Posted on Sun, Jun. 08, 2003 TIMOTHY L. O'BRIEN New York Times

Attention, shoppers: Iraqi oil is for sale.

On Thursday, exactly two weeks after the U.N. Security Council lifted 13 years of economic sanctions against Iraq and gave the United States a firm grip on one of the world's most bounteous oil spigots, Baghdad put 10 million barrels of crude up for bid.

Although Baghdad is still mired in crime and no weapons of mass destruction have surfaced in Iraq, Washington is helping market Iraqi oil with all due haste. A former Shell Oil executive heads a panel supervising Iraq's oil fields and crude will now be sold directly to refiners, thus eliminating a middleman role once dominated by Russian oil traders. French refiners also once enjoyed a healthy foothold in Iraq before their government wound up on the wrong side of the U.N. war debate, giving a leg up to enthusiastic U.S. and British refiners, which couldn't deal directly with Iraq during the sanctions era.

Call it a coup de petrole.

And since Iraq has the world's second-largest pool of known oil reserves, the Bush administration's handling of the money that flows from those fields is certain to ripple far beyond Iraq's borders -- particularly because some two-thirds of Iraq's estimated oil bounty remains untapped.

Although Iraq's oil industry is being overhauled in a way that creates welcome opportunities for Fortune 500 oil giants, U.S. authorities promise that oil riches will be spent on Iraqi reconstruction and humanitarian aid. Even so, Iraqis and others Middle Eastern countries remain wary about possible U.S. shenanigans with Iraqi oil and are watching sales to see whether the United States waged a war of liberation or a war of occupation.

"People in the region and beyond have a great suspicion of U.S. intentions; and with the U.S. and the U.K. in control of the second-biggest pot of oil in the Gulf region those suspicions will be reinforced," said Judith Kipper, co-director of the Middle East Studies Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. "I think they're unfounded suspicions because the U.S. won't play games with Iraqi oil."

"But since the U.S. and Britain have been busy trying to get U.N. sanctions against Iraq lifted, and haven't been perceived as being as busy restoring public services in Iraq, the perception that this is about oil is reinforced," Kipper added. "And in the Middle East, perception is everything."

Iraq's oil numbers are humbling. The country has 112.5 billion barrels of known reserves, second to Saudi Arabia's 262 billion. The United States, Mexico, and Canada combined have only 64 billion barrels, and that supply is aging. Venezuela (78 billion barrels), Africa in its entirety (77 billion barrels), Russia (65 billion barrels, including the Caspian), and the Asia-Pacific region (44 billion barrels) are comparative half-pints.

Other Middle Eastern oil titans like Iran, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates have oil reserves in the 90-billion- to 98-billion-barrel range. But those fields pump at a much fuller tilt than Iraq's outmoded, jury-rigged operations.

Once Iraqi oil pumps are back to speed, and the country's untapped fields are probed, it could become an even greater force within OPEC and the world oil markets. As Vice President Dick Cheney observed in warning of Saddam Hussein's oil aspirations, whoever sits atop the Middle Eastern oil market has a "stranglehold" on the global economy.

Oil analysts say it will be at least five years before Iraq's oil output ramps up fully; it will cost at least $5 billion, they say, to rehabilitate its oil fields.

<a href=www.sunspot.net>SunSpot.net Originally published Jun 8, 2003 Michael Olesker

AT THE end of another miserable rainy day, at the end of a half-century's work in cancer and psychiatry, there stood a beaming Dr. Nathan Schnaper last week, with his familiar red bow tie that could be seen halfway across downtown, in the midst of his very own legend.

He stood there at the University of Maryland Medical Center with his colleagues and his family all cheering him, and Schnaper tried to wave them off and tell them they were making too much of him. But they weren't. They named a new internship program in his honor, for students interested in medical research. And they said they were naming a new healing garden for him. And then a few folks stood up to try to put words around their emotions.

