Hook Dem
10-10-2004, 10:03 AM
Kerry demeans our allies and helps our enemies - A MUST READ!
Townhall ^ | Paul Crespo | Paul Crespo
One of John Kerry's most annoying campaign mantras is that he would mend the relations with our allies that President Bush allegedly has frazzled with his "arrogance" and "unilateralism." He repeated this theme during his Thursday debate with Bush.
Kerry thinks only he can repair what he sees as America's "damaged international standing." Among his silly proposals, Kerry has argued that holding a summit would magically convince the French and Germans to "flip-flop" on their anti-Iraq position. Many Kerry supporters actually believe this nonsense.
For those who may not know it, John Forbes Kerry, son of a bitter and anti-American US diplomat, attended a Swiss finishing school, speaks French, and married Theresa Heinz, the foreign-born, multilingual widowed heiress to a nearly billion dollar Republican fortune. In Kerry's eyes, he is therefore clearly more worldly and sensitive than Bush "the Texas cowboy."
Yet, the truth is that the cosmopolitan Kerry has done more in recent months to insult, degrade and alienate America's real allies than any American politician in memory.
To make his case, Kerry repeatedly has stated that Bush went to war in Iraq unilaterally and "alone." Meanwhile John Kerry claims he would internationalize our war in Iraq. Of course when he says that, Kerry ignores the coalition of 30-plus nations fighting and dying alongside Americans in Iraq today. Kerry also ignores the contingent of military trainers NATO is now sending to Iraq.
Among our allies in Iraq are the United Kingdom, Italy, Australia, Poland and Hungary, along with over two dozen smaller partners for freedom. When the chips were down, and we called for help, these nations proved to be America’s real allies.
So, does Kerry mean Bush acted "unilaterally" only because France, Germany and Russia refused to join us? Are they the only countries that matter to Kerry? How many allies do we need for Kerry to notice? Or is any multilateral action not officially sanctioned by the UN, now considered "going alone?" Does that mean President Clinton acted unilaterally when he prodded NATO to attack Serbia in 1999 without UN approval?
When Kerry isn't lying about Bush going to Iraq alone, and he inadvertently acknowledges that we do have allies in Iraq, he demeans them, calling these proud nations, the coalition of "the bribed, the coerced, the bought and the extorted." But Kerry’s anti-diplomacy doesn’t end at merely insulting our friends. He also recently actively undermined one of America’s most loyal allies – the Australians.
Following the terrorist car bomb intended for the Australian embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, the September 18 Weekend Australian reported that: “John Kerry’s campaign has warned Australians that [Prime Minister John] Howard Government’s support for the US in Iraq has made them a bigger target for international terrorists.” This comes as our friend and ally John Howard is running in a tight race against Labor Party leader Mark Latham who has promised to withdraw Australian troops from Iraq. Election Day in Australia is October 9.
In an interview on September 15, none other than John Kerry’s sister, Diana Kerry, head of “Americans Overseas for Kerry” stated cynically: “[W]e are endangering the Australians now by our wanton disregard for international law and multilateral channels.” Osama bin Laden could not have said it better himself -- “Join America in the war on terror and die!” Howard put his political career on the line to support America in Iraq, and Kerry’s campaign is actively sabotaging him for his courage and loyalty.
Some would call this the "outsourcing of treason."
Is this how Kerry plans to broaden our coalition? Will Kerry’s kowtowing to the obstructionist French and Germans while ridiculing and frightening those countries who accepted our call for help encourage others to stand with us?
But Kerry hasn’t stopped there. In probably his most disgraceful behavior to date, John Forbes Kerry also undermined and our most important ally in the Iraq war – Iraq’s Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. A true hero, Allawi is targeted by terrorists and attempting to sheperd Iraq toward democracy under fire. In his recent speech to the US Congress Allawi said that the situation in Iraq was less chaotic than the news reports make it appear, and the elections scheduled for January should be held.
Rather than support our critical ally, Kerry essentially, if indirectly, called the Prime Minister a Bush lap dog and a liar. Kerry said: “The Prime Minister and the President are here obviously to put their best face on [Iraq] policy, but the fact is that the CIA estimates, reporting, the ground operations and the troops all tell a different story.”
