US May Seek Sanctions On Syria

[sassa]

U.S. may seek sanctions on Syria

Accuses Damascus

of harboring Iraqi fugitives, testing chemical weapons

MSNBC NEWS SERVICES

April 14 — U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Monday accused Syria of testing chemical weapons and allowing Iraqi officials to flee into Syrian territory. Secretary of State Colin Powell said the United States would explore imposing sanctions on Syria. European leaders, meanwhile, urged Washington to tone down its rhetoric and stressed the need for dialogue with Damascus.

RUMSFELD SAID the United States has “intelligence that indicates that some Iraqi people have been allowed into Syria, in some cases to stay and some cases to transit.†Rumsfeld did not identify the Iraqis to which he was referring, nor did he say where they traveled after leaving Syria.

“I would say that we have seen chemical weapons tests in Syria over the past 12, 15 months,†Rumsfeld said, without giving details. “We have intelligence that shows that Syria has allowed Syrians and others to come across the border into Iraq, people armed and people carrying leaflets indicating that they’ll be rewarded if they kill Americans and members of the coalition.â€

Syria has long been on a U.S. list of states suspected of supporting terrorism.

Rumsfeld made his comments during a news briefing outside the Pentagon after meeting with visiting Kuwaiti Minister of State for Foreign Affairs Sheikh Mohammad al-Salem al-Sabah.

Powell said in Washington that the Bush administration would “examine possible measures of a diplomatic, economic or other nature.â€

“In light of this new environment, they (Syria) should review their actions and their behavior, not only with respect to who gets haven in Syria and weapons of mass destruction, but especially the support of terrorist activity,†he said.

European leaders sought to defuse the tension.

“The region is going through a very difficult process, and I think it would be better to make constructive statements to see if we can cool down the situation,†said EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana, speaking before an EU foreign ministers meeting to discuss how the organization could help postwar Iraq.

On Sunday, President Bush warned Syria not to harbor fleeing Iraqi leaders and asked for patience as the United States and its coalition allies restore order in Iraq.

“The Syrian government needs to cooperate with the United States and our coalition partners and not harbor any Baathists, any military officials, any people who need to be held to account for their tenure,†Bush told reporters on Sunday.

Bush also contended that Syria has chemical weapons, a charge made in recent CIA reports and one that Syria has denied.

Syria denied the U.S. charges again on Monday and said it had never cooperated with Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s administration.

“We say to him (President Bush) that Syria has no chemical weapons and that the only chemical, biological and nuclear weapons in the region are in Israel, which is threatening its neighbors and occupying their land,†Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Buthaina Shaaban told Reuters.

’QUESTIONS ... HAVE BEEN RAISED’

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said Britain and the United States had no intention of invading Syria after Iraq, but Damascus had “important questions†to answer.

“As far as ‘Syria on the list,’ we made clear that it is not,†Straw told reporters in Bahrain at the start of a tour of Arab states in the Persian Gulf. “There is no ‘next list.’â€

“What is important is for Syria fully to cooperate over these questions that have been raised about the fact that some fugitives from Iraq may well have fled into Syria and other matters including whether they have in fact been developing any kind of chemical or biological program,†he told BBC radio.

Also on Monday, British Foreign Office Minister Mike O’Brien held talks with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in Damascus. He said afterward he had briefed Assad on U.S.-British plans for postwar Iraq that will lead to a new constitution and elections.

Syria’s deputy ambassador to the United States, Imad Moustapha, denied the U.S. charges on Sunday and said it was the responsibility of U.S. troops to monitor Iraq’s border with Syria. The country has also rejected specific U.S. charges about sending military equipment to Iraq but remained silent on others.

‘THE REGION IS WORN OUT’

Turkey also urged the United States to tone down its comments and said Monday that Syria should not become a target of U.S.-led forces.

“This war should end in Iraq,†Foreign Minister Abdullah Gul said at a joint news conference with visiting Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom. “In our opinion, no one should allow new conflicts or new tensions in the region. No one should permit new developments that would further disturb the region.â€

“Now Iraq, then Syria, then Iran,†Gul said. “The region is worn out enough.â€

But Israel moved quickly to take advantage of the U.S. pressure on its hostile neighbor and weighed in with a list of demands of its own, focusing on Syria’s alleged support for guerrilla groups that have long been a thorn in Israel’s flesh.