But how do you sum up so much time, and so much care, in a couple of minutes? This is a man, now halfway through his 80s, who "officially" retired seven years ago but still sees patients several times a week at the hospital's Greenebaum Cancer Center - as a volunteer.

"The most wonderful man in the world," said Sue Singer, whose late husband, Richard, was a cancer patient of Schnaper's. "Can you imagine? He sees these patients but doesn't charge them. And patients who are too weak to come in, he visits them at home. Who does such things today?"

"An incredibly caring person with great insight, who has seen so many families through the worst catastrophes," said Dr. Morton I. Rapoport, who will be retiring in September as the University of Maryland Medical System's chief executive officer. "Most of us have enemies. I don't know anybody that doesn't like Nate."

"He's been a mentor to practically everybody in this room, whether it's oncology or psychiatry - probably notary public, too," added Dick Adams, chairman of the hospital's cancer center.

"A great teacher," said Dr. Skip Connor. Schnaper is professor emeritus of psychiatry at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "He taught me as a resident," Connor said. "What made him great was his frankness, and his ability to speak in clear English, and his insistence on telling the truth, even when it was painful."

In the history of the hospital's Shock Trauma Center, most of the credit generally goes to the legendary Dr. R Adams Cowley. But last week, everyone talked about Schnaper's unsung medical and fund-raising efforts behind the scenes. Or they talked about his sensitivity and his insights with patients.

"Cancer is a difficult disease," said Dr. Stephen Schimpff, executive vice president of the hospital. "Nobody wants to have it, and nobody knows how to cope with it. Nate would come with us on rounds. That way, he knew every patient, and they knew him. He could see who needed extra help. And he'd go back one on one, and it wasn't like, 'Oh, they've sent the shrink' in the patient's mind. He was just this familiar face from the group that made the rounds. Families adored him.

"But there was something else," Schimpff said. "When a patient dies, some of us dies with them. Sometimes, we need help, too. He understood that. We had what we called Saturday morning doughnut rounds. Doctors, nurses, pharmacists, we'd all sit down, and he'd talk to us about our issues."

"A wonderful, wonderful man," added attorney Ron Shapiro, who has helped raise more than $250,000 for the new Schnaper internship program.

As is his style, Schnaper listened to last week's remarks, and smiled graciously. He's been honored before. He's a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association. Several years back, the Mildred Mindell Cancer Foundation named him Humanitarian of the Year. Sheppard and Enoch Pratt Hospital honored him for contributions. So did the mayor of Caracas, Venezuela, for contributions to that city's psychiatric community.

In a few weeks, Schnaper's autobiography will appear in local bookstores. It is called I Pay You to Listen, Not Talk. It sounds like the self-effacing comic summation of a career, a patient reminding a doctor: Don't forget why we're here.

Last week, when everyone else had finished praising Schnaper, he smiled gently and said: "I'm so fortunate. I've now heard my obituary. To be alive and hear your own eulogies ... "

His words were drowned out by laughter. He told everybody they were giving him too much credit. Then he talked about things that he thinks are important: young people with curiosity, a faculty and a professional staff that cares about its profession, and the tender care of people in trouble.

At the end of a miserable rainy day, at the end of a half-century of hard work, the fundamental things apply.

<a href=www.sunspot.net>SunSpot.net By Jason Hagen Special To The Sun Originally published June 8, 2003

While Americans are pre-occupied with the Middle East, the U.S. government is furtively stoking a war in South America that has seethed for decades.

Since the advent of "Plan Colombia" in 1999, Colombia has been the third-largest recipient of U.S. military aid, following Israel and Egypt. That aid was originally intended to put a dent in the drug trade that bankrolls many violent groups in Colombia, including the leftist Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and National Liberation Army (ELN) guerrillas, and the right-wing paramilitaries calling themselves the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), who are allied with elements of the Colombian armed forces.

Washington regards all three groups, which count some 35,000 members, as terrorist organizations that threaten Colombian democracy, Andean security, and the prospects for free trade in the Americas.

Since the beginning of "Plan Colombia" the United States has spent more than $2.5 billion on its military and political campaign there and is expected to spend almost $700 million in the coming year.

