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Overtime
OVERTIME--November 2003 issue
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Dedicated to reflecting the collective wisdom of enlightened workers.
Linda Featheringill
4651 West 41st Street, Down
Cleveland, OH 44109
(216) 661-0794
lfeatheringill@hotmail.com
November 2003
Volume 4, Number 6...
Greetings!
My economic situation is looking better now. I have a temporary job [not the one mentioned last month] that might turn into something permanent. In the meantime, the pay is quite adequate for one person who lives a modest life, which is my situation. I want to thank all the readers who sent their sympathy for my plight and warm wishes for good luck in the future. And I want to wish good luck to all of you, too.
--Linda Featheringill
4 global futures
The National Intelligence Council (NIC) manages the intelligence community’s estimating process, incorporating the best available expertise inside and outside the government. It reports to the Director of the CIA. In September-October 1999, the NIC started work on Global Trends 2015, in cooperation the US Department of State and the CIA’s Global Futures Project, bringing together several dozen governmental and nongovernmental specialists in a wide range of fields.
The following predictions or possible scenarios are the result of that effort.
SCENARIO ONE: INCLUSIVE GLOBALIZATION.
A virtuous circle develops among technology, economic growth, demographic factors, and effective governance that enable a majority of the world’s people to benefit from globalization. Technological development and diffusion - in some cases triggered by severe environmental or health crises - are utilized to grapple effectively with some problems of the developing world.
Robust global economic growth - spurred by a strong policy consensus on economic liberalization - diffuses wealth widely and mitigates many demographic and resource problems. Governance is effective at both the national and international levels. In many countries, the state’s role shrinks, as its functions are privatized or performed by public-private partnerships, while global cooperation intensifies on many issues through a variety of international arrangements.
Conflict is minimal within and among states benefiting from globalization. A minority of the world’s people - in Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, Central and South Asia, and the Andean region - do not benefit from these positive changes, and internal conflicts persist in and around those countries left behind. [Note: That is a large minority! L.F.]
SCENARIO TWO: PERNICIOUS GLOBALIZATION.
Global elites thrive, but the majority of the world’s population fails to benefit from globalization. Population growth and resource scarcities place heavy burdens on many developing countries, and migration becomes a major source of interstate tension.
Technologies not only fail to address the problems of developing countries but also are exploited by negative and illicit networks and are even incorporated into destabilizing weapons. The global economy splits into three: growth continues in developed countries; many developing countries experience low or negative per capita growth, resulting in a growing gap with the developed world; and the illicit economy [black market] grows dramatically. Governance and political leadership are weak at both the national and international levels.
Internal conflicts increase, fueled by frustrated expectations, inequities, and heightened communal tensions: weapons of mass destruction proliferate and are used in at least one internal conflict.
SCENARIO THREE: REGIONAL COMPETITION.
Regional identities sharpen in Europe, Asia, and the Americas, driven by growing political resistance in Europe and East Asia to US global preponderance and US-driven globalization and each region’s increasing preoccupation with its own economic and political priorities.
There is an uneven diffusion of technology, reflecting different regional concepts of intellectual property and attitudes towards biotechnology. Regional economic integration in trade and finance increases, resulting in both fairly high levels of economic growth and rising regional competition. Both the state and institutions of regional governance thrive [increase?] in the major developed and emerging market countries, as governments recognize the need to resolve pressing regional problems and shift responsibilities from global to regional institutions. Given the preoccupation of the three major regions [Europe, Asia, and the Americas] with their own concerns, countries outside of these regions [Sub-Saharan Africa, the Middle East, and Central and South Asia] have few places to turn for resources or political support. Military conflict among and within the three major regions does not materialize, but internal conflicts increase in and around other countries left behind.
SCENARIO FOUR: POST-POLAR WORLD.
US domestic preoccupation increases as the US economy slows, then stagnates. Economic and political tensions with Europe grow, the US-European alliance deteriorates as the US withdraws its troops and Europe turns inward, relying on its own regional institutions. At the same time, national governance crises create instability in Latin America - particularly in Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, and Panama - forcing the US to concentrate on the region.
