Saturday, April 26, 2003
VILIFYING THEIR VIRILITY
AS THEY roared north to Baghdad, US forces knew that they had a powerful secret weapon on their side - finely-honed insults that would make Iraqi troops? blood boil.
Through enormous loudspeakers mounted on their humvees, troops broadcast messages proclaiming that Iraqi men were impotent.
The insult had been carefully chosen to so enrage Iraqi troops that they could not resist rushing from their defensive positions to attack the American troops in open battle, with terrible consequences.
According to Newsweek, US Central Command was delighted that the carefully constructed plan "to mess with their heads" seemed to be working so well. The strategy is one of many aspects of a war that went almost un-noted - the hidden psychological and special forces operations that helped win the war.
Another operation was born out of CENTCOM?s increasing concern that Saddam might adopt a "flooded earth" policy in a desperate last act of defiance, to stop the armoured advance in its tracks.
The generals in charge of executing Operation Iraqi Freedom knew what would happen if Saddam blew up a series of dams to flood the Mesopo-tamian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Covert special forces operations inside Iraq had measured the water levels in Iraq?s reservoirs to determine how much water would be unleashed. The results were disconcerting. Special forces were ordered back to secure the dams around Karbala south of Baghdad, where the bottleneck could most easily be created.
Controlling the dams was just one aspect of the covert role played by special forces troops.
While the US army and Marine Corps? advance on Baghdad captured the headlines, much of the real work behind the invasion already had been done in secret behind enemy lines before a single tank had crossed from Kuwait into Iraq. Special forces teams, many composed either of American Arabs or Hispanics disguised to look like Arabs, moved into Iraq in the weeks and months before the invasion.
As in Afghanistan, US agents and covert operations troops used cash bribes to achieve their objectives. Greasing Iraqi palms helped persuade some oil field managers not to torch the wells. In the event, nine wells were set on fire and it was information from troops already inside Iraq, reported Newsweek, that persuaded General Tommy Franks to launch the ground war 36 hours ahead of schedule.
Intelligence sources on the ground reported that Saddam had ordered the oil fields to be set on fire.
However, Saddam was unable to enforce such an order, in part because US surveillance reduced the Iraqi army?s ability to communicate to such an extent that the enemy was reduced to relying on bicycle messengers to carry orders across the battlefield. There was no way in which the Iraqis could compete with allied signal intelligence that, for the first time in the history of warfare allowed for near-instant battlefield communication.
Covert operations could not alone win the battle, but they prepared the ground for the rapid advance on Baghdad.
They were charged with securing three air strips in the western Iraqi desert ensuring that Saddam would not be in a position to threaten Israel. In the north they liaised with Kurdish peshmerga troops so effectively that, combined with the rapid advance from the south, Gen Franks didn?t need the northern front that had been envisaged in the original war plans.
Inside the capital itself, CIA and small groups of secret military troops scouted targets, acting as pathfinders to the circling bombers overhead. When Saddam appeared to be filmed strolling the streets of his capital in an act of bravado, CIA agents were quick to identify the streets as being part of the Mansour residential district. The area was quickly flooded with agents, searching for fresh information on Saddam?s possible location.
Sure enough, that brought information suggesting that Saddam was holed up in a private house in the city. Within an hour that house had been flattened by a brace of 2,000lb bunker busting bombs. This was joined-up warfare for the 21st century.
General Richard Myers summed up the Pentagon?s new doctrine of war pithily: "Speed kills the enemy" he said.
The invasion of Iraq could not have been contemplated, planned or executed without the leading role of US, British and Australian special forces. According to Michael Vickers, a defence expert at the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments: "This really has been a Special Operations war. It?s rather astounding."
Drawing on lessons learned from the war in Afghanistan, in which US special forces played a key role in co-ordinating US air strikes, mapping targets and rallying Afghan allies, the war in Iraq has seen special forces move centre stage in US military thinking.
The 10,000 "trigger-pulling" members of US special forces - just 1 per cent of the military?s manpower - punched enormous holes in Saddam?s ability to defend his country, playing a disproportionate role in the swift and decisive victory.
"Rather than using our [technological] advantages to be cautious, to be safe, we used our advantages to be quick and to be decisive," said Tom Donnelly, a military analyst at the American Enterprise Institute.
"The idea that we could rapidly take down a country the size of California with the equivalent of three ground combat divisions and 900 aircraft is audacity to the point of foolishness, if you go by anything like traditional military planning benchmarks."
But the enduring legacy of Operation Iraqi Freedom may be that those traditional benchmarks for military success are out of date. If so, then military planners at staff colleges around the world will look at the key role special forces troops played in the liberation of Iraq.
More than any other part of the military plan, the use of special forces was Mr Rumsfeld?s pet project, say Pentagon officials. The US defence secretary repeatedly urged Gen Franks to make greater use of their capability, trusting America?s elite forces with preparing the ground for the invasion.
Mr Rumsfeld had been impressed by special forces? adaptability in Afghanistan when, for instance, they used 21st century laser-targeting equipment to direct precision missiles from 20th century aircraft such as the 50-year-old B-52 bombers while depending on 19th century transport on horseback.
At last, Mr Rumsfeld felt, here was an under-used asset that demonstrated the speed and flexibility needed to wage war in an age of military "transformation".
The success of the military plan has emboldened Mr Rumsfeld to proceed apace with his plans to transform the US military - special forces command received a 20 per cent increase in its 2004 budget, bringing expenditure on America?s most elite troops to $6 billion.
Special forces are the new poster boys of the US military machine. They have become the US military?s fifth service.
AS THEY roared north to Baghdad, US forces knew that they had a powerful secret weapon on their side - finely-honed insults that would make Iraqi troops? blood boil.
Through enormous loudspeakers mounted on their humvees, troops broadcast messages proclaiming that Iraqi men were impotent.
The insult had been carefully chosen to so enrage Iraqi troops that they could not resist rushing from their defensive positions to attack the American troops in open battle, with terrible consequences.
According to Newsweek, US Central Command was delighted that the carefully constructed plan "to mess with their heads" seemed to be working so well. The strategy is one of many aspects of a war that went almost un-noted - the hidden psychological and special forces operations that helped win the war.
Another operation was born out of CENTCOM?s increasing concern that Saddam might adopt a "flooded earth" policy in a desperate last act of defiance, to stop the armoured advance in its tracks.
The generals in charge of executing Operation Iraqi Freedom knew what would happen if Saddam blew up a series of dams to flood the Mesopo-tamian plain between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers.
Covert special forces operations inside Iraq had measured the water levels in Iraq?s reservoirs to determine how much water would be unleashed. The results were disconcerting. Special forces were ordered back to secure the dams around Karbala south of Baghdad, where the bottleneck could most easily be created.
Controlling the dams was just one aspect of the covert role played by special forces troops.
While the US army and Marine Corps? advance on Baghdad captured the headlines, much of the real work behind the invasion already had been done in secret behind enemy lines before a single tank had crossed from Kuwait into Iraq. Special forces teams, many composed either of American Arabs or Hispanics disguised to look like Arabs, moved into Iraq in the weeks and months before the invasion.
As in Afghanistan, US agents and covert operations troops used cash bribes to achieve their objectives. Greasing Iraqi palms helped persuade some oil field managers not to torch the wells. In the event, nine wells were set on fire and it was information from troops already inside Iraq, reported Newsweek, that persuaded General Tommy Franks to launch the ground war 36 hours ahead of schedule.
Intelligence sources on the ground reported that Saddam had ordered the oil fields to be set on fire.
However, Saddam was unable to enforce such an order, in part because US surveillance reduced the Iraqi army?s ability to communicate to such an extent that the enemy was reduced to relying on bicycle messengers to carry orders across the battlefield. There was no way in which the Iraqis could compete with allied signal intelligence that, for the first time in the history of warfare allowed for near-instant battlefield communication.
Covert operations could not alone win the battle, but they prepared the ground for the rapid advance on Baghdad.
They were charged with securing three air strips in the western Iraqi desert ensuring that Saddam would not be in a position to threaten Israel. In the north they liaised with Kurdish peshmerga troops so effectively that, combined with the rapid advance from the south, Gen Franks didn?t need the northern front that had been envisaged in the original war plans.
Inside the capital itself, CIA and small groups of secret military troops scouted targets, acting as pathfinders to the circling bombers overhead. When Saddam appeared to be filmed strolling the streets of his capital in an act of bravado, CIA agents were quick to identify the streets as being part of the Mansour residential district. The area was quickly flooded with agents, searching for fresh information on Saddam?s possible location.
Sure enough, that brought information suggesting that Saddam was holed up in a private house in the city. Within an hour that house had been flattened by a brace of 2,000lb bunker busting bombs. This was joined-up warfare for the 21st century.
General Richard Myers summed up the Pentagon?s new doctrine of war pithily: "Speed kills the enemy" he said.
The invasion of Iraq could not have been contemplated, planned or executed without the leading role of US, British and Australian special forces. According to Michael Vickers, a defence expert at the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments: "This really has been a Special Operations war. It?s rather astounding."
Drawing on lessons learned from the war in Afghanistan, in which US special forces played a key role in co-ordinating US air strikes, mapping targets and rallying Afghan allies, the war in Iraq has seen special forces move centre stage in US military thinking.
The 10,000 "trigger-pulling" members of US special forces - just 1 per cent of the military?s manpower - punched enormous holes in Saddam?s ability to defend his country, playing a disproportionate role in the swift and decisive victory.
"Rather than using our [technological] advantages to be cautious, to be safe, we used our advantages to be quick and to be decisive," said Tom Donnelly, a military analyst at the American Enterprise Institute.
"The idea that we could rapidly take down a country the size of California with the equivalent of three ground combat divisions and 900 aircraft is audacity to the point of foolishness, if you go by anything like traditional military planning benchmarks."
But the enduring legacy of Operation Iraqi Freedom may be that those traditional benchmarks for military success are out of date. If so, then military planners at staff colleges around the world will look at the key role special forces troops played in the liberation of Iraq.
More than any other part of the military plan, the use of special forces was Mr Rumsfeld?s pet project, say Pentagon officials. The US defence secretary repeatedly urged Gen Franks to make greater use of their capability, trusting America?s elite forces with preparing the ground for the invasion.
Mr Rumsfeld had been impressed by special forces? adaptability in Afghanistan when, for instance, they used 21st century laser-targeting equipment to direct precision missiles from 20th century aircraft such as the 50-year-old B-52 bombers while depending on 19th century transport on horseback.
At last, Mr Rumsfeld felt, here was an under-used asset that demonstrated the speed and flexibility needed to wage war in an age of military "transformation".
The success of the military plan has emboldened Mr Rumsfeld to proceed apace with his plans to transform the US military - special forces command received a 20 per cent increase in its 2004 budget, bringing expenditure on America?s most elite troops to $6 billion.
Special forces are the new poster boys of the US military machine. They have become the US military?s fifth service.
SPY CHIEF COLLARED
An Iraqi spy chief accused of masterminding a plot to assassinate former President George Bush in 1993 has been captured by American forces near the Syrian border, it was announced yesterday.
Farouk Hijazi has been on the run since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. It was not clear whether he left Syria of his own accord or was expelled after heavy US pressure on Damascus not to harbour Iraqi leaders.
The arrest followed the surrender of Tariq Aziz, the former deputy prime minister, which was negotiated by his son and involved a family friend in America and many satellite telephone calls.
Aziz, 67, the only Christian in Saddam's inner circle, had vowed to "fight to the last bullet". In the end he spent several days negotiating a "dignified" surrender after suffering two recent heart attacks.
Members of his family told CNN television that he had been hiding in a relative's home near Baghdad. They said he gave himself up after US officials said he would be questioned but might not have to go to prison.
The former spy master Hijazi, latterly ambassador to Tunisia, was not listed among the 55 top Iraqi leaders given to American forces on the "deck of death" playing cards.
However, he is seen as a potential mine of intelligence, especially about Iraq's alleged links to al-Qa'eda. In 1998 he is said to have met Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.
He was the head of external operations in the Mukhabarat intelligence service when Iraq was reported to have tried to kill former President Bush with a car bomb in Kuwait.
Rather than encourage accusations that the toppling of Saddam was motivated by a personal grudge, President George W Bush has avoided all but a handful of references to the attempted assassination, which would have involved his mother Barbara and his wife Laura, who were travelling with his father.
In his first major interview since the war started, he said that Saddam could be dead.
The CIA had been in close contact with "a guy on the ground" in Baghdad before the war about the dictator's movements and that prompted America to hit one of his compounds with missiles and bombs 48 hours early than planned.
Afterwards the source reported that Saddam had been there. "He felt like we got Saddam," Mr Bush told NBC television. "And we are trying, of course, to verify."
He suggested that Saddam's death would account the many tactical mistakes by his forces.
Mr Bush made clear that he was not in a mood to forgive President Jacques Chirac for France's opposition to the war. "I doubt he'll be coming to the ranch any time soon," he said.
Hijazi's capture raises the prospect of a criminal trial in America or Kuwait. James Woolsey, a former CIA director close to senior Pentagon officials, said he was "the biggest catch so far. We know he was involved with al-Qa'eda."
American officials refuse to say where senior Iraqi detainees are being held. In a January interview, Aziz expressed a horror of being sent to the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. "I would prefer to die," he said.
Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, said that lawyers would have to "figure out" whether Aziz was a civilian or a military official who could be considered a prisoner of war.
"Every time I was ever with him, he always wore a camouflage uniform and a pistol on his hip," he said. "Does that make him military? I don't know."
An Iraqi spy chief accused of masterminding a plot to assassinate former President George Bush in 1993 has been captured by American forces near the Syrian border, it was announced yesterday.
Farouk Hijazi has been on the run since the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime. It was not clear whether he left Syria of his own accord or was expelled after heavy US pressure on Damascus not to harbour Iraqi leaders.
The arrest followed the surrender of Tariq Aziz, the former deputy prime minister, which was negotiated by his son and involved a family friend in America and many satellite telephone calls.
Aziz, 67, the only Christian in Saddam's inner circle, had vowed to "fight to the last bullet". In the end he spent several days negotiating a "dignified" surrender after suffering two recent heart attacks.
Members of his family told CNN television that he had been hiding in a relative's home near Baghdad. They said he gave himself up after US officials said he would be questioned but might not have to go to prison.
