This from my colleague who tracks ME affairs very closely.
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I was about to close down but received the Friday edition of the TELEGRAPH.
This story of an unusually large US-British air strike on the major Iraqi
air defense center was on the front page and was given priority in the
TELEGRAPH's newsletter.
The inset map/diagram can be expanded. When you look at the expanded
version, this suggests that planes based in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain
took place, and that the major attack was to take out the radar on a site in
Western Iraq (south of the Syrian border, and apparently north of the
southern no-fly zone, which is a possible site for SCUDs that can reach most
of Israel.
The attack took place sometime on Thursday. On a Foreign Affairs newsletter
I receive daily from 10 Downing Street that reaches me before 6PM, there
were general statements by the British foreign secretary that made it very
clear that the British believe that the U.S. has a convincing case on the
need for an attack soon against Iraq and a statement to the effect that Iraq
is a menace to Britain. The British government's position seems to have
become much more pro-war in the last number of days.
The diagram noted above is quite interesting also because it indicates that
bases were used in countries that officially were stating their opposition
to attacking Iraq. A link story in the main story has a headline that
Kuwait now wants war to break out soon. Something seems to be happening; it
seems like whatever is going to be announced publicly has already been
circulated behind closed doors to a number of countries. Whether this has
already occurred with Canada (and Chretien and Graham are simply playing
dumb) or whether Canada has been considered in the class of "don't need to
know yet" is not clear.
<http://www.news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/09/06/wirq06
.xml>
-----Original Message-----
From: Keith Hudson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Friday, September 06, 2002 3:53 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: 100 jets join attack on Iraq
After writing earlier this morning regarding Mo Mowlem's article, I turned
to the morning's newspapers to find the above headline.
Once again, this is really little to do with Iraq (why hasn't Bush done
this many times before in previous years?). Bush is screwing up the tension
several notches higher in order for the Saudi Arabian government to reform
itself. It is a plain message to the modernists within SA -- "Get a move on
and clamp down on Al Qaeda and the extreme Wahhabi mullahs".
Bush can't maintain his strategy for much longer without its true purpose
being revealed. There have got to be significant changes in the Saudi
Arbian government within days now.
Keith Hudson
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Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com
6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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