News Supplement, 22-29/10/00

["pbrooke" <pbrooke@DELETETHISukonline.co.uk>]

NEWS SUPPLEMENT, 22-29/10/00

*  U.S. To Pay Victims of Terrorism ["The message is clear to terrorist
nations ‹ there is a price to pay for killing Americans.'']
*  Vietnam may ask US for wartime compensation [but is there a price to pay
for killing Vietnamese?]
*  Decline of the UN Council [Pakistani view of how the Security Council has
been turned into an instrument of US foreign policy]
*  Surprise for Yemenis: Cole Blockaded Iraq
*  FBI Uses Light Touch in Yemen Blast Probe [notable for the following
rather sweetly innocent comment by the Yemeni president Ali Abdullah Saleh:
"We welcome them as guests to come and fix their ship," he said. "There are
220 of them. Maybe it will take them two or three days or a week at the
most, as I understand it, until they fix their ship and leave."]
*  Containing Iraq: A Forgotten War [an epic length article, giving all the
thrills and spills of patrolling the no-fly zones, and notable for the
feeling of at least some of the pilots that they are wasting their time]
*  Iraqi troop movement causes tension in Mideast
*  U.S. military spread across 142 countries [general account of US
involvement in context of Geo Bush's stated desire to reduce it]
*  The role for the US in UN peacekeeping [by Jeremy Greenstock, United
Kingdom's permanent representative to the United Nations]

URL ONLY
http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=130811
*   Iraqi leader reasserts himself
by Martin Sieff, UPI Senior News Analyst, Washington, Oct. 24 (UPI)
[Summary of S.Hussein's recent triumphs]

URL ONLY
http://www.washtimes.com/world/default-20001025221725.htm
*  Iraqi trade doing fine despite sanctions
by Betsy Pisik, The Washington Times, 25th October
[Another general summary of the unravelling of the sanctions regime. I don't
think there's much we haven't seen already apart from a quote from Hussein
Hassouna, the U.N. representative of the Arab League: "You cannot keep
punishing the people of Iraq, regardless of how you feel about their
government,"]

URL ONLY
http://theage.com.au/news/20001029/A13033-2000Oct28.html
*  Is the CIA just a political agent?
by ROGER FRANKLIN, The Age, Sunday 29 October 2000
[Summary of argument that the CIA is now useless to US interests]


http://www.wn.com/?action=display&article=4077029&template=worldnews/search.
txt&index=recent

*  U.S. To Pay Victims of Terrorism
The Associated Press, Sun 22 Oct 2000

WASHINGTON (AP) ‹ The U.S. Treasury will pay Terry Anderson and other
American terrorist victims and their families hundreds of millions of
dollars in legal damages owed by Iran, according to White House and
congressional officials.

President Clinton is expected to sign legislation ‹ already approved by
Congress ‹ that would pay a limited group of victims with U.S. funds and
then make the government responsible for collecting the claims through an
international court or negotiations with Iran, an administration official
said Sunday, speaking on condition of anonymity.

If signed, the new law also would allow the government to use frozen Cuban
assets to pay the families of pilots shot down off the coast of Florida by
Cuban fighter jets in 1996.

The measure will satisfy judgments from cases brought to trial under a 1996
law that allows American victims of terrorism in foreign countries to sue in
U.S. courts if the State Department lists those nations as sponsors of
terrorism.

In addition to Iran, lawsuits have been filed against Iraq by Americans used
as human shields during the Persian Gulf War and against Libya on behalf of
the victims of the 1988 bombing of Pan Am Flight 103.

Out of about $400 million available for the cases against Iran, eight
families who have won lawsuits will receive more than $213 million plus
interest. The remainder would be available for cases still pending against
that nation. The victims will be paid within 60 days of the president
signing the legislation.

``I am elated for the families. They have finally received the justice they
deserve,'' said Sen. Connie Mack, R-Fla., who sponsored the legislation in
the Senate. ``The message is clear to terrorist nations ‹ there is a price
to pay for killing Americans.''

Mack, along with Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., and Rep. Bill McCollum,
R-Fla., negotiated an agreement with the administration on the bill, which
passed the Senate this month. The House approved a similar measure earlier
this year.

White House spokesman P.J. Crowley said the bill supports victims and serves
the country's national security concerns.

``This compromise allows us to demonstrate that support without compromising
diplomatic protocols that might result in retaliations by other governments
against the United States,'' Crowley said.

A message left at Iran's mission to the United Nations was not immediately
returned Sunday.

Among those benefiting from the measure would be Anderson, a former chief
Middle East correspondent for The Associated Press, who was held captive in
Lebanon for nearly seven years. He and his family would receive $41.2
million in compensatory damages within the next several months.

Anderson won a judgment against Iran this year, which also included an
additional $300 million in punitive damages not covered by the new measure.

While about $400 million in Iranian assets are frozen in the United States,
that money is tied up in international litigation before the Iran-United
States Claims Tribunal at The Hague, Netherlands. So the Treasury will pay
the victims and the government will continue the litigation and negotiations
with Iran seeking access to those funds.

The new law, however, would allow access to frozen Cuban assets in the
United States to pay the families of the Brothers to the Rescue pilots
killed in 1996. Those families will receive at least $49.9 million plus
interest, and a decision on another $37 million in sanctions is still before
the courts.

``It's not total justice because it cannot give us back our loved ones,''
said Maggie Khuly, sister of Armando Alejandre Jr., who was among those
killed. ``But it is a step in the right direction.''


http://www.timesofindia.com/241000/24aspc5.htm

*  Vietnam may ask US for wartime compensation

HANOI, 24th October: Wartime compensation over the lingering effects of
Agent Orange is likely to arise during U.S. President Bill Clinton's visit
to Vietnam next month, Vietnamese media reported Monday.

