www.chinapost.com.tw 2003/2/16 JAKARTA, Indonesia, AP

Australia, a key U.S. ally, was unmoved Saturday by a report from United Nations inspectors that found no evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, while Japan cast doubts over the effectiveness of the probe.

Mainland China °X Asia's only permanent U.N. Security Council member °X pressed for more inspections and sought a political solution to the crisis, and Malaysia, a mostly moderate Muslim country, hardened its position against a war in Iraq.

Much like in the rest of the world, reaction to the inspectors' report to the U.N. Security Council was mixed.

Hans Blix and Mohamed ElBaradei offered a far more measured appraisal of Iraq's compliance than the harsh assessments they issued two weeks ago to the council. The United States and Britain had hoped for a tougher report Friday which they could use to justify a new U.N. resolution quickly authorizing force against Saddam.

Only Spain and Britain spoke up for the U.S. position in the 15-member Security Council. Other countries, led by France and Syria, said the report showed Iraq is becoming more cooperative and that inspectors should be given additional time complete their work.

Japan took the middle ground, saying it wanted a peaceful solution but cautiously noted there were doubts over the effectiveness of inspections.

Given Iraq's track record of "passive cooperation," Foreign Minister Yoriko Kawaguchi said in a written statement, "it is undeniable that doubts about the effectiveness of the continued inspections arise."

But she stopped short of throwing Japan's lot in with the U.S. call for immediate military action. Instead, Tokyo demands Iraq "seriously address the final opportunity" being offered by the Security Council to clear its name, she said.

New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark and Chinese Foreign Minister Tang Jiaxuan called for more inspections.

"Only when we go along the line of political settlement can we truly live up to the trust and hope the international community places in the Security Council," Tang said Friday at the United Nations in New York.

Megawati said the crisis in Iraq should be resolved peacefully through the United Nations, reiterating her government's long-standing position against a "regime change" in Iraq.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad said late Friday that his government would not support a war, even if it is approved by the U.N. Security Council.

"If the majority of the United Nations has decided and the Security Council decided to go to war against Iraq, they can," Mahathir was quoted as saying by the national news agency Bernama. "But we will not endorse (a war)."

Mahathir has warned a U.S.-led war against Iraq will be perceived by Muslims as an attack against Islam and spawn new extremists, undermining the U.S.-led war on terrorism.

www.accessatlanta.com By MARGARET COKER The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Craig Nelson / AJC

George Al Eid, an unemployed West Bank house painter, wonders what good war will do. "In the end we, the little people, will suffer, just like the last war," he said.

BETHLEHEM, West Bank -- He remains popular and his portrait hangs in some Palestinian living rooms as a champion of charity in times of crisis. His name is derided by others as a symbol of cruelty.

As a second gulf war looms, Saddam Hussein dominates Palestinian conversations. While Palestinian opinions of the Iraqi president range from aversion to sympathy to hard-core support, many believe his possible downfall will only spell doom for their quest for statehood.

Saddam "is a dictator. He makes his people starve. . . . But what will war solve?" asked George Al Eid, an unemployed house painter who lives in Bethlehem. "For us the scenario is clear. War will cause a spark for Arab militants and Israelis alike, and we'll all see more violence. In the end we, the little people, will suffer, just like the last war."

In 1991, Palestinians were a notable exception to the strong international coalition backing U.S.-led military strikes against Iraq. Then, Yasser Arafat declared his solidarity with Saddam, and many Palestinians identified with the Iraqi's anti-Israeli rhetoric.

But blowback from his political posturing was immediate and harsh. At the end of the war, relations between Arab states and the Palestinians disintegrated when Kuwait and other Persian Gulf countries kicked out tens of thousands of Palestinians living and working there, a move that helped devastate the Palestinian economy.

This time around, Arafat has been cautious about his position toward Saddam. In public statements he has urged the Iraqi leader to obey U.N. resolutions ordering his disarmament. He has not come out in favor of Saddam, said Arafat aides, because he doesn't want to damage his own reputation as president of the Palestinian Authority, which has been stained with allegations of terrorism.

