[casi] News, 01-08/05/03 (5)

[Peter Brooke <pbrooke@DELETETHISukonline.co.uk>]

News, 01-08/05/03 (5)

NEW WORLD ORDER

*  EU says U.S. delays medical supplies for Iraq
*  Sir Richard Branson lands in Basra
*  10 nations agree to contribute combat-ready forces for Iraq
*  U.S., Britain drafting resolution limiting U.N. role in Iraq to
humanitarian relief
*  Poland Takes on Lead Role in Postwar Iraq
*  Poland denies weakening EU common stance
*  Iraq reconstruction inches forward, as humanitarian disaster looms
*  Poland Says Needs UN Mandate for Iraq Peace Force
*  Washington Targets Chirac and ElBaradai
*  Many embassies set to reopen in Baghdad
*  IAEA head calls for UNSC reform, return of inspectors

MOTHER OF ALL PARLIAMENTS

*  Anger over Dalyell's 'Jewish cabal' slur
*  Britain kept open secret channel to Iraq
*  Why I am sure the documents are genuine


NEW WORLD ORDER

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L02395880.htm

*  EU SAYS U.S. DELAYS MEDICAL SUPPLIES FOR IRAQ
by David Lawsky and Tom Miles
Reuters, 2nd May

BRUSSELS : The European Commission and Belgium blamed the United States on
Friday for causing the last-minute cancellation of an airlift of critical
hospital supplies for Baghdad.

The plane -- loaded with 19 tons of surgical equipment, vaccines,
anaesthetics, oxygen, syringes, operating tables and pre-natal care supplies
-- had been set to leave on Friday from Belgium, which opposed the U.S.-led
war on Iraq.

Shortly before take-off, the Belgian C-130 transport was held at Melsbroek
military airport, with no likelihood of departure before Tuesday, a week
after the date originally set.

European Commission humanitarian affairs spokesman Michael Curtis said the
delay had been caused by U.S. military authorities asking for a change in
the flight plan.

The Commission said there was no problem landing at Baghdad, but a Belgian
military spokesman said U.S. landing permission at the city's airport had
not been given.

Asked why it would take until next week to get a new flight plan for medical
supplies, Curtis said: "I think that's a question you'll have to ask the
American authorities."

A diplomatic source said the plane was to have flown via Turkey, but the
United States was concerned it might be shot at when it entered Iraqi
airspace. They were talking about possibly routing it over Saudi Arabia.

A number of dignitaries, including Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt,
had been set to send off the plane at the airport.

The Commission said that Commissioner Poul Nielsen, who is in charge of
humanitarian aid, would visit Baghdad on Tuesday and Wednesday, but the
supplies were unlikely to be there by then.

The EU has provided other emergency supplies for Iraq, such as food and
water, by truck.

One diplomatic source said that if the Commission had known there would be
such trouble with the plane, it may have considered flying the supplies into
Jordan and sending them overland.


http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,948283,00.html

*  SIR RICHARD BRANSON LANDS IN BASRA
The Guardian, 3rd May

[....]

Today's warning came as the first British passenger plane to land in Iraq
for 13 years brought 60 tonnes of vital medical aid to Basra.

The Virgin Atlantic 747 - loaded with incubators, wheelchairs and
life-saving drugs worth around £2m - touched down on the deserted runway at
Basra international airport just hours after the US president, George Bush,
declared that major hostilities were over.

Virgin Atlantic boss Sir Richard Branson said flights might now be the best
way to bring much-needed supplies to the war-torn country.

Speaking on the runway at Basra, where his 747 was greeted by a guard of
honour of waiting soldiers, he said the aid flight could be the first of
many.

"The aid agencies obviously should do their part as well, but Virgin has the
big benefit of its own airline. My belief is that there needs to be
literally hundreds of flights like this," he said.

Virgin flew aid flights into Baghdad in 1990 and flew hostages out of the
Iraqi capital ahead of the 1991 Gulf war. Civilian flights from Britain were
then banned under Saddam's regime, but Sir Richard said Virgin was ready to
start flights to Baghdad and Basra once it had permission from a new Iraqi
authority.


http://www.sunspot.net/news/nationworld/bal
te.rumsfeld03may03,0,5396104.story?coll=bal%2Dnationworld%2Dheadlines

*  10 NATIONS AGREE TO CONTRIBUTE COMBAT-READY FORCES FOR IRAQ
Baltimore Sun, 3rd May

LONDON - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld announced the first steps
toward internationalizing the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq yesterday, with at
least 10 nations contributing combat-ready forces to patrol sectors of the
nation under the command of American, British and Polish generals.

