http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/10/1047144926245.html

The United Nations Security Council has 15 members. The United States needs nine of them to vote for the second resolution for the war to be UN-approved. So far, the US has four votes - its own, plus those of Britain, Spain and Bulgaria. Germany and Syria are deeply opposed. France, Russia and China are also opposed, but it is not clear whether they will vote against or abstain. The other six - Chile, Cameroon, Angola, Mexico, Guinea and Pakistan - appear to be undecided.

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http://politics.guardian.co.uk/whitehall/story/0,9061,911099,00.html

An employee at GCHQ, the [British] government's electronic eavesdropping centre, has been arrested under the Official Secrets Act after the Observer published an article based on a leaked US intelligence memo.

The Observer reported last week that the US is intercepting telephone calls and emails of foreign delegates to the UN security council. The front-page article was based on a memo written by a senior official at the National Security Agency (NSA), the US equivalent of GCHQ, which advised that the US wanted information on "policies", "negotiating positions" and "alliances" of security council members. The Observer said yesterday that the memo had been leaked to it "by British security sources who objected to being asked to aid the American operation".

A 28-year-old woman employee at GCHQ was arrested last week by Gloucestershire police and released on bail. A GCHQ spokesman declined to give further details... If GCHQ acted on the memo - by eavesdropping on targets simply to strengthen the US and British governments' negotiating position in the UN, on an issue itself disputed on legal grounds - it could be found in breach of the 1994 Intelligence Services Act.

It is believed the memo was sent out via Echelon, an international surveillance system set up by the NSA. France and other European countries have long claimed that the system, which links the US, Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand, is a privileged Anglo-Saxon club which has been put to improper use. The British government has always vigorously denied this, insisting it is only used to monitor genuine threats to national security, hostile powers, and to help fight terrorism.

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http://www.observer.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12239,910657,00.html

The United Nations has begun a top-level investigation into the bugging of its delegations by the United States... Sources in the office of UN Secretary General Kofi Annan confirmed last night that the spying operation had already been discussed at the UN's counter-terrorism committee and will be further investigated. The news comes as British police confirmed the arrest of a 28-year-old woman working at the top secret Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) on suspicion of contravening the Official Secrets Act.

...The operation is thought to have been authorised by US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, but American intelligence experts told The Observer that a decision of this kind would also have involved Donald Rumsfeld, CIA director George Tenet and NSA chief General Michael Hayden. President Bush himself would have been informed at one of the daily intelligence briefings held every morning at the White House.

Attention has now turned to the foreign intelligence agency responsible for the leak.

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http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20030308.wxnuke0308/BNPrint/International/

Ottawa — Secret documents detailing attempts by Iraq to buy uranium for nuclear warheads from Niger are forgeries, the UN's nuclear watchdog agency says. Mohamed ElBaradei, the director-general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said Friday his investigators and independent document examination experts have determined the letters and other written material are "not authentic." The forgeries were sold to an Italian intelligence agent by a con man some time ago and passed on to French authorities, but the scam was uncovered by the IAEA only recently, according to United Nations sources familiar with the investigation. The documents were turned over to the IAEA several weeks ago. In fact, the IAEA says, there is no credible evidence that Iraq tried to import uranium ore from the Central African country in violation of UN resolutions.

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/10/international/middleeast/10ENVO.html?pagewanted=print&position=top

The Bush administration has asked more than 60 countries to find and expel several hundred Iraqi diplomats that the C.I.A. and others have identified as suspected intelligence agents, saying they "pose a threat to our personnel and installations overseas," senior administration officials said today. The administration has begun discussing its request in more detail in recent days as countries have begun to act on the warning. Australia announced today that it was expelling a single Iraqi diplomat, Helal Ibrahim Aaref, after accusing him of spying. He was given four days to leave the country... The United States runs a large intelligence-collection site in the center of Australia.

...It is unclear what proof, if any, the United States is providing to back up its claims that the diplomats are in fact Iraqi intelligence agents. Nor is it clear whether countries are demanding any more evidence...The head of Iraq's diplomatic mission to Australia, Saad al-Samarai, said Mr. Aaref was not a spy, and he told Reuters today that "It's a new thing on the international scene when a superpower asks other countries to expel diplomats and they do."

