[Liberation News Service]: Countdown to Electoral Uprising -- 2 Days to Go -- Remember, Winston, 2+2=4

Sun Oct 31 09:05:37 CST 2004

There are only two days to go until the Electoral
Uprising..Eight more US marines died yesterday in
Iraq. For what? The neo-con wet dream of a Three
Stooges Reich. But eight more US marines, as
devastating as that loss is, may not be all we have
lost irretrievably in the past 24 hours. It is
painfully clear now that the Corporatist Media has
chosen to remain a full partner in the Triad of shared
special interest (i.e. energy, weapons, media,
pharmaceuticals, chemicals, tobacoo, etc.) with the
Bush Cabal and its
wholly-owned-subsidiary-formerly-known-as-the-Republican-Party,
and, consequently, it too will lose on this coming
Tuesday. The propapunditgandists have spent the last
news cycle spinning the re-emergence of Osama bin
Laden, in a video in which he mocks the _resident, as
somehow a boost for BC04. Remember, my friends, 2+2=4.
Remember, the pre-9/11 negligence of the Bush national
insecurity team gave Bin Laden a claer shot at this
country on 9/11, Remember, their post-9/11
incompetence let him escape the dragnet and
furthermore has exalted him, inflamed the Arab Street
and infused his ranks with new recruits. Rememember,
2+2+4. After 9/11, the _resident said, "Wanted Dead or
Alive." But after Bin Laden got away, the _resident
said Bin Laden was "insignificant" and that he didn't
spend much time "thinking about him," and then many
months later, in the debates, the _resident denied
having made the remark, now within  few days of the US
election, a Bin Laden video is released, in which he
taunts the _resident for reading My Pet Goat while the
country is attacked...Remember, too, that Al Qaeda
already endorsed BC04...If the US electorate turns to
the _resident because he makes them "feels safer,"
then the Bush Cabal will have made another conquest:
first they seized Washington, D.C. and turned it into
Beltwayistan, then they moved into Afghanistan, Iraq,
Uzbekistan, etc. and turned them into Pipelineistan,
but actually electing Bush-Cheney will prove that the
US has been turned into Suckerstan...It is more likely
that the US regimestream news, which has no
credibility now whatsoever, will be repudiated, along
with the _resident and the VICE _ resident, in the
results of this Tuesday's national
referendum…Remember, 2+2=4...NO DEFEAT\NO
SURRENDER...Remember Duval County!

Tom Joyce, York Daily Record: The three men eating
lunch at a backroom in the Sunrise Restaurant in York
had some things in common. All three were ex-military.
All three voted for President Bush in the 2000
elections. And all three now regret it.
Two of the men are retired lieutenant generals.
William Hilsman was commanding general of the Army's
Research and Development Laboratories at Fort
Monmouth, N.J., and, earlier, served a year in Vietnam
with the 1st Infantry Division. He now lives in
Nuremberg, Pa.
Robert Kelly was in the Air Force for more than 30
years, served as fighter pilot in Vietnam and was the
military's top adviser on air power during the Persian
Gulf War. He now lives in Gladwyne.
And former Army Capt. Patrick Murphy, 31, returned
from Baghdad in January. He was awarded a Bronze Star
for his service in Iraq.
All three men have volunteered for the Kerry campaign,
and have been touring Pennsylvania to speak about
their experiences and opinions.
Kelly said he's been a Republican since 1964. Not only
did he vote for President Bush, he actually attended
his inaugural ball.
"I'm ashamed I did that," Kelly said on Friday
afternoon. "It's been a disaster."
Kelly dislikes Bush's approach to the economy,
accusing him of putting corporate interests ahead of
the public's. But most of their discussion Friday
afternoon focused on the president's policies in Iraq.
As far as Kelly's concerned, the entanglement in Iraq
is counterproductive to fighting terrorism. As
al-Qaida strikes in far-flung areas such as Russia and
Spain, the United States military is bogged down in
one spot.