Indonesia also faces internal crisis and risks disintegration, prompting China to provide the bulk of an ad hoc peacekeeping force. Otherwise, Asia is generally prosperous and stable, permitting the US to focus elsewhere. Korea’s normalization and de facto unification proceed, China and Japan provide the bulk of external financial support for Korean unification, and the US begins withdrawing its troops from Korea and Japan. Over time, these geo-strategic shifts ignite longstanding national rivalries among the Asian powers, triggering increased military preparations and hitherto dormant or covert programs for developing weapons of mass destruction. Regional and global institutions prove irrelevant to the evolving conflict situation in Asia, as China issues an ultimatum to Japan to dismantle is nuclear program and Japan - invoking its bilateral treaty with the US - calls for US re-engagement in Asia under adverse circumstances at the brink of a major war.
Given the priorities of Asia, the Americas, and Europe, countries outside these regions are marginalized, with virtually no sources of political or financial support.
GENERALIZATIONS ACROSS THE SCENARIOS. The four scenarios can be grouped in two pairs: the first pair contrasting the "positive" and "negative" effects of globalization; and the second pair contrasting intensely competitive-regionalism, without actual conflict, to the possibility of descent into regional military conflict.
In all but the first scenario, globalization does not create widespread global cooperation. Rather, in the second scenario, globalization’s negative effects promote extensive dislocation and conflict, while in the third and fourth, they spur regionalism.
In all four scenarios, countries negatively affected by population growth, resource scarcities, and poor governance will fail to benefit from globalization. They will also be prone to internal conflicts and the risk of state collapse.
In all four scenarios, the effectiveness of national, regional, and international governance and at least moderate but steady economic growth are crucial.
In all four scenarios, US global influence wanes.
[The actual future may be even worse. As far as I can tell, the very real possibility of widespread ecological collapse and rapid decline in fresh water and farmland weren’t considered. L.F.]
[Source unknown.]
ECOLOGY
The only way we can preserve the earth is to grant every living entity what it needs to thrive and take from it only what it can afford to give.
A dry Rhine
Germany’s most famous river, the Rhine - which has inspired generations of romantic poets and writers - was last night [September 30] in danger of drying out and possibly disappearing after water levels sank to their lowest recorded levels. German officials yesterday warned that the river was 38 cm [15 inches] deep in some places. Unless it rained, it would soon be possible to wade across the river on foot, they added.
The problem of the disappearing Rhine was illustrated yesterday when a ship carrying 400 tonnes of diesel fuel ran aground on a sand bank near Bonn. River police in nearby Cologne blamed the accident on record low water levels. Nobody was injured, they added.
The accident was the second caused by a lack of water in the Rhine, Europe’s busiest waterway, in three days.
On Sunday a German pleasure boat that had been cruising past the Rhine’s famous castles and wine gardens ran aground. More than 40 people were hurt, three of them seriously, when their ship hit rocks south of the city of Koblenz. The boat crashed in front of the Lorelei cliff - one of the tour highlights, where a mythical nymph with golden hair is supposed to beguile sailors.
A diesel tanker and a barge also collided yesterday in thick fog, police said.
Experts have blamed the demise of the one-mighty Rhine not just on Europe’s scorching summer, but also on the fact that there has been virtually no rain since.
Along half of its 820-mile [1300+ km] length, the river is at its lowest since records began in 1880. The worst affected stretch is between Koblenz and Mainz, where the river is at the 38 cm [15 inch] level. This is at least 2 meters [6 ft 6 in] below normal.
"Yes, you could probably try to cross it in your wellies," Rudiger Beisar, of the Water and Ship Authority in Mainz, admitted last night. "But this isn’t something we can recommend, because of the strong and unpredictable current."
He added, "Lots of interesting things buried in the river have been surfacing."
Since the drought began earlier this summer, archaeologists have discovered an ancient ship in the Rhine, as well as numerous Roman artifacts. German police last week hauled the body of a man out of the river in Eich, still inside his car. He vanished three years ago.
With little rain expected in October and November, the river is unlikely to return to its usual levels until next spring, when the snow melts in the Alps.