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http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-605557,00.html

BRITAIN and the United States will today press the chief UN weapons inspector to admit that he has found a “smoking gun” in Iraq. Such an admission could persuade swing voters on the Security Council to back the March 17 ultimatum. The British and US ambassadors plan to demand that Hans Blix reveals more details of a huge undeclared Iraqi unmanned aircraft, the discovery of which he failed to mention in his oral report to Security Council foreign ministers on Friday. Its existence was only disclosed in a declassified 173-page document circulated by the inspectors at the end of the meeting — an apparent attempt by Dr Blix to hide the revelation to avoid triggering a war.

...An explicit report by Dr Blix of the discovery of an Iraqi violation would help the six swing voters — Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea, Mexico and Pakistan — to explain a change of position to their publics.

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http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/news/page.cfm?objectid=12715943&method=full&siteid=106694

TERRIFIED Iraqi soldiers have crossed the Kuwait border and tried to surrender to British forces - because they thought the war had already started. The motley band of a dozen troops waved the white flag as British paratroopers tested their weapons during a routine exercise. The stunned Paras from 16 Air Assault Brigade were forced to tell the Iraqis they were not firing at them, and ordered them back to their home country telling them it was too early to surrender. The drama unfolded last Monday as the Para batallion tested mortars and artillery weapons to make sure they were working properly. The Iraqis found a way across the fortified border, which is sealed off with barbed-wire fencing, watchtowers and huge trenches.

...A British Army source in Kuwait contacted me to explain how the extraordinary surrender bid unfolded. The source said... "The Paras are a tough, battle-hardened lot but were moved by the plight of the Iraqis. There was nothing they could do other than send them back. They were a motley bunch and you could barely describe them as soldiers - they were poorly equipped and didn't even have proper boots. Their physical condition was dreadful and they had obviously not had a square meal for ages. No one has ever known a group of so-called soldiers surrender before a shot has been fired in anger."

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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/09/international/09DETA.html

The capture of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed provides American authorities with their best opportunity yet to prevent attacks by Al Qaeda and track down Osama bin Laden... Senior American officials said physical torture would not be used against Mr. Mohammed, regarded as the operations chief of Al Qaeda and mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks. They said his interrogation would rely on what they consider acceptable techniques like sleep and light deprivation and the temporary withholding of food, water, access to sunlight and medical attention. American officials acknowledged that such techniques were recently applied as part of the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah, the highest-ranking Qaeda operative in custody until the capture of Mr. Mohammed. Painkillers were withheld from Mr. Zubaydah, who was shot several times during his capture in Pakistan... Routine techniques include covering suspects' heads with black hoods for hours at a time and forcing them to stand or kneel in uncomfortable positions in extreme cold or heat, American and other officials familiar with interrogations said.

...About 3,000 Qaeda and Taliban suspects have been detained since the fall of 2001... At Guantánamo Bay in Cuba... there have been 20 reported suicide attempts involving the prisoners, an extraordinarily high number compared with other prison populations, said Dr. Terry Kupers, an Oakland psychiatrist who is an authority on mental health in prisons. Another suicide attempt took place on Friday, The Associated Press said today.

...Far less is known about the conditions for the suspected Qaeda members who have been turned over to foreign governments, either after the United States finished with them or as part of the interrogation procedure. Even the numbers and locations are a mystery. American and foreign intelligence officials have acknowledged that suspects have been sent to Jordan, Syria and Egypt. In addition, Moroccan intelligence officials have questioned suspects... "I am allowed to use all means in my possession," a senior Moroccan intelligence official said. "You have to fight all his resistance at all levels and show him that he is wrong, that his ideology is wrong and is not connected to religion. We break them, yes." In Cairo, leaders of several human rights organizations and attorneys who represent prisoners said torture by the Egyptian government's internal security force had become routine... "In the past, the United States harshly criticized Egypt when there was human rights violations, but now, for America, it is security first — security, before human rights," said Muhammad Zarei, a lawyer who had been director of the Cairo-based Human Rights Center for the Assistance of Prisoners.

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http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=89246

North Korea test-fired a medium-range anti-ship missile Monday in another apparent attempt to bring the United States into direct talks on its nuclear program... South Korea’s Defense Ministry said the missile was fired at about noon shortly after newscasts here showed the American officials, Secretary of State Colin Powell and the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, rejecting bilateral negotiations with the North... Rice, on ABC, called for bringing ‘‘the weight of the international community in a multilateral fashion to deal with the North Korea threat.’’

