July 11, 2003

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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--DIGGING FOR DIRT ("If the American people conclude that American soldiers have died because the administration has lied, it will be extremely serious," according to Joseph Cirincione, an arms control specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "American public opinion is clearly shifting on this issue." He said that he didn't see how the Republicans and the administration could avert a major investigation... Thielmann was particularly dismissive of some Republican attempts to defend the administration. The Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Tom DeLay, told reporters on Tuesday in response to the White House admission that the uranium story was false that it was "very easy to pick one little flaw here and one little flaw there". "A little flaw here, a little flaw there," said Thielmann, "and pretty soon you've fostered a fundamentally flawed view of reality".)

2//The Independent, UK--DUNCAN SMITH REJECTS BLAIR'S ACCOUNT OF SHARING INTELLIGENCE WITH TORIES (Tony Blair faced repeated calls to apologise to Iain Duncan Smith yesterday after claiming that intelligence upon which the "dodgy dossier" was based had been shared with the Conservatives. In a series of strongly worded letters, the Tory leader urged Mr Blair to withdraw his "false allegation" and demanded an apology. But a stand-off developed when the Prime Minister insisted on the veracity of his comments and refused to withdraw them.)

3//The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia--OFFICIALS KNEW OF DODGY IRAQ FILE (The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) admitted last night that it knew intelligence on Iraq's nuclear program was questionable shortly before the Prime Minister, John Howard, presented it to Parliament to build a case for war...The department claims it did not tell Mr Howard or the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, of information from the American State Department in January that cast doubt on claims that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa. This follows the extraordinary admission yesterday by Australia's peak intelligence agency, the Office of National Assessments (ONA), that it received the same information but had also failed to pass it on to Mr Howard.)

4//The Mail and Guardian, South Africa--ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER PHOTO OPPORTUNITY (The last stage of US President George Bush's first tour of Africa will be a politically risky foray into the troubled world of Africa's number one oil producer: Nigeria. His visit is seen as an endorsement of President Olusegun Obasanjo, just three months after he was re-elected in a poll which US observers said was marred by "obvious premeditated electoral manipulation"... Already opposition supporters have held a minor demonstration outside the US embassy in Abuja, accusing Bush of endorsing a "stolen election". The International Republican Institute (IRI), set up by Bush's predecessor and ideological stablemate Ronald Reagan, was scathing about Obasanjo's tainted re-election... Earlier this year the United States delivered the US Navy two recently refurbished warships. Their role? To protect oil fields in the Niger Delta from unrest.)

5//DW-World.de/Deutsche-Welle, Germany--EUROPEAN CONVENTION CONCLUDES WORK (With agreements to maintain veto rights on issues dealing with immigration, labor markets, cultural trade and foreign policy, the European Convention completed its historic work of drafting a constitution on Thursday...However, there were some issues over which countries failed to find unity. In the areas of foreign and tax policy, the veto right of member states will remain in place despite pressure from Germany to place those policy areas under the control of EU qualified majority voting. Eliminating the veto would have been politically impossible for Britain. Also entailed in the draft is an official motto of the EU, which will be "United in Diversity," an official EU song, which is to be Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" and an official holiday on May 9 to celebrate European unity.)

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1//Asia Times Online July 11, 2003
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EG11Ak02.html

DIGGING FOR DIRT
By Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service

WASHINGTON - The administration of President George W Bush is finding itself increasingly beleaguered by growing charges by retired intelligence and foreign service officers that administration hawks exaggerated the threat posed by Iraq in order to press Washington into war.

The White House was forced to admit earlier this week that Bush's assertion during his State of the Union address in late January regarding Saddam Hussein's alleged attempts to buy uranium in Africa for a supposed nuclear arms program was based on flawed intelligence and should have been omitted from the speech.

But a growing number of lawmakers and independent analysts are suggesting that the uranium report - which was actually based on crudely forged documents supposedly provided by an Italian intelligence agency - may be just the tip of the iceberg of an effort by neo-conservative and right-wing hawks centered primarily in the Pentagon and around Vice President Dick Cheney to skew the intelligence to make their case for war.

"The Bush administration did not provide an accurate picture of the military threat with respect to Iraq," according to Gregory Thielmann, who served as the director of the Strategic, Proliferation and Military Affairs Office in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), until last September.

Contrary to the repeated assertion by Bush and other top officials, he said, "As of March, 2003, Iraq posed no major military threat to the United States," Thielmann, a 25-year foreign service veteran, told a standing-room only press conference at the National Press Club.

He added that the administration's public statements about Iraq's biological and chemical weapons capabilities, stockpile of Scud missiles, and ties to al-Qaeda were also misleading and often based on distortions of what the intelligence community itself was saying.