Shalom accused Damascus of undermining peace in the Middle East amid fears the U.S.-led war in the region could now spread to Iraq’s neighbors.

“Syria is letting terrorist organizations operate in the country.... Unfortunately, they are not doing anything to prevent it. More than that, they are encouraging terrorist organizations to act within Syria all the time,†Shalom told reporters.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.

[sassa]

this is such bullshit! first they fuck with afghanistan, then it's iraq...truth be told, if these countries didn't have valuable resources and weren't in the region they were....no one would give a flying fuck....

[sassa]

Blair: no plans to invade Syria

Staff and agencies

Monday April 14, 2003

The prime minister, Tony Blair, told the Commons today that "the bulk of Iraq is under coalition control and the vast majority of Iraqis are rejoicing at Saddam's departure" and stressed there were no plans to invade Syria.

Mr Blair spoke as US marines entered the centre of Tikrit, the final stronghold of Saddam Hussein's leadership, and battled the last military units loyal to the Iraqi regime. Shortly before 1900BST tonight the US defence department said major combat in Iraq was over.

Pressed by MPs from all sides of the house, the prime minister echoed the line of Jack Straw, the foreign secretary, earlier today, saying more than four times that "there are no plans whatsoever at the moment to invade Syria".

The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, has claimed that leading members of Saddam's government have fled to Syria, and last month alleged Damascus was sending military equipment to Iraqi forces in "hostile acts". But Mr Blair insisted these remarks had to be regarded "in context" and that the notion of a US-led invasion of Syria was a "conspiracy theory that will fade away in time".

Damascus today rejected US accusations that it had chemical weapons and was sheltering former Iraqi leaders.

Full story: 'No plans' to invade Syria, insists Blair

Mr Blair said that much of the continuing fighting around Baghdad was being caused by foreigners and not Iraqis. He added that said some disorder was inevitable given the fall of such a regime but the coalition were going to "work urgently to bring it under control". He said that some 200 police officers had reported to work in Basra and some 2000 in Baghdad.

Mr Blair said that inspection had begun of seven out of 146 potential sites where weapons of mass destruction could be hidden but that "Saddam had a systematic system" of hiding them and had being doing so for six months before the conflict.

Mr Blair said that the conflict had been justified and that there was now a "heavy responsibility to make the peace work". An interim authority in Iraq would be succeeded around 12 months later by a fully elected government, said Mr Blair.

An ICM poll for tomorrow's Guardian found that support for the Iraq war has risen to 63%, its highest level since last August. This represents a seven point rise in support for the war since the fall of Baghdad last week.

Tikrit 'under control'

The Guardian's Luke Harding, who was in Tikrit with the marines, said: "The war in Iraq is over. It's all finished. Everyone here is fantastically relaxed ... it's pretty mellow considering it was supposed to be Saddam's last stand. There is a sense of relief that Saddam's reign here - all 35 years of it - has finally ended."

The pan-Arab satellite channel al-Jazeera also reported that US troops now had Tikrit under control. The channel broadcast live pictures of marines walking through the town and US tanks taking up position in a central square.

The station's correspondent in the city, Youssef al-Sharif, said: "Tikrit is totally under US control, and they are talking with tribes to control the city and take out all pockets of resistance."

There were reports of three US Cobra attack helicopters firing machine guns into the city during one of the attacks on Iraqi resistance.

Brigadier General Vincent Brooks, at central command in Qatar, said that the fall of Tikrit had brought the 26-day military campaign to a "transition point". He told reporters that there was still potential for fighting but it would not be an "organised regime effort".

Coalition forces rolled into Tikrit's outskirts overnight. Yesterday, they rescued seven US prisoners of war in a push to the outskirts, as warplanes bombarded fighters defending the last major Iraqi centre in the hold of the Ba'ath party.

Waves of helicopters and warplanes passed overhead, Matthew Fisher, a correspondent for Canada's National Post, told CNN as the marines went into the city.

"It's a very significant attack. They've brought forward a great number of Cobra assault helicopters and there are marine F-18s overhead," he said.

The 30,000-strong US 4th Infantry Division, known as Taskforce Iron Horse, has also been moving north from Kuwait, and is thought to be advancing on the town.

