US jumped to conclusions over Iraqi weapons: Blix
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE in New York
While weapons of mass destruction may yet be unearthed in Iraq, chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix said early on Tuesday (HK time) that the United States had jumped to conclusions on the basis of “shaky” evidence.
“I don’t exclude that the US inspectors ... may find something. It is possible,” Mr Blix told the Council for Foreign Relations in New York.
“But it is somewhat puzzling, I think, that you can have 100 per cent certainty about the weapons of mass destruction and zero certainty about where they are,” he said.
A former Swedish foreign minister, Mr Blix will stand down at the end of the month after more than three years as chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC).
In the months leading up to the invasion of Iraq on March 20, Mr Blix frustrated Pentagon officials with his cautious inspection reports to the UN Security Council.
He repeatedly noted that no evidence had been found to prove that Iraq retained or had resumed production of chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Mr Blix stressed that the evidence for the existence of such weapons was “never more than shaky” -- including the potentially self-serving testimony of defectors and the ambiguous results of inspections of suspected mobile laboratories.
He particularly questioned how countries like the United States and Britain appeared to reach iron-clad conclusions from the intelligence on offer.
“Again there was this strong affirmation ... a jumping at conclusions. While we were much more prudent.”
Arguing that UNMOVIC was not given sufficient time to complete its inspections before the invasion, Mr Blix suggested there was some irony in the fact that the United States was now calling for patience while it completes its own search for the suspected weapons.
Set up in December 1999, UNMOVIC was unable to work in Iraq until late November last year, as the regime of Saddam Hussein buckled to the mounting threat of US military action.
Although they were only able to complete 15 weeks of inspections before having to withdraw on the eve of the invasion, the UN team carried out 731 inspections at 411 sites suspected of containing chemical or biological weapons.
How long will China remain in America's shadow?
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
ROBERT SUTTER
China's economic transformation in the post-Mao Zedong era has been truly remarkable. However, in foreign affairs, the country has placed more of a premium on traditional realpolitik calculus than embracing "new thinking". Despite signs that China accepts the prevailing world order - including US primacy - there are also signs it remains cautious and tentative, ready to shift its position and possibly reverse course if circumstances change.
In moving away from independent economic policies and suspicions of interdependence, Chinese leaders have come to terms with many features of the post-cold war order, including US military supremacy, which could work to support Chinese development needs.
Such co-operation with the prevailing world order, however, is only half the story. The end of the cold war improved China's security, as the Soviet Union was removed as a meaningful threat. And yet, the other superpower - the US - stayed around. Indeed, US-led western condemnation of the Tiananmen crackdown, rising Chinese nationalism, and perceived US support for Taiwan independence, headed the list of reasons why the Chinese government came to see the US as the new "hegemon". American power and influence in Asian and world affairs seemed aimed at pressuring, intimidating and holding back China's rise.
Deng Xiaoping advised Chinese leaders to try to avoid confrontation, to "bide time", working to take advantage of existing international opportunities. US opposition and attempts at containment have been clearly evident to Chinese leaders in the clusters of security, economic, political and other differences that have arisen. Chinese grievances have been focused on US resolve to continue support for Taiwan, to remain the leading power in Asian and world affairs, and to promote change in China's political system.
Although it happens largely out of public sight, there are frequent encounters of US and Chinese military forces along China's periphery. From time to time, these encounters can lead to significant conflicts, such as the EP-3 spy-plane incident on April 1, 2001. Even as the two powers endeavoured to resume normal ties after that mid-air collision, last year an unarmed US navy surveillance ship was harassed and rammed by Chinese boats in waters off the Chinese coast.
China's wariness of the US is grounded in its elites' long-standing suspicions of America. These are reinforced by an education system and a media network that have conditioned broader Chinese opinion to think of China as a long-suffering target of depredations and pressures from outside powers. Following the Tiananmen crackdown and the collapse of international communism, Chinese leaders gave greater salience to such nationalistic conditioning.
The administration of US President George W. Bush has employed a mixture of incentives and disincentives in persuading Chinese leaders to pursue co-operative and moderate policies towards America and its allies. US-China relations are better today than at any time since the Tiananmen incident and the end of the cold war.
Nevertheless, disclosures of the private deliberations of senior Chinese leaders show strong continued wariness of the US.
President Hu Jintao said: "[The United States has] strengthened its military deployments in the Asia-Pacific region, strengthened the US-Japan military alliance, strengthened strategic co-operation with India, improved relations with Vietnam, inveigled Pakistan, established a pro-American government in Afghanistan, increased arms sales to Taiwan, and so on. They have extended outposts and placed pressure points on us from the east, south and west. This makes a great change in our geopolitical environment."
Limits on Chinese moderation and flexibility are evident. It was widely seen in the US as continuing to straddle the fence on Iraq. China's advances in criticising and working to resolve the crisis over North Korea's nuclear programme fell short of US expectations in seeking more concrete pressure on the regime in North Korea. Deep US-China divisions are seen in the continuing clash of long-term security interests in the region - particularly the continued People's Liberation Army buildup targeted at Taiwan, and US military preparations to deal with Taiwan contingencies. They suggest that a major breakthrough towards strategic co-operation is unlikely.
