The central focus of Iraq News is the tension between the considerable, proscribed WMD capabilities that Iraq is holding on to and its increasing stridency that it has complied with UNSCR 687 and it is time to lift sanctions. If you wish to receive Iraq News by email, a service which includes full-text of news reports not archived here, send your request to Laurie Mylroie .
I. HA'ARETZ, IRAQ NOW HAS THREE VIRTUALLY COMPLETE NUCLEAR BOMBS, SEPT 9
II. HA'ARETZ, IRAQI DISSIDENTS VISIT ISRAEL; FURIOUS WITH US, SEPT 6
III. SUNDAY HERALD SUN, CIA IGNORES SADDAM BOMBINGS ROLE, SEPT 6
This is the 35th day without weapons inspections in Iraq.
The highly-regarded Israeli journalistic team, Ehud Ya'ari and Ze'ev
Schiff, have aggressively taken up the issue of the threat posed by
Iraq's unconventional capabilities, as revealed last week by Scott
Ritter. Last night Israeli TV ran an extensive story, top of the news,
on Ritter's information, as did Schiff in a top of the front page
article in today's Ha'aretz.
Two Iraqi opposition figures attended the AEI's recent New Atlantic
Initiative conference, in Israel and Jordan. Ha'aretz, Sept 6, reported
their criticism of US Iraq policy—driven by the White House and aimed at
avoiding confrontation with Saddam, whether in regard to the Iraqi
opposition or UNSCOM. They described how Saddam could be overthrown
—through the creation of a no-drive zone in Southern Iraq and the
provision of other support for an insurgency against Saddam.
Also, as Ha'aretz explained, "Israeli officials are careful not to
create the impression of independent policy on Iraq. 'When it comes to
anything to do with policy on Iraq, we act only after full consultation
with the United States,' an official in the Prime Minister's office
said." And that is part of the problem, because the US has a
hear-no-evil, see-no-evil, do-nothing policy on Iraq. Notably, that was
not the posture of the Shamir Government and probably would not have
been the policy of the Rabin Government, if Rabin had lived long enough
after the defection of Hussein Kamil to recognize that Saddam retained a
large and dangerous unconventional capability, including near-nuclear,
that he was not turning over to UNSCOM.
Finally, in Amman, the Iraqi dissidents told Jay Bushinsky, of the
Australian Sunday Herald Sun, that they believed that Iraq was behind
the Kenya/Tanzania bombings. As they explained, the bombings came the
day after Baghdad severed cooperation with UNSCOM inspectors. They also
explained how the UNSC had, at one point, carelessly authorized weekly
Sudanese flights to Iraq to airlift fresh meat into the country and
which the Iraqis used to send out equipment for making proscribed
weapons. The INC told the US about it and urged the US to require the
planes "to land in Amman, Cairo or Bahrain to undergo inspection, but
our plea went unheeded." They also explained that Osama Bin Laden has
been working with the Iraqis since the early 1990s. "He was in frequent
contact with the boss of one of our sources who was based in Sudan. The
Iraqi intelligence station in Khartoum is the biggest in the world."