The former spy master Hijazi, latterly ambassador to Tunisia, was not listed among the 55 top Iraqi leaders given to American forces on the "deck of death" playing cards.
However, he is seen as a potential mine of intelligence, especially about Iraq's alleged links to al-Qa'eda. In 1998 he is said to have met Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan.
He was the head of external operations in the Mukhabarat intelligence service when Iraq was reported to have tried to kill former President Bush with a car bomb in Kuwait.
Rather than encourage accusations that the toppling of Saddam was motivated by a personal grudge, President George W Bush has avoided all but a handful of references to the attempted assassination, which would have involved his mother Barbara and his wife Laura, who were travelling with his father.
In his first major interview since the war started, he said that Saddam could be dead.
The CIA had been in close contact with "a guy on the ground" in Baghdad before the war about the dictator's movements and that prompted America to hit one of his compounds with missiles and bombs 48 hours early than planned.
Afterwards the source reported that Saddam had been there. "He felt like we got Saddam," Mr Bush told NBC television. "And we are trying, of course, to verify."
He suggested that Saddam's death would account the many tactical mistakes by his forces.
Mr Bush made clear that he was not in a mood to forgive President Jacques Chirac for France's opposition to the war. "I doubt he'll be coming to the ranch any time soon," he said.
Hijazi's capture raises the prospect of a criminal trial in America or Kuwait. James Woolsey, a former CIA director close to senior Pentagon officials, said he was "the biggest catch so far. We know he was involved with al-Qa'eda."
American officials refuse to say where senior Iraqi detainees are being held. In a January interview, Aziz expressed a horror of being sent to the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay. "I would prefer to die," he said.
Donald Rumsfeld, the defence secretary, said that lawyers would have to "figure out" whether Aziz was a civilian or a military official who could be considered a prisoner of war.
"Every time I was ever with him, he always wore a camouflage uniform and a pistol on his hip," he said. "Does that make him military? I don't know."
MARTIN BASHIT
The broadcaster Martin Bashir has been censured for misleading the father of a teenage prodigy to secure an interview.
The broadcasting standards commission ruled that ITV's star interviewer and his team from the Tonight programme were not sufficiently transparent about their intentions towards Farooq Yusof, whose daughter ran away from Oxford University aged 16.
It is understood, however, that the Tonight team hotly contests the ruling, which follows the controversy surrounding Bashir's exclusive interview with Michael Jackson, who claims the reporter duped him by pretending to be sympathetic.
Mr Yusof also claimed Bashir had ingratiated himself under false pretences, offering to help to discover the truth about his daughter's disappearance. He told a confidential hearing of the BSC in February that Bashir had promised to give him information about his daughter's whereabouts in return for an interview. Mr Yusof also claimed the resulting programme was biased in favour of his daughter.
The BSC investigation was protracted: Tonight was told at least twice that Mr Yusof had dropped his complaint. Sufiah Yusof, who is back at Oxford University, wanted to give evidence in support of the programme at a BSC hearing, but was prevented after Mr Yusof's barrister objected.
It is understood that Mr Yusof only turned against the project when it became apparent that Tonight would raise his criminal past: he has served two terms in prison for mortgage fraud. The programme also revealed his violence towards his daughters.
The BSC partly upheld Mr Yusof's complaint, saying: "Mr Bashir misled Mr Yusof into believing that he was investigating the involvement of the authorities in the disappearance of his daughter.
"[The BSC] takes the view that the programme-makers had lulled Mr Yusof into a contrary belief for their own purposes, and had not given him a clear indication as to the nature and purpose of the programme. The commission therefore finds unfairness to Mr Yusof in this respect." But the BSC said the programme, shown on March 8 2001, was balanced in its treatment of the subject.
A Tonight source said: "That Yusof should achieve some kind of victory through the BSC is the greatest scandal of all."
The broadcaster Martin Bashir has been censured for misleading the father of a teenage prodigy to secure an interview.
The broadcasting standards commission ruled that ITV's star interviewer and his team from the Tonight programme were not sufficiently transparent about their intentions towards Farooq Yusof, whose daughter ran away from Oxford University aged 16.
It is understood, however, that the Tonight team hotly contests the ruling, which follows the controversy surrounding Bashir's exclusive interview with Michael Jackson, who claims the reporter duped him by pretending to be sympathetic.
Mr Yusof also claimed Bashir had ingratiated himself under false pretences, offering to help to discover the truth about his daughter's disappearance. He told a confidential hearing of the BSC in February that Bashir had promised to give him information about his daughter's whereabouts in return for an interview. Mr Yusof also claimed the resulting programme was biased in favour of his daughter.
The BSC investigation was protracted: Tonight was told at least twice that Mr Yusof had dropped his complaint. Sufiah Yusof, who is back at Oxford University, wanted to give evidence in support of the programme at a BSC hearing, but was prevented after Mr Yusof's barrister objected.
It is understood that Mr Yusof only turned against the project when it became apparent that Tonight would raise his criminal past: he has served two terms in prison for mortgage fraud. The programme also revealed his violence towards his daughters.
The BSC partly upheld Mr Yusof's complaint, saying: "Mr Bashir misled Mr Yusof into believing that he was investigating the involvement of the authorities in the disappearance of his daughter.
"[The BSC] takes the view that the programme-makers had lulled Mr Yusof into a contrary belief for their own purposes, and had not given him a clear indication as to the nature and purpose of the programme. The commission therefore finds unfairness to Mr Yusof in this respect." But the BSC said the programme, shown on March 8 2001, was balanced in its treatment of the subject.
A Tonight source said: "That Yusof should achieve some kind of victory through the BSC is the greatest scandal of all."
BLAIR AGAINST THE ROPES
Senior cabinet ministers at the centre of Tony Blair's war strategy were braced to quit along with the prime minister in the run-up to the Commons vote on Iraq, the Guardian can reveal.
Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, told the Guardian that he intended to resign if the vote went against the government. The home secretary, David Blunkett, also said that cabinet ministers close to Mr Blair would "go down with him". The prime minister revealed last week that he had told his family he might be forced to quit over Iraq.
In an interview with the Guardian as part of a special investigation into the build-up to war, Mr Blunkett recalled: "Everyone believed, in the run-up to that vote, that Tony had put his premiership on the line and those who are very close to him would go down with him. I thought it would be a hit on the government as a whole."
Mr Straw said: "The projected voting figures were very serious ... I knew there would be a point at which Tony would resign and I would resign as well. I told my wife I might well have to go over this. I think Tony assumed that I would go."
The revelations show how perilous the government's position became during the build-up to war. At one point, Labour whips told Mr Blair that up to 200 Labour MPs would vote against the government, and frantic last-minute efforts were made to persuade rebels back on side.
According to one cabinet source, the entire cabinet could technically have been forced to tender their resignation. "If the prime minister resigns, the whole government resigns. Everybody's portfolios and talents would be put into the hands of the new leader."
In the last desperate 24 hours before the vote, the government essentially ground to a halt as the energies of Mr Blair and other leading cabinet figures were devoted to winning over potential rebels.
Mr Straw recalled: "We used every argument, including telling them that this is no longer about what you say to your local paper, this is about whether you want to keep this government in business."
The defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, warned his US counterpart, Donald Rumsfeld, about the possible consequences of the vote. He told the Guardian: "I had a long conversation with him, warning him that if the vote went wrong we might not be able to be there. I did not want him or anyone on the US side not to understand the significance of where we were on the importance of the parliamentary vote. The US came to understand it was about us gambling just about everything in getting this right."
He added: "If we had lost that vote, that would have been it."
For Mr Blair, the critical yardstick was winning the support of more than half the parliamentary party. In the event, 139 out of 412 Labour MPs voted against the government's motion.
Mr Straw, one of the strongest proponents of a Commons vote, believed he would have been blamed if it had gone wrong. "I knew it was a very serious risk and if it went wrong I would get a lot of the blame." But it would have been a mockery of parliament to deny MPs a vote, he said.
After the vote, the cabinet's anxieties focused on how the war would progress. In the first few days, Mr Blunkett recalled, "all of us were asking the question, was this going to be a long haul or a complete collapse?"
Mr Blair privately feared that the war could turn into his Vietnam, with British and US troops bogged down for years, the Guardian learned.
He asked the intelligence services every day for their assessment. "Tell me what the picture is: is this Ceaucescu in Romania, or is this the Vietcong?" he asked them. "In other words, is this a security apparatus that has a grip on a country that will fight to keep that grip, but actually has no popular support, in which case they will be removed, or is this a movement that actually does have some genuine popular support?"
The daily response from the intelligence service was that the situation was more akin to Romania than Vietnam.
But even loyal ministers feared that the government was heading into the unknown. "Either Tony knows something the rest of us don't know, or he's insane," was one minister's view hours before the war started.
The Guardian also reveals the degree of anger within the cabinet at Clare Short's radio interview 10 days before the war began, in which she repeatedly accused Mr Blair of recklessness and threatened to resign. One cabinet minister, hearing the interview, was so furious that he threw his radio across the room.
Senior cabinet ministers at the centre of Tony Blair's war strategy were braced to quit along with the prime minister in the run-up to the Commons vote on Iraq, the Guardian can reveal.
Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, told the Guardian that he intended to resign if the vote went against the government. The home secretary, David Blunkett, also said that cabinet ministers close to Mr Blair would "go down with him". The prime minister revealed last week that he had told his family he might be forced to quit over Iraq.
In an interview with the Guardian as part of a special investigation into the build-up to war, Mr Blunkett recalled: "Everyone believed, in the run-up to that vote, that Tony had put his premiership on the line and those who are very close to him would go down with him. I thought it would be a hit on the government as a whole."
Mr Straw said: "The projected voting figures were very serious ... I knew there would be a point at which Tony would resign and I would resign as well. I told my wife I might well have to go over this. I think Tony assumed that I would go."
The revelations show how perilous the government's position became during the build-up to war. At one point, Labour whips told Mr Blair that up to 200 Labour MPs would vote against the government, and frantic last-minute efforts were made to persuade rebels back on side.
According to one cabinet source, the entire cabinet could technically have been forced to tender their resignation. "If the prime minister resigns, the whole government resigns. Everybody's portfolios and talents would be put into the hands of the new leader."
In the last desperate 24 hours before the vote, the government essentially ground to a halt as the energies of Mr Blair and other leading cabinet figures were devoted to winning over potential rebels.
Mr Straw recalled: "We used every argument, including telling them that this is no longer about what you say to your local paper, this is about whether you want to keep this government in business."
The defence secretary, Geoff Hoon, warned his US counterpart, Donald Rumsfeld, about the possible consequences of the vote. He told the Guardian: "I had a long conversation with him, warning him that if the vote went wrong we might not be able to be there. I did not want him or anyone on the US side not to understand the significance of where we were on the importance of the parliamentary vote. The US came to understand it was about us gambling just about everything in getting this right."
He added: "If we had lost that vote, that would have been it."
For Mr Blair, the critical yardstick was winning the support of more than half the parliamentary party. In the event, 139 out of 412 Labour MPs voted against the government's motion.
Mr Straw, one of the strongest proponents of a Commons vote, believed he would have been blamed if it had gone wrong. "I knew it was a very serious risk and if it went wrong I would get a lot of the blame." But it would have been a mockery of parliament to deny MPs a vote, he said.
After the vote, the cabinet's anxieties focused on how the war would progress. In the first few days, Mr Blunkett recalled, "all of us were asking the question, was this going to be a long haul or a complete collapse?"
Mr Blair privately feared that the war could turn into his Vietnam, with British and US troops bogged down for years, the Guardian learned.
He asked the intelligence services every day for their assessment. "Tell me what the picture is: is this Ceaucescu in Romania, or is this the Vietcong?" he asked them. "In other words, is this a security apparatus that has a grip on a country that will fight to keep that grip, but actually has no popular support, in which case they will be removed, or is this a movement that actually does have some genuine popular support?"
The daily response from the intelligence service was that the situation was more akin to Romania than Vietnam.
But even loyal ministers feared that the government was heading into the unknown. "Either Tony knows something the rest of us don't know, or he's insane," was one minister's view hours before the war started.
The Guardian also reveals the degree of anger within the cabinet at Clare Short's radio interview 10 days before the war began, in which she repeatedly accused Mr Blair of recklessness and threatened to resign. One cabinet minister, hearing the interview, was so furious that he threw his radio across the room.
SMOKING GUN? FORGET IT
A decade ago, investigators were shocked to find that Iraq was far closer to making a nuclear bomb than anyone had realized. That program has since been dismantled by international inspectors, who found no evidence that it had been revived in recent visits. Any discovery now that Iraq had obtained either highly enriched uranium or weapons-grade plutonium, putting a bomb within reach in a year or two, would be a real shock. Almost as disturbing would be full-scale enrichment facilities that would allow Iraq make its own fissile materials, leading to a bomb some years down the road.
Rather than a smoking gun, inspectors may wind up finding a bullet here, a barrel there and a chamber somewhere else. That makes the credibility of the people doing the inspecting even more important. And it makes President Bush's decision not to invite international inspectors to monitor the job seem even more misguided.
FACE-TO-FACE WITH A KILLER VIRUS
HONG KONG, April 25 ? When Dr. Yu Cheuk-man, an associate professor of cardiology, tested the clinical skills of a group of medical students in a hospital ward here on March 6, he paid little attention to the 26-year-old pneumonia patient in a nearby bed.
But unbeknownst to Dr. Yu or anyone else in the hospital, the patient was not a typical pneumonia case. He was infected with a disease that would be named a week later: SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome. Because the patient had been treated with a device to help him cough up the fluid in his lungs, he was spraying tiny virus-laden droplets into the air.
Three days later, Dr. Yu developed a splitting headache that hurt so much it disturbed his sleep. Although he did not know it, he had been infected with SARS along with all 18 students and a dozen other professors who were helping test the students.
It was the beginning of a journey that nearly killed Dr. Yu and still has not completely ended, caused by a virus that attacked so many organs that his body just barely coped with the onslaught.
His right lung and then his left would start to fill with fluid from pneumonia, his liver and kidneys would begin malfunctioning, and his blood would lose some of its ability to clot. He would have trouble speaking without falling into fits of coughing. Despite having been a physical fitness enthusiast before his illness and despite extensive physical rehabilitation since his discharge from the hospital, he still cannot run without breathing difficulties.
