
about any special forces attack being launched.


INSIDE IRAQ

http://www.sundayherald.com/27325

*  SLIDE FROM THE IMPOSSIBLE TO THE APOCALYPTIC
by Felicity Arbuthnot
Sunday Herald, 1st September

A little over a month after the 1991 Gulf War, Maarti Ahtisaari, then UN
special rapporteur, commented on conditions inside Iraq: 'Nothing we had
heard or read could have prepared us for this particular devastation, a
country reduced to a pre-industrial age, for a considerable time to come.'

Since Ahtisaari's remarks, Iraq has slid from the impossible to the
apocalyptic. The Unicef report, State Of The World's Children (2001), rates
the country 11 points below Eritrea, with the highest increase in infant
mortality on earth.

Water-borne diseases such as cholera, typhoid, polio -- largely eradicated
prior to 1990 -- have become epidemic. A child with dysentry in 1989 had a
one-in-600 chance of dying. By 1999 it was one in 50. Had the weapons
inspectors (Unscom) in their search for biological weapons turned on any tap
in Iraq, they would have found them.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) estimates that each month an average of
5000 children aged under five die as a result of 'embargo-related causes'.
Last December, 11,500 people died, the majority of them children.

By 1993 doctors had made a new diagnosis. With inflation stratospheric the
price of staple foods rose by up to 11,000 times. Malnourishment became
rampant. Mothers too weak to breastfeed, and unable to afford milk powder,
fed babies sugared water or tea. They became wasted, bloated and almost all
died. Doctors called them the 'sugar babies'.

'Time is running out for the children of Iraq,' wrote Dieter Hannusch of the
World Food Programme in 1995. Time ran out for seven-year-old Yasmin that
year. Diagnosed with a minor heart ailment in 1990, a small surgical
procedure would correct it when facilities were restored. But in five years
a minor ailment become a major one and her damaged heart failed her frail
body.

'I hope they told her before she died that she had failed to comply with the
United Nations embargo,' remarked an Iraqi friend with searing fury. Dignity
in death too, is the embargo's victim -- shroud cloth and coffins have been
vetoed by the UN Sanctions Committee

In Basra, Iraq's beautiful, battered southern city, decimated in Desert
Storm, Dr Jenan Hussein's thesis compares the rate of cancers and birth
abnormalities with those in Hiroshima. A quarter of live births now are of
premature weight. In the Paediatric and Maternity Hospital, small faces, the
haunted eyes of parents and the conditions haunt the stoniest heart.

When I returned after six months, Dr Hussein said hesitantly: 'You remember
those children you wrote about in June? I am sorry, they have all died.'

They included 17 babies in the premature baby unit without even oxygen.
Incubators too were vetoed.

The US and UK have bombed Iraq on an ongoing basis since Operation Desert
Fox in December 1998 -- and again we prepare to bomb the 'most traumatised
child population on earth', according to experts.

Denial is rampant. One child told Count Hans von Sponeck, who succeeded
Denis Halliday as UN aid co-ordinator, that when the bombs come: 'I play the
piano so I can't hear them.'

An eight-year-old said that when the bombing starts: 'My father goes outside
and stands by the gate to protect our house.'

One doctor reached on a crackly line inside Iraq said: 'I can cope with
anything now, patients who die for want of simple treatment, operating
without anaesthetics. What I cannot cope with is the children's fear. When
the bombing starts I swear that I can hear the cries of every child, in
every house in every street in the entire neighbour hood.'

This psychological effect permeates every level of life. It would seem the
UN Convention on the Rights of the Child lies in the mass grave of the
children of Iraq -- some report a million and rising -- who die of
'embargo-related causes'.

Now America again threatens to attack a country with no functioning fire
engines, no disaster provision, and where even radios for ambulances are
vetoed. In 1991, General Norman Schwartzkopf boasted of a 'turkey shoot' for
the Allied forces inside Iraq. This time, we will be bombing a sitting duck.


http://www.sundayherald.com/27335

*  INSIDE IRAQ
by John Pilger
Sunday Herald, 1st September

Wherever you go in Iraq's southern city of Basra, there is dust. It rolls
down the long roads that are the desert's fingers. It gets in your eyes and
nose and throat; it swirls in markets and school playgrounds, consuming
children kicking a plastic ball; and it carries, according to Dr Jawad
Al-Ali, 'the seeds of our death'. Dr Al-Ali is a cancer specialist at the
city hospital and a member of Britain's Royal College of Physicians.

