"Harlequin", for those of you new to the newswire, was outed many months ago as an employee of the British government. His posts have varied over the last year between calls for sabotage, bombing, and random acts of domestic terrorism, to appeals to various trotskist or maoist or anarchists sectlets, to posts such as the above which urge us to pack up and go home.

I am afraid that those involved in democratic dissent will always have the worms and voyeurs who read our email and spy on us, and seek to sow discord. All we can do is let them do their little dance. After all, they only do it for the money.

What is your answer to Tony Blair then when he states: "when we have been accused of rushing to war I say that we have given Saddam Hussein 12 years to comply with UN resolutions and even though I hate Saddams regime, I detest it, even now we are giving him a final chance to comply and disarm."

I would like to hear a good answer to that and so I suppose would Tony Blair!

Mr H, whoever you are, your every post is scrutinised by people (gives you goosebumps - you are importent yes!).
They are not fooled.
Suprised you think they can be.
Give it up pal.

I have argued the case against war on several website message boards for months and months ever since September 11th. But recently have simply been out argued by the pro war lobby and have to admit defeat. I have simply lost the argument against war on website message board after website message board! Got to the link below:

Iraq has no functional WMD -- almost everything was destroyed in 1991-2, as the key Iraqi defector to which Blair and Bush and Poweel continually appeal told them (but which they neglected to tell us)
and the rest is now completely non-functional.

NEWSWEEK reported that UNSCOM's key Iraqi defector had revealed that Iraq destroyed its WMD in 1991. The CIA claimed to Reuters that Newsweek's report was "incorrect, bogus, wrong, untrue". Now, the SUPPRESSED transcript of his debriefing has been published by the same Cambridge academic who exposed the Downing street dossier, exposing the CIA's dissembling and exposing Bush and Blair WMD lies.

Star Witness on Iraq Said Weapons Were Destroyed:

Bombshell revelation from a defector cited by White House and press

February 27, 2003

On February 24, Newsweek broke what may be the biggest story of the Iraq crisis. In a revelation that "raises questions about whether the WMD [weapons of mass destruction] stockpiles attributed to Iraq
still exist," the magazine's issue dated March 3 reported that the Iraqi weapons chief who defected from the regime in 1995 told U.N. inspectors that had destroyed its entire stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and banned missiles, as Iraq claims.

Until now, Gen. Hussein Kamel, who was killed shortly after
returning to Iraq in 1996, was best known for his role in exposing Iraq's deceptions about how far its pre-Gulf War biological weapons programs had advanced.

But Newsweek's John Barry-- who has covered Iraqi weapons
inspections for more than a decade-- obtained the transcript of Kamel's 1995 debriefing by officials from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the U.N.inspections team known as UNSCOM.

Inspectors were told "that after the Gulf War, Iraq destroyed all its chemical and biological weapons stocks and the missiles to deliver them,"

Barry wrote. All that remained were "hidden blueprints, computer disks, microfiches" and production molds. The weapons were destroyed secretly, in order to hide their existence from inspectors, in the hopes of someday resuming production after inspections had finished. The CIA and MI6 were told the same story, Barry reported, and "a military aide who defected with Kamel... backed Kamel's assertions about the destruction of WMD stocks."

But these statements were "hushed up by the U.N. inspectors" in order to "bluff Saddam into disclosing still more."

CIA spokesman Bill Harlow angrily denied the Newsweek report. "It is incorrect, bogus, wrong, untrue," Harlow told Reuters the day the report appeared (2/24/03).

But on Wednesday (2/26/03), a complete copy of the Kamel
transcript-- an internal UNSCOM/IAEA document stamped "sensitive"-- was obtained by Glen Rangwala, the Cambridge University analyst who in early February revealed
that Tony Blair's "intelligence dossier" was plagiarized from a student thesis.

Rangwala has posted the Kamel transcript on the Web:

 http://casi.org.uk/info/unscom950822.pdf.

In the transcript (p. 13), Kamel says bluntly: "All weapons-- biological, chemical, missile, nuclear, were destroyed."