At an international lawyers conference in Havana, Cuba, last week, Vietnam
led the call for a legal campaign demanding that the United States
compensate Vietnam for the effects of toxic defoliants used during the war,
the official English-language Vietnam News reported.

Luu Van Dat, head of the Vietnamese delegation and secretary-general of the
Vietnam Lawyers Association, urged the United States to help Vietnam
overcome the negative impacts of the defoliant Agent Orange, and compensate
Vietnamese who suffer health problems from it, the paper said.

Vietnam claims more than 1 million of its 76 million people were affected.

Officially, Vietnam's government has never pressed for compensation as the
two countries embarked on a process of slow rapprochement - starting with
establishment of diplomatic ties in 1995 and capped by the signing of a
trade deal in July that still needs legislative approval in both countries.

But the issue of compensation for the war that ended 25 years ago will
probably be brought up as Vietnam seeks to deflect anticipated criticism of
its poor human rights record during Clinton's trip.

Vietnam is routinely criticized by international human rights organizations
for its repressive tactics in silencing political and religious expression.

Last week, five senior U.S. senators - including Vietnam veterans John
McCain and Charles Robb - sent a letter to Clinton urging him to press for
"significant, realistic and tangible progress in human rights" with
Vietnam's leaders during his trip.

Vietnam is routinely criticized by international human rights organizations
for its repressive tactics in silencing political and religious expression.

While giving Vietnam credit for making some progress, the senators say the
country's overall record "remains a source of major concern."

Stating that freedoms of expression, association and religion continue to be
restricted, the senators wrote that "the silencing of government critics is
a sad testimony to the ongoing repression in Vietnam today."

Bristling, Vietnam's Foreign Ministry said in a statement released late
Monday that "Vietnam is determined to absolutely protest the acts of
interference into its internal affairs, which does not contribute to
promotion of bilateral relations."

The criticism "does not reflect the reality in Vietnam and is contrary to
the plans and interests of improving relations between the two countries,"
the statement said. (AP)


http://www.dawn.com/2000/10/23/ed.htm#1

*  Decline of the UN Council
Dawn (Pakistan) editorial, 23rd october

SPEAKING in the UN General Assembly Pakistan's permanent representative to
the UN rightly focused on the inadequacies of the Security Council in recent
years. He pointed out that "selectivity in the implementation of the Council
resolutions" had undermined its credibility. The non-implementation of UN
resolutions relating to the Jammu and Kashmir dispute is only one instance
of this selectivity and the Pakistan representative called on the world body
to play a proactive role on this issue. But when it came to showing
alacrity, the Security Council could not be faulted for lethargy when the
issue of East Timor had to be resolved. So too is the case of Iraq. But in
other instances its response and performance have left much to be desired.

Actually, the creeping ineffectiveness of the Security Council as an
instrument of international peace-keeping has much to do with the unipolar
world that has come into existence after the end of the cold war. When the
United States has wanted to put the Security Council to some use, the
Council has been firm and effective. Where US interests are not involved, or
where some crisis does not engage America's attention, the Security Council
becomes a lackadaisical body. See how quickly the Security Council was
brought together when the Iraq resolutions had to be passed. It is ten years
since the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait but still the Security Council has not
lifted UN sanctions - because the US so wills it - even if children are
dying and it has been demonstrated that sanctions hurt the people and not
the Iraqi regime.

The same selective morality is on display in the Middle East. Who now talks
of UN Security Council Resolution 242 which calls for Israeli withdrawal
from occupied territory including East Jerusalem? The Oslo Accords have
overtaken 242 simply because the Palestinian leadership, if not the
Palestinian people, have come to terms with Israeli hegemony which is backed
and sustained by US power. Even in the present flare-up the UN Secretary
General, Kofi Annan, visited the area after the so-called peace process,
with which the UN has nothing to do, had collapsed. He went, so to speak, to
pick up the pieces because American efforts to broker a settlement - or,
more accurately, to wring more concessions from Arafat - had come to nought.

Also significant is the distressing American habit - a direct outcome of its
sole superpower status - of bypassing the Security Council when it suits it.
The bombing of Serbia was an American decision with no sanction from the
Security Council. Much of the routine bombing of Iraq, some of it not even
reported in the press, falls in the same category. There was a time when
such acts would have been impossible. But with no checks on American power,
the US can get away with a great deal including the growing marginalization
of the Security Council. But will this promote international peace and
stability?


http://www.iht.com/IHT/TODAY/TUE/IN/yemen.2.html   

*  Surprise for Yemenis: Cole Blockaded Iraq
International Herald Tribune, October 24, 2000
by Alan Sipress Washington Post Service

ADEN, Yemen  - When a bomb blew a hole in the U.S. destroyer Cole as it
refueled here two weeks ago, many Yemenis were taken aback not only by the
sudden bloodshed but by the disclosure that an American destroyer helping to
enforce sanctions against Iraq had been calling in their port.

Yemen has been among the most outspoken critics of the embargo since it was
imposed after Iraq's invasion of Kuwait in 1990.

''We were feeling so bad about the hardships caused by the blockade, and
then we woke up one morning and learned about the Cole,'' said Abdel Wahhab
Ali, an electrician in Aden. ''It's very confusing, something strange.''

>From an American perspective, the attack on the destroyer has focused new
attention on the military and economic ties that have quietly evolved over
the last four years with Yemen, the only country among seven on the Arabian
Peninsula that opposed the U.S.-led campaign to eject Iraq from Kuwait. That
stance had infuriated American officials, straining relations between the
countries.

Even as Yemen continues to press for an end to sanctions, the U.S. military
has begun training its special forces, laying the groundwork for the
creation of a coast guard to patrol more than 1,600 kilometers (1,000 miles)
of porous shoreline and remote coves and working to bolster local
counterterrorism efforts.

