DARYL KIMBALL: Any response to Iraq must be designed to enhance non-proliferation in the rest of the world. RALPH A. COSSA: Washington sends an undiplomatic diplomat to North Korea. 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,

New York University

The Journalists' Essential Field Guide to Afghanistan
by Edward Girardet

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REPORTING ETHNICITYAND
OTHER DIVERSITY
ISSUES
by The European
Centre for War,
Peace &
The News Media
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NYU FIRST
09/11 8:48AM: Documenting America's Greatest Tragedy
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AN AGENDA INTERRUPTED? HARDLY
Hijackers used boxcutters and civilian airliners to attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11, so George W. Bush’s administration is pouring billions into missile defense. The 19 men from Al Qaeda who carried out the attacks did most of their preparation in Germany, so we attacked Afghanistan. Americans may have been shocked by 9/11, but the event did little to slow or alter Bush’s agenda. TomPaine.com takes a look at how little has really changed because of terrorism, and how much has changed because of politics.
TomPaine.com September 9, 2002

BUSH IS DIFFERENT
George Bush was as affected by 9/11 as any other American. What makes him different, observes Michael Hirsh in this month’s Foreign Affairs magazine, is that he is in a position to actually do something about it.
Foreign Affairs, September-October, 2002

A YEAR LATER: STILL UPSET, STILL ON EDGE
The latest survey by the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press indicates that New Yorkers and Washingtonians continue to suffer the aftershocks from 9/11. While New Yorkers tend to be more upset, residents of Washington are more on edge. A growing number of Americans are more concerned about tightening security at home than launching new adventures over seas. On the other hand, there is a growing reluctance to give up personal liberty to fight terrorism. The percentage who believe that the War on Terrorism going very well is less than half of what it was last October. The percentage who think it is not going well at all has more than doubled.
By the Pew Center for People and the Press, September 5, 2002.

HAVE WE REALLY CHANGED THAT MUCH?
More than we realize, suggests the latest Foreign Policy brief from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Kenneth Lay and Bernie Ebbers may have done more economic damage than Osama Bin Laden, but the vulnerability that became apparent after September 11 has helped to strip away the insulation that emotionally separated the U.S. from the rest of the world. Americans can now identify a bit more meaningfully with the angst that they used to feel was confined to places like Beirut or Sarajevo. Is the U.S. in danger? You bet, but the most immediate economic threat could be from a spasm of knee-jerk federal spending. Incredibly, no one really knows how many billions of dollars have been appropriated for the "War on Terror." At the same time, a number of actors from Russia's Putin to Pakistan's Musharref have reaped political windfalls from the aftermath of Bin Laden's attack.
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, September 2002

BROOKINGS TAKES A LOOK AT WHAT’S AHEAD FOR AN ALTERED HOMELAND
Paul Wolfowitz kicks off a day-long discussion with the transcript available on-line in pdf format. Under orders from Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz won’t discuss Iraq except to say that he agrees with his boss whose cryptic assessment of Saddam’s regime is: “It has not been playing tiddly winks. “ On Afghanistan, no end appears in sight, but things are better than they were a year ago. The most interesting intervention may have been Andy Kohut’s assessment of the Pew study on changing American attitudes.
(full transcript of a discussion with
Paul Wolfowitz,Strobe Talbott, Andrew Kohut, E.J. Dionne, Jr.,James B. Steinberg,Lael Brainard, Martin S. Indyk, Michael E. O'Hanlon, Ivo H. Daalder,Peter R. Orszag, Thomas E. Mann, Isabel V. Sawhill is available in pdf format ).
Brookings, September 5, 2002

A CONTROVERSIAL FORMER U.N. ARMS INSPECTOR SAYS IRAQ HAS NO REAL ARMS CAPABILITY AND IS NOT A THREAT TO NEIGHBORS
Scott Ritter, one of the U.N.'s most aggressive and outspoken arms inspectors during the period of UNSCOM insists that Iraq is not a threat. "The truth," says Ritter," is Iraq is not a threat to its neighbors and it is not acting in a manner which threatens anyone outside its borders. Military action against Iraq cannot be justified."
By Sameer N. Yacoub, Associated Press, September 9, 2002

See Scott Ritter's statement from Baghdad on BBC Television
(Requires free Real Audio viewer)