It had been feared that Tikrit, Saddam's birthplace and power base, could be the scene of a bloody battle as the regime made its last stand.

There was no sign of the jubilation seen when other Iraqi cities fell but some residents flashed thumbs-up signs and said they were glad that fighting appeared over. "It's a huge relief, we think of ourselves as peaceful people who got stuck with a dictator. Hopefully we'll get a leader who respects people and let's them be in peace," 58-year-old Hussein al-Khalidi told Reuters.

Fighting continues in Baghdad

Fighting is not over elsewhere in the country. In Baghdad, where US troops are trying to win the cooperation of Iraqis to help restore power and water supplies and end looting, a fierce firefight broke out in the city centre near the Palestine hotel.

US television showed footage of marines detaining and leading away three men, thought to be snipers.

Yesterday, there were indications that the looting that has plunged Baghdad residents into fear has exhausted itself. Hundreds of Iraqi police officers and civil servants have also come forward to help to restore order.

A team of 32 US army engineers yesterday flew into Baghdad to help to restore electricity.

Some looting persisted, however, with raiders yesterday targeting a presidential palace and an army barracks. The Islamic library was today also on fire, reportedly after looters ransacked it.

In Basra, Iraqi police officers are being vetted over links to the Ba'ath party before being allowed to return to their old jobs, military officials said.

Two US aircraft carriers to return home

Two US navy aircraft carriers and the ships in their battle groups will leave the Gulf this week and return to their home ports, a US defence official said today.

The USS Kitty Hawk will return to its base at Yokosuka, Japan, and the USS Constellation will return to California, the official said. Their departure reflects a winding down of the air campaign, although the Pentagon is still sending more ground forces to Kuwait and Iraq.

The army's 1st Armoured Division is moving its equipment to ports for shipment to the Gulf region, and its troops will follow by air in a couple of weeks, a division spokesman, Major Scott Slaten, said.

[georgeacasta2]

Originally posted by sassa

truth be told, if these countries didn't have valuable resources and weren't in the region they were....no one would give a flying fuck....

[sassa]

EU aims to ease tensions over Syria

Staff and agencies

Monday April 14, 2003

Politicians from Britain and other key European Union states were today working to calm growing tensions over Syria, which had been stirred up by belligerent statements about the country from Washington.

The foreign secretary, Jack Straw, today made it clear that Syria was not "next on the list" of targets for the US and UK coalition forces. But asked whether he believed the country had weapons of mass destruction, he said: "I'm not sure, and that's why we need to talk to them about it."

Mr Straw has sent his junior minister, Mike O'Brien, to Damascus for talks with Syrian president Bashar Assad, who has already repeated denials that his country has weapons of mass destruction.

Meanwhile, the EU policy chief, Javier Solana, today urged Washington to tone down its harsh words about Syria, saying it was time to "cool down" the Middle East's already tense situation.

Over the weekend, President George Bush repeated allegations that Syria might be harbouring Iraqi officials or chemical weapons. Damascus has denied both charges. Syria said it had closed its border with Iraq after US-led forces captured one of Saddam Hussein's half brothers in northern Iraq and said he was planning to flee to Syria.

The US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, made matters worse by saying: "The Syrian government is making a lot of bad mistakes, a lot of bad judgements in my view."

Mr Solana, who was speaking ahead of a meeting of EU ministers in Luxembourg to discuss its role in the reconstruction of Iraq, said: "The region is going through a very difficult process and I think it would be better to make constructive statements to see if we can cool down the situation in the region."

Mr Bush had been noncommittal when asked whether accusations made by the US against Syria could lead to an attack on the country. He said: "Each situation will require a different response. We're here in Iraq now ... We expect cooperation from Syria."

He added: "People have got to know that we are serious about stopping the spread of weapons of mass destruction."

Meanwhile, Israel is seizing the opportunity to deliver a list of demands to Syria through the US. The demands include ousting Hezbollah guerillas from southern Lebanon and expelling Palestinian militant groups from Damascus.

Israel's defence minister, Shaul Mofas, whose comments were reported today in the Maariv daily newspaper, said: "We have a long list of issues we are thinking of demanding of the Syrians, and it would be best done through the Americans."