The 1998 decision by General Anthony Zinni, head of the U.S. Central Command
at the time, to judge Aden as safe enough for American vessels and select it
as a refueling center was an important endorsement of the port's efforts to
attract international shipping.

Yemeni officials say they can develop deepening relations with Washington
while maintaining ties with Iraq. Indeed, they point to the close
cooperation between Yemeni investigators and FBI agents probing the apparent
suicide bombing against the Cole, which killed 17 American sailors and
wounded 39.

But Yemeni sympathy for the Iraqis, if not for President Saddam Hussein,
remains an irritant in U.S.-Yemeni affairs.

''I am under pressure and am criticized for my stand on Iraq,'' said
President Ali Abdullah Saleh. ''Every time I received a U.S. visitor or
visited the United States, the first question I am asked is, 'Why did such
and such a minister go to Baghdad? Why did this minister visit you from
Baghdad?'''

Mr. Saleh said in an interview with the Arabic television station Al Jazeera
that it was not right ''for the siege to be prolonged indefinitely and the
Arab Iraqi people to suffer. They are my brothers, and I must sympathize
with them and call for lifting the siege.''

The Yemeni government has consistently displayed its opposition to the
sanctions. Last month, it sent an airplane carrying hundreds of boxes of
food and medicine to Baghdad accompanied by an official delegation headed by
Deputy Prime Minister Abdul Kader Bajammal, who used the well-publicized
visit to condemn the embargo.

The flight, though approved by the UN sanctions committee, was only the
second one undertaken to Baghdad by an Arab country.

At the same time, however, 28 U.S. Navy vessels, involved either in
maintaining sanctions or enforcing the no-flight zones in Iraq, have
refueled at Aden in recent years.

In testimony to the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee last week, General
Zinni said Yemen's agreement to allow American warships to call in Aden had
put the country in line with other Arabian Peninsula states.

''By refueling the Cole, she was supporting a ship that was about to engage
in maritime intercept operations,'' the general said. ''We now had Yemen - a
significant change from Yemen's attitude during the Gulf War - now providing
a support requirement for one of our ships engaged in a sanctions
enforcement,'' General Zinni said.

Yemeni media have reported the visit of some American ships, but few details
have been published about the mission of these vessels.

''Some people knew there was cooperation between Yemen and the U.S.
regarding military activity, but when they heard this ship was one of the
ships blockading Iraq, they were very surprised,'' said Mohammed al Haziazi,
a political scientist at San'a University.

An Aden lawyer, Badr Salmin Busanaid, was blunter: ''Before the attack,
nobody knew.''

Many Yemenis were troubled by what they learned. ''We're concerned about the
U.S. and Yemen enforcing sanctions in Iraq together, especially since
Yemenis sided with Iraq,'' said Ahmed Tawfiq, a grocer with sun-baked cheeks
and a scraggly beard who works in the Maalla neighborhood, within sight of
the cranes of the port.

When Iraqi troops stormed into Kuwait in August 1990, Yemen had a temporary
seat on the UN Security Council, but its ambassador did not participate in
an emergency vote condemning the invasion.

Yemeni officials later said he had been unable to get voting instructions
from San'a because of its time difference with New York.

Yemen also joined Jordan and several other Arab countries in objecting to
the U.S.-led military campaign against Iraq.


http://www.latimes.com/news/nation/20001026/t000102331.html

*  FBI Uses Light Touch in Yemen Blast Probe
by MARK FINEMAN, Times Staff Writer
Los Angeles Times,Thursday, October 26, 2000

ADEN, Yemen--For nearly two months they welded, they waited, they watched
and they prayed.

They used at least five houses scattered around Aden's yawning, crescent
harbor, including a workshop where they built a boat engine with their
landlord's help, a lookout where they used binoculars to monitor the port,
and a residence where they ate and slept while building a bomb so potent
that it blew a 40-by-40-foot hole through half-inch-thick metal and humbled
one of America's most sophisticated floating war machines.

Those are among the details that Yemeni officials have let leak out in the
10 days since President Ali Abdullah Saleh mobilized his vast internal
intelligence and security network to join forces with more than 100 FBI
agents and investigate the bombing that killed 17 U.S. sailors and injured
39 others aboard the U.S. guided missile destroyer Cole.

The details are based on accounts from more than 2,800 Yemenis reportedly
detained by security forces here--most of them later released--in what ranks
among the most intensive investigations in the history of this impoverished
Arab nation.

What remained a mystery Wednesday, as dozens of the FBI agents assigned to
the case started heading home, was who "they" were, how many of them there
were, and whether they were Yemenis or foreigners.

In an interview Wednesday night with the Saudi-owned MBC television network,
Saleh said it was still too early to identify by name or nationality those
who attacked the ship, though he said witnesses and a preliminary
investigation indicate that one attacker might have been Egyptian.

But Yemeni officials have confirmed that the FBI has sent most of the key
physical evidence gathered from the houses and elsewhere in the city and sea
to more sophisticated forensic laboratories in the United States. Saleh has
vowed in several recent interviews to pursue the bombers until they are
caught and punished.

Yet as the U.S. began reducing its "footprint" and winding down the forensic
phase of the FBI investigation in Aden, it was already clear that the probe
has been a rare example of international investigative diplomacy.

Despite their large numbers here, few FBI agents have left their hotel. In
deference to a nation that has been one of Iraq's closest friends, FBI
Director Louis J. Freeh took pains during his brief visit last week to
describe his agency as a "junior partner" to Yemeni security, which has
gathered most of the evidence and information and then delivered them to the
agents at their hotel.

No FBI agents have been present during interrogation of witnesses or
suspects by the Yemenis and none have worked the streets, officials of both
governments confirmed. The FBI's spokesman has yet to brief the press on
anything since he arrived.

And while stressing how Yemeni collaboration contrasts with Saudi Arabia's
uncooperative stance after the yet-unsolved 1996 barracks bombing in Dhahran
that killed 19 Americans, U.S. officials here have consistently refused to
confirm or deny any details of the probe.

