Colin Rowat: on the economics of making a democracy in Iraq Daryl Kimball: on the administration quietly stepping back from confrontation with North Korea Richard Kaufman: on missile defense, the trillion dollar white elephant Ahmed Faruqui: on the dangers of ignoring the still tense situation in Kashmir THE GLOBAL BEAT'S INTERACTIVE REPORTS Why We Are Hated,Nuclear Bunker busters AND Post-Moscow Disarmament

New York University

David Isenberg's critique of Homeland Security and recommendations for improvements
[click on image to go to the executive summary]

THE SEARCH FOR A NUCLEAR WEAPON FOR LIMITED CONFLICTS
Mark Bromley and David Grahame report on the Pentagon's search for a nuclear "bunker buster"

THE FUTURE OF NUCLEAR ARMS CONTROL

Rose Gottmoeller:
an interactive assessment of nuclear disarmament after the Moscow Summit,

GETTING SADDAM TO LEAVE QUIETLY
In the last few weeks the Pentagon has done everything possible to intimidate Saddam into stepping down, or, failing that, to encourage a coup. Now, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice are openly suggesting that the easiest way out is for Saddam to go into exile, thus sparing the United States and the rest of the world a particularly messy war. If that sounds like wishful thinking, it probably is. What really makes Middle Eastern countries nervous is the suggestion that the U.S. is simply stirring the pot in the hopes of unleashing an internal power struggle without any clear notion of who is likely to be the winner, or guarantee that the next dictator will be any better than Saddam. In a region that controls much of the world’s energy, it is a high-risk gamble.
For a discussion with Robin Wright, retired Egyptian diplomat Mohammed Wahby, and Judith Yaphe, who specialized in the Middle East for 20 years at the CIA, (Jim Lehrer's News Hour,January 20, 2003), For the News Hour, click here.
Read the Washington Post's report
Read the report in the New York Times
Saudi intelligence chief, Prince Nawaf, denies that the Kingdom has been trying to trigger a coup in Baghdad.(Arab News, January 20, 2003)
The TIME.com story which sparked the Saudi denial
(TIME January 16, 2003)
Rumsfeld fences with Pentagon reporters over fine points concerning Washington's strategy. (Pentagon, January 15, 2003)

LETTER FROM IRAQ: WAITING FOR AMERICA AND HOPING NOT TO WRITTEN OFF AS COLLATERAL DAMAGE
Elizabeth Roberts reports for the Nation from Baghdad. Sometimes it is easy to forget who is really being targeted by a national strategy. Writes Roberts: "Amal, an educated middle-class woman, lives near a bridge over the Tigris River. Her house was hit by a bomb in 1991. I asked if she had a bomb shelter. "No, bomb shelters are no good--we will just sit together in a room so if something happens we will all go together." Her daughter reminds me of the Aamayria air-raid shelter in Baghdad, which was hit by a US missile in the Gulf War, killing 415 mothers and young children. Now there is the general suspicion that the United States will deliberately target bomb shelters, so few people plan to use them. .."
(By Elizabeth Roberts in The Nation, January 16, 2003)

THOSE IRAQI CHEMICAL ROCKETS
11 of the 12 122-mm rockets discovered 90 miles south of Baghdad were empty. The twelfth required additional evaluation. The rockets were similar to those imported during the 1980s for use against Iran at a time when the U.S. was helping to organize the Iraqi offensive. The indication that the rockets were intended for chemical use was a plastic liner. Washington’s response, so far, is cautious.
By Dr. Michael Donovan, CDI Research analyst,
(Center for Defense Information, January 17, 2003)

SADDAM’S NEXT SECRET WEAPON, AN ARMY OF CHILDREN
The Nazis had their Hitler Jugend. Saddam has the "Ashbal Saddam "(Saddam Lion Cubs), composed of boys from 10 to 15 years old, and formed after Desert Storm to provide a new line of defense. At least 8,000 are believed to be operating in Baghdad, and if U.S. troops invade, they could provide an emotionally troubling adversary.
(By Peter Singer, the Brookings Institution, January 14, 2003)

