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Wag the Dog Wiggles

Through the Timeline

December 22 1998 - January 14 1999

The Indian Express 12/22/98 TEHRAN: Another stray cruise missile from the U.S.-British strikes against Iraq has been found in Iran, a newspaper reported today. The missile landed in a barren area in the Southwestern border province of Khuzestan, the Jomhuri Islami newspaper reported. Iran, which condemned the four-night strikes that ended on Sunday, had strongly protested the accidental landing of another Iraq-bound missile on its territory last week, reports PTI

Reuters 12/22/98 China on Tuesday trumpeted its role in ending U.S. and British air strikes on Iraq and urged a return to negotiations with Baghdad aimed at resolving the U.N. arms inspection crisis. China made positive efforts in urging the U.S. and Britain to put an early end to the military action, said Foreign Ministry spokesman Zhu Bangzao. President Jiang Zemin delivered an oral message to President Bill Clinton and exchanged views over the telephone with Russian President Boris Yeltsin, elaborating on China's opposition to the use of force, Zhu said. He added that China opposed the use of force in international relations and called on the U.S. to seek a political solution to the crisis

Reuters 12/22/98 The United States is amenable to increasing the amount of oil Iraq can sell under the oil-for-food program, a U.S. official said Tuesday. Oil-for-food ... would be the one area where we could see perhaps the possibility of more forward movement, particularly if the humanitarian report indicated there was a greater need for food,'' Under Secretary of State Thomas Pickering told a briefing on U.S. policy toward Iraq. Pickering noted that with the decline in the world price of oil, Iraq could not buy as much food at the same export level Freeper spartacus notes Let me see. We just bombed the hell out of them, (supposedly), now we agree to increase the amount of oil Saddam can sell

The Orange County Register 12/22/98 Alan W. Bock, Senior Editorial Writer One of the most over-the-top expressions of presidency worship came from retired New York Episcopal Bishop Paul Moore at a save-the-president rally in New York last week. I think of the millions of people who will suffer and die because the Republicans want to get President Clinton for a personal sin, said the apparently daft ecclesiastic a couple of days before the renowned peacemaker launched missiles

Reuters via Newsmax.com 12/22/98 Prime Minister Yevgeny Primakov called yesterday for a strategic triangle with India and China, after Russia's bitter criticism of the four-day US and British blitz of Iraq. Primakov made clear that Russia would not back down from its condemnation of the strikes, and that it would also condemn any future offensive against Baghdad. ''We will never change our position. We are very negative about the use of force bypassing the Security Council,'' Primakov said in New Delhi. He said Russia, China and India should form a ''strategic triangle'' as a counterweight to US influence in the world. The decision by the United States and Britain to launch air raids without seeking approval from the UN Security Council infuriated Russia, which jealously guards its position as a permanent Security Council member.

Freeper Sandi 12/22/98 Center For Security Policy Decision Brief No.98-C 202 At present, it is unclear whether President Clinton's 'dog-wagging' bombing campaign against Iraq actually did degrade Iraq's weapon of mass destruction (WMD) programs. It certainly did not accomplish the systemic change -- the toppling of Saddam Hussein's regime -- that would be necessary for any bomb-inflicted degradation to be more than a temporary setback for the Iraqi despot. What the seventy-hour air campaign did do, however, is: shatter the last vestiges of the Desert Storm-era coalition united in opposition to Saddam and end, apparently permanently, the on-the-ground inspections performed by the UN Special Commission on Iraq (UNSCOM). As a result, it seems likely that the United Nations' mandated international sanctions regime -- a product of the former and renewed on the basis of unfavorable reports by the latter -- will not long survive.

The Village Voice 12/23-29/98 Jason Vest Was that a tomahawk missile in his pants or was Bill Clinton just happy to see Richard Butler's report? Even before the bombs actually rained down on Baghdad, cries of wag the dog went up from Capitol Hill to Dag Hammarskjö ld Plaza, and accusations characterizing the UNSCOM chairman as a geopolitical handmaiden to his beleaguered American patron began to fly like lethal airborne ordnance. Such speculation was hardly untoward: As former UNSCOM inspector Scott Ritter ably demonstrated earlier this year, Butler does seem to take the Clinton administration's input more seriously than that of his UN bosses. In another vein, it was on the same day Monica Lewinsky gave her grand jury testimony that Clinton commenced an utterly unnecessary bombing of Sudan and Afghanistan under the pretext of immediate clear and present danger. And, if we reach a little further into the recess of memory, we recall that it was on the eve of Gennifer Flowers's revelations in 1992 that then governor Clinton returned to Arkansas to preside over the execution of a retarded African American .It's always been hard to say what's more amazing about Clinton: his willingness to use his office for self-gain, or his ability to simultaneously co-opt Republican positions and get his fellow Democrats to abandon traditional principles in the name of defending his perpetually imperiled posterior. During the Judiciary Committee's proceedings, for example, New York's Jerrold Nadler held that LBJ should have been impeached for deceiving Congress into passing the Gulf of Tonkin resolution rather than publicly pondering if a similar standard might apply to Clinton's attacks on Iraq and Sudan, Nadler, like so many other Democrats, rallied round the flagpole

