Rimandato di un mese - gz
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By: GZ on Venerdì 17 Gennaio 2003 22:41
Se uno pensa che negli ultimi dodici mesi le borse siano in crisi solo perchè l'economia mondiale è in crisi non è questo il suo topic.
Da marzo scorso (2001) l'amministrazione americana ha cominciato a parlare di intervento in iraq, citando le armi chimiche e batteriologiche o nucleari di Saddam ecc.. e da allora un -10 o -15% delle borse è probabilmente da attribuire a questa tensione crescente verso la guerra.
Dal punto di vista dei mercati qualunque soluzione è meglio della tensione senza fine, ma per quanto riguarda quelli americani in particolari sembra ormai che tendano a reagire bene quando l'intervento sembra deciso e male quando torna l'incertezza
Come noto la Corea è "entrata in campo" in dicembre creando un diversivo (si pensa che Saddam abbia pagato una grossa somma ai coreani per concordare la mossa) e segnando dei punti per Saddam.
Ora Debka indica che prima la Turchia (come ho riportato 8 giorni fa) e ora anche la Giordania si stiano defilando e rompendo gli accordi presi, per una serie di motivi: gelosia verso il ruolo crescente dei kurdi, maggiori compensazioni economiche da strappare sentendosi indispensabili per gli americani ecc...
Senza la Turchia è molto difficile l'intervento e senza la Giordania impossibile. Allo stesso tempo dopo fine marzo è tecnicamente impossibile comunque per il caldo dato che le truppe devono usare protezioni per armi chimiche che a 45 gradi nel deserto le semiparalizzano.
Tornare indietro dopo aver spostato 150 mila truppe e manovrato e negoziato e minacciato per 10 mesi senza aver ottenuto niente sarebbe una grossa sconfitta. E può essere presa molto male dai mercati finanziari americani
E' una una faccenda complicata, le parti in causa sono tante: i kurdi che hanno in mano il nord dell'iraq, i leader sciiti di opposizione in iraq appoggiati dall'iran (sciita anche lui), la Turchia che vuole dei pozzi di petrolio in iraq, aiuti economici sostanziali americani e teme i kurdi, la Giordania e poi praticamente tutti, OLP, Israele, Kuwait, Siria, Russia.
L'america ha bisogno come minimo dell'appoggio della Turchia, Giordania e Kuwait-Quatar, della neutralità/simpatia dell'Iran e della neutralità della Russia.
La cosa è andata avanti da marzo 2001 a oggi, gennaio 2002, ed è rimasto ora un mese e mezzo ormai prima di rinunciare. Secondo Debka c'è stato un altro rinvio, l'ultimo al 15 febbraio per la decisione finale.
Tirando le somme da dicembre l'alleanza messa faticosamente assieme in 10 mesi di trattative segrete si sta sfaldando. Ora ci saranno sforzi frenetici di rimettere in piedi la coalizione per poter attaccare Saddam entro fine febbraio. Secondo Debka Bush ha accettato di spostare al 15 febbraio la decisione, ma è alle strette
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Although difficulties continue to pile up, President George W. Bush has lost patience with the delays in launching America’s full-scale war against Iraq.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Washington sources report he is determined to go forward, come what may – and soon - even if some allies drop out and war plans have to be revised.
Saturday, January 11, our sources report that the US President and Saudi crown prince Abdullah had a secret telephone conversation on Iraq and the situation in the Arab world in the light of the approaching war. At the end of the conversation, Abdullah made a personal request for a short period of grace for intense lobbying that might somehow obviate the need for war.
Bush said he was not optimistic but granted the Saudi crown prince the extra time, giving his word not to launch military action before February 15, the day after the Little Pilgrimage (Umrah) to Mecca. This is the reason for the postponement of the Blair visit to the White House to January 31.
That is the last extension Bush is prepared to allow – even though America’s two key allies threaten to drop out -Turkey is stalling and, as DEBKA-Net-Weekly discovered this week, Jordan has quietly developed cold feet.
Ankara allowed a 150-man Pentagon team to inspect bases this week, but is still withholding permission for the US invasion force to use Turkey as a staging base to invade Iraq from the north.
Jordan’s king Abdullah has not yet approved the large-scale landing of Marines to open the Western front of the war.
This means that the Northern and Western warfronts are in disarray. If the Americans are only able to invade from the south, the nature of the war will differ from its planning, and become a slower, staged and rolling operation.
The overriding concern of the Turks and Jordanian king, in addition to the wish for a better bargain, is the nuclear threat from al Qaeda which has assumed the role of Saddam’s proxy against the US and its allies. Nuclear references abound in Islamic fundamentalist publications and chatter of the last few days. No one knows what types of nuclear weapon are involved, but the allies want to hear from Washington what will happen to them in case of nuclear attack – be it dirty bomb or something more sophisticated.
Nonetheless, the White House intends adhering to its current timeline for opening the assault on Iraq. This timeline currently ranges from January 20 to February 15.
On January 27, chief UN arms inspector Hans Blix makes his report to the Security Council
On January 28, Bush addresses the nation. Israeli election takes place.
If the assault has not been launched by then, the President will use his speech to declare his intentions.
Alternatively, Tommy Franks will be told the attack must go forward by mid-February – no later.
