Action In Iraq Research Articles

Preliminary Evidence on the Allocation of U.S. Army Deaths from Operation Iraqi Freedom

Political influence on the use of the nation's war-making resources is considered in this study. Given the ‘tax-like’ consequences arising from military fatalities, rational political agents may engage in behavior that minimizes the negative electoral consequences resulting from the fatalities. An empirical model of the state-by-state allocation of U.S. Army fatalities resulting from Operation Iraqi Freedom is developed and tested. The results suggest that political influence originating in the White House is present in the allocation of fatalities from the military action in Iraq, but that Congressional effects, if any, are much weaker. In particular, population-adjusted fatality rates are lower in states that were highly contested ‘battleground’ states rich in Electoral College votes in the 2004 Presidential election.

Creeping Unilateralism: How Operation Provide Comfort and the No-Fly Zones in 1991 and 1992 Paved the Way for the Iraq Crisis of 2003

In this article, it is argued that the genesis of the Iraq Crisis of 2003 within the Security Council can be traced to earlier patterns of acquiescence by Council members in US and UK unilateral enforcement action in Iraq. By the time this acquiescence ceased, between 1994 and 1996, UK and US enforcement policy was set and would culminate in Operation Iraqi Freedom in March 2003.

The Rhetorical State of Alert before the Iraq War 2003

AbstractInitiating an attack on another country is always a questionable venture, whether one chooses to call it war or prefers euphemisms such as conflict, incident, action or peacecreating measures. This study examines how the arguments were developed prior to the military actions in Iraq 2003. The events have been presented in vague and often distorted value terms and metaphors where war becomes peace, attacks becomes ‘pre-emptive defence’, military invasion becomes ‘change of regime’, occupation becomes ‘humanitarian intervention’.This study provides a diachronic survey of the chain of events from rhetorical perspectives, as well as a synchronic analysis of recurring rhetorical themes - especially of vague concepts and metaphors.Manipulation and lies has of course always been a basic ingredient of warfare. The question is what approach democratic societies should take in relation to self-evidently deceptive influencing of public opinion; to manipulative rhetoric and destructive propaganda.

Pre-emptive action in Iraq: Muddling sovereignty and intervention?

The main purpose of this article is to use the theoretical framework offered by Cynthia Weber to interpret the discourse of the American administration relating to pre-emptive action in Iraq. According to CynthiaWeber, sovereignty has always been an arena for the contestation of its meanings as its significance is intrinsically linked to the practices of intervention in international relations, the way that action is legitimised and in the name of whom. The discourses on intervention utilised by the Bush-Cheney Administration will be analysed on this conceptual basis in order to grasp the meaning of sovereignty that flows from them. The second part of the paper is devoted to an issue that is more speculative and theoretical. One of the hypotheses is that in order to neutralise the chronic instability of the American discourse, the notion of ‘responsibility’ is more and more used as a substitute for sovereignty. As a result, legitimacy shifts from a legal and political level to an ‘ethical’ mode of discourse.

Power Transition and China-US Conflicts

The United States places at risk its opportunity to remain the world’s preeminent nation by focusing all of its energy, time and capabilities on the war against terrorism and on its ancillary action in Iraq, despite compelling reasons otherwise. This myopia, conditioned by unambiguous security threats and the emotion of the moment, is abetted by a stubborn resistance to the maintenance of a long-term focus in foreign policy. Thus a combination of forces, imposed internally and externally, handicap American leadership and threaten the United States’ strategic interests. The attacks of 9/11 and subsequent events in the Middle East have created a condition of immediacy in US foreign policy. The crisis de jure atmosphere dominates our attention and concentrates our intellectual resources. Short-term benefits do exist; for example, as a nation, America has been resilient in its response to the terrorist threat. However, the other pre-occupation, the debate over Iraq, has been notably near-term in its content. The strategic consequences of this action are being understood only now. 1

