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What's
behind US action against Iraq?
In a
historic move, UN weapons inspectors will
submit a key report on Jan. 27 to the UN
Security Council, and the world will
be watching whether the United States
consequently launches large-scale military
action against Iraq.
Some
international relations analysts observe
that by its military action against Iraq,
the United States is attempting not only
to overthrow Saddam Hussein's regime, but
also to resolve problems in the Middle
East in one go.
"The
United States aims to achieve a series of
strategic objectives by attacking Iraq,
and the most important one is to remove
Saddam, the core trouble for the United
States in the Middle East," said
Professor Wu Xinbo of the American Studies
Center of Shanghai's Fudan University.
Recently US
President George W. Bush has repeatedly
threatened military action against Iraq if
Saddam Hussein refuses to abide by UN
resolutions calling for it to disarm.
US Defense
Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has ordered
two more aircraft carrier battle groups,
the USS Abraham Lincoln and USS Theodore
Roosevelt, to be deployed in the Gulf
region, joining two groups already
positioned within striking distance of
Iraq.
Since the
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the United
States, Americans worry greatly about the
combination of terrorism with the
proliferation of weapons of massive
destruction. Many Americans believe that
Saddam has re-armed with chemical and
biological weapons and improved cover-up
skills. They think that Saddam is still
"delaying" ,
"deceiving" and "playing
hide-and-seek" with the UN
inspectors.
At present,
a sort of "cultural conflict
theory" is popular in the United
States, which preaches that the Islamic
civilization has fundamental conflicts
with the Western Christian civilization.
It is a "theory" coincidentally
proven by the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
In line with this "theory", the
only way to eliminate the conflicts is to
transform the entire Islamic world and
steer it toward the path of Western-style
democracy. Such a strategic attempt might
not be achieved smoothly, experts observe.
US
coalition for war has few partners
The
United States has asked 53 countries to
join it in a military campaign against
Iraq, but so far the coalition for war
consists of a handful of countries and
even fewer commitments of troops, the
Washington Post reported Saturday.
For the
moment, many countries have publicly said
they will provide help only if the UN
Security Council approves it.
Bush
administration officials said
behind-the-scenes discussions over
military contributions have intensified
with dozens of countries in recent days.
The officials suggested that a number of
countries have privately promised to back
the United States, with or without UN
support. But the reluctance of so many
nations to take a public stand suggests
that most governments continue to have
misgivings about a US strike on Iraq at
this time.
The Bush
administration suffered a blow this week
when NATO deferred a decision on a US
request for assistance in a possible
attack. A senior NATO official said the
United States had wanted to secure NATO
approval for steps necessary to defend
Turkey in the event of a war.
When the US
ambassador offered his proposal for
assisting Turkey, four nations, France,
Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg, objected,
saying the timing was not right, and 14
allies supported the proposal, a NATO
official said.
The United
States would carry much of the burden of
any war against Iraq, but diplomatically
it is more important for the
administration to claim a broad coalition
if it fails to win United Nations backing
for a military strike.
Britain,
Australia and the Czech Republic have sent
troops to the region, while Kuwait and
three other Persian Gulf states have
either welcomed US forces or supported
military action.
A number of
European countries run by conservative
governments, such as Spain and Italy, have
strongly suggested they would support the
United States, though they continue to
offer the caveat that military action
should be under the auspices of the United
Nations.
"Friends
of Venezuela" seeks balanced solution
Venezuelan
opposition members on Saturday staged a
24-hour demonstration in Caracas to
bolster a 55-day strike aimed at driving
President Hugo Chavez out of office, while
the Group of Friends of Venezuela tried to
find a balanced solution to the political
crisis in the Andean country.
Tens of
thousands of Venezuelan opposition members
on Saturday packed a major Caracas highway
to stage a 24-hour rally demanding the
resignation of President Chavez and early
elections. The demonstrators were
protesting against a Supreme Court
decision to halt a Feb. 2 referendum on
Chavez's rule. Carrying flags and pots,
the protesters converged at the Francisco
Fajardo highway on Saturday morning. The
organizers said they expected at least 2
million people to participate in the
"longest demonstration in
history."