...The second missile was fired Monday in the midst of a lavish luncheon [for] Caspar Weinberger, U.S. defense secretary in the 1980s under President Ronald Reagan... At the lunch, Weinberger characterized a 1994 Geneva agreement, under which North Korea pledged to give up its nuclear weapons program, as ‘‘a prime example of appeasement at work.’’ If the United States failed ‘‘to clear up Iraq’’ militarily, he said, ‘‘it will send a clear signal for Kim Jong Il,’’ the North Korean leader. ‘‘If we do our job properly in Iraq, they might learn some lessons,’’ Weinberger said.

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http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/09/1047144872121.html

The Pentagon is about to take the first public step to produce an earth-penetrating nuclear weapon that could be aimed at North Korea's underground nuclear and missile production facilities, Bush Administration officials say. Within a week, an air force report is to be delivered to the House of Representative and the Senate, stating the military requirements for the "robust nuclear earth penetrator," a device designed to dig into the ground before it explodes and crushes any facility buried beneath it.

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http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1035778907789&call_pageid=968332188492&col=968793972154

U.S. military analyst John Pike... director of GlobalSecurity.org, describes an assault on Saddam's regime that begins with "shock-and-awe'' aerial bombardment, and quickly moves into crush mode with the Third Infantry Division (Mechanized) rolling up from the Kuwaiti desert and U.S. Marines storming the port city of Basra.

...This particular operation — Pentagon working title: "OpPlan 10-03-Victor" — has been on the drawing board for a year, according to defence officials... But the long-term goal, say big-picture analysts, has been in the works for far more than the 23 years since former U.S. president Jimmy Carter linked American security — "the vital interests of the United States'' — to the Persian Gulf and its oil, and threatened military intervention. This war, say analysts, is about power and oil. It's about control of the Gulf states by means of strategic Iraq and, by extension, a final post-Cold War shakeout to give the U.S. more economic clout over China and Russia by controlling the oil spigot.

This is the moment, Thomas Barnett, from the U.S. Naval War College, wrote recently in Esquire magazine, "when Washington takes real ownership of strategic security in the age of globalization.''

..."The only precedent to what is shaping up now is the Roman Empire,'' says Michael Klare, professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College. "There is only one power. I don't think Britain, France or Spain even came close in other centuries to the United States today. If the United States controls Persian Gulf oil fields, it will have a stranglehold on the world economy,'' adds Klare.

...These ideas aren't new. For years, a small and powerful group, with corporate and political links, pushed the idea of controlling Persian Gulf oil. They did it publicly, at think-tanks and in the media. Now, this coterie of like-minded strategists controls both the Pentagon and the strategic aims of President George W. Bush's White House.

...Originally, this was the "Kissinger plan,'' says James Akins, former U.S. ambassador to Saudi Arabia. He lost his state department job for publicly criticizing administration plans to control Arab oil back in 1975 when Henry Kissinger was secretary of state. "I thought they were crazy then and they're crazy now,'' Akins tells the Star, adding that Congress studied plans to control Persian Gulf oil and concluded the idea was absolute madness. "I thought this whole thing was dead. But now you've got all these `neo-cons' in power, and here we go again,'' says Akins, a Washington-based consultant. "They figure once they take over Iraq, they don't have to worry about the Saudis.''

...Bush often mentions Iraqi oil, a jarring focus for a president on the brink of war. "We will seek to protect Iraq's natural resources from sabotage from a dying regime and ensure they are used for the benefit of Iraq's own people,'' he said in last week's radio address.

...The real devastation should begin within days... First comes aerial bombardment, an extraordinary 1,500 bombs every 24 hours... One new bomb is the 9,000-kilo MOAB (Massive Ordnance Air Burst)... And, the U.S., as Friedman points out, on the brink of world hegemony, is going to find out who its friends are.

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http://politics.guardian.co.uk/foreignaffairs/story/0,11538,911382,00.html

The Conservatives today suffered their first resignation over Iraq with the surprise announcement from John Randall that he was quitting as he did not consider a case had been made for war. He is the first opposition MP to have taken such a step on this issue... Mr Randall, the MP for Uxbridge, said: "I wanted the freedom... to be able to express my views about Iraq. I do not think at this stage military action is justified."

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http://www.antiwar.com/orig/walters1.html

"As the Bush administration moves toward certain war in the Middle East – a war which I believe nothing good will come from, a war which is unjust, unnecessary, and a war which will undoubtedly widen, perhaps even into world war, thereby placing our nation in dire peril – I have made a decision regarding my position as Boone County Republican [Party] Chairman.