Indeed, if the Bush administration were to get bogged down in the war on terrorism, Iraq, or elsewhere, and/or it were to lose its approval at home and support abroad on account of a major US economic downturn, China's policy could change. Chinese leaders might feel tempted to revive pressure tactics to reverse advances in sensitive US policy, notably on Taiwan. Not to seek gains over Taiwan at times of US weakness or dependency on China would go against many decades of Chinese practice in dealing with America over this issue. US-China common ground over Korea also remains shaky. A more forceful US stance on North Korea would alarm China.
Third parties, notably the leaders in Taiwan or North Korea, have the ability to take provocative action that could quickly shift the Chinese government's calculus in favour of a more confrontational approach towards the US. China also would be alarmed by major breakthroughs in US defence relations with Japan and would view with concern stepped up US involvement with other states around China's periphery because of the war on terrorism or other reasons. For the foreseeable future, though, Deng's advice on biding time and lying low will likely remain the watchword for Chinese foreign policy.
Robert Sutter is visiting professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. This article appeared in YaleGlobal Online (www.yaleglobal.yale.edu) , a publication of the Yale Centre for the Study of Globalisation, and is reprinted by permission. Copyright 2003 Yale Centre for the Study of Globalisation.
China, India hold key to Myanmar
PETER KAMMERER, Foreign Editor
SCMP - Friday, June 20, 2003
China and India could well determine the pace of democratic change in Myanmar far more than Southeast Asian or western nations.
Myanmar's strategic location to both has meant their continued wooing of the military regime even as other nations are economically and politically disengaging.
On Tuesday, foreign ministers of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations broke with a tradition of not interfering in the affairs of member states by calling for the release of democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi and democratisation.
Their decision, under pressure from the United States and the European Union, appeared yesterday to have been taken to heart by Myanmese Foreign Minister Win Aung. He assured the ministers on the sidelines of the Asean Regional Forum in Phnom Penh that he would convey their feelings to the ruling State Peace and Development Council.
US Secretary of State Colin Powell, attending the meeting, said on Wednesday that Asean had to apply pressure to the junta because it had failed to implement promised political dialogue with Ms Suu Kyi and democratic reforms. Economic and diplomatic sanctions imposed by the US and EU are likely to be toughened.
Until this week, Asean, which admitted Myanmar as a member in 1997, had issued no critical statements.
But decades-long rivalry between Asia's superpowers, China and India, has drawn them to increased involvement in Myanmar in the past decade.
China opened trade relations in 1988 and India dropped its policy of disengagement in 1992. Economic and humanitarian aid from both has steadily risen, along with weapons sales and increasingly top-level diplomatic visits.
Radio Free Asia reported in 2000 that China was involved in the construction of two naval bases in Myanmar. In December 2001, then-president Jiang Zemin visited Yangon and the following month, the junta's leader, Than Shwe, went to Beijing.
The author of the acclaimed Living Silence: Burma Under Military Rule, Christina Fink, said China's primary interest was to monitor India's military activities, in particular nuclear weapons tests and shipping in the Indian Ocean and through the Straits of Malacca.
"In return, they've got as much as US$3 billion of military equipment in the 1990s, investment in the infrastructure, especially roads, and trade," Dr Fink said.
But she said many of the weapons had been of poor quality and Myanmar had turned to India and Russia for military equipment.
Zhai Kun, Southeast Asia researcher at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations in Beijing, said yesterday that his country had good relations politically, economically and diplomatically with Myanmar.
"China respects Myanmar's military regime because of its principle of non-interference," Dr Zhai said. "If there is stability and peace in Myanmar that is good. China believes that there is stability."
He said Myanmar was treated the same as other Southeast Asian countries under China's uniform policy towards the region of "good neighbourliness, trust and partnership".
But there was also a special strategic relationship with Myanmar, because it lay between China and India - although he was unable to confirm whether his country was maintaining military bases there.
Myanmar, in turn, had a strategic policy under which it needed China and India. But its introduction in the past year of capital control measures on foreign investment had applied equally to Chinese companies as those from elsewhere in the world.
Dr Zhai believed this showed the relationship between the two, while good, was not extraordinary. It was possible that China had asked the military rulers to soften their policy towards Ms Suu Kyi, but there was no certainty of change. "The international community over-evaluates China's influence on Myanmar," he said.
"The relationship is good, but the influence is not that great. The comparison can also be made with Laos, where China has a good relationship, but little influence on internal policies."
India, which until 1992 had shown interest in imposing sanctions and had even worked covertly with the pro-democracy movement, is also working on infrastructure projects in Myanmar and cross-border trade is steadily increasing.
It is helping build a road linking South and Southeast Asia and assisting in the exploitation of Myanmar's oil and gas reserves.
The junta's deputy, Maung Aye, opened diplomatic exchanges by visiting New Delhi in October 2000 and three months later, India's then foreign minister, Jaswant Singh, went to Yangon.
An analyst at New Delhi's Centre for Policy Research, B. G. Verghese, said India hoped that through quiet diplomacy and constructive engagement, it could influence Myanmar's regime. Because of problems with insurgencies, drug smuggling and gun-running on their shared border, co-operation between the governments had become a necessity.
"India believes in democracy and is anxious that the democratic processes and regimes be restored and that Aung San Suu Kyi be released," Mr Verghese said.
Given China's and India's good relations with Myanmar, Dr Fink said she believed efforts by Asean and the west would be insufficient to force change.
peter.kammerer@scmp.com
SCMP - Friday, June 13, 2003
AFP in Hanoi
Vietnamese cyber-dissident Pham Hong Son, who was arrested last year for posting an article about democracy on the Internet, was due to go on trial next week, diplomats and officials said Thursday.