His charges and the growing attention being paid to them come on the heels of similar charges by another retired foreign service officer, ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had been sent by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) to Niger to check out the reports of Iraq's purchase of uranium "yellowcake".

(SNIP)

According to a new survey of public opinion released on Wednesday, just 23 percent of Americans say that the military effort in Iraq is going very well, down from 61 percent in late April. Doubts about the occupation naturally feed into concerns about how the US got there.

"If the American people conclude that American soldiers have died because the administration has lied, it will be extremely serious," according to Joseph Cirincione, an arms control specialist at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "American public opinion is clearly shifting on this issue." He said that he didn't see how the Republicans and the administration could avert a major investigation.

Bush, who had hoped that his "victory lap" around sub-Saharan Africa this week would highlight his "compassionate conservatism" for the folks back home, has been dogged by questions from reporters about his State of the Union allegations since he arrived at his first stop in Senegal.

(SNIP)

As several Democratic lawmakers called for a full-scale Congressional investigation, Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld was also asked at a hearing of the Senate Armed Services Committee whether the administration exaggerated the threat. "The coalition did not act in Iraq because we had discovered dramatic new evidence of Iraq's pursuit [of weapons of mass destruction, or WMD]," he said. "We acted because we saw the evidence in a dramatic new light - through the prism of our experience on 9-11 [September 11]."

But Rumsfeld's statement only raised new questions for analysts who have documented the administration's claims about Baghdad's WMD capabilities. Cirincione described Rumsfeld's latest assertion as "shocking". "Administration officials repeatedly said that they had new evidence [in the run-up to the war]."

Indeed, when he heard Bush's uranium reference, Thielmann said he "wondered what new evidence had come into the administration". But, when he realized that it was based on the already-discredited Niger report, he said he felt a "combination of surprise and disgust". "This administration has a faith-based attitude to intelligence," he said, which, simply stated, consisted of, "We know the answers. Give us the evidence the support those answers."

Thielmann was particularly dismissive of some Republican attempts to defend the administration. The Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Tom DeLay, told reporters on Tuesday in response to the White House admission that the uranium story was false that it was "very easy to pick one little flaw here and one little flaw there". "A little flaw here, a little flaw there," said Thielmann, "and pretty soon you've fostered a fundamentally flawed view of reality".

Cirincione said that the administration's failure to find any evidence of WMD or Scud missiles despite scouring more than 200 priority sites over the past three months made it clear that the UN weapons inspectors, whose work was often mocked by administration officials, actually fulfilled their intended purpose quite well.

(MORE)

2//The Independent 10 July 2003
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/story.jsp?story=423256

DUNCAN SMITH REJECTS BLAIR'S ACCOUNT OF SHARING INTELLIGENCE WITH TORIES
By Danielle Demetriou

Tony Blair faced repeated calls to apologise to Iain Duncan Smith yesterday after claiming that intelligence upon which the "dodgy dossier" was based had been shared with the Conservatives.

In a series of strongly worded letters, the Tory leader urged Mr Blair to withdraw his "false allegation" and demanded an apology. But a stand-off developed when the Prime Minister insisted on the veracity of his comments and refused to withdraw them.

The war of words was sparked by comments made by Mr Blair at Prime Minister's Questions, during which he told MPs that "intelligence upon which we based both the September dossier and that February briefing was specifically shared with him by our intelligence services".

When the Conservative leader's requests for an apology were refused, he issued a letter urging Mr Blair to retract his comments and check his records. "You said that the intelligence on which the dossier was based was intelligence that was specifically shared with me. That is completely untrue," he wrote.

Mr Duncan Smith said he had met the head of the Joint Intelligence Committee on 18 September in connection with the dossier that month. But he said he learnt about the February document from newspapers and did not meet the JIC until after its publication.

(MORE)

3//The Sydney Morning Herald July 11 2003
http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/07/10/1057783288234.html

OFFICIALS KNEW OF DODGY IRAQ FILE
By Mark Riley and Craig Skehan

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) admitted last night that it knew intelligence on Iraq's nuclear program was questionable shortly before the Prime Minister, John Howard, presented it to Parliament to build a case for war.

The revelation will deepen the damaging controversy about the Government's use of flawed intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities.

The department claims it did not tell Mr Howard or the Foreign Minister, Alexander Downer, of information from the American State Department in January that cast doubt on claims that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa.

This follows the extraordinary admission yesterday by Australia's peak intelligence agency, the Office of National Assessments (ONA), that it received the same information but had also failed to pass it on to Mr Howard.

The State Department assessment questioned a British dossier, distributed in September last year, that said Iraq had sought uranium from Africa to reconstitute its nuclear program.

Mr Howard cited the now discredited African intelligence in a statement to Parliament on February 4 to support his case against Iraq.