'Before the Gulf war, we had only three or four deaths in a month from
cancer,' he said. 'Now its 30 to 35 patients dying every month, and that's
just in my department. That is 12 times the increase in cancer mortality.
Our studies indicate 40% to 48% of the population in this area will get
cancer -- in five years' time to begin with, then long afterwards. That's
almost half the population. Most of my own family now have cancer, and we
have no history of the disease.

'We don't know the precise source of the contamination, because we are not
allowed to get the equipment to conduct a proper survey, or even test the
excess level of radiation in our bodies. We strongly suspect depleted
uranium, which was used by the Americans and British in the Gulf war right
across the southern battlefields.'

Along the corridor, I met Dr Ginan Ghalib Hassen, a paediatrician. At
another time, she might have been described as an effervescent personality;
now she, too, has a melancholy expression that does not change; it is the
face of Iraq. 'This is Ali Raffa Asswadi,' she said, stopping to take the
hand of a wasted boy I guessed to be about four years old. 'He is nine
years,' she said. 'He has leukaemia. Now we can't treat him. Only some of
the drugs are available. We get drugs for two or three weeks, and then they
stop when the shipments stop. Unless you continue a course, the treatment is
useless. We can't even give blood transfusions, because there are not enough
blood bags ...'

I said to Dr Hassen: 'What do you say to those in the West who deny the
connection between depleted uranium and the deformities of these children?'
She replied: 'That is not true. How much proof do they want? There is every
relation between congenital malformation and depleted uranium. Before 1991,
we saw nothing like this at all. If there is no connection, why have these
things not happened before? I have studied what happened in Hiroshima. It is
almost exactly the same here. We have an increased percentage of congenital
malformation, an increase of malignancy, leukaemia, brain tumours, the
same.'

Under the economic embargo imposed by the United Nations Security Council in
1990 and upgraded the following year, Iraq is denied equipment and expertise
to decontaminate its battlefields. The US army physicist responsible for
cleaning up Kuwait was Professor Doug Rokke. Today he is also a victim. 'I
have 5000 times the recommended level of radiation in my body. The
contamination was right throughout Iraq and Kuwait. With the munitions
testing and preparation in Saudi Arabia, uranium contamination covered the
entire region. What we're seeing now -- respiratory problems, kidney
problems, cancers -- are the direct result of the use of this highly toxic
material. The controversy over whether or not it's the cause is a
manufactured one. My own ill health is testament to that.'

Professor Rokke says there are two urgent issues to be confronted by people,
'those with a sense of right and wrong'. First, the decision by the United
States and Britain to use a 'weapon of mass destruction' such as depleted
uranium. He said: 'In the Gulf war, well over 300 tonnes were fired. An A-10
Warthog attack aircraft fired over 900,000 rounds. Each individual round was
300 grams of solid uranium 238. When a tank fired its shells, each round
carried over 4500 grams of solid uranium. Moreover, we have evidence to
suggest they were mixed with plutonium. What happened in the Gulf was a form
of nuclear warfare.

'The second issue is the denial of medical care to American and British and
other allied soldiers, and the tens of thousands of Iraqis contaminated. At
international symposiums, I have watched Iraqi officials approach their
counterparts from the Department of Defence and Ministry of Defence and ask,
plead, for help with decontamination. The Iraqis didn't use depleted
uranium; it was not their weapon. They simply don't know how to get rid of
it from their environment. I watched them put their case, describing the
deaths and horrific deformities that are showing up; and I watched them
rebuffed. It was pathetic.'

The UN Sanctions Committee in New York, dominated by the Americans and
British, has vetoed or delayed a range of vital medical equipment,
chemotherapy drugs, even pain killers. (In the jargon of denial, 'blocked'
equals vetoed, and 'on hold' means delayed, or maybe blocked.) As of October
2001, 1010 contracts for humanitarian supplies, worth $3.85 billion, were
'on hold' by the Sanctions Committee. They included items related to food,
health, water and sanitation, agriculture and education.