In fact, news of each incremental break in the case has come from Yemeni
sources, and much of it has come from the president himself.

Saleh opened the widest window on the Cole investigation during a lengthy
interview with Qatar's Al Jazeera television last week.

Calling the bomb plot "an octopus of an operation that has been planned for
a long time," Saleh revealed the details of the boat-engine workshop, the
fact that the suspects were Arabs who prayed, that one was bearded and wore
glasses, that their car and boat trailer had been found and traced, and that
they had stayed in Aden for six to eight weeks.

The origin of the bomb, Saleh indicated during Wednesday's MBC interview, is
now up to the Americans to determine. He repeated earlier comments that U.S.
investigators told him it was made of a substance "only found in Israel, the
U.S.A., and in a certain Islamic state and an Arab state whose names I do
not wish to mention."

Saleh, a fierce enemy of Israel who has publicly vowed to send arms,
fighters and aid to the Palestinians in the days since the Cole bombing, was
careful to cast the U.S. investigators and military personnel as brief
visitors--not partners.

"We welcome them as guests to come and fix their ship," he said. "There are
220 of them. Maybe it will take them two or three days or a week at the
most, as I understand it, until they fix their ship and leave."

As for his timetable in solving the case, Saleh concluded: "I believe that
this is a premeditated operation, and to uncover it, both we and the
Americans need to show patience. We managed to uncover the first part of the
case. We will uncover the rest. We will discover who is behind it."


http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5823-2000Oct24.html

*  Containing Iraq: A Forgotten War
by Thomas E. Ricks, Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, October 25, 2000

INCIRLIK, Turkey ­­ Most of the year, Bernard Yosten pilots Boeing 727s for
American Airlines out of Miami. But in mid-September, he came here for two
weeks of flying Air Force F-16 fighters in the "no-fly zone" over northern
Iraq, where he was shot at with both antiaircraft guns and surface-to-air
missiles.

The Iraqi fire "was pretty damned close," reported Yosten, who has since
gone back to hauling tourists around the Caribbean.

To a surprising degree, Operation Northern Watch, as the Air Force calls
this mission, is conducted by part-timers. Other members of Yosten's Alabama
Air National Guard unit on temporary duty here usually fly for Delta,
United, Southwest, Northwest, Federal Express and United Parcel Service.

Northern Watch is characteristic of U.S. military missions in the post-Cold
War era: It is small-scale, open-ended and largely ignored by the American
people. Even though U.S. warplanes are routinely dropping bombs on a foreign
country, it has not been an issue in the presidential campaign and has
hardly been mentioned by the candidates.

Partly because Turkey and Arab allies want to keep their assistance quiet,
the Defense Department makes public little information about the joint
U.S.-British effort to prohibit Iraqi aircraft from flying over northern and
southern Iraq, thereby protecting Kurds in the North and Shiite Muslims in
the South who oppose Saddam Hussein's rule. But behind the official veil,
the no-fly operation has undergone major changes and embarrassments that
might have made headlines if it had a higher profile:

* After patrolling aggressively last year, in a manner that one pilot says
was intended to draw antiaircraft fire, the Air Force has pulled back and is
avoiding known antiaircraft emplacements. Top commanders recently approved
an order formalizing the de-escalation.

* The Air Force also has stopped dropping "cement bombs," emptied of
explosives, on antiaircraft batteries near mosques and other sensitive
sites. For the most part, it now leaves those batteries alone.

* The Turkish government has interrupted the flying schedule several times,
sometimes to bomb Kurdish villages in Iraq and sometimes to protest
America's refusal to sell Turkey certain precision-guided bombs.

* U.S. aircraft mistakenly bombed and strafed a group of Iraqi shepherds
last year because intelligence analysts misinterpreted satellite imagery and
thought a water trough for sheep was a missile launcher.

Iraq says the U.S. airstrikes have killed about 300 people, mostly
civilians, since December 1998. American officials admit that there have
been casualties but say they do not know how many. Ian Roxborough, a
historian at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, calls this
"fire-and-forget foreign policy," after the modern munitions that help make
such an operation possible.

But if Northern Watch isn't particularly controversial, neither is it
particularly popular. At a recent Senate Armed Services Committee hearing,
conservative Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) and liberal Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.)
took turns questioning it, with Thurmond calling it "a failure."

As the United States enters its 10th year of confronting Hussein, military
strategists are frustrated, too. "I no longer have any sense of what the
'containment' of Iraq is all about," said retired Army Col. Andrew Bacevich,
now a military expert at Boston University. "We just fly missions and drop
bombs from time to time because we've been doing it for 10 years and no one
can stop us from doing so."

Even some of the fighter pilots who have flown Northern Watch said they do
not understand why it continues. "I think almost everybody thinks it is a
waste of time," said a National Guard pilot who has done four tours of duty
here.

There are some indications that the operation may end, but not soon and not
because it has achieved any enduring success. Support for sanctions on Iraq
appears to be waning both in the Arab world and in Europe. Only Britain
continues to patrol the no-fly zones with the United States, operating
reconnaissance aircraft that do not carry weapons.

'A Certain Level of Combat'

A day of Operation Northern Watch, which is conducted from Incirlik Air
Base, a few miles east of the Turkish city of Adana, begins with the roar of
F-15C fighters emerging from a hardened shelter. The pilots have been
briefed on intelligence, weather and the day's mission.

"Puggsley," an Air Force captain from Alexandria who asked that his real
name not be used, climbs into his F-15, which bristles with weaponry:
heat-seeking Sidewinder missiles near his wingtips, bigger radar-guided
Sparrows on pylons closer in and four even bigger AMRAAM missiles under his
fuselage. He taxies to the arming area, where the missiles are activated,
and screams down the runway.