AFP 12/25/98 Iraq wants Arab governments to take heed of demonstrations of support for Iraq which have taken place in their countries, the official INA news agency reported. The official Arab position should reflect the slogans chanted by Arab masses, INA said, in its report on the meeting. The participants expressed profound satisfaction at the position demonstrated by the masses against the agression - an allusion to four days of air strikes by US and British planes against Iraq last week. Also on Thursday, Iraq vowed never to allow the return of UN arms inspectors in the face of deep rifts at the UN Security Council over how to deal with Saddam Hussein....

Reuters 12/26/98 Iraq said its air defenses fired at Western planes attacking a post in southern Iraq Saturday, the Iraqi News Agency (INA) said. At 11:25 (0825 GMT) this morning formations of enemy planes...attacked one of our air defense positions which confronted them and forced them to drop their load indiscriminately,'' an Iraqi military spokesman, quoted by INA, said .The army said Thursday Western planes violated Iraq's southern airspace for a third straight day but did not report any exchange of fire. U.S., British and French planes, based in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, patrol a no-fly zone in southern Iraq to prevent Baghdad from threatening its Shi'ite Muslim population

AP Louis Meixler 12/26/98 Iraq will fire on warplanes patrolling the no-fly zones, Iraqi Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said Saturday. Speaking on Qatar's Al-Jazeera television, Ramadan was asked if Iraq would accept the overflights of U.S. and British aircraft that maintain no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq. ``We say frankly now that any violation to Iraqi airspace will be met by Iraqi fire, Ramadan said. The interview was conducted in Baghdad hours after Iraq said its anti-aircraft gunners had driven off an attack by ``enemy warplanes that flew in from Kuwait and Saudi Arabia .. The Hartford Courant 12/27/98 Didn't the bombing hurt Mr. Hussein at all? He probably was strengthened more than hurt .Why did Mr. Clinton order an attack on the eve of the House debate on impeachment and end the bombing hours after he was impeached? He insists there is no connection, and he should be given the benefit of the doubt. Only a malevolent president would put American soldiers in harm's way for domestic political purposes ..

Creators Syndicate - www.creators.com 12/27/98 L. Brent Bozell III Bill Clinton's decision to unleash the dogs of war as he tip-toes on the precipice of impeachment conjures up a vision of White House defense lawyer Greg Craig appearing before Congress declaring: The President's military action was evasive, incomplete, misleading, even maddening - but it's not impeachable. There's no dodging the suspicion that Clinton is seeking to save his bacon by dropping some megatonnage on Saddam Hussein. After all, it's just what he did when he bombed Osama bin Laden's alleged facilities in Sudan and Afghanistan this summer. Both actions were launched with little or no consultation with Congress, and with too little consultation with the service chiefs at the Pentagon. Oh my, how the talking heads like Alan Dershowitz and NBC anchor-in-training Brian Williams are going nuts over that suggestion. How vile! How unpatriotic! What hypocrites. How about the Democrats? In 1983, Clinton defender John Conyers called for Reagan's impeachment for invading Grenada. (For good measure, he earlier called for impeachment over the Gipper's alleged incompetence in dealing with unemployment.) In 1984, as he ran for President, and again in 1986, Jesse Jackson suggested Reagan should be subject to an impeachment probe over U.S. actions in Nicaragua. Rep. Henry Gonzalez called for impeachment in 1983 over Grenada and again in 1987 over Iran-Contra. The National Organization for Women and the American Civil Liberties Union advocated impeaching Reagan in 1987. The major media didn't thump the tub for impeachment, but did suggest forcefully that Reagan's actions were even worse than the Watergate offenses that got Richard Nixon impeached. For example, in the January 9, 1984 New York Times, then-Senior Editor John B. Oakes proclaimed: President Reagan's consistent elevation of militarism over diplomacy creates a clear and present danger to the internal and external security of the United States. Presidents have been impeached for less. Oakes wasn't alone at the Times. On December 12, 1986, columnist Tom Wicker offered an echo: Mr. Reagan probably won't be impeached or forced to resign - though the offenses resulting from his policy, or his somnolence on the job, are more serious than any charge the House Judiciary Committee approved against Mr. Nixon. So where are these noble folks today? Have you noticed how the words War Powers Act haven't been invoked much by the liberal media in the last, oh, six years, now that a President they favor is lobbing the bombs? Where are the calls for impeachment from John Conyers and Jesse Jackson? Where are the charges of abuse of power from the editorial pages of The New York Times and The Washington Post? Nothing but silence. Stinking dead silence