But since last year, U.S. military assistance has expanded beyond fighting drugs to include defending the Caño Limón-Coveñas oil pipeline used by Los Angeles-based Occidental Petroleum. U.S. Special Forces are currently training Colombian soldiers in counter-insurgency tactics in order to protect the pipeline from guerrilla bombings.

By attempting to protect an oil pipeline and other sites of strategic infrastructure, the United States risks being dragged into a conflict that is more complex and deep-rooted than most policy-makers in the United States and even Colombia fully realize. What started as an open-ended but drug-centered Plan Colombia under President Bill Clinton has been transformed by the Bush administration into an ever-more-sprawling mission that lacks clearly defined goals, a definition of success, or an exit strategy. The choices made now regarding escalating assistance will limit the options available to policy-makers in both countries in the future.

Oil, like cocaine and heroin, provides revenues that enhance the armed actors' ability to participate in the war; the war in turn, provides them with opportunities for profit that they could not have under peaceful conditions. Guerrillas frequently extort money from oil companies in the eastern plains, while in the Middle Magdalena region, paramilitaries steal gasoline and sell it on the black market. For years, the Colombian armed forces have dedicated much of their limited resources to guarding pipelines and oil installations at the expense of establishing territorial control and protecting citizens from attacks by illegal armed groups.

Arauca province, nestled next to Venezuela in northeastern Colombia, is the center of Occidental's installations and increasingly the focus of U.S. and Colombian military operations. Intended to be a security priority and a showcase for how pacification can work under the new hard-nosed government of President Álvaro Uribe, the results in Arauca have been disturbing. The province has become a magnet for an explosive mix of characters, all jockeying to control the area's considerable material resources. The murder rate there is soaring, with about 160 killings per 100,000 people this year, twice the rate of the late 1990s. In the United States, the average is less than six per 100,000.

There are other telling examples of what U.S. engagement may look like in the future. In December 1998, a Colombian air force helicopter crew dropped a cluster bomb that killed 17 civilians (including six children) and seriously wounded 25 others (including fifteen children) in the town of Santo Domingo, approximately 30 miles south of Occidental's Caño Limón field installations. The bombing occurred with the participation of AirScan, a Florida-based aerial surveillance contractor that had recently worked for Occidental. Three U.S. citizens who worked for AirScan have been linked to the incident, one of them a then-active-duty member of the U.S. Coast Guard. No charges have been filed against them.

Although the AirScan pilots were employees of a foreign-based private-security company originally hired by a foreign oil company, they frequently provided assistance to the Colombian armed forces: in this case, for a counter-guerrilla operation that led to the death of innocent civilians. Because of their nebulous military status, the conduct of these and other contractors is unclear and their accountability to the U.S. public, and even the Colombian government, is limited.

This is particularly troubling when events go awry. At least 11 U.S. contractors have died in Colombia during the past five years (five already this year), and three others are being held captive by the FARC. Precious little information about them, and their activities, however, has been made public.

The Santo Domingo episode is symptomatic of a larger danger of U.S. policy in Colombia, because private military enterprises are a booming business, hired by the Pentagon to serve in Colombia and other global hotspots. Last year, three private companies had contracts with the State Department, and seventeen had contracts with the Department of Defense in Colombia. Colombia's most important newsweekly, Semana, has called these private contractors "a gang of lawless and godless Rambos." Despite these concerns, Undersecretary for Political Affairs Marc Grossman has said, "Contractors will continue to be a very important part of our effort [in Colombia]. That is how the modern world works."

The State and Defense departments increasingly argue that their goal is to provide security for all Colombians, and that protecting the Caño Limón pipeline is part of an integrated package that includes aerial fumigation of coca and poppy, as well as counter insurgency assistance in order to bring about a safe and stable Colombia. Despite congressional requests for more transparency, it is unclear how much money will be spent or how many years the mission will take.