In Baghdad, walking along a line of people waiting for treatment at the
hospital, my companion Denis Halliday had an extraordinary reunion. A
courtly Irishman, who the previous year had resigned as the UN's
co-ordinator of humanitarian relief to Iraq in protest against the effects
of the embargo on the civilian population, he had returned with me to
Baghdad. Now he spotted a man and his daughter, and the three erupted with
greetings.

'John, this is Saffa Majid and her father, Majid Ali. Saffa and I met two
years ago in this hospital, when I was the UN chief in Iraq and she was in a
very poor condition with leukaemia. And I was able, with the help of the
World Health Organisation, to bring in drugs, on the quiet. They were enough
for two years of treatment for this little girl. And today, she looks
wonderful and her father says she has only to come once a month. Saffa was
one of four I helped. Two girls died.

'To help them, I had to breach my own economic sanctions, so to speak,
established by the Security Council, led by Washington and London. In this
hospital, we have seen the evidence today of the killing that is now the
responsibility of the Security Council member states, particularly Bill
Clinton and Tony Blair. They should be here to see the impact of what their
decisions and their sustaining of economic sanctions mean.'

Halliday had resigned after 34 years with the UN. He was then assistant
secretary- general . 'I am resigning,' he wrote, 'because the policy of
economic sanctions is totally bankrupt. We are in the process of destroying
an entire society. It is as simple as that ... 5000 children are dying every
month ... I don't want to administer a programme that results in figures
like these.

'I had been instructed,' he continued, 'to implement a policy that satisfies
the definition of genocide: a deliberate policy that has effectively killed
well over a million individuals, children and adults. We all know that the
regime, Saddam Hussein, is not paying the price for economic sanctions; on
the contrary, he has been strengthened by them. It is the little people who
are losing their children or their parents for lack of untreated water. What
is clear is that the Security Council is now out of control, for its actions
here undermine its own Charter, and the Declaration of Human Rights and the
Geneva Convention. History will slaughter those responsible.'


In 1991, the Security Council, in its Resolution 687, stated that, if Iraq
renounced 'weapons of mass destruction' (nuclear, biological and chemical
weapons) and ballistic missiles with a range of more than 150km, and agreed
to monitoring by a UN Special Commission on Iraq (Unscom), the embargo would
be lifted. In 1998, Unscom reported that, despite Iraqi obstruction in some
areas, 'the disarmament phase of the Security Council's requirements is
possibly near its end in the missile and chemical weapons areas'. On
December 15, 1998, the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that it
had eliminated Iraq's nuclear weapons programme 'efficiently and
effectively'.

Scott Ritter, for five years a senior Unscom weapons inspector, agreed. 'By
1998, the chemical weapons infrastructure had been completely dismantled or
destroyed by Unscom or by Iraq in compliance with our mandate,' he told me.
'The biological weapons programme was gone, all the major facilities
eliminated. The nuclear weapons programme was completely eliminated. The
long-range ballistic missile programme was completely eliminated. If I had
to quantify Iraq's threat, I would say [it is] zero.'

American researchers John Mueller and Karl Mueller conclude that 'economic
sanctions have probably already taken the lives of more people in Iraq than
have been killed by all weapons of mass destruction in history'.

In 1999, 70 members of the US Congress signed an unusually blunt letter to
President Clinton, appealing to him to lift the embargo and end what they
called 'infanticide masquerading as policy'. The Clinton administration had
already given them their reply. In 1996, in an infamous interview on the
American current affairs programme 60 Minutes, Madeleine Albright, then US
ambassador to the UN, had been asked: 'We have heard that half a million
children have died ... is the price worth it?'

Albright replied: 'I think this is a very hard choice, but the price -- we
think the price is worth it.'