But the Air Force approach to patrolling the skies of Iraq involves much
more. The fighters are followed by an RC-135 "Rivet Joint" reconnaissance
jet, a Boeing 707 laden with surveillance gear. Next come two Navy EA-6B
electronic jammers, then some of the Alabama Air National Guard F-16s
carrying missiles to home in on Iraqi radar. One of the Alabamians flies a
jet borrowed from the Colorado Air National Guard that says "Mile-High
Militia" on its tail. The final plane in the 25-aircraft "package" is a big
KC-10 tanker, a flying gas station.

As the pilots head east toward Iraq, the Syrian border is just 20 miles to
their right. Some of the pilots believe that the Syrian government, which
can see them on radar, reports their movements to Baghdad, giving Iraqi
gunners about an hour's warning. It takes that long for the American planes
to travel 400 miles to the ROZ, the "restricted operating zone" over eastern
Turkey where the pilots get an aerial refueling and then turn south into
Iraq.

The pilots disagree about whether they are truly in combat. "If I can shoot,
and if I'm getting shot at, yes, it's combat," argues "Sluggo," a lieutenant
colonel from Charlevoix, Mich., who also asked that his name not be used.

But Lt. Col. Dave "Mega" Watt scoffs. Even though the Iraqis shoot to kill,
says the sandy haired veteran of 17 years in F-16s, "the threat isn't that
high. You're probably in higher danger on the Beltway."

Yosten, the American Airlines pilot, comes down in the middle. "It's not
full-blown combat, but it is a certain level of combat," he says. "It's a
new type of mission."

'De-Emphasis on Ordnance'

Most patrols last four to eight hours, with the fighters and jammers flying
over Iraq and then darting back to the ROZ to refuel two or three times. In
16,000 sorties since the beginning of 1997, Air Force pilots have launched
more than 1,000 bombs and missiles against more than 250 targets in northern
Iraq.

But they are much less likely to drop bombs and shoot missiles than they
were a year ago. Brig. Gen. Bob D. DuLaney, the American commander of
Operation Northern Watch since October 1999, has backed away from the
confrontational tactics that the Air Force used for most of last year.

In early 1999, said Mike Horn, who flew F-15s in two tours of duty in
Northern Watch, "sometimes we flew in such a way that we provoked them to
shoot at us." Under the operation's rules of engagement, they could not bomb
unless the Iraqis fired upon them first.

One sure-fire way to get the Iraqis to start shooting, Horn recalled, was to
buzz a heavily defended area north of the city of Mosul. "F-16 guys would
pop flares over Saddam Dam, which makes a big smoke trail, and the Iraqis
would open up," said Horn, who has left the Air Force and now flies for
American Airlines.

"That's not my style," DuLaney said in his office just a few steps from the
runway at Incirlik. Under his command, he added, there has been a "big
de-emphasis on ordnance."

Air Force Gen. Joseph W. Ralston, the top U.S. commander in Europe, codified
the change this month in Operations Order No. 2, only the second general
order governing the campaign. "We're not looking for a fight," Ralston said.
"But we will do everything in our power to protect our air crews."

The change has produced some grumbling among pilots who miss the more
aggressive posture. DuLaney said they lack "a complete understanding of our
mission," which he argued is a success as long as it deters Iraq from
crushing the rebellious Kurds in the North. "Every day we're here is a day
that Saddam's forces can't attack," he said.

For more than a year, the Air Force has declined to release information
about the number or type of missiles and bombs it unleashes on Iraq.
Pentagon spokesman Kenneth Bacon said the clampdown protects pilots. But the
pilots, along with others here, say it has more to do with the sensitivities
of U.S. allies and the message the Air Force wants to emphasize. "If all you
do is talk about the number of bombs you've dropped, then people think
that's your mission," DuLaney said.

DuLaney, a soft-spoken Texan, also said changes have been made to reduce the
chance of repeating a mistake that killed many Iraqi civilians on May 12,
1999. In that incident, an F 15E launched a 3,000-pound bomb into a
shepherd's camp after intelligence analysts- perhaps stretched by the Kosovo
air campaign going on at the same time--looked at blurry satellite imagery
and misidentified a metal tank that was used for watering sheep. They
thought it was a surface-to-air missile launcher.

The mistake was compounded when F-16 pilots, believing the surrounding tents
to be camouflaged military facilities, swept the area with their guns. Iraq
says the attack killed 19 people and wounded 46 others. Villagers told a
visiting Washington Post reporter in June that relatives ran to the site
after the first explosion, only to fall victim to the strafing.

"We put some things in place that will eliminate those kinds of errors,"
DuLaney said, without elaborating. "I seriously doubt whether we've hurt any
civilians since I've been up here."

The dilemma, he added, is that most antiaircraft weaponry in northern Iraq
has been placed next to mosques or populated areas. Last year, the Air Force
tried to hit some of those emplacements with bombs filled with cement, not
explosives, to soften the impact. DuLaney said that tactic has been
abandoned because a bomb could still go awry and kill civilians or damage a
mosque, which he said would play into the hands of Hussein.

"If I'm going to err, I'm going to err on the side of right," he said.

'They Morph Into Warriors'

One reason the Air Force has been able to sustain the operation for a decade
is that many personnel come from the National Guard and Reserves, which make
up 20 percent to 40 percent of U.S. air crews. (There are 1,176 Americans
assigned to the operation, plus 162 British service members operating Jaguar
reconnaissance aircraft. The Turkish military provides some ground staff.)

"We got Alabama in here now," said Col. Maurice H. Forsyth, commander of the
air component of the operation. "Terre Haute's coming out in four days."

Surprisingly, there is general agreement that the Guard and Reserves have
better pilots than the regular Air Force, which may be one reason the United
States has not lost a pilot or plane despite flying about 250,000 sorties
over Iraq since 1991.