Bruce Springsteen, www.commondreams.org: As a
songwriter, I've written about America for thirty
years. Tryin' to write about who we are, what we stand
for, what we fight for. And I believe that these
essential ideas of American identity are what's at
stake on November 2nd. 
   I think the human principles of economic justice --
just healing the sick, health care, feeding the
hungry, housing the homeless, a living wage so folks
don't have to break their backs and still not make
ends meet, the protection of our environment, a sane
and responsible foreign policy, civil rights and the
protection and safeguarding of our precious democracy
here at home -- I believe that Senator Kerry honors
these ideals. He has lived our history over the past
fifty years. He has an informed and adult view of
America and its people. He's had the life experience,
and I think he understands that we as humans are not
infallible. And as Senator Edwards said during the
Democratic convention, that struggle and heartbreak
will always be with us. And that's why we need each
other. That's why "united we stand" -- that's why "one
nation indivisible" -- aren't just slogans, but they
need to remain guiding principles of our public
policy. And he's shown starting as a young man, that
by facing America's hard truths, both the good and the
bad, that that's where we find a deeper patriotism.
That's where we find a more complete view of who we
are. That's where we find a more authentic experience
as citizens. And that's where we find the power that
is embedded only in truth, to make our world a better
and a safer place. 
    Paul Wellstone, the great Minnesota senator -- he
said the future is for the passionate, and those that
are willing to fight and to work hard for it. Well the
future is now, and it's time to let your passions
loose. 

Guardian Editorial: To adapt the words of Talleyrand,
the Bush presidency has been not merely a crime but a
mistake. Mr Bush has proved a terrifying failure in
the world's most powerful office. He has made the
world more angry, more dangerous and more divided -
not less. This, above all, is why it matters to us, as
it should to Americans, that John Kerry is elected on
Tuesday. A safer world requires not just the example
of American power but the power of American example.
Mr Bush has done more to destroy America's good name
in the world than any president in memory. Mr Kerry
provides an opportunity to begin to repair the damage.
It is as simple - and as important - as that. 

CBS News: Looters unleashed last year by the U.S.-led
invasion of Iraq overran a sprawling desert complex
where a bunker sealed by U.N. monitors held old
chemical weapons, American arms inspectors report. 
Charles Duelfer's arms teams say all U.N.-sealed
structures at the Muthanna site were broken into. If
the so-called Bunker 2 was breached and looted, it
would be a new case of restricted weapons being at
risk of having fallen into militants' hands. 
Separately, Human Rights Watch said Saturday it
alerted the U.S. military to a cache of hundreds of
warheads containing high explosives in Iraq in May
2003, but that officials seemed disinterested and
still hadn't secured the site 10 days later, even
though it was being looted every day by armed men. 
The disclosure, made by a senior leader of the New
York-based group, raised new questions about the
willingness or ability of U.S.-led forces to secure
known stashes of dangerous weapons in Iraq. 
Peter Bouckaert, who heads Human Rights Watch's
international emergency team, told The Associated
Press he was shown two rooms "stacked to the roof"
with surface-to-surface warheads on May 9, 2003, in a
warehouse on the grounds of the 2nd Military College
in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. 
Bouckaert said he gave U.S. officials the exact
location of the warheads, but that by the time he left
the area on May 19, 2003, he had seen no U.S. forces
at the site, which he said was being looted daily by
armed men. 
His comments came as the question of 377 tons of high
explosives reported missing from another site - the
Al-Qaqaa military installation south of Baghdad - has
become a heated issue in the final days of the U.S.
presidential campaign. 

Imad Khadduri, Al Jazeera: A week after the Madrid
attack, the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, which claims
to act on behalf of al-Qaida, claimed responsibility
for the bombing and declared a truce in Spain to see
if the new government would withdraw its troops from
Iraq, but warned that it was gearing up for new
attacks.
This part of the declaration was widely reported.
However, very few mentioned the more ominous part of
that declaration, short of excerpts which were
reported by the BBC and Reuters. 
"What is a cause for concern is that half the American
people still wrongly believe that Iraq had links with
al-Qaida and a hand in the 9/11 attacks"
The declaration turned its attention to President
Bush, saying: "A word for the foolish Bush. We are
very keen that you do not lose in the forthcoming
elections as we know very well that any big attack can
bring down your government and this is what we do not
want.
"We cannot get anyone who is more foolish than you,
who deals with matters with force instead of wisdom
and diplomacy. 
"Your stupidity and religious extremism is what we
want as our people will not awaken from their deep
sleep except when there is an enemy.
"Kerry will kill our nation while it sleeps because he
and the Democrats have the cunning to embellish
blasphemy and present it to the Arab and Muslim nation
as civilisation.
"Because of this we desire you [Bush] to be elected."
A political tactic of this calibre should have perhaps
appealed to pundits and political scientists in the
media.
However, al-Qaida gravely underestimates the likely
political result of an attack against the US in the
months leading up to the election. It would lead to a
landslide victory for Bush as it would resonate with
the American culture's "circle the wagons" mentality
and take orders from John Wayne. 

