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World Media Watch
by Gloria R. Lalumia
BUZZFLASH NOTE: Once again, these are the views and perspectives of the individual papers, not of BuzzFlash or Gloria. They offer BuzzFlash readers a way of reading what other nations are saying about the crisis, whether we like it or not. We repeat: This is not an endorsement of their viewpoints.
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1//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--SADDAM'S NORTHERN TRAP (From the beginning, the outside world has imagined that northern Iraq would be a vulnerability for Saddam: but perhaps the resistance guerrilla force he is encouraging will create difficulties for the US army. In fact, Saddam's real weakness is in the southern zone of Shi'ite dissidents. In the north, many surprises may be in store for the US.)
2//The Guardian, UK--OPEC PLEDGES FLOOD OF OIL IN EVENT OF CONFLICT (Oil producers will flood the world market with crude supplies if the US attacks Iraq to prevent spiralling energy costs from strangling global growth, sources in Opec promised yesterday..."The market doesn't buy the idea that the war is going to be over in three days and Saddam will go into exile," said Paul Horsnell, an oil analyst at JP Morgan. "It's getting harder and harder to see a benign outcome. "A more likely scenario is that there is a scorched earth policy by Saddam, western strategic reserves are run down and the war is dragged out.")
3//The News International, Pakistan--PLANS UNDERWAY FOR PAKISTANIS IN GULF (Authorities in Islamabad are preparing contingency plans to evacuate some 1.7 million Pakistanis working in Gulf countries in the event of a war in Iraq, an official said on Tuesday.)
4//Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippines--SENATOR SAYS US TROOPS IN JOLO 'PROVOCATIVE' (Warnings were raised Tuesday that the planned deployment of US soldiers in Sulu under Balikatan 03-1 would provoke more tension in a province already wracked by poverty and violence..."By holding the joint training in a combat zone, we are rendering ourselves vulnerable to the possibility that US forces will be involved in combat operations," Biazon told the Inquirer.)
5//The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia--KOREA CRISIS COULD TRIGGER RACE FOR NUKES (The South Korean President, Kim Dae Jung, has warned that his country and Japan may be forced to acquire their own nuclear weapons as a deterrent against the nuclear bombs that North Korea's Stalinist regime is suspected of trying to develop... The warning came as tensions increased on the Korean peninsula yesterday. The North's Korean People's Army threatened to abandon the armistice that has kept a fragile truce since the Korean War ended nearly 50 years ago, and Washington and Seoul announced new military exercises, lasting a month from March 4, to test joint capabilities against "external aggression". About 5000 American soldiers will be sent to join the 37,000 United States troops permanently stationed in South Korea, and a US aircraft-carrier battle group will move nearby to take part.)
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1//Asia
Times Online February 19, 2003
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EB19Ak06.html
SADDAM'S NORTHERN TRAP
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
BAGHDAD - Iraqi President Saddam Hussein has not been seen publicly for a long time now. However, he is not holed up at any of his palaces. He is on the move, some times within Baghdad, and at times in other Iraqi cities, where he meets party leaders and officials and also some religious leaders.
In the outside world, there is an impression that Iraq has already been besieged. In northern Iraq, US army units are already inside the country, sitting and waiting for the attack that will signal them to march on Mosul, Tikrit and Baghdad.
Saddam knew several months ago that in the event of war the north of Iraq would be the thorn in his flesh. He has been thinking about this problem for several months, and there are reports that he believes that he has finally found a strong and indigenous support system which may hinder US forces marching on Baghdad.
The link between Saddam and the anti-US elements in Kurdistan with whom he might find common cause is Iraqi Deputy President Izzat Ibrahim, who is believed to have contacted Sheikh Mostafa in the Arbil governate in northern Iraq a long time ago.
Sheikh Mostafa is a sheikh (spiritual teacher) of the Naqshband school of Sufis. From 1990 and onwards, some militant strains became established in this Sufi school, especially in Central Asia. As a result, the school forged its influence among Afghans and Chechen fighters and also took some Kurd leaders into its influence. This is one of the reasons that Chechens and Taliban leader Mullah Omar (both associated with the Naqshband school) became allies and fought side by side. This is also one of the reasons that Jalal Talabani of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) - said to be a Mostafa disciple - went to Afghanistan in solidarity with Mullah Omar when the latter was ruler of Afghanistan
(SNIP)
Sources contend that through Sheikh Mostafa, Saddam has made links with Kurdish fighters of the fundamentalist group Ansar al-Islam as well as a circle of people loyal to Mostafa in the Kurdish areas. With this strategy Saddam has tried to build pockets of "in-house" resistance in northern Iraq with an eye toward preventing the US army from reaching even oil-rich Mosul easily.
From the beginning, the outside world has imagined that northern Iraq would be a vulnerability for Saddam: but perhaps the resistance guerrilla force he is encouraging will create difficulties for the US army. In fact, Saddam's real weakness is in the southern zone of Shi'ite dissidents. In the north, many surprises may be in store for the US.
2//The Guardian Tuesday February 18, 2003
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,897781,00.html
OPEC PLEDGES FLOOD OF OIL IN EVENT OF CONFLICT
Charlotte Denny, economics correspondent
Oil producers will flood the world market with crude supplies if the US attacks Iraq to prevent spiralling energy costs from strangling global growth, sources in Opec promised yesterday.
The 11-member exporters' cartel will lift production-limiting quotas and "pump at will" should conflict in the Middle East put a halt to Iraq's 2m barrels a day in exports.
But the cartel declined to offer any immediate relief to the market, where mounting concerns over the repercussions of an attack have driven prices to two-year highs.