That was bad enough, but Kerry spokesman and senior advisor Joe Lockhart more directly insulted the courageous Allawi, basically calling him a puppet: “you can almost see the hand underneath the shirt today moving the lips.” Lockhart sneered. Will undermining the legitimacy of our key ally in Iraq improve the situation there?
Judging from his recent behavior and statements, Kerry will do for America in Iraq what he did for us upon returning from his four month stint in Vietnam -- undermine our friends and help our enemies. This would not be a president who would improve America’s relations with its allies. Rather, if Kerry wins, America's loyal, non Franco-German allies can look forward to four years of cold shoulders in the White House.
Paul Crespo is a former US Marine Corps officer. He served as a NATO Liaison Officer in London and as a military attaché at US embassies in the Balkans, Persian Gulf and Latin America. He teaches world politics at the University of Miami. This is a slightly updated and edited version of a column that appeared in Tiempos del Mundo last Thursday.
John Kerry Thinks We’re All Stupid
Techniguy 10-09-04
It should be clear to everyone by now that John Kerry's campaign is based totally on criticizing everything Bush has done, and is doing, then promote his own hypothetical plan for doing the utterly impossible. On every issue, Kerry has stated that he would do "everything" differently. When you consider all the progress Bush has made in the war on terror, protecting the homeland, and restoring the economy after the recession and 911 attacks, we have to assume that Kerry would have done non of this (since Bush was all wrong) and our country would be right where it was in October of 2001. And from what I hear Kerry proposing now, that is exactly where his plans would take us again but without the support of our real allies.
I can't list all of Bush's allies here as they are too numerous including Britain, Poland, Italy, Japan, Australia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, the provisional government of Iraq, etc., but I can list Kerry's allies here... France, Germany, Russia, and Communist China. The four major countries involved in corruption scandals and illegal trade with terrorist regimes for profit under the watchful eye of the UN. Because these few corrupt countries who oppose America and her right to defend herself are not on Bush's list of allies, Kerry insists that we are "going it alone" and the whole world is against us. That we thumbed our nose and turned our back on our allies. Kerry sounds more like Jacques Chirac than a loyal American, perhaps he should be running for president of France, not the US. We don't need a president who sides with America haters and communists and demeans and belittles our real allies who have given their lives to answered the call for help from America.
Kerry disputes every one of Bush’s accomplishments and tries to portray everything in the negative light of criticism and pessimism. I wouldn’t expect Kerry to give Bush any credit for his accomplishments during his campaign, but to spin everything he’s done into some negative, evil, and dishonest scenario is an outrage and extremely distasteful to the majority of Americans who have proper respect for their president as Kerry obviously doesn’t. It’s no wonder that Bush couldn’t believe what he was hearing from Kerry in the first debate. Now he knows what kind of a pompous, disrespectful, and deceitful person Kerry really is and won’t underestimate him again as we saw in the second debate.
Kerry is complaining about Halliburton being given the contract for rebuilding the infrastructure and providing support for our troops in Iraq. Obviously then, Kerry would prefer that the contract had been given to the only other company on the planet capable of handling this huge task, Technip, a French company who was profiting from illegal trade with Saddam. This is just insane. When you want a house built, and have a friend in the construction business whom you know and trust, why would you give the job to a corrupt foreigner who opposes building your house on the lot? Why would we want to send all those American dollars overseas to a country like France who is stabbing us in the back every chance they get when we need that money spent on Americans now to stimulate the economy and create jobs? Is there really any question that Bush made the right decision in awarding the contract to Halliburton, an American company? Is there really any doubt that Kerry would have made the wrong decision for America? There is just something warped and un-American about Kerry’s way of thinking, but then we have to remember that everything, and I do mean “everything” Bush has done is wrong according to Kerry.
Kerry’s job as presidential candidate is to try to convince as many Americans as possible that Bush is a failure and doing a terrible job as president. It’s the only approach he can take as a candidate with nothing to his credit, a twenty year record of failure in the Senate, and facing the challenge of trying to defeat a great leader who is loved and respected by a majority of the people. There has always been partisan bickering and smear tactics involved in elections in the past, but in addition to that, both candidates present their beliefs and plans for a better America and let the electorate decide who they want to lead our country. John Kerry’s campaign has been almost nothing but a smear campaign using lies and deceit to try to cut our president down to his level where he can be competitive. The plans he proposes are usually either a slight modification of Bush’s plan, as in Iraq, or a hypothetical proposal that would be impossible to implement, as with the economy or bringing more allies into the war. He talks big and tall, but in reality, has no workable plan of his own that isn‘t already in progress by Bush. He has to make President Bush look bad to make himself look good and in doing so, is making our whole country look bad and undermining the war on terror by feeding the foreign, anti-American propaganda machine and encouraging our enemies with hope.