The Revenante of Abu Ghraib

We must never dissociate the question of desire and of pleasure when we treat the political, and especially the democratic, the question of conscious or unconscious pleasure, from the calculation and the incalculable to which desire and pleasure give rise. Jacques Derrida, Rogues To begin with a question, as he often did, dare we attempt to synthesize even two or three of the most far-flung strands of Derrida's delicate, infinitely diverging web of ideas? Even if one can question the legitimacy of such a synthesis of the themes of globalization, gender and forgiveness in Derrida last works, the attempt allows us to see more clearly how his thought provides a guiding thread that might help us understand what returns as we refuse to forgive the unforgivable, and that in perhaps two registers, the personal and the political. I So, I will start with an antithesis: the pair that for a while became the heavily gendered icons of the war in Iraq, Jessica Lynch and Lynndie England. This pairing can be found in several media commentaries on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal. Bruce Kluger, in USA Today,, calls England the evil twin of Jessica Lynch, that other West Virginia soldier whose actions in Iraq were inflated by reporters in search of the perfect war story.2 The long-haired blond victim-become-hero because of her refusal to perpetuate Pentagon myths about her treatment at the hands of the Iraqis and subsequent "rescue" from them has her mirror image in the short-haired brunette "girl with the feral smile"1 become victim when her pregnancy and the relationship with an accused batterer,4 now married to someone else, that caused it were revealed. Contradictions within contradictions, starting with "American prison torture," or perhaps "woman soldier." Was what Lynndie England, her lover, and their cohorts did unforgivable? What Derrida says most clearly in his last work is that "there is only forgiveness, if there is any, where there is the unforgivable," and he says this precisely in the context of "crimes against humanity."5 This statement is a variation on his discussions of responsibility and the impossibility of relying on rules in moral conduct, for instance in Of the Name? but also in Rogues: "the responsibility of what remains to be decided or done (in actuality) cannot consist in following applying, or carrying out a norm or rule. Wherever I have at my disposal a determinable rule, I know what must be done, and as soon as such knowledge dictates the law, action follows knowledge as a calculable consequence: one knows what path to take, one no longer hesitates" (R 84, his emphasis). Both forgiveness and morality must be absolute, outside the law of reciprocity or the reciprocity of law, and therefore also literally irrational, without reason. Thus only the unforgivable can be truly forgiven. "I continue to believe that it is faith in the possibility of this impossible and, in truth, undecidable thing from the point of view of knowledge, science, and conscience that must govern all our decisions."7 What makes the unforgivable unforgivable? On this point Derrida moves in two directions. First, he suggests that nothing is unforgivable, that any conditions placed on forgiveness deprive it of its absolute quality. What must be forgiven is neither the person in isolation from the act nor the person as s/he is now in distinction from the person as s/he was at the time of the act." Rather, what must be forgiven is both the act and the person, "the fault and the guilty as such, where the one and the other remain as irreversible as the evil, as evil itself, and being capable of repeating itself, unforgivably" (OCF 39, his emphasis) This must be done without requiring contrition, regret, or even any recognition of wrongdoing on the part of the person responsible (which seems to be the case with Lynndie England and her lover). And it must be done, as Kant suggests, purely for its own sake, without conditions either that might link forgiveness to the concept "of God, of such a God, for example, who prescribed forgiving the other (person) in order to merit being forgiven in turn" (OCF 38). …

Fahrenheit 9/11. Dir. by Michael Moore. Miramax Films, 2004. 122 mins.

Michael Moore's Fahrenheit 9/11 deserves special attention. It is the highest-grossing and perhaps the most-watched documentary film on a political subject in American history. The production, which cost only $6 million to make, topped $100 million in earnings by early August 2004, and sales of videos and DVDs are expected to raise the gross to much higher levels. Fahrenheit 9/11 has become arguably the most controversial American-made documentary. In the weeks after its release, supporters and critics debated its merits and flaws vehemently. Some praised Michael Moore for delivering a hard-hitting, gutsy interpretation of recent events. Others lambasted him for juxtaposing evidence unfairly and delivering propaganda, not history. Fahrenheit 9/11 is especially provocative for three reasons. It raises serious questions about the rationale for American military action in Iraq. The documentary also presents President George W. Bush in a strongly unfavorable light. Finally, Fahrenheit 9/11 draws attention to the plight of Americans and Iraqis who have been physically and mentally harmed by the war.

