[casi] News, 6/9-13/9/02 (6)

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

News, 6/9-13/9/02 (6)

WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

*  Ex-Arms Inspector Says Attack on Iraq 'Not Justified'
*  Deadly agents difficult to defend against
*  U.S. cites hunt for materials to build bomb
*  Ritter proposes mechanism for new Iraq inspections
*  Profile: Scott Ritter
*  Butler calls [Scott Ritter's] Iraq weapons claim 'pathetic'
* U.S., British aircraft bomb Iraq; report says Iraq threat is not dire
*  Reporters Given Tour of Suspected Nuclear Facility
*  Saddam defender [Scott Ritter] stuns colleagues
*  Bush, Blair Decry Hussein
*  UN Aide [Hans Blix]: No Proof Iraq Is Rebuilding Weapons
*  Iraq wants U.N. no-spy guarantee
*  Bush's Evidence of Iraq's Nuclear Ability Questioned

INSIDE IRAQ

*  Saddam's Mistress
*  Saddam well sheltered from bombing, says driver

NO FLY ZONES

*  24 US planes bomb Iraqi air targets
*  Warplanes bomb key Iraqi target
* U.S., British aircraft bomb Iraq; report [IISS} says Iraq threat is not
dire
*  Iraq says it probably hits US or British warplane


WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A55144-2002Sep8.html

*  EX-ARMS INSPECTOR SAYS ATTACK ON IRAQ 'NOT JUSTIFIED'
by Sameer N. Yacoub
The Washington Post, from Associated Press, 9th September

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 8 -- Iraq is incapable of producing weapons of mass
destruction and should prove it by allowing in U.N. weapons inspectors, an
American who was once on the inspections teams said today.

With his comments during a visit to Baghdad, Scott Ritter -- a sharp critic
of U.S. policy on Iraq -- joined a long list of officials from European and
Arab nations who have urged Iraq to accept inspectors to defuse a crisis
with the United States.

Iraqi cooperation on inspections would leave the United States "standing
alone in regards to war threats on Iraq and this is the best way to prevent
the war," Ritter said.

Ritter, a former Marine intelligence officer, spoke to members of parliament
and to journalists on his third trip to Iraq since he resigned from the U.N.
inspection team in 1998. As in the past, his trip was organized by the Iraqi
government. The rest of his schedule has not been made public.

"The truth is, Iraq is not a threat to its neighbors and it is not acting in
a manner which threatens anyone outside its borders," Ritter said. "Military
action against Iraq cannot be justified."

[.....]


http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c
=StoryFT&cid=1031119180517&p=1012571727162

*  DEADLY AGENTS DIFFICULT TO DEFEND AGAINST
by Alex Nicoll
Financial Times, 9th September

Iraq's biological weapons programme, under way since the 1970s, was
uncovered just seven years ago following a defection. Considerable
uncertainty remains about Iraq's capability, the International Institute for
Strategic Studies says.

The programme produced anthrax, botulinum toxin, ricin, clostridium
perfringens (gas gangrene), aflatoxin and wheat smut. Iraq also acquired the
materials to produce other agents, and "by July 1990 Iraq had added viruses
and genetic engineering to its offensive research activities". It
acknowledged research on camelpox virus and haemorrhagic viruses but denied
work on smallpox or Ebola.

In December 1990, anthrax, botulinum toxin and aflatoxin were loaded into
missile warheads, aerial bombs and spray devices, although never used. Some
plants were destroyed by Unscom, but the departure of inspectors in 1998
left uncertainty. Unscom was unable to verify Iraq's accounting for
munitions, bacterial growth media and bulk agents. The IISS says Iraq
"possesses an industrial capability and knowledge base to produce agents
quickly and in volume if desired". It has continued to develop a foot and
mouth disease vaccine plant at Daura, which had produced botulinum toxin and
anthrax.

Amounts of agent in Iraq's possession "are presumably in the range of
thousands of litres". The ability to deliver such weapons is unclear, with
previous known methods likely to be inefficient because the explosion of a
missile or bomb would destroy most of the agent. In theory, Iraqi toxins
could cause mass casualties against an unprotected population, with strong
civil defence and vaccinations needed to reduce these.

"Delivery or biological weapons by individuals or small groups acting as
commandos or terrorists remains a plausible threat that is very difficult to
defend against," the IISS says.


http://www.iht.com/articles/70056.html

*  U.S. CITES HUNT FOR MATERIALS TO BUILD BOMB
by Michael R. Gordon and Judith Miller
International Herald Tribune, from The New York Times, 9thSeptember

WASHINGTONMore than a decade after Saddam Hussein agreed to give up weapons
of mass destruction, Iraq has intensified its quest for nuclear weapons and
has embarked on a hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb, U.S. officials
say.

In the past 14 months, Iraq has tried to buy thousands of specially designed
aluminum tubes, which U.S. officials believe were intended as components of
centrifuges to enrich uranium. U.S. officials said Saturday that several
efforts to arrange the shipment of the high-strength tubes were blocked or
intercepted, but they declined to say, citing the extreme sensitivity of the
intelligence, where the tubes came from or how they were stopped.

The diameter, thickness and other technical specifications of the aluminum
tubes had convinced American intelligence experts that they were meant for
Iraq's nuclear program, officials said, and that the latest attempt to ship
the material had taken place in recent months. The attempted purchases are
not the only signs of a renewed Iraqi interest in acquiring nuclear arms.
Saddam has met several times in recent months with Iraq's top nuclear
scientists, according to U.S. intelligence.

Iraqi defectors who once worked for the nuclear weapons establishment there
have told U.S. officials that acquiring nuclear arms is again a top Iraqi
priority. U.S. intelligence agencies are also monitoring new construction at
potential nuclear sites.