Dr. Yu's ordeal, which he described in a series of interviews, would be punctuated with acts of heroism: other doctors volunteered repeatedly for duty in the pneumonia wards despite the risk of being struck down themselves, and many of these volunteers have indeed fallen ill with the virulent disease.
So many cardiologists have taken sick here that at one point, when another SARS patient developed what appeared to be heart problems, Dr. Yu had to be lifted from his sickbed and taken in a wheelchair to the hospital's intensive care unit. He was the only cardiologist available who could operate the necessary heart diagnostic equipment.
"I leaned with one hand on the echo machine and my other hand had the probe," he said.
The illness came in the middle of a very promising medical career. Born and raised here, Dr. Yu, 37, said he had decided at the age of 11 that he wanted to be a doctor, "because I was small and not very strong, but I really wanted to help people."
He studied at the elite Chinese University of Hong Kong, did six years of training in internal medicine and cardiology at Chinese University's Prince of Wales Hospital and then undertook a yearlong cardiology fellowship in Melbourne, Australia. He returned to Hong Kong to work for five years at Queen Mary Hospital, one of Hong Kong's best, and then came back to Prince of Wales Hospital in December as an associate professor.
Throughout his studies and work, he was also very interested in physical fitness. He rode an exercise bicycle, lifted weights regularly and played table tennis and badminton, carrying 150 pounds on his lean, 5-foot 9-inch frame.
A genial man with an easy smile, he married a fellow medical student, Joan Ng, who became an ophthalmologist at Prince of Wales Hospital. They have two sons, Yannick, 10, and Ryan, 2.
When Dr. Yu developed a severe headache on the evening of March 9, a Sunday, he initially thought that he might be coming down with the flu. When he awoke the next morning, he felt dizzy as well.
He did not go into the hospital until noon. When he arrived, he learned that 20 of his colleagues had also reported symptoms of a mysterious illness. All were relieved of their clinical duties for the day. But Dr. Yu was not yet running a fever, unlike many of his colleagues, and he worked late to prepare lectures for his students.
By Tuesday morning, he was worse, with a fever over 102 degrees. "My wife felt my body, and it was very hot, but I felt icy inside," Dr. Yu remembers. "I was very weak; I could barely walk. To take a shower, I had to hold on."
His wife took him back to the hospital, where an X-ray showed that he did not yet have the pneumonia that some of his colleagues were developing. But he also received disconcerting results on blood tests. His kidney function was abnormal, an unusual and dangerous development in someone so young and fit.
The next day, March 12, Dr. Yu's X-rays did show the beginnings of pneumonia in his right lung, and he was admitted to Prince of Wales Hospital, the first time he had ever been a hospital patient. His blood test showed further problems, with a low count of white blood cells, impaired blood clotting ability, abnormal kidney and liver functions and a high level of muscle enzymes, a sign that his muscles were also under attack by the disease.
"The worst thing was that the disease is so dreadful that nearly every blood test was abnormal," Dr. Yu said. "The virus is really very toxic."
To make matters worse, 2-year-old Ryan also started to run a fever. By Thursday, Ryan's fever was as high as his father's, and he was admitted to the hospital for observation, becoming the first child to enter the hospital with a suspected case of the new illness. But Ryan never developed pneumonia and was discharged 11 days later. His illness remains a mystery.
Dr. Yu had brought his cellphone with him, and the hospital gave him permission to use it. But he found that whenever he tried to talk, he would start coughing instead.
"Lots of people called up, and I couldn't answer that I was still there, still surviving," he recalled.
He refused to let any family members visit him, for fear that they would be infected. As his cough came under control over the next several days, he rested and steeled himself for the exertion of each conversation on his cellphone with his wife, so as to sound less sick than he really was. He said he had deliberately understated the severity of his illness to his wife in particular, so that she might worry less.
Hospital physicians put Dr. Yu on a harsh battery of drugs on Saturday, orally administering steroids to reduce the inflammation in his lungs as well as ribavarin. The World Health Organization has questioned whether ribavarin is effective in treating SARS, but doctors here still believe that it is.
By the following Tuesday, a week after he entered the hospital, Dr. Yu's pneumonia was becoming much more extensive, following a pattern observed elsewhere in which the second week of the disease is the most dangerous. An extremely powerful dose of steroids was administered by injection to Dr. Yu to protect his lungs.
Hong Kong health officials said this week that they were investigating whether the side effects from very high doses of steroids and ribavarin had contributed to the deaths of dozens of elderly SARS patients. But Dr. Yu credits his injection of steroids with saving his life, providing him coverage just in time for what would come next.
On Wednesday, March 19, his condition took a sharp turn for the worse. Within the space of eight hours, between an X-ray in the morning and another in the late afternoon, the pneumonia spread throughout his right lung and invaded the left. His breathing became labored and shallow, and oxygen tubes were placed in his nostrils, although he was not given a full oxygen mask.
The same day, his wife happened to meet Dr. David Hui, a specialist in respiratory diseases who was treating Dr. Yu, in the hospital canteen. Dr. Hui was a close friend of the couple, and he told her that her husband's pneumonia had spread and that he had been put on oxygen.
With her medical training, Dr. Ng understood what this meant. "I could not hold my emotions," she said, her voice breaking as she recalled the moment. "My tears came straight down, our eyes looking at each other above the masks."
Some of the health care workers who were infected at the same time as Dr. Yu went into intensive care at this stage. A few have yet to emerge, although as yet none have died. The disease has infected 1,510 people and killed 115 in Hong Kong, but most of the deaths have been among people who were elderly, had chronic medical problems or both, unlike the fairly healthy, physically fit staff at Prince of Wales Hospital.
Dr. Yu was one of the luckiest. He was able to stop using the oxygen two days later, and four days later, on Sunday, March 23, he woke up without a fever. He was still so weak that it was hard for him even to sit up for a few minutes to eat.
He was lying exhausted in bed after breakfast when a healthy physician came to him with an unusual request. The hospital staff suspected that an unconscious, SARS-infected doctor in the intensive care unit had suffered a small heart attack overnight. But there remained at the hospital only one senior cardiologist who had not been infected, and administrators were reluctant to expose him to the disease and risk being left without anyone to treat other patients.
Would Dr. Yu help? As he was already in a "dirty" ward with other SARS patients, he agreed to pitch in, conducting tests and prescribing a change in medication. He collapsed with exhaustion afterward.
Over the next few days, as he and a few colleagues began to recover in their hospital beds, they helped the overstretched hospital staff by drawing blood from each other, inserting intravenous tubes and performing other medical tasks.
Dr. Yu was discharged from the hospital on March 30, 18 days after he was admitted, but he had lost 10 pounds of muscle and had a long way to go before returning to work. "I was like a crippled old man when I was discharged," he said. "I couldn't walk fast, I couldn't talk because I would cough, I couldn't hold my baby."
He has spent the last four weeks exercising every day, mostly on a stationary bicycle, to rebuild his strength. His X-rays still show a faint shadow from the damage the pneumonia did to his lungs, and he still has trouble breathing when he tries to run fast. But he is now able to pedal the bicycle for 50 minutes at a fairly strong pace, and his weight has rebounded to 148 pounds. He is scheduled to return to work on Monday, after missing 7 weeks.
The experience has left Dr. Yu a changed man, but he describes the changes as being as much emotional and spiritual as physical.
"Before this, I never imagined I could have a potentially fatal illness," he said, adding that now "I can understand that life can be very delicate; I really treasure my life and my family and the people around me."
HONG KONG, April 25 ? When Dr. Yu Cheuk-man, an associate professor of cardiology, tested the clinical skills of a group of medical students in a hospital ward here on March 6, he paid little attention to the 26-year-old pneumonia patient in a nearby bed.
But unbeknownst to Dr. Yu or anyone else in the hospital, the patient was not a typical pneumonia case. He was infected with a disease that would be named a week later: SARS, severe acute respiratory syndrome. Because the patient had been treated with a device to help him cough up the fluid in his lungs, he was spraying tiny virus-laden droplets into the air.
Three days later, Dr. Yu developed a splitting headache that hurt so much it disturbed his sleep. Although he did not know it, he had been infected with SARS along with all 18 students and a dozen other professors who were helping test the students.
It was the beginning of a journey that nearly killed Dr. Yu and still has not completely ended, caused by a virus that attacked so many organs that his body just barely coped with the onslaught.
His right lung and then his left would start to fill with fluid from pneumonia, his liver and kidneys would begin malfunctioning, and his blood would lose some of its ability to clot. He would have trouble speaking without falling into fits of coughing. Despite having been a physical fitness enthusiast before his illness and despite extensive physical rehabilitation since his discharge from the hospital, he still cannot run without breathing difficulties.
Dr. Yu's ordeal, which he described in a series of interviews, would be punctuated with acts of heroism: other doctors volunteered repeatedly for duty in the pneumonia wards despite the risk of being struck down themselves, and many of these volunteers have indeed fallen ill with the virulent disease.
So many cardiologists have taken sick here that at one point, when another SARS patient developed what appeared to be heart problems, Dr. Yu had to be lifted from his sickbed and taken in a wheelchair to the hospital's intensive care unit. He was the only cardiologist available who could operate the necessary heart diagnostic equipment.
"I leaned with one hand on the echo machine and my other hand had the probe," he said.
The illness came in the middle of a very promising medical career. Born and raised here, Dr. Yu, 37, said he had decided at the age of 11 that he wanted to be a doctor, "because I was small and not very strong, but I really wanted to help people."
He studied at the elite Chinese University of Hong Kong, did six years of training in internal medicine and cardiology at Chinese University's Prince of Wales Hospital and then undertook a yearlong cardiology fellowship in Melbourne, Australia. He returned to Hong Kong to work for five years at Queen Mary Hospital, one of Hong Kong's best, and then came back to Prince of Wales Hospital in December as an associate professor.
Throughout his studies and work, he was also very interested in physical fitness. He rode an exercise bicycle, lifted weights regularly and played table tennis and badminton, carrying 150 pounds on his lean, 5-foot 9-inch frame.
A genial man with an easy smile, he married a fellow medical student, Joan Ng, who became an ophthalmologist at Prince of Wales Hospital. They have two sons, Yannick, 10, and Ryan, 2.
When Dr. Yu developed a severe headache on the evening of March 9, a Sunday, he initially thought that he might be coming down with the flu. When he awoke the next morning, he felt dizzy as well.
He did not go into the hospital until noon. When he arrived, he learned that 20 of his colleagues had also reported symptoms of a mysterious illness. All were relieved of their clinical duties for the day. But Dr. Yu was not yet running a fever, unlike many of his colleagues, and he worked late to prepare lectures for his students.
By Tuesday morning, he was worse, with a fever over 102 degrees. "My wife felt my body, and it was very hot, but I felt icy inside," Dr. Yu remembers. "I was very weak; I could barely walk. To take a shower, I had to hold on."
His wife took him back to the hospital, where an X-ray showed that he did not yet have the pneumonia that some of his colleagues were developing. But he also received disconcerting results on blood tests. His kidney function was abnormal, an unusual and dangerous development in someone so young and fit.
The next day, March 12, Dr. Yu's X-rays did show the beginnings of pneumonia in his right lung, and he was admitted to Prince of Wales Hospital, the first time he had ever been a hospital patient. His blood test showed further problems, with a low count of white blood cells, impaired blood clotting ability, abnormal kidney and liver functions and a high level of muscle enzymes, a sign that his muscles were also under attack by the disease.
"The worst thing was that the disease is so dreadful that nearly every blood test was abnormal," Dr. Yu said. "The virus is really very toxic."
To make matters worse, 2-year-old Ryan also started to run a fever. By Thursday, Ryan's fever was as high as his father's, and he was admitted to the hospital for observation, becoming the first child to enter the hospital with a suspected case of the new illness. But Ryan never developed pneumonia and was discharged 11 days later. His illness remains a mystery.
Dr. Yu had brought his cellphone with him, and the hospital gave him permission to use it. But he found that whenever he tried to talk, he would start coughing instead.
"Lots of people called up, and I couldn't answer that I was still there, still surviving," he recalled.
He refused to let any family members visit him, for fear that they would be infected. As his cough came under control over the next several days, he rested and steeled himself for the exertion of each conversation on his cellphone with his wife, so as to sound less sick than he really was. He said he had deliberately understated the severity of his illness to his wife in particular, so that she might worry less.
Hospital physicians put Dr. Yu on a harsh battery of drugs on Saturday, orally administering steroids to reduce the inflammation in his lungs as well as ribavarin. The World Health Organization has questioned whether ribavarin is effective in treating SARS, but doctors here still believe that it is.
By the following Tuesday, a week after he entered the hospital, Dr. Yu's pneumonia was becoming much more extensive, following a pattern observed elsewhere in which the second week of the disease is the most dangerous. An extremely powerful dose of steroids was administered by injection to Dr. Yu to protect his lungs.
Hong Kong health officials said this week that they were investigating whether the side effects from very high doses of steroids and ribavarin had contributed to the deaths of dozens of elderly SARS patients. But Dr. Yu credits his injection of steroids with saving his life, providing him coverage just in time for what would come next.
On Wednesday, March 19, his condition took a sharp turn for the worse. Within the space of eight hours, between an X-ray in the morning and another in the late afternoon, the pneumonia spread throughout his right lung and invaded the left. His breathing became labored and shallow, and oxygen tubes were placed in his nostrils, although he was not given a full oxygen mask.
The same day, his wife happened to meet Dr. David Hui, a specialist in respiratory diseases who was treating Dr. Yu, in the hospital canteen. Dr. Hui was a close friend of the couple, and he told her that her husband's pneumonia had spread and that he had been put on oxygen.
With her medical training, Dr. Ng understood what this meant. "I could not hold my emotions," she said, her voice breaking as she recalled the moment. "My tears came straight down, our eyes looking at each other above the masks."
Some of the health care workers who were infected at the same time as Dr. Yu went into intensive care at this stage. A few have yet to emerge, although as yet none have died. The disease has infected 1,510 people and killed 115 in Hong Kong, but most of the deaths have been among people who were elderly, had chronic medical problems or both, unlike the fairly healthy, physically fit staff at Prince of Wales Hospital.
