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Wednesday,
April 23, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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1,000 more to join hunt for WMDs
Partition
Iraq, says military expert
Pak
plans to step up infiltration, says India |
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WMD
technology transfer worries India, George tells defence experts
Pakistan
ready for sustained dialogue
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1,000 more to join hunt for WMDs
Washington, April 22 They will analyse documents, interrogate prisoners and scour suspicious sites, joining 200 experts already looking for evidence that Iraq’s fallen President Saddam Hussein had biological, chemical and nuclear weapons programmes, the rationale for war given by President George W. Bush’s Administration. The additions to the search team, expected to be sent when safety allows, would speed up a process that has moved slower than had been hoped. The hunt is expected to gain speed because of increasing tips from Iraqis. “The Iraqi people are emerging from the shadow of Saddam’s tyranny to help coalition forces find death squads, uncover weapons caches, capture regime leaders, recover POWs and restore order and basic services,” US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday. Military officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said yesterday that experts already in Iraq had identified ingredients and equipment that could be used to make a chemical weapon. That discovery was made south of Baghdad several days ago with the help of an Iraqi scientist who said he had worked in Saddam’s chemical weapons programme. The officials would not identify the material, which had been buried. Many weapons ingredients have non-military uses and officials cautioned that the findings, which are being analysed, do not confirm the presence of chemical weapons at the site. NEW YORK: The US Administration, which provided “graphic details”, complete with satellite images of Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) last February to the UN Security Council, is embarrassed — despite extensive search no barrels of nerve agent and buried or “mobile” bioweapons labs have surfaced. “The White House is screaming, ‘Find me some WMD,’” a US State Department official has been quoted by the Time magazine as saying. Members of the Administration, the magazine comments, must feel a new bond with UN Chief Weapons Inspector Hans Blix, since they are now the ones arguing that “these things take time”. For months before the war began, everyone from President George W. Bush down argued that Saddam Hussein’s arsenal of biological and chemical weapons was so dangerous that destroying it was worth a war. They laid claim to information so certain that Secretary of State Colin Powell was able to provide graphic details to a UN audience in February. However, sanguine officials sound in public, but in private the pressure is rising. The Pentagon sent an entire brigade - 3,000 troops - to the search and offered 200,000 dollar bounties for any WMD uncovered. Local officers were authorised to make payments of 2,500 dollars on the spot. Even hardliners, the magazine says, concede that they have confirmed absolutely nothing so far. Barrels of nerve agent have turned out to be pesticide; tip-offs about weapons sites have led to nowhere; the buried or mobile bioweapons labs have so far failed to surface. A senior Pentagon official was quoted as saying that US forces had been to several “promising” sites in southern Iraq and come up empty. “It’s there, but it’s well-hidden,” another Pentagon official insists. “It will take time to discover and verify because they took time and effort to hide it.” But Time says some officials now question whether huge stockpiles will ever be found: it’s easy to hide a litre of anthrax, but not factory-size facilities needed to produce it.
PTI, AP |
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Blix wants UN experts in Iraq
Russia, however, called for UN inspectors to complete their searches and certify that Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons had been eliminated along with long-range missiles to deliver these as required under a Security Council resolution.
AP |
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Partition Iraq, says military expert
Washington, April 22 “Certainly, our efforts to rehabilitate the region would go more smoothly were Iraq to remain happily whole within its present borders. What if, despite our earnest advice, the people of Iraq resist the argument that they would be better off economically and more secure were they to remain in a single state? What if the model for Japan’s future were Yugoslavia after the Cold War, not Japan or Germany after World War II” he writes in an article in The Washington Post. Reason does not always prevail in the affairs of states and nations, he says Peters, passion rules. Kosovo, Macedonia and Bosnia remain dependent on foreign donations, black-marketing and debt for their survival. But none of this matters to those who could not bear the arbitrary borders imposed on them by diplomats whose concerns did not include popular will. Iraq’s Kurds, Shiites and numerous minorities, he says, have suffered under the rule of Sunni Arabs. “Above all, we should champion the cause of the Kurds, who have earned world respect. A long-suffering people divided by cruel borders, they seemed to pose an insoluble dilemma, given the strategic dictates of realpolitik.” As for Turkey, he says the US bases in Turkey and Ankara would not countenance a Kurdish state. “Turks, Arabs and Iranians all insist the Kurds must remain divided, poor and powerless.” “Now Turkey has betrayed us, while the Kurds fought beside us. In a decade of de facto autonomy in Iraq’s north, the Kurds proved they can run a civil, rule-of-the-law state. Cynics point out that ‘free Kurdistan,’ surrounded by enemies, would lack access to sea. But the Kurds would have oil and oil can buy access.
PTI |
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Pak plans to step up
infiltration, says India Washington, April 22 “Close to 100 training camps have been spotted across the Line of Control, holding some 3,000 trained terrorists to be sent to India. An additional 1,500 are already on the
LoC, waiting to slip across, with the active assistance of the Pakistan armed forces,” Mr Mansingh said at a conference on India-US relations at the University of California, Los Angeles, during the weekend. He said Pakistan was currently the epicentre of international terrorism that was particularly directed against India, adding that the Taliban and Al-Qaida, displaced from Afghanistan, were regrouping in Pakistan. “Terrorist leaders in Pakistan have been released from detention and are being freely allowed to mobilise funds for
jehad. Most importantly, the Pakistani President has failed to fulfil his own solemn commitment made to the USA to put a complete end to terrorist infiltration across the border and LoC into India,” he said. “The madrasas in Pakistan continue to double up as seminaries to terrorist forces,” he added. Close to one million young men in Pakistan, currently enrolled in 15,000
madrasas, would be the soldiers of jehad tomorrow. The world has paid scant attention to the danger that these “terrorist factories” pose for those who cherish democracy and freedom, Mr Man Singh said. He said in the global war against terrorism, there must be no distinction between terrorism that could be tolerated and that which could not, of terrorism directed against the West and that directed against others, of one being the product of evil and the latter requiring resolution of its “root causes.”