Iraq's pursuit of nuclear weapons has been cited by hard-liners in the Bush
administration to make the argument that the United States must act now,
before Saddam acquires nuclear arms.

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain met with President George W. Bush on
Saturday to reaffirm his nation's support for action against Iraq. Baghdad's
nuclear program is not Washington's only concern. A defector said Saddam had
also heightened his efforts to develop new chemical weapons. An Iraqi
opposition leader also gave U.S. officials a paper from Iranian intelligence
indicating that Saddam has authorized regional commanders to use chemical
and biological weapons to put down any Shiite Muslim resistance that might
occur if the United States attacks.

The paper, which is being analyzed by American officials, was provided by
Abdalaziz Hakim of the Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, an
Iran-based group, during his recent visit with other Iraqi opposition
leaders to Washington.

Much of the administration's case, however, revolves around Iraq's attempts
to develop nuclear weapons and assessments of the pace of the efforts. The
closer Saddam gets to a nuclear capability, a senior administration official
said, "the more credible is his threat to use chemical or biological
weapons. Nuclear weapons are his hole card."

"The question is not 'why now?"' the official said, referring to a potential
military campaign to remove Saddam. "The question is 'why is waiting
better?' The closer Saddam Hussein gets to a nuclear weapon the harder he
will be to deal with."

Though hard-liners complain that intelligence about Iraq's program is often
spotty, they plan to declassify some of it to make their case in coming
weeks.

[.....]


http://www.dailystarnews.com/200209/09/n2090913.htm

*  RITTER PROPOSES MECHANISM FOR NEW IRAQ INSPECTIONS
Daily Star, Bangladesh, 9th September

AFP, Baghdad: Former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter on Sunday called for
an "honest broker mechanism" that would allow both an immediate resumption
of arms inspections and ensure no deviation from Security Council
resolutions.

The mechanism forsees the inspectors' "unconditional return and yet provides
assurances to Iraq that unfettered access would only be applied to
disarmament issues and not be used to infringe upon Iraq's sovereignty,
dignity and national security," Ritter told Iraq's parliament in an address.

"There is a need for the confidence building mechanism for the monitoring of
the interaction between weapons inspectors and Iraq to ensure that there are
no deviations from the mandate of disarmament by the inspectors as well as
obstruction of the work of the inspectors by Iraq," Ritter said.

Ritter said he had had talks with "representatives from several countries
about this concept and they have indicated their willingness to step forth
and work with Iraq and the UN secretary general to serve as such an honest
broker.

"To have credibility in Iraq and to avoid perceptions of pressures from the
Security Council or its members, such an honest broker would have to come
from outside the UN framework."

The mechanism would ensure that "for Iraq, the sins of the past would not be
repeated," Ritter said in reference to the cloud of spying allegations that
surrounded UNSCOM, the old verification group which was withdrawn from Iraq
in December 1998 on the eve of a US British bombing campaign.

"In short, the honest broker mechanism allows the peaceful non-violent
resolution for the current stand-off between the UN and Iraq in full
accordance with the letter of the international law."

But Ritter added: "The only path towards peace Iraq should embrace is the
one that begins by Iraq agreeing to the immediate and unconditional return
of UN weapons inspections operating in full keeping with the mandate as set
forth by existing UN Security Council resolutions.

"Nothing else will be acceptable. Iraq cannot attempt to link the return of
the weapons inspectors with any other issues regardless of justification.
Unconditional return, unfettered access, this is the only acceptable
action."


http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2247600.stm

*  PROFILE: SCOTT RITTER

'Iraq should be subjected to a major campaign that seeks to destroy the
regime of Saddam Hussein' - Scott Ritter 1998

'The truth of the matter is that Iraq today is not a threat to its
neighbours and is not acting in a manner which threatens anyone outside of
its own borders' ­ Scott Ritter, 2002

Former United Nations weapons inspector Scott Ritter is no stranger to
controversy.

At the weekend he told officials in Baghdad that military action against
Iraq was unjustified.

Since he resigned from the UN weapons inspection team four years ago, Mr
Ritter has been the most outspoken critic of US policy towards Baghdad.

He has argued that the inspection team, Unscom, was a nest of US spies and
that Iraq was disarmed long ago.

But he first made the headlines in 1997, when as a senior Unscom member he
was accused by Iraq of being an American spy himself.

Scott Ritter was born in 1960 to a military family. He joined the armed
forces after university and worked as a military intelligence officer in the
1980s.

During the Gulf War he served as a ballistic missile expert under General
Norman Schwarzkopf, and joined Unscom in late 1991.

He took part in more than 30 inspection missions and 14 as team leader.

Initially, his relationship with Iraq was bad. His unannounced visits were
said to have surprised Iraqi officials, who in 1997 accused him of being a
US spy.

In early 1998 an inspection by Mr Ritter's team led to the most serious
confrontation between Baghdad and the UN since the Gulf War, and eventually
to Unscom leaving Iraq.

In August 1998, Mr Ritter resigned from his job, accusing the Security
Council and the United States of caving in to the Iraqis.

To compel Iraq into compliance, he told the BBC that year: "Iraq should be
subjected to a major campaign that seeks to destroy the regime of Saddam
Hussein."

Soon after his high-profile resignation, Mr Ritter was back in the headlines
with further criticism of Washington and the UN.

Only this time he accused Western powers of being too tough, rather than too
soft, on the Iraqis.

In late 1998, Mr Ritter called US and British military strikes against Iraq
a "horrible mistake".

He forced UN chief inspector Richard Butler to apologise to him after Mr
Butler accused Mr Ritter of breaking the law by speaking publicly about his
work in Iraq.

In 1999 he published a book, Endgame, where he argued that Unscom's mission
had been compromised by Washington's use of inspections to spy on the
Iraqis.