Mr Son, a medical doctor, was arrested in Hanoi in late March 2002, a few weeks after translating into Vietnamese and publishing online a feature entitled "What Is Democracy" extracted from the US State Department's Web site.
He is also said to have published a letter on the Internet in protest over his interrogation by the police and the confiscation of some personal belongings, including papers and computer equipment.
"We know his trial is scheduled for Wednesday at the Hanoi People's Court, but we don't know if it will be a closed trial," said one western diplomat.
A court official confirmed Mr Son's trial date was scheduled for June 18 and said he would be tried on "espionage charges". He was unable to provide any further details.
The foreign ministry said it was unable to provide any information.
Most trials in Vietnam, particularly those involving political and religious dissidents, are off-limits to diplomats and foreign journalists.
Mr Son has been kept in police detention since his arrest, which Amnesty International said on Thursday could be a breach of Vietnamese law.
Under the July 1988 Vietnam Criminal Procedure Code, the period of temporary detention for investigation cannot exceed two months for "less serious crimes" or four months for "serious crimes".
Any extension to this must be sanctioned by senior legal officials.
Amnesty has called on the Vietnamese authorities to clarify the status of Mr Son's detention and has requested that they make public the offences with which he has been charged.
His arrest was part of the government's ongoing crackdown against intellectuals and dissidents who use the Internet to circulate news or opinion banned from the tightly-controlled state press.
About a million Vietnamese are estimated to have regular access to the Web, mainly through Internet cafes, but many sites such as those of exiled opposition groups are firewalled.
"Pham Hong Son is yet another example of someone who has propagated information about democracy and criticism of his treatment at the hands of the authorities through the Internet," the London-headquartered group said.
"It is inconceivable that his actions can be considered as 'criminal' under international law," Amnesty said. "On the available evidence we regard him as a prisoner of conscience."
In November last year cyber-dissident Le Chi Quang, a computer instructor, was jailed for four years for posting essays critical of the communist regime on the Internet.
He was one of a long list of activists who have been silenced by the authorities in recent months.
Veteran pro-democracy activist Nguyen Dan Que, an endocrinologist and one of Vietnam's best-known dissidents, was arrested in March in Ho Chi Minh City for trying to post documents on the Internet. He has yet to be tried.
Human rights groups have long accused Vietnam with smothering all dissent and routinely jailing democracy activists, critics of the regime and church leaders who do not recognise the state's authority over them.
Vietnamese cyber-dissident to face trial next week
AFP in Hanoi
Vietnamese cyber-dissident Pham Hong Son, who was arrested last year for posting an article about democracy on the Internet, was due to go on trial next week, diplomats and officials said Thursday.
Mr Son, a medical doctor, was arrested in Hanoi in late March 2002, a few weeks after translating into Vietnamese and publishing online a feature entitled "What Is Democracy" extracted from the US State Department's Web site.
He is also said to have published a letter on the Internet in protest over his interrogation by the police and the confiscation of some personal belongings, including papers and computer equipment.
"We know his trial is scheduled for Wednesday at the Hanoi People's Court, but we don't know if it will be a closed trial," said one western diplomat.
A court official confirmed Mr Son's trial date was scheduled for June 18 and said he would be tried on "espionage charges". He was unable to provide any further details.
The foreign ministry said it was unable to provide any information.
Most trials in Vietnam, particularly those involving political and religious dissidents, are off-limits to diplomats and foreign journalists.
Mr Son has been kept in police detention since his arrest, which Amnesty International said on Thursday could be a breach of Vietnamese law.
Under the July 1988 Vietnam Criminal Procedure Code, the period of temporary detention for investigation cannot exceed two months for "less serious crimes" or four months for "serious crimes".
Any extension to this must be sanctioned by senior legal officials.
Amnesty has called on the Vietnamese authorities to clarify the status of Mr Son's detention and has requested that they make public the offences with which he has been charged.
His arrest was part of the government's ongoing crackdown against intellectuals and dissidents who use the Internet to circulate news or opinion banned from the tightly-controlled state press.
About a million Vietnamese are estimated to have regular access to the Web, mainly through Internet cafes, but many sites such as those of exiled opposition groups are firewalled.
"Pham Hong Son is yet another example of someone who has propagated information about democracy and criticism of his treatment at the hands of the authorities through the Internet," the London-headquartered group said.
"It is inconceivable that his actions can be considered as 'criminal' under international law," Amnesty said. "On the available evidence we regard him as a prisoner of conscience."
In November last year cyber-dissident Le Chi Quang, a computer instructor, was jailed for four years for posting essays critical of the communist regime on the Internet.
He was one of a long list of activists who have been silenced by the authorities in recent months.
Veteran pro-democracy activist Nguyen Dan Que, an endocrinologist and one of Vietnam's best-known dissidents, was arrested in March in Ho Chi Minh City for trying to post documents on the Internet. He has yet to be tried.
Human rights groups have long accused Vietnam with smothering all dissent and routinely jailing democracy activists, critics of the regime and church leaders who do not recognise the state's authority over them.
Questions and Answer about Foreign Policy (and the U.S. Invasion of Iraq)
(c) 2003 anarchie bunker
Q: Daddy, why did we have to attack Iraq?
A: Because they had weapons of mass destruction.
Q: But the inspectors didn't find any weapons of mass destruction.
