WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 (UPI) -- The UPI think tank wrap-up is a daily digest covering opinion pieces, reactions to recent news events, and position statements released by various think tanks. This is the first of three wrap-ups for February 5.
The Institute for Public Accuracy
(The IPA is a nationwide consortium of policy researchers that seeks to broaden public discourse by gaining media access for experts whose perspectives are often overshadowed by major think tanks and other influential institutions.)
Washington -- Some analysis of Powell's speech
-- Phyllis Bennis, fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and author of the book, "Before and After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the September 11th Crisis" and the article "Powell's Dubious Case for War": "Contrary to Powell's pronouncements, Hans Blix said the UNMOVIC inspectors have seen 'no evidence' of mobile biological weapons labs, have 'no persuasive indications' of an Iraq link to al Qaida and no evidence of Iraq hiding and moving material used for weapons of mass destruction."
-- As'ad Abukhalil, author of "Bin Laden, Islam and America's 'New War on Terrorism'" and the forthcoming, "The House of Bush and the House of Saud." AbuKhalil is a professor of political science at California State University at Stanislaus: "The claims of terrorism links remain hollow: Even the State Department report 'Patterns of Global Terrorism' states that Iraq has not been involved in terrorism since 1993. As for a bin Laden link, that was not proved, but alleged without any substantiation. ... Two groups mentioned by Powell have been largely defunct since 1985. Two others, the alleged 'Zakawi network' and Ansar al Islam, operate in northern Iraq, outside Saddam Hussein's control. The leader of Ansar al Islam has denied having any links to either Hussein or bin Laden. The Arab media is reporting that the Zakawi story was provided by Jordanian intelligence, which has a record of torture and inaccuracy. Prince Nayif, the minister of interior and chief of the Saudi effort in the 'war on terrorism,' denied ever hearing about the two al Qaida members sneaking from Iraq into Saudi Arabia."
-- Glen Rangwala, a lecturer in politics at Cambridge University in Britain:
"Powell claimed that UNMOVIC head, 'Dr. Blix pronounced the 12,200-page declaration rich in volume but poor in information and practically devoid of new evidence.' ... In fact, Blix has said that 'In the fields of missiles and biotechnology, the declaration contains a good deal of new material and information covering the period from 1998 and onward. This is welcome.'"
-- Robert Jensen, author of the book, "Writing Dissent," and an associate professor at the University of Texas at Austin: "Even if Powell's claims were all true, nothing he said makes the case for war. Instead, Powell presented a good argument for continuing inspections -- with serious cooperation on the part of U.S. officials with orders to share all relevant intelligence."
WASHINGTON -- Oil: The heart of the crisis?
-- Reese Erlich, coauthor of the new book "Target Iraq": "While the U.S. government and media say oil is an important factor influencing other
countries, such as France and Russia, they rarely acknowledge oil as a motivating factor for U.S. policy. ... If a pro-U.S. regime privatizes Iraqi oil, then U.S. companies would stand to make billions of dollars by dividing up the industry. This would give U.S. corporate interests substantially more power over the global oil flow and the global economy."
-- Michael Renner, author of the report, "Post-Saddam Iraq: Linchpin of a New Oil Order," is a senior researcher at Worldwatch Institute and a policy analyst for Foreign Policy In Focus: "The Bush administration's ties to the oil and gas industry are pervasive. Bush and Cheney both have deep roots in this industry. ... At 112 billion barrels, Iraq's proven reserves are second only to Saudi Arabia's, and may well rival Saudi reserves. If a new regime in Baghdad rolls out the red carpet for the oil multinationals to return, it is possible that a broader wave of denationalization could sweep through the oil industry, reversing the historic changes of the early 1970s, dealing a major blow to OPEC and ensuring that Iraq would be a major lever against Saudi Arabia. Such a course of action would also re-commit the world economy to a fuel that is a major culprit in global climate change. It flies in the face of rapidly growing wind and solar energy industries and efforts to implement the Kyoto protocol on climate protection."