[L. Harding, The Guardian (London), October 1, 2003. Contributed by P.E.N., Colchester, England, UK.]
THIS AND THAT
Response to "The US as Fourth Reich"
It is useless, as waste of time, to think that everything is awful because Twig (George W. Bush) is stupid. Like Bonzo (Ronald Reagan), he’s smart enough to let himself be used by those forces that made him president. In this society, how much smarter do you have to be?
The article by David Stratman in your last issue (The US as Fourth Reich) is right on: when the capitalist system is in trouble, nothing bucks it up like a good war.
World War II rescued the world from the doldrums of the Great Depression. The current plans for the War of All against All may achieve the same thing in the short run.
But only in the short run. The inescapable fact is that capitalism will come down because it is basically a mining system and the plan simply will not stand it. Half the world today is living in abominable conditions, close to starvation. What will happen when the US - having invested itself in total war and having lost half (or more) of its topsoil in the previous century - begins to starve? Can’t happen here?
But the real question is why are Twig and his cabal such psychopaths. The question has been asked over and over about Hitler, and it’s the wrong question. The real question is: WHY DO PEOPLE FALL FOR IT? And not just once, but over and over and OVER. It’s a tough question, but the most basic one.
Stratman’s article does not address another factor: there is considerable evidence that Twig et al. (including Tony Blair) are believers in The Rapture: that 30,000 or so people will be Saved, wafted to heaven in their nighties, while the rest of us sinners are Damned. [Presumably, they believe they will be among the Elect.] If these toadies of the ruling class were private persons, one could laugh or feel sorry for them. But they aren’t. And their capacity to do harm is truly frightening.
One of the prime gambits of the ruling class is to send up trial balloons and see how they fly. If there are enough loud screams, they pull back and bide their time. If nobody seems to notice, they continue with their plans. On October I, the day after Arnold Schwarzenegger was elected governor of California, I was saying to a friend, "Thank got he wasn’t born in this country, so he can’t run for president." That same afternoon, Orrin Hatch said he was going to introduce a constitutional amendment to remove the provision that the president and vice-president have to be native born.
It has already been proven that the Supreme Court can set aside the Constitution, as it did in 2000 by handing the election to Twig. Many may have grumbled - and are still grumbling - but where were the millions to hit the bricks, to remove their hands from the making of profit for the ruling class? Nowhere.
It’s hard not to be pessimistic. But go to Indymedia (for a start) and check out the various websites around the globe. You can quickly see that many, many, many people are on the move all over the world. It’s also a salutary reminder that the US, with all its wealth, bombs, ignorance, arrogance, and gullibility, is not the only place in the world.
The verdict on this epoch is not in yet.
[J. Forman, New Mexico, USA. She can be reached a jofo@laplaza.org]
More on the war between the sexes
Women who accuse their husbands of laziness for not doing housework are ignoring the simple truth that men’s brains do not notice dust it he same way, it has been claimed.
Michael Gurian, a social scientist and author, says the answer to many conflicts between couples lies in differences between the male and female brain. Scientists now have the technology to prove it.
Citing neurobiological research and anecdotes from his experience as a family therapist, he wants to promote a better understanding of men and reverse the "dangerous assumption" that they have become redundant.
Mr. Gurian, who is married with two daughters and has written a book called What Could He Be thinking? How a Man’s Mind Really Works, suggests that while culture plays a part in behaviour, biology matters more than is realized. He says the male brain secretes less of the primary bonding chemical oxytocin and less of the calming chemical serotonin.
A man’s brain takes in less sensory detail than a woman’s. The man does not see or even feel the dust and household mess in the same way. The male brain also attaches less personal identity to the inside of a home and more to the workplace or the garden, which is why men do not get worked up about housework.
Mr. Gurian says his book is aimed mainly at women.
[The Telegraph Group (London), October 2003.]
Sports salaries
By Jim Sullivan
[A "couch potato" is a non-athletic person who sits a lot.]
I’m really glad to see all the recent salary increases for professional athletes, e.g., the elevated wages for baseball players to the 25-million-dollars-per-year range. I think it’s high time these woefully underpaid sports people get what’s coming to them.
