AvantGo Back to Iraq

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For those AvantGo users out there, you can now sub­scribe to Back to Iraq 2.0 as an AvantGo chan­nel. Sim­ply go to your sub­scrip­tion page at www​.avantgo​.com and cre­ate a cus­tom chan­nel with the URL http://​www​.back​-to​-iraq​.com. Be sure and increase the chan­nel size to maybe 500 Kb, though, since you’ll be get­ting the whole front page.
I’ve tried this and it works well. It comes through pretty nicely on my iPaq and for­mats well, with the side­bar infor­ma­tion at the bottom.

U.N. resolution a fig leaf for the U.S.

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Today’s unan­i­mous vote by the United Nations Secu­rity Coun­cil to enforce the numer­ous prior res­o­lu­tions flouted by Iraq was lit­tle more than a fig leaf pro­vid­ing the flim­si­est of cover for the United States to wage war when it feels like it.
The myr­iad rea­sons given by the Bush admin­is­tra­tion — Sad­dam was behind Sept. 11; no, wait, he’s har­bor­ing ter­ror­ists; no, wait, he’s build­ing weapons of mass destruc­tions, yeah, that’s it — for slip­ping the leash from the dogs of war finally con­vinced reluc­tant allies France and Rus­sia to sign on to the lat­est dic­tat from the Secu­rity Coun­cil. (No doubt the guar­an­tees that Iraq’s oil con­tracts with these two major trad­ing part­ners of Sad­dam would be hon­ored had noth­ing to do with their acqui­es­cence in New York.) No, UNSCR 1441 pur­ports to lay out a legal frame­work for inspect­ing and dis­arm­ing Iraq, but Pres­i­dent Bush’s own words imme­di­ately fol­low­ing the vote give lie to the legalese.
The rel­e­vant para­graphs, 11 and 12, of the res­o­lu­tion run thusly:

The Secu­rity Coun­cil, …
Directs the Exec­u­tive Chair­man of UNMOVIC and the Director-General of the IAEA to report imme­di­ately to the Coun­cil any inter­fer­ence by Iraq with inspec­tion activ­i­ties, as well as any fail­ure by Iraq to com­ply with its dis­ar­ma­ment oblig­a­tions, includ­ing its oblig­a­tions regard­ing inspec­tions under this res­o­lu­tion;
Decides to con­vene imme­di­ately upon receipt of a report in accor­dance with para­graphs 4 or 11 above, in order to con­sider the sit­u­a­tion and the need for full com­pli­ance with all of the rel­e­vant Coun­cil res­o­lu­tions in order to secure inter­na­tional peace and security; …

The sec­ond para­graph is the sop to France and Rus­sia they demanded, requir­ing the United States to con­sult the Secu­rity Coun­cil before bombs begin falling and peo­ple dying. But George W. Bush, bestrid­ing the nar­row world like a Colos­sus, shall not be con­strained by the shrill harp­ings of lawyers and knaves. Speak­ing in absolute and moral tones, the Lec­turer in Chief warned the Iraqi strong­man that “Any Iraqi non­com­pli­ance is seri­ous, because such bad faith will show that Iraq has no inten­tion of dis­arm­ing.“
“Amer­ica will be mak­ing only one deter­mi­na­tion: Is Iraq meet­ing the terms of the Secu­rity Coun­cil res­o­lu­tion or not?” he con­tin­ued. Then he added, with the munif­i­cence of a nuclear-armed super­power, “The United States has agreed to dis­cuss any mate­r­ial breach with the Secu­rity Coun­cil, but with­out jeop­ar­diz­ing our free­dom of action to defend our coun­try. If Iraq fails to fully com­ply, the United States and other nations will dis­arm Sad­dam Hus­sein.“
Debate all you want, ye chat­ter­ing diplo­mats and feck­less advi­sors, Bush II pro­claimed. I got my res­o­lu­tion, as pre­dicted, and diplo­matic cover. It is I who shall decide when and where to strike. With Bush’s procla­ma­tions, the United States says it will talk to the sher­iff, but it refuses to allow itself to become the United Nation’s deputy. As Afonso Bedoya said in The Trea­sure of the Sierra Madre when he attempts to shake down Humphrey Bog­art, “Badges? We ain’t got no badges! We don’t need no badges!“
But this is real life, not a movie. Noth­ing can dis­guise that this vote was appease­ment by the United Nations of the high­est order. The United States’ over­whelm­ing power has led to over­ween­ing hubris, and the belief that we can do no wrong. Might makes right, after all, so be right.
“In con­fronting this threat, Amer­ica seeks the sup­port of the world. If action becomes nec­es­sary, we will act in the inter­ests of the world.” No doubt the world won­ders just in whose inter­est it serves to attack another coun­try that hasn’t been tied to Sept. 11, is dia­met­ri­cally opposed to the world­view of al Qa’ida and would be unlikely to threaten the United States with mass ter­ror­ism, unless it gov­ern­ment felt its sur­vival was at stake.
“The out­come of the cur­rent cri­sis is already deter­mined: The full dis­ar­ma­ment of weapons of mass destruc­tion by Iraq will occur,” blus­ters Bush. “The only ques­tion for the Iraqi regime is to decide how.” (Removal by the Army or by the Marines? Which would you pre­fer, Pres­i­dent Hus­sein?) I think most peo­ple on the Secu­rity Coun­cil know the out­come of that ques­tion, too, for the trap has been set and so tightly wound that the slight­est ten­sion on the legal­is­tic trip­wires con­tained in UNSCR 1441 will set the gears of war machines to grind­ing.
And while the diplo­mats talk, the war­riors will fight. What good the pause for debate if it’s just for show? When the Bush Admin­is­tra­tion chides the United Nations for “unpro­duc­tive debate,” how can the orga­ni­za­tion not become irrel­e­vant when the United States — not Iraq — decides to brush aside the niceties of diplo­macy and will of the world in favor of mus­cu­lar chest beat­ing fol­lowed by a solid thump­ing?
For while the peo­ple of Europe and the United States are not opposed to war, pro­vided it has the back­ing of the United Nations, this res­o­lu­tion does not give the United States the author­ity to wage war pell-mell while the Secu­rity Coun­cil engages in “unpro­duc­tive debate” as Bush II so dis­mis­sively put it today, sur­rounded by impe­r­ial roses. If the United States picks a fight while the adults are talk­ing, there might lit­er­ally be hell to pay.
Indeed, Mr. Pres­i­dent: I feel you have already deter­mined the out­come of this cri­sis. And the will of the Amer­i­can peo­ple — and the world — be damned.