Saddam's helping hand

Saddam's popularity remains strong among most Palestinians because he has tried to fill the financial gaps for families during the 28-month-old conflict between Palestinian militants and Israel. Charities linked to Saddam have sent payments of up to $10,000 to families of suicide bombers and to those who have lost relatives during the Israeli army's reoccupation of the West Bank.

Pro-Saddam sentiment is most evident in the Gaza Strip, where daily life perhaps most closely reflects life in Iraq. Besieged themselves, Palestinians here sympathize with Saddam as U.S. and allied soldiers mass near his borders. Hungry and hurting, they understand the suffering of Iraqi citizens under U.N. sanctions for the last 11 years.

In Gaza, an overcrowded sandy strip of land, militant groups Hamas and Islamic Jihad frequently organize protests. Recently, these rallies have focused on Iraq, with Hamas spiritual leader Sheik Ahmed Yassin urging his followers to attack Western interests around the world if the United States launches military strikes against Baghdad. "It's a crusader's aggression, a crusader's war and an occupation.

"Muslims will have to threaten and strike Western interests, and hit them everywhere," Yassin said in a sermon this month. "As they fight us, we have to fight them, and as they threaten our interests, we have to threaten their interests."

The Hamas leader, however, did not link his call for Muslim unification against the West with an endorsement of Saddam.

This nuance is not lost on Yusef Salamah, 50, a father of five who lives in a three-story stone house around the corner from Bethlehem's Manger Square. He got $10,000 from Saddam after his 19-year-old son, Jonny, was killed last year from a bullet believed to have come from an Israeli sniper.

Returning the favors

The money has kept his family afloat while the intifada has kept Salamah from working. Yet it hasn't colored his views toward the Iraqi leader.

"Arafat made a mistake during the first [gulf] war. We suffered for his position. We can't support Saddam if it means sacrificing our own fight," Salamah said.

Other Palestinians disagree. They say Saddam deserves the same loyalty he's shown them over the last 11 years. Or, at the very least, he deserves respect for not caving in to what they see as an American plan to conquer Muslim nations in the Middle East.

"Saddam is a courageous man. He stands up for Palestinians. He stands up to the American bully and its little brother Israel," said Umm Samir el-Ranisi, the mother of an 18-year-old suicide bomber who killed 18 people in an Israeli grocery store last year.

In a lively debate in the family's living room, where a framed picture of Saddam hangs next to portraits of their deceased daughter, Umm Samir and husband Mohammed defended the Iraqi leader as a hero.

"Saddam comes to our aid when everyone else spurns us. Where is Arafat when we are hurting? Where is [Egyptian President Hosni] Mubarak? Where is [Saudi King] Fahd? Where is the sponsor of peace?" asked Mohammed el-Ranisi, referring to America. "When someone else comes to our rescue, we will give our respect to him. But right now, no one helps Palestinians more than Saddam."