Many average Americans, who are not all that interested in athletics, grouse that jocks don’t deserve what they’re being paid. Further, the pubic says that sport salaries are way out of line. Hah! What do these couch potatoes know about it anyway?
Don’t they realize, for example, that these sports guys have only a limited number of years to play their game before they are injured or over the hill? I mean, the average American has a working lifetime of 35 to 45 years in which to make his or her living. And during that time, a worker can earn in the neighborhood of $900,000. Of course, if he or she is on minimum wage, that person will earn slightly less - $500,000 less, to be exact - over the working years.
But pro jocks have only 5 or 10 years in which to make their living. And if, for instance, a baseball player who earns 25 million a year gets injured after, let’s say, just 3 seasons of play, he could be forced into early retirement. That poor guy would then have earned only 75 million dollars. But average Americans seldom take such dire possibilities into consideration.
And these same narrow-minded people don’t recall that when the athlete was growing up, he had to devote several afternoons a week to his favorite pastime - sports. Also, in his elementary, high school, and college days, he had to make big sacrifices. He had to give up academic classroom time and study so he could play, play, play. Oh, how tedious it must have been! But only in that manner can jocks ever have a chance to enter the pro ranks ad make their paltry millions.
Still, the nerds out there say it’s too much money. Well the public doesn’t know the half of it.
The full story is that all those large salaries for the professional athletes come legitimately from the robust economic swelling or upward bubble that is caused when the average American risks bankruptcy by overextending his credit to purchase an overpriced, TV-advertised product. And that’s all there is to it.
After all, everyone knows that paying pro athletes decent salaries is really no skin off anybody’s nose. Team owners can well afford to pay that kind of money. They have tons of it from selling TV viewing rights to their games.
And who isn’t aware that the money comes from wealthy TV networks? They’re awash in cash from their sales of airtime to advertisers. And all those businesses, known as sponsors, who buy TV airtime certainly have the financial resources for it, too.
So, you shouldn’t be sitting there thinking, "Gee, a new car cost only $10,000 just 10 years ago, before ball players made a million a year. And now that same new car costs over $20,000 and players are making 25 million plus per year, too." It isn’t fair for you to automatically blame pro athletes for making new cars cost more. After all, it’s not the jocks’ fault that the average American can no longer afford to buy a new vehicle, new house, or new anything else.
Pro athletes are just doing their level best to earn the honest wages that they are able to eke out with their God-given talents. In other words, these above-average Americans, or modern-day "chosen people," are just getting their just desserts, finally.
It doesn’t really matter that some members of the public think there’s a correlation between what pro athletes earn and the fact that the average American parent can no longer afford to take his or her family to a sporting event, like a baseball game, or for that matter, to have a family at all.
Who every said life was fair? Even in sports, things aren’t equal. There are many guys on the playing fields that don’t earn a nickel over 5 million a year. And though it’s hard to understand why they continue playing, some pros make less than a million dollars a year - like maybe only $300,000 per season. Those poor guys aren’t getting a fair shake, either, but they’re not complaining.
Members of the public must realize that pro athletes have devoted part of every year of their entire lives to this game. And I ask you, Mr. & Mrs. Average American, what have you ever devoted your life to but trying to merely survive?
I rest my case.
Touch-Screen Voting Machines
The US is turning away from paper ballots and to automated, touch-screen voting machines. These machines are computers, similar to the bank ATM machines that we get money from.
The problem is that, as computers, they can be programmed to do anything the programmer wants. That being the case, there is a great possibility that they might be rigged to deliver a final vote count that doesn’t accurately reflect the actual votes cast.
For instance, pretend that you and I were running for some office. If I arranged for these machines to record half of your votes in my column, then I would probably win the election.
It doesn’t have to be that obvious. I could arrange for every fifth vote to be added to my total, regardless of the choice the voter made. In a tight race, that might give me enough of an edge to win.
And, since there is not a paper trail, a recount is not likely to happen.
Even more frightening is that fact that in some elections where these machines have been used, there are some indications that some funny stuff was going on.