ABCNEWS.com 12/29/98 Barbara Starr By attacking Iraq earlier this month, the U.S. military may have bombed its way into a shortage of the cruise missiles it uses to keep aircraft and their pilots out of harm s way. Pentagon planners, already dealing with tightening budgets, must now decide whether to spend the millions it takes to replace the crucial weapons, or wait for next-generation technology that may — or may not — be just over the horizon. U.S. B-52 bombers fired more than 90 cruise missiles into Iraq in the four days of Operation Desert Fox, using up some 40% of the most powerful missiles in the Air Force s inventory. But the air-launched weapons, made by Boeing, have been out of production for years, and there is no easy way to replace them. Not only does each missile cost $1 million, but to re-open production would be “ prohibitively expensive,” says Robert Wall, military editor of Aviation Week and Space Technology....The Air Force reports that prior to Operation Desert Fox it had 239 of the air-launched missiles, 198 of them able to carry the heaviest 3,000-pound warheads that were probably used in the campaign to blast through bunkers and other heavily fortified targets in Iraq. The weapons, known as Conventional Air Launched Cruise Missiles, or CALCMs, are to be replaced by the Joint Air to Surface Standoff Missiles, or JASSMs, after the year 2001....But while the CALCM has a range of 600 miles, the JASSM s range may be less than half that, which will make it hard for the lumbering B-52s to fire without getting so close to their targets that they would be in danger. Military experts now have to make the tough choice of deciding whether to spend on weapons that may never be used, convert weapons that could deplete the nuclear inventory, or wait for weapons that might not be up to the task. They will also have to figure out how to pay for Desert Fox, which could easily approach $1 billion after all expenses including pilots, fuel and transportation are figured. Those calculations will, no doubt, form a significant role in calculating what weapons to buy for any future campaigns....Like the Air Force, the Navy must decide whether to replace the cruise missiles it used in Desert Fox or to wait for new ones. The Navy s problem, though, is less critical. During Operation Desert Fox, ships and submarines fired more than 300 Tomahawk Land Attack Missiles, or TLAMs, which cost $1 million each....

Sydney Morning Herald 12/29/98 HOWARD SCHNEIDER If there are any clues as to why Iraq fired on American warplanes in northern Iraq on Monday, they might be found in the comparative lack of resistance put up by the Iraqi military during four days of heavy bombardment last week. After restricting his forces to a largely ineffective effort to shoot down cruise missiles with anti-aircraft guns during Operation Desert Fox, President Saddam Hussein may now be trying to show Iraqis and the world that he can still mount a response - a demonstration at least partly demanded by Iraq's internal politics....Perhaps more importantly, he may also be starting to show how he plans to try to turn the United States-led air strikes to his advantage. Far from compromising, his plan may be to keep pushing his dispute with the Middle East and the world to its limits, expecting that at some point the cost of enforcing sanctions, no-fly zones and other restrictions will be seen as more trouble than they are worth.... At the same time, Saddam's Government has refused to allow the United Nations to resume the weapons inspections required before international sanctions against Iraq can be lifted. Iraqi officials have threatened to halt the UN program under which their country can sell its oil to pay for food and medicine, and have given conflicting signals about the fate of the hundreds of UN humanitarian workers there who not only oversee that program but direct education, health and nutrition projects.... Ultimately, Saddam's goal is to have the eight-year-old sanctions lifted. While there is substantial sympathy, particularly among Arab countries, for finding some way to relax the embargo - a sentiment heightened by last week's bombings - Monday's incident near Mosul seemed to have little or no connection to that goal. Rather, Mr Clawson suggested, his more immediate aim may be to eliminate the no-fly zones.... In countries like Egypt, Operation Desert Fox left many leaders calling for the US and Britain not to take matters into their own hands, but to follow whatever policy is set by the UN Security Council. Analysts suggested the attacks may also be partly meant to bolster Saddam's stature with the Iraqi military after a missile attack to which they were largely unable to respond. As the attack started, Baghdad newspapers took the unusual step of acknowledging that Iraq's inferior technology left its military vulnerable - a surprising admission in a country often adamant about insisting on the superiority of its culture to others.