Dr. Yu was one of the luckiest. He was able to stop using the oxygen two days later, and four days later, on Sunday, March 23, he woke up without a fever. He was still so weak that it was hard for him even to sit up for a few minutes to eat.
He was lying exhausted in bed after breakfast when a healthy physician came to him with an unusual request. The hospital staff suspected that an unconscious, SARS-infected doctor in the intensive care unit had suffered a small heart attack overnight. But there remained at the hospital only one senior cardiologist who had not been infected, and administrators were reluctant to expose him to the disease and risk being left without anyone to treat other patients.
Would Dr. Yu help? As he was already in a "dirty" ward with other SARS patients, he agreed to pitch in, conducting tests and prescribing a change in medication. He collapsed with exhaustion afterward.
Over the next few days, as he and a few colleagues began to recover in their hospital beds, they helped the overstretched hospital staff by drawing blood from each other, inserting intravenous tubes and performing other medical tasks.
Dr. Yu was discharged from the hospital on March 30, 18 days after he was admitted, but he had lost 10 pounds of muscle and had a long way to go before returning to work. "I was like a crippled old man when I was discharged," he said. "I couldn't walk fast, I couldn't talk because I would cough, I couldn't hold my baby."
He has spent the last four weeks exercising every day, mostly on a stationary bicycle, to rebuild his strength. His X-rays still show a faint shadow from the damage the pneumonia did to his lungs, and he still has trouble breathing when he tries to run fast. But he is now able to pedal the bicycle for 50 minutes at a fairly strong pace, and his weight has rebounded to 148 pounds. He is scheduled to return to work on Monday, after missing 7 weeks.
The experience has left Dr. Yu a changed man, but he describes the changes as being as much emotional and spiritual as physical.
"Before this, I never imagined I could have a potentially fatal illness," he said, adding that now "I can understand that life can be very delicate; I really treasure my life and my family and the people around me."
TANKS FOR TAREQ
BAGHDAD, 26 April 2003 ? US tanks and crack troops wearing night-vision goggles swooped on a posh Baghdad neighborhood under cover of darkness after one of Saddam Hussein?s top henchmen told them he would surrender there, neighbors told AFP yesterday. US officials said Tareq Aziz surrendered overnight but have not confirmed that the former deputy prime minister gave himself up at his sister-in-law?s house in Al-Zeitoun, in the east of the Iraqi capital.
Neighbors described a lightning raid on the house which ended with several people being driven away in luxury cars. They said they believed among them was Aziz, the highest member of Saddam?s regime to fall into US hands so far. ?The soldiers came with tanks and Humvees. They crossed over my neighbor?s property. They climbed over the wall of the house and through the date palms,? said Mohammed Hillal, 34, a computer programmer who lives opposite.
?They arrived at about 1930 GMT and were gone by midnight. They were very, very quiet. There were people here guarding the area and they didn?t hear anything,? he said. Many areas of Baghdad now have security guards on street corners at night following a wave of looting by mobs after the city fell to US forces on April 9.
?The US soldiers used night-vision equipment. The electricity went down and some of the phones went down. After they brought a GMC jeep with black windows and a white BMW and some people got into them through the gate,? Hillal said. ?I tried to talk with them. They assured me there would be no bombing while they were here. If I was scared of anything, I think it was the machine guns.?
He said he believed Aziz had negotiated his surrender because not a single shot was fired during the incident. ?I think he negotiated with them and surrendered himself. Maybe he phoned them and contacted them. He is a Christian so maybe he contacted the Vatican, because his last visit abroad was to the Vatican,? Hillal said.
The surrender of Aziz evoked mixed feelings here among Iraqis caught between hatred of the old regime and respect for one of its more urbane members. Reactions were muted to Aziz?s arrest. ?As a politician he was a very brilliant man, and I think the coalition people will benefit a lot from his knowledge of Saddam?s regime,? said Zubair Stephen, a professor of agriculture at Baghdad University.
?They don?t feel as strong as if they had captured Ali Hasan Al-Majid or the other people,? said Stephen, referring to a notorious aide to Saddam who the US says was killed in the southern city of Basra earlier this month.
BAGHDAD, 26 April 2003 ? US tanks and crack troops wearing night-vision goggles swooped on a posh Baghdad neighborhood under cover of darkness after one of Saddam Hussein?s top henchmen told them he would surrender there, neighbors told AFP yesterday. US officials said Tareq Aziz surrendered overnight but have not confirmed that the former deputy prime minister gave himself up at his sister-in-law?s house in Al-Zeitoun, in the east of the Iraqi capital.
Neighbors described a lightning raid on the house which ended with several people being driven away in luxury cars. They said they believed among them was Aziz, the highest member of Saddam?s regime to fall into US hands so far. ?The soldiers came with tanks and Humvees. They crossed over my neighbor?s property. They climbed over the wall of the house and through the date palms,? said Mohammed Hillal, 34, a computer programmer who lives opposite.
?They arrived at about 1930 GMT and were gone by midnight. They were very, very quiet. There were people here guarding the area and they didn?t hear anything,? he said. Many areas of Baghdad now have security guards on street corners at night following a wave of looting by mobs after the city fell to US forces on April 9.
?The US soldiers used night-vision equipment. The electricity went down and some of the phones went down. After they brought a GMC jeep with black windows and a white BMW and some people got into them through the gate,? Hillal said. ?I tried to talk with them. They assured me there would be no bombing while they were here. If I was scared of anything, I think it was the machine guns.?
He said he believed Aziz had negotiated his surrender because not a single shot was fired during the incident. ?I think he negotiated with them and surrendered himself. Maybe he phoned them and contacted them. He is a Christian so maybe he contacted the Vatican, because his last visit abroad was to the Vatican,? Hillal said.
The surrender of Aziz evoked mixed feelings here among Iraqis caught between hatred of the old regime and respect for one of its more urbane members. Reactions were muted to Aziz?s arrest. ?As a politician he was a very brilliant man, and I think the coalition people will benefit a lot from his knowledge of Saddam?s regime,? said Zubair Stephen, a professor of agriculture at Baghdad University.
?They don?t feel as strong as if they had captured Ali Hasan Al-Majid or the other people,? said Stephen, referring to a notorious aide to Saddam who the US says was killed in the southern city of Basra earlier this month.
TANKS FOR THE MEMORIES
TAREQ KEBAB --GRILLED
U.S. officials questioned former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz yesterday after his overnight surrender in the hope that he would shed light on the fate of deposed president Saddam Hussain.
Aziz, the highest profile member of Iraq's ousted regime to fall into U.S. hands so far, "surrendered to coalition forces overnight," Lieutenant Yvonne Lukson said at the U.S. Central Command's war headquarters in Qatar.
As the English-speaking foreign minister during the 1991 Gulf War, Aziz came to be the public face of Saddam's Iraq, but he was only 43rd on a U.S. list of 55 most wanted Iraqis, not being seen as part of Saddam's innermost circle.
"He is being questioned," said Lieutenant Herb Josey. "He was a long-term confidant of Saddam Hussain," he added, indicating that U.S. forces hope Aziz will help determine the ousted president's whereabouts.
"It's very possible he may know the status of Saddam and other regime officials, potentially the location of other regime officials, and where they may be hiding," said a Pentagon official.
Aziz's capture, followed yesterday by that of former senior intelligence official Farouk Hijazi near Iraq's border with Syria, was heralded by the White House as marking progress in its campaign to arrest former officials.
Saddam, who was personally targeted by at least two U.S. air strikes amid the blistering three week bombardment of Baghdad, remains unaccounted for.
U.S. President George W. Bush said that the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq could last two years, and speculated that Saddam may have been killed in the surprise air strikes that started the war.
"The people will wonder if Saddam is dead or not. There's some evidence that suggests he might be," said Bush. "We're trying to, of course, verify it before there's any declaration."
The capture of Aziz, an urbane 67-year-old for years the international face of Iraq under Saddam, clearly pleased Bush, who flashed a broad smile and gave a big "thumbs-up" when questioned by White House reporters about the capture.
Bush was to salute sailors returning home from the war yesterday, visiting the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier as it steamed toward San Diego.
The White House welcomed the capture of Aziz but kept mum on whether the public voice of Saddam's regime would face war crimes charges.
Neighbours of Aziz's sister-in-law in a posh Baghdad suburb described a special forces raid which ended with several people being driven away in luxury cars. They said they believed the former minister to be among them.
In the United States, an official said that Farouk Hijazi was in custody "somewhere near the Syrian border," in Iraq. U.S. intelligence claims that the former official was involved in a 1993 plot to kill former U.S. president George Bush.
He does not appear on the U.S. "most wanted" list of former regime officials.
His arrest near the Syrian border follows U.S. allegations that Damascus has been harbouring former Saddam loyalists and comes ahead of a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Powell said in remarks published in the Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily Al Hayat yesterday that he expected Syria to cooperate with the U.S. and not give refuge to wanted former Iraqi officials.
"I am going to Syria to discuss all issues relating to support of terrorism and the borders with Iraq. We do not want Syria to become a haven for the fleeing officials of Saddam's regime," he said.
Twelve former Iraqi officials have now been reeled in by a U.S.-led dragnet.
U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Aziz and other captive leaders are being questioned by U.S. intelligence teams and could face criminal charges. He ruled out sending those or other Iraqi prisoners to a military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
In Baghdad, a member of Iraq's Shiite Muslim clergy spelled out the conditions for the future government and constitution in Iraq, saying the ruler should be a Muslim and the laws in line with Islam.
Sheikh Mohammed Yacubi said Iraq's most influential Shiite seminary in Najaf, known as the Hawza, has agreed on those principles and will lobby for them in talks to form an interim government.
Yacubi called for a demonstration in Baghdad on Monday to support the Hawza as the legal representative of the majority Shiite community.
Iraq's leading Shiite opposition group may attend a U.S.-hosted meeting in Baghdad on forming a post-Saddam government, an official for the group said yesterday.
Mohammad Asadi, spokesman for the Iran-based Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said leaders of the group were considering an American invitation to attend the Baghdad meeting, which is expected to be held in the coming days.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar kicked off a meeting yesterday with more than 100 representatives of Iraqi opposition parties and members of civil society, stressing that democracy was essential for a peaceful future in the Middle East.
Aznar said he hoped the gathering would "facilitate dialogue" between Iraqi organisations and individuals forced to work or live in exile in recent years during the regime of Saddam.
Meanwhile, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow appointed Michigan State University president Peter McPherson as top economic advisor in the reconstruction of Iraq.
McPherson, as financial coordinator for the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in Iraq, will work with the body's director, former general Jay Garner, in rebuilding the Iraqi finance ministry, central bank and financial system.
In Riyadh, Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa held talks on Iraq with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz yesterday.
Meanwhile, Turkey is sending Special Forces units into Kurdish areas of Iraq to foment unrest and trigger a Turkish peacekeeping action, senior U.S. military officers were quoted as saying yesterday.
According to a report by Time magazine, U.S. paratroopers on Tuesday intercepted one unit of Turkish commandos which had attached itself to a humanitarian aid convoy in an attempt to reach the northern oil city of Kirkuk.
TAREQ KEBAB --GRILLED
U.S. officials questioned former Iraqi deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz yesterday after his overnight surrender in the hope that he would shed light on the fate of deposed president Saddam Hussain.
Aziz, the highest profile member of Iraq's ousted regime to fall into U.S. hands so far, "surrendered to coalition forces overnight," Lieutenant Yvonne Lukson said at the U.S. Central Command's war headquarters in Qatar.
As the English-speaking foreign minister during the 1991 Gulf War, Aziz came to be the public face of Saddam's Iraq, but he was only 43rd on a U.S. list of 55 most wanted Iraqis, not being seen as part of Saddam's innermost circle.
"He is being questioned," said Lieutenant Herb Josey. "He was a long-term confidant of Saddam Hussain," he added, indicating that U.S. forces hope Aziz will help determine the ousted president's whereabouts.
"It's very possible he may know the status of Saddam and other regime officials, potentially the location of other regime officials, and where they may be hiding," said a Pentagon official.
Aziz's capture, followed yesterday by that of former senior intelligence official Farouk Hijazi near Iraq's border with Syria, was heralded by the White House as marking progress in its campaign to arrest former officials.
Saddam, who was personally targeted by at least two U.S. air strikes amid the blistering three week bombardment of Baghdad, remains unaccounted for.
U.S. President George W. Bush said that the U.S.-led occupation of Iraq could last two years, and speculated that Saddam may have been killed in the surprise air strikes that started the war.
"The people will wonder if Saddam is dead or not. There's some evidence that suggests he might be," said Bush. "We're trying to, of course, verify it before there's any declaration."
The capture of Aziz, an urbane 67-year-old for years the international face of Iraq under Saddam, clearly pleased Bush, who flashed a broad smile and gave a big "thumbs-up" when questioned by White House reporters about the capture.
Bush was to salute sailors returning home from the war yesterday, visiting the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier as it steamed toward San Diego.
The White House welcomed the capture of Aziz but kept mum on whether the public voice of Saddam's regime would face war crimes charges.
Neighbours of Aziz's sister-in-law in a posh Baghdad suburb described a special forces raid which ended with several people being driven away in luxury cars. They said they believed the former minister to be among them.
In the United States, an official said that Farouk Hijazi was in custody "somewhere near the Syrian border," in Iraq. U.S. intelligence claims that the former official was involved in a 1993 plot to kill former U.S. president George Bush.
He does not appear on the U.S. "most wanted" list of former regime officials.
His arrest near the Syrian border follows U.S. allegations that Damascus has been harbouring former Saddam loyalists and comes ahead of a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Powell said in remarks published in the Saudi-owned pan-Arab daily Al Hayat yesterday that he expected Syria to cooperate with the U.S. and not give refuge to wanted former Iraqi officials.
"I am going to Syria to discuss all issues relating to support of terrorism and the borders with Iraq. We do not want Syria to become a haven for the fleeing officials of Saddam's regime," he said.
Twelve former Iraqi officials have now been reeled in by a U.S.-led dragnet.
U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Aziz and other captive leaders are being questioned by U.S. intelligence teams and could face criminal charges. He ruled out sending those or other Iraqi prisoners to a military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
In Baghdad, a member of Iraq's Shiite Muslim clergy spelled out the conditions for the future government and constitution in Iraq, saying the ruler should be a Muslim and the laws in line with Islam.