Who is Hussein Kamel? Kamel is no obscure defector. A son-in-law of Saddam Hussein, his departure from Iraq carrying crates of secret documents on Iraq's past weapons programs was a major turning point in the inspections saga. In 1999, in a letter to the U.N. Security Council (1/25/99), UNSCOM
reported that its entire eight years of disarmament work "must be divided into two parts, separated by the events following the departure from Iraq, in August 1995, of Lt. General Hussein Kamel."

Kamel's defection has been cited repeatedly by George W. Bush and leading administration officials as evidence that 1) Iraq has not disarmed; 2) inspections cannot disarm it; and 3) defectors such as Kamel are the most reliable source of information on Iraq's weapons.

* Bush declared in an October 7, 2002 speech: "In 1995, after several years of deceit by the Iraqi regime, the head of Iraq's military industries defected. It was then that the regime was forced toadmit that it had produced more than 30,000 liters of anthrax and other deadly biological agents. The inspectors, however, concluded that Iraq
had likely produced two to four times that amount. This is a massive stockpile of biological weapons that has never been accounted for, and capable of killing millions."

* Secretary of State Colin Powell's February 5 presentation to the U.N. Security Council claimed: "It took years for Iraq to finally admit that it had produced four tons of the deadly nerve agent, VX. A single drop of VX on the skin will kill in minutes. Four tons. The admission only came out after inspectors collected documentation as a result of the defection of Hussein Kamel, Saddam Hussein's late son-in-law."

* In a speech last August (8/27/02), Vice President Dick Cheney said Kamel's story "should serve as a reminder to all that we often learned more as the result of defections than we learned from the inspection regime itself."

* Deputy National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley recently wrote in the Chicago Tribune (2/16/03) that "because of information provided by Iraqi defector and former head of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs, Lt. Gen. Hussein Kamel, the regime had to admit in detail how it
cheated on its nuclear non-proliferation commitments."

The quotes from Bush and Powell cited above refer to anthrax and VX produced by Iraq before the 1991 Gulf War. The administration has cited various quantities of chemical and biological weapons on many other occasions-- weapons that Iraq produced but which remain unaccounted for.

All of these claims refer to weapons produced before 1991. But according to Kamel's transcript, Iraq destroyed all of these weapons in 1991.

According to Newsweek, Kamel told the same story to CIA analysts in August 1995. If that is true, all of these U.S. officials have had access to Kamel's statements that the weapons were destroyed. Their repeated citations of his testimony-- without revealing that he also said the weapons no longer exist-- suggests that the administration might be withholding critical evidence. In particular, it casts doubt on the credibility of Powell's February 5 presentation to the U.N., which was widely hailed at the time for its persuasiveness. To clear up the issue, journalists might ask that the CIA release the transcripts of its ownconversations with Kamel.

Kamel's disclosures have also been crucial to the arguments made by hawkish commentators on Iraq. The defector has been cited four times on the New York Times op-ed page in the last four months in support of claims about Iraq's weapons programs--never noting his assertions about the elimination of these weapons. In a major Times op-ed calling for war with Iraq (2/21/03), Kenneth Pollack of the Brookings Institution wrote that Kamel and other defectors "reported that outside pressure had not only failed to eradicate the nuclear program, it was bigger and more cleverly spread out and concealed than anyone had imagined it to be." The release of Kamel's transcript makes this claim appear grossly at odds with the defector's actual testimony.

The Kamel story is a bombshell that necessitates a thorough
reevaluation of U.S. media reporting on Iraq, much of which has taken for granted that the nation retains supplies of prohibited weapons. (See FAIR Advisory, "Iraq's Hidden Weapons: From Allegation to Fact,"www.fair.org/press-releases/iraq-weapons.html.) Kamel's testimonyis not, of course, proof that Iraq does not have hidden stocks
of chemical or biological weapons, but it does suggest a need for much more media skepticism about U.S. allegations than has previously been shown.