Last year he produced a documentary entitled Shifting Sands: The Truth about
Unscom and the Disarming of Iraq.

He said that his team was satisfied that Iraq had destroyed 98% of its
weapons by 1995.

Mr Ritter accused the US Government of deliberately setting new standards of
disarmament criteria to maintain UN sanctions and justify continued bombing
raids.

He also said Iraq "did co-operate to a very significant degree with the UN
inspection process" and blamed the US and the UK for the breakdown.

Mr Ritter essentially repeated those views in his latest speech in Baghdad
on Sunday.

He said the US seemed "on the verge of an historic mistake".

"My government is making a case for war against Iraq that is built upon fear
and ignorance," he added.

"The truth of the matter is that Iraq today is not a threat to its
neighbours and is not acting in a manner which threatens anyone outside of
its own borders."


http://www.cnn.com/2002/US/09/10/butler.cnna/index.html

*  BUTLER CALLS IRAQ WEAPONS CLAIM 'PATHETIC'
CNN, 10th September

Editor's Note: CNN Access is a regular feature on CNN.com providing
interviews with newsmakers from around the world.

(CNN) -- Former U.N. weapons inspector Scott Ritter has raised eyebrows
recently with his assertions that there is no evidence Iraq has weapons of
mass destruction and that the United States used the weapons inspectors to
spy on Iraq.

Ritter also criticized his ex-boss, former chief U.N. weapons inspector
Richard Butler, saying that Butler allowed the inspection process to be
corrupted.

Butler forcefully disagrees, and he stated his case in an interview Tuesday
with CNN's Paula Zahn.

ZAHN: There is a lot for you to react to here. For starters, your reaction
to [Ritter's] accusation that you allowed the inspectors to be used as spies
for the U.S. government?

BUTLER: Well, it is really pathetic. I don't know what has come over Scott
to make him say these things and behave in the way that he is.

One of Iraq's charges against us four years ago is that we were American
spies. We were not. It was most obvious possible thing for them to say as
they sought to avoid inspection, as they sought to shut us out to protect
their weapons program. It is pathetic and sad to hear Scott repeating their
propaganda.

Look, I want to make this clear. Until the day he left UNSCOM, Scott was
robustly advising me, in writing -- you know, the papers are out there to
prove it -- that Iraq continued to retain illegal weapons. He begged me to
authorize him to go in and do what he called "kick in the doors and find
those weapons." Sometimes, I authorized him to lead inspections; sometimes I
rejected his proposals because, quite frankly, they were a little bit off
the wall.

Now, his advice to me then, on the basis of good evidence which I knew, was
that Iraq continued to retain illegal weapons. He resigned. A few months
later, he crossed the road and for some reason -- I don't know why, I am not
a psychoanalyst -- but he crossed the road and started to tell the world
that there were no such weapons.

So I put it to you this way. Either he was misleading me when he worked for
me, or he began to mislead the world's public later. Now, I know which one
it is. He was not misleading me, rather, he is now misleading the world's
public. And I find that sad, wrong, and frankly, a touch dangerous.

ZAHN: What do you think is his motivation if your charge is, in fact,
accurate here?

BUTLER: I don't know. I don't know why he has decided to do this. I know
what the facts are. I find it incredible to hear some of the things he is
saying, when he knows what the facts were then and are today. I don't know
why he is doing this. As I said, I am not a psychoanalyst. I don't know.

ZAHN: What about the very specific accusation that you knew for "darn sure
that the Iraqis were not moving weapons from his weapons inspectors." That
is his quote.

BUTLER: It is nonsense. I mean -- I don't know what to say to you. It is "he
said, he said."

But, look, this is so utterly documented. Utterly. When we were thrown out
of Iraq, we were under the most difficult political circumstances, in
particular the Russians wanted us to be disassembled, dismissed and, you
know, taken out of Iraq forever. We had the most hostile environment in the
U.N. Security Council.

Nevertheless, I furnished the council a final report on Iraq's weapons
status. The Russians, hostile though they were, insisted that there be an
independent investigation because clearly nothing that I or my organization
said could be accepted.

That independent investigation took place, at the end of which --
notwithstanding all of that hostility, the will on the part of the Russians
and others to say that Iraq was clean and clear -- they concluded, that
independent investigation concluded, that Iraq continued to retain weapons
of mass destruction, and that they had misled us, that they had concealed
weapons.

Now, you know, that is as clear as possibly can be. It is in documents, on
the record, backed up by evidence. So, you know, what Scott Ritter has been
saying is baffling, but whether or not it is baffling, it is this: It is
wrong.

ZAHN: All right, Richard. You shot down his accusation that you allowed your
inspectors to be used as spies by the CIA, but I wanted to play a small part
of the interview that Bill Hemmer did earlier with Senator [Chuck] Hagel,
when the senator confirmed that he thought there were a couple of
interesting issues that Scott Ritter has raised.

SEN. CHUCK HAGEL, R-Nebraska (ON VIDEO): Certainly we cannot use the
inspectors as a front for our intelligence operation. Intelligence is part
of this. Of course it is. Everybody understands that. But we have to be
careful. And I think the only way we are going to be able to get the world
community with us on this is, in fact, to have a real team of inspectors and
not have it suspected of being or, in fact, of being a CIA front.

ZAHN: So what is the role, Richard, as you see it for an inspector, and when
the senator raises the issue of not using them for a front for intelligence
operations?

BUTLER: Look, looking for weapons of mass destruction is a very, very tough
business. Above all, it is a technical and scientific business. Your basic
stock in trade is information, to know where to go, where to look, what
possible weapons programs to look for.

Now, intelligence was provided to my organization for that purpose. In fact,
that was completely legal. When the Security Council created the inspectors,
it called on all states, all member states of the U.N., to give us all
possible assistance. Now some 40 countries did that, and many of them
provided us with intelligence information.