Sheikh Mohammed Yacubi said Iraq's most influential Shiite seminary in Najaf, known as the Hawza, has agreed on those principles and will lobby for them in talks to form an interim government.
Yacubi called for a demonstration in Baghdad on Monday to support the Hawza as the legal representative of the majority Shiite community.
Iraq's leading Shiite opposition group may attend a U.S.-hosted meeting in Baghdad on forming a post-Saddam government, an official for the group said yesterday.
Mohammad Asadi, spokesman for the Iran-based Supreme Council of the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, said leaders of the group were considering an American invitation to attend the Baghdad meeting, which is expected to be held in the coming days.
Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar kicked off a meeting yesterday with more than 100 representatives of Iraqi opposition parties and members of civil society, stressing that democracy was essential for a peaceful future in the Middle East.
Aznar said he hoped the gathering would "facilitate dialogue" between Iraqi organisations and individuals forced to work or live in exile in recent years during the regime of Saddam.
Meanwhile, U.S. Treasury Secretary John Snow appointed Michigan State University president Peter McPherson as top economic advisor in the reconstruction of Iraq.
McPherson, as financial coordinator for the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance in Iraq, will work with the body's director, former general Jay Garner, in rebuilding the Iraqi finance ministry, central bank and financial system.
In Riyadh, Arab League Secretary General Amr Moussa held talks on Iraq with Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah bin Abdulaziz yesterday.
Meanwhile, Turkey is sending Special Forces units into Kurdish areas of Iraq to foment unrest and trigger a Turkish peacekeeping action, senior U.S. military officers were quoted as saying yesterday.
According to a report by Time magazine, U.S. paratroopers on Tuesday intercepted one unit of Turkish commandos which had attached itself to a humanitarian aid convoy in an attempt to reach the northern oil city of Kirkuk.
LONG-AWAITED VICTORY CALL
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush might declare an end to combat in Iraq next week, senior White House officials told CNN on Friday. But the president will not declare the war over, the officials said.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday that it is possible that an end will never be declared.
"I would guess there will be an end," Rumsfeld said. "Can I tell you for sure? No. ... This isn't World War I or World War II, that starts and then ends. Take Afghanistan. We've moved from major military activities to a point where at the present time, the vast majority of the country is in a stabilization security mode."
An announcement from Bush could come during his visit Thursday and Friday to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, returning from the Persian Gulf region.
Although fighting has wound down throughout Iraq, Pentagon officials said Friday that there are still "pockets" of resistance.
"This morning, a 20- to 30-man Iraqi paramilitary force attacked a coalition patrol northwest of Mosul," said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Coalition forces killed several of the attackers and destroyed two of the so-called technical vehicles, the trucks with the machine guns on them."
Also, he said, "a two-man enemy paramilitary element was engaged in south Baghdad; one was killed, one was captured."
Rumsfeld pointed to the continued fighting when he was asked if the United States will choose not to declare a formal end to the war in order to avoid the responsibilities the Geneva Conventions impose on a postwar occupying power.
"There's not an attempt to avoid anything except getting more people killed," he replied, "and an attempt to try to get that country and those people in a process that'll produce a free Iraqi government."
Top officials in U.S. custody
U.S. officials said Friday that the capture of two key Iraqi officials helped prove the success of the U.S.-led war.
Farouk Hijazi, former operations chief for Saddam Hussein's intelligence service, is in U.S. hands after being taken into custody Thursday evening near the Syrian border.
Hijazi is suspected of involvement in the unsuccessful plot by Iraqi intelligence to kill former President George Bush, the current president's father, in Kuwait in 1993. Hijazi was the third-ranking Iraqi intelligence official at the time of the alleged plot, officials said.
Hijazi is not on the list of 55 most-wanted Iraqi leaders, but former CIA Director James Woolsey said that omission does not mean he is not important.
"It's a big catch, and this man was involved, we know, with a number of contacts with al Qaeda, so this would be a interesting development, the biggest catch so far, I would say, of any of the people that we've got," Woolsey told CNN.
Saddam's former deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, turned himself in to coalition forces late Thursday after organizing the surrender for several days to ensure the process was dignified, his family told CNN's Nic Robertson. (Full story, U.S. hoping Aziz talks) (Aziz profile)
The Iraqi National Congress, an opposition group that has worked with the United States for years, said the arrest would help Iraqis lay their "fears to rest" and feel "secure in a new environment." It will help "restore" their lives, spokesman Nabil Musawi said.
The Bush administration is not saying what kinds of information Aziz and Hijazi might provide. Rumsfeld said, "You can be certain that the people who we have reason to believe have information are being interrogated by interagency teams, and they are in fact providing information that's useful."
U.S. troops have found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The insistence that the country had such weapons, despite the denials of Saddam's regime, was the Bush administration's main argument for war.
U.S. officials say it will take time to find the weapons. President Bush told NBC, in an interview scheduled to be broadcast Friday, that there is evidence Saddam's regime might have destroyed some and "dispersed some."
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Friday that tests are under way. The evidence found so far supports the U.S. contention that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, he said: "You can't destroy something you don't have."
Marines packing up, pulling out
Meanwhile, about 2,300 U.S. Marines have begun pulling out of Iraq to prepare to return to their home base of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
Farouk Hijazi, former operations chief of Iraq's intelligence service, also held posts as ambassador to Turkey and Tunisia. He was taken into custody near the Syrian border.
Farouk Hijazi, former operations chief of Iraq's intelligence service, also held posts as ambassador to Turkey and Tunisia. He was taken into custody near the Syrian border.
Units of Task Force Tarawa of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit are packing up their equipment at Camp Patriot in Kuwait. The amphibious-ready force will return aboard the USS Nassau, USS Austin and USS Tortuga, Marine spokesman Capt. Dan McSweeney said.
Two ships of the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln's battle group -- the guided-missile cruisers USS Shiloh and the USS Mobile Bay -- pulled into San Diego, California, on Friday. (Full story)
On the diplomatic front, a high-ranking Russian official said Moscow is "determined to put the U.S.-Russia relationship firmly back on track" after disputes over Iraq.
The senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there will be "important" Russian-American contacts next week in Moscow. He did not specify who will attend those meetings.
Russia so far has insisted that U.N. sanctions on Iraq can be removed only through a Security Council vote. Moscow has joined France in supporting a temporary, partial lifting of sanctions that would affect civilians.
President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin are scheduled to hold a brief summit next month in St. Petersburg, Russia, before the G8 summit.
Other developments
? The U.N. refugee agency is shifting its focus from caring for Iraqis who fled their war-torn country to sending them home. The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has developed a preliminary repatriation and reintegration plan for up to 500,000 Iraqi refugees out of the nearly 900,000 in the immediate region and beyond, a spokesman for the agency said. The plan's budget is $118 million over eight months.
? U.S. Marines from the 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion are patrolling the Iraqi-Iranian border along the length of the Wasit Province east of Kut. The patrols are designed to keep Iranian-backed dissidents from coming into Iraq. The Marines are under orders to search and interview all people attempting to enter or leave Iraq through Iran. The Marines hope to locate and detain "all former regime officials, third-country nationals and insurgents," according to a U.S. Central Command statement.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush might declare an end to combat in Iraq next week, senior White House officials told CNN on Friday. But the president will not declare the war over, the officials said.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday that it is possible that an end will never be declared.
"I would guess there will be an end," Rumsfeld said. "Can I tell you for sure? No. ... This isn't World War I or World War II, that starts and then ends. Take Afghanistan. We've moved from major military activities to a point where at the present time, the vast majority of the country is in a stabilization security mode."
An announcement from Bush could come during his visit Thursday and Friday to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, returning from the Persian Gulf region.
Although fighting has wound down throughout Iraq, Pentagon officials said Friday that there are still "pockets" of resistance.
"This morning, a 20- to 30-man Iraqi paramilitary force attacked a coalition patrol northwest of Mosul," said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Coalition forces killed several of the attackers and destroyed two of the so-called technical vehicles, the trucks with the machine guns on them."
Also, he said, "a two-man enemy paramilitary element was engaged in south Baghdad; one was killed, one was captured."
Rumsfeld pointed to the continued fighting when he was asked if the United States will choose not to declare a formal end to the war in order to avoid the responsibilities the Geneva Conventions impose on a postwar occupying power.
"There's not an attempt to avoid anything except getting more people killed," he replied, "and an attempt to try to get that country and those people in a process that'll produce a free Iraqi government."
Top officials in U.S. custody
U.S. officials said Friday that the capture of two key Iraqi officials helped prove the success of the U.S.-led war.
Farouk Hijazi, former operations chief for Saddam Hussein's intelligence service, is in U.S. hands after being taken into custody Thursday evening near the Syrian border.
Hijazi is suspected of involvement in the unsuccessful plot by Iraqi intelligence to kill former President George Bush, the current president's father, in Kuwait in 1993. Hijazi was the third-ranking Iraqi intelligence official at the time of the alleged plot, officials said.
Hijazi is not on the list of 55 most-wanted Iraqi leaders, but former CIA Director James Woolsey said that omission does not mean he is not important.
"It's a big catch, and this man was involved, we know, with a number of contacts with al Qaeda, so this would be a interesting development, the biggest catch so far, I would say, of any of the people that we've got," Woolsey told CNN.
Saddam's former deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, turned himself in to coalition forces late Thursday after organizing the surrender for several days to ensure the process was dignified, his family told CNN's Nic Robertson. (Full story, U.S. hoping Aziz talks) (Aziz profile)
The Iraqi National Congress, an opposition group that has worked with the United States for years, said the arrest would help Iraqis lay their "fears to rest" and feel "secure in a new environment." It will help "restore" their lives, spokesman Nabil Musawi said.
The Bush administration is not saying what kinds of information Aziz and Hijazi might provide. Rumsfeld said, "You can be certain that the people who we have reason to believe have information are being interrogated by interagency teams, and they are in fact providing information that's useful."
U.S. troops have found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The insistence that the country had such weapons, despite the denials of Saddam's regime, was the Bush administration's main argument for war.
U.S. officials say it will take time to find the weapons. President Bush told NBC, in an interview scheduled to be broadcast Friday, that there is evidence Saddam's regime might have destroyed some and "dispersed some."
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Friday that tests are under way. The evidence found so far supports the U.S. contention that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, he said: "You can't destroy something you don't have."
Marines packing up, pulling out
Meanwhile, about 2,300 U.S. Marines have begun pulling out of Iraq to prepare to return to their home base of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
Farouk Hijazi, former operations chief of Iraq's intelligence service, also held posts as ambassador to Turkey and Tunisia. He was taken into custody near the Syrian border.
Farouk Hijazi, former operations chief of Iraq's intelligence service, also held posts as ambassador to Turkey and Tunisia. He was taken into custody near the Syrian border.
Units of Task Force Tarawa of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit are packing up their equipment at Camp Patriot in Kuwait. The amphibious-ready force will return aboard the USS Nassau, USS Austin and USS Tortuga, Marine spokesman Capt. Dan McSweeney said.
Two ships of the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln's battle group -- the guided-missile cruisers USS Shiloh and the USS Mobile Bay -- pulled into San Diego, California, on Friday. (Full story)
On the diplomatic front, a high-ranking Russian official said Moscow is "determined to put the U.S.-Russia relationship firmly back on track" after disputes over Iraq.
The senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there will be "important" Russian-American contacts next week in Moscow. He did not specify who will attend those meetings.
Russia so far has insisted that U.N. sanctions on Iraq can be removed only through a Security Council vote. Moscow has joined France in supporting a temporary, partial lifting of sanctions that would affect civilians.
President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin are scheduled to hold a brief summit next month in St. Petersburg, Russia, before the G8 summit.
Other developments
? The U.N. refugee agency is shifting its focus from caring for Iraqis who fled their war-torn country to sending them home. The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has developed a preliminary repatriation and reintegration plan for up to 500,000 Iraqi refugees out of the nearly 900,000 in the immediate region and beyond, a spokesman for the agency said. The plan's budget is $118 million over eight months.
? U.S. Marines from the 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion are patrolling the Iraqi-Iranian border along the length of the Wasit Province east of Kut. The patrols are designed to keep Iranian-backed dissidents from coming into Iraq. The Marines are under orders to search and interview all people attempting to enter or leave Iraq through Iran. The Marines hope to locate and detain "all former regime officials, third-country nationals and insurgents," according to a U.S. Central Command statement.
LONG-AWAITED VICTORY CALL
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush might declare an end to combat in Iraq next week, senior White House officials told CNN on Friday. But the president will not declare the war over, the officials said.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday that it is possible that an end will never be declared.
"I would guess there will be an end," Rumsfeld said. "Can I tell you for sure? No. ... This isn't World War I or World War II, that starts and then ends. Take Afghanistan. We've moved from major military activities to a point where at the present time, the vast majority of the country is in a stabilization security mode."
An announcement from Bush could come during his visit Thursday and Friday to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, returning from the Persian Gulf region.
Although fighting has wound down throughout Iraq, Pentagon officials said Friday that there are still "pockets" of resistance.
"This morning, a 20- to 30-man Iraqi paramilitary force attacked a coalition patrol northwest of Mosul," said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Coalition forces killed several of the attackers and destroyed two of the so-called technical vehicles, the trucks with the machine guns on them."
Also, he said, "a two-man enemy paramilitary element was engaged in south Baghdad; one was killed, one was captured."
Rumsfeld pointed to the continued fighting when he was asked if the United States will choose not to declare a formal end to the war in order to avoid the responsibilities the Geneva Conventions impose on a postwar occupying power.
"There's not an attempt to avoid anything except getting more people killed," he replied, "and an attempt to try to get that country and those people in a process that'll produce a free Iraqi government."
Top officials in U.S. custody
U.S. officials said Friday that the capture of two key Iraqi officials helped prove the success of the U.S.-led war.
Farouk Hijazi, former operations chief for Saddam Hussein's intelligence service, is in U.S. hands after being taken into custody Thursday evening near the Syrian border.