A: That's because the Iraqis were hiding them.
Q: And that's why we invaded Iraq?
A: Yep. Invasions always work better than inspections.
Q: But after we invaded them, we STILL didn't find any weapons of mass destruction, did we?
A: That's because the weapons are so well hidden. Don't worry, we'll find something, probably right before the 2004 election.
Q: Why did Iraq want all those weapons of mass destruction?
A: To use them in a war, silly.
Q: I'm confused. If they had all those weapons that they planned to use in a war, then why didn't they use any of those weapons when we went to war with them?
A: Well, obviously they didn't want anyone to know they had those weapons, so they chose to die by the thousands rather than defend themselves.
Q: That doesn't make sense. Why would they choose to die if they had all those big weapons with which they could have fought back?
A: It's a different culture. It's not supposed to make sense.
Q: I don't know about you, but I don't think they had any of those weapons our government said they did.
A: Well, you know, it doesn't matter whether or not they had those weapons. We had another good reason to invade them anyway.
Q: And what was that?
A: Even if Iraq didn't have weapons of mass destruction, Saddam Hussein was a cruel dictator, which is another good reason to invade another country.
Q: Why? What does a cruel dictator do that makes it OK to invade his country?
A: Well, for one thing, he tortured his own people.
Q: Kind of like what they do in China?
A: Don't go comparing China to Iraq. China is a good economic competitor, where millions of people work for slave wages in sweatshops to make U.S. corporations richer.
Q: So if a country lets its people be exploited for American corporate gain, it's a good country, even if that country tortures people?
A: Right.
Q: Why were people in Iraq being tortured?
A: For political crimes, mostly, like criticizing the government. People who criticized the government in Iraq were sent to prison and tortured.
Q: Isn't that exactly what happens in China?
A: I told you, China is different.
Q: What's the difference between China and Iraq?
A: Well, for one thing, Iraq was ruled by the Ba'ath party, while China is Communist.
Q: Didn't you once tell me Communists were bad?
A: No, just Cuban Communists are bad.
Q: How are the Cuban Communists bad?
A: Well, for one thing, people who criticize the government in Cuba are sent to prison and tortured.
Q: Like in Iraq?
A: Exactly.
Q: And like in China, too?
A: I told you, China's a good economic competitor. Cuba, on the other hand, is not.
Q: How come Cuba isn't a good economic competitor?
A: Well, you see, back in the early 1960s, our government passed some laws that made it illegal for Americans to trade or do any business with Cuba until they stopped being Communists and started being capitalists like us.
Q: But if we got rid of those laws, opened up trade with Cuba, and started doing business with them, wouldn't that help the Cubans become capitalists?
A: Don't be a smart-ass.
Q: I didn't think I was being one.
A: Well, anyway, they also don't have freedom of religion in Cuba.
Q: Kind of like China and the Falun Gong movement?
A: I told you, stop saying bad things about China. Anyway, Saddam Hussein came to power through a military coup, so he's not really a legitimate leader anyway.
Q: What's a military coup?
A: That's when a military general takes over the government of a country by force, instead of holding free elections like we do in the United States.
Q: Didn't the ruler of Pakistan come to power by a military coup?
A: You mean General Pervez Musharraf? Uh, yeah, he did, but Pakistan is our friend.
Q: Why is Pakistan our friend if their leader is illegitimate?
A: I never said Pervez Musharraf was illegitimate.
Q: Didn't you just say a military general who comes to power by forcibly overthrowing the legitimate government of a nation is an illegitimate leader?
A: Only Saddam Hussein. Pervez Musharraf is our friend, because he helped us invade Afghanistan.
Q: Why did we invade Afghanistan?
A: Because of what they did to us on September 11th.
Q: What did Afghanistan do to us on September 11th?
A: Well, on September 11th, nineteen men - fifteen of them Saudi Arabians - hijacked four airplanes and flew three of them into buildings, killing over 3,000 Americans.
Q: So how did Afghanistan figure into all that?
A: Afghanistan was where those bad men trained, under the oppressive rule of the Taliban.
Q: Aren't the Taliban those bad radical Islamics who chopped off people's heads and hands?
A: Yes, that's exactly who they were. Not only did they chop off people's heads and hands, but they oppressed women, too.
Q: Didn't the Bush administration give the Taliban 43 million dollars back in May of 2001?
A: Yes, but that money was a reward because they did such a good job fighting drugs.
Q: Fighting drugs?
A: Yes, the Taliban were very helpful in stopping people from growing opium poppies.
Q: How did they do such a good job?
A: Simple. If people were caught growing opium poppies, the Taliban would have their hands and heads cut off.
Q: So, when the Taliban cut off people's heads and hands for growing flowers, that was OK, but not if they cut people's heads and hands off for other reasons?
A: Yes. It's OK with us if radical Islamic fundamentalists cut off people's hands for growing flowers, but it's cruel if they cut off people's hands for stealing bread.
Q: Don't they also cut off people's hands and heads in Saudi Arabia?
A: That's different. Afghanistan was ruled by a tyrannical patriarchy that oppressed women and forced them to wear burqas whenever they were in public, with death by stoning as the penalty for women who did not comply.
Q: Don't Saudi women have to wear burqas in public, too?
A: No, Saudi women merely wear a traditional Islamic body covering.
Q: What's the difference?
