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| August 18, 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. * * * 1//The Scotsman, Scotland--HUTTON MUDBATH (This should have been a very good week for the government as it continues the propaganda battle to persuade the country that it was right to go to war in Iraq. Ministers could have pointed to the revelation that a high-ranking al-Qaeda terrorist captured by US forces had disclosed that Iraq supplied the Islamic militant group with material to build chemical and biological weapons. They could have focused the debate on an anticipated report from the joint British/US Iraq Survey Group, which is expected to reveal fresh evidence that Saddam Hussein concealed large quantities of biological weapons...The government in particular will be hoping that the public tires of the Hutton inquiry as is stretches into its second and third weeks and beyond, but the starry cast list makes this unlikely. This week's highlight will surely be Campbell's appearance on Tuesday, and thereafter Hoon and the Prime Minister will give evidence. Whatever ennui sets in before he appears, Blair's attendance will take interest to fever pitch, and his very future as PM will hang on how successful he is at handling the questioning.) 2//The Turkish Daily News, Turkey--KURDS SAY ANTI-US EXTREMISTS
MOVING INTO IRAQ FROM IRAN (More than 1,000 al Qaeda operatives including
Arabs and Afghans as well as other Middle Eastern radicals have slipped
into Iraq through the rugged mountains bordering Iran in recent months
adding to the terrorist threat against U.S. forces, diplomatic sources
told the Turkish Daily News on Friday. The extremists have reportedly
traveled from Afghanistan to Iraq via Iran...The extremists reportedly
travel to the pro-Saddam areas of Iraq where American soldiers are
coming under daily attacks. The diplomatic sources said it was not
certain why the Iranians had turned a blind eye to the extremists
transiting their country.) 4//Arab News, Saudi Arabia--SCHOLARS BACK GOVT CRACKDOWN (The Kingdom's highest Islamic authority yesterday denounced terror attacks in the Kingdom, describing them as "serious criminal acts," and pledged its full support for the government...The 17-member council, headed by Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, declared its support for the actions being taken by the state to track down terrorists in an effort to shield the country from their actions...Meanwhile, Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, held telephone talks with US President George W. Bush on bilateral efforts to starve terrorists of funds and other efforts to battle extremism, the White House said.) 5//DW-World.de/Deutsche-Welle, Germany--AID ORGANIZATIONS CRITICIZE GERMANY'S AFGHANISTAN PLANS ("It's been our experience that the American reconstruction teams working in Afghanistan have all too often aroused the mistrust of the population and have found themselves caught in the midst of internal conflicts because they do not separate military and humanitarian tasks," Hochwald explains...The German government, of course, sees the situation differently. It wants to send the soldiers into the northern city of Kunduz, which is considered relatively safe. Bernd Baucks views such a position as an obvious contradiction of the military's priorities. That the government selects a place of deployment based on the extent to which it has already been secured goes against what the soldiers are in the country to do, namely stop the fighting in the first place.) * * * 1//The
Scotsman Sun 17 Aug 2003 HUTTON MUDBATH This should have been a very good week for the government as it continues the propaganda battle to persuade the country that it was right to go to war in Iraq. Ministers could have pointed to the revelation that a high-ranking al-Qaeda terrorist captured by US forces had disclosed that Iraq supplied the Islamic militant group with material to build chemical and biological weapons. They could have focused the debate on an anticipated report from the joint British/US Iraq Survey Group, which is expected to reveal fresh evidence that Saddam Hussein concealed large quantities of biological weapons. They could have quoted Paul Leventhal, founding president of the Nuclear Control Institute in Washington, who said: "Iraq could have had and still may have a small, well-concealed facility for rapidly assembling nuclear weapons with stolen fissile material." With 30 Russian jet fighters found buried in the Iraqi desert, they could have speculated on what other, more horrific, weapons might yet be discovered hidden in the sand. All these developments would have gone some way towards helping prove that the war against Saddam was not only morally right, but was also a pressing necessity because of his ability to acquire and deploy weapons of mass destruction (WMD). But, of course, the post-war debate covered none of these topics this week. Instead, attention has focused on what is essentially an inquest into the suicide of one man, Dr David Kelly, the scientist who briefed two journalists on the case the government built for the war - including the two "dodgy dossiers" - and then took his own life when his involvement became a stick with which to beat Tony Blair's executive and the cause of an unprecedented row between the government and the BBC. And it is little wonder that the Hutton inquiry has dominated the political headlines, as each day's evidence dragged a new character's reputation through the mud: (SNIP) It has been a week, in short, which has done nothing to enhance the image of any of the principal characters engaged in this particular drama. "A plague on all your houses" seems the most appropriate verdict so far. (SNIP) The government in particular will be hoping that the public tires of the Hutton inquiry as is stretches into its second and third weeks and beyond, but the starry cast list makes this unlikely. This week's highlight will surely be Campbell's appearance on Tuesday, and thereafter Hoon and the Prime Minister will give evidence. Whatever ennui sets in before he appears, Blair's attendance will take interest to fever pitch, and his very future as PM will hang on how successful he is at handling the questioning. It's one thing to swat aside Iain Duncan Smith in the Commons, but quite another to better a determined QC with his client's best interests at heart. Blair has been rattled before on this issue, especially when stunned into silence at a press conference last month by the question, "Do you have blood on your hands?" Whatever pressure they come under, Blair and Campbell will have only themselves to blame. The suspicion remains that the government itself generated the row with the BBC to deflect attention from the wider WMD questions. It must have seemed a good wheeze at the time and they could never have guessed it would lead to Kelly's suicide. However, their response to a radio report which would have been forgotten within days was, in military terms, to unleash disproportionate force. The end result for Hoon and Campbell - and possibly Blair - plus Gilligan and others at the BBC may be Mutually Assured Destruction.