Reuters 12/31/98 Sue Pleming U.S. and British planes returned safely to their bases Thursday after patrolling Iraq's no-fly zones, a Pentagon spokesman said, as the United States began to scale down its presence in the Gulf....Wednesday, U.S. planes attacked Iraqi targets for the second time this week after Baghdad fired missiles at British and U.S. aircraft monitoring the southern no-fly zone.There was a similar clash in the northern exclusion area Monday when U.S. warplanes from Incirlik attacked an Iraqi anti-aircraft site after it launched missiles at the jets. Despite the latest clashes with Iraqi forces, the United States began to scale down its presence in the Gulf. The Pentagon said the USS Enterprise battle group carrier was set to leave the Gulf region as planned by the end of this week. ``It is scheduled to rotate out of there as planned,'' said Sivigny, adding that there would be sufficient forces in the region to adequately fulfil their mission. Sivigny said there were currently 34 U.S. ships in the region, including 21 combatants and 13 support vessels. Another carrier, the USS Carl Vinson would remain in the Gulf region.The number of U.S. troops there would drop to about 22,000 from about 29,900 during the four-day bombardment of Iraq that ended on Dec. 20....Last week, Defense Secretary William Cohen, speaking aboard the USS Enterprise, said Washington was withdrawing many of its deadliest bombers and the Enterprise. However, Cohen stressed enough U.S. troops and equipment would remain in the region to be able to renew attacks if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein threatened U.S. allies in the region....Iraq said Thursday it would continue to attack coalition planes in the exclusion zones and insisted again its forces had shot down an American or British plane Wednesday.... The United States and Britain rejected the Iraqi claim that a Western plane was shot down and said all of their planes had returned safely to their bases Wednesday and there was no coalition damage or casualties....

Reuters 1/2/99 Iraq accused the United States Saturday of waging economic warfare against the Iraqi people by blocking the import of food, medicine and other vital goods. ``The U.S. Representative at Committee 661 is playing an aggressive role and continuing his economic war against the Iraqi people by deliberately impeding the arrival of food, medicine and other humanitarian needs in time to Iraq,'' the source added. The source said the U.S. representative on the committee had suspended 193 contracts up to the end of the year which Iraq had signed with other parties within the framework of its memorandum of understanding with the U.N. Iraq has repeatedly complained to the United Nations about delays in the arrival of humanitarian supplies. The source said the U.S. representative was also responsible for obstructing 133 spare parts contracts needed for Iraq's war-hit oil industry...

New York Post 1/4/99 Tom Topousiss Saddam Hussein is joining forces with Islamic fundamentalist Osama bin Laden to launch a joint terror counterstrike against the United States and Britain, a new report says. An Arab intelligence expert, reported to know Saddam personally, told the magazine that very soon, you will be witnessing large-scale terrorist activity by the Iraqis. The source claims that the joint attacks would be aimed primarily at U.S. and British targets in the Islamic world. The contacts between Saddam and bin Laden have so far been limited to lower-level agents, according to U.S. intelligence sources cited by the magazine. An alliance would match Saddam's weapons - including easy-to-hide biological agents - and bin Laden's force of terror zealots.... In an interview with Newsweek at his desert camp in Afghanistan, bin Laden confirmed that civilian Americans are as much a target as the military or government agencies. Muslim scholars have issued [a religious order] against any American who pays taxes to his government, said bin Laden. He is our target, because he is helping the American war machine against the Muslim nation. Bin Laden has been waging a public-relations war, granting interviews to both Newsweek and Time magazines. Clutching an AK-47 automatic rifle at his side, bin Laden conceded to Time that he instigated the attack on the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. But he falls short of taking the blame. ...

Washington Times 1/4/99 Martin Sieff A rash of provocative actions by Saddam Hussein reflects a switch in tactics as he tries to break out of U.N. sanctions and smash the U.S.-led Middle East coalition against him, analysts say. And most doubt that current U.S. policies will be able to stop him. The coalition against Saddam is now in total disarray. Everything is in flux, said analyst Daniel Pipes, editor of the Middle East Quarterly. The system put in place eight years ago after the Gulf war to contain Saddam has collapsed. Our policy-makers really have no idea how to replace it. ...The Iraqi News Agency reported that Saddam told a Cabinet meeting the zones were flagrant and clear-cut violations of international laws, accords and norms, particularly the United Nations charter. ...Middle East diplomats and intelligence analysts said the air strikes appear to have inflicted some damage on Iraqi military sites, but there is no evidence they significantly loosened Saddam's hold on his country. The Clinton administration has failed to define a clear goal for its use of military force. As a result, there is no end in sight to these military strikes, said military analyst John Hillen of the Center for Strategic and International Studies....Privately, pro-Western Arab leaders of major nations such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt are believed to be urging more vigorous action by the U.S. government to topple Saddam....Experts say Saddam hopes his continuing defiance of the United States will revive his popularity in the Arab world, setting off violent anti-American demonstrations that will inhibit or weaken pro-U.S. regimes in the area.... Saddam has also been pushing for a pan-Arab summit where he hopes other Arab countries will condemn the U.S. and British air strikes and agree to disregard the U.N. embargo on Iraq.... Middle East intelligence sources said Israel takes seriously the possibility that Saddam may try to repeat his tactics during the early days of the 1991 Gulf war by trying to launch Scud missiles against the Jewish state, possibly during Ramadan.... There is also widespread uncertainty about how close Saddam may be to acquiring nuclear weapons. A study in the current issue of the journal Arms Control Today by David Albright and Khidhir Hamza of the Institute for Science and International Security concluded that if Iraq can obtain sufficient quantities of weapons-grade plutonium from Russia, Iraq could build its own nuclear weapon within as little as two months. Even if external sources of plutonium are not available, Iraq could still be in a position to produce enough weapons-grade plutonium of its own to make a nuclear weapon within two or three years, Mr. Albright and Mr. Hamza wrote.

