Ot: Fyi.

[Laughing Cow]

NATO Breaks Monthlong Impasse on Iraq
25 minutes ago

By PAUL GEITNER, Associated Press Writer

BRUSSELS, Belgium - NATO (news - web sites), in the midst of its biggest rift since the Cold War, broke a monthlong stalemate Sunday over defensive actions in case of war in Iraq, reaffirming alliance solidarity while supporting U.N. efforts for a peaceful solution.

"Alliance solidarity has prevailed," NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson said. "We have been able collectively to overcome the impasse."

After France was shut out of the room, two other holdouts — Germany and Belgium — dropped their objections to starting the planning for Turkey's defense immediately, NATO officials said.

Belgium insisted at the last minute on linking any eventual NATO deployment to developments at the U.N. Security Council.

But the final statement says: "We continue to support efforts in the United Nations (news - web sites) to find a peaceful solution to the crisis."

NATO diplomats said the United States and other allies objected in principle to tying alliance decision-making to any other organization.

For the past month, Belgium, France and Germany blocked a NATO decision to begin planning to help defend Turkey — the only NATO ally bordering Iraq — against any potential reprisals for a U.S. attack. They argued that such a move was premature and would undermine U.N. efforts to avoid a war.

NATO, trying to end the stalemate, put the issue Sunday to its Defense Planning Committee, which excludes France. Paris left NATO's military command structure in the late 1960s and participates only in political consultations.

The committee was used ahead of the 1991 war against Iraq to approve aid for Turkey. But NATO has sought to limit its use since the end of the Cold War in a spirit of rapprochement with Paris.

Some progress was made after "very intensive negotiations," a NATO official said, adding that the idea of starting planning was now "uncontested."

The United States proposed a month ago that the alliance consider sending early-warning AWACS aircraft, missile defenses and anti-biochemical units to Turkey.

But after France, Germany and Belgium blocked that planning for three weeks, Turkey on Feb. 10 invoked NATO's mutual defense treaty, which binds the allies to talks when one feels threatened.

Turkey feels especially vulnerable, especially as it considers allowing tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers to use Turkish facilities for a possible war on Iraq.

The United States and its allies say denying support for Turkey's defense erodes the alliance's credibility and sends the wrong signal to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites).

Some of the measures can be done bilaterally — Germany has already agreed to send Patriot missiles to Turkey via the Netherlands — but those missiles need to be linked to NATO radar networks to be effective.

Germany and other countries also have promised AWACS crews, but the planes themselves are NATO assets.

The monthlong dispute has driven a deep wedge into the 53-year-old alliance.

It also has exacerbated tensions within Europe ahead of Monday's emergency summit of 15 European Union (news - web sites) leaders, who are trying to reconcile their own differing policies on Iraq.

Britain, Spain, Denmark and Italy have backed President Bush (news - web sites), while France and Germany have tried to slow what they view as his rush to war.

Good news in case Turjey decides to let the USA use their bases:
Article (http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=564&ncid=716&e=12&u=/nm/20030216/ts_nm/iraq_turkey_dc)

[Laughing Cow]

Another interesting article:

Hiroshima & Nagasaki. (http://www.doug-long.com/hiroshim.htm)

No need to comment on any of those, they are just for informations sake.

I willl be posting a few articles that show a different view from the widely accepted
World History held by some.

[Laughing Cow]

Tokyo Firebombing (http://www.rense.com/general29/asdi.htm)

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Dresden vs Tokyo (http://www.eppc.org/publications/xq/ASP/pubsID.123/qx/pubs_viewdetail.htm)

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NO BENEFIT TO SEOUL
U.S. forces should go home

By DAVID WALL
Special to The Japan Times

CAMBRIDGE, England -- In the recent presidential election in South Korea, candidate Roh Moo Hyun played to the populist tune when he called for U.S. troops to leave the country. This was a response to the highly emotional popular reaction to the deaths of two South Korean girls who were accidentally run over by a U.S. military vehicle. The U.S. military court that tried the soldiers involved acquitted them.

After Roh won the election, various American leaders reacted to the anti-U.S. demonstrations in Seoul by saying that the United States might decide to withdraw its 37,000 troops from South Korea. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has been reported as saying the U.S. "can withdraw its forces if the South Korean people so desire."

Since his victory, however, Roh has backtracked. On several occasions, he has stressed the need to continue the alliance with the U.S. He is also suggesting that he is more comfortable with the 37,000 U.S. troops in South Korea remaining where they are.

