Operation Doomsday Scenario
When I say something, I mean it.
Its darn hard to resist opening with a Dubya quote. This gem appeared in his latest stage-managed prime-time press conference (his third in three-and-a-half years of presidency). The Prez outlined how determined he was to present the spiralling situation in Iraq as a foreign policy success. Gosh, I dont know, he said when asked if hed not been clear with the American people. Im sure something will pop into my head here, he falsely predicted when asked to cite the single biggest mistake of his presidency. Senator Elizabeth Dole (Rep. N.C.) gushed how Bushs performance showed he was a leader in every sense of the word whatever that might mean.
Still, if Dubya really does say something and mean it, at least that marks him out from the Diarys primary news source: KCNA, the official North Korean foghorn.
When North Korea says something they mean, they dont mean it. At least, not unless they do, which is never.
This week, as all eyes were fixed on Falluja - except Bushs, which were fixed on his answer sheet, from which he read monotonally sentence-by-sentence Abdul Qadeer Khan, father of Pakistans bomb and international black market spiv, told his interrogators hed personally seen three North Korean nuclear devices (read: weapons) during a 1999 sales trip to the Peoples Democratic Republic. The report first appeared in the New York Times.
Why does this matter? Well, leaving aside the prospect of Armageddon for the moment, if Khan is telling the truth, hes the first non-North Korean to have seen evidence of the rogue states nuclear capabilities.
Time to stock up on duct tape?
The White House refused to comment on the issue, saying it was too sensitive (kind of like the Diary), though the Washington Post quoted a White House official as saying The details are a little hazy hey, this is North Korea! Cheneys people were not so mealy mouthed. Time is not necessarily on our side, a senior official admitted. We think its important to move forward aggressively.
Gosh, thats a new tactic!
Cheney is currently on a tour of the Far East, taking in China, South Korea and lots of noodles (Cheney first visited China in 1975, with President Gerald Ford this guys been around a while). On Sino-US relations, Cheney said it would be a mistake for us to underestimate the extent of the differences between the two countries. I did not come here expecting to alter Chinese policy, he said, to the surprise of everyone.
The Cheney team said talks between North Korea and its foes must start to show real results soon. The question now is whether Khan, if he means what hes saying, knows what hes talking about. The guys smart, but can he tell a real bomb from a mock-up? Can he be sure of what he saw? Was he wearing the right glasses? Etcetera.
Khan has claimed to have provided a shopping list of nuclear equipment to North Korea. We think theyve pretty much bought everything on the list, one US official told the New York Times.
Whatever the facts, the Diary wants to propose an alternative theory. Bearing in mind a) President Bushs policy reversal on West Bank settlements this week (hes letting Sharon keep some and no longer demanding Israel respect the pre-1967 borders in any peace deal), a move which will no doubt inflame the Arab world; b) the militarisation of the situation in Iraq as an occupation policy; c) the rather odd way Washington chose to stay aggressive with Pyongyang even when they were waging war in Iraq and, frankly, did not have the time or resources to fight another war, could it be that Mssrs. Cheney and Rumsfeld are actually trying to get rid of their boss?
Far-fetched? Dont blame the Diary. Last month the Atlantic Monthly ran a piece by James Mann detailing how in the 1980s Cheney and Rummy would slip out of bed in the middle of the night, relocate to various air force bases, and hatch plans of how to bypass the legal rules for presidential succession in the event of a nuclear strike. If the Prez got zapped, Cheney and Rummy would ditch the Constitution, sideline the Senate and Congress, and install their own President for reasons of stability and continuity.
Hmm
War on terror-drugs
The Spanish authorities investigation into the 11 March terror bombings revealed some startling information this week, as accounted for by Interior Minister Angel Acebes.
It turns out the Islamic extremists, who blew themselves up last week, were not funded by Osama bin Laden (he who offered a truce with Europe this week), but by the sale of hashish and Ecstasy.
Thats right, in the tradition of Mohammed Atta & co. and their favourite Floridian strip clubs, this bunch of religious puritans somehow found it in their souls to peddle narcotics. The proceeds paid for the explosives that blew apart women, children and commuters on 11 March.
In order to atone for their sins (so to speak), the terrorists would participate in regular purification acts, ingesting holy water from Mecca.