Wall Street Journal 1/5/99 James Webb ...By fiscal year 2001 the Navy will have reduced the size of the fleet by 45% since my resignation as secretary of the Navy in 1988--if it meets its procurement goals. Since 1992 alone, the size of the fleet has declined by 31% while operational tempo has increased by 26%. More than half the ships in the Navy are at sea on any given day, and a majority of those are forward deployed. The aircraft mishap rate is nearly double last year's, the highest level in the past five years. Recruitment is dramatically off, 7,000 below requirements, the worst of all the services. Enlisted retention is below requirements and all officer warfare specialties foresee serious problems ahead. Funding for ship and aircraft modernization has declined by more than 50% since 1990. Departing servicemen increasingly cite their disappointment in the quality of leadership as their reason for leaving. Our effort to build a 600-ship Navy during the 1980s was a rather modest comeback from a period of serious neglect. Even before becoming secretary of the Navy I had argued that we should return to historical normality by reducing our ground and tactical aviation presence in Western Europe and increasing the size of the fleet. The morning I resigned as secretary rather than agree to a reduction in the fleet, I made a half-joking comment that I did not choose to be remembered as the father of the 350-ship navy. But never did I imagine that the Navy's leadership would allow the devastation that has now resulted in a 300-ship Navy, with the numbers continuing to sink.... But the time has come for the admirals to take the lead in educating Congress and the public regarding the strategic and operational requirements that drive the Navy's needs. Indeed, it is past time. They didn't fight for 600 ships. They didn't fight for 400. They have been telling their sailors that a 300-ship Navy is fine, while they may be on the way to 200...

Washington Times 1/6/99 Martin Sieff Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is orchestrating his latest confrontation with the United States during the holy month of Ramadan in the hope of unleashing mass popular protests against pro-American Arab governments. As a result, pro-Western Arab leaders such as Jordan's King Hussein, who visited the White House yesterday, find themselves whipsawed between the United States and Saddam. There is a method to this, said Daniel Pipes, editor of Middle East Quarterly. Saddam has found that Arab public opinion, the Middle East 'street,' is generally on his side, even though the governments are not. ... But the Middle East officials said the king remained concerned over what he saw as a lack of determined and coherent U.S. political and diplomatic policies to follow up the four nights of bombing of Iraq in December. Despite its close relations with Washington, Jordan is trying hard to remain on the good side of Saddam. On Monday, Iraq renewed an accord to supply Jordan with 4.8 million tons of oil products a year, the official Iraqi News Agency (INA) announced.... But Saddam's dealings with King Hussein have so far been mild compared with the virulent propaganda war he has unleashed against the rulers of pro-American Egypt and Saudi Arabia. He called directly on the Arab masses to topple their rulers, who befriended the United States. The comments appeared aimed chiefly at Saudi Arabia and Egypt.... Like Nasser, Saddam hopes to use the force of popular opinion and even mob violence to intimidate pro-Western Arab governments and erode their support for U.S. policies, these analysts said.... In 1991, Saudi Arabia publicly allowed the United States and its allies to deploy more than half a million troops in its territory to carry out Operation Desert Storm, the liberation of Kuwait, Mr. Pipes said. But since then, the general drift of public opinion in the region has been steadily toward Saddam, and this concerted propaganda offensive is meant to intensify that process, he said. As part of his efforts, Saddam is pushing hard for a pan-Arab summit during or just after Ramadan to condemn the four nights of U.S.-British air strikes on Iraq Dec. 16 to 19. Ramadan ends this month....

Reuters (Yahoo) 1/6/99 Chief U.N. weapons inspectors Richard Butler flatly denied on Wednesday that the U.N. Special Commission in charge of disarming Iraq spied for any country. ``We have never conducted spying for anybody,'' he said in response to reports by two U.S. newspapers that U.N. arms inspectors helped collect eavesdropping intelligence used in American efforts to undermine the Iraqi regime. ``Have we facilitated spying? Are we spies? Absolutely not,'' Butler said. ``Don't believe everything that you read in print. There is much in those articles which is wrong. I regret it.'' AFP 1/7/99 The United States collected some military information on Iraq while participating in UN weapons inspections, a senior US official acknowledged Wednesday. The official, who asked not to be named, maintained that it was naive to believe that the United States, as a member of the UN Special Commission (UNSCOM), would ignore data collected by UN weapons inspectors. It is naive in the extreme to think that we can provide for seven years the knowledge, technology, expertise and people to help UNSCOM do its job and then create some artificial barrier so that people forget what they have seen or learned, he said