He said Israel saw an opportunity to remove the potential Syrian threat from its borders. Since Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in May 2000, the Israeli-Lebanese border has been relatively quiet, but Hezbollah still poses a threat, said Mofaz, adding that Syria facilitated the movement of arms to Hezbollah fighters in their war against Israel.

Syrian foreign ministry spokeswoman Bouthayna Shaaban further inflamed relations with Israel when she told Lebanon's Al-Hayat-LBC channel last night: "I would like to say that here are biological, chemical and nuclear weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East region. They are in Israel, not in Syria."

[mkutlass]

Afghanistan? yeah loaded with valueble resources........yeah sure ................very rich country... We just want there OIL!!!

[siceone]

you seem to forget we have a problem that has gone unchecked for the better part of 15 years. Terrorism is not an enemy that can be reasoned with bargained with nor can it survive, or have a global reach with out a sponsor. Syria is one of the biggest sponsors of terror.. and all diplomatic pressure should be brought to bear on them so they stop supporting people who KILL civilians systematically in peace time. not to mention syria is STILL occupying lebanon. I think its funny that something is finally getting done about this problem and everyone starts to whine.. It may not have been the best action, there may have been a better way. But at least something is happening thats a start.

[mr mahs]

Originally posted by siceone

you seem to forget we have a problem that has gone unchecked for the better part of 15 years. Terrorism is not an enemy that can be reasoned with bargained with nor can it survive, or have a global reach with out a sponsor. Syria is one of the biggest sponsors of terror.. and all diplomatic pressure should be brought to bear on them so they stop supporting people who KILL civilians systematically in peace time. not to mention syria is STILL occupying lebanon. I think its funny that something is finally getting done about this problem and everyone starts to whine.. It may not have been the best action, there may have been a better way. But at least something is happening thats a start.

I agree, you can't wish terrorism away.. there will have to be many things that pan out in order for it to stop from squeezing countries who sponsor it to resolving the Palestinian Isreali situation... I can tell you this we have the momentum now to get alot of these things done...history is being made before our eyes...

[mrmatas2277]

did anyone watch msnbc last night?? around 12ish?? they had the Ambassador from Syria to the US last night...what a character!!! he is another Iraqi Info. Minister in the making, i called it first...

[igloo]

Originally posted by sassa

this is such bullshit! first they fuck with afghanistan, then it's iraq...truth be told, if these countries didn't have valuable resources and weren't in the region they were....no one would give a flying fuck....

Shut the fuck up already.....seriously, shut the fuck up

Don't you ever get tired of hearing yourself sound like a fool...

You have not been right about one thing over the past two years...shut the fuck up already

[mkutlass]

Amen Igloo

[mr mahs]

Originally posted by sassa

this is such bullshit! first they fuck with afghanistan, then it's iraq...truth be told, if these countries didn't have valuable resources and weren't in the region they were....no one would give a flying fuck....

You are pissed your terrorist freinds in the middle east are getting their feathers ruffled.. Igloo is right not 1 thing in 2 years I think you should rethink that major of your's honey...

International relations:laugh:

Yeah and I am a prime candidate for the democratic nomination for president in 2004...

[sassa]

Originally posted by mr mahs

You are pissed your terrorist freinds in the middle east are getting their feathers ruffled.. Igloo is right not 1 thing in 2 years I think you should rethink that major of your's honey...

International relations:laugh:

Yeah and I am a prime candidate for the democratic nomination for president in 2004...

you know what, fuck you and fuck your bullshit.

i am tired of you insinuating that i have friends who are involved in such activities.

maybe i should start deleting stupid posts like these...

[eccentricmofo]

Ok, Sassa, I see your point as far as sticking to your guns..

I respect that, I mean you are very passionate about being against war (in these recent examples) and usually when people have had that stance, lets say about three or more weeks ago, they quick change their minds or have been convinced.

So this stubborness I give you credit for.

But you also have to give a teenie weenie bit of credit to Bush (granted I dont FULLY agree with all his views, but hear me out).

We could go on and on and on about Bush, Blair, Syria, Etc. and so forth.

But the point I want to make is he (bush) is at least sticking to HIS guns as well. I mean he set out with an agenda a year or so back, and he is following through.