Washington’s Exceptionalism and the United Nations

It is still too early to be definitive about what the U.S.-led action in Iraq will mean for the future of Iraqis, for regional stability, and for the United Nations. Answers will have to wait until the future of Iraq itself is clearer, particularly whether the Iraqis can transit into peaceful self-government or will descend into civil war. Nonetheless, some things are clear enough already. One is that what little consensus there was internationally on the nature of the major threats facing the international community, and how to respond to them, has diminished. Another is that with the evaporation of its stated casus belli?a threat ening Iraq armed with weapons of mass destruction (WMD) cooperat ing with Al-Qaida?the United States has significantly deepened the hole it had already dug for itself in international public opinion. Further, the exceptionalistic self-view of Washington is neither concentric with others' perceptions of the United States nor conducive to securing their cooperation. With its Iraq enterprise in jeopardy and November's elec tions at risk, Washington apparently sees renewed utility in cooperating with the UN in Iraq. But the Iraq war has caused substantial harm to the UN. Whether and how effectively the UN, which already had its own problems?notably a charter written in and for another age?will be able to respond could be decisive to its future. The debate that commenced spontaneously in the United States after the horrific losses of September 11 about why these people hate us so much ended nearly as quickly as it began. People came too read ily to the conclusion that the impetus for anti-Americanism, of which terrorism was the most virulent manifestation, was to be found predom inantly, even exclusively, in America's successful, creative, and innova tive society. It was assumed that terrorists hated the United States not for what it did but for what it was, that the issue was essentially exis tential and therefore not resolvable.

Shia political development in Iraq: the case of the Islamic Dawa Party

The invasion of Iraq and its subsequent occupation by US‐led forces has allowed the majority Shia population to assert itself politically. Much of the debate regarding its political development has focused on the role of the religious scholars, at the expense of other Shia political groups. The Dawa Party has the longest history of organised communal political activity in Iraq among the Shia and is the only main party headed by a non‐scholar. The persecution it suffered under Saddam Hussein and the sacrifices it made have earned it support among the Shia population, but its fractious nature and the other Shia political groupings will make it difficult for the party to regain its former influence amongst the Shia.

Perspectives on Australian foreign policy, 2003

Relations with the United States dominated Australian foreign affairs in 2003. Australia confirmed itself as one of America’s leading supporters in the increasingly controversial global ‘war on terror’, went to war with the US in Iraq, signed up to be a part of the US missile defence shield, underwent intense free trade agreement negotiations with the US (finalised in February 2004), and the political leaders of the US and Australia also made national visits—John Howard to George W. Bush’s ranch in Crawford, Texas and President Bush to Canberra. Looking back on the year in review, it is hard to find a time when Australian foreign policy has been more American-centric or when Australia has received so much individual attention from a presidential administration. Reflecting on the US-Australian alliance, Lyon and Tow recently described it as reaching a ‘new zenith’ under the Howard government (Lyon and Tow 2003). However, at the same time survey data reveal that the Australian public feels considerable apprehension about America and its influence in Australia. These anxieties are clearly discernible in opinion polls about Americanisation and the foreign policies of the Bush Administration (ABC 2003). Such anxieties are of course not limited to Australia and similar concerns have been voiced across a wide range of societies (Pew 2003), undoubtedly contributing to most of America’s traditional allies not supporting military action in Iraq. Australia and the UK were notable exceptions but, even as they joined what the Bush Administration called the ‘coalition of the willing’, public support for such a move remained weak in both countries. In the early months of 2003 a sizeable majority of Australians opposed Australian troops being sent to war without UN endorsement (Newspoll 2003) although the government did enjoy a swing toward its position in opinion polls on the eve of the war. Public concern culminated in record-breaking protests on the weekend of 14–16 February when over 500,000 people took part in anti-Iraq War rallies across Australia, including Australia’s largest ever demonstration of around 250, 000 people in Sydney (Lawson 2003; Priest 2003). The official engagement of Australian troops covered a 21-day period in