Rumsfeld and a senior administration official outlined the arrangements for
the occupation as the Pentagon chief ended a seven-day victory tour that
included stops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Rumsfeld warned that the formal end of major combat operations in both
countries did not end the threat of additional terrorist attacks against the
United States. Al-Qaida attacks remain a "reality" despite allies' success
at interrupting terrorists' recruitment, planning, financing and travel,
Rumsfeld said.

Rumsfeld and the administration official described the Iraq occupation plan
after Rumsfeld's meetings with British Prime Minister Tony Blair and British
Defense Minister Geoffrey Hoon during a brief stop in London en route back
to Washington.

The joint U.S.-British plan calls for troops from a number of nations to
join American and British forces in Iraq under overall U.S. command. The two
wartime allies also agreed to seek an unspecified endorsement from the
United Nations Security Council for some aspects of postwar operations in
Iraq.

Ten nations led by the United States and Britain agreed to provide
occupation forces for Iraq, the senior administration official said. The
United States, Britain and Poland will provide division commanders for
separate sectors in Iraq, with additional troops provided by Italy, Spain,
Ukraine, Denmark, Bulgaria, Albania and the Netherlands.

The Philippines, South Korea, Qatar and Australia will provide non-combat
forces for missions such as staffing hospitals, destroying munitions and
searching for weapons of mass destruction, officials said.

The American sector will center on Baghdad, the British sector on Basra, and
the Polish sector on Kurdish-controlled areas in northern Iraq.

The number of combat-ready forces in Iraq may at first exceed the nearly
158,000 U.S. and British forces now in the country, as arriving
multinational forces overlap with forces already patrolling the
California-sized nation of 25 million people, the official said.

France, Germany and Russia - nations that had resisted the U.S.-led invasion
of Iraq - were not asked to contribute forces for the occupation, the
official said.

Rumsfeld said he hoped that other nations would send troops for the three
sectors that would be under the overall command of Army Gen. Tommy Franks,
the commanding general of the war in Iraq.

The number of U.S. forces remaining in Iraq will be determined in part by
"how many other countries will be coming in to participate," Rumsfeld said.
"The larger the number of countries that participate, the fewer number of
forces from the United States will be needed."

Rumsfeld said the United States would maintain as many troops in Iraq as
necessary to allow humanitarian and reconstruction work to progress. He said
it would be "a terrible mistake to think that Iraq is a fully secure,
pacified environment. It is not. It is dangerous."

Meanwhile, the United States and Britain are drafting a joint resolution
seeking Security Council endorsement for some facets of postwar activities
in Iraq, the administration official said, adding that the request was
expected to trigger debate by the 15-nation council.

The official said the Bush administration wanted the United Nations involved
in only humanitarian relief, but he left open the possibility of a wider
role in response to British concerns.

Pentagon officials led by retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay Garner have been working
in Iraq without much international participation to provide humanitarian
assistance, launch reconstruction and forge an interim Iraqi government.


http://www2.bostonherald.com/news/international/ap_huma05032003.htm

*  U.S., BRITAIN DRAFTING RESOLUTION LIMITING U.N. ROLE IN IRAQ TO
HUMANITARIAN RELIEF
Boston Herald, from Associated Press, 3rd May

WASHINGTON - The United States plans to set up an international military
force in three regions of Iraq, with Poland and Britain controlling two
zones and U.S. forces the third, a senior Bush administration official says.

Six European countries have agreed to provide troops for the international
stabilization force, the official said Friday, speaking on condition of
anonymity.

The United States and Britain also are preparing a Security Council
resolution that gives the United Nations a role in humanitarian relief in
Iraq but not peacekeeping, the official said.

The draft resolution would limit the U.N. role to helping with refugees and
displaced people, reconstruction and humanitarian assistance, the official
said. The United States and Britain agree on all but a few of the fine
details of the resolution, the official said, though there is no timetable
on when it would be introduced.

U.N. officials are already in Iraq providing humanitarian relief. U.N.
Secretary-General Kofi Annan said this week that the body has no interest in
policing a postwar Iraq, although it could contribute to the political
resuscitation of the country.

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld discussed the resolution with British
Prime Minister Tony Blair and Defense Secretary Geoff Hoon on Friday as he
ended a tour of Iraq, Afghanistan and the Persian Gulf region.

En route back to Washington, Rumsfeld said he hoped the United Nations would
play a role, but he did not discuss the draft resolution outlining that
role.

Hoon, who joined Rumsfeld in a news conference at London's Heathrow Airport,
also did not mention the draft resolution but said "we are right to be
optimistic about the way forward'' in Iraq.

International stability forces will be sent to Iraq as soon as possible, the
U.S. official said, though it was unclear when that would be. Those troops
will work to restore and maintain order and supervise humanitarian projects
such as the restoration of water and electricity and delivery of food and
medical aid.