RETURNING TO THE OLD U.N. INSPECTION REGIME IN IRAQ IS NOT AN OPTION
Charles Duelfer should know. He effectively ran UNSCOM, the U.N. inspection commission on Iraq before the team was stripped of its knowledgeable experts and reconstituted in its current emascualted version known as UNMOVIC. Duelfer, who is now a visiting scholar at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., details why a heavy reliance on the divided Security Council and a succession of U.N. resolutions laden with diplomatic booby traps insured that the U.N. inspection teams would never fully complete their missions or achieve a lating impact on Saddam’s military structure.
By Charles Duelfer, Arms Control Today, September 2002

IRAQ'S ORDER OF BATTLE
According to the Military Balance's figures, if you include reserves, Iraq can theoretically field anywhere from 700,000 to more than a million men, 2,200 main battle tanks, 3 armored divisions, and six divisions of the Republican Guard with 8,000 to 10,000 men in each division.
(The Military Balance 2001-2002, reprinted by the Center for Defense Information)
The CSIS's Anthony Cordesman, provides a more recent update on Iraq's capabilities, but still concludes that Iraq has the most formidable fighting force in the Gulf and cannot be taken lightly.
an expanded version of Cordesman's report is available for $21.95 through CSIS website (first chapter available on-line)

THE IISS PUBLISHES ITS OWN IRAQI WMD DOSSIER
The International Institute of Strategic Studies, author of the Military Balance, believes that Saddam is developing weapons of mass destruction, but the IISS carefully avoids coming down for or against a pre-emptive attack. It is a double edged dilemma, notes the IISS: Wait and the threat will grow; strike and the threat may be used.

AFGHANISTAN: FEAR OF INVOLVEMENT
The London-based International Institute for Strategic studies argues that Washington's fear of getting bogged down in Afghanistan has led to a rigid approach that is gradually sucking the U.S. into a quagmire. More tactical agility and flexible thinking is needed to stave off a disastrous defeat for the U.S., and the IISS provides some excellent insights into the specifics.
The IISS, September 2002

THE PENTAGON'S VIEW ON AFGHANISTAN
Sure someone tried to kill the president, but Afghanistan is better off today than it was a year ago. The U.S. has no intention of expanding its commitment to the Afghan peacekeeping force, and despite the fact that the president depends on U.S. bodyguards to stay alive, Washington is looking to the Afghan government to take the lead in the future.
the Pentagon, September 5, 2002

OUTSPOKEN TO THE END
Mary Robinson had quietly let it be known that she was prepared to stay on as the U.N.'s High Commissioner for Human Rights until 2005. The U.S. maneuvered energetically to see that that wouldn't happen. One of the major career errors that offended Washington was Robinson's criticism of the Bush administration's open-ended detention of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and the denial of anything resembling due process of law, but Robinson's outspoken denunciations had angered plenty of other governments as well. Undaunted, Robinson's farewell newsconference denounced the "T-word" and added that the so-called "War on Terrorism" is now used to justify a wide ranging assortment of human rights violations. Her advice to her successor, Brazilian diplomat Sergio Vieira de Mello: "If you are popular in this post, it probably means that you are not doing your job."
By Clare Nullis, AP, September 8, 2002

WAR ON FREE SPEECH OVER THE INTERNET
It is no secret that the governments obsessed with controlling their citizens are deeply worried about the internet. Reporters Without Borders notes in a just released study that many have used the "War on Terrorism" as a pretext for instituting draconian controls that might have seemed more unacceptable before 9/11. The FBI quickly joined the pack with its Carnivore program which is designed to automate reading everyone's email. To avoid a public outcry over invasion of privacy and Jurassic Park implications of the name, the program has been given a blander, if less descriptive nom de guerre. It is now called "DCS 1000" .