-- James Paul, executive director of the Global Policy Forum, which monitors policy-making at the United Nations, and author of the recent report "Oil in Iraq: The Heart of the Crisis": "Given that past U.S. and U.K. charges against Iraq have been proven false by the inspectors and that Powell's speech did not sway many at the United Nations, the administration does not have a great deal of credibility at the United Nations. However, it is using its power, particularly the prospect of dividing up Iraq's oil wealth among the other powers, to get other countries to go along with its planned invasion. ...
"Iraq not only has huge oil supplies, but it has very cheap extraction costs, as little as $1 per barrel (in Texas it can cost as much
as $20 per barrel), so the profit margins are enormous. A U.S. client government in Baghdad -- or a U.S. military occupation government -- would doubtlessly hand out upstream production concessions to U.S. and U.K. companies that would set an important precedent in the world oil industry, tipping the balance of power in favor of the companies and away from the producer states. In this way, the war against Iraq would have an effect on the oil industry that would go far beyond the borders of Iraq. While 'access' to oil is historically an issue for the Pentagon during wartime, the issue is not really about 'access' to oil in terms of people having gas for their
SUVs -- Iraq and other producer states want to sell the oil, not keep it in the ground. Rather, the issue is primarily about private corporate control by the big oil companies over price, production and profits in the world's most important industry."
The Heritage Foundation
Powell's U.N. speech: a powerful indictment of Iraq
by James A. Phillips
WASHINGTON -- Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech Wednesday to the United Nations Security Council was a damning indictment of Iraq for failing to comply with its disarmament obligations. Powell did not reveal "smoking gun" evidence of Iraqi possession of prohibited weapons, but he was not required to do so. All that he needed to do was to prove that Iraq was not cooperating as required under Security Council Resolution 1441, and he did that beyond a shadow of a doubt.
Powell's skillful use of "solid intelligence" exposed the systematic efforts Iraq has made to cover its tracks. These include intercepted communications between Iraqi Republican Guard officers discussing plans to hide prohibited weapons and satellite photos of trucks removing material from suspected weapons sites before the arrival of U.N. inspectors.
Powell also revealed new information about Iraq's links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaida terrorists, which underscored the urgent need to disarm Iraq to prevent it from passing chemical and biological weapons -- the ultimate terrorist weapons -- to the world's most dangerous terrorists.
Powell charged that Abu Musab al Zarqawi, one of bin Laden's lieutenants who oversaw a terrorist training camp in Afghanistan that specialized in the use of poisons, had moved to Iraq and established another al Qaida training camp there. Al Zarqawi, now based in Baghdad, has operated freely in Iraq for more than eight months, moving terrorists, money, and supplies throughout that country and beyond. Last year, two al Qaida agents associated with al Zarqawi's Baghdad cell were caught trying to cross Iraq's border with Saudi Arabia.
Powell's speech would be strong enough to persuade any impartial jury of Iraq's failure to disarm and the urgent need to enforce U.N. Resolution 1441, which gave Iraq one last chance to avoid "serious consequences." As Powell noted, "The facts speak for themselves."
But the Security Council is far from an impartial jury. It is a collection of U.N. member-states that often pursue their own narrow national interests at the expense of collective defense. France, Russia and China have an economic and political stake in the survival of Saddam Hussein's brutal regime because of their past ties to that regime. They likely will continue to lobby for more time for U.N. weapons inspections, despite Iraq's manifest failure to cooperate with the inspections as required under Resolution 1441.
Giving inspections more time will not solve anything. As Secretary of State Powell noted, the inspectors are not detectives. They are not capable of finding prohibited weapons hidden by a ruthless regime in a country bigger than Texas. Moreover, ineffective inspections are worse than no inspections at all, because they convey the dangerous illusion that arms control is working in Iraq.
The United States cannot afford to be diverted from its urgent goal of disarming Iraq by shortsighted efforts to prolong a stillborn inspection process that allows Saddam Hussein to feign disarmament. The Bush administration should follow up Powell's strong speech by seeking the Security Council's acknowledgement that Iraq is in material breach of Resolution 1441.