I made that clear then, and I repeat it now: You can't do that job unless
you have intelligence information, and it was legal that that be provided to
us. That is what was called for, and it was done by up to 40 countries.

Now, some proposed to us -- and I have already made this plain, in public,
years ago -- that we ourselves undertake intelligence-type investigations. I
rejected that. I made very clear that our mandate was to look for the
weapons, not to look for other kinds of intelligence. That would represent a
distortion of our mandate, and activities. And those are the facts.


http://www.cleveland.com/world/plaindealer/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_sta
ndard.xsl?/base/news/1031650704154580.xml

* U.S., BRITISH AIRCRAFT BOMB IRAQ; REPORT SAYS IRAQ THREAT IS NOT DIRE
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland), 10th September

[.....]

Charles Heyman, editor of Jane's World Armies, said nothing in yesterday's
report amounts to compelling justification for an immediate military strike.

"There was nothing startling, no killer facts, nothing which says, 'This has
got to be done now.' I don't think the population in the U.K. or the U.S.
would want to go to war against Iraq with the evidence we had this morning."
And yesterday, Iraq challenged the United States to produce "one piece of
evidence" that Baghdad is producing weapons of mass destruction.

Iraqi Foreign Minister Naji Sabri said such assessments "are pretexts for .
. . aggression against our country, they know very well that these are false
pretexts, false accusations."

Iraqi officials also took reporters on two tours in an attempt to refute
accusations that Saddam is rebuilding sites linked to past nuclear efforts
and training terrorists.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A64528-2002Sep10.html

*  REPORTERS GIVEN TOUR OF SUSPECTED NUCLEAR FACILITY
by Rajiv Chandrasekaran
Washington Post, 10th September

BAGHDAD, Iraq, Sept. 10 -- Surrounded by fences, walls and what appear to be
man made hills, the Tuwaitha nuclear complex on the outskirts of Baghdad has
withstood its share of fighting over the years.

In 1981, Israeli warplanes destroyed a reactor on the site that allegedly
could have produced weapons-grade nuclear material. In 1991, during the
Persian Gulf War, U.S. aircraft struck the remaining two reactors at the
complex, turning several buildings into heaps of rubble. In the mid-1990s,
the facility was the scene of sparring between indignant Iraqi officials and
irate U.N. weapons inspectors.

Now there's more conflict here, this time the rhetorical kind, as Iraq, the
United States and Britain trade accusations about Iraq's weapons programs.

Over the weekend, President Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair
described satellite images compiled by the International Atomic Energy
Agency showing new construction at several suspected Iraqi nuclear
facilities, including Tuwaitha. This, the leaders said, was evidence that
President Saddam Hussein's government was trying to build a nuclear weapon.

So today, the Iraqis fired back. They took two busloads of foreign
journalists to Tuwaitha, about 15 miles southeast of Baghdad, to show what
was inside the buildings the IAEA had pointed to as new.

The first stop was a one-story, brown stucco building that appeared to be
newly constructed. Officials said it is intended to be used to test
medicines on rabbits and mice. "It's an animal house," said Faiz Al-Berkdar,
director general of science policy at the Iraqi Atomic Energy Commission.

A brief walk through the building did not reveal any animals, nor was there
evidence of anything remotely nuclear.

"I would like to assure you that we are dealing with every kind of research
except nuclear," he said. "We don't have nuclear facilities anymore. It's
impossible for us to work with nuclear materials." Later, he went further,
saying the Iraqi government has "no intention to build nuclear weapons."

Some foreign experts have come to different conclusions. The International
Institute for Strategic Studies, an independent research group in London,
issued a report today stating that developing nuclear weapons is a "core
objective of the regime" and that Iraq could produce such a device "in a
matter of months" if it acquired nuclear fissile material from an outside
source.

Al-Berkdar and other officials said the Tuwaitha facility is now focusing on
nonnuclear pharmaceutical and agricultural products. But it was not entirely
clear to the journalists today what was going on in the buildings. There
were always Iraqi officials around -- journalists were not permitted to
wander. This correspondent was escorted away from the group for a few
minutes to be shown U.N. identification tags on a chemical drying unit.

The tour was the latest example of the increased aggressivity displayed by
Iraq's Information Ministry in putting its case before the several dozen
foreign journalists now in Baghdad, many of them from nearby Arab countries,
Japan and Europe.

On Monday, officials allowed a small group of television cameramen to
accompany former U.N. arms inspector Scott Ritter as he visited Tuwaitha and
Salman Pak, a facility near Baghdad that an Iraqi defector claimed was used
to train terrorists. Ritter said the site, which included the shell of an
aged Iraqi Airways jet, was used to teach commandos hostage-rescue
techniques.

If the Iraqis are willing to let journalists visit at least a few contested
sites, why not inspectors?

Al-Berkdar gave the government's stock response. "They were spying more than
they were doing their jobs," he said.

Pointing to a color photocopy of the satellite image of the complex to
indicate the disputed buildings he was showing off, Al-Berkdar led reporters
to what he called a drug-production building and then to what by his account
was an electronic drafting workshop, before finishing up inside a mushroom
farm.

With a dozen television cameras rolling, one of the employees in the
mushroom room decided to ham it up. He grabbed a particularly plump white
one and announced: "If America doesn't believe us . . ."

Then he took a bite.

"Everything we produce in Iraq," he said, chewing, "is very delicious."


http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/17713p-16809c.html

*  Saddam defender stuns colleagues
by Derek Rose
New York Daily News, 10th September

Former colleagues of chief U.S. weapons inspector Scott Ritter were baffled
yesterday over why he has become Iraq's chief defender.