This, by the way, is the same tactic used in his traitorous, antiwar campaign during Vietnam to establish a reputation for his bid for government office. If it worked then, why not now to propel him into the presidency? It won’t work now because instead of having to fool only one liberal state, he has to try to fool the whole country and most of us don’t see things the same way as they do in Massachusetts. Americans will vote their conscience and concern for their country’s security and safety. Most Americans know they can trust George Bush to do the right thing for the country and have the strength and resolve to make the hard decisions and stick to them, regardless of political correctness or what foreigners and the UN think and want. We have all seen the leadership of George W. Bush over the past four years and compared it to the failures of Bill Clinton who left our country vulnerable to terrorists. We were all impressed by Bush’s leadership after the attacks of 911 and know who Bush is and what he will do for us. We are getting to know John Kerry now too and what his abilities and priorities are. He just doesn’t have what it takes to be president in leadership, loyalty to his country, or honesty with the American people. Too much of the lies and deceit of his campaign have been exposed by now and we could expect the same from him as president. We had enough of that during the Clinton Administration to last a lifetime and are not interested in returning to it. Four more years of Bush? You bet your life on it. You bet your future on it. And you bet your country on it.
MSNBC.com
Many helped Iraq evade U.N. sanctions
Arms dealers and military suppliers around the world were involved
By Craig Whitlock and Glenn Frankel
The Washington Post
Updated: 2:20 a.m. ET Oct. 8, 2004
BERLIN - As part of its stealth effort to evade U.N. sanctions and rebuild its military, the Iraqi government under President Saddam Hussein found that it had no shortage of people around the world who were willing to help. Among them: a French arms dealer known only as "Mr. Claude," who made a surreptitious visit to Iraq four years ago to provide technical expertise and training.
Mr. Claude worked for Lura, a French company that sold tank carriers to Iraq, according to documents recovered by the top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq. The mysterious Frenchman may have also helped the Iraqis attempt to acquire military-related radar and microwave technology, despite a U.N. ban on such trade with Iraq since the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Other French military contractors came to Baghdad with offers to supply the Iraqi government with helicopters, spare parts for fighter aircraft and air defense systems after 1998, when U.N. weapons inspectors withdrew under pressure, according to a report issued this week by Charles A. Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons inspector. The report cites evidence that contacts between the French suppliers and Hussein's government continued until last year, less than one month before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
While not denying that the transfers took place, a spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry, Herve Ladsous, said the accusations "were not verified either with the people themselves or with the authorities of the countries concerned," according to the Associated Press.
Critical assistance
The French were hardly alone in helping Hussein to reinvigorate his military forces during the 12 years that Iraq was under strict U.N. sanctions. Arm dealers and military suppliers from the former Eastern Bloc — Russia, Poland, Romania, Belarus and Ukraine — provided critical assistance to Iraq as it tried to build a long-range missile program and other systems that weapons inspectors feared could have been used someday to launch chemical, biological or even nuclear attacks.
"It was well known within the U.S. government that individuals and companies were selling Iraq various kinds of prohibited items," said Gary Samore, a nonproliferation specialist in the Clinton administration who now works as an analyst for the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.
While the United States sought to shut down suppliers through diplomatic and other means, Samore said, it was common knowledge that Iraq was able to bypass sanctions by buying in small quantities and paying high prices, using a network of front companies in Jordan, Syria and other countries in the Middle East.
"The world is awash in conventional arms, and every time there's been an arms embargo on a country they've been able to circumvent it," he said. "It's much more difficult to buy more exotic technologies like nuclear weapons, but there are so many private dealers and corrupt state entities, especially in the former Soviet Union. The best you can do is slow down sales, obstruct them or make it more expensive."
Numerous other nations bought and sold on the Iraqi military shopping network, including such dictatorships as North Korea and the former Yugoslavia before the downfall of President Slobodan Milosevic. While some of the countries were politically friendly with or sympathetic to Iraq, the biggest motivation was usually money, according to Duelfer's report to the CIA.