A: The traditional Islamic covering worn by Saudi women is a modest yet fashionable garment that covers all of a woman's body except for her eyes and fingers. The burqa, on the other hand, is an evil tool of patriarchal oppression that covers all of a woman's body except for her eyes and fingers.
Q: It sounds like the same thing with a different name.
A: Now, don't go comparing Afghanistan and Saudi Arabia. The Saudis are our friends.
Q: But I thought you said 15 of the 19 hijackers on September 11th were from Saudi Arabia.
A: Yes, but they trained in Afghanistan.
Q: Who trained them?
A: A very bad man named Osama bin Laden.
Q: Was he from Afghanistan?
A: Uh, no, he was from Saudi Arabia too. But he was a bad man, a very bad man.
Q: I seem to recall he was our friend once.
A: Only when we helped him and the mujahadeen repel the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan back in the 1980s.
Q: Who are the Soviets? Was that the Evil Communist Empire Ronald Reagan talked about?
A: There are no more Soviets. The Soviet Union broke up in 1990 or thereabouts, and now they have elections and capitalism like us. We call them Russians now.
Q: So the Soviets - I mean, the Russians - are now our friends?
A: Well, not really. You see, they were our friends for many years after they stopped being Soviets, but then they decided not to support our invasion of Iraq, so we're mad at them now. We're also mad at the French and the Germans because they didn't help us invade Iraq either.
Q: So the French and Germans are evil, too?
A: Not exactly evil, but just bad enough that we had to rename French fries and French toast to Freedom Fries and Freedom Toast.
Q: Do we always rename foods whenever another country doesn't do what we want them to do?
A: No, we just do that to our friends. Our enemies, we invade.
Q: But wasn't Iraq one of our friends back in the 1980s?
A: Well, yeah. For a while.
Q: Was Saddam Hussein ruler of Iraq back then?
A: Yes, but at the time he was fighting against Iran, which made him our friend, temporarily.
Q: Why did that make him our friend?
A: Because at that time, Iran was our enemy.
Q: Isn't that when he gassed the Kurds?
A: Yeah, but since he was fighting against Iran at the time, we looked the other way, to show him we were his friend.
Q: So anyone who fights against one of our enemies automatically becomes our friend?
A: Most of the time, yes.
Q: And anyone who fights against one of our friends is automatically an enemy?
A: Sometimes that's true, too. However, if American corporations can profit by selling weapons to both sides at the same time, all the better.
Q: Why?
A: Because war is good for the economy, which means war is good for America. Also, since God is on America's side, anyone who opposes war is a godless unAmerican Communist. Do you understand now why we attacked Iraq?
Q: I think so. We attacked them because God wanted us to, right?
A: Yes.
Q: But how did we know God wanted us to attack Iraq?
A: Well, you see, God personally speaks to George W. Bush and tells him what to do.
Q: So basically, what you're saying is that we attacked Iraq because George W. Bush hears voices in his head?
A: Yes! You finally understand how the world works. Now close your eyes, make yourself comfortable, and go to sleep. Good night.
Q: Good night, Daddy.
Ends
Get Tough on Rangoon
It's time to turn the tables on Burma's thugs.
BY COLIN L. POWELL
United Nations Special Envoy Razali Ismail has just visited Burma and was able to bring us news that Aung San Suu Kyi, a Nobel Peace Prize winner and the leader of a peaceful democratic party known as the National League for Democracy, is well and unharmed. The thoughts and prayers of free people everywhere have been with her these past two weeks. Our fears for her current state of health are now somewhat lessened.
On May 30, her motorcade was attacked by thugs, and then the thugs who run the Burmese government placed her under "protective custody." We can take comfort in the fact that she is well. Unfortunately, the larger process that Ambassador Razali and Aung San Suu Kyi have been pursuing--to restore democracy in Burma--is failing despite their good will and sincere efforts. It is time to reassess our policy towards a military dictatorship that has repeatedly attacked democracy and jailed its heroes.
There is little doubt on the facts. Aung San Suu Kyi's party won an election in 1990 and since then has been denied its place in Burmese politics. Her party has continued to pursue a peaceful path, despite personal hardships and lengthy periods of house arrest or imprisonment for her and her followers. Hundreds of her supporters remain in prison, despite some initial releases and promises by the junta to release more. The party's offices have been closed and their supporters persecuted. Ambassador Razali has pursued every possible opening and worked earnestly to help Burma make a peaceful transition to democracy. Despite initial statements last year, the junta--which shamelessly calls itself the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC)--has now refused his efforts and betrayed its own promises.
At the end of last month, this rejection manifested itself in violence. After the May 30 attack on Aung San Suu Kyi's convoy, we sent U.S. Embassy officers to the scene to gather information. They reported back that the attack was planned in advance. A series of trucks followed her convoy to a remote location, blocked it and then unloaded thugs to swarm with fury over the cars of democracy supporters. The attackers were brutal and organized; the victims were peaceful and defenseless. The explanation by the Burmese military junta of what happened doesn't hold water. The SPDC has not made a credible report of how many people were killed and injured. It was clear to our embassy officers that the members of the junta were responsible for directing and producing this staged riot.
We have called for a full accounting of what happened that day. We have called for Aung San Suu Kyi to be released from confinement of any kind. We have called for the release of the other leaders of the National League for Democracy who were jailed by the SPDC before and after the attack. We have called for the offices of the National League for Democracy to be allowed to reopen. We are in touch with other governments who are concerned about the fate of democracy's leader and the fate of democracy in Burma to encourage them, too, to pressure the SPDC.