http://ydr.com/story/election/47450/printer/

Retired military men stump for Kerry
All three are critical of Bush's handling of Iraq.
By TOM JOYCE
Daily Record/Sunday News
Saturday, October 30, 2004

The three men eating lunch at a backroom in the
Sunrise Restaurant in York had some things in common.
All three were ex-military. All three voted for
President Bush in the 2000 elections. And all three
now regret it.
Two of the men are retired lieutenant generals.
William Hilsman was commanding general of the Army's
Research and Development Laboratories at Fort
Monmouth, N.J., and, earlier, served a year in Vietnam
with the 1st Infantry Division. He now lives in
Nuremberg, Pa.

Robert Kelly was in the Air Force for more than 30
years, served as fighter pilot in Vietnam and was the
military's top adviser on air power during the Persian
Gulf War. He now lives in Gladwyne.

And former Army Capt. Patrick Murphy, 31, returned
from Baghdad in January. He was awarded a Bronze Star
for his service in Iraq.

All three men have volunteered for the Kerry campaign,
and have been touring Pennsylvania to speak about
their experiences and opinions.

Kelly said he's been a Republican since 1964. Not only
did he vote for President Bush, he actually attended
his inaugural ball.

"I'm ashamed I did that," Kelly said on Friday
afternoon. "It's been a disaster."

Kelly dislikes Bush's approach to the economy,
accusing him of putting corporate interests ahead of
the public's. But most of their discussion Friday
afternoon focused on the president's policies in Iraq.

As far as Kelly's concerned, the entanglement in Iraq
is counterproductive to fighting terrorism. As
al-Qaida strikes in far-flung areas such as Russia and
Spain, the United States military is bogged down in
one spot.

Hilsman faults Bush for entering Iraq with no exit
strategy. He also believes a big part of the problem
is Bush's unwillingness or inability to form alliances
with other countries.

Critics may complain such alliances would compromise
U.S. sovereignty, Hilsman said. But he argues that the
United States couldn't have won the Cold War without
NATO, and that didn't compromise the country's
sovereignty.

"We can't just keep trying to do this alone," Hilsman
said. "President Bush can't do it. He's burned too
many bridges."

Murphy, for his part, said he doesn't feel qualified
to discuss policy. But he did describe what he's seen
firsthand. And he said it's even worse than news
accounts indicate. His brigade of 3,500 soldiers was
asked to secure an area populated by 1.5 million
Iraqis, he said.

The day after Murphy returned home to Philadelphia
from Fort Bragg, N.C., he volunteered full time for
Kerry's campaign.

"I believe in the leadership of John Kerry," Murphy
said. "He will make the best commander-in-chief of
this nation." 

Reach Tom Joyce at 771-2089, 783-2365 or
tjoyce at ydr.com.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/103104W.shtml

 No Retreat, No Surrender 
    By Bruce Springsteen
    CommonDreams.org 
    Comments to Kerry Rally in Madison, Wisconsin 

    Thursday 28 October 2004 

    Thank you! Thank you. 

    As a songwriter, I've written about America for
thirty years. Tryin' to write about who we are, what
we stand for, what we fight for. And I believe that
these essential ideas of American identity are what's
at stake on November 2nd. 