Unfortunately, Newsweek chose a curious way to handle its scoop: The magazine placed the story in the miscellaneous "Periscope"section with a generic headline, "The Defector's Secrets." Worse, Newsweek's online
version added a subhead that seemed almost designed to undercut the importance of the story: "Before his death, a high-ranking defector said Iraq had not abandoned its WMD ambitions." So far, according to a February 27 search of the Nexis database, no major U.S. newspapers or
national television news shows have picked up the Newsweek story.

Read the Newsweek story:  http://www.msnbc.com/news/876128.asp

Read Glen Rangwala's analysis of the Kamel transcript:
 http://middleeastreference.org.uk/kamel.html

"when we have been accused of rushing to war I say that we have given Isreal 35 years to comply with UN resolutions and even though I hate Sharon's regime, I detest it, even now we are giving him a final chance to comply and disarm."

"when we have been accused of rushing to war I say that we have given the US 12 years to comply with the UN charter and stop bombing Iraq and even though I hate Bush's regime, I detest it, even now we are giving him a final chance to comply and disarm."

"when we have been accused of rushing to war I say that we have given the US 12 years to comply with international opinion and lift the genocidal sanctions on iraq even though I hate Bush's regime, I detest it, even now we are giving him a final chance to comply and disarm."

"when we have been accused of rushing to war I say that we have given the US 55 years to comply with the nuclear non-proliferation act and even though I hate Bush's regime, I detest it, even now we are giving him a final chance to comply and disarm."

in any case, didn't iraq destroy 95% of its weapons during the last inspections, until the inspectors were pulled out by the US so they could bomb more freely?
and how do you justify a war which could kill 500,000, civilians acccording to the UN, when there is no threat to anyone?!?!

Saddam not Bush or Blair are the real enemy! That is why Bush and Blair are not going to leave Iraq alone so that Saddam is free to do as he pleases, ethnically cleanse his country of Kurds and Shia Muslims, threaten and invade his neighbours and develope all manner of weapons of mass destruction including nuclear weapons which he will use to intimidate and bully other countries and eventually the USA and Britain.

As Tony Blair has said: "leaving Saddam alone to do as he pleases will only lead to a much bigger far more destructive conflict in the future, which will result in far more death and destruction than ever imagined!" That is why Bush and Blair are so concerned with disarming Iraq. Not because of oil, not because of western imperialism, but to make the world safe!

Lets face it who is the biggest threat to world peace today?It is not George Bush or Tony Blair it is Saddam Hussein who has no respect for the United Nations he has violated every UN resolution put to his country, invaded two of his neighbours, terrorised, tortured and persecuted his own people, and now is trying to develope weapons of mass destruction including nuclear weapons.

We don't need saddam to be ethnically cleansing the Kurds; we got Turkey for that!
And you're right about saddam's threat to world peace. Why, just LOOK at the masses of heavily armed troops he's stationed all across eastern Europe in the last couple of weeks! Oh, hang on...

Christ on a bike!! - it's Jack Straw in disguise.

h mate, you're not listening or thinking just parroting what you're told...please read below and answer these questions

Who is currently threatening other countries with WMD (it illegal under the UN chater to threaten other countries)?

Who is currently bombing another country, with no authoriastion, again in violation of international law?

If saddam's such a threat to his neighbours, then why are his neighbours against war, partic. the people in those countries?

Which country has used nuclear weapons before?

Which country has used the most 'wmd' before?
(hint, agent orange, cluster bombs, bunker busters, depleted uranium, a-bomb)

If violating SCouncil resolutions is the key then there are other countries that need to be attacked first, Isreal in particular defies the UN, killing thousands of people. How does the US respond? by giving them weapons...

Btw, the Security Council is not the UN, the Security Council is just the world's main powers. Can you explain to me how the US, for example could ever be in violation of SC resolutions? It would just veto them, and has done.

If proliferation of WMD is your main problem, then take a look, who is the main proliferator? 80% of the world's weapons were made in the US, the US has armed Iraq, Iran, Isreal, Columbia, Turkey, Pol Pot, Saudi Arabia, Bin Laden etc..