WHERE DOES RUSSIA COME IN, POST-SADDAM?
Writing in Rossiiskaya Gazeta, Professor Georgy Mirsky notes that "Saddam's dictatorship will leave behind it a scorched social zone with demoralized, frightened and befuddled people…Economically, Russia is an old, experienced and tested partner of Iraq that knows - much better than the Americans do - the local specifics, the troubles and requirements of the country..."
By Georgy Mirsky in Rossiikaya Gazeta, January 2003
(CDI, January 2003)

STOPPING THE SPREAD OF BIOLOGICAL WEAPONS
The U.S. Cooperative Threat Reduction Program has spent $1 billion a year over the last ten years to denuclearize Kazakhstan, Belarus and the Ukraine, and it has dismantled some 6,000 nuclear weapons. But at least 20,000 warheads are still stockpiled at 123 sites, and 40,000 tons of chemical warfare weapons are left. The collapse of the Soviet Union has created surplus of cheap supplies, and the new vogue for terrorism is fast creating a market. The Center for International and Strategic Studies has just published a 4-volume "action agenda" for countering the threat. (Available on-line as pdf files).
By Robert Einhorn and Michele Flournoy (CSIS January 2003)

THE CIA REPORTS TO CONGRESS ON WHO IS GOING AFTER WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION
The list of countries trying to obtain weapons of mass destruction includes the usual suspects-Iran, Iraq, Syria, Libya, North Korea and Sudan. But it also includes more moderate players: India and Pakistan. The CIA’s list deals with activity in 2001, but it still makes fascinating reading—especially the observation that since 9/11, some 30 international terrorist organizations have expressed interest in obtaining chemical, biological or nuclear weapons. Another observation: as the unmanned "Predator" drones have demonstrated that they can be effective assassination tools, the terrorists may also be exploring the usefulness of pilotless aircraft to carry out attacks by remote control.
(From the Federation of American Scientists and the CIA, January 2003)

OSAMA REDEFINES THE POST COLD WAR WORLD—AT LEAST FOR THE MOMENT
Osama Bin laden has already won at least one crucial battle: he has tipped the balance in favor domination rather than conciliation. Thanks largely to Bin Laden, U.S. national security is now based on raw military power rather than international cooperation. That promises a bleak future for America. Writing in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Michael Krepon points out that it is ultimately impossible to create a new international order reflecting American values as long as Washington insists on trashing international treaties. At the same time, the "conciliators" are doomed unless they can produce new policy alternatives that the public finds credible in a post 9/11 world.
(Michael Krepon in Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, January-February 2003)

HOW MUCH DID THE CIA KNOW ABOUT NORTH KOREA AND WHEN?
Seymour Hersh, writing in the New Yorker, notes that the CIA warned President Bush about North Korea last June—not only that, but the CIA national intelligence estimate explicitly warned that the North Koreans were receiving sensitive information about nuclear technology from Pakistan—the administration’s key ally in the war against terror. Administration aides kept the warnings quiet throughout most of the summer and fall. They were afraid that it might distract from plans to go after Iraq. Despite the calm response from the White House, sources predict that North Korea can expect to be next on the administration’s hit list, once Iraq is out of the way.
(By Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker, January 20, 2003)

RUSSIA WAS THE KEY TO TRACKING NORTH KOREA’S NUCLEAR WEAPONS
Nuclear monitoring intended to track N. Korean nuclear activity was built in America, it took Russian agents to install it in Pyonyang. In a remarkable example of post-cold war collaboration, the CIA trained the Russians to use the equipment and then shared the data.
(The New York Times, January 20, 2003)

BROOKINGS DEBATES THE NORTH KOREAN CRISIS THAT ISN’T A CRISIS
A panel discussion attempts to clarify the situation
(Brookings Institution, January 2003)

