UPI Hears for Dec 18
Just as U.S. Gen. Tommy Franks was wrapping up his weeklong test exercise for running Central Command from the new mobile HQ in Qatar, and as the U.S. and Qatar completed their long negotiations on giving the U.S. bases a permanent legal presence, an extremely nervous visitor arrived in the Gulf state. She is Michele Marie-Alliot, France's defense minister, who is exceedingly worried that France is about to be played out of the game. The French have hitherto supplied some 90 percent of Qatar's defense imports, and the French are deeply suspicious that part of the new U.S.-Qatari relationship includes a special procurement deal. In Paris, Marie-Alliot's success will be judged on her ability to complete the deal for Qatar to buy 100 French-made Leclerc tanks, naval combat helicopters and an anti-aircraft missile system. Word is that she is batting 0 for 3, with the Americans now close to a deal to sell Abrams tanks. The Russians are offering a cheap package of their old and new S-300 and S-400 anti-aircraft system, and the Qatars are looking hard at alternatives for the naval choppers. Zut alors! That will teach Paris to be sniffy about invading Iraq.
Supporting the U.S.-led war on terrorism has immediate fiscal rewards. Just ask Uzbekistan, who has seen American aid grow from $261 million for all of Central Asia in 2001 to nearly $500 million for Uzbekistan alone in 2002 (according to the U.S. Embassy in Tashkent). Included in the amount are: $26.2 million for democracy promotion programs; for social services, $45.5 million; for market reforms, $10.9 million; for security and law enforcement agencies, $79.0 million; for humanitarian aid, $53.1 million; and for local development programs, $5.5 million. There is a joint State and Defense departments' $53 million project for modernizing hospitals in Fergana, Andizhan and Namangan. The total value of humanitarian goods delivered to Uzbekistan this year exceeds $116 million, which shows that allies in Central Asia do not come cheap.
Using the Internet for intelligence gathering is proving to be a two-edged sword for John Poindexter, head of the government's Total Information Awareness project. TIA aims to locate out potential terrorists by aggregating credit-card, travel, medical, school and other records of everyone in the United States. While civil libertarians have spoken out against the project, Internet activists have gone a step further and posted Poindexter's home phone number, photos of his house and other personal information on the Internet. Sites hosting the information have blossomed to more than 100. One site has even posted satellite photos of Poindexter's home. Dialing his phone number, one receives a recorded message that the TIA chief is "unavailable."
There is a diplomatic flurry in Ankara after Turkey's NTV reported on Dec. 16 that 50 trucks have carried weapons from Turkey through the Habur border crossing to 2,000 Kurdish fighters. The TV report added that they are currently being trained by 500 U.S. intelligence personnel. Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Prime Minister Barham Saleh denied it, asserting that there was no American presence in the area controlled by the PUK, and insisting that no weapons had been delivered. A second denial came from Safeen Dizayee, the Ankara representative of the Kurdistan Democratic Party, which controls the remaining parts of northern Iraq. But NTV is sticking to its story, claiming that American liaison officers transferred the weaponry from the Incirlik air base to the Pesh Merga Kurdish militia. The United States sent a defense and intelligence mission into northern Iraq last February to evaluate the area's capabilities in the event of war with Iraq. A second U.S. military mission was subsequently sent to the region to assess the capabilities of the Kurdish forces and estimate the necessary logistic support that will be needed for an attack on Iraq
Wednesday's U.S.-EU summit in Washington is (as usual) attracting little media attention. But the Bush administration is confident that it will conclude a judicial cooperation convention that would allow a routine exchange of personal data on a wide range of suspects, not just those thought to be involved in terrorism. The deal links together the databases of the European Police Unit, Europol and the FBI. Europe's new prosecution office, Eurojust, is working on a similar cooperation agreement.
