White House Hawks View Iraq War as Lesson to the World
Not
By DAVID E. SANGER
WASHINGTON, April 5 — Shortly after Defense Secretary Donald H.
Rumsfeld issued a stark warning to Iran and Syria last week, declaring
that any "hostile acts" they committed on behalf of Iraq might prompt
severe consequences, one of President Bush's closest aides stepped
into the Oval Office to warn him that his unpredictable defense
secretary had just raised the specter of a broader confrontation.
Mr. Bush smiled a moment at the latest example of Mr. Rumsfeld's
brazenness, recalled the aide. Then he said one word — "Good" — and
went back to work.
It was a small but telling moment on the sidelines of the war. For a
year now, the president and many in his team have privately described
the confrontation with Saddam Hussein as something of a demonstration
conflict, an experiment in forcible disarmament. It is also the first
war conducted under a new national security strategy, which explicitly
calls for intervening before a potential enemy can strike.
Mr. Bush's aides insist they have no intention of making Iraq the
first of a series of preventive wars. Diplomacy, they argue, can
persuade North Korea to give up its nuclear weapons programs.
Intensive inspections can flush out a similar nuclear program in Iran.
Threats and incentives can prevent Syria from sponsoring terrorism or
fueling a guerrilla movement in Iraq.
Yet this week, as images of American forces closing in on Baghdad
played on television screens, some of Mr. Bush's top aides insisted
they were seeing evidence that leaders in North Korea and Iran, but
not Syria, might be getting their point.
"Iraq is not just about Iraq," a senior administration official who
played a crucial role in putting the strategy together said in an
interview last week. It was "a unique case," the official said. But in
Mr. Bush's mind, the official added, "It is of a type."
In fact, some administration officials are talking about the lessons
Mr. Bush expects the world to take from this conflict, and they are
debating about where he may decide to focus when it is over.
The president seemed to allude to those lessons in his radio address
this morning, saying his decision to oust Mr. Hussein was part of his
plan to "not sit and wait, leaving enemies free to plot another Sept.
11 — this time, perhaps, with chemical, biological or nuclear terror."
But how to turn that broad principle into policy is already emerging
as the next fault line in the administration, as well as in its
relationships with the nations it alienated on the way to the Iraq
conflict.
Some hawks inside the administration are convinced that Iraq will
serve as a cautionary example of what can happen to other states that
refuse to abandon their programs to build weapons of mass destruction,
an argument that John R. Bolton, the under secretary of state for arms
control and international security, has made several times recently.
The administration's more pragmatic wing fears that the war's lesson
will be just the opposite: that the best way to avoid American
military action is to build a fearsome arsenal quickly and make the
cost of conflict too high for Washington.
Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has been the most vocal in
insisting that Iraq is about Iraq and nothing more. "I think it's a
bit of an overstatement to say that now this one's pocketed, on to the
next place," he said as the war began.
But Mr. Powell was taken aback — not for the first time — by Mr.
Rumsfeld's comments about Iran and Syria. A senior aide said Mr.
Powell had cautioned the administration against any public talk of a
"domino effect," fearing it would further inflame Arab governments and
fuel North Korea's considerable insecurities.
"His view is that we've made enough enemies in the past five months,
and we don't need to go looking for another fight," one of his senior
advisers said.
In fact, only Mr. Rumsfeld seems willing to name potential adversaries
these days. But several senior administration officials, speaking on
the condition of anonymity, said they saw signs that some countries
were reconsidering their behavior.
Their newest is North Korea, which Gary Samore, the nonproliferation
specialist in the Clinton White House, recently called "the dog that
hasn't barked."
North Korea's diplomatic broadsides at the United States have been
toned down in recent days. No one has seen Kim Jong Il, the country's
reclusive leader, in months, and some experts say they believe he may
be staying out of sight for fear of his own personal security. So far,
at least, the country has not made good on its threat to restart a
plutonium reprocessing facility that has the capacity to to produce
fuel for a half-dozen nuclear bombs this year. American intelligence
agencies had expected him to do so by now.