www.ipsnews.net Haider Rizvi

NEW YORK, Feb 15 (IPS) - More than 500,000 people took to the streets here Saturday protesting U.S. plans to invade Iraq. ''No blood for oil. We want peace,'' roared protesters as they marched in scattered crowds of tens of thousands through streets heavily barricaded by police. ''No war against Iraq. Not in our name,'' they kept chanting as the crowds streamed to the assembly point outside the United Nations building. Old New Yorkers say they have never experienced such a massive rally, including during protests against the Vietnam War in the 1970s. ''This is amazing,'' said 60-year-old Jack Speyer, shivering with cold. ''Look at these men and women. It's unbelievable.'' The enormous crowd dwarfed the expectations of police and organisers, who had hoped for over 100,000 people. City officials refused to allow a march, but a federal court permitted organisers to hold a stationary rally. Organisers claimed the demonstration attracted close to one million people. Police used horses and thousands of barricades to separate demonstrators, many of whom brought young children, into small groups. Several protesters were arrested, but no details are available. ''Is this democracy? Stop it,'' an old woman shouted as a police contingent blocked the way and knocked down two demonstrators with their horses. Police on a high anti-terrorism alert also used hazardous materials decontamination equipment, bomb-sniffing dogs and air-sampling equipment able to detect chemical or biological weapons. Many protesters played drums, guitars and other musical instruments and danced along the streets. ''Make love, not war,'' read a placard. Hundreds of young people had painted peace signs on their faces. Three hundred buses and four special trains brought protesters from throughout the country to the nation's largest demonstration, the day after anti-war statements in the United Nations Security Council were applauded by the majority of Council members. While the United States is pushing for second Council resolution that would authorise military action against Iraq, it has only one staunch ally in the body - Britain. U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan told Abu Dhabi television on Saturday that the search for evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq should continue. ”But if there is no co-operation then the council will see that the operation has become meaningless and that inspections could end.” ”The ball is again in the Iraqi leadership's court,” Annan said, reported Reuters. In Canada, protesters hit the streets amid warnings of frostbite and hypothermia, but rallied in larger numbers than for the Jan. 18 worldwide protests. In east-coast Halifax, more than 2,000 marched, some carrying a huge banner depicting Guernica, Pablo Picasso's famous painting of the bombing of that Spanish city during the Spanish Civil War, now a potent anti-war symbol. In Montreal, more than 100,000 people, bundled thickly against the biting cold, turned the march along a downtown street into a family affair, as many pushed red-cheeked children in strollers or perched them on their shoulders. Labour unions, women's groups and anti-capitalist organisations flew banners while others held handmade signs such as 'Drop Bush, Not Bombs' and 'Beating War Drums Drown Out the Voice of Reason'. Prime Minister Jean Chretien continued to receive rare praise for his Thursday speech in Chicago, where he told the Council on Foreign Relations that, ”Not everyone around the world is prepared to take the word of the United States on faith”. Attacking Iraq without U.N. backing would risk a ”clash of civilisations”, added Chretien. In New York, speaker after speaker deplored the administration of President George W. Bush for its disregard for the lives of innocent civilians in Iraq. ''This war is immoral,'' said South African Archbishop Desmond Tutu. ''Those who are going to get killed in Iraq are not collateral damage. They are human beings. They are our brothers and sisters.'' ''Let America listen to the rest of the world and the rest of the world is saying, 'Give the inspectors time',” the Noble Peace Prize laureate added. Many speakers condemned Washington's increasing assaults on constitutional rights. ''Bush has started an undeclared war on our civil liberties,'' said Donna Lieberman, a leader of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). ''Our right to dissent has been hijacked by this administration of liars and murderers,'' added Danny Glover, an African American and popular Hollywood actor. ''We stand here against re-colonisation.'' Student Sara Khan asked protesters to consider why no more money exists for U.S. public schools. ''We want to learn,'' she said. ''Spend money on schools, not on war.'' ''Yeah. Write it down,'' shouted Jessica, a first year college student from Texas. ''We are here to tell students all over the world that we are not silent.'' Tehmina Faryal, an Afghan woman, told the rally that war cannot bring democracy to Iraq, ''just as it didn't bring democracy to Afghanistan. They changed the regime, not the system.'' Organiser United for Peace and Justice, an umbrella group of dozens of anti-war groups, said similar protests took place in more than 100 cities and towns throughout the United States. (END/2003)

www.thestar.com.my

NEW YORK: Millions of protesters marched in dozens of countries around the globe - many in capitals of America's allies - demonstrating against U.S. plans to attack Iraq.

In a global outpouring of anti-war sentiment Saturday, Rome claimed the biggest turnout - 1 million according to police, while organizers claimed three times that figure.

In London, at least 750,000 people demonstrated in what police called the city's largest demonstration ever. In Spain, several million people turned out at anti-war rallies in about 55 cities and towns across the country, with more than 500,000 each attending rallies in Madrid and Barcelona.

Spanish police gauged the Madrid turnout at 660,000. Organizers claimed nearly 2 million people gathered across the nation in one of the biggest demonstrations since the 1975 death of dictator Gen. Francisco Franco.

More than 70,000 people marched in Amsterdam in the largest Netherlands demonstration since anti-nuclear rallies of the 1980s.

Berlin had up to half-million people on the streets, and Paris was estimated to have had about 100,000.

North of the United Nations headquarters in New York, demonstrators packed the streets, filling police-barricaded protest zones for more than 20 blocks as civil rights leaders and celebrities energized the banner-waving crowd.