"As long as the regime had enough cash to pay for these items, it really wouldn't have been too much of a problem to obtain these things and smuggle them in," said Jeremy Binnie, Middle East editor for Jane's Sentinel Security Assessments, a London-based magazine. "It just takes people with enough money and the ability to find the right contacts to get their hands on this stuff."
Links to Poland, other countries in coalition
The Iraqi pipeline extended to four countries — Bulgaria, Poland, Romania and Ukraine — that later sent troops to Iraq to join the U.S.-led military coalition.
In Poland, Iraqi intelligence officers helped set up a front company called Ewex, which obtained engines and guidance components for surface-to-air missiles from Polish scrap dealers and middlemen who scoured military surplus stockpiles for the parts, the report said.
U.S. inspectors estimated that Iraq bought about 280 engines from Poland from 2001 to 2003 with the intent of using them to equip a new missile that violated U.N. range limits. The engines had been removed from Polish missiles decommissioned after the Cold War.
Polish authorities arrested some Ewex executives in 2003 on charges of making illegal arms deliveries to Iraq. Purchasing documents confiscated later showed that many of the engines were funneled through Syria.
In Bulgaria, a firm called the JEFF Co. exported more than $7 million worth of warheads, missiles and launcher units to Baghdad in 2002 in violation of U.N. sanctions, the report found. Other Bulgarian traders sold chemicals and machine tools to Iraq that could be used for civilian purposes but were really intended for missile components and other military purposes.
In Romania, Iraqi intelligence agents used diplomatic pouches to send photos of tanks and other military equipment available for sale in that nation back to Baghdad. Although weapons inspectors said it was unclear how much equipment was purchased by the Iraqi government, they did uncover documents after the war showing that a Romanian firm, Uzinexport SA, signed a contract in October 2001 to sell magnets to Iraq that "could have been suitable" for a uranium enrichment program.
In most cases, U.S. weapons inspectors found no clear evidence that officials in those countries were involved in the arms deals. One exception was Ukraine, where leaders gave their blessing to military sales to Iraq.
The Duelfer report calls Ukraine "one of the countries involved in illicit military-related procurement with Iraq" after the 1991 Gulf War, noting that President Leonid Kuchma personally approved the sale of a $100 million antiaircraft radar system to Iraq via a Jordanian intermediary in 2000. Ukrainian officials have since said the sale was never completed, and weapons inspectors said they had not found any evidence that the radar system was shipped to Iraq.
In 2001, Iraqi intelligence agents also bought five motors from a Ukrainian company as part of a project to develop unmanned spy planes. The motors were shipped to Iraq from Ukraine in diplomatic pouches to avoid the attention of international inspectors, the report said.
A Ukrainian electronics professor whose private firm transferred missile engines and motors to Iraqi companies was rewarded with vouchers and credits for more than 7.5 million barrels of Iraqi oil from 1998 to 2000, the report found. The professor, identified as Yuri Orshansky, made about $1.85 million in profits under the U.N. oil-for-food program, which was designed to generate revenue for the Iraqi people under economic sanctions.
Russian know-how
Some of the clearest evidence of government corruption, according to the report, involved Russia, a country that has vast storehouses of military technology.
Although the Russian government has denied past accusations that it played a role in supplying arms and military equipment to Hussein's government, U.S. weapons inspectors reported finding "a significant amount of captured documentation showing contracts between Iraq and Russian companies."
In one case, a Russian general, Anatoly Makros, formed a joint company with Iraqi partners in 1998 "just to handle the large volume of Russian business," according to the report, which also cited a former Iraqi diplomat as saying that Russian customs officials ignored the illegal commerce in exchange for bribes.
Trade with Russia was so brisk that Iraqi Embassy officials smuggled military supplies on weekly charter flights from Moscow to Baghdad, according to the former Iraqi diplomat, who was not named in the report. The equipment included radar jammers, night-vision goggles and small missile components.
One Russian company signed contracts valued at about $20 million to provide material for Iraq's missile systems. Another Russian firm, Uliss, negotiated a deal to support a tank project dubbed "Saddam the Lion," according to the report.