"He may have simply encountered technical troubles," said one North
Korea expert in the administration. "But he may also be looking at CNN
and considering the wisdom of his next move. The fact is, We don't
know."
Another possible factor, Mr. Bush's aides say, is that China, which is
North Korea's main supplier of oil, has finally begun to deliver tough
messages to Mr. Kim's government.
Iran may also be newly cautious, the administration argues. After Mr.
Rumsfeld issued his warning on March 28 that the United States would
not tolerate the entry into Iraq of the Badr Corps — which he said was
"trained, equipped and directed by Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard"
— the incursion was apparently cut off.
Syria is a very different case. In an interview published this week in
a pro-Syrian Lebanese newspaper, Bashar al-Assad, Syria's 36-year old
president, who inherited the post from his father three years ago,
said the war only proved that Mr. Bush "wanted oil and wanted to
redraw the map of the region in accordance with the Israeli
interests." He urged Arabs to learn from Lebanon's history of
"resistance."
Stephen P. Cohen, the Middle East specialist at Institute for Middle
East Peace and Development in New York, said: "The Arabs understand
that this war is happening at two levels — on the ground in Iraq, and
then an ideological war once the ground war is over. They know how the
first one is going to turn out, and they are debating how to wage the
second."
Mr. Assad seemed to suggest in his interview that Syria would be a new
target for Mr. Bush, because it "is the heart of Arabism."
Mr. Bush's national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, not
surprisingly, describes the agenda very differently. "You don't treat
every case with the identical remedy," she said today. Even when the
problem appears the same — weapons of mass destruction that could be
passed to rogue states or terrorists — "there are lots of ways" to
accomplish the president's goals, she said
"In North Korea, we're dealing with the issue in one particular way;
with Iran, we're dealing with it in other ways," she added. But she
also noted the president's belief that there is "a positive agenda for
moving forward that could be catalyzed by Iraq."
Several of the hawks outside the administration who pressed for war
with Iraq are already moving on to the next step, and perhaps further
than the president is ready to go. R. James Woolsey, the former
director of central intelligence, said on Wednesday that Iraq was the
opening of a "fourth world war," after World War I, World War II and
the cold war, and that America's enemies included the religious rulers
in Iran, states like Syria and Islamic extremist terrorist groups.
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/04/06/international/worldspecial/06POLI.html
Martin
in article <1935c077.03040...@posting.google.com>
notnot...@hotmail.com (Not) wrote:
>Viewing the War as a Lesson to the World
>
>
>By DAVID E. SANGER
>
[snip]
Your beloved Saddam is dead and Iraq war will be soon over.
Stop crying and get over it.
If you want a cause worthy of your bleeding heart, here is
one... go and organize protests against the war in Congo!
Nearly 1,000 Massacred in Eastern DR Congo
Sun Apr 6, 4:12 PM ET
NAIROBI (Reuters) - The United Nations said on Sunday it had
been told nearly 1,000 civilians were massacred by tribal
militias with machetes and guns in northeast Democratic
Republic of Congo last week and buried in mass graves.
"The (U.N.) investigating team heard that 966 people were
massacred. They identified 20 mass graves and visited 49
seriously injured people in hospitals," U.N. mission in
Congo (MONUC) spokesman Hamadoun Toure told Reuters.
Witnesses said the massacre occurred on Thursday when
attackers descended on the town of Drodro and 14 neighboring
villages near the Ituri district's capital Bunia, some 50
miles from the border with Uganda.
Toure said MONUC investigators had talked to local priests,
tribal leaders and eyewitnesses who said the orgy of killing
lasted for three hours.
The investigators, who visited Drodro on Saturday, saw
evidence of clothing and traces of blood above the mass
graves, Toure said.
The massacre report emerged just days after Congo's warring
factions signed a long-awaited political settlement to end
several years of conflict in Africa's third biggest country.
CIVIL WAR
Congo was plunged into civil war in 1998 when Rwanda and
Uganda backed an uprising in the east to overthrow the
Kinshasa government. At one point, six foreign armies were
drawn into the war for Congo's mineral wealth, and two
million people are believed to have died, mainly from hunger
and disease.