    I think the human principles of economic justice
-- just healing the sick, health care, feeding the
hungry, housing the homeless, a living wage so folks
don't have to break their backs and still not make
ends meet, the protection of our environment, a sane
and responsible foreign policy, civil rights and the
protection and safeguarding of our precious democracy
here at home -- I believe that Senator Kerry honors
these ideals. He has lived our history over the past
fifty years. He has an informed and adult view of
America and its people. He's had the life experience,
and I think he understands that we as humans are not
infallible. And as Senator Edwards said during the
Democratic convention, that struggle and heartbreak
will always be with us. And that's why we need each
other. That's why "united we stand" -- that's why "one
nation indivisible" -- aren't just slogans, but they
need to remain guiding principles of our public
policy. And he's shown starting as a young man, that
by facing America's hard truths, both the good and the
bad, that that's where we find a deeper patriotism.
That's where we find a more complete view of who we
are. That's where we find a more authentic experience
as citizens. And that's where we find the power that
is embedded only in truth, to make our world a better
and a safer place. 

    Paul Wellstone, the great Minnesota senator -- he
said the future is for the passionate, and those that
are willing to fight and to work hard for it. Well the
future is now, and it's time to let your passions
loose. 

    So let's roll up our sleeves. That's why I'm here
today, to stand alongside Senator Kerry and to tell
you that the country we carry in our hearts is
waiting. And together we can move America towards her
deepest ideals. And besides, we had a sax player in
the [White] House -- we need a guitar player in the
White House. 

    Alright -- this is for John. This is for you,
John. 

    [Bruce launches into No Retreat, No Surrender] 

    We busted out of class had to get away from those
fools 
    We learned more from a three-minute record than we
ever learned in school 
    Tonight I heart the neighborhood drummer sound 
    I can feel my heart begin to pound 
    You say you’re tired and you just want to close
your eyes and follow your dreams down 

    We made a promise we swore we’d always remember 
    No retreat, believe me, no surrender 
    Like soldiers in the winter’s night with a vow to
defend 
    No retreat, believe me, no surrender 

    Now young faces grow sad and old and hearts of
fire grow cold 
    We swore blood brothers against the wind 
    I’m ready to grow young again 
    And hear your sister’s voice calling us home
across the open yards 
    Believin’ we could cut someplace of our own 
    With these drums and these guitars 

    We made a promise we swore we’d always remember 
    No retreat, believe me, no surrender 
    Blood brothers in the stormy night with a vow to
defend 
    No retreat, believe me, no surrender 

    Now on the street tonight the lights grow dim 
    The walls of my room are closing in 
    But it’s good to see your smiling face and to hear
your voice again 
    We could sleep in the twilight by the river side 
    With a wide open country in our hearts 
    And these romantic dreams in our heads 

    We made a promise... 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,3604,1339597,00.html