Our sources stress that there is no guarantee that this time-span will not change again under the impact of far-reaching events. Say, if Saddam makes a direct move or the terrorists carry out a mega-hit.
2. Saddam’s Timeline
There is a widespread assumption in Washington that Iraq paid the North Korean ruler Kim Jong-Il good money to raise a furor over his nuclear arms program so as to divide the Bush administration’s single-minded concentration on the war against Baghdad and buy time for Saddam Hussein. However, that assumption may only cover a part of the ploy. According to some of DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s sources, Kim received much larger cash pledges from his Middle East clients – and not only Iraq – for the future sale of complete nuclear bombs.
The situation was best summed up in an article by Dennis Ross in the Washington Post of last Friday, January 10:
"Does that argue for the administration's approach of isolation and containment of North Korea? It might, if the North Koreans were two or three years away from being able to produce a half-dozen nuclear devices. But it's more likely that they are only six months away, and that is not sufficient time for the effects of isolation and containment to work on Kim Jong Il. The price to North Korea in six months will not be appreciably different from what it is today. In six months, North Korea will be in a position to sell a nuclear device, and its record to date demonstrates unmistakably that it will sell anything to anybody at any time."
To this comment, DEBKA-Net-Weekly adds from its intelligence sources:
Kim already has six nuclear devices, but to keep his brinkmanship tactics afloat he needs them at home in his keeping.
In another six months, he can build six more devices for sale. So if Kim gets six months' grace - and Saddam is also allowed to buy six months - the entire Arab Middle East will be given the time to acquire advanced nuclear weapons.
(See also first HOT POINT at the bottom of this issue.)
Top
Allies Drop out
Jordan Stalls, Follows Turkey
Two of America’s three designated warfronts against Iraq are buckling. However, they may not be a total loss. The new February 15 timeline leaves all the parties space to indulge in gainful maneuvers and still climb back on the US war wagon at the end of the day.
Turkey was the first defector. This week, Jordan followed.
Ankara raised the stakes Thursday, January 16, by calling a regional summit to discuss ways of preventing the American war against Iraq, inviting Syria, Jordan, Egypt, Iran and Saudi Arabia to attend.
The Jordanian setback caught United States war planners still shuffling the board round under the shock of Turkey’s refusal to let US forces use its bases and territory for the leap into Iraq from the north (as DEBKA-Net-Weekly 92 first revealed on 10 January 2003). They discovered that the second staunch American partner, Jordan’s King Abdullah, had developed cold feet. The monarch suddenly called off the deployment of Marines in Jordanian bases, just as American military planners were frantically mapping out new plans for re-routing entire armored divisions, squadrons of warplanes and fleets of ships, which had been on the point of shipping out to Turkey from their home bases.
Two of the three designated US invasion fronts against Iraq were on the point of folding. The two defections – if sustained – leave US war commander General Tommy Franks with one last invasion front: the south. US ground assault can only come now from Kuwait and Qatar bases plus a Marine landing from vessels of the US naval armada piling up in the Persian Gulf.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources and experts expect the United States to partly offset the loss of Turkish bases by a general mobilization of Kurdish militias in northern Iraq – some 50,000 paramilitary fighters. They are no substitute for the estimated 70,000 Turkish troops supposed to have fought alongside US soldiers, but they are up to the task of commandeering northern Iraqi oilfields - with the help of US special forces present in Kurdish command centers and air cover from US aircraft carriers deployed in the eastern and central Mediterranean.
The Kurdish militias cannot be counted on to capture the key northern Iraqi oil cities of Mosul and Kirkuk. For this mission, the US war command will have to reassign at least one elite 101st Airborne Division contingent especially trained for months for parachuting missions into the Baghdad metropolitan area. The US command will have to make do with only two-thirds of the force originally dedicated to the battle for Baghdad and Saddam Hussein’s second seat of government, Tikrit.
If US military planners can successfully redraw their battle plan and allocation of forces in Iraq, some of the harm can be offset..
Nonetheless, unless the king recants, the damage caused by Jordan’s withdrawal and the loss of the Western front, as weighed up by DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military sources, is considerable:
A. The strategic Iraqi air bases - especially the H2 and H3 complexes, which defend the central Iraqi region around Baghdad and Tikrit – will be left in Iraqi hands. The US originally planned to drop American airborne forces on those bases or nearby and wrest control of their facilities with the help of Jordanian special and rapid deployment troops. This plan will have to abandoned, leaving Iraqi troops assigned to defending this sector against the raiding force free to head south and, from the west, harass American tank columns as they advance, or else race to the aid of the Iraqi defenders of Baghdad.
B. Nothing much will stand in the way of Saddam Hussein launching his 60 to 80 al-Hussein surface-to-surface missiles, most of which are hidden in western Iraq, against the advancing American columns or against Israel. The Al Hussein, an improved version of the Scud missile (32 of which wrought heavy damage in the Tel Aviv area in 1991), has a range of about 800 km (500 miles).
DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s military experts warn that, should Jordan persist in staying out of the conflict - and western Iraq is consequently left in Saddam’s hands - this could tilt the military balance in Iraq’s favor and trigger the kinds of radical military developments that US President George W. Bush has been at pains to avert for nearly two years.
Modificato da - gz on 1/18/2003 0:28:6