Reservists sometimes are denigrated by active-duty troops as weekend
warriors. But here, the Guard and Reserve pilots are the seasoned fighter
jocks who lord it over the green, active-duty pilots. "The majority of them
[on active duty] are what we call punks," Yosten said.

Watt, commander of the active-duty 522nd Fighter Squadron, said that of his
12 pilots now at Incirlik, nine have been flying the F-16 for less than two
years. He uses the mission to help season these newcomers. "I tell them to
check out the triple A [antiaircraft artillery], see the muzzle flashes and
the airbursts," he said. "It's good for them to see it, get that bile in the
back of your throat."

Contrast that with Col. Scott "Zapper" Mayes of the Alabama Air National
Guard, who was dodging antiaircraft fire over Hanoi before most of the
active-duty pilots were born. The pilots under his command have an average
of 2,000 hours flying F-16s, compared with 100 for some of the active-duty
pilots.

As commander of the fighter wing closest to the Atlanta airport, a major
airline hub, Mayes has a waiting list to get into his unit. When commercial
fliers come to Incirlik, he said, "They morph into warriors."

Still, some are dismayed by what they have seen. Horn said that on more than
one occasion he and his comrades received a radio message that "there was a
TSM inbound"--that is, a "Turkish Special Mission" heading into Iraq.
Following standard orders, the Americans turned their planes around and flew
back to Turkey.

"You'd see Turkish F-14s and F-16s inbound, loaded to the gills with
munitions," he said. "Then they'd come out half an hour later with their
munitions expended."

When the Americans flew back into Iraqi airspace, he recalled, they would
see "burning villages, lots of smoke and fire."

The Turkish and U.S. militaries last year established separate air lanes so
that U.S. aircraft patrolling the no-fly zone would not cross paths with
Turkish planes bombing alleged Kurdish terrorist bases. Turkey has been
fighting for years against the PKK, a Kurdish group seeking an independent
homeland in the border region between Iraq, Iran and Turkey.

Another source of friction has been the U.S. refusal to sell Turkey a
particular precision guided missile coveted by the Turkish military. As a
result, since spring, Turkey has refused permission for the U.S. military to
bring that weapon to Incirlik for use against Iraq, officials said.

DuLaney insisted that since he took command a year ago, "the Turks have been
wonderful" and have not blocked any U.S. flights. "Relationships are better
than in '99," he said.

Asked about interruptions of the operation, Baki Ilkin, Turkey's ambassador
to Washington, said, "I don't know every detail about the operations. . . .
I know that from time to time, the operations are suspended for one reason
or another."

'All the Comforts of Home'

When the day's mission is over, the pilots give the planes back to the
mechanics, turn in their 9mm pistols and attend a debriefing.

Most pilots prefer flying the southern no-fly zone, which is three times as
large as the northern one, and so makes aircraft movements less predictable
to Iraqi gunners. But the ground crews prefer it here, where the weather is
cooler and where, unlike in Saudi Arabia, they are frequently allowed off
base.

When they go off duty, some pilots work out in the base's gym. Others while
away the evenings drinking what one happily called "mega-gallons of beer."
On a recent evening in the "tent city" where most troops passing through
here live, maintenance crew chiefs from the Alabama Air National Guard were
barbecuing chicken and ribs. "We're doing covered dish tonight," said Tech.
Sgt. Dave Shows.

About 1,200 people live in the tent city, something of a misnomer because
the tents are now semi-permanent, air-conditioned structures with four or
five bedrooms, a small living room with a TV and VCR, and a kitchenette. "We
pretty much have all the comforts of home," said Master Sgt. Sidney Burk, a
maintenance specialist with the 71st Fighter Squadron.

After dinner, many head to a "morale tent" to use 15 computer terminals
dedicated to their e-mail needs. About half the troops on temporary duty use
the terminals every day. The biggest complaint they have, said Marine Lt.
Col. Rick Shamburger, commanding officer of a Marine Reserve unit from
Stewart, N.Y., is that "you have to wait sometimes five or 10 minutes to go
online."

The morale tent also lends out video and digital cameras. Some troops use
them to tape themselves reading bedtime stories, which they send home to
their kids.

At the end of the tent is a travel desk that offers weekend getaways. One of
the most popular is the seven-hour run to the topless beach at Alanya, on
the Mediterranean. One tent over, Lt. Col. C.B. Goodwin, the Northern Watch
chaplain, offers a competing excursion to Antakya, also known as Antioch,
where the followers of Jesus were first called Christians. It is closer but
apparently less popular than the topless beach.

Many of the troops get off base one or two nights a week, with most heading
for the street they call "the Alley," just outside the gates. The shops
there overflow with Persian carpets, ornate brassware and leather
coats--items aimed at a mature, prosperous, married force. "My wife keeps
sending over orders," sighed "Bob," a combat search and rescue helicopter
pilot on his third Northern Watch tour.

The walls at Enver & Sedat's, a jewelry shop dripping with gold chains, are
covered with photos and certificates of appreciation from the 180th Fighter
Wing of the Ohio Air National Guard, the Virginia Air National Guard, even
the Maryland State Police. Down the street, Angel's Clothing shop sells a
T-shirt that lists the "Top 10 Reasons You Know It Is Time to Leave Turkey,"
which mainly involve lusting for one's spouse.

What is missing, for the most part, are the girlie bars and discos that
surrounded foreign bases in the Vietnam era. To be sure, there is one sign
promising a Saturday night performance by "Eight Russia Strip Girls." But
most of the troops out here on short rotations seem more intent on picking
up Christmas presents.


http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=131280

*  Iraqi troop movement causes tension in Mideast
by Martin Sieff, UPI senior news analyst

WASHINGTON, Oct. 26 (UPI) -- To the bland indifference of the U.S. media,
but increasing alarm among moderate Arab governments, Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein has deployed 100,000 troops in western Iraq that are capable of
moving rapidly into neighboring Syria and Jordan.ŸThe deployment has
received considerable attention in Israel, but Israeli generals dismiss any
direct military threat to their country.