Is he correct? Do the South Koreans really need and benefit from the presence of the U.S. troops? Maybe not.

The 37,000 U.S. troops stationed in South Korea have little or no military value in the balance of power between North and South Korea. North Korea has at least 1.1 million frontline troops in service backed up by 1.8 million reservists. Most are stationed along the border with South Korea. In addition, more than 10,000 missiles and artillery pieces are in position along the border.

Far from being an effective deterrent to a possible North Korean invasion, the U.S. troops are hostages to fortune. The U.S. bases in Seoul, less than 50 km from the border, would be destroyed within minutes of hostilities breaking out.

American troops failed to win a ground war in Korea once before. They are unlikely to win in the future. Even though the Chinese can be counted on not to go to war in support of their ally in Pyongyang this time around and the Russians are unlikely to provide any substantive support, the 37,000 U.S. troops would still be irrelevant. They are also unnecessary and provocative.

Under the U.S.-South Korean alliance, war on either side counts as war on the other. North Korean leader Kim Jong Il is well aware of this. He is also aware that if he moves against South Korea with troops or rockets, the reaction from the U.S. will come from the air and sea. Pyongyang would again be destroyed by the Americans, but with bombs and rockets, not ground forces.

The war would be fought on the U.S. side with warships, planes and submarines, not with ground troops. Many of these ships, planes and troops are based in Japan, and other bases in the north Pacific, not in South Korea. Almost certainly it would be South Korean troops who moved into North Korea to carry out a ground war, not Americans.

Kim is not deterred by the presence of U.S. troops in South Korea. On the contrary, he regards them as an important part of his bargaining strategy. He is counting on his capacity to annihilate them, and possibly U.S. bases in Japan, to deter the U.S. from a first-strike attack and to bring it to the negotiating table.

If U.S. troops in South Korea only serve to give Kim a bargaining chip, why are they there? They are a leftover from the Cold War phase of American neo-imperialism.

After World War II, the U.S. decided that Korea (and Taiwan) were outside its area of interest and pulled out. It was only when the Soviets and Chinese supported North Korean moves that the U.S. decided that this had been a mistake -- in terms of American security, not South Korean security.

The Americans left South Korea in 1948 in the hands of a fascist-style dictator and his cronies, many of whom had collaborated with the Japanese in World War II. They lost interest in the Peninsula. They did not go back in 1950 to support the South Korean regime but to stop the spread of communism in East Asia.

There are no communist states to the north of Korea now, only ex-communist states on the road to full-blown capitalism. North Korea is not planning to convert the world to its homegrown and incomprehensible style of Stalinism. It couldn't even if it wanted to. The regime could not survive very long in the wake of an attack on South Korea and U.S. bases. But not because there are 37,000 U.S. troops in South Korea.

The presence of U.S. troops in South Korea is a relic of the past. They serve no military purpose. That they offend the sensitivities of their hosts is blatantly obvious in the South Korean media. It's time for U.S. troops to go home.

David Wall teaches at the Center of International Studies of the University of Cambridge and is chairman of the China Discussion Group at the Royal Institute of International Affairs.

The Japan Times: Feb. 17, 2003
(C) All rights reserved

[Laughing Cow]

U.S. planning military buildup in Japan to guard against North Korea

Washington has told Tokyo of its plan to beef up its military presence in Japan to prepare for a possible emergency amid rising tensions on the Korean Peninsula, it was learned Sunday.

The buildup includes F-15 fighter bombers and U-2 reconnaissance aircraft, according to sources.

Tokyo has welcomed Washington's plan, citing "the need for deterrence under the Japan-U.S. security arrangement in the Asia-Pacific region to remain effective" even if the U.S. attacks Iraq, the sources said.

The plan was reported at a "strategic dialogue" meeting in Washington last Monday, as well as on other occasions, the sources said. U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and Japanese Vice Foreign Minister Yukio Takeuchi are said to have attended the meeting.

The United States told Japan of the possibility of dispatching a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the Carl Vinson, from its base in Hawaii to seas near Japan, the sources said. The move would fill the gap left when the U.S. aircraft carrier Kitty Hawk, based at the U.S. naval base in Yokosuka, set sail for seas near Iraq.

The majority of U.S. forces massing around Iraq are coming from the U.S. mainland, but some have also been shifted from Japan.

The Japan-U.S. security treaty requires advanced bilateral consultations for any sizable changes in the deployment of U.S. forces in Japan. According to the sources, however, the latest move will not be large enough to require such consultations.