LIKe I respect you for following through with your initial beliefs, you should respect (the least) his following through, not necessarily having to agree with him, just the idealogy there.

Ok, that was way too much thinking at once for me, I think Im going to instigate a self inflicted brain freeze with some ice cream...I be back..

[sassa]

Originally posted by eccentricmofo

Ok, Sassa, I see your point as far as sticking to your guns..

I respect that, I mean you are very passionate about being against war (in these recent examples) and usually when people have had that stance, lets say about three or more weeks ago, they quick change their minds or have been convinced.

So this stubborness I give you credit for.

But you also have to give a teenie weenie bit of credit to Bush (granted I dont FULLY agree with all his views, but hear me out).

We could go on and on and on about Bush, Blair, Syria, Etc. and so forth.

But the point I want to make is he (bush) is at least sticking to HIS guns as well. I mean he set out with an agenda a year or so back, and he is following through.

LIKe I respect you for following through with your initial beliefs, you should respect (the least) his following through, not necessarily having to agree with him, just the idealogy there.

Ok, that was way too much thinking at once for me, I think Im going to instigate a self inflicted brain freeze with some ice cream...I be back..

i agree with you, and that's true..he is sticking to his guns...but not for the moral reasons he's giving us...and i think subconsciously a lot of people know this, but due to the current situation of the world right now, it's pretty hard to see if you're phazed by all the gov'ts bs...

but whatever....

[eccentricmofo]

Originally posted by sassa

i agree with you, and that's true..he is sticking to his guns...but not for the moral reasons he's giving us...and i think subconsciously a lot of people know this, but due to the current situation of the world right now, it's pretty hard to see if you're phazed by all the gov'ts bs...

but whatever....

Now wait a quick second there missy... Who said there has to be morals with any governmental decision???

ha, kidding...

Ok, Im confused, (in a non-attacking manner) are you implying that most moral opinions of this war (potentially my own included) are being jaded by this administrations own opinion of the war? Sort of a moral propaganda thing going on?

[eccentricmofo]

Well this is one reason why I prefer verbal discussions instead of messageboard debates, lol...Im confusing the hell out of myself here...

...

[sassa]

Originally posted by eccentricmofo

Now wait a quick second there missy... Who said there has to be morals with any governmental decision???

ha, kidding...

Ok, Im confused, (in a non-attacking manner) are you implying that most moral opinions of this war (potentially my own included) are being jaded by this administrations own opinion of the war? Sort of a moral propaganda thing going on?

i'm saying when you listen to these people talk they bring up morals and such related issues a lot as to why they are doing what they're doing...for example, last night if anyone watched c-span there was a statement from a female from the pentagon...forgot her name...anyways, everything she said, if i had nothing to base it on, would have meant a lot to me and made me feel good that our country is out there fighting for the good of this world. but it is nothing but propoganda, we know the real reasons why they're fighting these people and toppling these regimes and it has nothing to do with freedom.

have a good night...

[sassa]

Originally posted by eccentricmofo

Well this is one reason why I prefer verbal discussions instead of messageboard debates, lol...Im confusing the hell out of myself here...

...

i agree, but i express myself better in writing..and if we had a verbal debate with a lot of people in here, there'd be a lot of 'fuck you's being exchanged...looooool....

[eccentricmofo]

I agree, I suppose writing has its better points, forceing the FucUer's to shush and read...

The same time my mind goes fast with points and sometimes its easier to keep up by means of speaking...ha.

Ya know... hold on for a sec.

[mr mahs]

Originally posted by georgeacasta2

I hope it IS all about oil because if we didn't sanction Sadam and he had the resources that lets say Saudi Arabia has you want to know what ? you guessed it,

WE WOULD NOT BE SITTING HERE RIGHT NOW....

The US would be a crater so THANK GOD they sanctioned this prick and removed him from power.. Bin Laden is a perfect example of sitting back and ignoring a maniac before he got to strong....You wanna know something else I hope we uproot every fucking dictator in the region... flex this muscle we have and earn some respect because heaven knows they don't respect weakness...

[chrishaolin]

Originally posted by sassa

this is such bullshit! first they fuck with afghanistan, then it's iraq...truth be told, if these countries didn't have valuable resources and weren't in the region they were....no one would give a flying fuck....

are you serious? leave the iraq situation out of the equation.. you dont see the justification for going into afghanistan? are you for real? and what valuable resources does afghanistan have? its a shithole. you are confused...