The Bush administration agrees with members of Congress, including Sen. Mitch McConnell, who has been a leading advocate of democracy in Burma, that the time has come to turn up the pressure on the SPDC.
Here's what we've done so far. The State Department has already extended our visa restrictions to include all officials of an organization related to the junta--the Union Solidarity and Development Association--and the managers of state-run enterprises so that they and their families can be banned as well.
The United States already uses our voice and our vote against loans to Burma from the World Bank and other international financial institutions. The State Department reports honestly and frankly on the crimes of the SPDC in our reports on Human Rights, Trafficking in Persons, Drugs, and International Religious Freedom. In all these areas, the junta gets a failing grade. We also speak out frequently and strongly in favor of the National League for Democracy, and against the SPDC. I will press the case in Cambodia next week when I meet with the leaders of Southeast Asia, despite their traditional reticence to confront a member and neighbor of their association, known as Asean.
Mr. McConnell has introduced the Burmese Freedom and Democracy Act in the Senate; Reps. Henry Hyde and Tom Lantos have introduced a similar bill in the House. We support the goals and intent of the bills and are working with the sponsors on an appropriate set of new steps. Those who follow this issue will know that our support for legislation is in fact a change in the position of this administration and previous ones as well. Simply put, the attack on Ms. Suu Kyi's convoy and the utter failure of the junta to accept efforts at peaceful change cannot be the last word on the matter. The junta that oppresses democracy inside Burma must find that its actions will not be allowed to stand.
There are a number of measures that should now be taken, many of them in the proposed legislation. It's time to freeze the financial assets of the SPDC. It's time to ban remittances to Burma so that the SPDC cannot benefit from the foreign exchange. With legislation, we can, and should, place restrictions on travel-related transactions that benefit the SPDC and its supporters. We also should further limit commerce with Burma which enriches the junta's generals. Of course, we would need to ensure consistency with our World Trade Organization and other international obligations. Any legislation will need to be carefully crafted to take into account our WTO obligations and the president's need for waiver authority, but we should act now.
By attacking Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters, the Burmese junta has finally and definitively rejected the efforts of the outside world to bring Burma back into the international community. Indeed, their refusal of the work of Ambassador Razali and of the rights of Aung San Suu Kyi and her supporters could not be clearer. Our response must be equally clear if the thugs who now rule Burma are to understand that their failure to restore democracy will only bring more and more pressure against them and their supporters.
Mr. Powell is the secretary of state.
The Wall Street Journal
Thursday, June 12, 2003 12:01 a.m.
Who's Accountable?
By PAUL KRUGMAN
The Bush and Blair administrations are trying to silence critics - many of them current or former intelligence analysts - who say that they exaggerated the threat from Iraq. Last week a Blair official accused Britain's intelligence agencies of plotting against the government. (Tony Blair's government has since apologized for January's "dodgy dossier.") In this country, Colin Powell has declared that questions about the justification for war are "outrageous."
Yet dishonest salesmanship has been the hallmark of the Bush administration's approach to domestic policy. And it has become increasingly clear that the selling of the war with Iraq was no different.
For example, look at the way the administration rhetorically linked Saddam to Sept. 11. As The Associated Press put it: "The implication from Bush on down was that Saddam supported Osama bin Laden's network. Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks frequently were mentioned in the same sentence, even though officials have no good evidence of such a link." Not only was there no good evidence: according to The New York Times, captured leaders of Al Qaeda explicitly told the C.I.A. that they had not been working with Saddam.
Or look at the affair of the infamous "germ warfare" trailers. I don't know whether those trailers were intended to produce bioweapons or merely to inflate balloons, as the Iraqis claim - a claim supported by a number of outside experts. (According to the newspaper The Observer, Britain sold Iraq a similar system back in 1987.) What is clear is that an initial report concluding that they were weapons labs was, as one analyst told The Times, "a rushed job and looks political." President Bush had no business declaring "we have found the weapons of mass destruction."
We can guess how Mr. Bush came to make that statement. The first teams of analysts told administration officials what they wanted to hear, doubts were brushed aside, and officials then made public pronouncements greatly overstating even what the analysts had said.
A similar process of cherry-picking, of choosing and exaggerating intelligence that suited the administration's preconceptions, unfolded over the issue of W.M.D.'s before the war. Most intelligence professionals believed that Saddam had some biological and chemical weapons, but they did not believe that these posed any imminent threat. According to the newspaper The Independent, a March 2002 report by Britain's Joint Intelligence Committee found no evidence that Saddam posed a significantly greater threat than in 1991. But such conclusions weren't acceptable.
Last fall former U.S. intelligence officials began warning that official pronouncements were being based on "cooked intelligence." British intelligence officials were so concerned that, The Independent reports, they kept detailed records of the process. "A smoking gun may well exist over W.M.D., but it may not be to the government's liking," a source said.
But the Bush administration found scraps of intelligence suiting its agenda, and officials began making strong pronouncements. "Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons - the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have," Mr. Bush said on Feb. 8. On March 16 Dick Cheney declared, "We believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."
It's now two months since Baghdad fell - and according to The A.P., military units searching for W.M.D.'s have run out of places to look.