There are several people who are actively opposing the use of these machines in public elections. Bill McGrath is one of these folks. Bill has produced a videotape and literature on the topic. He also can refer you to several organizations that are fighting the use of these machines.
Bill can be reached at: mcgrath@rconnect.com
[L.F.]
The dumbing down of America
[The phrase "dumbing down" may be a US idiom. It means to become progressively simpler and more ignorant or to make something so simple that ignorant people can understand it.]
Morris Berman is the academic equivalent of filmmaker Michael Moore, as he takes aim at the Bush administration and portrays Americans as stupid. "Illiteracy and ignorance is a common observation here," he said from his home in Washington DC.
As evidence, he talked about a visit he made the other day to the dentist. "There were TVs everywhere," he said. "I asked why the dentist told me that people don’t read very much now. The US is basically dumb."
In the 1990s, it was everyday observations like that that "inspired" cultural historian and social critic Berman to write his controversial 2000 book, The Twilight of American Culture.
"I noticed that labels on ordinary foods in the supermarket were misspelled," he said. "It hadn’t been like that in the 80s. The C was missing before the T in the street sign for Connecticut Avenue."
Making the comparison between the fall of the Roman Empire and present-day US, he concluded that America was going the same way. As he writes in his book: "It doesn’t take an Emerson or an Einstein to recognize that the system has lost its moorings and like ancient Rome, is drifting into an increasingly dysfunctional situation."
And Berman, who gives four lectures next month in Perth, says there’s not much anyone can do. "It’s just a question of whether we want to collapse in smoke and ashes or do it less dramatically," he said.
He identifies four tell-tale markers of doom: accelerating social and economic inequality; the crisis in social security and health entitlements; rapidly falling levels of literacy and intellectual awareness; and spiritual death.
Before September 11, Americans didn’t want to hear this gloomy message, according to Berman. He says that now other commentators have picked up the book’s theme but the US is destroying itself at an even faster rate.
"In response to external attack, Rome did all the wrong things," Berman said. "It got into imperial overstretch and depleted the domestic coffers."
He said that Bush and the neo-conservatives have played into Osama bin Laden’s hands. "Their policy is getting us into imperial over-stretch, with wars we can’t possibly win in Iraq and Afghanistan, where the Taliban is making a dramatic comeback."
[The West Australian, September 27, 2003. Contributed by Gogglesworth, Australia.]
Weather
In California, USA, the worst wildfires in that state’s history killed at least 20 people and destroyed thousands of homes from the Mexican border to the rough terrain north of Los Angeles. The early estimate of damage caused by the unprecedented firestorms was placed at $2 billion. More than 100,000 people fled their homes as the walls of fire advanced but no accurate figures were available due to the rapid and erratic expansion of the fires. Some of the blazes were believed to have been intentionally set and were made more destructive by drought and insect damage in the region’s forests.
Several wildfires also destroyed homes on Mexico’s neighboring Baja California peninsula.
In Australia, severe spring storms lashed the eastern part, unleashing damaging hailstones around Sydney and producing a whirlwind that lifted a Queensland house, with its family still inside, then dropped it several years away. Sydney residents raced to throw blankets over their cars in scenes reminiscent of the hailstorm that hit the city in 1999, causing an estimated $1 billion in damage. High winds in the wake of the severe thunderstorms carried dust from the Outback to the East Coast, where it grounded planes, knocked down power lines and fanned bush fires in southern Queensland.
[S. Newman, Earthweek: A Diary of the Planet, November 1, 2003.]
US Casualties in Iraq
The true scale of American casualties in Iraq is revealed by new figures obtained by The Observer (London). These numbers show that more than 6,000 US servicemen have been evacuated for medical reasons since the beginning of the war, including more than 1,500 soldiers who have been wounded, many seriously. These figures will shock many in the US, who believe that casualties in the war in Iraq have been relatively light.
The new figures reveal that 1,178 American soldiers have been wounded in combat operations since the war began on March 20.
The wounded return to the US with little publicity. Giant C-17 transport jets on medical evacuation missions lad at Andrews Air Force Base (near Washington, DC) every night.