US election 

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The case for Kerry 

Leader
Saturday October 30, 2004
The Guardian 

Plenty of Americans believe it is none of our business
whom they elect as their leader on Tuesday. But there
are two underlying reasons why any presidential
election matters to the rest of the world. The first
concerns America's power. There is no nation in the
history of the planet whose strength and actions more
directly affect the whole human race than the United
States. To an unprecedented degree, America makes the
world's weather. Its economic, military and cultural
might shapes our lives. If America goes to war, we are
all embroiled, as the events of the past three years
have certainly shown. If the American economy booms or
busts, then ours follows suit. If America spurns
global agreements on climate change, the whole planet
is more vulnerable. Even our domestic politics are
shaped by theirs, as the last three years have again
dramatically proved. We may not have a vote, but our
interests are at stake on November 2, as surely as if
we lived in Ohio, Oklahoma or Oregon ourselves. 
The second reason, more controversially for some,
concerns America's example. There has never been a
nation like the United States. Its creation was, at
least arguably, the single greatest constitutional
achievement of mankind in the last millennium. From
the earliest days until now, the eyes of all people
have indeed been upon America, just as John Winthrop
claimed four centuries ago. We can debate whether the
greatest of all US presidents was right to see America
as "the last best hope of mankind". But it is a matter
of fact that successive generations on every continent
have shared Abraham Lincoln's optimism about his
homeland, that they have been inspired by American
opportunity and freedom, and that new generations
continue to be so. Few nations may have been so
fundamentally shaped by racial injustice as the US
was, but none in the history of the world has
ultimately made a greater success of mass migration
and of multi-cultural life either. Anti-Americanism
may be more rife than ever in many parts of our world,
but even where it is strongest it is a matter of
record that millions of people in these very same
societies admire America above all other nations. 
 Since at least 1945, when the United States played
the decisive role in creating the United Nations, an
American presidential election has always been the
single most influential event in the global political
cycle. No such election, though, has mattered as
overwhelmingly and urgently as this one. Four years
ago, George Bush was beaten in the popular vote
nationwide, yet captured the presidency because of
electoral abuse in Florida and a shoddy legal judgment
by the nation's highest court. Ever since, far from
governing in the unifying manner that would have been
appropriate in the circumstances (and that he briefly
promised), he has done the opposite. But if Mr Bush
has been partisan and confrontational at home - over
the federal budget, education, race, civil liberty,
the environment and a host of other social and
cultural issues - he has been every bit as partisan
and confrontational abroad. The attack of September 11
2001, an event of historic seriousness, created an
unprecedented outpouring of solidarity worldwide.
Three years later, much of that solidarity has been
squandered. This has happened largely as a result of a
war on Iraq that was not just ill-prepared and
ill-executed in its own terms but that also
exemplified the administration's aggressive contempt
towards other nations, with disastrous consequences
that continue to this day. 
To adapt the words of Talleyrand, the Bush presidency
has been not merely a crime but a mistake. Mr Bush has
proved a terrifying failure in the world's most
powerful office. He has made the world more angry,
more dangerous and more divided - not less. This,
above all, is why it matters to us, as it should to
Americans, that John Kerry is elected on Tuesday. A
safer world requires not just the example of American
power but the power of American example. Mr Bush has
done more to destroy America's good name in the world
than any president in memory. Mr Kerry provides an
opportunity to begin to repair the damage. It is as
simple - and as important - as that. 

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/10/25/iraq/main651082.shtml

2 More Iraq Arms Stashes In Focus

VIENNA, Austria, Oct. 30, 2004

Fallujah Campaign Near 

A bunker in the Al-Qaqaa facility in Iraq is seen in
this video footage made by Minneapolis ABC affiliate
KSTP-TV on April 18, 2003.  (Photo: AP/KSTP ABC NEWS)

"They asked mainly about chemical or biological
weapons, which we hadn't seen. I had a pretty hard
time getting anyone interested in it"
Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch, on Iraq
explosives stash he told U.S. about

IAEA inspectors investigated reports of widespread
looting of storage rooms at Tuwaitha, Iraq's main
former nuclear site.  (Photo: AP)

(AP) Looters unleashed last year by the U.S.-led
invasion of Iraq overran a sprawling desert complex
where a bunker sealed by U.N. monitors held old
chemical weapons, American arms inspectors report. 

Charles Duelfer's arms teams say all U.N.-sealed
structures at the Muthanna site were broken into. If
the so-called Bunker 2 was breached and looted, it
would be a new case of restricted weapons being at
risk of having fallen into militants' hands. 

Separately, Human Rights Watch said Saturday it
alerted the U.S. military to a cache of hundreds of
warheads containing high explosives in Iraq in May
2003, but that officials seemed disinterested and
still hadn't secured the site 10 days later, even
though it was being looted every day by armed men. 

The disclosure, made by a senior leader of the New
York-based group, raised new questions about the
willingness or ability of U.S.-led forces to secure
known stashes of dangerous weapons in Iraq. 

Peter Bouckaert, who heads Human Rights Watch's
international emergency team, told The Associated
Press he was shown two rooms "stacked to the roof"
with surface-to-surface warheads on May 9, 2003, in a
warehouse on the grounds of the 2nd Military College
in Baqouba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad. 

Bouckaert said he gave U.S. officials the exact
location of the warheads, but that by the time he left
the area on May 19, 2003, he had seen no U.S. forces
at the site, which he said was being looted daily by
armed men. 

His comments came as the question of 377 tons of high
explosives reported missing from another site - the
Al-Qaqaa military installation south of Baghdad - has
become a heated issue in the final days of the U.S.
presidential campaign. 

Officials are unsure whether the episode at Muthanna
points to a threat of chemical attack, since it isn't
known if usable chemical warheads were in the bunker,
what may have been taken, or by whom. 