Ritter, an ex-intelligence officer for the U.S. Marines, led reporters on a
tour of Iraq yesterday and spoke to the country's parliament Sunday to rebut
White House claims that Saddam Hussein is a threat.

But other ex-inspectors said Ritter should know better and criticized his
participation in the Baghdad-sponsored tour of Iraq.

"We can be reasonably confident they had VX [nerve gas] and additional
biological agents, but we never verified they were gone," said Tim McCarthy,
a former deputy chief inspector and nonproliferation analyst at the Monterey
Institute of International Studies.

On Sunday, Ritter told the Iraqi parliament, "The truth is Iraq is not a
threat to its neighbors, and it is not acting in a manner which threatens
anyone outside its borders. Military action against Iraq cannot be
justified."

McCarthy disagreed. "It's very safe to assume that Iraq is coming along with
its nuclear weapons program," since inspectors were barred in 1998, he told
the Daily News.

Ritter has urged Saddam to submit to full inspections to counter the White
House case.

Yesterday, he accompanied reporters to a camp 25 miles east of Baghdad that
Iraqi dissidents say is a terror training camp. Ritter said it is used by
Saddam's military to train security forces to respond to hijackings.

Former biological and chemical weapons inspector Jonathan Tucker accused
Ritter of becoming "an apologist for Iraq." He said Iraq never proved it
destroyed 38 tons of material that bioweapons scientists could use to
culture anthrax and smallpox.

Former inspector Raymond Zilinskas, a chemical and biological weapons expert
at the Monterey Institute, said Iraq might also have stores of smallpox from
a 1960s outbreak.

"If his regime is going down the tubes, then the question is, in this
extreme moment would they then release the smallpox," Zilinskas said.

Many scientists agreed that there was no smoking gun but said the evidence
points to a robust Iraqi biological and chemical weapons program.


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51871-2002Sep7.html

*  BUSH, BLAIR DECRY HUSSEIN
by Karen DeYoung
Washington Post, 8th September

[.....]

Led by Vice President Cheney, several senior administration officials have
said they see no purpose in another round of inspections, since Hussein
repeatedly obstructed efforts that began after Iraq's defeat in the 1991
Persian Gulf War, and has banned inspectors since 1998. Although officials
said Bush shares that view, and believes a U.S. invasion of Iraq is
inevitable, they said last week that he has agreed to issue one last
challenge to the international community to make good on its resolutions
against Iraq.

Officials said the U.N. speech would amount to an ultimatum in which Bush
will outline the threat in its starkest, most immediate terms and indicate
that the United States will not wait much longer for international action.
They said some details of the speech are still under discussion, including
whether Bush would propose that the Security Council set a deadline for
Iraqi compliance or issue a resolution authorizing an international military
force to compel inspections.

[.....]

Blair said "the threat from Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction
-- chemical, biological, potentially nuclear weapons capability -- that
threat is real. We need only to look at the report from the International
Atomic Energy Agency this morning, showing what has been going on at the
former nuclear weapon sites to realize that."

The Vienna-based, U.N.-affiliated agency carried out inspections of Iraq's
efforts to develop nuclear weapons before Hussein forced all inspectors from
his country. IAEA reports chronicled numerous incidents of Iraqi deception
and obstruction and the discovery of a sophisticated weapons program, but
said that the program had been successfully dismantled by the end of 1998.

Bush, picking up Blair's theme, also referred to the "new [IAEA] report": "I
would remind you that when the inspectors first went into Iraq and were
denied -- finally denied access, a report came out of the . . . IAEA, that
they [Iraqis] were six months away from developing a weapon. I don't know
what more evidence we need."

While there is widespread international agreement that Iraq has continued to
develop chemical and biological weapons, questions have been raised about
whether it has restarted a nuclear arms program. Members of Congress have
asked the administration to provide evidence for assertions by Cheney and
Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that Iraq is close to developing a
nuclear weapon.

The joint mention of a "new" report apparently referred to articles in
Friday's New York Times and yesterday's British press. They noted that
satellite photos obtained by the IAEA indicated new construction at several
sites identified as nuclear-related and dismantled during pre-1998
inspections.

But a spokeswoman at IAEA headquarters said yesterday that the agency has
issued no new report. She said the newspaper accounts referred to
commercially available images the agency made available in July in a
presentation that elicited little media interest.

"We didn't want to make a big deal of it, because we have no idea whether it
means anything," spokeswoman Melissa Fleming said of the photos.
"Construction of a building is one thing. Restarting a nuclear program is
another."

"We have a lot of commercial satellite imagery" indicating "that there has
been construction at sites that were formerly nuclear," Fleming said. "But
what that means, we don't know." She said the agency issued a news release
late Friday to "make it clear there is nothing new."

[.....]


http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny
woiraq0911.story?coll=ny%2Dworldnews%2Dheadlines

*  UN AIDE: NO PROOF IRAQ IS REBUILDING WEAPONS
by Mohamad Bazzi
Newday, 11th September

United Nations -- The chief UN weapons inspector said yesterday that there
is no evidence from satellite photos or intelligence briefings that Iraq is
attempting to rebuild its weapons of mass destruction but he could not be
sure until his teams were back on the ground in Baghdad.

Hans Blix, chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection
Commission, said recent satellite photos showed that Iraq had carried out
new construction at sites that once produced nuclear and biological weapons.
"But this is not the same as saying there are weapons of mass destruction,"
Blix told reporters after briefing the UN Security Council. "If I had solid
evidence that Iraq retained weapons of mass destruction or were constructing
such weapons, I would take it to the Security Council."

Blix also said he would not hold discussions with Iraqi officials on
anything other than practical arrangements for how the inspectors would
operate if they were allowed to return to Iraq. The inspectors left Baghdad
on the eve of a U.S.-British bombing raid in December 1998, and the Iraqi
government has not allowed them to return.