Frankel reported from London.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company
Townhall ^ | Paul Crespo | Paul Crespo
One of John Kerry's most annoying campaign mantras is that he would mend the relations with our allies that President Bush allegedly has frazzled with his "arrogance" and "unilateralism." He repeated this theme during his Thursday debate with Bush.
Kerry thinks only he can repair what he sees as America's "damaged international standing." Among his silly proposals, Kerry has argued that holding a summit would magically convince the French and Germans to "flip-flop" on their anti-Iraq position. Many Kerry supporters actually believe this nonsense.
For those who may not know it, John Forbes Kerry, son of a bitter and anti-American US diplomat, attended a Swiss finishing school, speaks French, and married Theresa Heinz, the foreign-born, multilingual widowed heiress to a nearly billion dollar Republican fortune. In Kerry's eyes, he is therefore clearly more worldly and sensitive than Bush "the Texas cowboy."
Yet, the truth is that the cosmopolitan Kerry has done more in recent months to insult, degrade and alienate America's real allies than any American politician in memory.
To make his case, Kerry repeatedly has stated that Bush went to war in Iraq unilaterally and "alone." Meanwhile John Kerry claims he would internationalize our war in Iraq. Of course when he says that, Kerry ignores the coalition of 30-plus nations fighting and dying alongside Americans in Iraq today. Kerry also ignores the contingent of military trainers NATO is now sending to Iraq.
Among our allies in Iraq are the United Kingdom, Italy, Australia, Poland and Hungary, along with over two dozen smaller partners for freedom. When the chips were down, and we called for help, these nations proved to be America’s real allies.
So, does Kerry mean Bush acted "unilaterally" only because France, Germany and Russia refused to join us? Are they the only countries that matter to Kerry? How many allies do we need for Kerry to notice? Or is any multilateral action not officially sanctioned by the UN, now considered "going alone?" Does that mean President Clinton acted unilaterally when he prodded NATO to attack Serbia in 1999 without UN approval?
When Kerry isn't lying about Bush going to Iraq alone, and he inadvertently acknowledges that we do have allies in Iraq, he demeans them, calling these proud nations, the coalition of "the bribed, the coerced, the bought and the extorted." But Kerry’s anti-diplomacy doesn’t end at merely insulting our friends. He also recently actively undermined one of America’s most loyal allies – the Australians.
Following the terrorist car bomb intended for the Australian embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, the September 18 Weekend Australian reported that: “John Kerry’s campaign has warned Australians that [Prime Minister John] Howard Government’s support for the US in Iraq has made them a bigger target for international terrorists.” This comes as our friend and ally John Howard is running in a tight race against Labor Party leader Mark Latham who has promised to withdraw Australian troops from Iraq. Election Day in Australia is October 9.
In an interview on September 15, none other than John Kerry’s sister, Diana Kerry, head of “Americans Overseas for Kerry” stated cynically: “[W]e are endangering the Australians now by our wanton disregard for international law and multilateral channels.” Osama bin Laden could not have said it better himself -- “Join America in the war on terror and die!” Howard put his political career on the line to support America in Iraq, and Kerry’s campaign is actively sabotaging him for his courage and loyalty.
Some would call this the "outsourcing of treason."
Is this how Kerry plans to broaden our coalition? Will Kerry’s kowtowing to the obstructionist French and Germans while ridiculing and frightening those countries who accepted our call for help encourage others to stand with us?
But Kerry hasn’t stopped there. In probably his most disgraceful behavior to date, John Forbes Kerry also undermined and our most important ally in the Iraq war – Iraq’s Prime Minister Ayad Allawi. A true hero, Allawi is targeted by terrorists and attempting to sheperd Iraq toward democracy under fire. In his recent speech to the US Congress Allawi said that the situation in Iraq was less chaotic than the news reports make it appear, and the elections scheduled for January should be held.
Rather than support our critical ally, Kerry essentially, if indirectly, called the Prime Minister a Bush lap dog and a liar. Kerry said: “The Prime Minister and the President are here obviously to put their best face on [Iraq] policy, but the fact is that the CIA estimates, reporting, the ground operations and the troops all tell a different story.”
That was bad enough, but Kerry spokesman and senior advisor Joe Lockhart more directly insulted the courageous Allawi, basically calling him a puppet: “you can almost see the hand underneath the shirt today moving the lips.” Lockhart sneered. Will undermining the legitimacy of our key ally in Iraq improve the situation there?