"Clearly, there's a potential concern, but we're
unable to estimate the relative level of it because we
don't know the condition of the things inside the
bunker," said Ewen Buchanan, spokesman for the U.N.
arms inspection agency in New York, whose specialists
have been barred from Iraq since the invasion. 

Chief arms hunter Duelfer told The Associated Press by
e-mail Friday from Iraq that he was unaware of
"anything of importance" looted from the chemical
weapons complex. The report his Iraq Survey Group
issued on Oct. 6 said, however, that it couldn't vouch
for the fate of old munitions at Muthanna, a
35-square-mile complex in the heart of the embattled
"Sunni Triangle." 

One chemical weapons expert said even old, weakened
nerve agents - in this case sarin - could be a threat
to unprotected civilians. 

The weapons involved would be pre-1991 artillery
rockets filled with sarin, or their damaged remnants -
weapons that were openly declared by Iraq and were
under U.N. control until security fell apart with the
U.S. attack. They are not concealed arms of the kind
President Bush claimed Iraq had, but which were never
found. 

In its Oct. 6 report, summarizing a fruitless search
for banned weapons in Iraq, Duelfer's group disclosed
that widespread looting occurred at Muthanna, 35 miles
northwest of Baghdad, in the aftermath of the fall of
the Iraqi capital in April 2003. 

A little-noted annex of the 985-page report said every
U.N.-sealed location at the desert installation had
been breached in the looting spree, and "materials and
equipment were removed." 

Bunker 2 at Muthanna State Establishment, once Iraq's
central chemical weapons production site, was put
under U.N. inspectors' control in early 1991 after it
was heavily damaged by a U.S. precision bomb in the
first Gulf War. At the time, Iraq said 2500
sarin-filled artillery rockets had been stored there. 

The U.N. teams sealed up the bunker with brick and
reinforced concrete, rather than immediately attempt
the risky job of clearing weapons or remnants from
under a collapsed roof and neutralizing them. 

A CIA analysis, not done on site, hypothesized in 1999
that all the sarin must have been destroyed by fire.
But a U.S. General Accounting Office review last June
questioned that analysis, and the United Nations,
whose teams were there, said the extent of destruction
was never determined. 

Buchanan said a U.N. team inspected the sealed
Muthanna bunker on Dec. 4, 2002, and inspectors
continued to visit Muthanna up to March 14, 2003,
although they did not view the bunker that day. Four
days later, on the eve of the U.S. invasion, the U.N.
monitors had to leave Iraq. 

As for when the sealed bunker may have been breached,
the report said, "The facilities at the southern
section" - the bunker area - "were removed by unknown
entities between April and June 2003." It didn't
elaborate, but presumably the first U.S. search teams
arrived at Muthanna in June and discovered the
looting. 

"The (Iraq Survey Group) is unable to unambiguously
determine the complete fate of old munitions,
materials and chemicals produced and stored there,"
the Duelfer report said. 

The three-week-old report also said, without
elaboration, that chemical munitions "are still stored
there" and that warheads, apparently not filled with
chemical agent, "are still being looted." 

As for the Baqouba facility, Human Rights Watch's
Bouckaert said displaced people he was working with in
the area had taken him to the warheads. "They said,
`There's stocks of weapons here and we're very
concerned - can you please inform the coalition?"' he
said in a telephone interview from South Africa. 

After photographing the warheads, Bouckaert said he
went straight to U.S. officials in Baghdad's Green
Zone complex, where he claimed officials at first
didn't seem interested in his information. 

"They asked mainly about chemical or biological
weapons, which we hadn't seen," he said. "I had a
pretty hard time getting anyone interested in it." 

Bouckaert said he eventually was put in touch with
unidentified U.S. officials and showed them on a map
where the stash was located, also giving them the
exact GPS coordinates for the site. 

But he said he never saw U.S. forces at the site when
he returned to the area for daily interviews with
refugees, and that the site still was not secured when
he finally left the area. 

"For the next 10 days I continued working near this
site and going back regularly to interview displaced
people, and nothing was done to secure the site," he
said. 

"Looting was taking place by a lot of armed men with
Kalashnikovs and rocket-propelled grenades," Bouckaert
said. He said each of the warheads contained an
estimated 57 pounds of high explosives. 