The U.S. government has expressed serious concerns about North Korea making a provocative military move, such as lifting its freeze on missile launch tests.

Washington has increased its preparedness to beef up military forces in line with a request from the U.S. Pacific Command. The U.S. government told Tokyo that it will decide on dispatches as needs arise and depending on how the situation with Iraq evolves, the sources said.

The Japan Times: Feb. 17, 2003
(C) All rights reserved

[Laughing Cow]

Why hasn't Saddam killed all Americans?

By DOUG BANDOW

WASHINGTON -- Americans all should be dead. At least, Americans all should be dead if the Bush administration is correct about Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. It believes there is nothing today that prevents a weak and isolated Iraq from striking the United States, the globe's dominant power.

Before the U.N. Security Council, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell proved what we all already knew: Hussein has worked to develop weapons of mass destruction. But would Baghdad really use such weapons when doing so would risk its own survival?

Powell suggested that the pragmatic secular dictator has made common cause with the suicidal religious fanatic. Alas, even the prowar Economist magazine pronounced it "the weakest part of the case for war."

The administration points to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, whom it links to al-Qaeda and who received medical treatment in Baghdad. The Ansar al-Islam group is said to include al-Qaeda soldiers and to have established a poisons training camp.

It's not clear how much credence to give to information gleaned from American captives, however. They could hope to win favor with their interrogators or provoke another conflict with America.

Moreover, al-Zarqawi's ties to al-Qaeda are thin -- it is not a rigid organization with a well-defined membership. German intelligence says al-Zarqawi's al-Tawhid organization is more like an affiliate, and one focused on the Palestinians (and Jordan), not the U.S. An American intelligence analyst argues that al-Zarqawi "is outside bin Laden's circle. He is not sworn al-Qaeda."

The alleged link to Baghdad is especially threadbare: al-Zarqawi has worked more closely with Iran, also visited Lebanon and Syria, and been aided by a member of the royal family of Qatar. One German intelligence officer told the New York Times: "as of yet we have seen no indication of a direct link between Zarqawi and Baghdad."

Nor is there solid evidence that either Hussein or Osama bin Laden supports Ansar al-Islam. In fact, the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz reports that the group is tied to Iran.

Ansar al-Islam asserts a desire to overthrow Hussein and impose an Islamic theocracy, and is operating in territory no longer under Baghdad's control because of America's "no-fly zone" policy. As for the alleged poisons lab, even many Kurds say that they haven't heard of it.

Although the allegations are dubious, the Bush administration has brought enormous pressure to bear on U.S. intelligence agencies to prove them. Yet the CIA and FBI remain skeptical. Of Powell's claims, one intelligence official told the New York Times: "We just don't think it's there."

The Blair government has done little better. A recent British intelligence report concludes that "any fledgling relationship foundered due to mistrust and incompatible ideology."

Alleged connections between Baghdad and al-Qaeda must be viewed as inherently suspect. "They are natural enemies," observes Daniel Benjamin, a former National Security Council staff member.

The biggest problem with the theory, however, is the fact that we are still alive. If there was a link, we all, or at least a lot of us, should be dead.

Last October, U.S. President George W. Bush declared that Iraq could attack America or its allies "on any given day" with chemical or biological weapons. But Hussein has not attacked.

Or, explained Bush: "Iraq could decide on any given day to provide a biological or chemical weapons to a terrorist group." But Hussein has not done so.

Apparently Hussein wants to stay alive. He understands that an attack, direct or indirect, would trigger overwhelming, annihilating retaliation.

However much he hates America, he doesn't want to die. As CIA Director George Tenet put it last October: Iraq "for now appears to be drawing a line short of conducting terrorist attacks with conventional or chemical or biological weapons."

Alas, the Bush administration is pursuing the one course that will eliminate this deterrence. Attack Iraq, and Hussein has no incentive not to strike and then hand off any remaining weapons to terrorists.

Notes Tenet: Facing defeat, Hussein "probably would become much less constrained in adopting terrorist actions." Indeed, he might see helping Islamists use such weapons against the U.S. as "his last chance to exact vengeance by taking a large number of victims with him."

Hussein wouldn't even have to give an order. As Benjamin explains, "In the fog of war, much of this material would rapidly be 'privatized' -- liberated by colonels, security service operatives and soon-to-be unemployed scientists."