Chicago Sun-Times 1/7/99 Robert Novak Behind Tuesday's air-to-air confrontations between U.S. and Iraqi warplanes, loudly broadcast by Washington, is longtime daily violation of no-fly zones by Saddam Hussein's aircraft. So, American hawks as well as doves ask: Is this a phony, political war? As if Iraq's penetration of airspace forbidden since the 1991 Gulf War were novel, the Pentagon claimed the new incident showed that the Iraqi dictator was ``frustrated'' and ``desperate''--not just repeating a daily event. This chest-pounding by the Clinton administration reflects a desire to declare victory in the 70-hour bombardment of Iraq nearly three weeks ago. In fact, national security experts outside the government agree that Operation Desert Fox accomplished hardly anything. It neither weakened Hussein's hold on power nor moved toward a negotiated settlement with Baghdad. Yet Republican members of Congress, while intent on uncovering President Clinton's reprehensible personal behavior, seem oblivious to what he does about Iraq What is happening cannot be understood without appreciating what's been going on for some time. The underlying reason for Tuesday's first air-to-air engagement since late 1992--apparently resulting in no hits by either side--was that U.S. warplanes decided to challenge in the southern no-fly zone what it had been ignoring around the country. Especially in the northern no-fly zone, according to U.S. military sources, Iraqi violations are habitual. The typical pattern has been a two-hour patrol by American aircraft, followed by a two-hour break during which Iraqi planes enter the zone unimpeded, followed by another two-hour U.S. patrol. This pattern may have been broken by Washington in response to Desert Fox's barren outcome

The Pioneer 1/8/99 Reports that UN weapons inspectors helped Washington eavesdrop on Iraqi military intelligence call into question the credibility of the inspection regime and its claims that Iraq still harbours weapons of mass destruction, Baghdad's ambassador says. If true, the reports in the Washington Post and Boston Globe only strengthen Iraq's argument that sanctions imposed after Iraq invaded Kuwait in 1990 should be lifted, Nizar Hamdoon said on Wednesday. If this has been established now as a fact, then the whole issue of Iraq's compliance would have to be dealt with differently, Hamdoon said, calling the reports the nail in the coffin for the UN inspections programme. ...Russia, meanwhile, repeated its long-standing opposition to the no-fly zones in Iraq and its view that UNSCOM chief Richard Butler could not be trusted in the wake of the newspaper allegations about US-UNSCOM collusion. The Secretary-General has, however, been aware for some weeks that a number of journalists have been pursuing this story. When he first heard of these allegations, he asked Butler about them. Ambassador Butler categorically denied them, it said and denied that Annan was trying to pressure Butler to resign. State Department spokesman James Rubin said Secretary of State Madeleine Albright discussed the newspaper story with Annan early on Wednesday and the latter assured her that the views attributed to him in the Washington Post and other newspapers are not his, and that he does not believe there is evidence of this kind of misuse of UNSCOM .

Seattle Times 1/9/99 John Donnelly Knight Ridder Newspapers As the United States and Iraq continue skirmishing, the Clinton administration is preparing for an escalation that would involve an air attack against Iraq far more severe than the 70-hour Desert Fox operation in December, according to administration officials. Instead of pinpoint strikes, the administration is ready with sustained bombing that could last up to three weeks, said three officials with the State Department and the National Security Council, who spoke on condition of anonymity. Such an attack would begin if Iraq downed an American or British plane patrolling the `'no-fly zones in southern and northern Iraq. Other triggers would be if Iraqi President Saddam Hussein threatened the Kurdish minority in the north or Kuwait and Saudi Arabia in the south, or if the administration learned the Iraqi leader was again preparing biological, chemical or ballistic weapons

The Electronic Telegraph 1/10/99 Scott Ritter THE United States, not Saddam Hussein, killed the credibility of Unscom. Washington destroyed an organisation whose reputation for technical excellence and an independent and objective character was crucial for its success....The final proof that the US subverted Unscom's operations came with last month's airstrikes against Iraq. The most important sites bombed during Operation Desert Fox were derived from data obtained from the work conducted by my team, both in terms of on-site inspection and special information collection techniques. The US violated its special relationship with Unscom. British intelligence officials, concerned at the damage the US tactics would do to Unscom's credibility, protested by withdrawing the team of British officers working on the inspection effort. ...The clear linkage between Unscom inspections and US (and United Kingdom) military action has not been missed by the Iraqis or their friends in the Security Council. I led over 30 inspections into Iraq. The key to our success was to pinpoint the locations where Saddam Hussein was hiding his weapons. Unscom sought out the assistance of the US and Britain, who agreed to participate in a special relationship to facilitate our disarmament efforts. Both governments agreed not to compromise Unscom. ...