On Wednesday, Maj. Gen. Giora Eiland said: "The assessment of the Israel
Defense Forces is that Iraqi forces would only be able to reach Israel
through Syria or Jordan in the event of a comprehensive regional war, and it
seems to me that we are very far from these scenarios."

Saddam's air force is no match either for U.S. forces in the region or for
Israel's air force -- the most powerful in the Middle East. If Saddam did
try to move such massive forces without air cover against Israel across the
open desert, they would be rapidly annihilated. However, Saddam, contrary to
many Western stereotypes, is neither mad nor suicidal nor a fool. And he has
always understood the political cross-currents of the Arab world extremely
well. The five-division force deployed at the Al-Rutbah crossroads in Iraq's
western desert represents a serious threat to neighboring Jordan and Syria,
both of which are now ruled by strongly pro-Western, but highly
inexperienced young leaders.

And both countries have potential majorities with longstanding resentments
against their governments that Saddam may be able to take advantage of.
Syria's Assad only succeeded his father, tough, ruthless, old President
Hafez Assad, this year; Jordan's King Abdullah II only succeeded his father
King Hussein last year. Both are in their 30s. Both are entranced by the
potential future that the Internet and high-tech development may offer to
jumpstart their moribund economies and raise the living standards of their
impoverished people.

But Assad presides over a government dominated by his Alawite minority
religious sect that remains fearful of Islamic fundamentalist popular
revenge ever since Hafez Assad literally flattened the city of Hama to crush
an Islamic revolt in 1982. At least 20,000 people -- and probably twice as
many -- died in that event.

Also, Assad faces a formidable challenge from his uncle, Rifaat Assad, the
former longtime Syrian secret police chief who now runs a major Arab world
cable television network. He is believed to still control major smuggling
routes through Lebanon's Bekaa Valley and remains a respected, and feared,
force in the region.

King Abdullah has domestic tensions to worry about, too. More than 60
percent of Jordan's population is Palestinian in origin, and is inflamed
with frustration and rage over the king's  - and their own -- inability to
directly support Palestinians rising in protest against Israel west of the
Jordan River. Some 120 Palestinians and less than 10 Israelis have been
killed so far in four weeks of clashes.

Saddam enjoys immense popularity in Jordan, especially among the
Palestinians. Their support forced even tough, respected old King Hussein to
support Iraq after it conquered oil-rich Kuwait in 1990. If Saddam were able
to use the escalating violence between Israel and the Palestinians as
sufficient excuse to move his massive western desert force into either Syria
or Jordan --or both -- he could then use it to stir up popular anger against
either government very fast.

Israeli Middle East analyst Ron Ben-Yishai wrote in the Tel Aviv daily
newspaper Yediot Aharonot Wednesday: "A large-scale escalation would give
Iraq a pretext to ask (for) territory (from both countries) to threaten
Israel. At this point, neither the Syrian president nor the Jordanian king
has any attention of allowing Iraq to enter their country."

But Ben-Yishai continued, "Saddam, however, believes that in the event of a
conflagration, Bashar and Abdullah would be hard-put to turn him down."

Right now, Jordan appears to be more immediately at risk. Ben-Yishai,
apparently relying on Israeli military intelligence sources, says that
Saddam has already "sent an advance force of the Republican Guard's
Hammurabi elite division to area H3, a few dozen kilometers away from the
Jordanian border."

Laurie Mylroie, a U.S. biographer of Saddam and U.S. expert on Iraq, writes
that "Iraq has never (before) conducted training exercises like this."

She also noted that the huge force deployment had to be seen in the context
of "the widespread unrest in Arab countries, including Jordan, triggered by
the Palestinian violence."

And then she pointedly asked: "What if Iraq is acting in concert with
Jordan's enemies -- like the Palestine Liberation Organization (led by
Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat) or the Jordanian Islamists,
with whom Saddam has long cultivated ties?"

Good questions indeed. It may not be long before the world sees their
answers.


http://www.vny.com/cf/News/upidetail.cfm?QID=131589

*  U.S. military spread across 142 countries
By Pamela Hess

WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 (UPI) -- The U.S. military has personnel in 142
countries at any one time, with about 35,000 deployed overseas on specific
missions such as peacekeeping in the Balkans or flying missions over Iraq.

 The use of the military overseas has become a campaign issue, with
Republican presidential nominee George W. Bush saying that "endless"
deployments are creating discontent in the military and pledging to review
"every one of our missions where we've got troops overseas."

 "As president, I will order an immediate review of our overseas deployments
-- in dozens of countries," Bush said last year in a speech at The Citadel
military college in South Carolina.

 "I will work hard to find political solutions that allow an orderly and
timely withdrawal from places like Kosovo and Bosnia. We will encourage our
allies to take a broader role.

 "We will not be hasty. But we will not be permanent peacekeepers, dividing
warring parties," he said.

 He has also said he would oppose committing U.S. troops to Africa, and
would not have intervened in Haiti, as Clinton did in 1994 with the
deployment of 20,000 service personnel.

 Democratic nominee Al Gore has not singled out any deployments he disagreed
with, but said vigorous engagement in world affairs and the use of
"pre-emptive" diplomacy would minimize the need to deploy military forces to
hot spots.

 There are 1.37 million active duty military members; 1.13 million are
stationed in the United States or in U.S. territories. About 200,000 of them
-- soldiers, airmen, sailors and Marines  - are stationed in Europe,
primarily Germany, and Asia, primarily Korea and Japan.

 This group is not considered by the Pentagon to be "deployed," as they are
sent to these areas not on temporary duty but rather to live and work,
usually with their families for in some cases as long as three years.