Destruction of Property (On An International Scale): The Recent Oil Platforms Case and the International Court of Justice's Inconsistent Commentary on the Use of Force By the United States

This Article examines the recently decided Oil Platforms case announced by the International Court of Justice, remarking on the internal inconsistencies and problems associated with the actual holding. The ICJ's holding in this case inconsistently applies the traditional of force doctrine as applied in other cases decided by the Court, thereby providing evidence of other factors at work in the decision of the Court. Indeed, analysis of the holding, along with examination of the statements made by judges in the ICJ in several separate opinions exhibit the ICJ's desire to reprimand the United States for its current actions in Iraq and the United States' fundamental misunderstanding of proper use of force. This Article also contributes to the scholarship on the developing role of the International Court of Justice and the commentary on international tribunals playing a quasi-political role in international affairs.

Eastern Central European Countries and U.S. Unilateralism

This article aims to analyze the responses of the Visegrad Four countries (Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia and Hungary) to the Iraq War which started on March 20, 2003. Central and East European countries, including these four countries, were considered to be“pro-American, ”particularly as demonstrated by their leaders' signatures to“the Letter of Eight”or“the Declaration of the Vilnius Ten, ”issued at the end of January, and at the beginning of February 2003, respectively.U.S. unilateralism was particularly notable during the period between November 2002, when the UN Security Council adopted resolution 1441, and May 2003, when the US declared an end to major combat in Iraq, and the UN Security Council adopted resolution 1483. Specifically during this period responses of the Visegrad Four countries to the crisis in Iraq differed significantly from one another. Poland, for example, sent its special forces unit (GROM) to Iraq at the beginning of the War. The Czech and Slovak Republics deployed their NBC weapon response units in Kuwait, however they did not engage militarily in Iraq. Hungary allowed the U.S. to use an airbase located in its territory as a training ground where Iraqi opposition members were trained by U.S. forces as police officers and interpreters, but it did not send any military units to the Middle East during this period.The military measures taken by the four countries varied in accordance with the different agendas of their respective key parties in parliament. Generally speaking, the main pro-American factions were the Trans-Atlanticists within the center-right parties, who oriented themselves toward mainstream European Christian democrats or liberal democrats. Realism among center-left social democratic parties, especially the parties in power, was another factor which encouraged conciliatory attitudes toward U.S. policy and the crisis in Iraq. At same time, however, a considerable group of social democrats opposed U.S. unilateral military actions in Iraq because of their high regard for maintaining multilateralism in respect to agreements established by international institutions, such as the UN, NATO or the EU. Therefore, center-left parties faced a dilemma in evaluating whether or not to support military action in the Middle East.Extreme leftists, nationalists and Catholic traditionalists were almost universally opposed to dispatching troops to the Middle East. However, most of these were only“protest parties”which did not have the actual ability to influence decision-making in parliament. One of the key factors which inhibited Central and East European participation in the U.S. military's intervention in Iraq was in fact heavy criticism leveled by populist opposition parties. These parties were sensitive to public criticism of U.S. unilateral military activity in Iraq and thus blocked local involvement therein.Thus, the differing responses of each country to the Iraq War can be viewed as a reflection of local political dynamics between the Pro- and Anti-American forces within each country's internal politics.

SPP delivers emergency aid to Baghdad

Pumps and fluid handling specialist SPP, has completed delivery of the its first order of humanitarian relief supplies since the cessation of military action in Iraq. The order for water purification equipment was delivered within seven days. SPP's logistics partner, Worldwide Transport Services, fast-tracked the consignment. The material was air freighted to Amman, Jordan then trucked overland to Baghdad. This is a short news story only. Visit www.worldpumps.com for the latest pump industry news.

