Robin Cook Resignation

Robin Cook in The Guardian, 3/18/03, explaining why he resigned from Tony Blair's cabinet:

The harsh reality is that Britain is being asked to embark on a war without agreement in any of the international bodies of which we are a leading member. Not Nato. Not the EU. And now not the security council. To end up in such diplomatic isolation is a serious reverse. Only a year ago we and the US were part of a coalition against terrorism which was wider and more diverse than I would previously have thought possible. History will be astonished at the diplomatic miscalculations that led so quickly to the disintegration of that powerful coalition. . . .

Why is it now so urgent that we should take military action to disarm a military capacity that has been there for 20 years and which we helped to create? And why is it necessary to resort to war this week while Saddam's ambition to complete his weapons programme is frustrated by the presence of UN inspectors?

I have heard it said that Iraq has had not months but 12 years in which to disarm, and our patience is exhausted. Yet it is over 30 years since resolution 242 called on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories.

We do not express the same impatience with the persistent refusal of Israel to comply. What has come to trouble me most over past weeks is the suspicion that if the hanging chads in Florida had gone the other way and Al Gore had been elected, we would not now be about to commit British troops to action in Iraq.

Army Sergeant on Halabja Gas Attack

Retired US Army Special Forces Master Sergeant Stan Goff on the use of chemical weapons in Halabja in 1988, at the end of the Iran-Iraq war (From the Wilderness Publications, 3/17/03):

Stephen Pelletiere was the Central Intelligence Agency's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war. He was also a professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000. In both roles, he had access to classified material from Washington related to the Persian Gulf. In 1991, he headed an Army investigation into Iraqi military capability. That classified report went into great detail on Halabja.

Halabja is the Kurdish town where hundreds of people were apparently poisoned in a chemical weapons attack in March 1988. Few Americans even knew that much. They only have the article of religious faith, "Saddam gassed his own people."

In fact, according to Pelletiere -- an ex-CIA analyst, and hardly a raging leftist like yours truly -- the gassing occurred in the midst of a battle between Iraqi and Iranian armed forces.

Pelletiere further notes that a "need to know" document that circulated around the US Defense Intelligence Agency indicated that US intelligence doesn't believe it was Iraqi chemical munitions that killed and aimed the Kurdish residents of Halabja. It was Iranian. The condition of the bodies indicated cyanide-based poisoning. The Iraqis were using mustard gas in that battle. The Iranians used cyanide.

March 15 Protests

3/16/03: The Washington Post and Washington Times on yesterday's antiwar protests in Washington, DC.

The Post put participation at 40,000 (police estimate) to 100,000 (organizers' estimate) with about 75 (police estimate) to 300 (organizers' estimate) counterprotesters. The Times's numbers: "Tens of thousands" (their lede) to 100,000 (organizers' estimate), and "about 50 counterprotesters." From the Post article: "Saad A. Kadhim, of the Iraqi American Anti-War Association, led a busload of 49 Iraqi Americans from New York City. Kadhim returned from Baghdad a few days ago and said people there were panicked and the mood tense. "It's not about Saddam Hussein anymore," he said. 'The Iraqi people see America as a threat.'" The Times article briefly mentions parallel antiwar protests in Athens, Bangkok, Bucharest, Cairo, Hong Kong, Madrid, Frankfurt, Moscow, and Tokyo; Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, and South Korea; "and scores of other cities in Europe, Asia and the Middle East." The Post did not mention protests outside Washington.

Perpetual War Begins?

Eric Black in the Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 3/16/03, on neoconservative diplomatic ascendance in the Bush administration and resulting prospects of "perpetual war:"

In their vision, war with Iraq is followed by democratization of Iraq, then democratization -- by military means or otherwise -- of other Arab states, then a rolling of the momentum into Asia, with special emphasis on North Korea and China, [Carleton College Asia specialist Roy] Grow said.

[Foreign policy analyst John C.] Hulsman of the Heritage Foundation likened the group to a "drunken gambler, who keeps doubling down, betting his entire bankroll on every roll of the dice. The trouble is, they have to win every bet or they are wiped out."

Covering the War Crisis

David Greenberg on American vs. overseas press coverage of the war crisis in the Washington Post, 3/16/03:

American journalists tend to be more squeamish than their European counterparts about setting the news agenda. If the leading political players don't get worked up about a would-be scandal, the press (usually) balks at arrogating that role to itself. European papers, on the other hand, allow themselves more freedom in deciding what's news, independent of official say-so.

Yet we should be cautious about ascribing differing American and foreign assessments of news stories to national traits or institutions. After all, not long ago the U.S. media would have treated these recent episodes as huge scandals -- the equivalent of the Pentagon Papers or My Lai or the 18-minute gap in Richard Nixon's Watergate tapes.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s, a simmering American skepticism about the motives and morality of our leaders boiled over. . . . And then the mood of active distrust began to subside. It was as if Americans, having faced the darkest elements of their system, couldn't bear to see any more. . . . Ever since [9/11], the public, including the press, has ascribed to the president a degree of goodwill unprecedented in the post-1960s era.

Overseas, however, events since Sept. 11 have led people in the opposite direction. Suspicion of U.S. motives has escalated; willingness to cut the Bush administration some slack has plunged. Where Americans' trust in their leaders seems distressingly high, as if the Nixon years have been forgotten, foreigners' faith in us is troublingly low. In that divide lie the roots of our irreconcilable takes on the news, and our contrary fears for the future.