Blix's comments could be a setback for the Bush administration as it tries
to convince UN members that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is continuing to
develop weapons of mass destruction, and that Hussein's regime should be
removed by force. Bush is scheduled to address the UN General Assembly
tomorrow.

UN inspection teams could begin work within weeks if Iraq permitted it, and
Security Council resolutions give them from six months to a year to
determine whether Iraq still has any weapons of mass destruction, a
timetable far slower than the U.S. administration has in mind.

Blix said there were still "many open questions" about Iraqi weapons
programs and the satellite photos could give UN monitors clues about where
to proceed with inspections. "The satellites don't see through roofs," he
said. "So we are not drawing conclusions from them. But it would be an
important element in where we want to go to inspect and monitor."

[.....]


http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/WireFeed/WireFeed&c
=WireFeed&cid=1031119377889&p=1014232938216

*  IRAQ WANTS U.N. NO-SPY GUARANTEE
Financial Times, 11th September

TOKYO (Reuters) - A senior Iraqi diplomat says his country is ready to
accept United Nations weapons inspections if there is a guarantee that
inspectors would not engage in any spying activities.

The comments came at a time when U.S. President George W. Bush is seeking
international support for an attack to oust President Saddam Hussein,
charging that Iraq may use weapons of mass destruction or supply them to
others.

"If we get a guarantee that they never spy on Iraq and follow international
law and the procedure of the United Nations, then we accept," Abdul Wahab
Ghazal, the Charge d'Affaires at the Iraqi Embassy and Baghdad's top
diplomat in Japan, told foreign correspondents in Tokyo on Wednesday.

U.N. arms experts, who began work in Iraq after the 1991 Gulf War over
Kuwait, left Iraq in December 1998 ahead of a U.S.-British campaign to
punish Baghdad for its alleged failure to cooperate with them.

Iraq maintains that some of the inspectors were spies working directly for
the United States and has not allowed them to return.

Iraq, which denies it has any banned weapons, has offered to accept a
limited resumption of weapons inspections only as part of a comprehensive
solution with the U.N. that includes lifting of sanctions imposed for Iraq's
occupation of Kuwait in 1990.

The United Nations insists weapons inspectors return unconditionally and be
allowed full access to Iraqi facilities.

Ghazal, the top Iraqi official in Japan, said the United States has not
presented any evidence linking Iraq with nuclear weapons.

"Until now America hasn't submitted any evidence, which links Iraq in
producing or having any nuclear weapons," said Ghazal.

"At the moment the position of America against Iraq is not based in any
logical justification," he added.

Ghazal said he did not think the United Nations would adopt a resolution
that would allow the United States to attack Iraq.

But if that happened, and Japan were to provide logistical support to such
U.S. military action like it did for the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, Ghazal
said Iraq would take that to mean Japan was in a state of war with Iraq.

"If that happens...and Japan participates in this war, I think according to
international law and the United Nations charter, Japan would be in war with
Iraq," he said.

Japanese officials have said that Japan would need clear proof that Iraq was
supporting terrorism before it could decide, under existing domestic law, to
provide support for any U.S. attack on Iraq.

Japan passed an anti-terrorism law just weeks after September 11, allowing
Tokyo to provide unprecedented military backing for the U.S.-led war in
Afghanistan in the form of refuelling ships.

Japan's ability to dispatch its military abroad is severely limited by its
post-war pacifist constitution.

Takemasa Moriya, director general of the Defence Ministry's defence policy
bureau, said earlier on Wednesday that without proof linking Baghdad to
terrorism, Japan would either have to revise that law or enact a new one to
allow its military to provide support for an attack on Iraq.


http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny
wonuke0912.story?coll=ny%2Dworldnews%2Dheadlines

*  BUSH'S EVIDENCE OF IRAQ'S NUCLEAR ABILITY QUESTIONED
by Earl Lane
News Day, 12th September

[.....]

David Albright, a former consultant to UN nuclear weapons inspectors, said
the evidence discussed publicly is ambiguous, at best. "This is not strong
evidence if you are trying to make a case for pre-emptive military action,"
he said.

[.....]

Albright and others said it would be helpful for the administration to
release more data on Iraq's effort to buy materials on the open market that
could help it reconstitute its nuclear weapons program. With information on
the metallic composition, thickness and diameter of the aluminum tubes, for
example, their potential use could be confirmed.

"It's quite legitimate to ask for this information," Albright said.

Centrifuges spin uranium in gaseous form at high speed to separate out the
desired isotope, uranium-235, for use in a bomb. Gary Milhollin, director of
the Washington-based Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control, said a news
account of the intended use of the tubing -- as outer casing for centrifuges
-- is curious. "You need specialized aluminum for the rotor of a centrifuge,
not the housing," Milhollin said. "An allegation that it was destined for
use in housings is a little puzzling."

Albright said he had learned there was a significant debate within the
intelligence community on the intended purpose of the aluminum tubing, which
he said also could be used for casings of artillery rockets. A U.S. official
said, however, that there is a consensus within the CIA that the tubes would
have been used in centrifuges. He acknowledged there had been some
disagreement elsewhere in the intelligence community, which he declined to
discuss.

[.....]


INSIDE IRAQ

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/primetime/DailyNews/iraq_saddam_mistress02090
8.html

*  SADDAM'S MISTRESS
ABC News, 8th September

A woman who says she was Saddam Hussein's mistress describes a Viagra-fueled
lover who enjoyed watching The Godfather and tapes of his enemies being
tortured ‹ but cried as the allies took Kuwait from Iraqi occupation during
the Gulf War.