Battlefield casualties are first treated at Army field hospitals in Iraq and then sent to Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany, where they are stabilized. Andrews is the first stop back in the US.
As the planes taxi to a halt, gangplanks are lowered and the wounded are carried or walk out. A fleet of ambulances and buses meet the C-17s most nights to take off the most seriously wounded. Those requiring urgent operations and amputations are ferried to the country’s two best military hospitals - the Walter Reed Army Medical Center near Washington and the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland (close to Andrews).
The hospitals are busy. Sometimes, all 40 of Walter Reed’s intensive care beds are full.
Those who are not so badly wounded stay overnight at the air base, where an indoor tennis club and a community center have been turned into a medical staging facility.
Dealing with the aftermath of amputations and blast injuries is common. Mines, homemade bombs and rocket-propelled grenades are the weapons of choice of the Iraqi Resistance. They cause the sort of wounds that will cost a soldier a limb.
Many of the wounded soldiers arrive with little but the ragged uniforms on their backs. A local volunteer group has set up on the base to provide them with fresh clothes, food packages and toiletries.
[From an article by J. Burke and P. Harris for The Observer (London), September 14, 2003. Contributed by P.E.N., Colchester, England, UK.]
COMMENT: It is obvious that the US government is sneaking the wounded back into the country, flying them in under cover of night. It is also obvious that information about the wounded has been kept from us. Apparently, the administration doesn’t want the people in this country to know the full cost of military operations in Iraq.
You will note how this information got to me. A reader in England clipped it from a British newspaper and mailed it to me. I’m grateful for that. But I’m angry at the US press. Why didn’t the New York Times run this story? Why didn’t my local newspaper? Or television news program? Or any of the internet news services?
-- L.F.
Torture
I do watch a few TV shows. I enjoy the mysteries and the Crime Scene Investigation (CSI) programs. The CSI productions are also mysteries, but they rely on forensic clues taken from the bodies of victims and physical evidence left at the scene of the crime. One of these shows is called CSI Miami.
An interesting item came to light during a September episode of CSI Miami. It seems that the US flatly denies torturing the "enemy combatants" they have in custody. We do, however, ship prisoners to other countries that have no qualms about applying torture. And of course we receive any information extracted from these prisoners.
Whether this information is accurate depends on the definition of torture. Prisoners in Afghanistan (in US custody) are beaten, deprived of sleep, and forced to lie naked on sheets of ice. We don’t know what is happening in Guantanamo because that whole process is cut off from the public. It is plain that the administration doesn’t want us to know what is happening there.
It is true, though, that the US sends some of its prisoners to other countries - including Jordan, Morocco, Egypt, and Saudi Arabia. In these countries, beating, drowning, electrical shock to the genitals, and electric shock "treatments" are commonplace. While US agents may not be actually applying these torture techniques, it is reported that they are routinely present, participating in the questioning.
Bad karma all around.
[L.F., Ohio, USA.]
An interesting idea:
A company in West Australia is compressing old tires and empty (hopefully clean) chemical drums into bales. It takes about 140 tires to make a block that measures 1.6 cubic meters [about 2 cubic yards]. When the blocks are covered with concrete, they can be used for building and can have a number of different finishes applied.
A tire-block house was built in Chittering, West Australia in September. Reportedly, a 3-bedroom, 2-bath house can be built for about $10,000. In the US, such a house built from wood would cost at least $75,000. The company stated that insulation and soundproofing qualities of these blocks are "exceptional."
10 ways to "sex up" a dossier
[Dr. David Kelly, a weapons inspector for the UK, got into trouble with the government because he allegedly told a reporter that information on weapons in Iraq had been "sexed up" to make a better case for war. After public hearings, with attacks on his personal integrity, Dr. Kelly committed suicide.]
Whitehall documents released to the inquiry reveal a string of changes in the dossier between an early draft on September 2 and its final publication on September 24 last year. A close analysis shows that these were far from simply presentational changes, as Downing Street claims. They were clearly inserted to make the case for the need for urgent action against Iraq, and then to justify war. On September 2, Iraq was a cause for concern but not for a military invasion. By September 24, the threat was painted in stark terms, that Britain and the west were in danger of being attacked.
