World Media Watch for July 8, 2002

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//Foreign Policy in Focus, USA--BUSH RAISES THE STAKES IN IRAQ (The Bush administration's enthusiasm for toppling Saddam Hussein is so single-minded that American officials are failing to recognize the effect of broadcasting publicly their intent to seek "regime change." The Pentagon's joint staff, which has the enormous task of planning any military campaign against Iraq, is forced to deal with the strategic blunder inherent in the administration's policy...the Bush administration has basically discarded the stabilizing logic of deterrence.)

2//Gulf News Online, United Arab Emirates--US TO INFORM GCC STATES ON POSSIBLE IRAQ STRIKE (The United States will inform the GCC countries about any plans to attack Iraq but it will go ahead with such a strike in case regional governments refuse to be used as a launching pad for an attack General John P. Jumper, Chief of the U.S. Air Force was quoted as saying this yesterday.... The General was asked by the UAE armed forces' magazine, Air Force, what measures the U.S. forces would take in case Saudi Arabia refuses to allow them to use its territory as a base to launch a military strike against a certain country in the region..."But we possess the capability of deploying operation centres in different areas and using advanced information technology to send and receive data and information...This issue, however, is premature and I do not want to go into details now.")

3//Jane's Intelligence Digest, UK--SAUDI ARABIA AND AL-QAEDA (However, the US-led war against terrorism has taken some bizarre and troubling twists that underline how the campaign can produce some awkward complications. This is especially so when it comes to jurisdiction over suspects. Recent events also heighten the paradox that some countries long deemed key US allies - such as Saudi Arabia - are considered less than helpful in the war against terror, while other states remaining on the US State Department's blacklist of terrorist sponsors, such as Syria and Sudan, are apparently proving more co-operative than their pariah status would suggest. Concerns over the Saudi authorities' 'unhelpful' stance are increasing.)

4//The Japan Times, Japan--EDITORIAL: A TRANS-PACIFIC ECONOMIC CRISIS (Experience shows amply that a cavalier attitude on the part of government officials can only fan investor nervousness. If there is a lesson U.S. officials can learn from Tokyo, it is that failure to take drastic action to clean up the postbubble mess will spell more trouble. America's stock market plunge is a warning that the successful handling of the post-Sept. 11 crisis is in itself no assurance of a full-dress economic recovery.)

5//The Guardian, UK--THE BATTLE TO STABILIZE BOSNIA (Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, quickly made clear that he will accelerate plans to replace the UN force with a planned EU police training mission. This will be the EU's first civilian peacekeeping operation and an example of the sort of "soft" security Europe should be able to deliver as it seeks to boost its role on the world stage...(The mission is to) help bring about a more normal presence based on extensive engagement by the EU and private investment.)

6//The Moscow Times, Russia--NO EASY ANSWERS FOR REGIONAL MEDIA (Media outlets in Tuva and Nenets are under fire after they brought allegations of regional corruption to Putin's attention at a news conference last month. The head of Tuva's election commission has asked the local prosecutor's office to investigate Dina Oyun, 39, who runs the Tuva Online web site, for a question she posed at the June 24 news conference about election law violations in the remote Siberian republic. The editor of the newspaper Naryana Vynder, or Red Tundra-Dweller, in the northern Nenets autonomous district was fired last week after one of her journalists asked Putin why three local prosecutors in a row had lost their jobs after summoning Governor Vladimir Butov for questioning.)

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1//Foreign Policy in Focus-A Think Tank Without Walls
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2002/0207iraq.html

BUSH RAISES THE STAKES IN IRAQ
by Charles Knight
July 3, 2002

(Charles Knight <cknight@comw.org> is co-director of the Project on Defense Alternatives at the Commonwealth Institute in Cambridge, MA, and is a military analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus.)

The Bush administration's enthusiasm for toppling Saddam Hussein is so single-minded that American officials are failing to recognize the effect of broadcasting publicly their intent to seek "regime change." The Pentagon's joint staff, which has the enormous task of planning any military campaign against Iraq, is forced to deal with the strategic blunder inherent in the administration's policy.