The leader of the terror group was Jamal Zougam, owner of a cellphone store. The drug pusher was Jamal Ahmidan, a 30-year-old whose family owns a string of wholesale clothing stores in Madrid (El Pais). The spiritual leader was 37-year-old Sarhane ben Abdelmahid Faket, an former economics student married to a 17-year-old Moroccan woman. (New York Times)
The group is believed to be responsible for planting the explosive device that was diffused on the high-speed rail link between Madrid and Seville. It also planned to target Jewish sites in the coming months.
Meanwhile, a senior French counter-terrorism official told the Financial Times this week that We have underestimated the terrorists willingness and capacity to develop chemical weapons. Across Europe, small groups of chemical experts are popping up. The thing that is most clear is that the people with the knowledge of chemicals are very organised.
Training in chemical warfare is believed to have been conducted by the notorious Abu Musab al-Zarkawi in Heart, Afghanistan between 2000-01, and also in Chechnya.
Take note, Mr. Putin.
Selective memory
Meanwhile, the ongoing investigation of the US commission on terrorism into the 9/11 attacks continued to deliver defining moments this week. The highlight was the testimony of National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice.
But while the committee further uncovered the specific nature of pre-9/11 intelligence warnings, the failure of the administration to act (Rice told the panel there was no silver bullet that could have prevented the Sept. 11 attacks and described an 6 August 2001 classified briefing warning of an al-Qaida plan to hijack planes as historical information), and the long-held plans for an invasion of Iraq, there has also been an uproar of another kind.
In her testimony, Rice mentioned a pattern of pre-9/11 terrorism designed to spread devastation and chaos and to murder innocent Americans including the attack on the marine barracks in Lebanon 1983; the hijacking of the Achille Lauro in 1985; the rise of al-Qaida and the bombings of the World Trade Center in 1993; the attacks on American installations in Saudi Arabia in 1995 and 1996; the East Africa embassy bombings of 1998; the attack on the USS Cole in 2000.
Er, something missing in that list? Oh yeah, the 1988 Lockerbie bombing, the largest terrorist attack on US citizens before 9/11. Does Rice just have a bad memory a la her boss? Doubt it. More like the bombing was eliminated from her speech as a gift to Libya for having opened up its WMD programme to the dismantling spanners of the international community. Indeed, Libya was only mentioned once in Rices testimony as an example to the world of how rogue states should behave.
Families of the victims of the Lockerbie atrocity are disgusted. Its bad enough when you lose a child, and then to have this happen said Dan Cohen who lost his 20-year-old daughter. Stephanie Bernstein, who lost her husband, blamed the Bush administration of bowing to business interests, eager to get their hands on Libyas super-lucrative oil fields. This shows that they are willing to let Gaddafi buy his way out of jail, she said. The energy interests have really triumphed.
(Source: Reuters)
Stuffing Turkey
Finally, the secretary-general of Frances Union for a Popular Movement (surely one of the worst political monikers in the history of democracy) said this week that Turkey can stuff it over membership of the EU.
We very clearly say no to Turkeys integration into the European Union, said Francois Baroin.
Bulgaria and Romania, OK. Turkey er, isnt that in the Middle East?
Foreign Minister Michel Barnier joined the basting, telling the French parliament that Turkey aint ready for EU membership.
German foreign minister Joschka Fischer said this week that if the EU wants to be an exclusively Christian club (as Giscard DEstaing would have it) it should say so and accept the consequences.
The latest display of French opposition to Turkish ambition triggered anger in Turkey and a fall in its markets.
The cock has crowed too soon, read the headline in the newspaper Aksam.
Theres no need to get personal.
Quotes of the week
Some of the debate really centres around the fact that people dont believe that Iraq can be free, that if youre Muslim or perhaps brown skinned, you cant be self-governing and free.
President George W. Bush
Home base for George Bush, as we saw to the nth degree in the press conference, is terror. Ask him a question, hes going to terror.
Senator John Kerry, accusing President Bush, his rival for the Presidency, of using terror for political gain.
We made mistakes.
George Tenet, Director of the CIA, in testimony to the 9/11 commission.
More an oddball than a real terrorist threat.
The CIAs description of European security services attitude towards Osama bin Laden as exposed in a report this week.
If its all about diplomatic process, youre looking at the end of the diplomatic process.
US Lieutenant Don Bergin in Falluja.
Contact the Diary: Dominic.Hilton@openDemocracy.net