The Role of the UN Secretary-General: The Power of Persuasion Based on Law

In an address to General Assembly on 12 September 2002, delivered fifteen minutes before President Bush's statement on Iraq, secretary-general (SG) made it clear that he believed new military action against Iraq should occur only on basis of a new Security Council (SC) resolution. Without stating explicitly that such authorization was necessary, he suggested that respect for international and unique legitimacy provided by UN required it. He added, however, that should Iraq continue to defy its obligations, SC face its responsibilities, implying that it must be prepared to threaten or authorize use of force. (1) A year earlier, in August 2001, SC adopted a little noticed resolution on conflict prevention, which invites SG to refer cases of serious violations of international law to SC. (2) The request would seem to fly in face of a decision taken in 1945 not to empower SG to bring to attention of SC violations of legal instrument that bears most directly on its work--the Charter itself. (3) While SG was expected and encouraged to perform independent political functions, UN's founders did not anoint him guardian of charter. And yet, with little fanfare, resolution 1366 seems to call upon him to play precisely that role with respect to charter and much charter-based law. These two events--the SG's intervention in debate over military action in Iraq and invitation in Resolution 1366--highlight an important and poorly understood dimension of role of SG. In addition to being chief administrative officer of and world's top diplomat, he is an influential participant in legal discourse that infuses much of global politics. Despite defeat of proposed amendment to Article 99, this is a role SG has played (and could not help but play) since earliest days of UN. He is a key member of an interpretive community associated with implementation and elaboration of charter-based law. With little formal authority and no material power, SG's influence depends largely on his persuasive powers. (4) That influence, moreover, is wielded within an institutional and normative context that he helps shape. By examining SG's role as a legal actor, this article aims to shed light on sources of those persuasive powers. I argue that political and legal roles of SG are intertwined, and that his political influence is reinforced by his ability to draw upon values and principles embodied in Charter. I begin by reviewing legal basis of SG's authority and evolving conceptions of that authority under successive secretaries-general. I then offer a brief account of international as a process of justificatory discourse, terms of which are set and constrained by an interpretive community associated with a particular field of practice. As a participant in practice of peace and security, SG contributes to interpretation, hardening, and progressive elaboration of charter-based in that field. In third section, I examine how various SGs have intervened in legal discourse and argue that voice of office carries considerable weight. The article concludes by summarizing sources of secretary-general's persuasive powers, laying stress on what may be called normative authority of office. The Secretary-General as Legal Actor The legal basis for secretary-general's role lies in Articles 7 and 97 through 101 of Charter. Article 97 names him chief administrative officer of organization; Article 98 stipulates that he shall perform functions entrusted to him by deliberative organs of UN. More interesting from a constitutional point of view is independent political role derived from Article 99, which reads: the Secretary-General may bring to attention of Security Council any matter which in his opinion may threaten maintenance of international peace and security. …

