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Robert Fisk on The Murders of Gibran Tueni, Rafik Hariri
and the Changing Tide in Lebanon
The Iraq Invasion: Day 1,000
Study Shows Civilian Death Toll in Iraq More Than 100,000
Protests Continue at WTO Conference as Talks Stall Over Agricultural
Trade
Robert Fisk on The Murders of Gibran Tueni, Rafik
Hariri and the Changing Tide in Lebanon
In Lebanon, tens of thousands of people have turned out
for the funeral of prominent anti-Syrian publisher and lawmaker
Gibran Tueni. Tueni was killed, along with three others, in
a massive car bomb in Beirut on Monday. The blast came just
hours before a UN inquiry team said it had fresh evidence
to reinforce earlier findings of Syrian involvement in the
assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri.
We go to Beirut to speak with veteran Middle East Correspondent
Robert Fisk. [includes rush
transcript]
Crowds of mourners - many waving the Lebanese flag - followed
the coffin as it was carried slowly through the streets of
the capital.
Tueni was killed, along with three others, in a massive car
bomb in Beirut on Monday. Tueni is a Christian member of parliament
who also edits the top selling An-Nahar newspaper. He had
only returned to Lebanon on Sunday from Paris, where he has
been staying most of the past few months out of fear for his
safety. His death marks the third political killing since
former Prime Minister Rafik al-Hariri was killed in February.
Many in Lebanon have blamed Syria for Tueni's killing - a
charge the Syrian government was quick to deny. The blast
came just hours before a UN inquiry team said it had fresh
evidence to reinforce earlier findings of Syrian involvement
in Hariri's murder and obstruction by Damascus in the investigation.
Detlev Mehlis, who has headed the U.N. probe for seven months,
said that cooperation with Syria had improved but he was not
sure it would continue.
Mehlis has implicated Syrian and Lebanese security officials
in the murder and identified six Syrians as suspects. The
Security Council also considered a resolution that France,
the United States and Britain are proposing to extend the
Hariri probe, which ends on Thursday, for six months.
- Robert Fisk, chief Middle East correspondent for the
London Independent. He has lived in Lebanon for many years
and is author of "Pity the Nation: The Abduction of
Lebanon. His latest book is titled "The Great War for
Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East."
The Iraq Invasion: Day 1,000
1,000 days ago today, the U.S. invasion of Iraq officially
began. Since then, over 2,300 coalition troops and as many
as 100,000 Iraqis have been killed. Zero weapons of mass destruction
have been found and the cost of the war has topped $200 billion
dollars. We speak with Iraqi humanitarian Sami Rousuli in
Karbala and Robert Fisk in Beirut.
President Bush took to the nation’s airwaves on March
19, 2003 to declare that the war to “disarm Iraq”
had begun. Bush claimed the United States was entering the
conflict reluctantly but that the war was needed to prevent
Iraq from having what he called weapons of mass murder.
The Independent newspaper of London has published a series
of statistics to mark what has happened in the 1,000 days
since then:
Zero weapons of mass destruction have been found.
At least 30,000 Iraqi civilians have died so far though
some studies put the toll over 100,000.
66 journalists have been killed.
183,000 British and American troops remain in Iraq.
Over 2,300 U.S. and coalition troops have been killed.
At least 16,000 U.S. troops have been wounded in action.
$200 billion has already been spent by the U.S. And news
reports today indicate the total cost of the Iraq and Afghan
wars could top half a trillion dollars.
Between 60% and 80% of Iraqis still strongly oppose the
presence of U.S. troops in their country.
67% of Iraqis feel less secure because of the occupation.
There are currently an average of 90 attacks staged each
day by the Iraqi resistance.
8% of Iraq’s children are suffering acute malnutrition.
- Sami Rousuli, he was living in Minnesota at the time
of the invasion but has since returned to Iraq to live.
He now heads up the Muslim Peacemaker Team. He joins us
from Karbala.
- Robert Fisk, Middle East correspondent for the London’s
Independent who has reported extensively from Iraq during
the war.
Study Shows Civilian Death Toll in Iraq More Than
100,000
On the 1,000th day of the U.S. war on Iraq, we look at a
subject that usually receives little attention -- the Iraqi
civilian death toll since the war began. We speak with Dr.
Les Roberts, the lead researcher of a study released last
year on the number of deaths in Iraq, which put the toll at
more than 100,000.
President Bush was asked about the Iraqi civilian death toll
on Monday following his speech at the Philadelphia World Affairs
Council.
- Q: Since the inception of the Iraqi war, I'd like to
know the approximate total of Iraqis who have been killed.
And by Iraqis I include civilians, military, police, insurgents,
translators.
- THE PRESIDENT: How many Iraqi citizens have died in this
war? I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result
of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against
Iraqis. We've lost about 2,140 of our own troops in Iraq.
President Bush’s comments took many by surprise because
the administration has said little over the past 1,000 days
on how many Iraqis have died because of the war and occupation.