Such a loosely defined mission, however, is exactly what some Colombian government officials prefer, in the hopes that the United States will solve Colombia's historic social and political problems with heavy doses of military aid and eventually, tens of thousands of U.S. soldiers.

Instead of wasting years dabbling in an intractable, decades-old conflict, at the cost of thousands of lives and billions of dollars, the United States should put its diplomatic weight behind a peace process in Colombia. And it should stop supporting a notoriously abusive military so that it can protect the resources of U.S. companies.

Jason Hagen is a Colombia specialist at the Washington Office on Latin America, a nonprofit research and advocacy organization.

<a href=www.jihadunspun.com>JIHAD UNSPUN Jun 08, 2003

The US conquest and occupation of Iraq has given the Americans control of one of the world’s major oil producers, one that many believe has untapped reserves that could rival Saudi Arabia’s and Russia’s. US control could also weaken the grip of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) on world markets and, in particular, Saudi Arabia, the cartel’s dominant member.

So as the Americans help restore Iraq’s oil industry, badly run down by two wars and 13 years of United Nations sanctions, the key question is whether the country will remain in OPEC now that it has resumed oil exports, albeit at a modest level, after the UN Security Council unshackled it from sanctions imposed in 1990.

The Americans have long sought to weaken OPEC, which has been feeling growing pressure from non-cartel producers, particularly Russia, which is vying with Saudi Arabia for dominance of the world oil market. It has also been grappling with what many of its members see as an alarming excess in global oil supplies. This struggle for influence over the oil market should also be seen as part of a wider battle for political leadership in the Gulf. Former Iraqi Oil Minister Fadhil Chalabi, a cousin of Ahmed Chalabi, the Pentagon-backed leader of the main exile group, the Iraqi National Congress (INC), believes his country could double its proven reserves of 113 billion barrels through widespread exploration and become a “super-giant producer” like Saudi Arabia, putting 10 million barrels on the market every day. That is clearly a scenario in which Iraq is outside OPEC.

Iraq has a geographic advantage that cuts the cost of reaching Western markets ú pipelines that link it to Turkey’s Mediterranean coast. (There are other pipelines to the Red Sea, which the Saudis helped build during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war, but Riyadh is unlikely to allow Baghdad to use them if it breaks with OPEC.) With that kind of output, with low production costs attracting consumer states away from higher-cost regions like the North Sea, an Iraqi oil industry managed by US-based companies would have the capacity “to bring OPEC to its knees,” according to Chalabi.

There are divisions within OPEC itself, particularly over the cartel’s quota system, designed to keep prices at or above $25 a barrel. Algeria, Nigeria and some of the other members are demanding larger shares of OPEC’s production total, which would have to be at Saudi Arabia’s expense. Iraq’s de facto oil minister, Thamir Ghadhban, said on May 26 that “we really don’t have any problem with OPEC” and that the question of withdrawing from the cartel was not currently on the agenda of the US-appointed administration running Iraq. US Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham said whether Iraq stays in OPEC is entirely up to the Iraqis. “We will support their decision, not impose a decision,” he declared on April 28.

But Philip J. Carroll, the US executive chosen by the Pentagon to advise Iraq’s post-war Oil Ministry, has suggested that Iraq might be best served by disregarding OPEC quotas, the strongest indication so far that the Americans might push whatever government emerges in Iraq into breaking ranks with the cartel. It also underlines the repeated allegation that one of the imperatives that drove the Americans into invading Iraq in the first place was to control its oil resources, the better to lessen its reliance on Saudi Arabia.

As it is, the return of Iraq ú which has operated outside OPEC since the 1990 invasion of Kuwait ú as a major exporter under a new government would cause considerable uncertainty. Iraq has the second-largest proven oil reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia, and its return to the market unconstrained by the cartel could further erode OPEC’s already limited ability to set prices. It might even trigger a price war that would weaken the Saudis and other cartel members. That would, of course, delight the Americans (and other consumers), who have been hoping to break OPEC’s grip on pricing for many years. Carroll, formerly Royal Dutch/Shell’s chief in the US, insists that he is not the instrument of an Iraqi oil policy that would sabotage OPEC. But as he told The Washington Post in mid-May: “In the final analysis, Iraq’s role in OPEC or in any other international organization is something that has to be left to the Iraqi government.” Already, officials in the Oil Ministry ú now supervised by US forces ú are actively considering pulling Iraq out of OPEC and exporting as much oil as possible, as soon as possible, to maximize revenue once the oil fields have returned to full capacity.