Hijazi is suspected of involvement in the unsuccessful plot by Iraqi intelligence to kill former President George Bush, the current president's father, in Kuwait in 1993. Hijazi was the third-ranking Iraqi intelligence official at the time of the alleged plot, officials said.
Hijazi is not on the list of 55 most-wanted Iraqi leaders, but former CIA Director James Woolsey said that omission does not mean he is not important.
"It's a big catch, and this man was involved, we know, with a number of contacts with al Qaeda, so this would be a interesting development, the biggest catch so far, I would say, of any of the people that we've got," Woolsey told CNN.
Saddam's former deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, turned himself in to coalition forces late Thursday after organizing the surrender for several days to ensure the process was dignified, his family told CNN's Nic Robertson. (Full story, U.S. hoping Aziz talks) (Aziz profile)
The Iraqi National Congress, an opposition group that has worked with the United States for years, said the arrest would help Iraqis lay their "fears to rest" and feel "secure in a new environment." It will help "restore" their lives, spokesman Nabil Musawi said.
The Bush administration is not saying what kinds of information Aziz and Hijazi might provide. Rumsfeld said, "You can be certain that the people who we have reason to believe have information are being interrogated by interagency teams, and they are in fact providing information that's useful."
U.S. troops have found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The insistence that the country had such weapons, despite the denials of Saddam's regime, was the Bush administration's main argument for war.
U.S. officials say it will take time to find the weapons. President Bush told NBC, in an interview scheduled to be broadcast Friday, that there is evidence Saddam's regime might have destroyed some and "dispersed some."
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Friday that tests are under way. The evidence found so far supports the U.S. contention that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, he said: "You can't destroy something you don't have."
Marines packing up, pulling out
Meanwhile, about 2,300 U.S. Marines have begun pulling out of Iraq to prepare to return to their home base of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
Farouk Hijazi, former operations chief of Iraq's intelligence service, also held posts as ambassador to Turkey and Tunisia. He was taken into custody near the Syrian border.
Farouk Hijazi, former operations chief of Iraq's intelligence service, also held posts as ambassador to Turkey and Tunisia. He was taken into custody near the Syrian border.
Units of Task Force Tarawa of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit are packing up their equipment at Camp Patriot in Kuwait. The amphibious-ready force will return aboard the USS Nassau, USS Austin and USS Tortuga, Marine spokesman Capt. Dan McSweeney said.
Two ships of the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln's battle group -- the guided-missile cruisers USS Shiloh and the USS Mobile Bay -- pulled into San Diego, California, on Friday. (Full story)
On the diplomatic front, a high-ranking Russian official said Moscow is "determined to put the U.S.-Russia relationship firmly back on track" after disputes over Iraq.
The senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there will be "important" Russian-American contacts next week in Moscow. He did not specify who will attend those meetings.
Russia so far has insisted that U.N. sanctions on Iraq can be removed only through a Security Council vote. Moscow has joined France in supporting a temporary, partial lifting of sanctions that would affect civilians.
President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin are scheduled to hold a brief summit next month in St. Petersburg, Russia, before the G8 summit.
Other developments
? The U.N. refugee agency is shifting its focus from caring for Iraqis who fled their war-torn country to sending them home. The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has developed a preliminary repatriation and reintegration plan for up to 500,000 Iraqi refugees out of the nearly 900,000 in the immediate region and beyond, a spokesman for the agency said. The plan's budget is $118 million over eight months. (Full story)
? U.S. Marines from the 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion are patrolling the Iraqi-Iranian border along the length of the Wasit Province east of Kut. The patrols are designed to keep Iranian-backed dissidents from coming into Iraq. The Marines are under orders to search and interview all people attempting to enter or leave Iraq through Iran. The Marines hope to locate and detain "all former regime officials, third-country nationals and insurgents," according to a U.S. Central Command statement.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush might declare an end to combat in Iraq next week, senior White House officials told CNN on Friday. But the president will not declare the war over, the officials said.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said Friday that it is possible that an end will never be declared.
"I would guess there will be an end," Rumsfeld said. "Can I tell you for sure? No. ... This isn't World War I or World War II, that starts and then ends. Take Afghanistan. We've moved from major military activities to a point where at the present time, the vast majority of the country is in a stabilization security mode."
An announcement from Bush could come during his visit Thursday and Friday to the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln, returning from the Persian Gulf region.
Although fighting has wound down throughout Iraq, Pentagon officials said Friday that there are still "pockets" of resistance.
"This morning, a 20- to 30-man Iraqi paramilitary force attacked a coalition patrol northwest of Mosul," said Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. "Coalition forces killed several of the attackers and destroyed two of the so-called technical vehicles, the trucks with the machine guns on them."
Also, he said, "a two-man enemy paramilitary element was engaged in south Baghdad; one was killed, one was captured."
Rumsfeld pointed to the continued fighting when he was asked if the United States will choose not to declare a formal end to the war in order to avoid the responsibilities the Geneva Conventions impose on a postwar occupying power.
"There's not an attempt to avoid anything except getting more people killed," he replied, "and an attempt to try to get that country and those people in a process that'll produce a free Iraqi government."
Top officials in U.S. custody
U.S. officials said Friday that the capture of two key Iraqi officials helped prove the success of the U.S.-led war.
Farouk Hijazi, former operations chief for Saddam Hussein's intelligence service, is in U.S. hands after being taken into custody Thursday evening near the Syrian border.
Hijazi is suspected of involvement in the unsuccessful plot by Iraqi intelligence to kill former President George Bush, the current president's father, in Kuwait in 1993. Hijazi was the third-ranking Iraqi intelligence official at the time of the alleged plot, officials said.
Hijazi is not on the list of 55 most-wanted Iraqi leaders, but former CIA Director James Woolsey said that omission does not mean he is not important.
"It's a big catch, and this man was involved, we know, with a number of contacts with al Qaeda, so this would be a interesting development, the biggest catch so far, I would say, of any of the people that we've got," Woolsey told CNN.
Saddam's former deputy prime minister, Tariq Aziz, turned himself in to coalition forces late Thursday after organizing the surrender for several days to ensure the process was dignified, his family told CNN's Nic Robertson. (Full story, U.S. hoping Aziz talks) (Aziz profile)
The Iraqi National Congress, an opposition group that has worked with the United States for years, said the arrest would help Iraqis lay their "fears to rest" and feel "secure in a new environment." It will help "restore" their lives, spokesman Nabil Musawi said.
The Bush administration is not saying what kinds of information Aziz and Hijazi might provide. Rumsfeld said, "You can be certain that the people who we have reason to believe have information are being interrogated by interagency teams, and they are in fact providing information that's useful."
U.S. troops have found no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The insistence that the country had such weapons, despite the denials of Saddam's regime, was the Bush administration's main argument for war.
U.S. officials say it will take time to find the weapons. President Bush told NBC, in an interview scheduled to be broadcast Friday, that there is evidence Saddam's regime might have destroyed some and "dispersed some."
White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said Friday that tests are under way. The evidence found so far supports the U.S. contention that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, he said: "You can't destroy something you don't have."
Marines packing up, pulling out
Meanwhile, about 2,300 U.S. Marines have begun pulling out of Iraq to prepare to return to their home base of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina.
Farouk Hijazi, former operations chief of Iraq's intelligence service, also held posts as ambassador to Turkey and Tunisia. He was taken into custody near the Syrian border.
Farouk Hijazi, former operations chief of Iraq's intelligence service, also held posts as ambassador to Turkey and Tunisia. He was taken into custody near the Syrian border.
Units of Task Force Tarawa of the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit are packing up their equipment at Camp Patriot in Kuwait. The amphibious-ready force will return aboard the USS Nassau, USS Austin and USS Tortuga, Marine spokesman Capt. Dan McSweeney said.
Two ships of the carrier USS Abraham Lincoln's battle group -- the guided-missile cruisers USS Shiloh and the USS Mobile Bay -- pulled into San Diego, California, on Friday. (Full story)
On the diplomatic front, a high-ranking Russian official said Moscow is "determined to put the U.S.-Russia relationship firmly back on track" after disputes over Iraq.
The senior official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said there will be "important" Russian-American contacts next week in Moscow. He did not specify who will attend those meetings.
Russia so far has insisted that U.N. sanctions on Iraq can be removed only through a Security Council vote. Moscow has joined France in supporting a temporary, partial lifting of sanctions that would affect civilians.
President Bush and Russian President Vladimir Putin are scheduled to hold a brief summit next month in St. Petersburg, Russia, before the G8 summit.
Other developments
? The U.N. refugee agency is shifting its focus from caring for Iraqis who fled their war-torn country to sending them home. The Office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees has developed a preliminary repatriation and reintegration plan for up to 500,000 Iraqi refugees out of the nearly 900,000 in the immediate region and beyond, a spokesman for the agency said. The plan's budget is $118 million over eight months. (Full story)
? U.S. Marines from the 4th Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion are patrolling the Iraqi-Iranian border along the length of the Wasit Province east of Kut. The patrols are designed to keep Iranian-backed dissidents from coming into Iraq. The Marines are under orders to search and interview all people attempting to enter or leave Iraq through Iran. The Marines hope to locate and detain "all former regime officials, third-country nationals and insurgents," according to a U.S. Central Command statement.
Friday, April 25, 2003
MASKED AVENGERS
Growing number of cities being quarantined, the latest being Toronto.
Growing number of cities being quarantined, the latest being Toronto.
TO STAY OR NOT TO
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Less than two weeks after the fighting ended, the United States is coming face to face with a huge dilemma surrounding its efforts to rebuild Iraq.
Simply put it is this: the longer U.S. occupation forces stay in Iraq, the greater the risk of fueling anti-American Islamic fundamentalism in the country.
But the sooner they depart, the more of a mess they will leave behind, which could have the same result, as well as creating a power vacuum that anti-American forces could fill.
"The longer we stay, the more Iraqi nationalism will get organized and become a unifying force, which will be expressed in increasingly strident opposition to the American presence," said Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
"But if we leave prematurely, the risk exists that a Shi'ite-led clerical government will emerge that is allied to Iran and professes an anti-American theocracy," she said.
SURPRISED BY SHI'ITES
U.S. officials have been surprised by the speed with which Shi'ite Muslims, who comprise 60 percent of the Iraqi population but have never led the nation, have asserted themselves in the vacuum left by the fall of Saddam Hussein.
"I'm sure the Bush administration is shocked by the emergence of the Shi'ites but now they have unleashed something and I don't know what they can do to stop it," said J. Brian Atwood, a former head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, now dean of the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.
"Having a U.S. administrator wandering around Iraq talking about introducing democracy as if he's selling an alien ideology is beside the point," Atwood said.
The long-standing links between the Shi'ite clerics emerging in leadership roles in southern Iraq and their fellow Shi'ites in Iran threatens to shorten whatever honeymoon U.S. troops can expect, according to Joseph Braude, author of the recent book, "The New Iraq: Rebuilding the Country for Its People, the Middle East, and the World."
"It's clear that Iran is already exerting its influence and it seems the Iranian government would like to see a government of clerics emerge in Iraq that is similar to itself," Braude said.
That outcome would be strategically unacceptable to Washington, which will need to find and foster moderate Iraqi political forces to prevent it. So far, it is not really clear what the majority of the Iraqi people want.
Some conservatives in the Pentagon and elsewhere in the U.S. government had apparently expected Iraqi exile leaders like Ahmad Chalabi to return to Iraq and fill the leadership vacuum. But Chalabi has failed to ignite much enthusiasm among fellow secular Shi'ites and totally lacks appeal to religious Shi'ites.
"Overall, the administration has put stunningly little planning into how the political process might unfold in Iraq after the war," said Nancy Soderberg who served on the National Security Council under former President Bill Clinton and now works with the International Crisis Group in New York.
"Their ideological assumptions have constantly been confounded by reality," Soderberg said.
Braude said there was no question of U.S. forces withdrawing from Iraq at least until it was sure it was leaving a viable state that had the ability to maintain its territorial integrity.
That could take years since it means building a new, ideologically revamped Iraqi army of perhaps 150,000 -- the minimum sufficient to defend against an Iranian military next door of half a million. The two countries were at war for much of the 1980s.
In the meantime, the Americans and their Iraqi partners face the monumental task of rebuilding a legal framework that could help run a society based on the rule of law in which commercial life can flourish free of corruption.
That means writing criminal and civil laws, recruiting police, judges, lawyers, prison administrators and eventually writing a constitution. At this point, no one knows who will do these things and when.
Many analysts, including Slaughter and Soderberg, believe that President Bush will have no choice but to swallow his reluctance to invite the United Nations to help share the task of running Iraq until sufficient physical, political and legal infrastructure is up and running.
Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden has been making this point for weeks, even before the war began March 19. "Acting under a U.N. flag, as opposed to a U.S. flag, will minimize resentment from malcontents in the region and beyond," Biden said March 11 during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on humanitarian assistance and reconstruction in Iraq.
"The benefits of working with the international community cannot be overstated," the Delaware lawmaker said.
But Atwood said Bush seemed to have an ideological blind spot when it came to the United Nations. "They need to get over it and get the U.N. in there now," he said.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Less than two weeks after the fighting ended, the United States is coming face to face with a huge dilemma surrounding its efforts to rebuild Iraq.
Simply put it is this: the longer U.S. occupation forces stay in Iraq, the greater the risk of fueling anti-American Islamic fundamentalism in the country.
But the sooner they depart, the more of a mess they will leave behind, which could have the same result, as well as creating a power vacuum that anti-American forces could fill.
"The longer we stay, the more Iraqi nationalism will get organized and become a unifying force, which will be expressed in increasingly strident opposition to the American presence," said Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of Princeton University's Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs.
"But if we leave prematurely, the risk exists that a Shi'ite-led clerical government will emerge that is allied to Iran and professes an anti-American theocracy," she said.
SURPRISED BY SHI'ITES
U.S. officials have been surprised by the speed with which Shi'ite Muslims, who comprise 60 percent of the Iraqi population but have never led the nation, have asserted themselves in the vacuum left by the fall of Saddam Hussein.
"I'm sure the Bush administration is shocked by the emergence of the Shi'ites but now they have unleashed something and I don't know what they can do to stop it," said J. Brian Atwood, a former head of the U.S. Agency for International Development, now dean of the Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs at the University of Minnesota.