 Those deployed include about 10,000 in the Balkans -- Kosovo and Bosnia --
out of an international peacekeeping force of around 65,000. Another 25,000
are deployed in the Middle East, primarily to deal with the threat posed by
Saddam Hussein.

 While those numbers represent a relatively small portion of the military,
the need to refresh deployed troops on a regular basis -- usually every
three to nine months -- means far more soldiers are affected by overseas
missions. For instance, in the last five years almost 250,000 military
members have served in the Balkans on peacekeeping duty.

 The majority of those troops report high satisfaction with their missions
and duties. But the toll is felt when they come back home and have to
immediately re-train for regular warfighting skills.

 That around 60 percent of the military is married also makes deployments
stressful, on both the service members and the families left back home.

 The number of deployed service members does not include the roughly 140,000
sailors at sea at any given time. Most Navy cruises last around six months.
The number also does not include those forces periodically called upon to
respond to humanitarian crises, like hurricanes, floods and earthquakes
around the world, except for those carrying out the work at the time these
numbers were generated by the Pentagon - June 30, 2000.

 There are also small contingents of military in other regions. For
instance, as of June, there were 26 Marines and three soldiers in Haiti; 349
remain in Honduras, 248 in Peru.

 Most U.S. embassies have a small number of military members, serving as
defense advisors and protecting the compounds.

  There are a total of some 120,000 U.S. service members in Europe; 160
stationed in the former Soviet Union; 100,000 in East Asia and the Pacific;
14,000 in North Africa and the Middle East; 396 in sub-Saharan Africa, and
2,000 in Latin America and the Caribbean. --


http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/302/oped/The_role_for_the_US_in_UN_peaceke
eping+.shtml

*  The role for the US in UN peacekeeping
by Jeremy Greenstock, United Kingdom's permanent representative to the
United Nations, Boston Globe, 28th october

THIS YEAR the US government announced it would be repaying a substantial
part of its national debt: roughly $1,000 for each member of the US
population. This choice reflects the current strength of the US economy and
is a wise step for the future health of the nation.

This year, yet again, the US government is withholding its dues payment -
less than $2 per year per capita - to the United Nations. In doing so it is
breaking its treaty obligation and contravening international law. The money
is not the point. Much more important, it is in the interest of the United
States to ensure the health, vigor, and relevance of the United Nations.

The UN covers a huge swath of collective international activity. But its
role in peacekeeping is particularly vital. The conflicts the UN is
addressing are in the main within national societies, not between rival
nations. The recent war between Ethiopia and Eritrea lasted three weeks. The
collapse of security in Angola and Sudan has lasted three decades; in East
Timor 25 years; in Sierra Leone nine years.

In Yugoslavia and Iraq the problem has been brutal and selfish leadership
rather than ethnic or economic desperation. But the common feature remains:
the breakdown of order and normal living within a state, which then infects
a wider region.

I have just returned from Sierra Leone, where I took part in a Security
Council mission to what is, for all its diamond wealth, the poorest nation
in the world. Ninety-eight percent of the population of Sierra Leone wants
peace and a normal life within the present borders.

But the combination of weak state institutions and diamond wealth in one
part of the territory has been too much of a temptation for a tiny minority
of thugs and local warlords.

The absence of border controls drew in greedy neighbors. The internal
collapse of Sierra Leone is generating a regional catastrophe. The refugee
flows are growing, and UN agencies cannot reach them because of the danger
to their staff.

Why should US or EU citizens be drawn into this mire in West Africa when it
surely cannot affect us immediately or directly? Democracies are notoriously
short-term in their calculations of interest and unresponsive to seemingly
remote crises. But there are other things happening in the evolutionary flow
of globalization that we have already found less comfortable, such as the
Asian financial crisis: complex in its causes but directly linked to the
speed and unpredictability of massive capital flows in an open global
market.

The United Nations was not constructed to deal with problems within states.
Its purpose is to promote international peace and development. But fast
travel, open borders, and the Internet are radically changing the world, and
the relationships between governments, the private sector, and individuals.
This power shift, from governments to individuals, is evolving faster than
our global systems can readily handle. The UN is no global government.

But it is our only global institution. And it has to reflect and deal with
global trends.

As the spreading poison of insecurity in West Africa and the shock of
massive capital outflows in Asia demonstrate, opportunities created by
globalization must be balanced by action to contain the threats. Diamonds
from Sierra Leone are sold to arm a rebellion, and the open market in both
diamonds and weapons gives the advantage to destructive forces, not to law
and order. That kind of anarchy has to be contained or it will spread.

To quote columnist Thomas Friedman in The New York Times two weeks ago:
''What really threatens our security and the stability of the world we live
in today is the weakness and potential collapse of post-Cold War states -
because of their lack of institutions and total corruption. If anything, we
should be spending a billion dollars on upgrading our diplomatic tools, such
as the international development banks, or restructuring foreign aid and
debt relief to help countries build the necessary democratic institutions
for governing, and on strengthening the United Nations, precisely so that it
can do the peacekeeping and nation building that we want to avoid.''

The UN's central budget is $1.3 billion a year; its overall expenditure
perhaps $10 billion a year - the budget of a large US city. How can it
address the complex consequences of globalization? Simply, by making us
think and act differently.

The Brahimi report, issued this summer, addresses what must be done to
strengthen UN peacekeeping. It seeks to deliver a cohesive system of
peacekeeping mandates and capabilities and to make peacekeeping operations
on the ground more effective. We have begun implementing parts of the
report, which deserves broad US support for its underlying objective: a
collective international peacekeeping system that works properly rather than
having the United States and others take on a policeman's burden nationally.
The UN approach makes sense and costs relatively little. A modernized United
Nations deserves the support of Americans as individuals, and as citizens of
this country and this world.


Ambassador Jeremy Greenstock is the United Kingdom's permanent
representative to the United Nations. This column is an excerpt from his
speech at the UN Day in Boston on Wednesday.












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