Judging from his recent behavior and statements, Kerry will do for America in Iraq what he did for us upon returning from his four month stint in Vietnam -- undermine our friends and help our enemies. This would not be a president who would improve America’s relations with its allies. Rather, if Kerry wins, America's loyal, non Franco-German allies can look forward to four years of cold shoulders in the White House.
Paul Crespo is a former US Marine Corps officer. He served as a NATO Liaison Officer in London and as a military attaché at US embassies in the Balkans, Persian Gulf and Latin America. He teaches world politics at the University of Miami. This is a slightly updated and edited version of a column that appeared in Tiempos del Mundo last Thursday.
John Kerry Thinks We’re All Stupid
Techniguy 10-09-04
It should be clear to everyone by now that John Kerry's campaign is based totally on criticizing everything Bush has done, and is doing, then promote his own hypothetical plan for doing the utterly impossible. On every issue, Kerry has stated that he would do "everything" differently. When you consider all the progress Bush has made in the war on terror, protecting the homeland, and restoring the economy after the recession and 911 attacks, we have to assume that Kerry would have done non of this (since Bush was all wrong) and our country would be right where it was in October of 2001. And from what I hear Kerry proposing now, that is exactly where his plans would take us again but without the support of our real allies.
I can't list all of Bush's allies here as they are too numerous including Britain, Poland, Italy, Japan, Australia, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, the provisional government of Iraq, etc., but I can list Kerry's allies here... France, Germany, Russia, and Communist China. The four major countries involved in corruption scandals and illegal trade with terrorist regimes for profit under the watchful eye of the UN. Because these few corrupt countries who oppose America and her right to defend herself are not on Bush's list of allies, Kerry insists that we are "going it alone" and the whole world is against us. That we thumbed our nose and turned our back on our allies. Kerry sounds more like Jacques Chirac than a loyal American, perhaps he should be running for president of France, not the US. We don't need a president who sides with America haters and communists and demeans and belittles our real allies who have given their lives to answered the call for help from America.
Kerry disputes every one of Bush’s accomplishments and tries to portray everything in the negative light of criticism and pessimism. I wouldn’t expect Kerry to give Bush any credit for his accomplishments during his campaign, but to spin everything he’s done into some negative, evil, and dishonest scenario is an outrage and extremely distasteful to the majority of Americans who have proper respect for their president as Kerry obviously doesn’t. It’s no wonder that Bush couldn’t believe what he was hearing from Kerry in the first debate. Now he knows what kind of a pompous, disrespectful, and deceitful person Kerry really is and won’t underestimate him again as we saw in the second debate.
Kerry is complaining about Halliburton being given the contract for rebuilding the infrastructure and providing support for our troops in Iraq. Obviously then, Kerry would prefer that the contract had been given to the only other company on the planet capable of handling this huge task, Technip, a French company who was profiting from illegal trade with Saddam. This is just insane. When you want a house built, and have a friend in the construction business whom you know and trust, why would you give the job to a corrupt foreigner who opposes building your house on the lot? Why would we want to send all those American dollars overseas to a country like France who is stabbing us in the back every chance they get when we need that money spent on Americans now to stimulate the economy and create jobs? Is there really any question that Bush made the right decision in awarding the contract to Halliburton, an American company? Is there really any doubt that Kerry would have made the wrong decision for America? There is just something warped and un-American about Kerry’s way of thinking, but then we have to remember that everything, and I do mean “everything” Bush has done is wrong according to Kerry.
Kerry’s job as presidential candidate is to try to convince as many Americans as possible that Bush is a failure and doing a terrible job as president. It’s the only approach he can take as a candidate with nothing to his credit, a twenty year record of failure in the Senate, and facing the challenge of trying to defeat a great leader who is loved and respected by a majority of the people. There has always been partisan bickering and smear tactics involved in elections in the past, but in addition to that, both candidates present their beliefs and plans for a better America and let the electorate decide who they want to lead our country. John Kerry’s campaign has been almost nothing but a smear campaign using lies and deceit to try to cut our president down to his level where he can be competitive. The plans he proposes are usually either a slight modification of Bush’s plan, as in Iraq, or a hypothetical proposal that would be impossible to implement, as with the economy or bringing more allies into the war. He talks big and tall, but in reality, has no workable plan of his own that isn‘t already in progress by Bush. He has to make President Bush look bad to make himself look good and in doing so, is making our whole country look bad and undermining the war on terror by feeding the foreign, anti-American propaganda machine and encouraging our enemies with hope.