 Mexican
President Vicente Fox affirmed on Saturday
that the Group of Friends of Venezuela
would try to find a balanced solution to
the Venezuelan crisis.
"We
(the Group) look forward to finding a
balanced solution that be good for both
parties and solves the problem of
Venezuela," said Fox. He noted that
the Group, consisting of the United
States, Chile, Brazil, Mexico, Spain and
Portugal, saw an electoral solution as the
most feasible one to end the standoff
between Venezuelan President Chavez and
his opponents, said reports from Davos of
Switzerland, where the World Economic
Forum is being held.
Mexico
joined the Group, which was established
last week and was designed to broker a
peace deal between the Venezuelan
government and the opposition, because it
was welcomed by both sides, he added.
Brazilian
Foreign Minister Celso Amorim said on
Friday that the Group of Friends of
Venezuela agreed to send a high-level team
to Caracas next week to try to find a
solution to the stalemate in Venezuela,
the world's fifth largest oil exporting
country.
Amorim said
the team was likely to arrive in Venezuela
on Thursday and it will explore proposals
put forward by former US President Jimmy
Carter.
Under
Carter's first proposal, the Venezuelan
Constitution would be amended to allow
early elections. His second plan is for
the country to wait until Aug. 19 when the
constitution allows a mid-term referendum
to determine whether Chavez should remain
in office.
The
Brazilian foreign minister also urged the
Venezuelan government and the opposition
to adopt measures to prevent violence and
a further escalation of the crisis.
"The
mission is going to discuss concrete
measures like, for example, how to
diminish the risk of violence ... and the
process of moderating the rhetoric,"
Amorim told reporters after the group's
first meeting, held at the Organization of
American States headquarters in
Washington.
The
opposition insisted that early elections
should be called and employees
participating in the strike, especially
those from the state oil giant PDVSA,
should be restored to their jobs.
US
spy plane crashes in South Korea, pilot
escapes
A
US U-2 spy plane crashed on Sunday
afternoon in Hwasong, about 80 kilometers
south of Seoul, South Korean military
authorities said.
The U-2
reconnaissance plane crashed into a
hillside at around 3:00 p.m.local time
(0600 GMT), a defense ministry official
said. Witnesses said three residents
living near the crash site were slightly
injured and were transferred to a nearby
hospital for treatment. A nearby
auto-repair shop was destroyed and several
houses caught fire after the plane crashed
and exploded.
A spokesman
for the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff
said the American pilot escaped with his
life and was taken from the scene of the
accident by the US military. It was
previously reported the pilot had died.
The US
plane was on the way back to the Osan air
force base after carrying out a routine
flight over the Korean Peninsula. It was
the third U-2 spy plane to crash in South
Korea, the previous two went down in 1984
and 1992.
UN
chief deplores escalating violence in
Middle East
 UN
Secretary-General Kofi Annan on Sunday
deplored "the ominous escalation of
violence" in the Middle East and
called on both Israelis and Palestinians
to "act with restraints."
"He
(the secretary-general) is concerned by
Israeli military operations in the Gaza
Strip that place Palestinian civilians in
harm's way," the UN chief's spokesman
Fred Eckhard said in a statement Sunday.
Annan also
expressed concerns over rocket attacks
against Israel launched by Palestinian
militants Friday and earlier Sunday from
the Gaza Strip, the statement said. The UN
chief "believes that they (the
attacks) are counterproductive to peace
efforts such as the Palestinian cease-fire
talks underway in Cairo," it added.
"The
secretary-general calls on both sides to
act with restraints, in keeping with their
obligations under international
humanitarian law," the statement
noted. "He remains convinced that the
only way forward is a process that
addresses political, security and economic
issues in parallel, as set forth in the
Quartet's Road Map."
Israeli
troops raided Gaza City on Saturday in
retaliation for Friday's rocket attack,
leaving over 10 Palestinians dead and
scores of others injured.
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