Human Security—Protecting and Empowering the People

Human insecurity dominates today's headlines: ongoing conflicts in Palestine and Cote d'Ivoire; international terrorism and criminal networks; HIV/AIDS pandemic; growing economic inequalities; and apparent diminishing relevance of multilateralism. Perhaps starkest example of tension between rhetorical commitment to human security and imperatives of state security is military action in Iraq. Is it possible during this time of escalating tensions and international animosities to wholeheartedly embrace a fundamental reorientation in our thinking about security? Over last decade, debate about broadening conceptualization of security has been ongoing at United Nations (1) and among many governments, prominent individuals, international commissions, (2) scholars, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs). (3) In 2000, some 180 states endorsed Millennium Declaration's goal of attaining freedom from fear and freedom from want for all people, capturing normative shift in security discourse. How can this commitment and these ideals be brought to bear on severe and multiple crises affecting people in twenty-first century? One answer comes from Commission on Human Security in its publication of Human Security Now in May 2003. (4) Work has focused on six broad interrelated areas of conflict and poverty: protection of people in violent conflict, on move, and in postconflict situations; and measures to overcome economic insecurity, improve health and health services, and impart knowledge and skills. To facilitate its work, commission organized regional consultations and hearings to solicit views of concerned individuals and grassroot organizations. (5) The commission's treatment of human security is suggestive rather than comprehensive; it serves as a catalyst for further thinking and practical applications. It is now incumbent upon governments, international organizations, scholars, and practitioners to move beyond commission's conceptual steps and recommendations. A Conceptual Shift The new security discourse has enveloped idea that security of people needs to be placed ahead of other security concerns. (6) The Commission on Human Security embraced this movement beyond traditional state-centric view of security. It defines human security as vital core of all human lives in ways that enhance human and human fulfillment. This means protecting vital freedoms--fundamental to human existence and development. Human security means protecting people from severe and pervasive threats, both natural and societal, and empowering individuals and communities to develop capabilities for making informed choices and acting on their own behalf. Vital freedoms refer to inalienable fundamental rights and that are laid down in Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other human rights instruments. They also encompass their practical realization. Efforts have been made to identify and categorize threats confronting people under varying conditions in different parts of world. Skeptics view such typologies as unhelpful and have raised questions about value of human security. (7) The commission argues that emphasis of these lists should not be on threats and defensive measures deemed necessary to guard against such threats, but rather on creative and integrative effort to prevent these threats from emerging, or to decrease their negative impact when they do by fulfilling all aspects of people's vital freedoms. Strategies, Protection, and Empowerment Human security expands and reinforces, in Amartya Sen's words, the real that people enjoy. (8) People protected can exercise choices, and people empowered help prevent and mitigate impact of insecurities and devise improvements in protection infrastructure. …

Code Breakers and Commandos

It is difficult to find words to describe the huge difference between the ways in which Allied military intelligence agencies operated during the Second World War, and the professionalism of military intelligence today. The demonstrated use of intelligence in the NATO bombing of former Yugoslavia and in the coalition action in Iraq during the Gulf War were startling in themselves. Nowadays, United States military experts talk about 'which-window' attacks. Global intelligence collection and assessment means that anywhere in the world, a building can be identified, and its use established, and a precise window selected for missile attack. Such a missile will most likely be launched from a ship or aircraft standing well outside the countiy's borders. This represents push-button warfare at a high stage of development, and demonstrates how far intelligence collection and assessment has progressed. But errors still occur, as demonstrated by the mistaken bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade. Nevertheless, these sophisticated techniques of intelligence gathering are light years away from the wartime intelligence activities conducted during the Pacific War, and discussed comprehensively in Richard Aldrich's book.

Moral Disengagement: Measurement and Modification

To study how attitudes and social psychological processes influence decisions about war and peace, a 15-question scale was developed to measure moral disengagement in support for military action. In a survey of 128 secondary school students in the USA and Finland, the scale demonstrated acceptable reliability (0.85-0.90) in different gender and national groups. US students were less morally engaged than Finnish students and males were less morally engaged than females. Scale scores were strongly related to the students' support for US and NATO military actions in Iraq and Yugoslavia. In a second study, 73 US university students participated in a brief, randomized experiment comparing the effects of contrasting communications on moral disengagement in support for military action. After completing a pretest survey, the students were randomly assigned to persuasive communications favoring either moral disengagement or resistance to moral disengagement. Immediately after they received these communications, the students were given the opportunity to give new answers to the survey questions about moral disengagement and approval of specific military actions. Analyses of pretest data confirmed the reliability of the scale and its ability to predict opinions about the US and NATO bombing campaigns in Iraq and Yugoslavia. Analyses of change scores showed increasing moral disengagement in one group and decreasing moral disengagement in the other group, in accordance with the type of communication that was provided between surveys. The groups also differed significantly in their changes of opinions about the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and in their subsequent willingness to sign letters of praise or protest for their US Representative's congressional vote against the bombing.

