National Security: Pakistan will not allow UN nuclear searches

posted by admin on Saturday February 07, @07:04AM

Updated: UN nuclear watchdog to persist in inquiry despite Pakistani refusals

Pakistan's President has vowed never to allow the UN nuclear inspections agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, into the country despite admitting that the man behind its nuclear weapons programme sold nuclear know-how and equipment to three of President Bush's so-called axis of evil states - Libya, Iran and North Korea. Rahul Bedi, in New Delhi, and Conor O'Clery, in New York report

President Pervez Musharaff yesterday pardoned the scientist, Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan, the man credited with giving Pakistan a nuclear capability to mirror that of India's.

And in a robust note of defiance, the military dictator rejected any suggestion of independent monitoring of Pakistan's nuclear programme. "This is a sovereign country. No document will be given. No independent investigation will take place here."

Foreign Minister Mr Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri last night said while Pakistan would help the UN investigate the leaking of nuclear secrets, it would not allow the body investigate its own nuclear programme.

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War: Powell says Iraq arms furore gets on his nerves

posted by admin on Saturday February 07, @06:52AM

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Secretary of State Colin Powell has accused critics of politicising the United States' failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and said it is getting on his nerves.

"Yeah, it does get on your nerves when you see people trying to use this for straightforward political purposes," Powell said in a television interview on Friday.

...

"But the President was absolutely right in what he did. And we were all standing behind him on this one," Powell told Fox Television's "The Sean Hannity Show."

more...
http://www.reuters.co.uk

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War: Administration's Message on Iraq Now Strikes Discordant Notes

posted by admin on Saturday February 07, @05:57AM

WASHINGTON, Feb. 6 — It will be more than a year before the country hears the conclusions of the commission that President Bush reluctantly appointed on Friday to examine what has gone wrong with American intelligence collection.

But in recent days, it has been obvious in Washington that something has also gone awry in a White House that prides itself on never wavering from its message, especially when the subject is Iraq. At moments, Mr. Bush and his national security team — badgered for explanations about whether the country would have gone to war if it knew then what it knows now — have sounded as if these days, it is every warrior for himself.

Rather than uniform and disciplined, their answers have been ad hoc and inconsistent. And the result is that the president appears very much on the defensive just at a moment when his aides thought he would be reaping the political benefits of ridding the world of Saddam Hussein.

…

The change in pitch began with Mr. Bush himself, who in the heady days after Mr. Hussein's fall regularly declared that it was only a matter of time before weapons of mass destruction would be found. When the chief American weapons inspector, David A. Kay, emerged from Iraq and punctured whatever remained of that confidence, Mr. Bush shifted, declaring that the war there had been the right one to fight, for reasons having little to do with any Iraqi weapons that could have been imminently used. Yet he declared his unwavering confidence in the intelligence that lands on his desk every morning at 8, and in the people who provide it.

On Friday afternoon, looking unusually ill at ease in the White House press room while quickly announcing most of the members of his commission, he acknowledged that "some prewar intelligence assessments by America and other nations about Iraq's weapons stockpiles have not been confirmed."

more… http://www.nytimes.com

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International: Annan Warns U.S. Will Face Doubts

posted by admin on Saturday February 07, @05:29AM

UNITED NATIONS, Feb. 6 -- The U.S. failure to uncover weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has heightened international skepticism over the quality of American intelligence and may complicate efforts to use it in the future to build a case for action against outlaw regimes, U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan said Friday.

"The bar has been raised," Annan said during a break in a U.N. conference on financing the reconstruction of Liberia. "People are going to be very suspicious when one talks to them about intelligence. And they are going to be very suspicious when we try to use intelligence to justify certain actions."

The U.N. chief's statement underscored the potential damage the questionable intelligence the Bush administration used to justify the war in Iraq is having on U.S. credibility at the United Nations. It coincided with a visit by Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, who traveled to the United Nations to rally support for the reconstruction of Liberia and to pledge $200 million in U.S. support for the effort.

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"I don't think any apologies are necessary," he (Powell) added. "We said that this was a regime led by a dictator who had every intention of keeping his weapons-of-mass-destruction programs going, and anyone who thinks he didn't is just dead wrong. And there is no evidence to suggest that that was an incorrect judgment."

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War: Pro-al-Sistani group denies reports of attack on Iraq's top Shiite cleric

posted by admin on Saturday February 07, @03:19AM

Updated: U.N. Elections Team Arrives in Baghdad

The Arabic TV station Al-Jazeera had reported that unidentified gunmen fired on the ayatollah Thursday morning.

CNN reported that four attackers with AK-47s injured an unspecified number of al-Sistani bodyguards during an attempt on the cleric's life at about 10 a.m.

One of the ayatollah's guards, who identified himself as Abu Mohammed, told AP by telephone from Najaf that "there's no truth to this news" of an assassination attempt, adding "these are all lies.

"His eminence is in very good health and hasn't been subjected to any assassination attempts," he said. "There haven't been any threats ... He hasn't been out.... There has been no gunfire."

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