Politics

We have a new candidate for the most chilling statement on WMD (original). They’ve actually been dancing around this one for a while, but John Bolton just got around to saying it. Here’s the AP lede: The U.S.-led invasion of Iraq was justified in part because Saddam Hussein retained scientists capable of building nuclear weapons, Washington’s top arms control official said Thursday. In other words, it was justified because Saddam didn’t get rid of the scientists. And here I thought we were unhappy with Saddam’s tendency to kill inconvenient people. ...

As per expectations, initial reaction to the first attempt to get more international aid in Iraq was not good. Germany is being negative (original), and Russia is making it clear that they need UN involvement. From one angle, it looks like Russia is making concessions, but note that Russia is implacable about UN approval. They’re letting us know that we can get what we want… if we do it their way. Chirac, unsurprisingly, is on board with Germany and Russia (original). ...

The US is working on a new UN resolution intended to encourage foreign assistance in Iraq. Five bucks says the first version circulated turns out to be unacceptable to the Security Council. Unfortunately for Bush, he’s negotiating from a position of weakness. After having said he doesn’t need the UN and calling the Security Council irrelevant, he’s now finding that he has to go back and ask them for help. There aren’t many weaker negotiating stances than that.

Riverbend notes that it’s Chalabi’s turn to be president of the Iraqi Governing Council. Should be an interesting month. Chalabi’s been claiming he doesn’t want power for ages now, but he keeps winding up with influence anyhow — albeit influence mostly generated by his supporters (original) among the neocons (original). So, does he use this month to show off how useful he can be? He claims that he needs more control over Iraqi security in order to prevent bombings and terrorism — in fact, he said he warned the US before the UN bombing. One doubts it’s a coincidence that the first Cabinet was named as Chalabi’s presidency began. ...

Juan Cole is a professor of Middle East history at UMichigan, and thus has a little more grounds on which to base his speculations than the rest of us blogger. He has a kickass post on the Imam Ali mosque bombing, which discusses the targets and the probable bombers. Juan Cole thinks it was Ba’athists, and he has some reasonable-sounding reasons. But whether it was Ba’athists or Al Qaeda or some other group, it is clear that the bombing was a strike against US interests — again, read Professor Cole’s post for a detailed explanation of why.

I suspect the conflict between France and Libya qualifies as irony. Libya’s agreed to pay compensation to the families of those killed in the Lockerbie bombings, but France is threatening to veto the Security Council resolution lifting UN sanctions against Libya. If anyone was under the impression that France acts on purely noble motives, we can perhaps lay that to rest. France is holding out for more money. On the other hand, one’s forced to wonder why the tactics used with Libya are so unacceptable when it comes to Iraq. ...

In a small and no doubt transient victory for civil rights, Judge Brinkema granted Moussaoui access to Khalid Shaikh Mohammed’s testimony. Moussaoui is on trial for his role in the 9/11 terrorist attack, and he claims Mohammed can testify that he wasn’t involved. The government is expected to appeal on the grounds that, says CNN, “no court can order the executive branch to produce an enemy combatant detained on foreign soil and that doing so would disrupt the war on terrorism.” ...

The DoD just published its annual report on the state of China’s military (original) (PDF). It’s fascinating reading. The issue of Taiwanese independence continues to be of paramount importance to China and drives much of their military effort. This, in combination with their concern over a remilitarized Japan (which is very understandable (original)), throws interesting light on the Korean Peninsula semi-crisis. It’s clearly important to take China into account when considering Japan’s response to North Korean saber-rattling. ...

Yeah, it’s quick-link morning. But Kodi’s investigation of the relative evil of Arnold Schwarzenegger versus the villains he’s fought in his movies is really good. Arius might have been in favor of some limited separation of powers in the government of lovely Latin American Country, perhaps a parliament he could dissolve at will or something, but nothing on the order of the limitations applied to the office of Governor of California. ...

As a rule, I really like Bruce R’s blog Flit. However, I am starting to wonder about his choice of blog partners. T. M. Lutas is not the sharpest crayon in the shed. This in the way of introduction to this exciting new theory of American’s Iraq reconstruction plan. Salam Pax said: I guess you’ve been hearing news about Mosul? Well it’s worse. The security situation isn’t too bad (they don’t rely on Americans in these parts- if they did it wouldn’t be any better than Baghdad). Electricity is more or less sorted out (although we do have problems)- and no, it wasn’t the Amreeeekan who got things running, thank you very much. ...