"Having a U.S. administrator wandering around Iraq talking about introducing democracy as if he's selling an alien ideology is beside the point," Atwood said.
The long-standing links between the Shi'ite clerics emerging in leadership roles in southern Iraq and their fellow Shi'ites in Iran threatens to shorten whatever honeymoon U.S. troops can expect, according to Joseph Braude, author of the recent book, "The New Iraq: Rebuilding the Country for Its People, the Middle East, and the World."
"It's clear that Iran is already exerting its influence and it seems the Iranian government would like to see a government of clerics emerge in Iraq that is similar to itself," Braude said.
That outcome would be strategically unacceptable to Washington, which will need to find and foster moderate Iraqi political forces to prevent it. So far, it is not really clear what the majority of the Iraqi people want.
Some conservatives in the Pentagon and elsewhere in the U.S. government had apparently expected Iraqi exile leaders like Ahmad Chalabi to return to Iraq and fill the leadership vacuum. But Chalabi has failed to ignite much enthusiasm among fellow secular Shi'ites and totally lacks appeal to religious Shi'ites.
"Overall, the administration has put stunningly little planning into how the political process might unfold in Iraq after the war," said Nancy Soderberg who served on the National Security Council under former President Bill Clinton and now works with the International Crisis Group in New York.
"Their ideological assumptions have constantly been confounded by reality," Soderberg said.
Braude said there was no question of U.S. forces withdrawing from Iraq at least until it was sure it was leaving a viable state that had the ability to maintain its territorial integrity.
That could take years since it means building a new, ideologically revamped Iraqi army of perhaps 150,000 -- the minimum sufficient to defend against an Iranian military next door of half a million. The two countries were at war for much of the 1980s.
In the meantime, the Americans and their Iraqi partners face the monumental task of rebuilding a legal framework that could help run a society based on the rule of law in which commercial life can flourish free of corruption.
That means writing criminal and civil laws, recruiting police, judges, lawyers, prison administrators and eventually writing a constitution. At this point, no one knows who will do these things and when.
Many analysts, including Slaughter and Soderberg, believe that President Bush will have no choice but to swallow his reluctance to invite the United Nations to help share the task of running Iraq until sufficient physical, political and legal infrastructure is up and running.
Democratic Sen. Joseph Biden has been making this point for weeks, even before the war began March 19. "Acting under a U.N. flag, as opposed to a U.S. flag, will minimize resentment from malcontents in the region and beyond," Biden said March 11 during a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on humanitarian assistance and reconstruction in Iraq.
"The benefits of working with the international community cannot be overstated," the Delaware lawmaker said.
But Atwood said Bush seemed to have an ideological blind spot when it came to the United Nations. "They need to get over it and get the U.N. in there now," he said.
ADVANTAGE, BUSH
Having removed a historic threat to Israel's existence, deployed a quarter of a million troops a few hundred miles from Jerusalem, and coaxed forth an emerging Palestinian leadership, George W. Bush appears in a strong position to pursue peace in the Middle East, perhaps the strongest of any American president since the Six-Day War of 1967.
.
European and Arab officials and analysts of many nationalities say he also has a powerful motive to try: progress in Middle East talks would ease a major source of Arab anti-Americanism at a time when the presence of American troops in Iraq is a sensitive issue.
.
Bush has suggested he sees a link between the search for a Middle peace and Iraq, saying in February, as he tried to build support for the Iraq war, that: "Success in Iraq could also begin a new stage for Middle Eastern peace, and set in motion progress towards a truly democratic Palestinian state."
.
In pursuit of a new peace plan, Colin Powell, the U.S. secretary of state, is expected to return here early next month for the first time in a year, since the administration abandoned an earlier drive for peace in the face of continuing violence.
.
Regardless of the details of that plan, it may compel the adversaries, who are exhausted by the violence here, to sit down and talk about peace with each other for the first time in more than two years.
.
But Israeli and Palestinian officials and analysts, as well as foreign diplomats involved in the peace process, say that Bush has yet to show much enthusiasm for the diplomatic and political struggle necessary to achieve an agreement.
.
It is a struggle in which the only certainty is the prospect of setbacks.
.
"We know from the experience of the past 30 years, going back to Nixon and Kissinger in late 1973, that in order to accomplish results in the Arab-Israeli peace process you need sustained involvement by the president himself or certainly by an empowered secretary of state or national security adviser," said Itamar Rabinovich, the president of Tel Aviv University and a former ambassador to the United States. "This is not the style of the Bush presidency."
.
Bush administration officials have repeatedly emphasized that while they will help, the Palestinians and Israelis must make peace themselves.
.
On Wednesday, Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, agreed on a compromise cabinet, taking a big step toward meeting Bush's condition for introducing the new peace plan.
.
But Thursday a suicide bomber connected to the Fatah movement led by Arafat and Abbas exploded outside an Israeli train station, killing himself and one other person.
.
The bombing once again fanned doubts about the Palestinian leadership's capacity and willingness to confront terrorism.
.
On the Israeli side, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon so dominates politics that he may have the capacity to achieve a deal. But his willingness to make what he calls "painful concessions" is untested.
.
Sharon is seeking numerous changes in the proposed peace plan, known as the road map, which foresees recognition of Israel throughout the region and an independent state of Palestine in just three years. His advisers predict that Bush will not exert serious pressure on him to abide by its terms, including immediate action to remove settlement outposts.
.
One adviser to Sharon described the talk of an American push for the road map a "show" for the benefit of Great Britain, while another one said, "I don't think this is going to lead to a major confrontation - or any confrontation - with the United States."
.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Sharon's finance minister and an avowed opponent of a Palestinian state, said in an interview with an Israeli newspaper this week that Israel could overcome any American pressure.
.
"Pressure is expected, but we can and must resist it," Netanyahu told Yedioth Ahronoth. Most congressmen and senators have signed a letter to Bush objecting to any pressure being placed on Israel until the Palestinians do more to fight terrorism.
.
Sharon's views were shaped by decades of fighting for Israel's creation and then survival, and he is not inclined to gamble on matters of security, despite the defeat of Saddam Hussein.
.
Once, his advisers pointed to the proximity of Iraq's tanks to argue for Israel's need for "strategic depth" - the thickening of its borders achieved by West Bank settlements. Now, they argue that there is no telling whether Iraq may eventually revert to its old ways. Sharon envisions a Palestinian state far different than the one outlined in the road map or sought by Abbas, the advisers said. He believes a provisional state should endure for 10 or more years.
.
He is said to believe that only after years of peaceful coexistence will Israelis and Palestinians have the confidence in each other to come to enduring terms on precise borders. Sharon envisions a final Palestinian state holding less than half the territory of the West Bank, with no presence in Jerusalem, no military, and no control of its own airspace.
.
Referring to the peace plan's timetable, one adviser said, "A state by the end of 2005 - I don't think that's conceivable." The road map calls for a full-fledged Palestinian state by that date.
.
The Israeli government says it wants to see Abbas succeed. Israeli officials have gathered extreme statements made by Abbas over the years, but they have held such material in reserve while they judge his performance, a senior Israeli official said.
But analysts see prospect of setbacks as the only certainty
JERUSALEM Having removed a historic threat to Israel's existence, deployed a quarter of a million troops a few hundred miles from Jerusalem, and coaxed forth an emerging Palestinian leadership, George W. Bush appears in a strong position to pursue peace in the Middle East, perhaps the strongest of any American president since the Six-Day War of 1967.
.
European and Arab officials and analysts of many nationalities say he also has a powerful motive to try: progress in Middle East talks would ease a major source of Arab anti-Americanism at a time when the presence of American troops in Iraq is a sensitive issue.
.
Bush has suggested he sees a link between the search for a Middle peace and Iraq, saying in February, as he tried to build support for the Iraq war, that: "Success in Iraq could also begin a new stage for Middle Eastern peace, and set in motion progress towards a truly democratic Palestinian state."
.
In pursuit of a new peace plan, Colin Powell, the U.S. secretary of state, is expected to return here early next month for the first time in a year, since the administration abandoned an earlier drive for peace in the face of continuing violence.
.
Regardless of the details of that plan, it may compel the adversaries, who are exhausted by the violence here, to sit down and talk about peace with each other for the first time in more than two years.
.
But Israeli and Palestinian officials and analysts, as well as foreign diplomats involved in the peace process, say that Bush has yet to show much enthusiasm for the diplomatic and political struggle necessary to achieve an agreement.
.
It is a struggle in which the only certainty is the prospect of setbacks.
.
"We know from the experience of the past 30 years, going back to Nixon and Kissinger in late 1973, that in order to accomplish results in the Arab-Israeli peace process you need sustained involvement by the president himself or certainly by an empowered secretary of state or national security adviser," said Itamar Rabinovich, the president of Tel Aviv University and a former ambassador to the United States. "This is not the style of the Bush presidency."
.
Bush administration officials have repeatedly emphasized that while they will help, the Palestinians and Israelis must make peace themselves.
.
On Wednesday, Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, agreed on a compromise cabinet, taking a big step toward meeting Bush's condition for introducing the new peace plan.
.
But Thursday a suicide bomber connected to the Fatah movement led by Arafat and Abbas exploded outside an Israeli train station, killing himself and one other person.
.
The bombing once again fanned doubts about the Palestinian leadership's capacity and willingness to confront terrorism.
.
On the Israeli side, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon so dominates politics that he may have the capacity to achieve a deal. But his willingness to make what he calls "painful concessions" is untested.
.
Sharon is seeking numerous changes in the proposed peace plan, known as the road map, which foresees recognition of Israel throughout the region and an independent state of Palestine in just three years. His advisers predict that Bush will not exert serious pressure on him to abide by its terms, including immediate action to remove settlement outposts.
.
One adviser to Sharon described the talk of an American push for the road map a "show" for the benefit of Great Britain, while another one said, "I don't think this is going to lead to a major confrontation - or any confrontation - with the United States."
.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Sharon's finance minister and an avowed opponent of a Palestinian state, said in an interview with an Israeli newspaper this week that Israel could overcome any American pressure.
.
"Pressure is expected, but we can and must resist it," Netanyahu told Yedioth Ahronoth. Most congressmen and senators have signed a letter to Bush objecting to any pressure being placed on Israel until the Palestinians do more to fight terrorism.
.
Sharon's views were shaped by decades of fighting for Israel's creation and then survival, and he is not inclined to gamble on matters of security, despite the defeat of Saddam Hussein.
.
Once, his advisers pointed to the proximity of Iraq's tanks to argue for Israel's need for "strategic depth" - the thickening of its borders achieved by West Bank settlements. Now, they argue that there is no telling whether Iraq may eventually revert to its old ways. Sharon envisions a Palestinian state far different than the one outlined in the road map or sought by Abbas, the advisers said. He believes a provisional state should endure for 10 or more years.
.
He is said to believe that only after years of peaceful coexistence will Israelis and Palestinians have the confidence in each other to come to enduring terms on precise borders. Sharon envisions a final Palestinian state holding less than half the territory of the West Bank, with no presence in Jerusalem, no military, and no control of its own airspace.
.
Referring to the peace plan's timetable, one adviser said, "A state by the end of 2005 - I don't think that's conceivable." The road map calls for a full-fledged Palestinian state by that date.
.
The Israeli government says it wants to see Abbas succeed. Israeli officials have gathered extreme statements made by Abbas over the years, but they have held such material in reserve while they judge his performance, a senior Israeli official said.
But analysts see prospect of setbacks as the only certainty
JERUSALEM Having removed a historic threat to Israel's existence, deployed a quarter of a million troops a few hundred miles from Jerusalem, and coaxed forth an emerging Palestinian leadership, George W. Bush appears in a strong position to pursue peace in the Middle East, perhaps the strongest of any American president since the Six-Day War of 1967.
.
European and Arab officials and analysts of many nationalities say he also has a powerful motive to try: progress in Middle East talks would ease a major source of Arab anti-Americanism at a time when the presence of American troops in Iraq is a sensitive issue.
.
Bush has suggested he sees a link between the search for a Middle peace and Iraq, saying in February, as he tried to build support for the Iraq war, that: "Success in Iraq could also begin a new stage for Middle Eastern peace, and set in motion progress towards a truly democratic Palestinian state."
.
In pursuit of a new peace plan, Colin Powell, the U.S. secretary of state, is expected to return here early next month for the first time in a year, since the administration abandoned an earlier drive for peace in the face of continuing violence.
.
Regardless of the details of that plan, it may compel the adversaries, who are exhausted by the violence here, to sit down and talk about peace with each other for the first time in more than two years.
.
But Israeli and Palestinian officials and analysts, as well as foreign diplomats involved in the peace process, say that Bush has yet to show much enthusiasm for the diplomatic and political
Having removed a historic threat to Israel's existence, deployed a quarter of a million troops a few hundred miles from Jerusalem, and coaxed forth an emerging Palestinian leadership, George W. Bush appears in a strong position to pursue peace in the Middle East, perhaps the strongest of any American president since the Six-Day War of 1967.
.
European and Arab officials and analysts of many nationalities say he also has a powerful motive to try: progress in Middle East talks would ease a major source of Arab anti-Americanism at a time when the presence of American troops in Iraq is a sensitive issue.
.
Bush has suggested he sees a link between the search for a Middle peace and Iraq, saying in February, as he tried to build support for the Iraq war, that: "Success in Iraq could also begin a new stage for Middle Eastern peace, and set in motion progress towards a truly democratic Palestinian state."
.
In pursuit of a new peace plan, Colin Powell, the U.S. secretary of state, is expected to return here early next month for the first time in a year, since the administration abandoned an earlier drive for peace in the face of continuing violence.
.
Regardless of the details of that plan, it may compel the adversaries, who are exhausted by the violence here, to sit down and talk about peace with each other for the first time in more than two years.
.
But Israeli and Palestinian officials and analysts, as well as foreign diplomats involved in the peace process, say that Bush has yet to show much enthusiasm for the diplomatic and political struggle necessary to achieve an agreement.
.
It is a struggle in which the only certainty is the prospect of setbacks.
.
"We know from the experience of the past 30 years, going back to Nixon and Kissinger in late 1973, that in order to accomplish results in the Arab-Israeli peace process you need sustained involvement by the president himself or certainly by an empowered secretary of state or national security adviser," said Itamar Rabinovich, the president of Tel Aviv University and a former ambassador to the United States. "This is not the style of the Bush presidency."
