The US, UN & Iraq II

How reliable are they usually, Ul? I guess it all depends on the source for the Iranian story...

No Western radio monitoring service is confirming that report so far. BBC / Caversham is no longer reporting it.

Which reminds me - which frequencies do those dangerous Trots use? Hope they're not crowding the 60 GHz to 100 GHz range <G>

Don't know the source.

But it says. "unconfirmed".
Normally the news here is not sleeping- if they don't jump on the train, it seems still to be "fishy".
What would it mean if he is really captured?

Steve, keep us informed. I'm keeping the Beeb running while I write. Nothing yet.



Point taken, tres. My screed got a bit skewed. It is always good to go back to the beginning.



I am not clamoring for peace. I hope for calm reasoned action, in league with other countries of the world. I would perfer non-violent action.

Osama Capture DeniedWorld - Reuters

Pakistan Says Bin Laden Arrest Report Baseless
16 minutes ago Add World - Reuters to My Yahoo!



ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's Interior Minister said on Wednesday reports that al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) had been arrested in the country were unfounded and baseless.

Other senior government officials also denied the report of bin Laden's arrest, which was carried on Iranian radio, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corporation.


"This is absolutely unfounded and absolutely baseless," Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat told Reuters.


In Washington, the U.S. government said it had no information to substantiate an Iranian Radio report about bin Laden.


"We have no information to substantiate that claim," said a spokesman for the U.S. administration, whose view was echoed by two other U.S. officials.


"There is nothing to substantiate this rumor," another U.S. official said of the report.


Iranian Radio, monitored by the British Broadcasting Corp., reported bin Laden was being held by Pakistani Inter-Intelligence Services and that U.S. troops were present.


http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=index2&cid=716

Kara

Please take note of the Washington Post article---naming the organizers of the demonstrations----do you really want to lend yourself to the World Labor Party?

Denied by CIA - prolly true then! LOL

Interesting thought, indeed, Gautam. Original too, so far as I know. Of course, the US does have a veto on the security council.

LONDON (AFX) - The Pakistani Inter-Services Intelligence is poised to give a briefing following rumours concerning a possible capture of Osama bin Laden, according to sources at the Pakistan Tribune.

The source said: "We should know in the next half hour or so... but there's no confirmation as yet."

According to the BBC's global monitoring service, unconfirmed reports from Pakistan have said bin Laden has been captured and is being held by the ISI and US troops.

Subsequent reports have cited both Pakistani authorities and the CIA as denying bin Laden has been captured.

Re: Bin Laden

I just hope they don't kill the SOB----he's far more dangerous dead than alive.

http://www.news.scotsman.com/topics.cfm?id=299882003&tid=518

"Australian intelligence expert quits over 'dumb' policy on Iraq

FOREIGN STAFF


A SENIOR intelligence adviser to the Australian prime minister, John Howard, resigned yesterday in a protest against the country’s likely involvement in a war with Iraq.

Andrew Wilkie, an analyst with the Office of National Assessments (ONA) said the Australian government’s backing of war to disarm Iraq, if necessary, was "dumb and not worth the risk".

"Going to war against Iraq, invading Iraq, is exactly the course of action most likely to cause Saddam to lash out recklessly, to use weapons of mass destruction, and maybe even play the terrorism card," he told Channel Nine television in an interview. "It’s bad policy, dumb policy, if only because all of the other options have not yet been exhausted," he said. ...."

Wow! Great.

http://abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s805389.htm

The thanes fly from him?

JUST SOME REMINDERS....! The comments of members of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee yesterday about the (to me shocking) lack of information given to them by the admin about the invasion of Iraq reminded me of 1991. Maybe if we review what led up to the first Gulf War, we'll be even more cautious about accepting the reasons we're given for the second Gulf War. Here is a useful, brief summary (with footnotes/sources) of the histories of Iraq and Kuwait from Cal State Northridge -- http://www.csun.edu/~vcmth00m/iraqkuwait.html -- from which I excerpt the following:

In mid-July, 1979, Saddam replaced Al Bakr as president of Iraq....

That same year, Zbigniew Brzezinski, President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser, proposed to Saddam Hussein that he invade Iran and annex Khuzistan, thereby providing Iraq access to the Gulf through the narrow waterway, Shatt-al Arab...

About half a million Iranians and Iraqis were killed in the Iran Iraq war, and unbeknownst to Hussein, the U.S. and Israel also secretly armed the Iranians so as to weaken both Iran and Iraq.... [Diplomatic visits from the US] paved the way for the normalization of relations between the U.S. and Iraq at a time when Saddam Hussein was using chemical weapons in his war against Iran. Iraq had been removed from the U.S. State Department's list of alleged sponsors of terrorism in 1982, and Iraq went on a buying spree to purchase weapons from U.S. and German companies. These weapons were used in 1988 for attacks against the Kurds. (see: http://commondreams.org/views02/0802-01.htm and the Democracy Now! piece at: http://www.webactive.com/pacifica/demnow/dn20021114.html)...

