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> Mon., Aug. 4, 2003
Pacifica's PeaceWatch
Today's Stories:
Colin Powell and his top deputy have told the White House
they will not serve a second term if President Bush is re-elected
Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, former Liberian
Presidential candidate Visits Peacewatch
Human Rights Watch Assesses Humanitarian Situation in Liberia
Kidnapping of Iraqi Young Girls
Historian and Author Howard Zinn Commentary on Iraqi Victory
Kathy Kelly of Voices in the Wilderness Tells of Experiences
In Iraq During Shock and Awe Campaign
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Secretary of State Colin Powell and his top deputy have told
the White House they will not serve a second term if President
Bush is re-elected, it was reported Monday. Officials at the
White House and the State Department denied the report in
The Washington Post, saying no such conversation had taken
place between Powell and national security adviser Condoleezza
Rice. But the officials refused to speculate about whether
Powell would serve in a second Bush term.
Powell and Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage
planned to talk with Bush in Texas Tuesday and Wednesday for
a long-planned series of meetings, White House spokesman Scott
McClellan said.
He denied that Powell and Armitage ever told Rice they won't
serve after 2005, saying no such conversation had taken place.
The Post reported Monday that both men plan to step down in
January 2005, even if Bush is re-elected.
US military casualties from the occupation of Iraq have been
more than twice the number most Americans have been led to
believe because of an extraordinarily high number of accidents,
suicides and other non-combat deaths in the ranks that have
gone largely unreported in the media.
Since May 1, when President George Bush declared the end
of major combat operations, 52 American soldiers have been
killed by hostile fire, according to Pentagon figures quoted
in almost all the war coverage. But the total number of US
deaths from all causes is much higher: 112.
The other unreported cost of the war for the US is the number
of American wounded, 827 since Operation Iraqi Freedom began.
In fact, the total death toll is 248 - including accidents
and suicides - and as the number of non-combat deaths and
serious injuries becomes more widely known, the erosion of
public confidence is likely to continue, posing a threat to
Mr. Bush's prospects of re-election, which at the beginning
of May had seemed a foregone conclusion.
The U.S. military took 400 volunteers for the new Iraqi
army to the northern city of Kirkuk on Monday to begin two
months basic training, and American forces passed a third
straight day without reporting the loss of a soldier in combat.
According to the military authorities in the Iraqi capital
there had not been a U.S. soldier killed in action since late
Friday night.
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Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf, former Liberian Presidential
candidate Visits Peacewatch
Several hundred Nigerian peacekeeping forces arrived in Monrovia,
Liberia today, as the first of a series of West African deployments
intended to quell the 14-year civil war in that country and
remove embattled President Charles Taylor from office. Anxious
civilians and cheering rebel factions, who look forward to
the end of warfare and the resumption of humanitarian aid,
greeted the forces. It's expected that as many as 5,000 troops
from ECOWAS-- the Economic Community of West African States--
will be deployed to Liberia by the end of the month.
For some insight into the situation, Peacewatch spoke earlier
today with Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, former Liberian Presidential
Candidate and a participant in the Liberian peace talks currently
taking place in Accra, Ghana. We began by asking for her reaction
to today's peacekeeping deployments.
Tape: Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf is a former Liberian Presidential
candidate and a participant in the Liberian peace talks currently
taking place in Accra, Ghana.
[top]
Human Rights Watch Assesses Humanitarian Situation
in Liberia
About half of Liberia's 3 million residents are trapped
by fighting, while they wait in hope for international intervention.
And, with much of the country's access to the outside world
cut off, international aid organizations say a humanitarian
crisis is looming on the not-so-distant horizon. Janet Fleischman,
Washington Director for Africa of the group Human Rights Watch,
spoke recently with Peacewatch Associate Producer Angelique
Shofar about her group's analysis of the situation in Liberia
and their recommendations for U.S. policy.
Tape: Janet Fleischman, Human Rights Watch's Washington
Director for Africa, spoke recently with Peacewatch Associate
Producer Angelique Shofar.
[top]
Kidnapping of Iraqi Young Girls
Meanwhile, back in the Arab World, as we continue to hear
about the lack of security and order in Iraq, among the more
horrifying stories coming out of Baghdad these days is the
unprecedented kidnapping of people-- especially young women--
by organized gangs. Many families say they are worried about
the fate of their daughters and sons, and they keep constant
watch over them, lest kidnappers approach their loved ones.
Ahmed Al-Rawi, Peacewatch's correspondent in Baghdad, has
this report.
Tape: Peacewatch correspondent Ahmed Al Rawi reporting from
Baghdad
[top]
Historian and Author Howard Zinn Commentary on Iraqi
Victory
Historian and author of The People’s History of the
United States offers this commentary about the war on Iraq
entitled: Victory?
Tape: Howard Zinn, historian and author of The People’s
History of the United States
[top]
Kathy Kelly of Voices in the Wilderness Tells of
Experiences In Iraq During Shock and Awe Campaign
Voices in the Wilderness a Chicago-based humanitarian organization
was fined by the Justice Department last week for supplying
medical supplies and toys to Iraqi children. Today, four months
after the official beginning of the invasion, Iraqis still
suffer from roving blackouts when temperatures exceed 120
degrees during the day.
Voices in the Wilderness co-founder and two-time Nobel Peace
Prize nominee Kathy Kelly has been raising the awareness of
the suffering of Iraqi people under us-led sanctions and has
organized many delegations to that country. Kelly who was
in Iraq as a human shield hoping to prevent the invasion,
shares her first-hand experiences during the shock and awe
campaign and afterwards, as well as stories of her engagement
with US soldiers in Iraq.
Tape: Kathy Kelly, cofounder of the Chicago-based humanitarian
group Voices in the Wilderness speaking at the Peace and Justice
Center of the Unitarian Church of Vancouver, Canada. Produced
by the Coalition in solidarity with the People of Iraq.
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