Earlier this year, US-backed Iraqi exiles, including Ahmed Chalabi, whom the Pentagon wants to see in key government posts drew up a policy document which recommended that Baghdad renounce OPEC’s production restrictions, and noted that it may have to withdraw from the cartel if it sought to impose unacceptable ceilings.

Before the 1990 invasion of Kuwait, Iraq was producing more than 3 million barrels per day (bpd). With the imposition of UN sanctions in 1990, it was excluded from OPEC’s production quotas. Under the UN’s “oil-for-food” agreement it was allowed to produce all that its increasingly dilapidated oil industry could manage and before the US invasion was producing around 2 million bpd. Output ground to a standstill because of the conflict but is expected to resume on a limited scale in the next few weeks.

Iraqi oil officials estimate the country will be able to export around 750,000 bpd by late June, with expectations that this can be boosted quite rapidly to 1.5 million bpd, half of which would be for domestic consumption. Production is expected to hit the pre-1990 OPEC quota level of 3 million bpd within 18 months and 3.5 million bpd six months after that. Then, by opening up fields that have gone untapped because of the sanctions, it is anticipated that production could reach as high as 6 million bpd in five or six years ú almost as much as Saudi Arabia’s output level.

That would amount to nearly one-quarter of OPEC’s current targeted production of 24.5 million bpd and would mean that other OPEC members would have to give up a lot of output ú and revenue ú to accommodate Iraq. With increased output pushing prices down, OPEC would be in trouble. The Saudis, as the cartel’s largest producer with nearly one-third of its output, would be under intense pressure to lower their output.

As it is, OPEC’s share of the world oil market has dropped from a peak of around 90 percent in the 1970s to around 39 percent now. This is because since the OPEC-induced oil shocks of the 1970s and the recession they caused, the US and other industrialized states have sought to obtain more oil from non-OPEC producers. Current US and European efforts to open up giant new fields in West Africa, the Caspian Basin, Siberia and elsewhere will further undermine OPEC’s clout.

OPEC is scheduled to meet in Qatar on June 11 to consider a new cut in production ú currently running at 25.4 million bpd ú to accommodate Iraq’s return to the market and avoid a possible price collapse.

Before the US invasion, former Venezuelan Oil Minister Humberto Calderon opined: “After the war there will be a substantial increase in Iraqi oil production and I wouldn’t be surprised is schemes emerged to weaken, if not destroy, OPEC.”

The US-British declaration that they are the occupying powers and will continue to run Iraq underlines their control of the country’s oil industry. The coalition’s failure to produce even a transitional government by now means that it will remain in charge for a lot longer than expected ú up to a year, according to US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Even proposals for an Iraqi government have been downgraded to the level of an “Iraqi authority” with lesser, though still undefined powers.

The Bush administration ú which Victor Poleo, professor of graduate studies in oil economics at Central University in Caracas, Venezuela, calls “an oil directorate” because of its strong links to the oil industry ú has already made clear that the lion’s share of the fat contracts worth an estimated $30 billion-$100 billion will go to US firms. That includes refurbishing and exploiting the oil fields. Russia, France and China, which had supported Baghdad in the UN Security Council in 1991-2003, are unlikely to be allowed to implement the major oil contracts they signed with Saddam Hussein’s regime, which means urgently needed investment from that quarter will not be forthcoming. The Americans are expected to urge the Iraqis to privatize what had been a state-owned industry that enriched Saddam and his henchmen on a vast scale.