WHAT ARE BUSH’S REAL OBJECTIVES?
Michael Klare points out in Foreign Policy in Focus that few of Washington’s reasons for attacking Iraq hold up under close scrutiny. The real goal seems to be to insure American supremacy by guaranteeing its own access to oil. If not every American gets the picture, most of the rest of the world does. If we continue on the present trend, Klare advises against future travel abroad unless one is accompanied by a phalanx of bodyguards. The other drawback, Klare notes is the conversion of the U.S. from a democratic republic to an empire. "Empires tend to require the militarization of society," Klare warns," and that will entail putting more people into uniform, one way or another. It will also mean increased spending on war, and reduced spending on education and other domestic needs. It will entail more secrecy and intrusion into our private lives. All of this has to be entered into the equation. And if you ask me, empire is not worth the price."
(Michael Klare in Foreign Policy in Focus, January 16, 2003)

LEARNING FROM ANIMALS ABOUT URBAN WARFARE DECEPTION
Military technology has taken a number of cues from the animal kingdom: radar and sonar from bats, heat-seeking missile sensors from rattlesnakes, camouflage from just about everything. RAND now suggests that military strategists can also learn from the way animals perceive their environment. If adaptation is a key element in defense, preventing adaptation on the part of one’s enemy may be a high priority for the predator, or in urban warfare, for a light infantry brigade. Rand’s intriguing study on the subject is available on-line.
(RAND, January 2003)

ANTI-AMERICANISM IS BACK IN STYLE
Boston University professors Margaret and Melvin DeFleur have updated their study of attitudes about America in different countries of the world. Click here to see the an interactive guide.

Click here for the full report as a pdf file

QADDAFI WANTS TO PROJECT A NEW IMAGE
Libyan strongman Muamar Qaddafi and Ronald Reagan had an almost symbiotic relationship in the 1980s. Reagan puffed Qaddafi up as the "Mad Dog of the Middle East" until the Libyan dictator became a suitably impressive strawman who was easier to take a swipe at than more serious terrorist factions operating out of Syria, Lebanon and Iran. If Reagan found Qaddafi useful, Qaddafi also relished Reagan’s attacks. The attention allowed him to play the role of a third world David against America’s Goliath. With Reagan out of office, Qaddafi disappeared from the radar screen, but as Scott Anderson writes in the New York Times Magazine, the Leader from the great Libyan Desert is now anxious to reinvent himself, if anyone is prepared to listen.
(By Scott Anderson in the New York Times Magazine, January 19, 2003) click here

RAPE KAZAK-STYLE
Kazakh journalist Sergei Duvanov thought he had scored a major scoop when he reported that Kazakhstan’s wily president, Nursultan Nazarbayev and other Kazak officials had secretly deposited massive foreign oil company payments in foreign bank accounts. For his enterprise, authorities maintained that Duvanov was guilty of "insulting the honor and dignity of the president." The charges had already appeared elsewhere, and in fact they had become the subject of a grand jury investigation in the U.S. But in Kazakhstan, certain topics are not discussed in the media, even if they are true. The authorities felt that Duvanov should have known better than to try to write about them for publication. An unrepentant Duvanov was due leave for the United States to report on human rights in Kazakhstan at a conference in Washington on December 29. A day before his departure, police arrested him for allegedly raping a 14-year old girl. Duvanov says that the girl and her girlfriend visited his house with her parents, who used the sauna in the house and then left. The girls, who were helping to clean up the house, served Duvanov a cup of tea which tasted strange. Duvanov lost consciousness. When he awoke, he was in a police station. One of the girls claimed that she had been raped. In keeping with local tradition, Kazak authorities have refused to let reporters cover the trial.
For the account by the Institute for War & Peace Reporting, January 2003, click here

Eurasia Net filed an earlier report on thecase.
Duvanov’s American lawyer points out inconsistencies, including reports that authorities apparently knew about the alleged rape before it was supposed to have taken place.
(EurasiaNet October 29, 2002
click here

And EurasiaNet also reports on the original scandal in which U.S. oil companies under investigation for possible bribery.
EurasiaNet, March 26, 2002
click here

Seymour Hersh originally reported the oil deals in the New Yorker (New Yorker, July 9, 2001)
click here

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