One last point: the Bush administration's determination to see what it wanted to see led not just to a gross exaggeration of the threat Iraq posed, but to a severe underestimation of the problems of postwar occupation. When Gen. Eric Shinseki, the Army chief of staff, warned that occupying Iraq might require hundreds of thousands of soldiers for an extended period, Paul Wolfowitz said he was "wildly off the mark" - and the secretary of the Army may have been fired for backing up the general. Now a force of 150,000 is stretched thin, facing increasingly frequent guerrilla attacks, and a senior officer told The Washington Post that it might be two years before an Iraqi government takes over. The Independent reports that British military chiefs are resisting calls to send more forces, fearing being "sucked into a quagmire."
I'll tell you what's outrageous. It's not the fact that people are criticizing the administration; it's the fact that nobody is being held accountable for misleading the nation into war.
The New York Times
10 June 2003
Asia-Pacific Allies Forced to Defend Role in Iraq War
By Doug Struck
Washington Post
TOKYO, June 3 -- The first question to the Pentagon's second-ranking official, Paul D. Wolfowitz, at a news conference in Tokyo today had none of the famous Japanese indirectness.
"How do you justify the Iraqi war," a Japanese reporter asked, "when you have found no weapons of mass destruction?"
Leaders of U.S. allies in the Asia-Pacific region who supported the war are finding themselves nettled by that question in the aftermath of the fighting.
In Australia, Prime Minister John Howard, who sent troops to fight alongside Americans in Iraq, has beseeched the critics to put the question behind them, now that Baghdad has fallen and Australian troops are coming home.
In Japan, Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi, whose government focused on giving humanitarian aid, was challenged in the parliament to urge the Americans to step aside for more impartial international inspectors who would search for the weapons.
And in South Korea, support by President Roh Moo Hyun for the attack on Iraq has been one element in a steady decline in his popularity. So has the U.S. failure to find illegal weapons in Iraq. Many South Koreans feel that the main legacy of the war, to which South Korea contributed a military field hospital and engineering units, has been to aggravate the nuclear crisis with North Korea. North Korea has claimed that it needs nuclear weapons to protect itself from being attacked like Iraq.
"The United States is the problem," said Song Young Gil, a member of parliament from Roh's Millennium Democratic Party.
Japan, Australia and South Korea -- all key U.S. allies -- backed the invasion despite adverse public opinion polls in each country. The debate over whether that support was justified is not raging with the heat of the debate now occurring in Britain, but it remains a troubling tripwire for political leaders in the region.
"The public is skeptical because [weapons of mass destruction] have not been found, when the issue was said to be so serious at the very beginning," said Takashi Mikuriya, a professor of politics at Tokyo University. "It should really be debated to its limit." But he predicted that Koizumi -- like Bush, he said -- will successfully play down the question.
Critics are skeptical of the Bush administration's explanations that people loyal to deposed president Saddam Hussein may have destroyed the weapons before the war, or that two trailers that the CIA has said were probably intended for production of biological agents are proof of the existence of illegal weapons in Iraq.
"What was this war about?" Japan's Asahi Shimbun newspaper asked in an editorial last month. The weapons justification "turned out to be uncertain," the newspaper observed. "It is a weighty question which Japan, which supported the war, cannot avoid."
Wolfowitz, on a tour to meet allied officials in Asia, derided the question today. He asserted that the trailers seized in Iraq were "significant evidence" to prove that Secretary of State Colin L. Powell had been truthful when he argued to the U.N. Security Council that Iraq had such weapons.
Wolfowitz also argued that the 11 weeks since troops entered Iraq "is a very short time."
"I wouldn't suggest we've got to the bottom of the whole story yet," he said. "Going to search door-to-door in a country the size of California is not the way to find these things. There should be no doubt that this regime was a threat to our security -- and a threat we could not live with."
In Australia, large and angry demonstrations preceded the war. Howard's popularity was buoyed when Australian troops returned without a single casualty, but critics have not heeded his call to close the books on the issue, John Warhurst, a political analyst at the Australian National University in Canberra, said in a recent interview.
"The Iraqi war is still quite divisive in the Australian community," he said. The quick victory "took the steam out of the opposition," he said. "But I don't think the Australian media or people will let him get away with it when Howard says, 'Let's not argue over whether they had WMDs.' "
Wolfowitz today offered alternative rationales for the war. He said mass graves found in Iraq prove that "Saddam Hussein was guilty of killing more Muslims than anyone in history. . . . There is no question the Iraqi people are far better off without that regime." Special correspondent Akiko Yamamoto in Tokyo contributed to this report.
Standard Operating Procedure
By PAUL KRUGMAN
06/03/03: (New York Times) The mystery of Iraq's missing weapons of mass destruction has become a lot less mysterious. Recent reports in major British newspapers and three major American news magazines, based on leaks from angry intelligence officials, back up the sources who told my colleague Nicholas Kristof that the Bush administration "grossly manipulated intelligence" about W.M.D.'s.
And anyone who talks about an "intelligence failure" is missing the point. The problem lay not with intelligence professionals, but with the Bush and Blair administrations. They wanted a war, so they demanded reports supporting their case, while dismissing contrary evidence.
In Britain, the news media have not been shy about drawing the obvious implications, and the outrage has not been limited to war opponents. The Times of London was ardently pro-war; nonetheless, it ran an analysis under the headline "Lie Another Day." The paper drew parallels between the selling of the war and other misleading claims: "The government is seen as having `spun' the threat from Saddam's weapons just as it spins everything else."