The six nations contributing troops are Italy, Spain, Ukraine, Denmark, the
Netherlands and Bulgaria, the official said. Representatives of those
countries will meet with British officials May 7 and Polish officials May 22
to determine what forces each country will contribute and whether they will
be put under British or Polish command.

The U.S. part of the stability force will be comprised of American troops.
While that portion is likely to consist of a division - about 20,000 - the
troop strength of the other two sectors has yet to be determined, the
official said.

The international stabilization force would be under the U.S. war commander,
Gen. Tommy Franks.

At least initially, the coalition stability forces will augment rather than
replace the 135,000 American troops inside Iraq, the official said. The
stability forces will focus on providing security and humanitarian relief
while other U.S. troops focus on rooting out remaining forces of the former
Saddam Hussein government and other armed elements in Iraq.

The more troops other countries contribute to the stability effort, the
fewer U.S. troops will be needed inside Iraq, Rumsfeld said.

Planning for both the U.N. resolution and the international security force
left out France, Germany and Russia, three powers that vehemently opposed
the war in Iraq.

The outlines for the international stability force were decided at a
conference Hoon held Wednesday with representatives from 16 countries,
mostly NATO members. Other countries including the Philippines, South Korea,
Qatar and Australia agreed to send other help such as field hospitals,
engineers, explosive ordnance disposal teams or nuclear, biological and
chemical weapons specialist.

The U.S., British and Polish sectors will be drawn to take into account
ethnic, religious, tribal and political factions within Iraq, the official
said. For example, although ethnic Kurds are the majority in large parts of
northern Iraq, there are also large numbers of Kurds within Baghdad.

Some Arab countries also want to play a role in the stability operation in
Iraq but are reluctant to send troops because of political, religious and
ethnic considerations, the official said. Countries in the Gulf Cooperation
Council have offered to donate money for the effort.

Rumsfeld also met Friday with King Abdullah of Jordan, an American ally in
the Middle East. Defense officials say Jordan provided key help in the Iraq
war, acting as a staging area for U.S. special operations raids into western
Iraq to prevent missiles from being fired at Jordan or Israel.

Rumsfeld did not say what the two discussed.


http://www.dw-world.de/english/0,3367,1433_A_858571_1_A,00.html

*  POLAND TAKES ON LEAD ROLE IN POSTWAR IRAQ     
Deustche Welle, 5th May
 
Poland, alongside the United States and Britain, is set to help administer
postwar Iraq. Warsaw's prominent role comes not only from its loyalty to
Washington, but also from its little known yet longstanding Iraqi ties.
 
Long a strong supporter of the U.S.-led war against Iraq, Poland was one of
only a handful of nations committing combat troops to Washington's effort to
oust Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.
 
Now as the United States tries to ensure postwar stability in Iraq, Poland
has been given control of one of three military sectors in the country.
While American soldiers will patrol Baghdad and it surroundings and British
troops are to manage the south including the city of Basra, Poland's armed
forces will take charge of the Kurdish-dominated northern part of the
country.
 
Whereas France, Germany, Russia and other nations opposed the war have been
left out of any postwar planning, Poland at least nine other nations told
the United States last week they would contribute troops to a three
division-strong force to stabilize Iraq.
 
"The idea is to have all the countries, ready to engage, there by the end of
this month," Poland's Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz told the Reuters news agency
on Saturday.
 
Poland said it would likely send between 4,000 and 10,000 soldiers to Iraq,
with the final figure depending on how much financial support it gets from
Washington. The Polish forces would then lead one of three, or possibly
four, sectors. Ukraine, Italy, Spain, Denmark, Bulgaria, the Netherlands and
Albania have all offered troops for the policing effort.
 
Though the high-profile role allotted Poland might appear to some as simple
quid pro quo for Warsaw's largely unconditional support for the United
States before and during the war, Washington is also making use of extensive
Polish ties to Iraq that have been built up over decades.
 
For the past 12 years, Poland has represented U.S. interests at its embassy
in Baghdad after America closed its own diplomatic representation down
during the 1991 Gulf War.
 
Warsaw's own ties with Iraq have been strong ever since the 1970s. It was
then that around 80,000 Poles worked in Iraq as engineers, doctors and oil
industry technicians. At the same time much of Iraq's elite went to Poland
to study, meaning that quite a few Iraqis speak Polish.
 
But those ties mean little to European Union politicians who see the
Poland's relationship with the United States as a hindrance to forging a
common EU foreign and defense policy. French President Jacques Chirac
created a stir this winter when he chastised prospective EU members like
Poland for signing a letter supporting the hard U.S. line against Iraq.
 
Despite that incident, Polish President Aleksander Kwasniewski is only too
happy to use Poland's new high-profile to serve as a bridge between Europe
and America.
 
"We are happy that today we are very close partners with the USA, but we
also know the importance of Germany and France in the world," Kwasniewski
said.

"One cannot forge meaningful policies without these states and the USA has
to understand that."


http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c
=StoryFT&cid=1051389765857&p=1012571727166

*  POLAND DENIES WEAKENING EU COMMON STANCE
by Judy Dempsey
Financial Times, 5th May

Poland yesterday hit back at its critics, dismissing suggestions that it was
weakening Europe's efforts to forge a common foreign and security policy
(CFSP) by taking command of one of the three military zones the US intends
to establish in Iraq. The US and the UK will take charge of the other two.

"The criticism by some of our European Union partners is unfair," said Jerzy
Nowak, Poland's ambassador to Nato. "We are not doing anything wrong. The EU
actually does not have a specifically agreed stance on this issue of sending
troops," he added in an interview with the FT.

The other European countries sending troops include Spain, the Netherlands,
Italy, Denmark, Bulgaria and the Czech Republic.

They all supported the US stance on Iraq well before the war started.

Mr Nowak said Warsaw intended to send, at least in the first phase, around
1,500 troops. "For further troops we will perhaps need outside financing
help," he added. The Polish Sejm, or parliament, would have to discuss the
issue too. But Mr Nowak was confident that the government would win support
for such an operation and that the public would go along with it.

"This is a very important development for Poland," explained Mr Nowak. "For
the first time in our history we will be among powers that would decide the
destiny of a specific country and a specific problem." It would also show
Poland's "leadership potential".

Several of the 15 EU member states, still divided over Iraq but at least no
longer throwing insults at each other, perceive it differently. Some say
Poland has no command experience.

Others see a Poland that is going to become increasingly self-confident and
demanding, especially when it comes to insisting on more EU money when it
joins next year. "In short, difficult, like Spain has been," says a
diplomat.

They are also smarting over how the announcement was made. Diplomats say
that Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary, returning from Iraq to
Washington, broke the news to coincide with the EU's foreign ministers'
meeting in Greece.

Indeed, the news came out over the Friday night and Saturday morning exactly
when ministers were on a boat off the Greek island of Kastellorizo - and
almost incommunicado.

So when ministers were asked about Poland taking command of one of the
zones, probably the northern Kurdish area, several tried to put a brave face
on it or even avoid it. George Papandreou, Greek foreign minister, who was
chairing the meeting, said it was a question for Nato.

Not Joschka Fischer, however. Germany's foreign minister, who with German
chancellor Gerhard Schröder has been critical of the US, said he thought it
was a trap set by the Americans to embarrass and again divide the Europeans
between the "old" and "new", particularly since they were for the first time
meeting with the 10 candidate countries.

Yet when it became clear that Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz, Polish foreign
minister, was embarrassed over the way the announcement was made, EU
ministers started taking a different view.

One suggested that Mr Rumsfeld was doing more than needle Europe, as is his
wont. "Rumsfeld was getting his own back at Powell," he said.

Colin Powell, US secretary of state, had managed to get L. Paul Bremer, a
tough, no nonsense counter-terrorism expert, to be the top civilian
administrator in Iraq and who will be over Jay Garner, the Pentagon's
reconstruction chief.

"Rumsfeld may have taken that appointment out on the Europeans," says
another senior EU diplomat.


http://sg.news.yahoo.com/030504/1/3apko.html

*  IRAQ RECONSTRUCTION INCHES FORWARD, AS HUMANITARIAN DISASTER LOOMS
Yahoo (Agence France Presse), 5th May

[.....]

In Tashkent, Russian oil major LUKoil said that under no circumstances would
it relinquish the Iraqi oil field of West Qurna-2.

"The fact is that LUKoil's project at Western Qurna-2, Iraq, has proven oil
reserves of one billion (metric tonnes), thus exceeding the remaining
reserves of the legendary Surgut and Samotlor fields as a whole," said Azat
Chamsouarov, vice-president of Lukoil Overseas Holding, referring to two
Russian oil fields.

In April, a top US energy expert close to the White House, Robert Ebel,
warned that Russian companies had little hope of fulfilling contracts to
develop Iraq's vast oil reserves because of Russia's fierce oppposition to
the US-led war.


http://reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=ABCFN3RIDBKFGCRBAELCFFA?type
=politicsNews&storyID=2691105

*  POLAND SAYS NEEDS UN MANDATE FOR IRAQ PEACE FORCE
Reuters, 6th May

WASHINGTON: Poland said on Tuesday it would need a U.N. Security Council
mandate to take part in a proposed peacekeeping mission in Iraq.

"We believe that we need that kind of resolution. I understand that in days
ahead there will be some initiatives opening the way to have such a
resolution," Foreign Minister Wlodzimierz Cimoszewicz said after talks with
Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Poland has proposed to the United States that its soldiers team up with
German and Danish troops to keep the peace in one region of postwar Iraq,
Polish officials said on Tuesday.

Defense Minister Jerzy Szmajdzinski, in Washington for talks on setting up
an Iraq "stabilization force," said such a unit could be based on a joint
Polish-German-Danish NATO corps now stationed in northwestern Poland.

Cimoszewicz discussed the proposal with Powell and told reporters that
Poland wanted as many European countries as possible to take part in the
stabilization force.

"We would like to have as many European partners as possible to work
together with us. To a great extent our common success will depend on that,"
he said.

"If that is done, we can start our task with all of the European potential
partners, of course including Germans."

The minister said he was not singling out Germany as a partner and there
were many other willing governments.

Powell said the United States had good discussions with Poland but did not
mention a possible U.N. resolution.

Berlin, an opponent of the U.S.-led war that toppled Iraqi President Saddam
Hussein, was surprised by the Polish proposal but Defense Minister Peter
Struck would discuss it with European colleagues, his spokesman said in
Berlin.

German newspapers have been blunter, with one dubbing Poland America's
"Trojan ass" and another accusing Warsaw of supplying the United States with
mercenaries.


http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=484

*  WASHINGTON TARGETS CHIRAC AND ELBARADAI
DEBKA-Net-Weekly, 7th May

The Americans are sitting tight on the extremely valuable Iraqi intelligence
archives discovered at Iraqi intelligence headquarters in Baghdad and at
sub-departments of Saddam's clandestine machine never before known to exist.
The only data released are a few leaks to the British media calculated to
help prime minister Tony Blair stand up to anti-war campaigners at home and
around Europe.

>From this treasure trove, America has distributed to its war allies some
materials relevant to their national security. But no decision has been
taken as to the disposition of documents attesting to the clandestine ties
of collaboration maintained with the Saddam regime by a whole range of
foreign government and public office-holders, academics, media figures,
financiers and industrialists the world over, many deeply involved in
sanctions-busting. By and large, Washington is not inclined to bare these
secrets or make use of them at the moment, except in some notable cases. One
is French president Jacques Chirac; another is the head of the International
Atomic Energy Commission in Vienna, Dr. Mohammed ElBaradai, who led the
nuclear weapons inspection in Iraq before the war.

In addition, the administration has secretly handed over to various Middle
East and Persian Gulf governments the names of ministers and public figures
who were handsomely rewarded by Saddam Hussein for supporting his case in
deliberations at the United Nations, other international bodies and
inter-Arab forums. Washington was given to understand that these public
officials would be held to account by their governments. This process has
started quietly in Qatar and Jordan, where our intelligence sources expect
overnight resignations of senior cabinet members.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly has been reliably informed that the nature of the
relationships the French president and members of his family wove with
Saddam Hussein and members of his regime is due to be revealed quite soon,
drawing on the materials in the secret Iraqi files. Some sources say that
the ties linking the two families were deep and ramified. Their exposure is
likely to raise a storm.

As for Dr. ElBaradai, our sources report that, even before the Iraqi
archives were examined, Washington had compiled a dossier on the chief
nuclear inspector from discoveries made in the course of crises over the
North Korean and Iranian nuclear weapons programs.

US officials are holding to the public position that more time is needed to
turn up Saddam's arsenal of forbidden weapons. However, last week, Syria
handed over two key scientists who ran Iraq's bio weapons programs, Dr Hudah
Salih Mahdi Ammash, the anthrax expert and Dr. RihabTaha ­ "Dr. Germ", as
well as her husband the "Missile Man", Gen. Amir Muhammed Rasheed. These
scoops must have given the Americans much of the information they were after
on the nature and locations of the weapons of mass destruction. However,
Washington is now waiting for President Bashar Assad to respond to the
ultimatum secretary of state Colin Powell slapped down last Saturday in
Damascus. He was put on notice to report on the arsenal's whereabouts in
Lebanon after he removed this hot potato from Syria. Only then, will the
Bush administration decide how to handle the information accumulated.

In the meantime, US officials believe they have sufficient grounds for
demanding Dr. ElBaradai's removal and have already set this process in
motion. According to DEBKA-Net Weekly's Washington sources, their preferred
candidate for his replacement in Vienna is Prince Hassan of Jordan, brother
and former crown prince of King Hussein and uncle of King Abdullah. We have
learned that senior representatives of the Bush administration have
interviewed the prince in London and Amman and obtained his consent to the
appointment, which has also been endorsed by the king.

The Hashemite prince lacks scientific qualifications for the job, but the
Bush administration have concluded that scientists, however eminent, are not
much use for stemming the proliferation of nuclear weapons ­ a shortcoming
manifested in the last two years in the cases of North Korea and Iran.
Washington is ready to try out an experienced statesman before the spread of
dangerous nuclear capabilities gets out of hand. Action against nuclear
proliferation has risen to the top of the Bush administration's order of
priorities.

The new director's first task will be to disperse the IAEA's ruling council
which is held responsible for obstructing rather than advancing inspection
mechanisms. Hassan's appointment will undoubtedly strengthen Washington's
control over the commission. It will also enhance the kingdom's
international standing, its reward for unreservedly supporting and taking
part in the American war against the Saddam regime in Iraq.


NO URL

*  MANY EMBASSIES SET TO REOPEN IN BAGHDAD
by Kathleen Ridolfo
RFE/RL Iraq report, Vol. 6, No. 21, 7 May 2003

Many states have begun to take steps toward the reopening of their embassies
and consulates in the Iraqi capital, according to international press
reports. The German government announced on 5 May that it had sent a team to
Baghdad to assess the amount of damage to its looted embassy, dpa reported
on the same day. Sweden dispatched its diplomatic team on 5 May to assess
its embassy, which was closed prior to the start of the 1991 Gulf War, AFP
reported the same day.  The Turkish government has said that its embassy
would open within a week, "Ankara Anatolia" reported on 5 May.

Meanwhile, the United Kingdom reestablished a diplomatic presence on the
grounds of its embassy compound, working out of makeshift containers,
Reuters reported on 5 May. A staff of four will work and live out of
shipping containers equipped with generators and kitchens, according to the
report. Britain expects a staff of 20 to be in place by the end of July.
Christopher Segar, who will head the British Office, as it will be called
until an Iraqi government is established to accept an ambassador's
credentials, told Reuters, "The flat pack embassy is a new idea and we are
going to see whether we can work it effectively here. It allows you to
dismantle, take it away, and use it somewhere else." A new embassy building
will reportedly be built to replace the 19th-century timber-and-brick
Ottoman building that housed the former embassy, according to Reuters.


NO URL

*  IAEA HEAD CALLS FOR UNSC REFORM, RETURN OF INSPECTORS
by Kathleen Ridolfo
RFE/RL Iraq report, Vol. 6, No. 21, 7 May 2003

Muhammad al-Baradei, director general of the International Atomic Energy
Agency (IAEA), called for a modernization of the United Nations Security
Council (UNSC) in a 5 May article published in the French-based daily "Le
Monde," AFP reported on the same day. "We need to modernize the system of
collective security laid out in the UN Charter whether it be preventive
diplomacy or coercion," al-Baradei wrote. He added that the UN system,
constructed over half a century ago, has not worked, and called for a
Security Council that reflects the current balance of global and economic
power in the world, according to AFP. "Preventative strikes, however
tempting they may be, could take the international community into unknown
and dangerous territory," al-Baradei said.

Meanwhile, the UN confirmed on 5 May that al-Baradei has requested that IAEA
inspectors be allowed back into Iraq to investigate reports of looting at an
Iraqi nuclear site, AFP reported on the same day. U.S. officials have
reportedly not responded to the letter, which was addressed to the U.S.
government and dated 30 April. At the IAEA, spokeswoman Melissa Fleming told
Reuters that the agency had not received a response but said, "We have been
assured by the U.S. that they would secure these facilities," Reuters
reported on 5 May. Fleming added that the IAEA "finds these reports [of
looting] disturbing."

"The Washington Post" reported the looting on 4 May, noting that it appeared
that radioactive material was looted, according to Reuters. Asked about the
issue, State Department Spokesman Richard Boucher said that the United
States had made no decisions regarding the reentry of the nuclear watchdog
agency.

Regarding the looting, Boucher said, "Coalition forces have secured the
facilities that house the natural and low enriched uranium that was at those
sites...none of this material was usable in nuclear weapons; all of this
uranium would require significant processing in order to be suitable for
enrichment for weapons use," Reuters reported. The IAEA has said that the
material might be used to construct dirty bombs, according to Reuters.


MOTHER OF ALL PARLIAMENTS

http://news.scotsman.com/politics.cfm?id=511982003

*  ANGER OVER DALYELL'S 'JEWISH CABAL' SLUR
by Fraser Nelson
The Scotsman, 5th May

TAM Dalyell, the Father of the House, may be referred to the Commission for
Racial Equality after claiming a "Jewish cabal" operating in both the United
States and Britain is driving the governments of both countries into a war
against Syria.

Eric Moonman, the president of the Zionist Federation in London, has said he
believes Mr Dalyell's remarks constitute a formal offence - and that he is
considering a formal complaint to the commission.

Mr Dalyell said that he now expects to be victimised because he raised "a
whisper of criticism" about the influence which Jewish advisers hold on Tony
Blair, the Prime Minister, and George Bush, the president of the US.

The outrage was prompted by Mr Dalyell's comments in Vanity Fair magazine,
where he said the ideas of hardline Jewish White House advisers are being
embraced by men of equivalent stature in London.

He has named Peter Mandelson, Jack Straw and Lord Levy as the trio which
influences Mr Blair in his foreign policy - and are ensuring that Britain
follows a "Zionist agenda" in the Middle East.

When asked to explain his comments, Mr Dalyell told The Scotsman yesterday
he was not anti-Semitic but felt the need to lay out his fears that Zionist
ministers may make Syria the "next stop" after Iraq.

"A Jewish cabal have taken over the government in the United State and
formed an unholy alliance with fundamentalist Christians," he said.

The members of this cabal, he said, are Paul Wolfowitz, the deputy defence
secretary, Elliott Abrams, a member of the national security council, Ari
Fleischer, the White House spokesman, and John Bolton, the undersecretary of
state.

"I was asked [by Vanity Fair] what effect this has had on Britain and I said
it has fallen on fertile ground here. I mentioned Mandelson, Straw and Levy
as being fertile ground. They have all encouraged Blair to go through with
this terrible war."

Of the three, only Lord Levy, who has acted as Mr Blair's personal envoy to
the Middle East, is a practising Jew. Mr Mandelson's father is Jewish and Mr
Straw's great-grandfather was a German Jewish émigré.

Mr Mandelson said yesterday that he was baffled by the argument. "Apart from
the fact that I am not actually Jewish, I wear my father's parentage with
pride," he said. "As for Tam, he is as incorrigible as ever."

Mr Dalyell said he is aware about the opposition his remarks caused. "One is
treading on cut glass on this issue and no one wants to be accused of
anti-Semitism, but if it is a question of launching an assault on Syria,
then one has to be candid."

David Garfinkel, the editor-in-chief of the London Jewish News, said Mr
Dalyell's remarks introduced an anti-Semetic dimension into the debate - and
would send shock waves through the community.

"Coming a few days after the British National Party won seats in the north
of England, this is the kind of menacing 'candour' which the country
certainly does not need" he said. "These kind of insinuations may have been
seen as socially acceptable when Mr Dalyell was first elected in the 1960s,
but it has no place in the 21st century. He has proven today why he is long
overdue for retirement."

[.....]


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*  BRITAIN KEPT OPEN SECRET CHANNEL TO IRAQ
by Anton La Guardia, David Blair and Andrew Sparrow
Daily Telegraph, 6th May

Britain tried to defuse the Iraq crisis by communicating through secret
channels with Saddam Hussein's regime for at least two years, according to
documents found by The Daily Telegraph in Baghdad.

Peter Hain, the Welsh Secretary and a former Foreign Office minister,
confirmed the contents of the files found in the Iraqi foreign ministry.

They detail private overtures to Iraq, several involving Mr Hain, in 2000
and 2001, apparently with the support of the Clinton administration.

Using many intermediaries, including Arab governments, Britain sought to
assure Saddam that it was serious about effecting a deal being offered
through the United Nations.

The offer was that if Iraq readmitted weapons inspectors in line with UN
resolution 1284, sanctions would be lifted within six months.

Iraq repeatedly spurned the opportunity to rehabilitate itself, although
resolution 1284 gave the inspectors a far softer mandate than the terms
under which they were eventually admitted last November.

"It was quite clear to me that this was going nowhere because Saddam was not
interested in having weapons inspectors," Mr Hain said.

"We let it wither. It was clear that the Iraqis were trying to manoeuvre a
situation to gain a diplomatic coup. Nevertheless, it was worth trying,
especially given the involvement of many Middle Eastern foreign ministers."

The documents came from the same set of files purporting to show that George
Galloway, the Labour MP, benefited from oil and food contracts in Iraq - an
allegation he denies.

Mr Galloway claims that he helped to promote a secret dialogue between
Britain and Iraq. He told the Sunday Herald in Glasgow that Mr Hain knew of
his visit to Baghdad over Christmas 1999, when he stayed with Tariq Aziz,
the deputy prime minister.

"Hain agreed we should start such a dialogue," he said.

Mr Hain denied that Mr Galloway was a go-between. "Galloway had absolutely
no role at all," he said. "He did tell me he had spent Christmas Day with
Tariq Aziz and I was astonished to hear about it."

Robin Cook, the former Foreign Secretary, said: "It is fair to say that we
were looking for a way of resolving the crisis in our own interests. We
wanted inspectors to go back. It was in co-operation with the Clinton
administration. That changed with the election of a new administration."

The documents show intense Iraqi interest in opening a dialogue with
Britain, at least since 1998. Baghdad hoped to break the American-imposed
isolation by wooing Tony Blair away from the policy of containment.

However, moves to establish contacts in early 1998 through two former
ambassadors to Iraq, Sir John Moberly and Sir Terence Clark, came to
nothing. The next attempt was made in early 2000 after the Security Council
passed resolution 1284.

This offered Iraq a suspension of sanctions and eventual lifting of the
embargo if it started to co-operate with weapons inspectors.

Britain, facing criticism that the years of sanctions were causing
unacceptable suffering to ordinary Iraqis while failing to weaken Saddam,
issued private assurances that the offer was genuine.

A British charity, the Next Century Foundation, tried several times to
mediate between Mr Hain and Iraqi officials. Signals were also passed on
through Arab foreign ministers.

The documents include a copy of a letter from Mr Cook, telling his Jordanian
counterpart, Abdul Illah Khatib, on September 1, 2000: "As soon as Iraq
begins co-operating with [weapons inspectors], it will be on the road to the
suspension of sanctions." By the end of 2000, hope was fading. The incoming
government of President George W Bush was openly committed to toppling
Saddam.

Two months after September 11, when war with Iraq was already being debated
in Washington, the Next Century Foundation tried to arrange a meeting
between Mr Hain and Naji Sabri, the Iraqi foreign minister, at the UN.

William Morris, the charity's secretary general, who confirms the contents
of the documents, said: "People of good conscience were trying to avert war,
but I knew it was futile.


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*  WHY I AM SURE THE DOCUMENTS ARE GENUINE
by Ibrahim al-Marashi
Daily Telegraph, 6th May

As an Iraqi researcher of my country's intelligence agencies, I am convinced
that the documents purporting to relate to George Galloway shown to me by
The Daily Telegraph are genuine.

I have devoted the past four years to examining 300,000 Iraqi security
documents left in Kuwait after the 1991 Gulf war, as well as numerous files
from the four million documents captured during the 1991 Kurdish uprising.

If the Iraqi intelligence memo purporting to refer to Mr Galloway was a
forgery, I would have spotted it.

The stylistic nuances, the language and syntax of the document were not only
produced by an Iraqi, but certainly by an Iraqi intelligence agent.

For example, the memorandum records the name "Galloway", using the Persian
character for the letter G to identify the sound of his surname. In Arabic,
there is no character for the letter G.

The technique of importing a foreign letter to spell out this sound is a
consistent characteristic of Mukhabarat secret service documents.

In the 1991 files they used the same method to spell out the names of
foreigners who were taken as human shields.

Some have questioned why part of the crucial document's letterhead was
written in English, using an acronym, IRIS, for the Iraqi intelligence
service. Above the acronym, there is a symbol of an iris. Numerous
Mukhabarat documents from the 1991 Gulf war carry the same symbol.

The reason for the English letterhead is that the Mukhabarat was charged
with conducting overseas intelligence activity, including liaison with
foreign intelligence organisations. The foreign ministry also used an
English letterhead.

Iraq's other intelligence services, which are largely confined to domestic
security, do not have letterheads in English. The use of an iris within the
letterhead is a symbol of keeping an eye on Iraq's enemies. The Mukhabarat
correspondence purporting to relate to Mr Galloway, which The Daily
Telegraph showed me, was marked for the attention of the presidential
secretariat.

This shadowy, often misunderstood, body handled all communications between
Saddam Hussein and the Mukhabarat, while other ministries reported to the
presidential cabinet office.

If one were to assume that the document was forged, this would presuppose
that the forger had a detailed knowledge of the secret chain of command in
Iraq's security network.

The crucial document is handwritten. Typewriters or word processors were
rare in Saddam's Iraq because the regime was afraid that they could be used
to spread seditious material.

Most of the Mukhabarat's orders and reports that I have seen, from 1979 to
the present, were handwritten.

The document was written in a distinctive flowery form of Arabic
calligraphy. It is inconceivable that someone without Arabic as his or her
mother tongue could have written it. Indeed, few native Arabic speakers
could produce such an elaborate script.

The files contain three other examples of this handwriting bearing the same
signature, dealing with more mundane matters unrelated to Mr Galloway.

Other documents bear the same signature identified by Haitham Rashid Wihaib,
Saddam's former head of protocol, to be that of Tahir Jailil Habbush
al-Tikriti, the head of the Mukhabarat from 1999 until the fall of the
regime.

But the text of one is written by a different hand. This pattern also
appears in the 1991 documents. It was customary for senior officials to
employ several scribes.

Ibrahim al-Marashi is a research associate at the Centre for
Non-Proliferation Studies in Monterey, California. He is a visiting fellow
at Cambridge University's programme for security in international society,
where he is working on a project covering Iraq's weapons programme based on
captured documents from the 1991 Gulf war.




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