The U.S. military establishment is especially concerned about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and their potential threat to U.S. forces and allies in the region. We know that stockpiles of these weapons are far fewer than the number Iraq possessed in 1991, but residual stocks remain a real worry. Although the Pentagon believes the conventional superiority of U.S. arms can easily defeat Iraq's army, military planners know that the use of chemical or biological weapons by Iraq might result in the deaths of hundreds or even thousands of American soldiers. And then there is the possibility that the Iraqis will launch missiles with chemical warheads against Tel Aviv, provoking a nuclear response by Israel.

But with its declarations of regime change and now "first strike," the Bush administration is undermining the logic of deterrence--previously used to make weapons of mass destruction unthinkable in wartime due to certain retaliation--and making the use of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction all the more likely.

(SNIP)

But the logic behind the U.S. policy declarations of regime change and first strike could inadvertently lead to the use of weapons of mass destruction by Iraq well before American troops get near Baghdad. Knowing that the United States will make a preemptive strike to degrade its stores of chemical weapons, Iraq will face the classic "use them or lose them" dilemma. And if U.S. troops invade Baghdad, we can expect a desperate moment when Saddam Hussein himself will feel that he has very little left to lose. At that point, America will have lost its power to deter.

Combine the planning for a first strike against Iraq with the stated intention of overthrowing the Iraqi regime, and the Bush administration has basically discarded the stabilizing logic of deterrence. Current U.S. declarations against Iraq, combined with President Bush's West Point speech outlining his first-strike policy, will make the use of weapons of mass destruction very likely, and even necessary, from the Iraqi perspective.

Members of the Joint Chiefs of Staff have argued strongly against a full-scale invasion of Iraq, and for now have successfully persuaded President Bush to at least postpone such action. Seasoned military leaders know that counter-proliferation and counter-terrorism strategies involving first strike military action and regime change in Iraq have a good chance of ending with a terrible, unintended irony--a war fought with weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East.

2//Gulf News Online 07-07-2002
http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/news.asp?ArticleID=56865

US TO INFORM GCC STATES ON POSSIBLE IRAQ STRIKE
Abu Dhabi |By Nadim Kawach | 07-07-2002

The United States will inform the GCC countries about any plans to attack Iraq but it will go ahead with such a strike in case regional governments refuse to be used as a launching pad for an attack. [Editor's Note: GCC countries include UAE, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman.)

General John P. Jumper, Chief of the U.S. Air Force was quoted as saying this yesterday. He was attending a recent military seminar hosted by the UAE Air Force in Abu Dhabi.

He said the U.S. troops have the capability of deployment outside the region and using other bases to attack targets inside Iraq.

The General was asked by the UAE armed forces' magazine, Air Force, what measures the U.S. forces would take in case Saudi Arabia refuses to allow them to use its territory as a base to launch a military strike against a certain country in the region.

He told the monthly magazine: "First, I do not expect anyone to go to war in this region without cooperation and coordination with the GCC countries.

"But we possess the capability of deploying operation centres in different areas and using advanced information technology to send and receive data and information.

"But of course, we do not expect to take any measures without informing and consulting the regional states. This issue, however, is premature and I do not want to go into details now."

Jumper's remarks coincided with the reports that the U.S. has drawn up a plan to launch a massive strike by air, land and sea against Iraq, which has been under United Nations sanctions since the end of the Gulf War in 1991.

In his lecture at the symposium in May, General Jumper spoke about missile capabilities of Iraq and Iran and the need for coordination between the U.S. forces and their allies.

(SNIP)

"The lecture also covered ways of containing a conflict by the coalition forces through inflicting heavy losses on the enemy by taking rapid retaliatory actions, conducting sound and coordinated planning and facing nuclear, chemical and biological threats."

It quoted the U.S. General as saying the coalition forces would also give priority to achieving undisputed air supremacy by deploying B-2 and F-22 bombers and launching direct attacks with 250-pound bombs.

"There will be a need for integrating air force operations and early warning systems in the GCC, conducting extensive air surveillance and other joint operations," he said.

The magazine also quoted General Khaled bin Abdullah Mubarak, Chief of the UAE Air Force and Air Defence, as saying the GCC states would enforce a defence agreement they signed in December 2000 in case of external aggression. He said the agreement stipulates that any aggression against a GCC state is an aggression against all GCC countries.

"We have started operating the Cooperation Belt which effectively links all the GCC air force and air defence operations. "This will enable us to track hundreds of aircraft in the GCC's air spaces from the moment they take off. This ensures us a high level of air coordination."