This, by the way, is the same tactic used in his traitorous, antiwar campaign during Vietnam to establish a reputation for his bid for government office. If it worked then, why not now to propel him into the presidency? It won’t work now because instead of having to fool only one liberal state, he has to try to fool the whole country and most of us don’t see things the same way as they do in Massachusetts. Americans will vote their conscience and concern for their country’s security and safety. Most Americans know they can trust George Bush to do the right thing for the country and have the strength and resolve to make the hard decisions and stick to them, regardless of political correctness or what foreigners and the UN think and want. We have all seen the leadership of George W. Bush over the past four years and compared it to the failures of Bill Clinton who left our country vulnerable to terrorists. We were all impressed by Bush’s leadership after the attacks of 911 and know who Bush is and what he will do for us. We are getting to know John Kerry now too and what his abilities and priorities are. He just doesn’t have what it takes to be president in leadership, loyalty to his country, or honesty with the American people. Too much of the lies and deceit of his campaign have been exposed by now and we could expect the same from him as president. We had enough of that during the Clinton Administration to last a lifetime and are not interested in returning to it. Four more years of Bush? You bet your life on it. You bet your future on it. And you bet your country on it.
MSNBC.com
Many helped Iraq evade U.N. sanctions
Arms dealers and military suppliers around the world were involved
By Craig Whitlock and Glenn Frankel
The Washington Post
Updated: 2:20 a.m. ET Oct. 8, 2004
BERLIN - As part of its stealth effort to evade U.N. sanctions and rebuild its military, the Iraqi government under President Saddam Hussein found that it had no shortage of people around the world who were willing to help. Among them: a French arms dealer known only as "Mr. Claude," who made a surreptitious visit to Iraq four years ago to provide technical expertise and training.
Mr. Claude worked for Lura, a French company that sold tank carriers to Iraq, according to documents recovered by the top U.S. weapons inspector in Iraq. The mysterious Frenchman may have also helped the Iraqis attempt to acquire military-related radar and microwave technology, despite a U.N. ban on such trade with Iraq since the end of the 1991 Persian Gulf War.
Other French military contractors came to Baghdad with offers to supply the Iraqi government with helicopters, spare parts for fighter aircraft and air defense systems after 1998, when U.N. weapons inspectors withdrew under pressure, according to a report issued this week by Charles A. Duelfer, the chief U.S. weapons inspector. The report cites evidence that contacts between the French suppliers and Hussein's government continued until last year, less than one month before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.
While not denying that the transfers took place, a spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry, Herve Ladsous, said the accusations "were not verified either with the people themselves or with the authorities of the countries concerned," according to the Associated Press.
Critical assistance
The French were hardly alone in helping Hussein to reinvigorate his military forces during the 12 years that Iraq was under strict U.N. sanctions. Arm dealers and military suppliers from the former Eastern Bloc — Russia, Poland, Romania, Belarus and Ukraine — provided critical assistance to Iraq as it tried to build a long-range missile program and other systems that weapons inspectors feared could have been used someday to launch chemical, biological or even nuclear attacks.
"It was well known within the U.S. government that individuals and companies were selling Iraq various kinds of prohibited items," said Gary Samore, a nonproliferation specialist in the Clinton administration who now works as an analyst for the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies.
While the United States sought to shut down suppliers through diplomatic and other means, Samore said, it was common knowledge that Iraq was able to bypass sanctions by buying in small quantities and paying high prices, using a network of front companies in Jordan, Syria and other countries in the Middle East.
"The world is awash in conventional arms, and every time there's been an arms embargo on a country they've been able to circumvent it," he said. "It's much more difficult to buy more exotic technologies like nuclear weapons, but there are so many private dealers and corrupt state entities, especially in the former Soviet Union. The best you can do is slow down sales, obstruct them or make it more expensive."
Numerous other nations bought and sold on the Iraqi military shopping network, including such dictatorships as North Korea and the former Yugoslavia before the downfall of President Slobodan Milosevic. While some of the countries were politically friendly with or sympathetic to Iraq, the biggest motivation was usually money, according to Duelfer's report to the CIA.