The best evidence that Iraq can be deterred is that Americans are alive today. Unfortunately, seeking to oust Hussein removes any leverage to prevent him from conducting the sort of attack that the Bush administration claims to most fear. Attacking Iraq will make more, and more dangerous, terrorist attacks more likely.

Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute and the author of "Tripwire: Korea and U.S. Foreign Policy in a Changed World."

The Japan Times: Feb. 15, 2003
(C) All rights reserved

[Souljah]

thanks for the info m8, havent had a chance to read all yet though.....im on the 3rd....but im off too bed now and will read up in the morning.....

-greg

[Laughing Cow]

Part I.

President Bush says the conflict with Iraq is not about oil. The aftermath of a war, however, could be all about oil.

The duration and success of any military action - and whether Saddam Hussein sabotages his oil fields as he did a decade ago in Kuwait - could determine oil prices for months or years and, in turn, affect the health of economies around the world, analysts say.

As oil prices spiked to a two-year high of $35 a barrel on Friday, reflecting war jitters, interests from France to Russia to Australia to the United States were poised for a reawakening of Iraq's slumbering oil industry, which is sitting on the world's second-largest pool of proven oil reserves after Saudi Arabia's.

Under U.N. sanctions imposed after the 1991 Persian Gulf War, Iraqi production has slumped to less than 2 million
barrels a day, and the infrastructure has deteriorated. But the Bush administration is banking on substantially increasing oil output to produce billions in new revenues to lubricate an economic revival in Iraq after the ouster of Saddam.

That's the rosy version of postwar Iraq.

But even in the best-case scenario - a relatively short, bloodless war that leaves Iraq's 1,500 oil wells intact and replaces Saddam with a friendlier leader - Iraq's oil industry would be fraught with economic and political uncertainties that could even discourage investment, analysts say.

[Laughing Cow]

Part II.

Foremost is the hurdle of rebuilding the country, estimated to cost from $200 billion to $400 billion, and the risk of doing so amid potential civil wars among ethnic groups. Rehabilitating Iraq's oil operations to bring production up to its projected potential of 6 million barrels a day - more than triple what it exported last year under a U.N.-sponsored ``oil-for-food'' program - would take about a decade and cost an additional $40 billion to $50 billion, analysts say.

In the short term, Iraq's wells are capable of pumping about 3 million barrels a day, which would generate from $12 billion to $15 billion in annual revenues, assuming oil prices remain strong. That is far short of the revenue needed to rebuild the country.

``You get the sense some people in Washington, particularly hawkish members of the administration, have spent Iraqi oil revenue 10 times over before they've even gotten in there,'' said Raad Alkadiri, an analyst at PFC Energy, an oil and gas consulting firm in Washington.

``There isn't that much Iraqi revenue to spend. To say you can rehabilitate the country, pay for an occupation and revive the economy all at the same time is ludicrous.''

Iraq is virtually sitting on a sea of oil, with 112 billion barrels in proven reserves, and has probable reserves of an additional 220 billion barrels, experts say.

But only 15 of its 74 discovered oil fields have been developed. Its wells, pumping stations and export terminals are deteriorating so fast that output is dropping by 100,000 barrels a year.

To rescue and modernize these operations, large outside investment would be needed. American companies are banned from doing business with Iraq. But plenty of other companies - particularly Russian and French ones with long-standing ties to Iraq - are lined up to take advantage of lucrative deals when Iraq opens its oil taps.

The contracts and negotiations they have been conducting are in a precarious state, with the United States threatening to attack Iraq imminently if Saddam does not divulge evidence of his nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs.

In 1997, the Russian oil giant Lukoil signed a $3.5 billion, 23-year contract to rehabilitate the al-Qurnah field, which has 7.8 billion barrels of proven reserves. Iraq put the deal on hold after Russian President Vladimir V. Putin supported the U.S.-led sanctions effort. Lukoil is trying to revive the deal, and industry experts believe Washington has made an informal agreement to honor the contract in postwar Iraq.

The French oil company TotalFinaElf is also negotiating contracts. But any deal could be jeopardized by the French government's opposition to American use of force in Iraq.

``I do think the U.S. government will be willing to trade oil for participation - with anyone,'' said Fareed Mohamedi, PFC Energy's chief economist.

But, he said, ``oil is not the prize in and of itself - there are bigger prizes,'' maintaining that the United States is more interested in stopping the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction and demonstrating its leadership in the world.

Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has forcefully rejected charges, arising from Bush's and Vice President Cheney's background in the oil business, that the United States is after Iraq's oil.

``The oil fields are the property of the Iraqi people,'' he said recently, and any production revenues will be held ``in trust'' for the Iraqis.

A U.S. occupation would, however, open up vast opportunities for U.S. oil companies as well as oil service outfits such as Halliburton, a firm formerly run by Cheney, and Bechtel, which managed the repair of Kuwait's fields in the early 1990s. They could earn billions of dollars upgrading Iraq's operations or repairing them if the Iraqis damage them. There are reports that many wellheads are wired with explosives.

The subject is a sensitive one in the U.S. oil industry and the Bush administration.

John Felmy, chief economist at the American Petroleum Institute, said Iraq presents an enormous challenge and risk.

``We have no idea what will happen. We don't know what the rule of law will be or who will be running Iraq,'' he said. ``If we were asked by the Iraqis in the post-Saddam era to develop their resources, we'd certainly be interested, but beyond that it's speculative.''

Because access to outsiders has been limited, he said, U.S. oil companies also have little information about the state of Iraq's oil sector.

It is also unclear who would get the development rights in an Iraq occupied by the United States.

``It's the $64 million question,'' Mohamedi said. The notion of an American bias in handing out contracts ``is definitely a fear among non-American companies, and some have been pushing their leaders to help out,'' he said.

A recent report by the Council on Foreign Relations and the James A. Baker III Institute for Public Policy says that the Iraqis should get to keep control of the oil industry after Saddam is ousted and that the United States should create ``a level playing field'' for international companies competing for work in repair, exploration and development.

Of overriding importance, Mohamedi said, is who within Iraq's new government will ultimately control the oil industry. ``Dictatorships are fortified by oil,'' he said. ``They can buy and bully the population in countries where revenues are huge. If you don't want a dictatorship that's unaccountable to its population, you don't want any future leader to get control of the oil revenues. They should be controlled by a parliament or distributed to the people.

``These are huge issues facing the U.S. and Iraq, and the oil sector will be at the center of that.''

If the country erupts in ethnic hostilities, however, companies may not want to risk the investment, experts say.

Shiite Muslims in the south, a group long suppressed by Saddam, and Kurds, Turks and Arabs in the north may try to take control of the oil fields in their respective regions - a potential maelstrom for allied troops trying to keep order, not to mention for oil companies trying to work.

There might not even be much money in Iraqi oil, said Philip K. Verleger Jr., senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. ``These contracts are not as lucrative as one might think. Most of the money is going to go to the Iraqis. If the price is $20 a barrel, the company might get a buck,'' he said.

Although Iraq's oil reserves are vast, so are those of other countries in the region. Should Iraq, prodded by the United States, try to radically boost production, Saudi Arabia would probably respond by increasing production - driving prices down and bringing exploration to a halt outside of a few countries.

``The Saudis have an economic veto on this whole economic development of Iraq,'' Verleger said.

Both countries are founding members of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, which imposes quotas on members to keep prices stable. For Iraq, the quota would probably be from 2.5 million to 3 million barrels a day, experts say.

If an Iraq occupied by the United States flouted that quota and divorced itself from OPEC, ``that would be a big step, a declaration of economic war on oil-exporting countries,'' said Yale University economist William Nordhaus, a co-author of a recent study examining the costs and consequences of war with Iraq.

Because the United States imports a relatively small amount of crude oil from Iraq, less than 3 percent of its consumption, a quick and decisive American victory within, say, six weeks should have little lasting effect on prices, analysts say.

Such a war would stop Iraqi production for a few months, but increased production from other countries would easily offset the loss.

Analysts predict that after an initial spike - evident with Friday's price jump to the highest level in 26 months - prices would be expected to settle in the low $20s a barrel.

However, if the war drags on, prices could reach 1991 Gulf War highs of $40 a barrel, which contributed to a global recession in the early 1990s, analysts say. This time, there's less of a cushion because inventories are low, largely because of a protracted strike by oil-production workers in Venezuela, a major world supplier. In such a case, the United States, Japan and Europe may have to reach into their reserves, which total about 1.2 billion barrels.

In a doomsday scenario, a protracted, bloody war that damages production facilities in Iraq and other countries, such as Saudi Arabia, could send prices to $60 or $80 a barrel, experts say, and keep them high for at least two years.

``The Western countries and Japan would have to release a lot of their stocks,'' Mohamedi said. ``That could really spook the market.''