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Below is an article from today's Guardian. Both the article itself and the FCO sources it quotes are a bit confused, but it contains some interesting developments in the message coming out of the Foreign Office. The full text is towards the end of this email, but first a few extracts, and my comments in square brackets. There's also an article on the same page in the paper about how Saddam Hussein has been threatening the British-run de-mining operation in northern Iraq (Kurdistan), calling it an 'illegal' operation. The Kurdish parties apparantly do want the de-mining to continue. Extracts from "West steps up bombing of Iraq", Ian Black, Guardian 2-Mar-99: US and British officials say they are content with a situation that allows the gradual demolition of Iraq's air defences, though there is concern that the mission is ill defined and open ended... ... In London yesterday Foreign Office sources said Britain would shortly be proposing that the UN adopt new methods of distributing humanitarian aid to ordinary Iraqis, bypassing Baghdad, which has been repeatedly accused of stockpiling medicines. The Foreign Office proposals include a role for the voluntary sector in distributing food, medicine and humanitarian relief; encouraging the private sector to stimulate the country's drastically declining agriculture; and allowing Iraqi health and teaching professionals to re-establish contact with foreign colleagues. ["encouraging the private sector" and sanctions don't really go together, do they...?!] The Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, and his minister for the Middle East, Derek Fatchett, want to shift the focus from disarmament to humanitarian issues to underscore the point that Britain is not targeting the Iraqi people but the Baghdad regime. [This is telling... Cook wants to shift the focus AWAY from what is supposed to be the main sanctions issue (disarmament)!] 'It's true that much of this requires the co-operation of the regime,' admitted one senior official. 'But we need to try and take control out of the hands of Baghdad. It's a very damaging indictment of Iraq's government that they are stopping the programme from working simply for propaganda reasons.' [recent postings on this list suggest the last few lines are either completely untrue or at least not the whole story] Britain believes the current clashes over the no-fly zones can be sustained as long as there are visible efforts to relieve the humanitarian crisis, and that even Russia and France, working to accelerate the end of sanctions, have an interest in helping improve the lot of ordinary Iraqis. [So the humanitarian "visible efforts" are merely so that people don't worry about the on-going bombing campaign? I don't understand the second half of the paragraph, why "even" Russia and France?] [Here's the full article:] West steps up bombing of Iraq By Ian Black Diplomatic Editor Tuesday March 2, 1999 United States aircraft carried out the biggest attack on Iraqi military targets since December yesterday, increasing the fear that an undeclared war is escalating dangerously. As Britain signalled a new attempt to break the diplomatic impasse over Iraq, a US spokesman said F-15 aircraft had dropped more than 30 laser-guided bombs on communications sites, radio relay sites and anti-aircraft artillery sites near Mosul. There have been about 100 incidents in the no-fly zones since December, shortly after the end of the four-day Operation Desert Fox campaign, launched to punish Baghdad for blocking the work of the UN weapons inspectors. On Sunday US jets hit a communications facility in the north and apparently interrupted the flow of Iraqi crude oil through a pipeline into Turkey. That oil is used by Iraq to pay for food and medicine for civilians under an agreement with the UN. US and British officials say they are content with a situation that allows the gradual demolition of Iraq's air defences, though there is concern that the mission is ill defined and open ended, and that there is a remote chance that an allied pilot will be shot down and paraded through the streets of Baghdad. Last month President Saddam Hussein offered $14,000 to any air defence crew that brought down a US or British plane. In Washington the US defence secretary, William Cohen, said the attacks would continue as long as allied planes were being targeted. 'Pilots have been given greater flexibility to attack those systems that place them in jeopardy,' he said. 'They are not simply going to respond to a triple-A [anti-aircraft artillery] site or to a SAM [surface-to-air missile] site. They can go after command-and-control and communications centres as well that allow Saddam Hussein to try to target them and put them in jeopardy. So they have some flexibility and they will continue to have that flexibility.' Last week the Pentagon said Western planes had destroyed about 20 per cent of Iraq's anti-aircraft missile batteries. President Saddam is trying to keep up pressure for the lifting of UN sanctions, although weapons inspectors have been unable to operate. In London yesterday Foreign Office sources said Britain would shortly be proposing that the UN adopt new methods of distributing humanitarian aid to ordinary Iraqis, bypassing Baghdad, which has been repeatedly accused of stockpiling medicines. Last week the UN reported that half the $275-million-worth of food and medicines allowed into Iraq was still in government-controlled warehouses. The Foreign Office proposals include a role for the voluntary sector in distributing food, medicine and humanitarian relief; encouraging the private sector to stimulate the country's drastically declining agriculture; and allowing Iraqi health and teaching professionals to re-establish contact with foreign colleagues. The Foreign Secretary, Robin Cook, and his minister for the Middle East, Derek Fatchett, want to shift the focus from disarmament to humanitarian issues to underscore the point that Britain is not targeting the Iraqi people but the Baghdad regime. 'It's true that much of this requires the co-operation of the regime,' admitted one senior official. 'But we need to try and take control out of the hands of Baghdad. It's a very damaging indictment of Iraq's government that they are stopping the programme from working simply for propaganda reasons.' Britain believes the current clashes over the no-fly zones can be sustained as long as there are visible efforts to relieve the humanitarian crisis, and that even Russia and France, working to accelerate the end of sanctions, have an interest in helping improve the lot of ordinary Iraqis. -- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is a discussion list run by Campaign Against Sanctions on Iraq. To be removed/added, email soc-casi-discuss-request@lists.cam.ac.uk, NOT the whole list. Archived at http://linux.clare.cam.ac.uk/~saw27/casi/discuss.html