"Everyone's focused on Al-Qaqaa, when what was at the
military college could keep a guerrilla group in
business for a long time creating the kinds of bombs
that are being used in suicide attacks every day," he
said. 

The International Atomic Energy Agency said Monday
that Iraq had reported 377 tons of high explosives
missing from al-Qaqaa "due to a lack of security" at
the vast site 30 miles south of Baghdad. 

Iraqi officials told the agency the explosives - which
can be used to make the kind of car bombs that
insurgents have used in numerous attacks on U.S.-led
forces - went missing amid looting after the April 9,
2003 fall of the Iraqi capital. 

The Pentagon has suggested the explosives, which can
be used to make the kind of car bombs that insurgents
have used in numerous attacks on U.S.-led forces, may
have been removed before U.S. forces moved into the
area. 

U.S. Army Maj. Austin Pearson said Friday that his
team removed 250 tons of plastic explosives and other
munitions from al-Qaqaa on April 13, 2003. But those
munitions were not located under U.N. nuclear agency
seal as the missing high-grade explosives had been,
and the Pentagon was unable to say definitively that
they were part of the missing 377 tons. 

Bouckaert, who last year criticized U.S. officials for
not acting on important information about mass graves
in Iraq, said he estimates there were between 500 and
1,000 tons of high explosive warheads at the war
college site in Baqouba. 

The site also included anti-tank mines and
anti-personnel mines, he said. 

Car bombs require only about 6 1/2 pounds of
explosives, meaning each warhead potentially could
have yielded enough material for nine bombs, Human
Rights Watch said. 

http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/EC3AC145-96B2-4858-AE3D-63FDE0B59D69.htm

Al-Qaida's vote for Bush
   By Imad Khadduri  

Sunday 24 October 2004, 20:02 Makka Time, 17:02 GMT   

Who would the 'terrorists' like to see elected in the
upcoming US presidential elections?

Predictions about how they would try to influence this
form of the democratic process were sparked by the
train bombings in Madrid last March.

The timing of the attack, coming immediately before
presidential elections in Spain, produced a backlash
of anger against Jose Maria Aznar’s right-wing
government, leading to the victory of the Socialist
Party (PSOE).

The bombing was seen by many as a consequence of
Aznar’s support for the US-led war in Iraq, a war
opposed by the overwhelming majority of Spaniards.
Aznar’s attempt to exploit the bombings to push the
agenda of his Popular Party backfired and lead to his
defeat.

But what does this augur for the US? National Security
Adviser Condoleezza Rice was one of the first to
speculate on this event's impact on the US
presidential elections. 

In an 18 April interview on the US news talk show Face
the Nation, she said: "I think that we do have to take
very seriously the thought that the terrorists might
have learned, we hope (sic), the wrong lesson from
Spain. I think we also have to take seriously that
they might try during the cycle leading up to the
election to do something." 

This statement was followed by one from Attorney
General John Ashcroft. In a 26 May press conference,
Ashcroft said: "The Madrid railway bombings were
perceived by Usama bin Ladin and al-Qaida to have
advanced their cause. Al-Qaida may perceive that a
large-scale attack in the United States this summer or
fall would lead to similar consequences."

Ashcroft's supposition is that Bin Ladin would like to
influence the US elections in the same way al-Qaida
influenced Spain's. 

What would similar consequences mean for the US?
Defeat for the hawkish incumbent, Bush, at the polls
and the derailment of a neo-conservative policy on
Iraq. 

Ashcroft all but said 'Usama bin Ladin wants you to
vote for John Kerry'.

"The message the terrorists learned in Madrid is that
attacks can change elections and change policy"

A handful of reporters chimed in, among them David
Sanger of the New York Times. 

In a May article, he issued what could be seen as a
serious warning to the American people. Entitled
Calculating the Politics of Catastrophe, the piece
describes "obsessive" talk within political and
national security circles about the possible electoral
consequences of another terror attack in the US.

Sanger quotes a senior administration official as
saying, "The message the terrorists learned in Madrid
is that attacks can change elections and change
policy. 

"It’s a very dangerous precedent to have out there."