Ugandan army spokesman Shaban Bantariza said he was aware
that "hundreds had been killed" in Drodro but was waiting
for further information from army representatives who had
gone to investigate.
Ugandan troops have remained in Ituri district at the
request of the United Nations, which feared a power and
security vacuum in the area.
Ethnic clashes in Ituri have killed thousands of people
since 1999.
Talks, organized by the Ituri Pacification Commission (IPC)
which is supported by the Congolese and Ugandan governments
and MONUC, are planned to bring peace to war-ravaged
northeastern Congo.
Hema and Lendu tribal militias signed a cease-fire agreement
in March to allow the IPC to begin its work and eventually
lead to the withdrawal of Ugandan troops from eastern Congo.
Residents of Drodro, a mainly Hema town, said Thursday's
attackers spoke a Lendu language.
Local human rights groups say up to 500,000 people have fled
their homes and 50,000 more have been killed in the past
four years, as rival rebel factions, ethnic militias and the
Ugandan army have fought for control of the gold-rich Ituri
district.
Fresh fighting was reported on Sunday between Rwanda-backed
Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD-Goma) rebels and a tribal
militia group in the eastern Congolese town of Bukavu.
RCD-Goma senior official Joseph Mudumbi told Reuters the Mai
Mai tribal militia group was loyal to a former governor of
Bukavu. The town is controlled by RCD-Goma.
A local journalist in Bukavu said later calm had returned to
the town but that the Mai Mai group was still on the
outskirts.
In the peace settlement signed last Wednesday, Congo's
government, rebel groups and opposition parties agreed to a
transitional government to rule the former Belgian colony
for up to 2-1/2 years until its first democratic elections
in four decades.
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030406/wl_nm/congo_democratic_massacre_dc_1
Martin
in article <1935c077.03040...@posting.google.com>
notnot...@hotmail.com (Not) wrote:
>Viewing the War as a Lesson to the World
>
>
>By DAVID E. SANGER
>
Conflict in Congo has killed 4.7m, charity says
Starvation and disease multiply toll from fighting
James Astill in Bukavu and Isabelle Chevallot
Tuesday April 8, 2003
The Guardian
A total of 4.7 million people have died as a direct result
of the Democratic Republic of Congo's civil war in the past
four and a half years, according to a report released today
by the International Rescue Committee, a leading aid agency.
By the IRC's methodical calculations, Congo's convoluted war
- one barely mentioned in the western media - has claimed
far more lives than any other conflict since the second
world war.
"This is the worst calamity in Africa this century, and one
which the world has consistently found reasons to overlook,"
David Johnson, the director of IRC's operations in eastern
Congo, said yesterday.
"Over the past three years our figures have been consistent
and clear. Congo's war is the tragedy of modern times."
With a margin for error of 1.6m - a standard proportion is
applied to areas too dangerous for researchers to reach -
IRC admits its estimate is approximate. Yet few aid workers
in eastern Congo doubt that a total death toll of 4.7m is
possible.
"With an almost complete lack of medical care, as well as
food insecurity and violence over a vast area, this number
does not seem exaggerated," said Noel Tsekouras, the UN
humanitarian coordinator for eastern Congo.
"Even the fact that we are wondering how many millions have
died is mindboggling."
Only about 10% of the war's victims have died violently,
according to IRC: the majority succumbed to starvation or
disease as a multitude of armed groups sprang up and
marauded their way through the villages and fields after
Rwanda's invasion in 1998 drew seven other national armies
into the conflict on Congolese soil.
For the past three weeks in eastern Congo, from
Ugandan-occupied Bunia in the north to Rwandan-controlled
Bukavu, via half-a-dozen warlords' fiefdoms in between, the
Guardian has followed a trail of devastation. The scenes of
destruction- the torched huts and weed-choked fields - are
as ubiquitous as the country's green hills.