KURDS SAY ANTI-US EXTREMISTS MOVING INTO IRAQ FROM IRAN Ilnur Cevik The extremists have reportedly traveled from Afghanistan to Iraq via Iran. The TDN was told dozens of such extremists have been taken into custody by the forces of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) in recent weeks but still hundreds have managed to slip into Iraq through the mountain passes that have been used by Turkey's separatist Kurdish terrorists to slip in and out of northern Iraq via Iran. The extremists reportedly travel to the pro-Saddam areas of Iraq where American soldiers are coming under daily attacks. The diplomatic sources said it was not certain why the Iranians had turned a blind eye to the extremists transiting their country. Meanwhile, the TDN also learnt that new militants from the extremist Islamic group Islamic Ansar have also slipped into northern Iraq into areas controlled by PUK to assassinate high level party officials led by Jalal Talabani, the president of PUK. (MORE)
'6 AIRLINES TO FLY TO BASRA AIRPORT WITHING 3 WEEKS' KUWAIT CITY (AFP) - Iraq's second international airport in Basra will reopen within three weeks and be serviced by six airlines, a spokesman for British troops occupying the southern port city said here Saturday. "We have not got a confirmed date, but it is due to be opened in the next two to three weeks," Captain Hisham Halawi told a news conference. Six airlines will operate flights to the airport, he said, listing them as Emirates, Gulf Air, Qatar Airways, Royal Jordanian, LOT Polish Airlines and Scandinavian airline SAS. The reopening of both Basra and Iraq's main international airport in Baghdad has been repeatedly postponed amid continuing use of their runways and other facilities by the British and US armies that overthrew Saddam Hussein in April. Baghdad airport in particular has seen continuing attempted attacks on aircraft, prompting a British official to announce last month that Basra airport would be the first to open. Halawi said last weekend's riots in Basra over fuel and power shortages had been instigated by a minority, adding that coalition efforts to rebuild southern Iraq were being hampered by sabotage. But the British spokesman stressed that calm had been restored in the city, adding that coalition forces had recruited 3,400 Iraqi policemen in Basra, and 9,000 policemen in the south as a whole. (MORE)
SCHOLARS BACK GOVT CRACKDOWN RIYADH, 17August 2003 - The Kingdom's highest Islamic authority yesterday denounced terror attacks in the Kingdom, describing them as "serious criminal acts," and pledged its full support for the government. "Acts of sabotage such as bombings, murder and destruction of property are serious criminal acts and an aggression against innocent people... which warrant severe and deterrent punishment," the Council of Senior Islamic Scholars said in a statement. The 17-member council, headed by Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al-Sheikh, declared its support for the actions being taken by the state to track down terrorists in an effort to shield the country from their actions. Meanwhile, Crown Prince Abdullah, deputy premier and commander of the National Guard, held telephone talks with US President George W. Bush on bilateral efforts to starve terrorists of funds and other efforts to battle extremism, the White House said. "They talked about continued cooperation between the US and Saudi Arabia in the war on terrorism, particularly the ongoing cooperation on cracking down on terrorist financing," said spokesman Scott McClellan. "It was a good, positive conversation" that ran some 20 minutes, McClellan said. The scholars' statement followed media reports that 10 suspected
militants were arrested in the southern city of Jizan after police
raided their hideout on Friday. The statement dubbed "misguided and ignorant" those who claim that terrorism was part of jihad, or holy war. It said people who provide shelter to suspected militants were committing a "grave sin." (MORE)
AID ORGANIZATIONS CRITICIZE GERMANY'S AFGHANISTAN PLANS "We do not work hand-in-hand with the army," say Germany's non-governmental organizations in Afghanistan, CARE Deutschland and World Hunger Help. The two groups insist on drawing a distinction between the humanitarian assistance they provide and the Bundeswehr's military interests in maintaining security and tracking down Taliban and al Qaeda fighters. For this reason they are against Germany's current plans to send troops to the north Afghan town of Kunduz as protection for the civilian helpers. Although the aid organizations endorse the planned expansion of the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) into the Afghan provinces and are generally in favor of Germany sending troops to maintain security outside Kabul, they do not want to work together with the soldiers. They do not want to fall under the protection of the army, says Bernd Baucks, project coordinator for CARE. (SNIP) Maintaining neutrality is difficult task Manfred Hochwald, project director for World Hunger Help, sees the
issue similarly. Humanitarian aid must remain neutral and should
never be used for political gains, he says. "It's been our experience that the American reconstruction teams working in Afghanistan have all too often aroused the mistrust of the population and have found themselves caught in the midst of internal conflicts because they do not separate military and humanitarian tasks," Hochwald explains and adds, "We are not looking for the Taliban; we are not looking for al Qaeda fighters. We are just trying to help the people." Securing peace must come first Combining civil assistance with military goals leads to an automatic conflict of interest, the World Hunger Help director says and for this reason opposes the German government plans to send troops into the provinces to protect aid workers. The civilians would not be able to work effectively and would be at a much higher risk for attacks, says Baucks, who suggests sending international troops into regions that have not yet been pacified. Doing so would help pave the way for the aid workers to enter on their own later. The German government, of course, sees the situation differently. It wants to send the soldiers into the northern city of Kunduz, which is considered relatively safe. Bernd Baucks views such a position as an obvious contradiction of the military's priorities. That the government selects a place of deployment based on the extent to which it has already been secured goes against what the soldiers are in the country to do, namely stop the fighting in the first place. (MORE) | |||||
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