Privatization is anathema to most of OPEC, particularly the Saudis, but if Iraq goes that route, opening up to large amounts of outside investment, it would put the other producers under pressure to do the same since they are increasingly in need of investment to upgrade and expand their oil industries, in most cases their primary revenue-earner. Such a move would also weaken OPEC’s influence.

Carroll has said that Iraq might best be served by exporting as much oil as it can and ignoring the quotas set by OPEC, giving the strongest indication so far that a future Iraqi government might quit the cartel that Baghdad helped found in 1960.

He told The Los Angeles Times on May 16: “Historically, Iraq has had, let’s say, an irregular participation in OPEC quota systems. They have from time to time, because of compelling national interest, elected to opt out of the quota system and pursue their own path. They may elect to do that same thing. To me, it’s a very important national question.”

Leading figures in OPEC, and elsewhere in the oil industry, do not believe the Iraqis themselves will quit the cartel, but could do so with US prodding. Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi declared in late May that he saw no reason why OPEC could not cope with Iraq’s resumption of exports and said it would be “folly’ to leave the market to determine oil prices.

Maintaining oil prices, and revenues, would be a key priority for any Iraqi government, he noted. “Iraq, like other producing states, be they in or out of OPEC, is keen to realize a fair and stable income from its petroleum resources,” he said, “and more particularly for the reconstruction and rebuilding of its production capacity.”

Fadhil Chalabi says he prefers staying within OPEC, but he also stressed that “Iraq is going to need a lot of money in the next five years ú up to $300 billion … Iraq must maximize revenue from its oil ú with or without OPEC.”