"He don't believe in his mother, he don't believe in God, he didn't believe
in nobody," Parisoula Lampsos, 54, told ABCNEWS' Claire Shipman in an
interview from a safe house in Lebanon that will be broadcast this week on
ABCNEWS' Primetime Thursday.

"He believe only for Saddam," Lampsos added. "He look at the mirror, 'I am
Saddam.' He went like that. He looks. 'I am Saddam. Heil Hitler!'"

As U.S. officials look for current links between Hussein and al Qaeda,
Lampsos said the Iraqi leader has met and given money in the past to Osama
bin Laden, according to one of several written excerpts from the Primetime
Thursday broadcast.

Lampsos saw bin Laden at Hussein's palace in the 1980s, she said, and
claimed Hussein's son Oday told her his father met with bin Laden again in
the mid 1990s and gave him money.

"He give to Osama bin Laden," Lampsos said. "He give to Palestine."

On and off for 30 years, Lampsos was Hussein's favorite of three wives and
six mistresses, and saw him almost on a daily basis, she said. But after
fleeing Iraq a year ago, she fears Hussein will try to kill her, and she
disguises herself by wearing a veil in public.

Early on, she loved him, she said. He gave her a room in his palace stocked
with clothes and gifts.

"He was tender," she said. "He was warm. He was nice. He was another
person."

But as Hussein grew older, he dyed his hair, used a relaxation mask to
reduce wrinkles, and sometimes used Viagra to enhance their sexual
encounters, she said. Still, she always had sex with him willingly.

"Saddam, he don't need to force anybody," she said. "You are afraid. You are
afraid to say no. Š I was with him because I was afraid of him."

As she grew more disenchanted, she realized she would never be allowed to
leave.

"I told him, 'Why? Let me go now,'" she recalled of the many times she tried
to break off the relationship. "'I don't have anything to give you more. You
can have any woman. What you need me?' He look at me very, very, very
strong. He said, 'You belong to me. You are going to die here in Baghdad.'"

She knew Hussein was willing to go to extreme measures to get what he
wanted. She saw first-hand examples of his ruthlessness ‹ such as when she
believes he ordered the assassination of his oldest son because he viewed
the son, Oday, as a troublemaker and a rival for power.

The assassination attempt failed, and Oday was left paralyzed.

"I didn't want in this way," Lampsos recalled Hussein saying afterwards. "I
wanted him to die. It was better for him."

Even when relaxing, Hussein's brutal side could come out, she said.
According to Lampsos, Hussein loved watching The Godfather, listening to
"Strangers in the Night" by Frank Sinatra, or seeing videos of his enemies
being tortured. He sometimes donned a cowboy hat, sipped whiskey on the
rocks and puffed on a cigar as he watched the torture.

"He was happy, happy, happy," she said of the torture viewing. "Happiest
day."

Hussein also raised gazelles, she said, because they were his favorite
dinnertime meal, and when he was hungry he handpicked them to be
slaughtered.

But Hussein also lived with fears, Lampsos said.

Hussein "thinks all the time he is sick," she said, and prefers that people
kiss him on the shoulder instead of the cheek so he doesn't get infected
with germs.

Several years ago, she added, Hussein summoned a doctor from Cuba because he
suffered a stroke, something western observers had suspected.

"If you see him in some photos, his mouth is not normal," Lampsos said. "It
droops."

According to Lampsos, Hussein worried somewhat when George W. Bush was
elected president, believing the younger Bush would come after him. But, she
claimed, "He don't care."

Lampsos said Hussein was convinced that he would win the Gulf War a decade
ago because, "He never lose. He always think that he will win."

Even after the United States stepped into the fray, she added, Hussein
thought, "Who's America? Who are they? What [do] they think they are? I am
Saddam."

But when the allies seized Kuwait, she sensed he had been crying, as his
eyes appeared to be, "with tears. His eye was red, red, red."

She said Hussein told her: "'I lose.' I said, 'What?' He said, 'Kuwait.' He
said, 'They took Kuwait from me but I will took it again.'"


http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=9/12/02&Cat=9&Num=8

*  SADDAM WELL SHELTERED FROM BOMBING, SAYS ENGINEER
Tehran Times, 12th September

BELGRADE -- if America wants to remove President Saddam Hussein it will have
to go in and get him, according to a Yugoslav construction engineer who
helped build iraq's deep underground bomb shelters.

"Conventional weapons can hardly reach him and I don't believe the U.S. can
get rid of him that way," he told reuters in an interview this week.

The engineer was one of the lead team from the former Balkan federation
contracted to build the Iraqi defence infrastructure in the 1980s. he spoke
on condition of anonymity.

"Saddam's shelters can resist a direct hit by a TNT bomb of 2,000 kilograms,
or a 20 kiloton explosion as close as a kilometre away," he said.

A year after 3,000 people were killed in the september 11 attacks on
america, president george w. bush is seeking support from allies to remove
the iraqi leader and the alleged threat posed by a mass-destruction arsenal
he is said to possess.

The grey-haired engineer, who has visited almost all the defence
construction sites in iraq, said it would be extremely hard to kill Saddam
by bombing alone.

Saddam's shelters are buried under a minimum of 30 metres of stone and very
difficult to destroy, the engineer said.

They are a copy of those built for Yugoslavia's late Marshal Tito, the
communist dictator who ruled through the cold war until his death in 1980
and cultivated close ties with Iraq, Iran, India, Egypt, Libya, Cuba, North
Korea, China and others.

"So far, they have successfully passed three tests," the engineer said of
the shelters, referring to the 1991 gulf war against Iraq, the 1992-95
Bosnian war and Nato's 78-day bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999.

The engineer said his personal contacts with saddam secured jobs for firms
from the old Yugoslav federation of six republics to build military
installations in Iraq in the 1980s.

They built the entire system of underground command posts, air-raid and tank
shelters as well as underground hospitals across Iraq, he said.

The shelters are like those constructed for tito in several locations around
the former Yugoslavia, equipped with a mix of Russian and American
technology. Their design is assumed by now to be familiar to the U.S.
military, which has peacekeeping forces in both Bosnia and Kosovo.

Some can accommodate up to 500 people and provide enough air, food, water,
fuel for a month, the engineer said. "but if all exits are closed, they can
survive for only 96 hours.


NO FLY ZONES

http://www.dawn.com/2002/09/07/top17.htm

*  24 US PLANES BOMB IRAQI AIR TARGETS
Dawn, 7th September, 28 Jamadi-us-Saani 1423

WASHINGTON, Sept 6 (AFP): Two dozen US and British warplanes bombed a
"critical command and control node" in western Iraq on Thursday in a raid
that was larger than usual but not out of the ordinary, the Pentagon said
announced on Friday.

"Was it bigger than most? It was bigger than the ones we'd done in the last
probably two weeks, but we've done strikes of that size several times over
the last 10 or 11 years," Brigadier General John Rosa, deputy operations
director of the Joint Staff, said of Thursday's strike.

The Daily Telegraph of London said in its Friday edition the raid was the
biggest in four years and involved about 100 US and British aircraft,
including the dozen that dropped precision bombs.

The newspaper said the aim seemed to be the removal of 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.

Lieutenant Colonel David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, said no more than two
dozen aircraft took part in the mission, including aircraft supporting the
raid.

Lapan compared that to US airstrikes around Baghdad in February last year
when two dozen fighters dropped bombs to knock out fibre optic linked
command centres and radars.

Rosa said that in Thursday's raid 12 aircraft dropped 25 bombs on the
target, which was located at a military airfield 380kms west of and slightly
south of Baghdad.

Rosa also acknowledged that the strike was unusual in that it was directed
at an air defence site in western Iraq, whereas most previous strikes have
been in the southeastern part of the country.


http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=1002172002

*  WARPLANES BOMB KEY IRAQI TARGET
by Jason Beattie and Tim Ripley
The Scotsman, 9th September

THE United States yesterday signalled its plans for a full-scale military
campaign against Saddam Hussein when it bombed an Iraqi missile battery that
had been threatening American warships in the Arabian Gulf.

As President George Bush and the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, appeared
increasingly impatient over the apparent lack of international support to
take on Iraq, US Central Command said the attacks had been prompted by
"recent Iraqi hostile threats against coalition ships in the Arabian Gulf".

The move followed the joint British and American operation involving 100
aircraft four days ago against a key Iraqi air defence command post in the
west of the country, the first time an attack in the ongoing no-fly zone
campaign had focused on that region.

US Central Command also reported that a military communications site at Al
Kut, 100 miles south-east of Baghdad, was bombed as part of the enforcement
of no-fly zones.

Yesterday's attack on the missile battery suggests that the Iraqis had been
positioning their Chinese-made Silkworm missiles ­ similar in capability to
Exocet missiles ­ to target US and UK warships enforcing the UN oil embargo.
If the Iraqis were planning to fire on the warships, it would be the first
time since the embargo was imposed in August 1990 that they had tried to
challenge it with military force. Until now, Saddam has relied on rhetoric
to attack the embargo and the oil-for-food programme.

[.....]


http://www.cleveland.com/world/plaindealer/index.ssf?/xml/story.ssf/html_sta
ndard.xsl?/base/news/1031650704154580.xml

* U.S., BRITISH AIRCRAFT BOMB IRAQ; REPORT SAYS IRAQ THREAT IS NOT DIRE
The Plain Dealer (Cleveland), 10th September

Allied aircraft struck Iraq for the third time in a week, bombing a military
facility southeast of Baghdad yesterday morning, defense officials said.

The attack came after Iraqi forces fired on one of the U.S.-British patrols
in the no-fly zone, and it followed bombings Thursday and Saturday, Pentagon
officials said.

It was the 37th strike reported this year by the coalition put together to
patrol zones in the north and south of Iraq following the 1991 gulf war.

"There is a price to pay when you attack U.S. and British planes," said
Marine Gen. Peter Pace, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

In Baghdad, the official Iraqi News Agency quoted an unidentified military
spokesman as saying, "American and British evil warplanes violated our skies
on Monday coming from Kuwait to bomb civil and service installations."

In yesterday's strike, coalition aircraft used precision-guided weapons to
hit an air defense command and control center near Al Amarah, about 170
miles southeast of the Iraqi capital, the U.S. Central Command said. The
command called it "a self-defense measure in response to Iraqi hostile
threats and acts against coalition forces and their aircraft."

[.....]


http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2002-09/10/content_555533.htm

*  IRAQ SAYS IT PROBABLY HITS US OR BRITISH WARPLANE

BAGHDAD, Sept. 9 (Xinhuanet) -- Iraq's air defense forces Monday "probably"
hit a US or British warplane in northern Iraq before it flew away, an Iraqi
Air Defense Command spokesman said.

"American and British warplanes coming from Turkey carried out 16 armed
sorties at 11:35 local time (0735 GMT) and evidences showed that one of
these warplanes was probably hit by Iraq's missiles and anti-aircraft fire,"
the official Iraqi News Agency quoted the spokesman as saying.

At 7:35 local time (0335 GMT), US and British warplanes coming from their
bases in Kuwait carried out 41 sorties and attacked Iraq's civil and service
installations in the southern province of Misan.

Iraq's air defenses fired at the planes both in the north and inthe south,
and forced them back to their bases, the spokesman added.

US and British planes have been patrolling the southern and northern no-fly
zones since the 1991 Gulf War with the claimed aim of protecting the Kurds
in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south from the persecution of the
Iraqi government.





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