"Wars are easy to get into, but very difficult to get out of. They can sap the moral and spiritual fiber of a nation, squander lives and resources, deplete scarce funds, cause undue hardship on all involved, destroy families, and engender hopelessness. I have questioned both the motives for military action at this time, and the ever-changing, illogical justifications presented to us in what has to be one of the greatest media propaganda blitzes ever force-fed a populace. Any time ground troops are deployed, serious questions must be asked and real answers demanded. The jingoistic rhetoric we are receiving does not constitute legitimate answers.

"...This is how world wars begin. If the President goes into Iraq alone without a UN resolution, he will be in violation of the war powers given him last October by congress which was contingent on UN approval. A constitutional crisis will occur.

"...The coming mass slaughter of innocents, the harm our own troops are being placed in, and the potential for wars on several fronts have brought home to me the sobering realization that by remaining Boone County Republican Chairman, I would be giving tacit approval to this imminent war, and tacit approval to the belligerent and reckless language coming from the White House... I therefore resign as Chairman of the Boone County Republican Central Committee effective at noon, March 10, 2003. I do not wish to be Chairman when this tragedy starts. "

(Jack Walters [was] the Boone County, Missouri GOP Chairman.)

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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/10/politics/campaigns/10DEMS.html?ex=1048310286&ei=1&en=eda8c7941aa8b4b9

IOUX CITY, Iowa, March 9 — Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri came here today for a thoughtful Sunday morning living room conversation with Iowa Democrats about the issues of his emerging presidential campaign: education, health care and pension. But for 25 minutes, Mr. Gephardt was badgered about his support for President Bush's Iraq policy in a tense session that finally ended when the local Democratic chairman said Mr. Gephardt was running behind schedule. In an instant, Mr. Gephardt was out of the room.

...Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts came to Iowa on Saturday to give a speech in Des Moines about women's issues. But he arrived to the shouts of antiwar demonstrators... Even Howard Dean... expressed frustration at what he encountered as he tried to talk about farm prices on Friday. "I had a press conference and it was all about the war," Dr. Dean said.

...The candidates are struggling with the question of what they can say. In recent days Mr. Kerry... has been criticizing Mr. Bush for what Mr. Kerry suggested was a rush to war. The senator said in an interview in Des Moines that such comments would cease should fighting begin.

...Dr. Dean [was]... asked what he would say if there was a war. "You know, I don't know the answer to that yet," he said, while campaigning through eastern Iowa on Friday. "...Obviously, I'm going to wish everybody well. You know, you root for your country."

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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/03/10/wirq310.xml/

In Kuwait it was confirmed yesterday that cameramen for the main networks and cable news stations, including the BBC, will be stationed with frontline units and have been given permission to use the latest in satellite technology to send their images directly back to news rooms... The reporters - the vast majority American but also some from international organisations including The Daily Telegraph - have all been selected by the US military to be "embedded" with units for the duration of the war...TV crews are also to be stationed with the 101st Airborne, which is expected to be airlifted directly into northern Iraq.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/10/business/media/10ADCO.html?pagewanted=print&position=top

The prospect of war in the Middle East is casting a lengthening shadow over Madison Avenue... Advertisers like Gucci and Merrill Lynch have informed agencies and media companies that they may cut ad budgets... even before a war breaks out. Scores more have put into place contingency plans in case of war, which require the immediate suspension of campaigns or the shifting of commercials and print ads away from any coverage of hostilities. And some marketers, media executives say, are signaling that they would stop all spending until a war ends or the crisis abates. "The war seems to be putting a fog in front of their eyes," said William D. Holiber, the publisher of U.S. News & World Report in New York. "They all seem to want to wait until there is more clarity." ...The problem is "the Iraq overhang," said David B. Doft, an analyst for CIBC World Markets in New York. "Why make a decision to go ahead with launching a new campaign or a new product when you can wait a couple of months and play it safe?" Mr. Doft said. "The caution comes from not wanting your ads to show up on TV next to dead bodies."

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http://www.nathannewman.org/log/archives/000823.shtml#000823

Read this to have bad dreams about the economy.

A big question has been why, despite the stock market collapse, rising unemployment and general economic trauma, growth has still sputtered along. The answer is last year's rising housing prices and cashing out of equity in homes. But that may be ending. And if you understand how important that was for the economy, the end of the housing bubble could mean depression.