1. Change the title. Until September 19, the drafts were titled "Iraq’s Programmed for WMD[weapons of mass destruction]." The published dossier was called "Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction." The change is significant. "Programme" suggests Saddam Hussein was trying to develop such weapons. The title on the published dossier suggests he already had them.
2. Harden the prime minister’s foreword. The strongest language on the contentious "45-minute" claim that Iraq could deploy its weapons of mass destruction was used by Tony Blair in the foreword. He said Saddam’s military planning allowed for some of his WMD "to be ready within 45 minutes of an order to use them."
3. Change "could be" in the foreword to "are deployable." In the executive summary, the 45-minute claim was presented in early drafts as Iraq "could deploy" or "could be ready." In the published version, this was hardened to "are deployable."
4. Edit out references that reduce the Iraqi threat. The initial draft of the prime minister’s foreword reads: "The case I make is not that Saddam could launch a nuclear attack on London or another part of the UK (he could not). The case I make is that the UN resolutions demanding he stop his WMD programme are being flouted." In the final document, the reference to the impossibility of an attack on London is dropped.
5. Insert a phrase to make the dossier "stronger." Mr. Campbell suggested to Mr. Scarlett: "It would be stronger if we said that despite sanctions and the policy of containment, he [Saddam] has made real progress." Mr. Scarlett agreed and a "sentence was added to the text. The final dossier reads that intelligence "confirms that despite sanctions and the policy of containment, Saddam has continued to make progress with his illicit weapons programmes."
6. Change "could" in the text to "capable of." On September 17, Mr. Campbell proposed a change to the section on chemical weapons. The draft of the previous day reads: "Other dual-use facilities, which could be used to support the process of chemical agents and precursors, have been built and re-equipped." Campbell suggested that "could" was weak and that "capable of being used" was better. This is what went into the final text.
7. Harden the nuclear threat. The September 5 draft said that so long as sanctions continued to hinder imports, Iraq would find it difficult to produce a nuclear weapon. It added: "After the lifting of sanctions, we assess that Iraq would need at least five years to produce a weapon. Progress would be much quicker if Iraq were able to buy fissile material." The final document said: "Iraq could produce a nuclear weapon in between one and two years."
8. Fail to correct media misrepresentation of the 45-minute claim. The dossier implied that the reference to Iraqi forces being able to deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes of an order referred to long-range missiles. Yet Mr. Scarlett told the Hutton inquiry that the weapons were in fact battlefield ones, capable of only short range. The impression given by the dossier, widely reported in the press, was never corrected.
9. Intensify the threat to British forces by adding a reference to Cyprus. Early drafts do not mention that Iraq’s missiles were capable of hitting Cyprus. The final text reads that the missiles "could be used with conventional, chemical or biological warheads and, with a range of up to 650 km [400 miles] are capable of reaching a number of countries in the region, including Cyprus, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran and Israel."
10. Remove phrases that imply Saddam’s intent was defensive rather than offensive. A key change in the dossier was made at the last minute. Jonathan Powell, the prime minister’s Chief of Staff, told Mr. Scareltt and Mr. Campbell on September 19: "I think the statement that ‘Saddam is prepared to use chemical biological weapons if he believes his regime is under threat’ is a bit of a problem." References suggesting that Saddam would only use WMD if attacked were removed.
[E. MacAskill and R. Norton-Taylor, The Guardian, September 27, 2003. Contributed by P.E.N., Colchester, England, UK.]
Next month: We’d love to know what you think. These are our usual classifications:
-- Open - questions, comments, tirades, etc.
-- RSVP. React to previous statements.
-- The ecology.
-- Clippings from newspapers, etc.
On the Web:
Overtime is included in the website of Socialism for a Real Labor Union at:
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[Socialism Marx DeLeon for a real union]
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Finances at the end of October 2003:
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Contributions: Anon. [Clay Harvey] 5.00, B. McGrath 20.00, W. Frinsko 10.00, RUSS 50.00, I.H. Stephenson, 10.00
And, to Everyone, thank you, thank you, thank you. Linda Featheringill.