In the centre of Baghdad is a monolith that crowds the eye. It commemorates,
or celebrates, the 1980-90 Iran-Iraq war, which Saddam Hussein started,
urged on by the Americans who wanted him to destroy their new foe in the
region, the Ayatollah Khomeini. Cast in a foundry in Basingstoke, its two
forearms, reputedly modelled on Saddam Hussein's, hold triumphant crossed
sabres. Cars are allowed to drive over the helmets of dead Iranian soldiers
embedded in the concourse. I cannot think of a sight anywhere that better
expresses the crime of a sacrificial war and the business of making and
selling armaments: America and Britain supplied both sides with weapons.


Just before Christmas 1999, the Department of Trade and Industry in London
restricted the export of vaccines meant to protect Iraqi children against
diphtheria and yellow fever. Dr Kim Howells told parliament why. His title
of parliamentary under-secretary of state for competition and consumer
affairs perfectly suited his Orwellian reply. The children's vaccines were,
he said, 'capable of being used in weapons of mass destruction'.

American and British aircraft operate over Iraq in what their governments
have unilaterally declared 'no-fly zones'. This means that only they and
their allies can fly there. The designated areas are in the north, around
Mosul, to the border with Turkey, and from just south of Baghdad to the
Kuwaiti border. The US and British governments insist the no-fly zones are
'legal', claiming they are part of, or supported by, the Security Council's
Resolution 688. There is no reference to no-fly zones in Security Council
resolutions, which suggests they have no basis in international law. To be
sure about this, I went to Paris and asked Dr Boutros Boutros-Ghali,
secretary-general of the UN in 1992, when the resolution was passed. 'The
issue of no-fly zones was not raised and therefore not debated: not a word,'
he said. 'They offer no legitimacy to countries sending their aircraft to
attack Iraq.'

'Does that mean they are illegal?' I asked.

'They are illegal,' he replied.

The scale of the bombing in the no-fly zones is astonishing. During the 18
months to January 14, 1999, American air force and naval aircraft flew
36,000 sorties over Iraq, including 24,000 combat missions. During 1999,
American and British aircraft dropped more than 1800 bombs and hit 450
targets. The cost to British taxpayers is more than £800 million. There is
bombing almost every day. It is the longest Anglo-American aerial campaign
since the second world war; yet it is mostly ignored by the British and
American media.

During an interview with assistant secretary of state James Rubin, I asked:
'Don't you think it's ironic that for many years the US helped Saddam
Hussein obtain these weapons of mass destruction?'

'No, I don't find that ironic,' he said. 'Iraq's regime is responsible,
that's who's responsible. The US didn't gas the Kurds ...

'In the real world, real choices have to made, and it's our view that to
allow Saddam Hussein unchecked access to hundreds of billions of dollars in
oil revenue would be a grave and clear and present danger to the world. We
have to weigh our profound sorrow at the tragic suffering of the people of
Iraq against the national security challenge that Saddam Hussein would pose
to the world if he weren't checked by the sanctions regime and the
containment policy.'

When my documentary Paying The Price: Killing The Children Of Iraq went to
air, triggering a significant public response, the Foreign Office produced a
standard letter signed by Robin Cook (then the Foreign Secretary) or Peter
Hain or an official. It exemplified the 'culture of lying' described by Mark
Higson, the Iraq desk officer at the Foreign Office during the arms to-Iraq
scandals of the 1980s. Almost every word was misleading or false. These
ranged from 'sanctions are not aimed at the Iraqi people' to 'food and
medicines have never been covered by sanctions'. One of the most persistent
lies was, 'Saddam Hussein has in warehouses $275m worth of medicines and
medical supplies, which he refuses to distribute.' The UN, right up to Kofi
Annan, had refuted this. George Somerwill, the UN spokesman on Iraq, said:
'Not one of [the UN's] observation mechanisms has reported any major problem
in humanitarian supplies being diverted, switched, or in any way misused.'

There is little doubt that if Hussein saw political advantage in starving
and otherwise denying his people, he would do so. It is hardly surprising
that he has looked after himself, his inner circle and, above all, his
military and security apparatus. His palaces and spooks, like the cartoon
portraits of himself, are everywhere. Unlike other tyrants, however, he not
only survived, but before the Gulf war enjoyed a measure of popularity by
buying off his people with the benefits from Iraq's oil revenue. Having sent
his opponents into exile or murdered them, more than any Arab leader he used
the riches of oil to modernise the civilian infrastructure, building
first-rate hospitals, schools and universities.