Entering the 21st Century

WHAT EFFECTS HAVE THE RECENT EVENTS in the Palestine territories and Israel had on the future stability of the Middle East? Despite murmurs of heightened regional antagonism and domestic social mobilization in response to the apparent setback to the peace process, we argue that the Middle East region is now underpinned by new strategic and political realities that will prevent a return to the patterns of conflict in the past. First, Middle East regionalism has been effectively counteracted by the consolidation of American influence in the region, seen most clearly in the dominant role in the Arab-Israeli peace process and the sanctions policy against Iraq. Second, the coherence of regimes in the region, even in sanction-beleaguered Iraq, remains strong or is strengthening, as seems to be the case in Algeria. Successions were smooth in both Jordan and Morocco. There are points of uncertainty, however, that include - in increasing order of concern - Arafat's Palestine, Khatami's Iran, Hussein's Iraq, and Bashar al-Assad's Syria. Third, challenges to regimes from below are less threatening because Islamic 'fundamentalism,' in its more destabilizing and violent form, has subsided and is being replaced by greater social and legal activism - a trend that can be interpreted in very positive ways in both the short and the long term. This is despite the widening socio-economic disparities in the region - particularly acute in the rural areas of the 'Fertile Crescent' region where drought has prevailed. Rising oil prices, however, should help to offset some of the hardships.CONTINUED AMERICAN PREDOMINANCEThe United States has successfully constructed a series of bilateral relationships in the region that continue to overshadow, if not militate against, the emergence of strong regional alliances. Hints of the rise of pan-Arab sentiment should not overshadow the fact that the Arab-Israel conflict has been successfully splintered into an irreversible series of bilateral peace negotiations. This has acted as a moderating influence on Arab regional politics - a moderation that is enforced by Egypt and Jordan, the two front line states that have signed peace accords with Israel. This bilateralism in Middle East diplomacy has also facilitated on-going American military action in Iraq and the maintenance of sanctions whose social effects are from more debilitating than their political effects. Although there have been sporadic Arab attempts to oppose the sanctions regime, most pressure for change has come from either the Europeans, who are beginning to play a more dynamic role in the region, or humanitarian organizations outraged by the devasting socio-economics effects of sanctions. It remains an open question as to whether these diplomatic efforts will result in any fundamental shifts in American policy towards Iraq, especially given the recent American preoccupation with electoral politics.The two countries that have resisted strong bilateral relations with the Americans are Syria and Lebanon. Recent developments, namely, the Israeli withdrawal from their self-declared security zone in southern Lebanon in May 2000, however, open up significant opportunities for the Americans to begin to drive a wedge between the two countries. We expect, for example, that the international community, having hitherto ignored the issue of Syria's 'occupation' of Lebanon, will begin to question Syria's presence, if not to apply pressure for the withdrawal of its 30,000 troops. The timing of such a campaign will depend upon the degree to which the Lebanese themselves begin openly to question Syria's dominant position in the country that also includes countless guest workers. There are signs, particularly on the campuses of Christian universities and in the press, that voices of dissent are beginning to make themselves heard.However, there are two complicating fractors. The first is the question of whether Hizbullah, in the wake of the Israeli withdrawal, has transformed itself from a regional to a Lebanese political actor. …

Lessons from Iraq on bioweapons.

There are strong political pressures to relax the scrutiny of suspected biological weapons activity in Iraq. But the experience of United Nations inspectors in the country points to significant dangers in such a policy.

Recent excavations in Iraq

The events of 1990 and conditions since that time have resulted in a diminution of archaeological activity in Iraq. Many foreign expeditions have ceased to operate. Nevertheless our Iraqi colleagues have continued to do much valuable work in difficult conditions and in the last few years some foreign expeditions have returned and recommenced work. This report has been compiled by Helen McDonald and St John Simpson from information supplied by the excavators to whom, as always, we are especially indebted and whose indulgence we seek for any mistakes contained herein. We would particularly like to thank Dr Muayyad Sa͑id Damerji, Dr Donny George Youkanna and Dr Ahmad Kamil for information on the excavations carried out by the Iraqi Department of Antiquities and Heritage. The information collected by St John Simpson relates to those rescue sites dug in the Saddam Dam Salvage Project that have not yet appeared in print.