[sassa]

Originally posted by chrishaolin

are you serious? leave the iraq situation out of the equation.. you dont see the justification for going into afghanistan? are you for real? and what valuable resources does afghanistan have? its a shithole. you are confused...

a "shithole" that's conveniently positioned where there are huge oil reserves, especially in central asia...

up until 9/11, afghanistan also had one of the largest poppy crops in the world...= opium+ heroin...a lot of which surprisingly ends up here in the US...people used to rave about the quality of afghan hash....

anyways. how do you know it's a shithole? have you seen it?

[chrishaolin]

Originally posted by sassa

a "shithole" that's conveniently positioned where there are huge oil reserves, especially in central asia...

up until 9/11, afghanistan also had one of the largest poppy crops in the world...= opium+ heroin...a lot of which surprisingly ends up here in the US...people used to rave about the quality of afghan hash....

anyways. how do you know it's a shithole? have you seen it?

please.. like we would want to go in to take over poppy fields.. if we were interested in fields of crops for drugs, i think it'd be easier to go down to south america. no, i have never seen it, have you? no, i go by what i read.

but are you saying that we would have gone and "fuck"ed with Afghanistan if 9/11 had never happened? I doubt it.

[mr mahs]

Gimme a C

Gimme a O

Gimme a N

Gimme a S

Gimme a P

Gimme a I

Gimme a R

Gimme a A

Gimme a C

Gimme a Y

what's that spell.... Do you know how rediulous you sound? The oil reserve under Afghanistan? wanted by the U.S. like I said I hope they did tap it because it would pay for the rebuilding of that country... I think drunk on the other pOst sumed up that theory drawn up by a fellow LOON...Ted RALL go read it... or here you go.. excuse me Drunk...

Return of Rall: Oil conspiracy redux

By Bryan Keefer

April 12, 2002

Ted Rall knows something you and I don't: the war in Afghanistan is all about oil, not terrorism. At least, that's what he tries to argue in his latest column, written in response to a critique of a previous piece by my co-editor Brendan Nyhan. As one of the most elaborate and prominent expositions of the war-for-oil theory, which has been repeated by some liberal pundits, Rall's conspiracy theory is worth a detailed look. Not surprisingly, his argument breaks down under scrutiny into little more than a few wisps of circumstantial evidence held together by anti-Bush vitriol and emotionally charged rhetoric.

Rall first began arguing that military action in Afghanistan was about oil rather than terrorism in a syndicated column published in October. Examining the oil politics of Central Asia, he took note of American oil giant Unocal's mid-1990s plan to build a pipeline through Afghanistan to transport the large oil reserves of land-locked Kazakhstan (and other newly-independent Soviet republics) to the Pakistani port of Karachi. The Clinton administration's decision to harden its line against the Taliban in 1998 (in the wake of the terrorist attacks of that year) prompted Unocal to abandon the plan as politically impossible.

Rall suggested that the September 11 attacks provided a pretext to bomb Afghanistan in order to get the Unocal deal back on track, claiming that "[f]inally the Bushies have the perfect excuse to do what the U.S. has wanted all along-invade and/or install an old-school puppet regime in Kabul."

Nyhan noted that there had been little consideration of the politics of oil in Central Asia, but also thoroughly debunked Rall's conspiracy theory. He demonstrated how Rall had misread the recent history of Afghanistan according to his own source, as well as numerous other factual errors. Most importantly, Nyhan argued that Rall trivialized the importance of the publicly-declared motivations of the Bush administration for the actions in Afghanistan: going after Osama bin Laden, his network, and the regime that was sheltering both.

Rall's newest column attempts to refute Nyhan and shore up his earlier theory. In it, he claims his argument is supported by "three painfully obvious truths": That the Bush administration was planning to attack Afghanistan even before September 11; that the war on terror really isn't a war on terror at all; and that the White House doesn't care about the victims of the terrorist tragedies. Each is built on faulty logic and distorted evidence.