Reuters 1/11/99 Ashraf Fouad Kuwait has placed part of its military on full combat alert in response to Iraqi ``threats'' to neighboring Gulf Arab states, a defense ministry spokesman said Monday. Deputy Prime Minister and Defense Minister Sheikh Salem Sabah al-Salem al-Sabah headed an emergency defense council meeting Sunday night to discuss ``threats by the Iraqi regime'' to Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, Colonel Ahmad al-Rahmani told Reuters. ``We have some units always on alert since the 1991 Gulf War and the latest measure is to further boost their readiness and level of alert,'' he added ..

FoxNewswire 1/11/99 U.S. fighter jets opened fire on an Iraqi missile site in the northern no-fly zone Monday, a U.S. defense spokeswoman said. She said the U.S. planes patrolling the no-fly zone had been targeted by the Iraqi site near Mosul, which had posed a threat to the allied planes. There was no damage to coalition aircraft and the planes returned safely to base in Incirlik, Turkey

MSNBC 1/12/99 Jim Miklaszewski American warplanes over Iraq on Tuesday won new freedom to strike at anything that might reasonably pose a threat to their safety, a significant escalation of their role in patrolling Iraq s “ no-fly zones,” U.S. officials told NBC News. Meanwhile, U.S. national security officials have been debating whether a second round of air strikes would be wise.... The new air combat policy enables U.S. warplanes to launch pre-emptive strikes against Iraqi surface-to-air missile sites along no-fly zones in both northern and southern Iraq. The U.S. officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the intent is to “ reduce the threat to American aircraft” enforcing U.N. resolutions that ban Iraq s air force from operating in those zones. The no-fly zones were established after the Gulf War in 1991 to protect Iraqi Kurds in the north and Shiite Muslims in the south. Both groups are regarded as opponents of President Saddam Hussein s regime. Discomfort with the daily showdowns in the no-fly zones has led to some dissent over what to do next. The widely held majority view, officials told NBC s Robert Windrem, is that the United States should not resume its broader air campaign against Iraq immediately. This view, which officials attribute to National Security Council staffers and others, holds that a new air campaign is not needed and could generate ill feelings since the Muslim holy month of Ramadan will only end at the weekend. It also holds that Saddam s relations with his Arab neighbors have been deteriorating and the United States should do nothing that could inadvertently halt that slide. Complicating the debate is a disagreement between the State Department and intelligence agencies over the level of internal dissent among the Iraqi military and security forces. The State Department tends to believe reports of executions among the Iraqi military. Many of the reports have been circulated by Iraqi opposition groups now on the receiving end of enormous U.S. financial resources.The CIA, according to interviews with officials there who requested anonymity, feels the regime is not crumbling and that reports that Saddam has been executing officers does not indicate a threat to the regime....

Reuters 1/12/99 Charles Aldinger Defense Secretary William Cohen said Tuesday that Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein was becoming more ''frantic and agitated,'' adding his voice to fears of a possible new Gulf crisis. Cohen, who is on a visit to Japan, vowed the United States would give no ground in enforcing no-fly zones over Iraq and warned Baghdad it would pay a price if it challenged U.S. and British air might

The National Post 1/12/99 David Frum by Freeper Capt. Canuck Remember Iraq? Largish country about halfway between here and China, sits atop a huge pool of oil, ruled by a megalomanical dictator who's trying to build an arsenal of chemical and biological weapons? If you do, you've got a much better memory than Bill Clinton, the U.S. president. Three weeks ago, the threat that Iraq might develop weapons of mass destruction was an urgent and imminent threat that had to be halted by a big American and British air raid. Three weeks later, after the Anglo-American warplanes smashed up a bunch of empty barracks buildings, warehouses and factories, Saddam Hussein is very nearly as close to his goal as ever. And yet, President Clinton seems strangely unconcerned

MiddleXpress AFP 1/13/99 Iraqi President Saddam Hussein is planning a great crime that could be even worse than his August 1990 invasion of Kuwait, analysts in this jittery emirate warned on Wednesday. To prevent a catastrophe bigger than the 1990 invasion, we must be aware that we are racing against time, wrote columnist Sami al-Nassef in the newspaper Al-Anba. He said Saddam was preparing to commit a great crime and urged the government in Kuwait, which has been rattled by a verbal onslaught from Baghdad since the Desert Fox air war, to take precautionary measures.

Reuters 1/13/99 Freeper Buzzbrockway Iraq said Wednesday that its air defenses had hit a U.S. or British plane over the north of the country but did not say whether it had been destroyed .

January 14, 1999

UPI 1/14/99 U.S. officials tell UPI (Thursday) the Pentagon is drawing up plans for a major bombing campaign against Iraqi air defenses in the north, which have fired on American aircraft for three consecutive days. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, say the attacks could begin as soon as the Muslim holy month of Ramadan ends this weekend.