See here: In 2002 households "'cashed out' almost $200 billion of accumulated home equity," Greenspan tells us. How important a sum is this in the context of the U.S. economy? Think of the mammoth Bush stimulus plan of close to $700 billion -- over 10 years. In one year, home equity refinancing has offered almost three years' worth of the sum involved in the new stimulus plan. "An even greater support to the economy," in Greenspan's words, was "the extraction of home equity associated with a record 6.4 million existing home sales, including condos, at record prices" -- in other words, the capital gains to those (fortunate) people who sold property at the current oh-so-high prices, gains paid for, of course, by the soaring debt taken out by the (unfortunate) purchasers.

...And there is a third leg to the money from housing boom. Home equity financing -- loans for purposes other than house buying but backed by property equity -- amounted to approximately $130 billion, "also a record," Greenspan tells us. Putting the three elements together, Greenspan said the Fed calculates that "the amount of previously built-up equity extracted from owner-occupied homes last year, net of fees and taxes, totaled $700 billion ... or more than 10 percent of estimated equity at the beginning of the year."

This sum is enormous, as large as Bush's 10-year stimulus plan -- and all of it entering the economy in one year. Repeat-- an additional $700 billion pumped into the economy last year. And it still just limped along.

Subtract the housing bubble, and add in Iraq, and this year could be an unimaginable disaster for the economy.

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http://calpundit.blogspot.com/2003_03_02_calpundit_archive.html#90315538

CENSUS FUN....Did you know that the 2000 census results are online and available at the neighborhood level? It turns out that I live in census tract 525.14, which includes a grand total of 46 houses and 122 people. Of these: 41 are owned, 5 are rented. Of the population, 92 are white, 28 are Asian, 2 are "mixed," and of these 6 are Hispanic. There is one person in my neighborhood over 85 years old.

OK, it wasn't all that interesting. But if you want to check out this information for your city, school district, or neighborhood — or just noodle around with the census data-- [go to] http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/BasicFactsServlet

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http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/03/08/MN242495.DTL&type=printable

A company tied to Vice President Dick Cheney has won a Pentagon contract for advice on rebuilding Iraq's oil fields after a possible war. The contract was disclosed in the last paragraph of a Defense Department statement on preparations for Saddam Hussein's possible destruction of Iraq's oil fields... The contract went to Kellogg Brown & Root Services, which is owned by Halliburton Co., of which Cheney was chairman until his election in 2000.

Cheney's office declined comment... The Pentagon wouldn't discuss the exact size of the contract, nor how it was rewarded, saying the information is classified... Administration officials have said they view Iraq's petroleum wealth as a tool for rebuilding.

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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story2&cid=808&u=/dowjones/20030310/bs_dowjones/200303100033000013&printer=1

The Bush administration is preparing to award a contract valued at as much as $900,000,000.00 to begin rebuilding a postwar Iraq... Monday's Wall Street Journal reported. The U.S. Agency for International Development quietly sent a detailed "request for proposals" to bid on the contract to at least five of the nation's infrastructure-engineering firms. All have already submitted bids or are preparing to do so... The plan is laid out in a 13-page document, "Vision for Post-Conflict Iraq," which USAID has distributed only to a limited circle in Washington, in addition to the handful of American companies... The maximum value of just the initial contract would be more than double what the U.S. is spending in fiscal years 2002-04 to rebuild Afghanistan.

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http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/03/07/1046826528748.html

Reader Alun Breward writes: "I found this article on the website of German news magazine Der Spiegel this week. I thought it was one of the best pieces of journalism on the Iraq conflict I have read and so I translated it." Thanks Alun! Here we go. "This war came from a think tank," by Jochen Boelsche, Der Spiegel.

... As far back as 1998, ultra right US think tanks had developed and published plans for an era of US world domination, sidelining the UN and attacking Iraq. These people were not taken seriously. But now they are calling the tune... These 1990's schemes of the Think Tanks, from sidelining the UN to a series of wars to establish dominance - were in no way secret. Nearly all these scenarios have been published; some are accessible on the Web. For a long time these schemes were shrugged off as fantasy produced by intellectual mavericks - arch-conservative relics of the Reagan era, the coldest of cold-war warriors.

...A 1997 proposal of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC)... forcefully mapped out "America's global leadership". On 28 Jan 1998 the PNAC project team wrote to President Clinton demanding a radical change in dealings with the UN and the end of Saddam... He was, they said, a threat to the US, Israel, the Arab States and "a meaningful part of the world's oil reserves". They put their case as follows: