----- Original Message ----- From: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>; <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Monday, July 17, 2000 1:39 PM Subject: [STOPNATO] Fwd: [iac-disc.] Media Alert - Write the Washington Post STOP NATO: NO PASARAN! - HTTP://WWW.STOPNATO.COM Richard Butler op-ed inciting / inviting military intervention .... ______________________________________________________________________ To unsubscribe, write to [EMAIL PROTECTED] BEST PRICES ON THE NET AT IMANDI.COM Cheapest prices on new cars, insurance, airfare, maids, custom pc's, mortgages, moving and more! Tell us what you want. We locate it for free -- across town & across the country. http://www.bcentral.com/listbot/imandi
***please distribute freely*** Media Alert - Write the Washington Post! --------------------------------------------- 1. Background 2. Letters to the Editor address 3. Richard Butler Op/Ed --------------------------------------------- Background: The Washington Post editorial page has consistently supported both military action against Iraq and Sanctions. That is their right. However, the information they continue to base their opinions on is seriously flawed (see: http://www.fair.org/activism/post-expulsions.html) Regardless, it is the Post's refusal to allow an anti-Sanctions viewpoint on their Opinion page that is most troubling. The Opinion page is supposed to be a clearing house of alternative views on the issues in our public life. It seems the Washington Post does not believe that there is any opposition to Sanctions in the United States. Please write the Washington Post and urge them to allow a anti-Sanctions Op/Ed to be published in their paper. --------------------------------------------- Letters to the Editor addresses: email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] snailmail: Letters to the Editor The Washington Post 1150 15th Street NW Washington, DC 20071 --------------------------------------------- Guess Who's Back By Richard Butler Monday , July 17, 2000 ; A17 So you thought Saddam Hussein was out of your life? Sorry--he's back, manufacturing the weapons of mass destruction with which he threatens the Iraqi people, his neighbors and, by extension, the safety of the world. Two separate developments have returned Saddam Hussein to the headlines. Earlier this month the administration revealed that its satellites had detected Iraq test-firing Al-Samoud missiles, home-grown, smaller versions of the Scuds last used against Israel during the 1990 Gulf War. The chief of U.S. Central Command, Gen. Tony Zinni, said that the range of the Al-Samoud easily could be increased. The administration also revealed that Saddam Hussein has been hiding between 20 and 30 Russian Scuds as well as working through front companies outside Iraq to acquire the machine tools needed to build more missiles. None of this is new. In my last report as executive chairman of UNSCOM, the agency charged with disarming Saddam, I warned the U.N. Security Council about Iraq's missile-development activities. That was almost two years ago, just before Iraq shut down all international arms control and monitoring efforts. I've also publicly detailed Iraq's refusal to yield or account for its holdings of at least 500 tons of fuel usable only by Scud-type missiles. Iraqi officials told me that a complete accounting for this fuel was unnecessary because, after all, Iraq had no Scud missiles. I disagreed, stating that the reverse was true: As long as Iraq refused to yield the fuel, it clearly had concealed Scuds or planned to acquire or build them. Presumably unconnected with the administration's revelation but simultaneous with it, former UNSCOM inspector Scott Ritter, in an article in Arms Control Today, claimed that Iraq is "qualitatively disarmed." He failed to offer any new information or evidence to support this dubious concept. There were two levels of deception in Iraqi dealings with UNSCOM: concealment and false declarations on the weapons Iraq was prepared to put in play in the disarmament process. When Ritter worked for me, he was in charge of the UNSCOM unit responsible for finding and destroying the concealed weapons, and he was vilified by Iraqi leaders as their major persecutor. Now he says he has had private conversations with unspecified Iraqi officials that have persuaded him they are "qualitatively disarmed" and will accept a new monitoring program if the Security Council first lifts all sanctions against Iraq. The facts are clear and alarming, and they do not support this assertion. Iraq has been free of any arms control or monitoring regime for almost two years, a consequence of the breakdown of consensus among the permanent members of the Security Council. Now Saddam Hussein is reconstituting his capability to deploy weapons of mass destruction. I've seen evidence of Iraqi attempts to acquire missile-related tools and, even more chilling, of steps the Iraqis have taken to reassemble their nuclear weapons design team. After the Gulf War, experts assessed Iraq was only six months from testing an atomic bomb. It retains that know-how. It also has rebuilt its chemical and biological weapons manufacturing facilities. If the United States is serious about addressing the threat current developments raise, it should insist to its fellow permanent members of the Security Council that there be a new consensus on enforcing arms control in Iraq. Selective revelations such as those recently issued by the administration need to be accompanied by a robust policy within the Security Council, making clear particularly to Russia and France that the United States is not prepared to accept their patronage of Saddam Hussein. The writer, diplomat in residence at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York, was chairman of UNSCOM from 1997 to 1999. © 2000 The Washington Post Company ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Get great brand name shoes with just the click of a mouse. Check out the huge selection at Zappos.com, the Web's Most Popular Store! http://click.egroups.com/1/6994/6/_/790251/_/963836409/ ------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------------------------------------------- *** Iraq Action Coalition Discussion Forum *** http://iraqaction.org/discussion.html ------------------------------------ *To Post a message, send it to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *To Subscribe, send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] *To Unsubscribe, send a blank message to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * To see the List Guidelines, go to: http://iraqaction.org/discussion.html *Any questions, contact the List Moderator at [EMAIL PROTECTED] -----------------------------------------------