3//Jane's Intelligence Digest 05 July 2002
http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/jid/jid020705_1_n.shtml
(Non-Subscriber Extract)

SAUDI ARABIA AND AL-QAEDA

Arab governments, eager to prove their anti-terrorism credentials, have been scoring some notable successes against Al-Qaeda in recent weeks. However, the US-led war against terrorism has taken some bizarre and troubling twists that underline how the campaign can produce some awkward complications.

This is especially so when it comes to jurisdiction over suspects.

Recent events also heighten the paradox that some countries long deemed key US allies - such as Saudi Arabia - are considered less than helpful in the war against terror, while other states remaining on the US State Department's blacklist of terrorist sponsors, such as Syria and Sudan, are apparently proving more co-operative than their pariah status would suggest.

Concerns over the Saudi authorities' 'unhelpful' stance are increasing. On 12 June, the Saudi deputy interior minister, Prince Ahmed, announced that a group of Saudi citizens had been sentenced by an Islamic court for the June 1996 bombing of the Al Khobar Towers outside Dhahran, a terrorist attack in which 19 USAF personnel were killed. Several of those convicted had already been indicted in June 2001 by the US Justice Department, but the sudden Saudi announcement that the trial has already taken place is being seen as a direct snub to Washington. In addition, US access to these individuals is reportedly being blocked.

Next, on 18 June, the Saudi authorities announced that they had rounded up seven suspects: six Saudis and a Sudanese citizen extradited from Khartoum, who allegedly had been planning missile attacks on US aircraft in the Kingdom. However, the Saudis then stated that US investigators would not be given access to any of the detainees and that they would stand trial in Saudi Arabia.

In contrast to Saudi Arabia, Syria - which figures on the expanded US list of 'Axis of Evil' states - has been actively assisting in the tracking down of alleged terrorists. The US authorities disclosed on 17 June that the Syrian authorities have detained, apparently at US instigation, an alleged senior Al-Qaeda operative, a 41-year old Syrian-born naturalised German named Mohammed Haydar Zammar. According to US officials, Zammar is suspected of recruiting Mohammed Atta and some of the other 11 September hijackers.

Meanwhile, US Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs William Burns said on 18 June that the traditionally secretive Syrian government had provided intelligence on Al-Qaeda "in their own self-interest" which had "saved American lives". Burns' guarded praise did little to head off mounting criticism of Syria in the US Congress. Damascus is being criticised for harbouring radical Palestinian groups that have been added recently to US and European terrorist lists. Nonetheless, Burns' disclosure does highlight the politically awkward accommodations that Washington has to make as the aims of the war against terrorism widen.

On 10 June, Moroccan authorities disclosed that three Saudis had been arrested in Casablanca in a joint Moroccan-CIA operation in early May while plotting to ram explosives-filled speedboats into US and British warships in the Strait of Gibraltar. Three weeks later, another Saudi, Zuhair Hilal Mohammed Tabati, known as 'The Bear' because of his hefty build, was arrested. He is considered to be among the top 25 Al-Qaeda leaders who ran training camps in Afghanistan.

Further evidence of Al-Qaeda's Saudi links came on 13 June when the Sudanese authorities revealed they had arrested a suspected Al-Qaeda cell leader who had confessed he had fired an SA-7 missile at a US plane taking off from Prince Sultan Air Base, 80km south of Riyadh, in May. He was seized at Riyadh's request after he returned to Sudan from Saudi Arabia.

While that confession cleared up the mystery of a scorched launcher found about 3 km from the airbase's main runway in May, it did little to convince Washington that the Saudi authorities were either willing or able to tackle Al-Qaeda cells US intelligence suspects are still operating within Saudi Arabia. However, in contrast, Khartoum is being praised for its co-operation in an operation which US officials disclosed had been going on for 18 months.

(MORE BY SUBSCRIPTION)

4//The Japan Times Monday, July 8, 2002
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/geted.pl5?ed20020708a1.htm

EDITORIAL: A TRANS-PACIFIC ECONOMIC CRISIS

The economies of the United States and Japan are treading the recovery path; there is no need to worry, as there once was, about a free fall. This sanguine outlook for the world's two largest economies is now clouded increasingly by falling U.S. stock prices. What's worrying is an apparent shift in investor behavior, with dire implications for international capital flows.