Since Bush spoke on Monday, several officials denied the government
was keeping a tally on Iraqi deaths. White House Press Secretary
Scott McClellan said that Bush was "citing public estimates,"
not a government-produced figure. Pentagon spokesman Lt. Col.
Barry Venable said there is no official tally of civilian
deaths in Iraq. However, Venable said the U.S. military does
collect data on deaths from insurgent attacks. If the government
did keep close tabs on Iraqi civilian deaths, they might likely
find the number is far higher than 30,000.
Last year the prestigious British medical journal the Lancet
published a study estimating that over 100,000 Iraqi civilians
had died because of the war. The study determined that the
risk of death by violence for civilians in Iraq is now 58
times higher than before the US-led invasion. We are joined
in Washington by the lead researcher of that report.
- Les Roberts, co-author of a 2004 study on civilian mortality
in Iraq since the invasion. He is an epidemiologist at the
Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Protests Continue at WTO Conference as Talks Stall
Over Agricultural Trade
The World Trade Organization has entered its second day
of its ministerial meeting in Hong Kong. South Koreans have
led attempts to reach the convention center by swimming across
Hong Kong Bay. They have been blocked off by heavily armed
police barricades and beaten back by riot police with pepper
spray and batons. We speak with Anuradha Mittal, an expert
on world trade issues in Hong Kong.
The conference is the culmination of a multi-year WTO negotiation
process referred to as the “Doha round" that began
in Qatar in 2001. Trade Ministers from 149 countries are negotiating
a series of multilateral trade agreements that would rewrite
trade laws on agriculture, industrial goods and services.
Much of the negotiations at the WTO meeting centers on agricultural
trade laws.
- Donald Tsang, Chief Executive of Hong Kong and Chairman
of the WTO:
Ladies and gentlemen, we are at a historic junction--trade,
liberalisation and economic growth is a permanent goal for
all of us as WTO members. While I acknowledge, in some parts
of the world, this goal is seen as a threat rather than
an opportunity, the negotiations under the Doha agenda must
press ahead.
The World Trade Organization meeting has been met by thousands
of demonstrators from around the globe including farmers,
trade unionists, migrant workers and activists from immigrant
rights and women’s rights groups. Earlier today, a group
of militant South Korean farmers attempted to gain access
to the WTO meeting by pushing through hundreds of riot police.
On Tuesday, nine people were injured when police used a skin
irritant spray on a group of protestors. Hong Kong is staging
one of its largest security efforts ever. Authorities say
they want to avoid a repeat of the massive protests that shut
down the WTO in Seattle in 1999 and disrupted the WTO in Cancun
in 2003.
Before the meetings began, Hong Kong authorities tried to
prevent many international activists from entering the city.
Jose Bove, the prominent French anti-globalization activist
and farmer, was initially denied entry into Hong Kong and
held at an airport detention center until the French delegation
intervened. On Tuesday, protestors sneaked inside the conference
hall and disrupted WTO Director-General Pasal Lamy’s
inaugural speech with shouts of “development yes, Doha
no,” and, “no deal is better than a bad deal.”
The biggest point of contention at the WTO meeting has been
proposals to lower agricultural tariffs. Critics say such
a move would benefit the rich at the expense of poor farmers.
- Walden Bello, speaking at the WTO yesterday, Director
of Focus on the Global South:
Ten years of the WTO has brought nothing but more poverty,
more inequality, economic stagnation throughout many parts,
throughout most of the developing world. This is not an
institution that promotes development. This is an institution
that promotes corporate trade, promotes corporate profit,
that promotes destruction of the environment. It is an anti-people
organisation.
One of the largest group of protesters in Hong Kong are South
Korean rice farmers who fear that new agreements advocated
by the U.S and supported by the Korean government will lead
to the disappearance of 3.5 million farming jobs and an end
to food security for the country. During the last two days,
South Koreans have led attempts to reach the convention center
by swimming across Hong Kong Bay. They have been blocked off
by heavily armed police barricades and beaten back by riot
police with pepper spray and batons.
On Wednesday, the United States and the European Union clashed
over food aid to poor countries. EU delegates complained that
the US distorts trade and protects US farmers by sending food
commodities to poor nations. And US officials have been pressuring
the EU to change their farm tariffs and subsidies. The deadlock
over farm trade has already led negotiators to lower expectations
for the meeting’s outcome.
- Anuradha Mittal, founder and director of The
Oakland Institute, a California-based think that advocates
for fair trade. Speaking from Hong Kong.
For a copy of today’s program, call 1 (800) 881 2359.
Our website is www.democracynow.org.
Our email address is mail@democracynow.org.
Democracy Now! is produced by Mike Burke, Sharif Abdel Kouddous,
Ana Nogueira, Elizabeth Press, Jeremy Scahill and Parvez Sharma.
Mike Di Filippo is our engineer.
Thanks also to Uri Galed, Angela Alston, Orlando Richards,
Simba Russeau, Johnny Sender, Rich Kim, Joe Murgio, John Randolph,
Chris Zucker, Karen Ranucci, Denis Moynihan, Eric Rweyemamu,
Jenny Filipazzo and Isis Phillips.
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