So why does the suffering continue? It was a question I put to Halliday one
evening. I asked him if the answer lay in Rubin's remark about the 'real
world and the ideal world'.

'This is where the real world is represented,' he said. 'This is where
democracy applies: one state: one vote. By contrast, the Security Council
has five permanent members which have veto rights. There is no democracy
there; it does not in any way represent the real world. Had the issue of
sanctions on Iraq gone to the General Assembly, it would have been
overturned by a very large majority. We have to change the UN, to reclaim
what is ours. The genocide in Iraq is the test of our will. All of us have
to break the silence: to make those responsible, in Washington and London,
aware that history will slaughter them.'

John Pilger's new book The New Rulers Of The World is published by Verso


http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/meast/09/03/iraq.satellite.reut/index.html

*  REPORT: IRAQ OKS COMMUNICATIONS SATELLITE PLAN
CNN, 3rd September

BAGHDAD, Iraq (Reuters) -- Iraq approved on Tuesday a project to build a
communications satellite for radio and television broadcasts, Iraqi radio
reported.

It did not say whether Iraq, under U.N. sanctions since 1990 and now facing
the possibility of a U.S. attack, had secured U.N. Security Council approval
for the project.

The Bush administration has been considering a military attack against Iraq,
arguing the nation is stockpiling chemical and biological weapons, and is
aggressively seeking nuclear arms.

The satellite plan was approved after being discussed at a Cabinet meeting
chaired by President Saddam Hussein, the radio report said. It said the
satellite would be built under a contract concluded with "foreign parties,"
which it did not identify.

Iraq has recently allowed access to limited satellite channels on a
subscription basis and operates its own satellite channel, launched via
Egypt's Nilesat in July 1998.

[.....]


http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2002/09/04/1031037092697.html

*  THE NUKE-FREE GUIDED TOUR OF IRAQ
by Paul McGeough, Herald Correspondent in Baghdad
Sydney Morning Herald, 4th September

Akashat is a long way to go to see something that is not there.

After three hours in a rattling Russian helicopter, one of Baghdad's most
senior weapons scientists clambered through the bomb-flattened remains of
what he said had been Iraq's only uranium extraction plant, before
declaring: "We don't do it any more."

In the stifling heat of the desert, just a few kilometres short of where the
Euphrates River crosses into Iraq from Syria, Mohammed Hussam Amin escorted
the Herald to this dusty industrial complex which has emerged as a possible
source of uranium for Saddam Hussein's feared new nuclear weapons program.

United States and European intelligence agencies are focusing on the plant,
which was a small part of a rambling fertiliser factory, because its past as
a domestic supply of uranium means that United Nations sanctions would not
necessarily have denied Saddam a vital ingredient.

This reporter is not a scientist and he did not have access to the rest of
the complex or to any of a string of other locations named as possible
centres in a dispersed new Iraqi attempt to go nuclear.

But this much of what Dr Amin said yesterday, seems to be true: More than 70
US air raids on the Company of Phosphate during the 1991 Gulf War destroyed
the Belgian-supplied uranium extraction plant, which, in the seven years
until the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, had produced 168 tonnes of yellowcake.

Dr Amin, a missiles expert who now heads Iraq's weapons monitoring agency,
had a folder of photos of the imposing structure that existed before the
attacks; more that were taken of the shambles in the aftermath of the
bombing; and an account of how the site had become the near-vacant lot it
appeared to be yesterday, as the result of a clean-up supervised by the
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

The hawkish majority in the Bush Administration is basing its call for a war
against Iraq on claims that the US must strike first because there is "no
doubt" that Saddam has weapons of mass destruction and is prepared to use
them against the US and its allies.

Germany's Federal Intelligence Service last year raised suspicions about
work it said was being done at Akashat, also referred to as Al Qaim, in a
report predicting Saddam would be able to make a nuclear strike on his
neighbours within three years, and on targets in Europe within five years.