By Joseph Contreras NEWSWEEK INTERNATIONAL

June 16 issue — For a sense of the new forces stirring inside Mexico today, consider the Legion of Christ. The once obscure religious order, founded 62 years ago in the basement of a Mexico City town house, ranks as the world’s fastest-growing branch of Roman Catholicism. It attracts more recruits to the church’s aging priesthood than any other Catholic congregation on the planet, per capita. The legion’s ultra-orthodox doctrine mirrors that of Pope John Paul II, and its influence reaches into the highest echelons of Mexico’s business and political elites.         THE LEADER OF this order—the octogenarian priest Marcial Maciel, based in Rome—hasn’t lived in his native land for more than a half century. Maciel was just 20 years old, not yet ordained, when he established the legion in 1941 as a Catholic army of soldiers in soutanes, battling to “establish the kingdom of Christ throughout the world.” In practice, that has translated into the courtship of Latin leaders across the hemisphere—and the order has succeeded beyond his wildest dreams. No other religious figure wields more influence in Mexico than Maciel—not the ranking Catholic prelate, Cardinal Primate Norberto Rivera Carrera, nor any of his 110 bishops. Close friends and associates include Lorenzo and Roberto Servitje, the head of Mexico’s multinational food giant Bimbo, and the country’s First Lady, Marta Sahagun de Fox.         The Legion of Christ is no ordinary religious order. Instead of running neighborhood parishes, its followers concentrate on missionary work and educating children of the faithful, the list of whom read like a Who’s Who of the Mexican private sector. The legion owns an impressive network of 10 universities and 154 mostly upmarket private schools—prompting some wags in the Mexico City press corps to dub the order the Millionaires of Christ. Its conservative teachings and strict discipline have struck a chord with millions of Latin American parents—and not just affluent ones. The legion also runs 17 Mano Amiga (Spanish for “friendly hand”) schools dedicated to the education of indigent kids—nearly 11,000 in total, scattered across Mexico, Colombia, Chile, Argentina, El Salvador and Venezuela.         There is a darker, even somewhat medieval side to the Legion of Christ. Former members of the order say that young seminarians to this day are required to practice self-flagellation as a way of atoning for their sins; many wear an uncomfortable device around their thighs to discourage so-called impure thoughts. Legion officials have reportedly hired private detectives to snoop on some of their own priests. In a 1997 investigative report in a U.S newspaper, nine ex-legionnaires accused Maciel himself of sexual abuse, a charge he has indignantly denied. That same article revealed the Vatican had absolved Maciel of similar charges in an investigation in the 1950s.         None of this has dimmed the legion’s influence. If anything, it looks set to grow under the country’s center-right president, Vicente Fox. The former Coca-Cola executive’s triumph in the 2000 election toppled the Institutional Revolutionary Party—and seemed to threaten many of the overtly anticlerical laws and policies adopted by the party during its 71-year reign. In Fox, the country’s first openly devout Catholic president in nearly 100 years, many conser—vative Mexicans see their best hope yet for restoring the church to its rightful place of social authority.         Fox is by no means in thrall to the Catholic establishment. Only two weeks ago the government announced that five unnamed clerics could face steep fines for allegedly telling Catholics how to vote in next month’s congressional elections. Still, even as many of his political reforms have stalled in Congress, the Mexican president has pushed through measures that please the church. Two years ago he abolished a longstanding ban on clerical visits to prisons and public hospitals—a measure enacted by the PRI with a view toward separating church and state. His administration has also slashed the annual budget of the Health Ministry’s highly successful Planned Parenthood program, and a number of openly right-wing Catholics have been named to key government posts. Among them is Labor Minister Carlos Abascal, a prominent businessman who has criticized school syllabi as too liberal. The Interior Ministry official in charge of religious affairs, meanwhile, favors a constitutional amendment allowing religious “associations” to acquire radio and television stations. “The [Catholic] right wing is thriving,” says Edgar Gonzalez Ruiz, a Mexican academic and author.         Many political analysts see in this the hidden hand of the First Lady, whose association with the legion goes back nearly 20 years. Sahagun first came to national prominence as the press secretary in Fox’s presidential campaign. But in his home state of Guanajuato, where Fox previously served as governor, the divorced mother of three had another identity. In the mid-1980s, when Sahagun was still married to her first husband and living in the city of Celaya, she was appointed treasurer of the local branch of the legion’s lay movement. Perhaps that’s no surprise; her father comes from the same small town in Michoacan state where Marcial Maciel was born.         Vatican sources say that Maciel is working to bolster those ties. The priest was instrumental in organizing separate papal audiences for Fox and Sahagun during their visit to Rome in October 2001. He is also, according to Mexican press reports, lobbying the Holy See to annul their previous marriages, paving the way for a religious wedding in the not too distant future. At least two of Fox’s children, from a previous marriage, have studied at legion schools. Newsweek International June 23rd Issue •  International Editions Front •  Atlantic and Asia Pacific Cover Story: Al Qaeda in America •  Latin America Cover Story: Can He Do the Job? •  World View: How to Make Friends in Iraq •  Letter From America: Land of the Free, Home of the Brave? •  International Periscope & Perspectives •  International Mail Call •  The Last Word: Michael O'Leary         In a rare interview with NEWSWEEK, Maciel’s deputy Luis Garza Medina denied reports that the legion is actively seeking an annulment of the First Couple’s earlier marriages. (Fox and Sahagun were married in a civil ceremony two years ago.) The 45-year-old priest, a younger brother of the Monterrey industrialist Dionisio Garza Medina, also dismissed talk that the order exerts any undue influence over the president through his wife. “Fox had a relationship with us when he was governor, and there have been gestures of appreciation,” he says. “But he is a president for all Mexicans, and no favoritism has been shown toward us.” Father Luis also notes that the legion does not adopt public-policy positions of its own. The Conference of Mexican Catholic Bishops is the proper channel for that, he argues, and he bristles at suggestions that the order cultivates relations with the rich more than the poor. “We make no such distinctions,” he says. “For us, everyone is in need of hearing the Gospel of Christ.”         Perhaps. But while some Catholic orders such as the Jesuits have distinguished themselves by helping the poor, the legion under Marcial Maciel has demonstrated a marked talent for cultivating the more privileged constituencies of Roman Catholicism at the same time. And in a country with the second largest Catholic flock worldwide, that ensures the Legion will continue to exert influence far beyond its numbers for many years to come.