(MORE)

4//The Mail and Guardian 10 July 2003 09:11
http://www.mg.co.za/Content/l3.asp?ao=16966

ANOTHER DAY, ANOTHER PHOTO OPPORTUNITY
Dave Clark, Lagos
Sapa-AFP

The last stage of US President George Bush's first tour of Africa will be a politically risky foray into the troubled world of Africa's number one oil producer: Nigeria.

His visit is seen as an endorsement of President Olusegun Obasanjo, just three months after he was re-elected in a poll which US observers said was marred by "obvious premeditated electoral manipulation".

Relations between Washington and Abuja have gone through a bumpy patch recently, with Nigeria opposing the war in Iraq and the US Congress cutting military aid in protest over the massacre of several hundred villagers.

But when Bush steps out onto the tarmac at Abuja airport on Friday and gives Obasanjo his all important handshake photo opportunity it will be seen as a signal that US-Nigerian ties are back on track.

Professor Bola Akinterinwa of the Nigerian Institute of International Affairs said that despite the fierce criticism of his election victory at home, Obasanjo still enjoys uncritical support abroad.

"Obasanjo has no problems of legitimacy at all on the international level," he said. "The Obasanjo government has been at its strongest in international fora. That is where it is strongest."

Cynical observers both inside and outside Nigeria point to one obvious reason why Nigeria is, in the words of a senior Lagos-based oil executive, "a key American strategic target": its vast oil reserves.

The United States buys 1,5-million barrels of Nigerian crude per day, and the US Department of Energy predicts that by 2015 west Africa will supply 25% of US oil needs.

At a time when Washington is keen to diversify energy supplies and reduce its dependence on the unstable Middle East, Bush has a clear interest in maintaining good ties with Abuja.

But there are other pressing reasons why Bush is ready to take the risk of coming to Nigeria. The White House is under intense international pressure to intervene in Liberia to help bring about peace in a war-torn country set up in the nineteenth century as a homeland for freed US slaves.

Whatever role the United States takes in a peace-keeping force, they will be going in alongside the Nigerian troops in a west African force.

(SNIP)

Clearly the White House has decided that the benefits of being able to address these shared interests are worth the political risk of giving Obasanjo such unqualified support, but the trip will be criticised.

Already opposition supporters have held a minor demonstration outside the US embassy in Abuja, accusing Bush of endorsing a "stolen election".

The International Republican Institute (IRI), set up by Bush's predecessor and ideological stablemate Ronald Reagan, was scathing about Obasanjo's tainted re-election.

In some areas IRI found "material evidence of planned and in some cases executed ballot fraud ... direct evidence of ballot box stuffing and gross falsification of results forms."

And the US Congress felt so concerned about the October 2001attack by Nigerian troops on the village of Zaki Biam, in which hundreds of unarmed civilians were slaughtered, that earlier this year it cut military aid.

But not all aid was severed. Earlier this year the United States delivered the US Navy two recently refurbished warships. Their role? To protect oil fields in the Niger Delta from unrest.

5//DW-World.de/Deutsche-Welle 10.07.2003
http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1433_A_916929_1_A,00.html

EUROPEAN CONVENTION CONCLUDES WORK

With agreements to maintain veto rights on issues dealing with immigration, labor markets, cultural trade and foreign policy, the European Convention completed its historic work of drafting a constitution on Thursday.

After 18 months of work at the helm of the European Convention, Valéry Giscard d'Estaing became the first delegate to sign the completed draft of the European Union's first-ever constitution on Thursday.

The 105 members of the convention, representing 25 countries, have been working on the text with convention president d'Estaing and two vice-presidents for more than 16 months.

On Thursday, the president thanked his delegates and wrapped up his work. "I am proud to have been your president during this time and to have steered this ship", he told the delegates. Despite storms, frosty disputes and high waves en route, the convention had made it safely to port by producing and agreeing on a draft constitution.

In Brussels, there was a feeling of happiness and relief among delegates. "We can all be proud and thankful that we have been a part of this," said the German convention and European Parliament Member Klaus Haensch.

(SNIP)

However, there were some issues over which countries failed to find unity. In the areas of foreign and tax policy, the veto right of member states will remain in place despite pressure from Germany to place those policy areas under the control of EU qualified majority voting. Eliminating the veto would have been politically impossible for Britain

(SNIP)

Also entailed in the draft is an official motto of the EU, which will be "United in Diversity," an official EU song, which is to be Beethoven's "Ode to Joy" and an official holiday on May 9 to celebrate European unity.

However, before implementation, the draft constitution still has some hurdles to clear. The final draft won't be completed until after an Intergovernmental Conference with current EU members and the 10 accession states, which takes place in October. During the conference, governments will have another opportunity to make revisions to the draft. But on Thursday, Giscard d'Estaing pled for restraint.

"Trying to change this consensus would run the risk of dislocating the whole thing, and historians might one day say that a great opportunity was missed," he said.