The extraction of uranium in conjunction with the mining of phosphate for
the Akashat fertiliser works was raised at hearings by the US Senate's
foreign relations committee last month.

Richard Butler, the Australian who formerly headed the UN weapons inspection
program, quoted to senators from an IAEA estimation that Saddam could
produce a nuclear weapon in two years; and Khidir Hamza, an Iraqi nuclear
scientist who defected in 1994, told the hearings Baghdad might be able to
develop two or three nuclear warheads by 2005.

But there are deep divisions in the ranks of Mr Butler's former inspection
staff on Iraq's nuclear capacity. In March, the British Prime Minister, Tony
Blair, promised a dossier that would prove Iraq had gone beyond the stage of
nuclear blueprints, but he has not released any. And when the US
Vice-President, Dick Cheney, was pressed on the veracity of the intelligence
last week, he said: "We cannot really judge."

Recently, Mr Hamza spelt out the risks as he saw them: "Iraq already had a
workable nuclear design when I left. A minor enrichment capability is all
that was needed to provide the nuclear core for three weapons."

But a "fact sheet" released by the IAEA in April stated that in the early
1990s it removed 22.4 kilograms of highly-enriched, weapons-grade uranium
from Iraq. It says it was convinced the "intrusive" inspections it was able
to carry out until 1998 had found all the weapons-grade uranium Iraq had at
the time.

The Vienna-based organisation also destroyed what it described as several
"sophisticated facilities" where uranium could be enriched to make it
"weapons-useable".

Now, the fate of the inspection process that was derailed in 1998 is working
its way back to the centre of the Iraq crisis. Flying in over parched earth,
where the only shade away from the green ribbon of the banks of the
Euphrates was the fleeting shadow cast by our ME-8 chopper, Dr Amin fleshed
out the detail of what seemed to be a coy offer by Iraq's Deputy Prime
Minister, Tariq Aziz, to accept a return to inspections.

The US has argued recently that inspections are meaningless because of Iraqi
deception, and Iraq has said more inspections are not an option because the
US would use them to acquire targeting information for bombing.

But when Mr Aziz was asked about the inspection process, he seemed to be
leaving the door open when he said: "It is still under consideration."

Amid the remaining missile-gouged walls and tangled steel reinforcing what
was the site of the uranium extraction plant, Dr Amin yesterday spread his
hands to take in the total destruction: "To talk about this having been
rehabilitated to produce uranium is a false pretext. We have invited Mr
Blair and Congress to bring their experts to look. That invitation still
stands - and they can go anywhere they like."

Anywhere? Saddam's palaces? "I said anywhere, but I didn't say the palaces.
But let them produce quality evidence on why they want to go wherever they
want to go; a satellite picture is not enough, they need to be able to
demonstrate why they want to go to places. They can't come in here and dig
up a dairy farm to look for a bunker under it unless they can show some
evidence. If they were allowed to do that, it would become a never-ending
process."

A persistent question about the weapons programs that Saddam's officials
insist have been abandoned is the fate of their specialist staff. When the
Herald asked about the antecedents of the staff at a suspect pesticide
factory on Sunday, we were told more than 80 per cent had come from al
Muthanna, one of Iraq's old chemical and biological complexes.

But when Dr Amin was asked yesterday about the estimated two dozen nuclear
specialists known to have worked on nuclear weapons in the past, he said: "I
don't know if we had 25 or 100 or 10 nuclear scientists, but none of them is
working here. They would now be working in state enterprises to help the
people - industry, education, agriculture. I think the IAEA knows where they
are."

Late in the afternoon the chopper fleet that took Dr Amin's party of about
40 to Akashat, headed back to Baghdad, putting down at the Al Rasheed
military complex.

And there on the tarmac, as our war-weary old helicopters shuddered to a
halt, were another three bedraggled looking aircraft that weren't going
anywhere in a hurry - the white painted UN helicopters that have been
sitting idle since the last international inspectors left Iraq in 1998.