UPI 1/14/99 The Iraqi leadership says (Thursday) Baghdad has fully complied with U.N. resolutions, including those requiring Iraq to scrap its weapons of mass destruction. A statement issued after President Saddam Hussein chaired a meeting of his top advisers demands lifting of U.N. sanctions against Baghdad and abolition of the ``no-fly zones'' in southern and northern Iraq.

AP 1/14/99 Iraq escalated tensions with Kuwait today, questioning the legitimacy of the emirate's borders and saying that parts of its land and coasts'' belong to Baghdad The harsh words from Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz appeared to be part of an ongoing series of verbal attacks against Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, which Baghdad blames for delaying an Arab League meeting on the Iraqi crisis. Iraq had hoped that during the meeting, now rescheduled for Jan. 24, it would be able to capitalize on popular protests in the Arab world in the aftermath of the Dec. 16-19 U.S.-British airstrikes against Iraq.... In his remarks in the newspaper, Aziz pointed out that Iraq accepted Kuwait's borders in 1994 as part of a U.N. resolution, but added that the resolution was tailored to expand Kuwait's coasts at the expense of Iraq.'' That resolution gave several miles of disputed Iraqi territory to Kuwait, including coastline and parts of the southern port of Um Qasr. Aziz said that Kuwait's acceptance of the arrangement means that it intentionally wants to inflict more harm on Iraq and the Iraqi people who at the end of the day are owners of the land and the coasts.'' Kuwait complained today to the Arab League about Aziz's comments, saying they are full of lies and deliberate fabrications of history.''... Meanwhile, Pentagon officials said two American warplanes fired missiles at Iraqi surface-to-air missile centers in two separate confrontations in the no-fly zone over northern Iraq today. It was the fourth day in a row that U.S. planes attacked Iraqi sites.

New York Times 1/14/99 Barbara Crossette UNITED NATIONS -- France, making a formal break with the United States and Britain, proposed on Wednesday that the Security Council lift the oil embargo on Iraq and institute a new weapons monitoring system to prevent Saddam Hussein from rearming. ...The United States rejected most major points in the French proposal in advance at a Council discussion last month on Iraq. Keeping Iraq under tight sanctions, including forbidding the country to sell oil freely to raise money for arms, has been central to American policy. ... But he reiterated the American position that sanctions could not be lifted until Iraqi arms programs had been rendered harmless. ... The initial reaction from Iraq, which would have to agree to a new monitoring system, was largely negative. Vice President Taha Yassin Ramadan said at a news conference such proposals, including similar ideas floated by Saudi Arabia, carry conditions that lead to exchanging eight-year-old sanctions with a new embargo. The French said in their plan that the oil embargo could no longer be defended, because it hurts the people of Iraq and keeps them hostages of their authorities. France would lift solely the oil embargo initially, leaving in place other sanctions like a ban on international air travel. Other sanctions would be removed only if the Iraqis demonstrate cooperation and compliance with new rules. Conversely, additional sanctions could be imposed should Iraq not comply with its undertakings and obligations. The French propose replacing the arms inspection commission with a renewed control commission that would have a preventive rather than investigative role, watching for signs of illegal arms use from existing stocks or attempts to buy or produce new prohibited weapons. Long-term monitoring would replace intrusive searches for evidence of past programs. ...Using language heard frequently from Iraq and Russia, the French proposal said that the control commission should have its independence insured and it professionalism strengthened. In the past those have been code words for shielding the inspections from American influence or pressure and putting them under the United Nations international Civil Service structure. ...Although offering no proposals on salvaging the arms inspection system carried out by the United Nations Special Commission, the American delegation is expected to oppose monitoring methods that do not allow intrusive inspections, even though the Clinton Administration did not press for them for much of last year. The French emphasize that their proposals are meant to generate debate and some action in the Security Council, which has been largely inert on the subject of Iraq since American and British bombing raids last month effectively killed the existing inspection system. ... In Paris the French Foreign Ministry said it was impossible to resurrect the Special Commission. France thinks that it is time for the U.N. Security Council to consider that no progress can be made by an illusory resumption of previous methods, a statement from the ministry said. The executive chairman of the commission, Richard Butler, continues to argue that the agency, known as Unscom, is not dead, and will have a new role to play in whatever system is ultimately devised. The Iraqis will have to accept any plan imposed on them, however. Hussein has always chafed at international controls, and the French proposal maintains some significant ones.

AP 01/14/99 CURT ANDERSON Forty-five minutes before the Senate impeachment trial resumed Thursday, two senators were discussing the case on live television. Although they were commanded to remain silent inside the chamber ``on pain of imprisonment,'' Sens. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., and Sam Brownback, R-Kan., were free to talk outside the Senate. After the session ended, many others did just that, and some didn't mince words about where they stand.