As proof that the Bush administration intended to attack Afghanistan even before September 11, Rall provides exactly no evidence - perhaps he thinks the claim is so "painfully obvious" that it needs no justification. Regardless, it is likely that his source is Bin Laden: The Forbidden Truth, a French book published a month after the terrorist attacks by two investigative journalists. Currently not available in translation, the book charges in part (as summarized by United Press International) that the Bush administration was negotiating with the Taliban over the proposed pipeline last year, and threatened to use force against it to push the project through. The authors claim their source for this information was former FBI agent John O'Neill, who was killed in the September 11 attacks in New York City. A spokesman for the National Security Council, however, flatly denied the report, saying "There's just absolutely nothing to it; it's just not correct," and the State Department has also denied that such negotiations took place. Moreover, the truth of the claim is irrelevant: even if the administration threatened the Taliban before September 11 over oil interests, it does not necessarily follow that those same interests motivated military action after September 11.

His next contention is that "the ersatz 'war on terror' has little to do with reducing, much less preventing, terrorist acts by Islamic extremists." Rall suggests that the White House should have "targeted groups in the countries that carried out the 9-11 attacks - Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan." While it is true that the US could have targeted those countries, its decision to bomb Afghanistan instead - which evidence suggested was harboring bin Laden - does not prove that the war is not about terrorism.

He continues with the suggestion that "Ninety-nine percent of the estimated 5,000 to 15,000 Afghans killed by US bombs had absolutely nothing to do with 9-11. That's an atrocity, it's even worse than 9-11, and Arabs know it." Once again, Rall fails to source his claims, which don't stand up to close scrutiny. The Associated Press estimated in February that the campaign had directly caused the deaths of 500 to 600 civilians based on hospital records, interviews, and examinations of bomb sites. Even University of New Hampshire economist Marc Herald, who has been criticized for duplicate sourcing of the casualties, estimated only between 3,100 and 3,800 civilian deaths caused by US forces. None of this, of course, minimizes the tragedy of such deaths. Yet neither do civilian casualty estimates support the claim that the war on terrorism is about oil. This is simply an inflammatory attempt to rile readers' emotions in support of Rall's outlandish theory.

Rall's final contention is that the Bush administration does not care about the victims of September 11, their families, or about women in Afghanistan. Rall notes that "for the first seven and a half months of his presidency, Bush never issued a single statement criticizing the Taliban's treatment of women." Once again, this is irrelevant -- such a lack of direct criticism from Bush does not necessarily contradict the administration's stated motive of going after terrorism by attacking the Taliban. Nor does this have anything to do with oil. It's simply a way of appealing to readers' preconceptions of Bush as hostile to women in order to score emotional points.

Attempting to prove that the White House doesn't care about the victims of 9-11, Rall claims that "the Bushies rushed through legislation depriving survivors of their right to sue the government or airlines. When push came to shove, Bush sold out the victims for a few millionare airline CEOs." Once again, he's just making things up. The airline bailout package included a provision that a person must surrender their right to sue the airlines in order to receive survivor's benefits from the federal government - otherwise they are free to do so, as several already have. Moreover, the financial bailout of the airline industry proves nothing about Bush's motives in the bombings - it's just another example of how Rall's theory is built on circumstantial evidence twisted into inflammatory emotional appeals.

Rall closes his column with a chronology of negotiations that may revive the pipeline project. He writes, "Unocal-related discussions began while the bombs were still falling last October and picked up steam after Bush appointed an ex-Unocal consultant, Zalmay Khalilzad, as his special envoy to Afghanistan." Here he is intentionally confusing one result of the bombings (discussions of reviving the pipeline project) with the purpose of the bombings. By such logic, any outcome - intentional or not - becomes the reason for the military actions: the rise in Bush's approval rating, the resumption of opium production or the pipeline project all become equally valid causes. Rall, as he does throughout his column, fails to give us any reason other than our preconceptions about Bush to believe his elaborate theories.

Like all good conspiracy theories, Rall's is impossible to prove or disprove without access to information that is not available - in this case, internal deliberations or even thoughts in Bush's mind. However, there is a tremendous amount of evidence that the war in Afghanistan is overwhelmingly motivated by a desire to fight terrorism, and only secondarily about other issues such as oil. Rall's flimsy evidence and cheap debating tactics all suggest his conspiracy theory is just that - a theory, and nothing more.