"Until war starts, there is nothing more they can do," a source said. "More production can't cool prices. They are high because of war hysteria."
Analysts fear that a cornered Saddam Hussein will torch his own oilfields and attempt an attack on neighbouring Saudi Arabia, which holds a quarter of the world's reserves.
"The market doesn't buy the idea that the war is going to be over in three days and Saddam will go into exile," said Paul Horsnell, an oil analyst at JP Morgan. "It's getting harder and harder to see a benign outcome.
"A more likely scenario is that there is a scorched earth policy by Saddam, western strategic reserves are run down and the war is dragged out."
(SNIP)
An attack on Iraq could not come at a worse time for the global market, already struggling to make up for the disruption of Venezuela's supplies from the 11-week strike. Supplies to the American market from Venezuela have slowed to a trickle, reducing US crude stocks to their lowest levels for 30 years.
Adding to market nervousness are forthcoming elections in Nigeria, Africa's largest oil producer.
"Virtually everything that could go wrong in terms of getting the price level down, has gone wrong, from Venezuela's industry going on strike to the Japanese declaring their nuclear industry unsafe, so the Japanese are buying oil like there is no tomorrow," Mr Horsnell said.
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3//The News International Wednesday February 19, 2003-- Zil
Haj 17, 1423 A.H.
http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/
PLANS UNDERWAY FOR PAKISTANIS IN GULF
ISLAMABAD: Authorities in Islamabad are preparing contingency plans to evacuate some 1.7 million Pakistanis working in Gulf countries in the event of a war in Iraq, an official said on Tuesday.
Pakistan has already pulled non-essential diplomatic staff and diplomats' families out of Baghdad, leaving essential diplomats and another 42 Pakistanis living in the Iraqi capital, the foreign ministry has said.
The Overseas Pakistanis Foundation (OPF) estimates another 1.772 million Pakistanis live in Bahrain, Jordan, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen. The numbers range from 900,000 in Saudi Arabia to 300 in Yemen.
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4//Philippine Daily Inquirer Wednesday Feb. 19, 2003,
http://www.inq7.net/nat/2003/feb/19/nat_2-1.htm
SENATOR SAYS US TROOPS IN JOLO 'PROVOCATIVE'
Posted: 11:54 PM (Manila Time) | Feb. 18, 2003
Inquirer News Service with Agence France-Presse
Amid anti-US sentiment
WARNINGS were raised Tuesday that the planned deployment of US soldiers in Sulu under Balikatan 03-1 would provoke more tension in a province already wracked by poverty and violence.
The presence of US troops -- last in Jolo during the American colonial period when they mounted a brutal pacification campaign against the rebellious Muslim minority between 1899 and 1913 -- "will bring more trouble," Agence France Presse Tuesday quoted Limson Wahab, dean of the Sulu State College in Jolo, as saying.
Sen. Manuel Villar, chair of the Senate's legislative oversight committee on the RP-US Visiting Forces Agreement, said that while he saw the rationale behind the choice of Sulu as the venue for the joint military exercise, he was wary that its timing might raise tensions in the predominantly Muslim region in the context of US plans for an attack on Iraq.
(SNIP)
But in Malacañang, President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo's spokesperson Ignacio Bunye insisted that Balikatan 03-1 -- its objective being the rout of the Abu Sayyaf in Sulu -- "will exclusively be a training exercise."
Still, Sen. Rodolfo Biazon, a former chief of staff of the Armed Forces, expressed concern over possible armed encounters between Abu Sayyaf bandits and US soldiers accompanying Filipino troops.
"By holding the joint training in a combat zone, we are rendering ourselves vulnerable to the possibility that US forces will be involved in combat operations," Biazon told the Inquirer.
(MORE)
5//The Sydney Morning Herald February 19 2003
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/02/18/1045330602714.html
KOREA CRISIS COULD TRIGGER RACE FOR NUKES
By Hamish McDonald, Herald Correspondent in Beijing
The South Korean President, Kim Dae Jung, has warned that his
country and Japan may be forced to acquire their own nuclear
weapons as a deterrent against the nuclear bombs that North
Korea's Stalinist regime is suspected of trying to develop.
Mr Kim said North Korea should not "even dream of having nuclear weapons", which he said would be a dangerous development. "If North Korea gets nuclear weapons, the stance of Japan and our country toward nuclear weapons would change," he added.
The warning came as tensions increased on the Korean peninsula yesterday. The North's Korean People's Army threatened to abandon the armistice that has kept a fragile truce since the Korean War ended nearly 50 years ago, and Washington and Seoul announced new military exercises, lasting a month from March 4, to test joint capabilities against "external aggression".
About 5000 American soldiers will be sent to join the 37,000 United States troops permanently stationed in South Korea, and a US aircraft-carrier battle group will move nearby to take part.
The North Koreans have immediately linked this to reported consideration of pre-emptive strikes against the country's reactivated nuclear plant at Yongbyon, north of the capital Pyongyang, and of sanctions to cut off the sources of foreign currency earnings for the North's economy, including a naval blockage against ballistic missile exports.
(SNIP)
The emerging threat of nuclear arms and ballistic missiles is already causing a shift in Japan's defence posture. The Japanese Defence Agency was reported on Monday as seeking 20 billion yen ($300million) to test an anti-ballistic missile system being developed with the US.
Last week, the Japanese Defence Minister, Shigeru Ishiba, said Japan could launch a military strike on North Korea if there was firm evidence it was preparing to attack with ballistic missiles. This came amid a campaign by right-wingers in the ruling Liberal Democratic Party for Japan to acquire offensive weapons barred under its war-renouncing constitution.
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© 2003, Gloria R. Lalumia, insight@zianet.com
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