The rout on Wall Street, which stems in part from high-profile corporate scandals, highlights the potential vulnerability of an economy hooked on a stock market boom. Japan's problem is a glut of money created by years of rock-bottom interest rates. In the absence of real demand, that surplus money appears to be going nowhere. Investors are losing confidence, unsure of where to put their money.

America's Achilles' heel is well known: its gargantuan appetite for consumption that is creating enormous deficits in the balance of international payments. The result is a chronic shortage of money. To keep the stock market going, a lot of money must be attracted from around the world. If the flow is disrupted, the economy will suffer. The current-account deficit, at $400 billion a year, is reaching disturbing proportions. America is living on debt, paying far more money than it earns offshore. Now, however, the fund influx is dwindling. In the first quarter of this year, inward portfolio investment dropped by 40 percent, or $93 billion, from a year earlier. Foreign investors are fleeing the U.S. market.

(SNIP)

It is also possible that weakness in the stock market might take the steam out of consumer spending and business investment, key engines of growth. What's more, the federal budget deficit is growing rapidly as a result of the tax cuts and spending measures announced by President George W. Bush's administration after Sept. 11. Now the nightmare of "twin deficits" -- trade and budget deficits -- is back.

America's grim economic prospects are casting a shadow over Japan's economic future as well. The present sense of buoyancy, confirmed by the latest Bank of Japan "tankan" survey of business sentiment, is supported chiefly by expectations that exports to the U.S. will continue to expand. With the U.S. market on the skids, this export-led recovery scenario will likely go awry.

In this kind of situation, Japan's surplus money appears to be losing outlets. Holding government bonds may not be as safe as it has been, given the successive credit downgrades by international rating agencies. Banks, still burdened with large amounts of bad loans, are loath to reverse their careful lending policies. Thus the credit crunch continues even as easy money piles up.

During the past decade and before, Japan's superfluous funds flowed into the U.S. stock market, playing a part in pushing the Dow Jones index above the 10,000-point mark. There was a stock bubble in the brewing, but many market players were taking it in stride. At the end of the 1980s, Japan's stock market was also going over the top, but few people cared, believing the boom would continue forever.

The retreat on Wall Street is a serious concern not only to the U.S. but to Japan and other nations as well. But policymakers on both sides of the Pacific appear to lack a sense of crisis. Apparently they believe that the decline of confidence in the stock market and its impact on the real economy are temporary and limited.

Experience shows amply that a cavalier attitude on the part of government officials can only fan investor nervousness. If there is a lesson U.S. officials can learn from Tokyo, it is that failure to take drastic action to clean up the postbubble mess will spell more trouble. America's stock market plunge is a warning that the successful handling of the post-Sept. 11 crisis is in itself no assurance of a full-dress economic recovery.

5//The Guardian Friday, July 5, 2002
http://www.guardian.co.uk/elsewhere/journalist/story/0,7792,750133,00.html

THE BATTLE TO STABILIZE BOSNIA

The UN police mission in Bosnia may have been extended, but the US demand that its peacekeepers have immunity from the ICC may prolong the crisis in the area, says Ian Black

Europe breathed a sigh of relief this week after a highwire diplomatic drama in New York ended in a short extension of the life of the United Nations police mission in Bosnia.

But the crisis triggered by America's decision to demand that its peacekeepers be given immunity from prosecution by the new international criminal court may be far from over.

Condemnation from the EU, including a Britain normally reticent about open confrontation with the US, was unusually loud. Denmark, which has just taken over the union's rotating presidency, expressed "deep regret" at the initiative taken by hawks in Washington.

(SNIP)

Members of the European parliament were outraged. The US was behaving like a "big gorilla", protested one scandalised Green. In the Hague, the home of the fledgling court, the Dutch foreign ministry ridiculed new laws authorising President George Bush to use "all means necessary" to free Americans detained for trial by the ICC. "We're digging tank trenches and sending reinforcements to the coast," joked one diplomat.

Other European officials were equally scathing about this latest display of US unilateralism, which followed on directly from a sharp transatlantic spat over the Middle East - Mr Bush's call to dump Yasser Arafat without seeking to advance Israeli-Palestinian peace talks - as well as the ongoing row about steel tariffs.

(SNIP)

But despite insistence that Washington intends to stay put in the Balkans, there are broader worries about peacekeeping, possibly affecting the missions in Kosovo or Macedonia. "This is a question with implications that go far beyond Bosnia," said one worried Brussels official.