"As long as the regime had enough cash to pay for these items, it really wouldn't have been too much of a problem to obtain these things and smuggle them in," said Jeremy Binnie, Middle East editor for Jane's Sentinel Security Assessments, a London-based magazine. "It just takes people with enough money and the ability to find the right contacts to get their hands on this stuff."
Links to Poland, other countries in coalition
The Iraqi pipeline extended to four countries — Bulgaria, Poland, Romania and Ukraine — that later sent troops to Iraq to join the U.S.-led military coalition.
In Poland, Iraqi intelligence officers helped set up a front company called Ewex, which obtained engines and guidance components for surface-to-air missiles from Polish scrap dealers and middlemen who scoured military surplus stockpiles for the parts, the report said.
U.S. inspectors estimated that Iraq bought about 280 engines from Poland from 2001 to 2003 with the intent of using them to equip a new missile that violated U.N. range limits. The engines had been removed from Polish missiles decommissioned after the Cold War.
Polish authorities arrested some Ewex executives in 2003 on charges of making illegal arms deliveries to Iraq. Purchasing documents confiscated later showed that many of the engines were funneled through Syria.
In Bulgaria, a firm called the JEFF Co. exported more than $7 million worth of warheads, missiles and launcher units to Baghdad in 2002 in violation of U.N. sanctions, the report found. Other Bulgarian traders sold chemicals and machine tools to Iraq that could be used for civilian purposes but were really intended for missile components and other military purposes.
In Romania, Iraqi intelligence agents used diplomatic pouches to send photos of tanks and other military equipment available for sale in that nation back to Baghdad. Although weapons inspectors said it was unclear how much equipment was purchased by the Iraqi government, they did uncover documents after the war showing that a Romanian firm, Uzinexport SA, signed a contract in October 2001 to sell magnets to Iraq that "could have been suitable" for a uranium enrichment program.
In most cases, U.S. weapons inspectors found no clear evidence that officials in those countries were involved in the arms deals. One exception was Ukraine, where leaders gave their blessing to military sales to Iraq.
The Duelfer report calls Ukraine "one of the countries involved in illicit military-related procurement with Iraq" after the 1991 Gulf War, noting that President Leonid Kuchma personally approved the sale of a $100 million antiaircraft radar system to Iraq via a Jordanian intermediary in 2000. Ukrainian officials have since said the sale was never completed, and weapons inspectors said they had not found any evidence that the radar system was shipped to Iraq.
In 2001, Iraqi intelligence agents also bought five motors from a Ukrainian company as part of a project to develop unmanned spy planes. The motors were shipped to Iraq from Ukraine in diplomatic pouches to avoid the attention of international inspectors, the report said.
A Ukrainian electronics professor whose private firm transferred missile engines and motors to Iraqi companies was rewarded with vouchers and credits for more than 7.5 million barrels of Iraqi oil from 1998 to 2000, the report found. The professor, identified as Yuri Orshansky, made about $1.85 million in profits under the U.N. oil-for-food program, which was designed to generate revenue for the Iraqi people under economic sanctions.
Russian know-how
Some of the clearest evidence of government corruption, according to the report, involved Russia, a country that has vast storehouses of military technology.
Although the Russian government has denied past accusations that it played a role in supplying arms and military equipment to Hussein's government, U.S. weapons inspectors reported finding "a significant amount of captured documentation showing contracts between Iraq and Russian companies."
In one case, a Russian general, Anatoly Makros, formed a joint company with Iraqi partners in 1998 "just to handle the large volume of Russian business," according to the report, which also cited a former Iraqi diplomat as saying that Russian customs officials ignored the illegal commerce in exchange for bribes.
Trade with Russia was so brisk that Iraqi Embassy officials smuggled military supplies on weekly charter flights from Moscow to Baghdad, according to the former Iraqi diplomat, who was not named in the report. The equipment included radar jammers, night-vision goggles and small missile components.
One Russian company signed contracts valued at about $20 million to provide material for Iraq's missile systems. Another Russian firm, Uliss, negotiated a deal to support a tank project dubbed "Saddam the Lion," according to the report.
Frankel reported from London.
© 2004 The Washington Post Company