Iraq: intelligence hoax

UNRELIABLE or outright false intelligence data used to prepare the case for attacking Iraq now seem to be haunting the Bush administration. Iraq was attacked because it was supposed to be in possession of weapons of mass destruction, posing a dire security threat to the West as well to its neighbours. However, no WMDs have been found more than three months after Baghdad fell. All along, it has been nothing but a wild goose chase for America. In 1998, Saddam Hussein had expelled the UN inspectors, accusing them of spying for the US. Last November, however, the Security Council passed a new resolution, creating a fresh inspection regime to verify the truth about Iraq’s WMDs. Armed with greater powers and having the right to “unimpeded” access to suspected weapons sites, the United Nations Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (Unmovic) undertook its task with full Iraqi cooperation. When resolution 1441 was passed, Washington expected Baghdad to defy the UN. However, the Saddam regime surprised everyone, including America, by accepting the resolution and letting the inspectors in. Unmovic, thus, was able to visit all suspected sites, including eight presidential palaces, but it found no evidence of WMDs. In the now famous words of Unmovic chief Hans Blix no “smoking gun” was found. This scuttled the very basis for an attack on Iraq.

Undeterred, the Bush administration and the Tony Blair government launched on one of the post-war world’s biggest intelligence hoaxes: they began doctoring and falsifying available data and inventing evidence where none existed. The “evidence” supplied to the Security Council by US Secretary of State Colin Powell was widely questioned in knowledgeable western quarters, while the “dossier” — now rightly called dodgy dossier — prepared by the Blair government was all garbage. Among the proofs cited in support of the existence of Iraqi WMDs was a student’s doctoral thesis besides documents that were forged. In many cases, photos and satellite scanning had no relationship with the matter at hand. In the case of Britain, one minister made 11 changes in the dossier, including the insertion of a 45-minute warning time, to underline the deadly nature of Iraq’s military threat to its neighbours.

Now on his African tour, President Bush blames the CIA for cooking up intelligence, saying that he had relied on the data supplied by the agency. Both Mr Bush and his national security adviser Condoleezza Rice blame the CIA for flawed data. Neither defends the CIA; instead, all they say is that Mr Bush’s State of the Union speech was cleared by the agency. This constitutes not only a damning indictment of the CIA; it shows that the Bush administration was either naive or too impatient to make an example of Saddam Hussein’s defiant Iraq in pursuit of its new strategy of “pre-emption” to worry too much about the basis or justification for such an action. The point, however, is that decisions about war and peace are not made on the basis of intelligence findings or recommendations. The US entered the two world wars not on the basis of secret information but because of what was happening in the world. In 1990-91, the US mobilized a world coalition against Iraq not because there was secret evidence about what Saddam Hussein was doing but because the whole world had seen that he had attacked and occupied Kuwait. Nothing of this sort happened this time. Yet the Bush administration chose to unleash a war without the UN authorization, and in the face of worldwide opposition, especially from France, Germany, Russia and China. The truth about the intelligence data has proved America’s war on Iraq to be immoral and illegal. So is its occupation.

Recovery beyond arrears

THE recovery of Rs 10 billion public sector arrears claimed by the Wapda chairman should act as a temporary breather for the ailing organization. Out of the remaining public sector default of Rs 34 billion, Rs 26.5 billion and Rs 3.5 billion are outstanding against Fata and the KESC, respectively. Recovering that huge amount may prove particularly difficult, especially in view of the changed security scenario in the tribal areas. The chairman, nevertheless, has claimed achieving the revenue target of Rs 216 billion for the outgoing year. It was largely because of nearly 100 per cent recovery from the private sector and cash flows from the government. However, there are key issues other than collection which affect the financial state of Wapda.

The basic problems are poor management and acute organizational shortcomings because of which expenditure is steadily mounting, adding to the utility’s financial straits. Then there are the perennials of line losses, waste and leakages, power theft and corruption — all contributing to higher generation and distribution costs, which in turn lead to recurrent upward revisions of power tariff. Line losses are believed to be among the highest in the region. No wonder, reliance on subsidies and write-offs is increasingly becoming a part of the mechanism to keep Wapda afloat. In the new budget a subsidy of Rs 56 billion has been provided as against an earlier one of Rs 76 billion. Quite logically, managerial and operational efficiencies have to be vastly improved in order to rescue Wapda from its pervasive state of sickness. This might require the production and distribution aspects of the power utility to be separated and entrusted to different managements.

Match made in cyberspace

A TECHNOLOGICAL wonder of the modern age, the Internet is often derided by conservatives in Pakistan as a corrupter of the youth. Nonetheless, it has allowed millions of Pakistanis access to a vast and never-ending trove of information and knowledge, enabling them to interact and befriend people from all over the world. And gradually, it has given a whole new meaning to the word matchmaking. Take the case of Boota Masih from Toba Tek Singh. Never in his dreams would he have imagined that he, a young Christian from a small town in Pakistan, would one day be able to marry an American graphics designer from New York. But that is precisely what happened this week. The two met on the Internet several months ago via a chat programme. The woman, a divorcee and with a teenage son from her previous marriage, says that the moment she met Boota on the net she felt as if she had met her life partner.

This is not the first time that a match like this has been made on the Internet. For one thing, the net allows a considerable level of independence and anonymity, both of which appeal to today’s younger generation who want to seek new friends. Besides, cyberspace allows one to meet people from completely different cultures and does not care for geographical, ethnic or racial barriers. The anonymity factor can work both ways, though, with several cases reported in western countries of stalkers or perverts luring young girls by feeding them false information about themselves. As with the use of any technology, some level of caution is always good and necessary. However, contrary to what some might think in Pakistan, the Internet is not the devil’s handmaiden and has many a benefit, not least of all in helping one find a suitable marriage partner.