.
Bush administration officials have repeatedly emphasized that while they will help, the Palestinians and Israelis must make peace themselves.
.
On Wednesday, Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, agreed on a compromise cabinet, taking a big step toward meeting Bush's condition for introducing the new peace plan.
.
But Thursday a suicide bomber connected to the Fatah movement led by Arafat and Abbas exploded outside an Israeli train station, killing himself and one other person.
.
The bombing once again fanned doubts about the Palestinian leadership's capacity and willingness to confront terrorism.
.
On the Israeli side, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon so dominates politics that he may have the capacity to achieve a deal. But his willingness to make what he calls "painful concessions" is untested.
.
Sharon is seeking numerous changes in the proposed peace plan, known as the road map, which foresees recognition of Israel throughout the region and an independent state of Palestine in just three years. His advisers predict that Bush will not exert serious pressure on him to abide by its terms, including immediate action to remove settlement outposts.
.
One adviser to Sharon described the talk of an American push for the road map a "show" for the benefit of Great Britain, while another one said, "I don't think this is going to lead to a major confrontation - or any confrontation - with the United States."
.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Sharon's finance minister and an avowed opponent of a Palestinian state, said in an interview with an Israeli newspaper this week that Israel could overcome any American pressure.
.
"Pressure is expected, but we can and must resist it," Netanyahu told Yedioth Ahronoth. Most congressmen and senators have signed a letter to Bush objecting to any pressure being placed on Israel until the Palestinians do more to fight terrorism.
.
Sharon's views were shaped by decades of fighting for Israel's creation and then survival, and he is not inclined to gamble on matters of security, despite the defeat of Saddam Hussein.
.
Once, his advisers pointed to the proximity of Iraq's tanks to argue for Israel's need for "strategic depth" - the thickening of its borders achieved by West Bank settlements. Now, they argue that there is no telling whether Iraq may eventually revert to its old ways. Sharon envisions a Palestinian state far different than the one outlined in the road map or sought by Abbas, the advisers said. He believes a provisional state should endure for 10 or more years.
.
He is said to believe that only after years of peaceful coexistence will Israelis and Palestinians have the confidence in each other to come to enduring terms on precise borders. Sharon envisions a final Palestinian state holding less than half the territory of the West Bank, with no presence in Jerusalem, no military, and no control of its own airspace.
.
Referring to the peace plan's timetable, one adviser said, "A state by the end of 2005 - I don't think that's conceivable." The road map calls for a full-fledged Palestinian state by that date.
.
The Israeli government says it wants to see Abbas succeed. Israeli officials have gathered extreme statements made by Abbas over the years, but they have held such material in reserve while they judge his performance, a senior Israeli official said.
But analysts see prospect of setbacks as the only certainty
JERUSALEM Having removed a historic threat to Israel's existence, deployed a quarter of a million troops a few hundred miles from Jerusalem, and coaxed forth an emerging Palestinian leadership, George W. Bush appears in a strong position to pursue peace in the Middle East, perhaps the strongest of any American president since the Six-Day War of 1967.
.
European and Arab officials and analysts of many nationalities say he also has a powerful motive to try: progress in Middle East talks would ease a major source of Arab anti-Americanism at a time when the presence of American troops in Iraq is a sensitive issue.
.
Bush has suggested he sees a link between the search for a Middle peace and Iraq, saying in February, as he tried to build support for the Iraq war, that: "Success in Iraq could also begin a new stage for Middle Eastern peace, and set in motion progress towards a truly democratic Palestinian state."
.
In pursuit of a new peace plan, Colin Powell, the U.S. secretary of state, is expected to return here early next month for the first time in a year, since the administration abandoned an earlier drive for peace in the face of continuing violence.
.
Regardless of the details of that plan, it may compel the adversaries, who are exhausted by the violence here, to sit down and talk about peace with each other for the first time in more than two years.
.
But Israeli and Palestinian officials and analysts, as well as foreign diplomats involved in the peace process, say that Bush has yet to show much enthusiasm for the diplomatic and political struggle necessary to achieve an agreement.
.
It is a struggle in which the only certainty is the prospect of setbacks.
.
"We know from the experience of the past 30 years, going back to Nixon and Kissinger in late 1973, that in order to accomplish results in the Arab-Israeli peace process you need sustained involvement by the president himself or certainly by an empowered secretary of state or national security adviser," said Itamar Rabinovich, the president of Tel Aviv University and a former ambassador to the United States. "This is not the style of the Bush presidency."
.
Bush administration officials have repeatedly emphasized that while they will help, the Palestinians and Israelis must make peace themselves.
.
On Wednesday, Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian prime minister, Mahmoud Abbas, agreed on a compromise cabinet, taking a big step toward meeting Bush's condition for introducing the new peace plan.
.
But Thursday a suicide bomber connected to the Fatah movement led by Arafat and Abbas exploded outside an Israeli train station, killing himself and one other person.
.
The bombing once again fanned doubts about the Palestinian leadership's capacity and willingness to confront terrorism.
.
On the Israeli side, Prime Minister Ariel Sharon so dominates politics that he may have the capacity to achieve a deal. But his willingness to make what he calls "painful concessions" is untested.
.
Sharon is seeking numerous changes in the proposed peace plan, known as the road map, which foresees recognition of Israel throughout the region and an independent state of Palestine in just three years. His advisers predict that Bush will not exert serious pressure on him to abide by its terms, including immediate action to remove settlement outposts.
.
One adviser to Sharon described the talk of an American push for the road map a "show" for the benefit of Great Britain, while another one said, "I don't think this is going to lead to a major confrontation - or any confrontation - with the United States."
.
Benjamin Netanyahu, Sharon's finance minister and an avowed opponent of a Palestinian state, said in an interview with an Israeli newspaper this week that Israel could overcome any American pressure.
.
"Pressure is expected, but we can and must resist it," Netanyahu told Yedioth Ahronoth. Most congressmen and senators have signed a letter to Bush objecting to any pressure being placed on Israel until the Palestinians do more to fight terrorism.
.
Sharon's views were shaped by decades of fighting for Israel's creation and then survival, and he is not inclined to gamble on matters of security, despite the defeat of Saddam Hussein.
.
Once, his advisers pointed to the proximity of Iraq's tanks to argue for Israel's need for "strategic depth" - the thickening of its borders achieved by West Bank settlements. Now, they argue that there is no telling whether Iraq may eventually revert to its old ways. Sharon envisions a Palestinian state far different than the one outlined in the road map or sought by Abbas, the advisers said. He believes a provisional state should endure for 10 or more years.
.
He is said to believe that only after years of peaceful coexistence will Israelis and Palestinians have the confidence in each other to come to enduring terms on precise borders. Sharon envisions a final Palestinian state holding less than half the territory of the West Bank, with no presence in Jerusalem, no military, and no control of its own airspace.
.
Referring to the peace plan's timetable, one adviser said, "A state by the end of 2005 - I don't think that's conceivable." The road map calls for a full-fledged Palestinian state by that date.
.
The Israeli government says it wants to see Abbas succeed. Israeli officials have gathered extreme statements made by Abbas over the years, but they have held such material in reserve while they judge his performance, a senior Israeli official said.
But analysts see prospect of setbacks as the only certainty
JERUSALEM Having removed a historic threat to Israel's existence, deployed a quarter of a million troops a few hundred miles from Jerusalem, and coaxed forth an emerging Palestinian leadership, George W. Bush appears in a strong position to pursue peace in the Middle East, perhaps the strongest of any American president since the Six-Day War of 1967.
.
European and Arab officials and analysts of many nationalities say he also has a powerful motive to try: progress in Middle East talks would ease a major source of Arab anti-Americanism at a time when the presence of American troops in Iraq is a sensitive issue.
.
Bush has suggested he sees a link between the search for a Middle peace and Iraq, saying in February, as he tried to build support for the Iraq war, that: "Success in Iraq could also begin a new stage for Middle Eastern peace, and set in motion progress towards a truly democratic Palestinian state."
.
In pursuit of a new peace plan, Colin Powell, the U.S. secretary of state, is expected to return here early next month for the first time in a year, since the administration abandoned an earlier drive for peace in the face of continuing violence.
.
Regardless of the details of that plan, it may compel the adversaries, who are exhausted by the violence here, to sit down and talk about peace with each other for the first time in more than two years.
.
But Israeli and Palestinian officials and analysts, as well as foreign diplomats involved in the peace process, say that Bush has yet to show much enthusiasm for the diplomatic and political
SADDAM DEAD OR SERIOUSLY WOUNDED, BUSH INSISTS
Backs earlier CIA report that after the first missiles struck Mar 20, Saddam, pale and shaken, was seen on a stretcher
Backs earlier CIA report that after the first missiles struck Mar 20, Saddam, pale and shaken, was seen on a stretcher
BLUSTER BOMBING
Washington's battle to win public support in the Arab world has begun in earnest with the first broadcasts of what officials say will become a 24-hour satellite television network aimed at changing minds throughout the region by American-style morning chat-shows, sports, news and children's programmes.
Faced with allegations that the channel will be a propaganda arm of the US government the broadcasting magnate setting it up, Norman Pattiz, vowed that it would remain independent.
Iraq and the World, the prototype channel being beamed into the country from a US air force plane, began showing American evening news bulletins this week.
A full-service version should be broadcasting 24 hours a day to 22 countries in the Middle East by the end of the year, Mr Pattiz, chairman of Westwood One, said.
Faces familiar to US audiences, including Dan Rather of CBS and Tom Brokaw of ABC, are appearing with their words translated into Arabic.
The aim is "to counter the negative images being broadcast right now, the incitement to violence, the hate radio, the journalistic self-censorship", Mr Pattiz told the Guardian.
The broadcasts are on separate channels to those being used by the Pentagon and the state department, and are run by a the US Broadcasting Board of Governors, a body of citizens appointed by the president, of which Mr Pattiz is one.
"We don't do propaganda," he insisted.
"We'll do anything that any legitimate news organisation in the world might do," he said - including al-Jazeera.
The working title for the channel is the Middle Eastern Television Network, and while information programmes will occupy most of the schedule, softer formats will play a crucial role in the broader cultural campaign, Mr Pattiz said.
Jerry Springer can abandon any hope of a new market, though. "We won't have the same kind of inflammatory talk television you see on al-Jazeera," Mr Pattiz said.
"It likes to present itself as the CNN of the Middle East, but I think of them more as CNN meets Jerry Springer. Except people in the US find Jerry Springer amusing, and in the Middle East ... people can lose their lives over that kind of rhetoric."
Mr Pattiz's sureness of touch helped his company earn $551m last year supplying programmes to radio and TV stations.
But his confidence that the approach can be easily exported to the world of public diplomacy is far from shared, and is derided by some as naive or counter-productive.
"It's part of this enormous faith, this unquestioned faith, that when the people in the Middle East are introduced to American values and style, and look and feel, they will fall for it," said Michael Wolff, a media columnist for New York magazine. "And it's virtually unchallenged. It's almost missionary-like."
The network's planners were obsessed with al-Jazeera and the idea that it was indoctrinating a generation of viewers, said Samer Shehata, a professor of Arab studies at Georgetown University in Washington.
"Think about the assumptions involved in that - that the Arabs just sit in front of TV sets and al-Jazeera just pumps this information into them?"
The operation betrayed the widespread belief that "the primary problem to the hackneyed question, 'why do people hate us?' is that they don't understand us".
"A small amount of that is true, but the primary problem is policy... US policy towards Israel, towards Iraq, support for authoritarianism."
Washington's battle to win public support in the Arab world has begun in earnest with the first broadcasts of what officials say will become a 24-hour satellite television network aimed at changing minds throughout the region by American-style morning chat-shows, sports, news and children's programmes.
Faced with allegations that the channel will be a propaganda arm of the US government the broadcasting magnate setting it up, Norman Pattiz, vowed that it would remain independent.
Iraq and the World, the prototype channel being beamed into the country from a US air force plane, began showing American evening news bulletins this week.
A full-service version should be broadcasting 24 hours a day to 22 countries in the Middle East by the end of the year, Mr Pattiz, chairman of Westwood One, said.
Faces familiar to US audiences, including Dan Rather of CBS and Tom Brokaw of ABC, are appearing with their words translated into Arabic.
The aim is "to counter the negative images being broadcast right now, the incitement to violence, the hate radio, the journalistic self-censorship", Mr Pattiz told the Guardian.
The broadcasts are on separate channels to those being used by the Pentagon and the state department, and are run by a the US Broadcasting Board of Governors, a body of citizens appointed by the president, of which Mr Pattiz is one.
"We don't do propaganda," he insisted.
"We'll do anything that any legitimate news organisation in the world might do," he said - including al-Jazeera.
The working title for the channel is the Middle Eastern Television Network, and while information programmes will occupy most of the schedule, softer formats will play a crucial role in the broader cultural campaign, Mr Pattiz said.
Jerry Springer can abandon any hope of a new market, though. "We won't have the same kind of inflammatory talk television you see on al-Jazeera," Mr Pattiz said.
"It likes to present itself as the CNN of the Middle East, but I think of them more as CNN meets Jerry Springer. Except people in the US find Jerry Springer amusing, and in the Middle East ... people can lose their lives over that kind of rhetoric."
Mr Pattiz's sureness of touch helped his company earn $551m last year supplying programmes to radio and TV stations.
But his confidence that the approach can be easily exported to the world of public diplomacy is far from shared, and is derided by some as naive or counter-productive.
"It's part of this enormous faith, this unquestioned faith, that when the people in the Middle East are introduced to American values and style, and look and feel, they will fall for it," said Michael Wolff, a media columnist for New York magazine. "And it's virtually unchallenged. It's almost missionary-like."
The network's planners were obsessed with al-Jazeera and the idea that it was indoctrinating a generation of viewers, said Samer Shehata, a professor of Arab studies at Georgetown University in Washington.
"Think about the assumptions involved in that - that the Arabs just sit in front of TV sets and al-Jazeera just pumps this information into them?"
The operation betrayed the widespread belief that "the primary problem to the hackneyed question, 'why do people hate us?' is that they don't understand us".
"A small amount of that is true, but the primary problem is policy... US policy towards Israel, towards Iraq, support for authoritarianism."