Immediately following the elections, administration
officials and right-wing media pundits in the US
denounced the Spanish population for learning the
"wrong lesson" from the terrorist attacks and for
"appeasing" terrorism.

According to Sanger, however, the Bush administration
is making its own calculations over whether a
terrorist attack can "change elections" in the US - in
Bush's favour.

He writes: "Mr Bush's political aides - speaking only
on background, because no one dissects terror on the
record - argue that the crazier the world gets, the
more it plays to the theme of the campaign: Now more
than ever, the country needs a president who has
proved to be strong on terror."

A more authoritative political aide, Vice President
Dick Cheney, announced on 7 September that the US will
risk another terrorist attack if voters make the wrong
choice on election day, suggesting Senator John Kerry
would follow a pre-9/11 policy of reacting
defensively. 

"The wide-eyed view of America's 'war on terror' is
dangerous to the whole world"

"It's absolutely essential we make the right choice on
2 November because if we make the wrong choice, then
the danger is that we'll get hit again and we'll be
hit in a way that will be devastating from the
standpoint of the United States," Cheney told
supporters at a town hall meeting.

If Kerry were elected, Cheney says the nation risks
falling back into a "pre-9/11 mindset" where terrorist
attacks are seen merely as criminal acts that require
a reactive approach. Instead, he says Bush's offensive
approach roots out terrorists where they plan and
train, and pressures countries that harbour them.

In all of this, little notice has been given by the
Western media to an al-Qaida declaration following the
Madrid bombing and published in full on 17 March in
the Arabic-language dailies al-Quds al-Arabi and
al-Hayat in the UK. 

A week after the Madrid attack, the Abu Hafs al-Masri
Brigades, which claims to act on behalf of al-Qaida,
claimed responsibility for the bombing and declared a
truce in Spain to see if the new government would
withdraw its troops from Iraq, but warned that it was
gearing up for new attacks.

This part of the declaration was widely reported.
However, very few mentioned the more ominous part of
that declaration, short of excerpts which were
reported by the BBC and Reuters. 

"What is a cause for concern is that half the American
people still wrongly believe that Iraq had links with
al-Qaida and a hand in the 9/11 attacks"

The declaration turned its attention to President
Bush, saying: "A word for the foolish Bush. We are
very keen that you do not lose in the forthcoming
elections as we know very well that any big attack can
bring down your government and this is what we do not
want.

"We cannot get anyone who is more foolish than you,
who deals with matters with force instead of wisdom
and diplomacy. 

"Your stupidity and religious extremism is what we
want as our people will not awaken from their deep
sleep except when there is an enemy.

"Kerry will kill our nation while it sleeps because he
and the Democrats have the cunning to embellish
blasphemy and present it to the Arab and Muslim nation
as civilisation.

"Because of this we desire you [Bush] to be elected."

A political tactic of this calibre should have perhaps
appealed to pundits and political scientists in the
media.

However, al-Qaida gravely underestimates the likely
political result of an attack against the US in the
months leading up to the election. It would lead to a
landslide victory for Bush as it would resonate with
the American culture's "circle the wagons" mentality
and take orders from John Wayne. 

Such an attack would play to Americans' deep inner
insecurity and violent reaction to any threat has had
disastrous effects, and not only to the American
Indians.

Whether that threat is real, or manufactured, as that
of Cheney's dire threat of an Iraqi invasion of Saudi
Arabia in 1991 citing satellite photos (that have not
been shown or proven to this day) which induced Saudi
Arabia to invite US forces to invade Iraq, or his
pushing the assertion and spin of an Iraqi nuclear
threat in 2002 and 2003 (he was claiming that US
intelligence had proof of Iraq's nuclear weapons up to
two days before Iraq's occupation) and ended with the
disastrous occupation of Iraq, the American people's
reaction is explosive and dangerous.

What is a cause for concern is that half the American
people still wrongly believe that Iraq had links with
al-Qaida and a hand in the 9/11 attacks, and that
cushions the outrage they should feel after tens of
thousands of dead Iraqi civilians, as well as more
than a thousand of their soldiers.

The wide-eyed view of America's "war on terror" is
dangerous to the whole world.

Aljazeera 