In recent fighting around Uvira between the Rwandan-backed
Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD) and traditional
Mayi-Mayi militias local rights groups documented 5,000
cases of rape.
Last week 966 villagers were massacred outside Bunia, in
north-eastern Ituri province, according to UN observers, in
an inter-ethnic war stirred by Uganda's policy of divide and
rule.
Isabelle and Bernita, two emaciated women who have each lost
a leg, lie side-by-side in Bunia hospital. Their respective
tribes, the Hema and the Lendu, are trying to wipe one
another out.
Last year Uganda - in search of a reliable proxy - armed a
Hema militia. The militiamen went on to massacre about
10,000 Lendus in revenge for atrocities carried out by the
formerly Ugandan-armed Lendu militia. Then they switched
loyalties to Uganda's enemy, Rwanda.
Isabelle and Benita lost their legs to mines sent by Rwanda
and intended for Ugandan soldiers.
"I was coming home from the fields," whispers Isabelle, a
47-year-old mother of seven. "There was a bomb in the
ground."
"Everyone wants peace - even the Lendus - but only God knows
if it will ever come," she says, her voice quavering with
pain. "Life will be difficult for a cripple."
Peace looks unlikely now. Last month Uganda scattered the
Hema militiamen, and reoccupied Bunia and a dozen outlying
airstrips. And now the Lendus are taking their revenge: a
fact made plain by the massacre of 966 Hemas last week.
Another of their victims, Ruhigwa Likoka, 32, was the only
man of his Hema community left on a pale green hill outside
Bunia last month.
He and his neighbours had fled a Lendu attack hours before.
Now, he was back to bury his four children beside the
smoking ashes of his home.
They were too young to run, he explained, pouring earth and
ashes on to their bodies.The militiamen had made them round
up his eighty cattle, then macheted them when the job was
done.
Further south, in Kivu province, there is better news. Since
Rwanda substantially withdrew from Congo in October, the
killing has tailed off, according to IRC. The reason is that
the RCD, Rwanda's main proxy group, promptly lost ground to
the Mayi-Mayi, who have generally preyed less on civilians.
Balia Hamabura's family was among the RCD's last targets in
Kalonge, a rainforest village 40 miles east of Bukavu. His
home had already been looted by Rwandan Hutu rebels, and his
two sisters raped.
Then, as the RCD fighters fled the Mayi-Mayi's advance, they
stopped to burn his hut and shoot his 65-year-old father in
the leg.
"We are poor, but Kalonge is peaceful," he said, heaving
sacks of charcoal on to a lorry bound for Bukavu. "When the
Rwandans were here, we had to sleep in the forest. But now,
thanks be to God, we can sleep in our houses again."
But with Rwanda apparently ready to re-invade Congo, his
relief may be premature. Gunfire rattled through the
deserted streets of Bukavu, the eastern Congo's capital
yesterday, in a battle between rival Rwandan-backed rebel
armies, which many analysts fear will be the pretext for
Rwanda's return.
After 24 hours of heavy shelling and small-arms fire in the
western and north-western suburbs of Bukavu, 16 people were
reported dead, including six civilians, and 54 injured.
"Both groups are armed by the same master, Rwanda, so it's
hard to see why they're fighting," said Didace Kaningini,
the president of a business group in Bukavu. "People are
certainly being killed, yet we believe this is a masquerade
for Rwanda to intervene."
Rwanda's parliament authorised President Paul Kagame to
re-invade Congo two weeks ago. UN peacekeepers have since
been trying to confirm reports of incursions by Rwandan
troops. Consequently, UN efforts to disarm Hutu militias in
eastern Congo - whose presence Rwanda cites as justification
for an invasion - have all but ceased.
"If we have to go back to Congo ... we will go back, and
there's absolutely no apologies to make for that," Mr Kagame
said in a radio broadcast.
With at least 5,000 Rwandan soldiers seconded to the RCD,
according to the thinktank the International Crisis Group,
Rwanda only ever scaled down its control of eastern Congo.
Another invasion could spell the end of a peace deal signed
last week between Congo's government and rebel groups - and
the war would rage on.