There is no evidenvce that Saddam has WMD or is trying to develop them, Iraq is the most x-rayed and spied on country in the world...

The only people who are ethically cleansing the Kurds are the Turks (in the last decade 50,000 killed 2,000 villages destroyed, 2,000,000 driven from their homes) and guess what, the US will let the Turks invade N.Iraq, where the Kurds live relatively peacefully.

A war could kill 500,000 innocent people according to the UN

h mate, you're not listening or thinking just parroting what you're told...please read below and answer these questions

Who is currently threatening other countries with WMD (it illegal under the UN chater to threaten other countries)?

Who is currently bombing another country, with no authoriastion, again in violation of international law?

If saddam's such a threat to his neighbours, then why are his neighbours against war, partic. the people in those countries?

Which country has used nuclear weapons before?

Which country has used the most 'wmd' before?
(hint, agent orange, cluster bombs, bunker busters, depleted uranium, a-bomb)

If violating SCouncil resolutions is the key then there are other countries that need to be attacked first, Isreal in particular defies the UN, killing thousands of people. How does the US respond? by giving them weapons...

Btw, the Security Council is not the UN, the Security Council is just the world's main powers. Can you explain to me how the US, for example could ever be in violation of SC resolutions? It would just veto them, and has done.

If proliferation of WMD is your main problem, then take a look, who is the main proliferator? 80% of the world's weapons were made in the US, the US has armed Iraq, Iran, Isreal, Columbia, Turkey, Pol Pot, Saudi Arabia, Bin Laden etc..

There is no evidenvce that Saddam has WMD or is trying to develop them, Iraq is the most x-rayed and spied on country in the world...

The only people who are ethically cleansing the Kurds are the Turks (in the last decade 50,000 killed 2,000 villages destroyed, 2,000,000 driven from their homes) and guess what, the US will let the Turks invade N.Iraq, where the Kurds live relatively peacefully.

A war could kill 500,000 innocent people according to the UN

Quote "A war could kill 500,000 innocent people according to the UN".

Saddam could stop the threat of war by going into exile or complying with UN resolution 1441!

Bush doesn't want war and neither does Blair! All they want is for Saddam Hussein to comply with UN resolution 1441 ordering Iraq to destroy its weapons of mass destruction. Leaving Iraq to develop these weapons will not make the world a safer place or prevent future war. SOMETHING MUST BE DONE ABOUT SADDAM AND IF WAR HAPPENS IT IS SADDAMS FAULT NOT BUSH OR BLAIRS!

I mean, PC Harlequin is completely off the scale.

He oscillates between the most god-awful embarrasing ultra-leftist phony anarchist drivel (all non-rioters are traitors/marching won't change anything/lets all kill a copper/smash Starbucks windows with our heads etc etc) and this kind of wide-eyed Blairite innocence (our leaders tell us this so it must be true).

No consistency whatsoever. What are you Harly? A rabid black flagger or a shiny happy government-supporting android? You cannot be both.

Everyone else: He's either completely barking or is trying some half-arsed psy-ops with all the usual blundering lack of finesse of the secret services.

If there was ever any proof that our "masters" are not superior and omnipotent , its this joker.

This war will go ahead, its like a wedding. They've sent out the invites and booked a marquee and hired a band and everything.

However our protest movement gets bigger by the day and we *can* stop it, as well as getting rid of some of the bigger pricks in our collective consciousness while we're at it.

Sadly it apears that Harlequin we will just have to live with.

Stop the War!

MM

YESTERDAY'S Harlequim confidently told us that there would be NO war, precisely because Saddam had started to comply with 1441.

Today, there WILL be war, and it's Saddam's fault cos he's NOT complying with 1441.

Harlequim- you a FOOL!

I seem to remember Harlequin telling us off a few weeks back for being silly enough to support the firefighters, because according to his infinite wisdom, firefighters are part of the ruling class!

I know most folk say he's either a copper or a troll, but I still reckon he's a deeply confused 13-year-old. Maybe we should just let him rant?

Read this, shitwit!