Yet few have made the same argument in this country, even though "spin" is far too mild a word for what the Bush administration does, all the time. Suggestions that the public was manipulated into supporting an Iraq war gain credibility from the fact that misrepresentation and deception are standard operating procedure for this administration, which - to an extent never before seen in U.S. history - systematically and brazenly distorts the facts.
Am I exaggerating? Even as George Bush stunned reporters by declaring that we have "found the weapons of mass destruction," the Republican National Committee declared that the latest tax cut benefits "everyone who pays taxes." That is simply a lie. You've heard about those eight million children denied any tax break by a last-minute switcheroo. In total, 50 million American households - including a majority of those with members over 65 - get nothing; another 20 million receive less than $100 each. And a great majority of those left behind do pay taxes.
And the bald-faced misrepresentation of an elitist tax cut offering little or nothing to most Americans is only the latest in a long string of blatant misstatements. Misleading the public has been a consistent strategy for the Bush team on issues ranging from tax policy and Social Security reform to energy and the environment. So why should we give the administration the benefit of the doubt on foreign policy?
It's long past time for this administration to be held accountable. Over the last two years we've become accustomed to the pattern. Each time the administration comes up with another whopper, partisan supporters - a group that includes a large segment of the news media - obediently insist that black is white and up is down. Meanwhile the "liberal" media report only that some people say that black is black and up is up. And some Democratic politicians offer the administration invaluable cover by making excuses and playing down the extent of the lies.
If this same lack of accountability extends to matters of war and peace, we're in very deep trouble. The British seem to understand this: Max Hastings, the veteran war correspondent - who supported Britain's participation in the war - writes that "the prime minister committed British troops and sacrificed British lives on the basis of a deceit, and it stinks."
It's no answer to say that Saddam was a murderous tyrant. I could point out that many of the neoconservatives who fomented this war were nonchalant, or worse, about mass murders by Central American death squads in the 1980's. But the important point is that this isn't about Saddam: it's about us. The public was told that Saddam posed an imminent threat. If that claim was fraudulent, the selling of the war is arguably the worst scandal in American political history - worse than Watergate, worse than Iran-contra. Indeed, the idea that we were deceived into war makes many commentators so uncomfortable that they refuse to admit the possibility.
But here's the thought that should make those commentators really uncomfortable. Suppose that this administration did con us into war. And suppose that it is not held accountable for its deceptions, so Mr. Bush can fight what Mr. Hastings calls a "khaki election" next year. In that case, our political system has become utterly, and perhaps irrevocably, corrupted.
US threatens to sink French plan to stop the West undercutting African farmers
The Independent, London
02 June 2003
By Andy McSmith in Evian
Poltical fallout from the Iraq war is threatening catastrophe for millions of farmers in Africa, because the Americans may torpedo a French plan to ban the dumping of subsidised farm produce in African markets.
British diplomats have been working frantically to bridge the gap, in the hope of keeping alive the plan, which has Tony Blair's personal backing.
The US spends between $3bn (£1.8bn) and $4bn a year subsidising 25,000 American cotton farmers - more than its annual aid budget to the entire African continent - flooding the world market with cheap cotton, while in west Africa, 10 million people rely on cotton growing for their livelihood. A typical small farmer will make about $300 a year.
The European Union is also guilty of undercutting African farmers, through the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), turning Europe into the world's biggest exporter of white sugar, with disastrous results in countries such as Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique, which are in effect locked out of the European market. The EU also dumps subsidised milk and wheat on markets from Kenya to Senegal, while restricting imports of African produce.
The French President, Jacques Chirac, has proposed a moratorium on all subsidies of produce that are sold in Africa, which could go a long way towards enabling African farmers to achieve self-sufficiency. But the plan has had a frigid reception in Washington. The US says its export credits should be exempt.
The American reaction is a striking departure from the normal courtesies of G8 summits, in which the host nation usually puts up proposals and the following year's host nation - in this case the US - promises to follow them up.
By contrast, President Chirac's proposal has been given enthusiastic public support by Mr Blair, not only because it will benefit Africa, but because Britain has been pushing for reform of the CAP against French resistance. He has promised that the idea will be followed up when the British host the 2005 G8 summit.
Justin Forsyth, of Oxfam, said: "This proposal is a casualty of the Iraq war. The Americans don't want a specific focus on Africa and they don't want to support a French proposal."
Jeremy Haywood, Mr Blair's private secretary, has been working behind the scenes for days in the hope of brokering an agreement between the Americans and the French. Yesterday, British officials said they were "hopeful" of a deal.
There was also a veiled warning to the Americans yesterday from Patricia Hewitt, the Trade and Industry Secretary, who told Radio 4's The World This Weekend programme: "The countries of the developed world really cannot go on preaching free trade abroad and practising protectionism at home. What I hope will happen at this G8 meeting is that the G8 countries together, faced with this demand - quite rightly - from Africa and the rest of the poor world, will reaffirm their commitment to creating rules for trade that are not only free but fair."
Meanwhile, British diplomats have helped to secure an agreement to fight corruption in Africa. Companies that extract oil and minerals will have to publish the full details of deals they strike with the relevant governments.
This follows a series of allegations that money from extraction rights has been siphoned off into private bank accounts. A dispute about whether the rules should be compulsory or voluntary was settled under a compromise deal that says governments will have the option of whether to sign up to the agreement or not, but companies will be bound by their government's policy. Supporters of the deal say that it will work provided a "critical mass" of the richest nations joins up.