RUSSIA SEES KYOTO AS POTENTIAL CASH COW
Under the terms of the Kyoto agreement, Russia had hoped to earn billions of dollars by selling its rights to pollute to the U.S. The Bush administration's decision to abandon Kyoto altogether canned that idea. A suggestion several days ago that Russia might also abandon Kyoto was seen as an open ploy for a cash inducement to get Moscow to stay on board. The irony is that Russia does relatively little to control pollution, while the U.S. has relatively tight air quality controls. The Russian windfall on the pollution scale is due mostly to the fact that the country's industry collapsed in the early 1990's when the Kyoto standards were set. It also gets credit for the oxygen pumped back into the atmosphere by its vast forests in Siberia. However, the sudden smog which hit the capital last week, reducing visibility to less than 100 yards, has many Muscovites convinced that air quality control may be an idea whose time has arrived.
Editorial in the Moscow Times, September 8, 2002

ISRAEL IS CONVINCED THAT LIBYA HAS ACCELERATED ITS EFFORTS TO BUILD AN ATOMIC BOMB
Ariel Sharon charges that Libya is moving ahead with its efforts to obtain its own atomic bomb. The Israelis suspect that Pakistan and North Korea could be helping.
Ha'aretz, September 8, 2002

ISRAEL ALREADY HAS THE BOMB
If war breaks out with Iraq, Israel is likely to be the first target for an Iraqi counterattack. In a final showdown in which there was nothing left to lose, Israel has enough bombs and missiles to trigger Armageddon not just in Iraq, but throughout the Middle east.
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientist provides a detailed breakdown of what Israel is believed to possess and how it might use it.

PAX AMERICANA?
Jonathan Schell, writing in The Nation, observes that:
“....a radically new conception of America's role in the world has been advanced by the Bush Administration. It has claimed nothing less than a right and a duty of the United States to assert military dominance--a Pax Americana--over the entire earth. Discussion along the way has been muted, but now a debate has begun. Its subject, however, has been not so much whether the United States should wage war on Iraq as whether it should wage the debate on the war, or--what is only a little bolder--whether the United States should first meet certain conditions (find allies, explain itself to Congress, win the support of the American public, make plans for Iraq's political future) and only then wage the war...” Schell points out that something bigger is taking place: “A debate about the war, if the nation decides to have one, will be in vain if it does not address the wider revolution in policy of which the war is an expression...Should the United States aim at preserving military dominance over the earth for the indefinite future? Is such dominance possible? If it is possible, do the people of the United States want it? If the attempt is made, can the United States remain a democracy? Can the United States act as military guarantor of a world that rejects and hates its protector? George Bush is thinking about it. Are we?”
By Jonathan Schell in The Nation, dated September 23, 2002

RUMSFELD'S TAKE ON THE CURRENT DANGER

“... I keep hearing people say, 'Oh, Europe's unhappy with this'or 'Somebody doesn't agree with that' or 'Some general said this'or 'Some civilian said that.'I think what's important is the substance of this discussion. ' Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld observed with a sense of exasperation during a news conference last Tuesday.
The argument Rumsfeld presented to reporters reasoned that a nuclear or biological attack could kill hundreds of thousands of Americans. With that kind of threat, it really doesn't matter if the United States has absolutely irrefutable evidence that Saddam really does have weapons of mass destruction or that he actually intends to use them. Just the possibility that he might have them is reason enough for the United States to go to war. As Rumsfeld put it in his news briefing: "... if you think about our circumstance, when the penalty for not acting is September 11th, if you will, or a Pearl Harbor, where hundreds and a few thousand people are killed, that is a very serious thing. You've made a conscious decision not to act. And the penalty with that, for those people, it's a hundred percent. It's not one thousand or two thousand, it's that person is gone. If, on the other hand, the penalty for not acting is not a conventional or a terrorist attack of that magnitude, but one of many multiples of that, it forces people to stop and have the kind of debate we're having. What ought we to be thinking about? How ought we, if at all, to be changing our behavior? How ought we to live in this new 21st century world? What does it mean that tens of thousands of human beings can be killed in a biological attack if we allow it to happen as a society? Are we comfortable with that? Is that something that we've decided that it's so disadvantageous to take an action without proof that you could go into a court of law and prove beyond a reasonable doubt that something was going to happen, that the capabilities existed for -- of absolute certain knowledge, and that the intent to use those was imminent and clear, and you don't -- you may not have the type of certain knowledge. You may want that kind of knowledge in a law enforcement case, where we're interested in protecting the rights of the accused. You may have a different conclusion if you're talking about the death of tens of thousands or hundreds of thousands of innocent men, women and children..”
Defense Link, September 3, 2002

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