A war policy in collapse

By James Carroll, 3/4/2003 : Boston Globe

HAT A DIFFERENCE a month makes. On Feb. 5, Secretary of State Colin Powell made the Bush administration's case against Iraq with a show of authority that moved many officials and pundits out of ambivalence and into acceptance. The war came to seem inevitable, which then prompted millions of people to express their opposition in streets around the globe. Over subsequent weeks, the debate between hawks and doves took on the strident character of ideologues beating each other with fixed positions. The sputtering rage of war opponents and the grandiose abstractions of war advocates both seemed disconnected from the relentless marshaling of troops. War was coming. Further argument was fruitless. The time seemed to have arrived, finally, for a columnist to change the subject.

And then the events of last week. Within a period of a few days, the war policy of the Bush administration suddenly showed signs of incipient collapse. No one of these developments by itself marks the ultimate reversal of fortune for Bush, but taken together, they indicate that the law of ''unintended consequences,'' which famously unravels the best-laid plans of warriors, may apply this time before the war formally begins. Unraveling is underway. Consider what happened as February rolled into March:

Tony Blair forcefully criticized George W. Bush for his obstinacy on global environmental issues, a truly odd piece of timing for such criticism from a key ally yet a clear effort to get some distance from Washington. Why now?

The president's father chose to give a speech affirming the importance both of multinational cooperation and of realism in dealing with the likes of Saddam Hussein. To say, as the elder Bush did, that getting rid of Hussein in 1991 was not the most important thing is to raise the question of why it has become the absolute now.

For the first time since the crisis began, Iraq actually began to disarm, destroying Al Samoud 2 missiles and apparently preparing to bring weapons inspectors into the secret world of anthrax and nerve agents. The Bush administration could have claimed this as a victory on which to mount further pressure toward disarmament.

Instead, the confirmed destruction of Iraqi arms prompted Washington to couple its call for disarmament with the old, diplomatically discredited demand for regime change. Even an Iraq purged of weapons of mass destruction would not be enough to avoid war. Predictably, Iraq then asked, in effect, why Hussein should take steps to disarm if his government is doomed in any case? Bush's inconsistency on this point -- disarmament or regime change? -- undermined the early case for war. That it reappears now, obliterating Powell's argument of a month ago, is fatal to the moral integrity of the prowar position.

The Russian foreign minister declared his nation's readiness to use its veto in the Security Council to thwart American hopes for a UN ratification of an invasion.

Despite Washington's offer of many billions in aid, the Turkish Parliament refused to approve US requests to mount offensive operations from bases in Turkey -- the single largest blow against US war plans yet. This failure of Bush diplomacy, eliminating a second front, might be paid for in American lives.

The capture in Pakistan of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a senior Al Qaeda operative, should have been only good news to the Bush administration, but it highlighted the difference between the pursuit of Sept. 11 culprits and the unrelated war against Iraq. Osama bin Laden, yes. Saddam Hussein, no.

Administration officials, contradicting military projections and then refusing in testimony before Congress to estimate costs and postwar troop levels, put on display either the administration's inadequate preparation or its determination, through secrecy, to thwart democratic procedures -- choose one.

In other developments, all highlighting Washington's panicky ineptness, the Philippines rejected the help of arriving US combat forces, North Korea apparently prepared to start up plutonium production, and Rumsfeld ordered the actual deployment of missile defense units in California and Alaska, making the absurd (and as of now illegal) claim that further tests are unnecessary.

All of this points to an administration whose policies are confused and whose implementations are incompetent. The efficiency with which the US military is moving into position for attack is impressive; thousands of uniformed Americans are preparing to carry out the orders of their civilian superiors with diligence and courage. But the hollowness of that civilian leadership, laid bare in the disarray of last week's news, is breathtaking.

That the United States of America should be on the brink of such an ill-conceived, unnecessary war is itself a crime. The hope now is that -- even before the war has officially begun -- its true character is already manifesting itself, which could be enough, at last, to stop it.

James Carroll's column appears regularly in the Globe.

This story ran on page A15 of the Boston Globe on 3/4/2003