"Just because you have the biggest gun does not mean you must use it,'' Martin Luther King III, son of the slain civil rights leader, told demonstrators in New York as he stood before an enormous banner reading: "The World Says No To War.''

Police in Athens, Greece, fired tear gas in clashes with several hundred anarchists wearing hoods and crash helmets who smashed store windows and threw a gasoline bomb at a newspaper office.

Four youths were arrested in the Athens demonstrations, which included thousand of protesters unfurling a giant banner across the wall of the ancient Acropolis - "NATO, U.S. and EU equals War.''

London's marchers hoped - in the words of keynote speaker the Rev. Jesse Jackson - to "turn up the heat'' on Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has been Europe's biggest supporter of U.S. President George Bush's tough Iraq policy.

Rome's legions were showing their disagreement with Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi's support for Bush, while demonstrators in Paris and Berlin backed the skeptical stances of their governments.

Tommaso Palladini, 56, who traveled from Milan to Rome, said, "You don't fight terrorism with a preventive war. You fight terrorism by creating more justice in the world.''

Organizers of the New York rally, who had hoped for 100,000 people, estimated the crowd at anywhere from 375,000 to 500,000. NYPD Commissioner Raymond Kelly said about 100,000 people were in the crowd, which stretched 20 blocks deep and spanned three avenues.

Fifty arrests were made and two protesters were hospitalized - one with an epileptic seizure and another who had diabetes, Kelly said. Eight officers also were injured, including a mounted police officer who was pulled off his horse and beaten, Kelly said.

Police estimated that 60,000 turned out in Oslo, Norway, 50,000 in bitter cold in Brussels, while about 35,000 gathered peacefully in frigid Stockholm.

About 80,000 marched in Dublin, Irish police said. Crowds were estimated at 70,000 in Amsterdam; 20,000 in Montreal; 40,000 in Bern, Switzerland; 30,000 in Glasgow, Scotland; 25,000 in Copenhagen; 15,000 in Vienna; 5,000 in Cape Town and 4,000 in Johannesburg in South Africa; 5,000 in Tokyo and 2,000 in Dhaka, Bangladesh.

Security in New York was extraordinarily tight, with the city on high alert for terrorist threats. All along the streets around the U.N. headquarters on Manhattan's East Side, authorities deployed a new security "package'' including sharpshooters and officers with radiation detectors, hazardous materials decontamination equipment, bomb-sniffing dogs and air-sampling equipment able to detect chemical or biological weapons.

Several leaders of German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder's government took part in the Berlin protest, which turned the tree-lined street between the Brandenburg Gate and the 19th-century Victory Column into a sea of banners, balloons emblazoned with "No war in Iraq'' and demonstrators swaying to live music from the stage.

"We hope that the United States will listen to Mexico, a country so close to its borders,'' said Guadalupe Harpo, a 25-year-old housewife who marched with thousands in Mexico City. "We don't want war. The world does not want war. We want the government in Washington to know that.''

Protests were held across the United States, from Maine to Hawaii, and from Texas to Minnesota.

At a statehouse rally in Boise, Idaho, Iraqi immigrant Azam Houle said she fled the "suffocating police state'' 27 years ago, but that invading her homeland was not the solution.

"We seem to think we can destroy a country and then build a democracy,'' she said. "Democracy at gunpoint isn't democracy.''

In Little Rock, Arkansas, Vietnam veteran Gary Gish of San Antonio yelled at about 500 anti-war demonstrators marching on President Clinton Avenue.

"Clinton and his administration let Iraq go for eight years,'' he said. "We should back our leaders.''

In Baghdad, tens of thousands of Iraqis, many carrying Kalashnikov assault rifles, demonstrated to support Saddam Hussein and denounce the United States. - AP

sf.indymedia.org by Stephen J. Sniegoski Saturday February 15, 2003 at 03:04 PM

Neoconservatives had for some time prior to September 11, 2001 publicly advocated an American war on Iraq. The 9/11 atrocities essentially provided the pretext for carrying out such an activity.

15 Feb 2003, 11:42 PM www.currentconcerns.ch