Yet the episode has, in a paradoxical way, underlined just how much is at stake for Europe in its own Balkan backyard. And it may even help galvanise it into action.

Javier Solana, the EU's foreign policy chief, quickly made clear that he will accelerate plans to replace the UN force with a planned EU police training mission. This will be the EU's first civilian peacekeeping operation and an example of the sort of "soft" security Europe should be able to deliver as it seeks to boost its role on the world stage.

(SNIP)

Mr Solana, a canny operator on often treacherous terrain, is turning a crisis into an opportunity by signalling that he will exploit America's manoeuvre to expose the inadequacies of the under-financed common foreign policy it is his job to oversee.

And he has a powerful new ally in the shape of Paddy Ashdown, the former British Liberal Democrat leader and now the international community's "high representative" - a title he wittily describes as "Gilbert and Sullivan" - for the country.

Ashdown was careful not to attack the US, sagely pointing out that Bosnia had become "a target of opportunity in a larger battle". But he was more direct about what was at stake as he saw it from his Sarajevo headquarters.

(SNIP)

Backed by an EU committed to spending a whopping 4.6bn euros in the Balkans over a six-year period, Mr Ashdown describes his mission as steering Bosnia away from the peace-building process of the immediate postwar years, with its Nato military force, and help bring about a more normal presence based on extensive engagement by the EU and private investment.

"In a few years' time there will be no more need for soldiers and international bureaucrats like me," he wrote. "Instead, I hope Sarajevo will be full of bankers and businessmen.

"It's an important moment for Europe - showing that we have the will and the ability to move in this area," Mr Ashdown said. Let's just hope he is right.

6//The Moscow Times Monday, Jul. 8, 2002. Page 1
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2002/07/08/002.html

NO EASY ANSWERS FOR REGIONAL MEDIA
By Valeria Korchagina, Staff Writer

A reporter may want to think twice the next time he gets the chance to ask President Vladimir Putin a question.

Media outlets in Tuva and Nenets are under fire after they brought allegations of regional corruption to Putin's attention at a news conference last month.

The head of Tuva's election commission has asked the local prosecutor's office to investigate Dina Oyun, 39, who runs the Tuva Online web site, for a question she posed at the June 24 news conference about election law violations in the remote Siberian republic.

The editor of the newspaper Naryana Vynder, or Red Tundra-Dweller, in the northern Nenets autonomous district was fired last week after one of her journalists asked Putin why three local prosecutors in a row had lost their jobs after summoning Governor Vladimir Butov for questioning.

Nenets law enforcement agencies have opened a criminal investigation into the editor's alleged financial mismanagement of the newspaper, Interfax reported Sunday. Deputy Press Minister Mikhail Seslavinsky on Friday called the actions in Tuva and Nenets "disgraceful," Interfax reported. He said the "administrative drive" to deal with journalists by calling in prosecutors was out of line, RIA Novosti reported.

Oyun of Tuva Online asked Putin at the news conference what he thought should be done to prevent voting fraud and restore people's trust in the electoral process. She told the president that recent elections in Tuva "have been conducted with an unprecedented number of violations of election law." Oyun, who is currently studying in Moscow, said by telephone Friday that one of the most common election violations in Tuva is distributing alcohol in exchange for votes. This spring, seeds and agricultural equipment were given out for votes, she said.

Putin promised Oyun that he would bring up the issue of election fraud with Central Elections Commission head Alexander Veshnyakov. Back in Tuva, however, the local authorities were not quite so receptive to the allegations. On June 27, the local government-backed Tuvinskaya Pravda newspaper ran an editorial that accused Oyun of "driving a wedge between federal and regional authorities" and "causing the republic colossal damage." At about the same time, local election commission head Sholban Mongush filed an appeal with the prosecutor's office to investigate the matter further and either prove Oyun's fraud allegations or bring charges against her.

(SNIP)

Oyun said she is ready to defend her allegations. "I am actually very pleased and surprised," she said Friday. "All day today, I have been getting phone calls and e-mails of support and people offering help with gathering evidence of election fraud."

Oyun also said she was excited to talk to Putin. "It looked like he really was after the truth at this news conference," she said. "All I wanted to do was to give him that truth."

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© 2002, Gloria R. Lalumia
insight@zianet.com

"When there was joy..." a bittersweet picture/remembrance of the good times...at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical

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