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WMD technology transfer worries India, George tells defence experts
Beijing, April 22 “There can be no selective interpretation of this cancer and the damage it can do to the global body politic,” Defence Minister George Fernandes said referring to the immediate need for the international community’s commitment to combat terrorism in any form be it the Al-Qaida, Cheche or Uighur. “We have conveyed this to our principal interlocutors in a frank and friendly manner and your leadership is aware of this,” he said. He was addressing “scholar-warriors” at China’s prestigious National Defence University on the outskirts of Beijing. “In like fashion, we have expressed our concerns about the transfer of sensitive technology and know-how pertaining to weapons of mass destruction and the manner in which this is being used to advance revisionist agendas,” said Mr Fernandes on the second day of his week-long visit to China, In the past, India had expressed concern over the Sino-Pak military cooperation, including nuclear technology. “Our shared interests encompass a range of anxieties that include the more recent scourge of terrorism stoked by religious radicalism and deviant state support for such activities,” he said. Commenting on his first-ever visit to China, Mr Fernandes, who had angered the Chinese prior to and after the Indian nuclear tests of May, 1998, said he had come here as a friend and to step up bilateral ties for mutual benefit. “I come to China in the spirit of friendship and amity, representing the National Democratic Alliance government led by our Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee and the one billion Indians whom we represent,” he said. Meanwhile, China today welcomed as “positive” Mr Vajpayee’s initiative to restart talks with Pakistan. “This is a very positive step and a good gesture. I hope what he proposed will come true and this needs the efforts from both sides,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Jianchao said here. Asked to comment on Vajpayee’s statement during his recent trip to Kashmir, Mr Liu said China’s position was that tensions between India and Pakistan should be settled through peaceful negotiations.
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Blackwill didn’t quit on political grounds: USA
Washington, April 22 Experts agree that his replacement will have to be a prominent American as India is a coveted posting. Secretary of State Colin Powell spoke to Mr Blackwill yesterday, the day he announced he was quitting. “Powell talked to him and thanked him for the great job he has done,” said Mr Len Scensny, a State Department official in the South Asia bureau. “He talked about our agenda in India and there is still much to do,” he added. He echoed the words of State Department spokesperson Richard Boucher who said, “Any speculation that there were policy reasons for his departure is totally misplaced.” “He explained his motivations in a statement released in New Delhi, discussed the wish to spend time with his family and return to teaching at Harvard, which he needs to be back for the academic year this fall. Those were his reasons. He and Mr Powell discussed this some months ago,” he stated. The Indian embassy declined to comment on Mr Blackwill’s departure. Ainslee Embree, special consultant to a former US Ambassador to India, Mr Frank Wisner, said Mr Blackwill might have decided that he wanted to go back to Harvard. Embree said Mr Blackwill had made some faux pas. “For instance, after the massacres in Gujarat he said he was sorry that anybody was hurt. All other major ambassadors condemned it except him and he made a very weak statement after several days.” Since it is such a coveted post, Mr Blackwill’s replacement could be someone high up in the State Department, but also a Republican contributor. My guess is they may very well choose a career person because of the sensitive negotiations between India and Pakistan,” Embree said. Others also threw in the possibility that it could be a Republican legislator who was close to India, which would be the easiest choice. Selig Harrison, an expert on India at the Centre for International Policy in Washington, said he believed relations between the two democracies were at a stalemate. Mr Harrison said the hopes for progress in strengthening ties that were aroused when President George W. Bush came to office had not borne fruit.
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Pakistan ready for sustained dialogue
Islamabad, April 22 Commenting on Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s offer of friendship, Mr Kasuri said he saw a change in tone and tenor which could be lost sight of. “They were not off the cuff. He could not have made that statement in Kashmir without giving it a real thought,” he said. Mr Vajpayee’s offer could result in a “paradigm” change and lead to a concrete dialogue process in which all issues, including Kashmir, would be addressed, he told the media last night in Karachi on his return from a tour of Saudi Arabia. He was of the view that by making the offer, Mr Vajpayee had distanced himself from “aggressive statements” of some of his ministers which were “not well received” by the international community. Urging India to come up with concrete proposals to resume the dialogue, Mr Kasuri hoped that the forthcoming visit of Mr Armitage could provide the “mechanism” to start the talks. Mr Armitage is expected to visit India and Pakistan shortly. Mr Kasuri also said that Pakistan was doing its best to stop all forms of terrorism and urged the international community to evolve a mechanism to verify the Indian charge of cross-border terrorism. “We are prepared for any kind of international mechanism on either side of the Line of Control. We will prefer the UN observers group to be strengthened. But if Indian wants representatives of six or seven countries, acceptable to both countries, it would also be acceptable,” he said. Mr Kasuri said Islamabad would soon announce dates for the postponed SAARC summit and hoped that it would provide an opportunity for the leaders of India and Pakistan to meet. About talks on the Kashmir issue, he said Kashmir was a long-standing dispute between the two countries and Kashmiris should be involved in the dialogue process.
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United Nations, April 22