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Dear CASI list: I emailed this to Newsnight: 'In tonight's Newsnight (19 November), Jeremy Paxman wrongly described the Operation Desert Fox bombing of Iraq in December 1998 as a 'response' to the withdrawal of the UN weapon inspectors. In fact, the withdrawal of the inspectors was a response to the US decision with British support to bomb Iraq. On p. 224 of his memoir 'Saddam Defiant, Richard Butler, then chief weapon inspector, writes: 'I received a telephone call from U.S. Ambassador Peter Burleigh inviting me for a private conversation at the US mission [...] Burleigh informed me that on instructions from Washington it would be 'prudent to take measures to ensure the safety and security of UNSCOM staff presently in Iraq.' [...] I told him that I would act on this advice and remove my staff from Iraq.' Butler made this decision without informing the Security Council. The real sequence of events raises awkward questions about US policy which do not arise from the Mr. Paxman's inaccurate version of events.' ---------------------- Dr. Eric Herring Department of Politics University of Bristol 10 Priory Road Bristol BS8 1TU England, UK Office tel. +44-(0)117-928-8582 Mobile tel. +44-(0)7771-966608 Fax +44-(0)117-973-2133 eric.herring@bristol.ac.uk http://www.bris.ac.uk/Depts/Politics http://www.ericherring.com _______________________________________________ Sent via the discussion list of the Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To unsubscribe, visit http://lists.casi.org.uk/mailman/listinfo/casi-discuss To contact the list manager, email casi-discuss-admin@lists.casi.org.uk All postings are archived on CASI's website: http://www.casi.org.uk