The war with Iran left Iraq in ruins. When Saddam Hussein launched his eight year war against Iran, Iraq had $40 billion in hard currency reserves. But by the end of the war, his nation was $80 billion in debt. Iraq was pressed to repay the $80 billion to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, with interest. While Iraq was distracted by its war, Kuwait had accumulated 900 square miles of Iraqi territory by advancing its border with Iraq northward. This was presented to Iraq as a fait accompli and it gave Kuwait access to the Rumaila oil field. The Kuwaiti Sheik had purchased the Santa Fe Drilling Corporation of Alhambra, California, for $2.3 billion [Brent Scowcroft at that time was on the board of Santa Fe Drilling] and proceeded to use its slant drilling equipment to gain access to the Iraqi oil field.

The main source of earnings for Iraq was petroleum whose price fluctuated depending on international production levels. By 1990, Kuwait, under U.S. tutelage had increased its oil production to undermine OPEC quotas thereby driving the price of Iraqi oil down from $28 per barrel to $11 per barrel and further ruining the Iraqi economy. Appeals from Iraq, Iran, Libya, and other countries to the Emirates, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Egypt to stick to OPEC production levels were met with increased naval activity in the Persian Gulf by the United States. In February 1990, Saddam Hussein spoke at the Amman summit on the relationship between oil production and the U.S. navy buildup and warned that the Gulf people and the rest of the Arabs faced subordination to American interests.

Following this speech the Western press carried stories of Saddam's missiles, chemical weapons and nuclear potential. The Israeli press speculated about pre-emptive strikes such as the Israeli attack on Iraq's nuclear power plant in 1981. In spite of Iraqi diplomatic appeals, Kuwait and the Emirates increased oil production, harming their own economic interests, but damaging Iraq's even more so. Kuwait refused to relinquish Iraqi territory it had acquired during the Iran Iraq war which Kuwait had helped finance. Kuwait also rejected production quotas and rejected appeals to cease pumping oil from Iraq's Rumaila oil reserve. It refused to forgo any of Iraq's debt.

On September 18, 1990, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry published verbatim the transcripts of meetings between Saddam Hussein and high level U.S. officials. Knight-Ridder columnist James McCartney acknowledged that the transcripts were not disputed by the U.S. State Department. U.S. Ambassador April Glaspie informed Hussein that, "We have no opinion on...conflicts like your border disagreement with Kuwait." She reiterated this position several times, and added, "Secretary of State James Baker has directed our official spokesman to emphasize this instruction." A week before Iraq's invasion of Kuwait, Baker's spokesperson, Margaret Tutwiler and Assistant Secretary of State John Kelly both stated publicly that "the United States was not obligated to come to Kuwait's aid if it were attacked." (Santa Barbara News-Press September 24, 1990 cited in [1]).

Two days before the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, Assistant Secretary of State John Kelly testified before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee that the United States has no defense treaty relationship with any Gulf country." The New York Daily News editorialized on September 29, 1990, "Small wonder Saddam concluded he could overrun Kuwait. Bush and Co. gave him no reason to believe otherwise." (quoted in [1]).

Gautam

RE: What would the UN do if Iraq requested assistance-----Most likely you and the world would then see just how irrelevant the UN really is. Where would the military force come from? The US and the Brits have always provided any UN muscle. Of course the Germans and the French are great at shouting encouragement from the sidelines.

Wow! Great.

http://abc.net.au/news/newsitems/s805389.htm

Perception, by saying this, you are insulting thousands of Indians, Turkish, French, German troops which have been providing peace keeping forces for the UN.

All I've been able to dig up on the purported Bin Laden Capture have been references to trhe original Iranian announcement, and denials from everyone else. The item is getting very little credence, and not even debkafile is carrying it as anything more than "unverified reports" ... which, for debkafile, pretty much means they don't believe it. While they often "Believe" stuff others don't, if they don't believe something, that pretty much takes all the props from under the notion. They like to "Be There First" with stories of this nature, and if they aren't pursuing it, there likely isn't much story there.



timber

U.S. stocks set to fall; bin Laden capture denied
Reuters, 03.12.03, 8:29 AM ET

http://www.forbes.com/markets/newswire/2003/03/12/rtr904454.html

Excerpt from the Aussie Intelligence aid resignation


"likely to cause Saddam to lash out recklessly, to use weapons of mass destruction, and maybe even play the terrorism card"

But according to everyone here---Saddam doesn't have WMD and he has no connection with terrorism????

Gautam - not to mention Australians, New Zealanders, people from various African nations, I believe etc...