John Burns interview on ‘Fresh Air’

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Terry Gross of NPR’s Fresh Air has a great inter­view with New York Times cor­re­spon­dent John Burns, who was in Iraq when Sad­dam released his pris­on­ers. He’s won two Pulitzer prizes and comes across as a journalist’s jour­nal­ist. I highly rec­om­mend this inter­view, espe­cially for Burns’ recount­ing of his inter­view with Pales­tin­ian Lib­er­a­tion Front leader Abu Abbas, the man who mas­ter­minded the hijack­ing of the Achille Lauro.

Erdogan says Turkey won’t help

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Just before the U.N. voted on a final shot at dis­arm­ing Iraq, the leader of the Turk­ish Jus­tice and Devel­op­ment Party (AKP), Recep Tayyip Erdo­gan, said Turkey would not help in an attack on neigh­bor­ing Iraq. Erdo­gan can’t hold the prime min­is­ter post of Turkey, but he runs the party and is the most pow­er­ful politi­cian in Turkey. If he’s say­ing that Turkey won’t take part in an oper­a­tion against Iraq, that rep­re­sents one of two things:

1) AKP has made a colos­sal mis­take before it ever takes office, and is head­ing for a con­fronta­tion with the mil­i­tary estab­lish­ment of Turkey. If this is the case, AKP’s days as the rul­ing party are num­bered. The mil­i­tary, while not enthu­si­as­tic about a cam­paign against Iraq, will not endan­ger its rela­tion­ship with the United States or with Israel. Incir­lik will be used heav­ily in any air cam­paign against Iraq. Or…
2) Erdo­gan is play­ing a dan­ger­ous game at extract­ing con­ces­sions from the United States. The sanc­tions against Iraq have cost Turkey bil­lions of dol­lars over the last decade and exac­er­bated the poverty of south­east Turkey, fuel­ing the ire of the Kur­dish Work­ers Party. I think more likely that Erdo­gan is try­ing to squeeze the United States for cash, back­ing with the IMF for loans and, more sig­nif­i­cantly, a free hand in north­ern Iraq against the Kurds. How­ever, if the AKP mis­cal­cu­lates and asks for too much, the mil­i­tary might step in and remove the AKP from power.

Erdo­gan made his com­ments yes­ter­day to the Lebanese daily al-Mustaqbal. He also expressed sup­port for the Pales­tini­ans and the estab­lish­ment of an inde­pend­net state for them. How com­ments such as this might affect Turkey’s tight rela­tion­ship with Israel is unknown.

The line in the sand

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The U.N. Secu­rity Coun­cil has unan­i­mously passed the U.S. res­o­lu­tion on Iraq today. Iraq has called the doc­u­ment cover for a U.S. attack.
“The objec­tive of any draft res­o­lu­tion will not be to ver­ify the sit­u­a­tion about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruc­tion but to pro­vide some causes for the United States to attack Iraq,” [Trade Min­is­ter Moham­mad] Saleh told reporters ask­ing about Iraq’s posi­tion on the res­o­lu­tion. “It is unfor­tu­nate that Amer­ica and Britain have obstructed the return of U.N. weapons inspec­tors except with a new U.N. res­o­lu­tion that leads to a mil­i­tary aggres­sion on Iraq under inter­na­tional cover.“
“This res­o­lu­tion is not meant to ver­ify that Iraq is clear of weapons of mass destruc­tion because Iraq has no such weapons,” he added.
What’s inter­est­ing is that Syria voted for the res­o­lu­tion despite its ear­lier objec­tions. Reports were that Syria wanted to hold off the vote until Mon­day to give the Arab League time to hold a meet­ing. It also wanted to make the Mid­dle East a nuclear free zone (which was a slap at Israel.) But in the end, the Syr­i­ans backed down and sided with the United States. What is also inter­est­ing is that the United States gave up its demand that it should be allowed to attack Iraq imme­di­ately at what it saw as any inter­fer­ence with the weapons inspec­tors. Instead, it will go back to the Secu­rity Coun­cil in the event of Saddam’s intran­si­gence. (How­ever, in the rose gar­den address, Bush said the United States wouldn’t wait on “unpro­duc­tive debate” before attack­ing.)
High­lights from the res­o­lu­tion include:

… Iraq has been and remains in mate­r­ial breach of its oblig­a­tions under rel­e­vant res­o­lu­tions, includ­ing Res­o­lu­tion 687 (1991), in par­tic­u­lar through Iraq’s fail­ure to coop­er­ate with United Nations inspec­tors and the I.A.E.A., and to com­plete the actions required under Para­graphs 8 to 13 of Res­o­lu­tion 687 (1991);
… False state­ments or omis­sions in the dec­la­ra­tions sub­mit­ted by Iraq pur­suant to this res­o­lu­tion and fail­ure by Iraq at any time to com­ply with, and coop­er­ate fully in the imple­men­ta­tion of, this res­o­lu­tion shall con­sti­tute a fur­ther mate­r­ial breach of Iraq’s oblig­a­tions and will be reported to the Coun­cil for assess­ment in accor­dance with Para­graph 11 or 12 below;
… Iraq shall pro­vide Unmovic and the I.A.E.A. imme­di­ate, unim­peded, uncon­di­tional and unre­stricted access to any and all, includ­ing under­ground, areas, facil­i­ties, build­ings, equip­ment, records and means of trans­port which they wish to inspect, as well as imme­di­ate, unim­peded, unre­stricted, and pri­vate access to all offi­cials and other per­sons whore Unmovic or the I.A.E.A. wish to inter­view in the mode or loca­tion of Unmovic’s or the I.A.E.A.‘s choice, pur­suant to any aspect of their man­dates; fur­ther decides that Unmovic and the I.A.E.A. may at their dis­cre­tion con­duct inter­views inside or out­side of Iraq, may facil­i­tate the travel of those inter­viewed and fam­ily mem­bers out­side of Iraq, and that, at the sole dis­cre­tion of Unmovic and the I.A.E.A., such inter­views may occur with­out the pres­ence of observers from the Iraqi gov­ern­ment; and instructs Unmovic and requests the I.A.E.A. to resume inspec­tions no later than 45 days fol­low­ing adop­tion of this res­o­lu­tion and to update the Coun­cil 60 days there­after;
… the Coun­cil has repeat­edly warned Iraq that it will face seri­ous con­se­quences as a result of its con­tin­ued vio­la­tions of its obligations;

The unity of the Secu­rity Coun­cil is in stark con­trast to the dis­unity of the Iraqi oppo­si­tion, which has quar­reled over pro­ce­dural details of a pro­posed Nov. 22 con­fer­ence in Brus­sels. These are the guys the Bush wants to lead Iraq post-Saddam? I hope Gen. Tommy Franks has his viceroy out­fit all picked out, and that it’s durable, since he’s going to be wear­ing it for a long time.
After the res­o­lu­tion passed, Pres­i­dent Bush spoke from the White House rose gar­den, say­ing that Sad­dam Hus­sein “will face the sever­est con­se­quences” if he does not prove his com­pli­ance with the UNSC and any inter­fer­ence will be seen as seri­ous and
“The res­o­lu­tion presents the iraqi regime with a test — a final test,” said Bush. “Iraq must now with­out delay or with­out nego­ti­a­tions fully dis­arm. … The regime must allow imme­di­ate and unre­stricted access to every site, every doc­u­ment and every per­son iden­ti­fied by inspec­tors. The old game of cheat and retreat — tol­er­ated at other times — will no longer be tol­er­ated.
“If Iraq fails to fully com­ply, the United States and the other nations will dis­arm Sad­dam Hus­sein,” he added.
Iraq must indi­cate by Nov. 15 that it accepts the res­o­lu­tion. By Dec. 8, it must hand over a list of any pro­grams to Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspec­tor. Dec. 23 will see the arrival of inspec­tors on Iraqi soil, and the inspec­tors must report back to the United Nations what they’ve found by Feb. 21. It’s impor­tant to note that the United States views March as the lat­est that it could com­fort­ably wage war in the Iraqi desert. Expect a con­tin­ued build-up of mil­i­tary forces in the Gulf and the Saudis even­tu­ally to roll over and allow the use of their air bases now that the U.N. voted unan­i­mously for the res­o­lu­tion. Kuwait and the Kurds are no doubt rejoic­ing over the strength of the res­o­lu­tion, too.
Bush, in the rose gar­den, gave no doubt what he thinks will hap­pen: “The out­come of the cur­rent cri­sis is already deter­mined. The full dis­ar­ma­ment of Iraq … will occur.” The choice of how, he said, lies with Saddam.