Long years of war
1960: Belgian colony gains independence
1965: Joseph Mobutu ousts President Kasavubu in coup, and
remains in power for 30 years 1997: Rwanda aids Tutsi and
other rebels to capture capital and set up Democratic
Republic of Congo with Laurent Kabila as president
1998: Rebels backed by Rwanda and Uganda rise against
Kabila. Zimbabwe, Nambia and Angola send troops but rebels
take east of the country
1999: Rebels split into Congolese Liberation Movement (MLC)
supported by Uganda, and Rally for Congolese Democracy (RCD)
backed by Rwanda
1999: MLC and RCD and six countries in the war sign
ceasefire
2000: UN force oversees ceasefire, but fighting continues
2001: Kabila killed and son Joseph Kabila succeeds him
April 2002: Peace talks: Kabila agrees to share power with
MLC;RCD rejects deal July 2002: Rwanda agrees peace
Sept 2002: Uganda agrees peace
Dec 2002: Kabila accepts rebels in the interim government
http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,931997,00.html
Susan Cohen
"Martin" <marti...@atlas.cz> wrote in message
news:3e93a417...@news.cis.dfn.de...
> On 6 Apr 2003 19:33:39 -0700, in soc.culture.czecho-slovak
> in article <1935c077.03040...@posting.google.com>
> notnot...@hotmail.com (Not) wrote:
>
> >Viewing the War as a Lesson to the World
> >
> >
> >By DAVID E. SANGER
> >
>
>
> Conflict in Congo has killed 4.7m, charity says
>
> Starvation and disease multiply toll from fighting
They aren't killing Jews so the human hields don't care about them.
Susan
Mark
wrote:
No, the countries of the human shields aren't under threat of
terrorism since neither faction in the Congo conflict is getting
billions of dollars anually from the Jewnited Snakes, nor do any of
those niggers drive us into wars for their own benefit. Niggers left
to themselves in their own countries pose no danger to white folks. I
can't say the same for Jews.
You jews sure are reaching when you need to bring nigger tribal
warfare into this . . . .
Mark
il postino
after!
il postino
after!
"Martin" <marti...@atlas.cz> wrote in message
news:3e93a01a...@news.cis.dfn.de...
FEEB
soc.culture.czecho-slovak
Thank you
Frank Bures, <fe...@chem.utoronto.ca>
Yukon Jack
> >
> >
> >By DAVID E. SANGER
> >
>
>
> Conflict in Congo has killed 4.7m, charity says
>
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,931997,00.html
Why don't you start an initiative to recruit Russia to restore peace
in that African country. To commit resources, military forces and
humanitarian aid to help them out. Make it a Europes' goal, they
have been sitting on their asses long enough. y
Africa is Europe's old playground, Russia, Belgium, Dutch, Germans, Chiraq's
froggies.
Give the UK a break, their taxpayers just footed the bill for Iraq. y
-= Özzama Bin Kenøbi =-
>
>> http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,931997,00.html
>
>
> Why don't you start an initiative to recruit Russia to restore peace
>in that African country. To commit resources, military forces and
>humanitarian aid to help them out. Make it a Europes' goal, they
>have been sitting on their asses long enough. y
>
>Africa is Europe's old playground, Russia, Belgium, Dutch, Germans, Chiraq's
>froggies.
>Give the UK a break, their taxpayers just footed the bill for Iraq. y
Everytime the Russians try to help anyone, they are accused of
imperialism by the U$.
Now the U$ can fuck the whole planet on its own.
Yukon Jack
> imperialism by the U$.
...surely you jest. Just like they helped Czechoslovakia after the
war? y
Andrew Böber
"Basilic" <bas...@basilic.pot> wrote in message
news:3e946091$1_3@aeinews....
> What UN, after the Iraq Invasion (not really a war) the US will invade the
> UN and take it over.
>
> "il postino" <som...@devnull.com> wrote in message
> news:HcUka.11814$Xd1.5...@news4.srv.hcvlny.cv.net...