If the Security Council fails to enforce its own resolution to disarm Iraq, then the United States should do the right thing and lead a coalition of the willing, effectively implementing the course of action laid out in Resolution 1441.
The other welfare reform
by Brian Reidl
WASHINGTON -- The 1996 welfare reforms comprised the boldest social policy reform over the last 60 years. Millions of people moved off the government dole and achieved self-sufficiency. Unfortunately, those reforms excluded a rather large segment of society that still considers itself too vulnerable to survive on its own, and stubbornly resists subjecting itself to sink-or-swim capitalism: Corporations.
Corporate welfare -- defined as direct payments, low-cost loans or insurance, subsidized services to private businesses -- costs taxpayers over $90 billion per year. That means the average household pays $850 in taxes each year to special interests that neither need nor deserve the help.
The federal government's top two priorities are fully funding national security, and reducing the high tax burden that is currently weighing down the economy. Addressing those priorities without expanding the budget deficit requires eliminating unnecessary and wasteful spending elsewhere. It requires eliminating corporate welfare.
The Advanced Technology Program, known as ATP, represents a typical corporate welfare program. Back in the late 1980s, America had a brief fixation with the Japanese economic "miracle." Believing that Japan's system of government subsidies and protections to preferred businesses was the Next Big Thing, America created ATP to fund private research projects and bring them to the market.
Japan's economy has since drifted into stagnation, and so has ATP. Costing $2.5 billion since its inception, the program is a classic government boondoggle. A recent audit showed the program doesn't keep records identifying why grant applicants get selected or rejected. Program officials also apparently lack knowledge of the fields they provide grants to: They recently gave a $1.2 million grant for initial research into computer recognition of cursive handwriting, even though the technology had already been developed, patented and marketed years ago. Anyone who owns a credit card or regularly signs for packages likely has been signing these small electric screens for years.
ATP's largest problem is that it pays businesses to perform activities they would naturally do anyway. Bribing corporations to research and develop profitable new technologies is about as necessary as bribing athletes to try and win games. Consequently, these federal research grants do not create new projects. They merely subsidize existing ones. Better to leave corporate research funding to the stockholders -- at least they'll get a share of the profits.
It's not exactly the small, capital-starved companies that receive ATP grants, either. IBM, with $8 billion in annual net income and $89 billion worth of assets, could fund its own research even without the $111 million of ATP funds it has received. Similarly, companies such as General Motors ($82 million in grants), General Electric ($75 million) and Sun Microsystems ($50 million) should not receive additional taxpayer dollars.
Although the Advanced Technology Program fits almost all definitions of corporate welfare, fewer people would think to include farm subsidies in that group. Most Americans maintain the Rockwellian stereotype of farm subsidies aiding small, struggling family farmers at the mercy of unpredictable weather. But Farmer Jones has been bought out by Agribusiness Inc. Thus, farm subsidies have evolved into America's most expensive corporate welfare program, peaking at $30 billion in 2000.
Since 1996, Fortune 500 companies such as Westvaco, Chevron and John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance have received as much as 68 times the amount of farm subsidy dollars the median farmer receives. Tyler Farms of Arkansas has received $31.9 million since 1996 -- more than 7,000 times more than the median farmer. Overall, nearly three-fourths of federal farm subsidies are granted to just 10 percent of subsidy recipients. The bottom 80 percent of recipients combined for less than one-sixth of all farm subsidies.
The $90 billion freed up by ending corporate could be put to much better use. It could fully fund a war to remove Saddam Hussein from power, dramatically beef up other defense and homeland security needs, or reduce taxes by $850 per household.
Besides, if there ever was a time for politicians to get rid of corporate welfare, it's now. Recent corporate accounting scandals have provided a political environment that's safe enough for even the most timid politician to finally end this wasteful spending. Corporations should be assured that leaving the government dole isn't so bad. Just ask the 3 million families who've already done it.
(Brian Riedl is the Grover M. Hermann fellow in federal budgetary issues at The Heritage Foundation.)