CULTURAL MATTERS

http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=EEDE3762-1B9C-4EDD
8C68E9C0296D841E&title=Iraqi%20Musician%20Makes%20Statements%20with%20His%20
Lute&catOID=45C9C784
88AD-11D4-A57200A0CC5EE46C&categoryname=Arts%20%26%20Culture

*  IRAQI MUSICIAN MAKES STATEMENTS WITH HIS LUTE
by Tetiana Anderson
Voice of America, 1st September
[Account of Cairo-based Oud-player, Naseer Shamma.]

A Cairo-based Iraqi musician has gained a reputation for making political
statements through his compositions, even though the songs have no words.

The music of Naseer Shamma has been known to bring audiences to tears.

With his lute, or oud as it is called in this part of the world, Mr. Shamma
can convey the flirtation of lovers, a gentle breeze or even the fading of
the moon. He can also create the screeching sounds of bombs falling on
screaming victims.

During a break between lessons at his institute in the Cairo Opera House,
Mr. Shamma talked about his vision for the oud.

"I try to change or start the new tradition about the chamber music about
the solo concerts. This is a very old tradition. I work about the music
picture. I need to make more people just listen to the music. In the Arab
culture you can see many songs but you don't just listen to the music," Mr.
Shamma said.

Some have called much of Mr. Shamma's work political in nature. He has
written pieces about Israeli attacks on Palestinians and the calm nights
following Allied attacks on Iraq during the Gulf War. His most famous work,
El Amarryya, is about an attack during the war that left hundreds of Iraqi
women and children dead. Mr. Shamma was an Iraqi soldier at the time.

"I think no music is political. But for example what now happen in Palestine
and when I see that this is not political when I write the music about that
because this is my brother in Palestine or in Lebanon or in any Arab
country. When I see something and this pictures touch me I can't stay
without play or write something very special for these people. This is not
political," Mr. Shamma said.

But many people think it is, and that is part of Mr. Shamma's appeal.

Students travel thousands of miles to study with him. He is considered a
treasure. So much so that when the Cairo Opera House heard he was discussing
the possibility of opening an oud institute in London two years ago, they
made an offer to bring him to Cairo.

 Mr. Shamma uses one of the world's oldest instruments to express his
feelings on modern day events. The lute dates back more than 4,000 years. In
western culture, it developed into the guitar. But in the Middle East it
retained its original form and continues to attract a small but dedicated
audience. And thanks to Mr. Shamma, a new generation of lute students is
flocking to Cairo.

Alaa El din El Dajani has been studying with Mr. Shamma for nearly a year
and a half. He is a former student of the guitar and discovered the oud by
accident. He later saw Mr. Shamma in concert and was taken by his style.

"When I saw him playing I wanted to play the oud because it changed my
conception of oud. Usually for the new generation the oud is something that
is very old. What I liked about the oud and Naseer Shamma exactly is it
combines the old music, the old Arabic music in new styles. It is like
modernized tourath. Tourath it means the heritage of music," he said.

At 38 Mr. Shamma isn't exactly older generation. Perhaps that is what allows
him to merge one of the world's oldest musical styles with modern messages.

His young students reflect their teacher's desire to use the oud's lilting
music as if it were their own voice.

"It's an instrument that can express almost everything. There's very few
instruments that I know that can be used as solo instrument during a concert
of one hour and a half. There is the piano, the guitar, the oud and that's
it. If you listen to Naseer he can draw so many different sounds from his
instrument. He makes it talk," one student says. Another says, "It is a
very, very, very beautiful feeling from the oud. You can speak, you can cry,
you can make fun, you can laugh, you can sometimes be ignorant."

And oud master Naseer Shamma is very selective about who he spends time
teaching.

"If I see in his eyes for this student something very clever or special I
start with him. If is see he just likes to play something this is not my
way. Here I am very serious. It is two years every day; the minimum work six
hours," Mr. Shamma said.

When he is not traveling or teaching, Mr. Shamma is composing. He has made
many recordings and has just completed a book about soloists of the oud.

He even sees the instrument as potential therapy. He has developed a new
technique for playing one-handed, for his countrymen back home in Iraq who
lost hands in the Gulf War.

For Mr. Shamma, it is all about painting an accurate picture of life in the
Arab world. He says the pictures the West has about the Arab culture and
Arab people are wrong. And through his art, he is trying to change that.




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