Veterans for Common Sense

More than 2000 Scots soldiers are awaiting official notification to leave their base near Bergen, Germany, for the Gulf.

Yesterday, the last Challenger II tanks of the 7th Armoured Brigade were delivered to the ferry port of Emden.

There they will be painted in desert camouflage before roll on-roll off ferries take them on the final leg of their journey.

The brigade – known as the Desert Rats – includes the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and the 1st Battalion The Black Watch.

In total, the brigade will comprise more than 120 tanks when it reassembles in Kuwait, which squaddies believe could in as little as three weeks. Speaking yesterday at the Fallingbostel base, Major Charlie Lambert, second-in-command of the RSDG, said spirits are high among the troops – and they know what is expected of them.

He said: “Saddam Hussein is in breach of more than 10 UN resolutions so far. The question we would ask as soldiers is at what stage does someone say, `Enough is enough.’

“We are the ultimate deterrent and are prepared to do our job if called upon.”

Major Lambert believes there is little point in asking if Britain should be so supportive of America.

He said: “If you accept that we have a world that has a United Nations, which in turn has a security council which makes resolutions and those resolutions are continually broken then, at some stage, somebody has to enforce the implementation of those resolutions.

“And that’s our business.”

The RSDG and Black Watch battlegroups are both 1000 strong. Each will go into theatre with around 30 tanks and 32 armoured fighting vehicles.

No official orders to move have been received but Major Lambert says much will depend on the time it takes the vehicles to reach Kuwait.

He said: “We’re looking at a couple of weeks to get the equipment out there. Some people have started arriving already but it’s difficult to put an exact timeline on when the tail- end of the brigade will be there.

“I’m led to believe the weather in the Gulf is warming and the longer we can have in theatre to acclimatise the better.” For some of the younger soldiers it will be the first time they have experienced a battlefield.

But Major Lambert believes more experienced troops will be able to pass on the benefit of their knowledge.

He explained: “We have a strong regimental family spirit. There is enough experience as you go through the rank structure among those who have been in this situation before to keep the younger ones on the straight and narrow.”

The troops have also been made fully aware of the part the Desert Rats played in north Africa during World War II.

Major Lambert said: “It’s interesting to read that the trials and tribulations they went through were the same as the ones we are going through now.

“We have a tradition to uphold and a reputation to maintain, which we will do.” Much of the work to “desertise” the vehicles for the extreme conditions has already been done and senior officers are confident they won’t encounter the same problems which hampered a military exercise in Oman last year.

The major added: “I’m confident we won’t have the same problems with the tanks as we had in the desert exercises last year, for two reasons.

“The desert in Kuwait and Iraq is different from that in Oman and secondly, the lessons have been learned and there is a programme in place that will solve those problems and let us to do our job properly.

“We are the ultimate deterrent and must prepare as such.

“When people are asked to train for this they are very happy, because this is what they join the Army for.” But while the troops are optimistic about what is ahead, the people of Fallingbostel – population 6000 – will be left to count the cost of so many soldiers leaving at the same time.

In normal circumstances, every second person in the bars, restaurants and shops speaks with a British accent.

In the past, they have had to deal with individual regiments disappearing on exercises, but rarely do they say goodbye to virtually the entire British presence.

Major Lambert said: “It would be naive to suggest this won’t have an affect on this town but, at times like this, quite often family members from the UK will come out to be with the families here so that will bring addition people.

“When we come home, there will be another flood of people coming out to spend money. The locals are entirely supportive, they are very pro- military in this part of Germany.

“There is a readiness state which we have to meet.

“But that is based on when the vehicles leave on the ships, how long the ships take and our ability to then move in time to meet those ships on arrival.”

Known as Scotland’s cavalry, the vast majority of the RSDG are Scottish, with Glasgow traditionally a strong recruiting area.

Between them, the Royal Scots Dragoon Guards and the Black Watch will provide around 2000 troops of the 26,000 troops deployed in the region in the next few weeks.

IS YOUR PARTNER GOING TO WAR?

Are you missing your brave loved ones as they prepare for war? If so, send us your Valentine messages to them and we’ll

print them in the Record – free of charge. Text us: 07740 101 101. Fax: 0141 309 3215. Email: reporters@dailyrecord.co.uk.

Mark Crispin Miller, author of “The Bush Dyslexicon” and “Boxed In: The Culture of TV,” wishes he could still talk only of television, unleashing barbs like “Big Brother Is You Watching.”

Now he can’t. In Miller’s view, America’s great independent newspaper tradition is in peril. Scandals fly under the radar, politicians get off easy, and President Bush garners comparisons to Winston Churchill while Miller himself gets panned in The Washington Post and snubbed by The New York Times.

That’s why Miller, who also teaches media studies at New York University, has returned with a vengeance, unleashing a provocative, funny, and deeply
disturbing one-man show, “Bush Are Us,” at a small New York theater. While the mainstream press still wants nothing to do with it, the first three shows have sold out, with at least one more planned for early March. Can
Miller do for political standup what Michael Moore did for Flint, Mich.?

As he describes it in the show, one of Miller’s formative moments came in 1984, after watching the second Walter Mondale/Ronald Reagan presidential
debate, in which, he recalls, Reagan rambled incoherently but later won the election decisively. Now he finds the same linguistic butchery/widespread
acclaim evident in the presidency of George W. Bush, whose personal failings, he charges, the press rarely attempts to expose in a post 9-11, pre-Iraq war atmosphere.

“The Founding Fathers gave the press constitutional protection … because democracy requires an independent press to keep citizens aware of their
government,” Miller says. Newspaper reporting of the war on terrorism, however, has left many important questions unanswered and stories untold, Miller believes. He says exhaustive coverage is needed of recently passed anti-terrorism legislation to inform the public how their civil liberties are imperiled.

Instead of focusing on substantive issues, newspapers mimic TV in emphasizing aesthetics and atmosphere in their coverage of politics. In the 2000 election, Al Gore’s “wooden” behavior got as much play as his policy
positions.

Already newspaper coverage of the 2004 Democratic presidential field relies on familiar characterizations: “John Kerry’s hair seems to be
getting more coverage than his political beliefs,” Miller says. His maxim is simple, if ironic: political coverage should focus on politics.

Miller believes assaults on the “liberal media” by Ann Coulter, Bernard Goldberg, and others have chilled investigative reporters. Now, even centrist journalists must attempt to avoid “biased” accusations. Thus,
while the press bombarded President Clinton on Whitewater and a host of other scandals, the Bush White House has successfully swept a number of controversies under the table, Miller says.

To be fair, Miller acknowledges that hard-hitting reporting takes its toll on a journalist, requiring tremendous stamina. Early last year, when Dana
Milbank of The Washington Post began mentioning supposed untruths supplied by the Bush Administration in her articles, the White House stopped returning her calls. “There’s a reluctance by many journalists to open an enormous can of worms by challenging the President,” Miller says.

For the sake of brevity, newspapers often turn Bush’s mangled sentences into perfect prose. “If Bush screws up, they’re just going to fix it,” Miller says. The public rarely sees the true man, Miller argues. Bushisms
like, “The goals for this country are … a compassionate American for every citizen,” remain submerged beneath fawning news stories that make the
President look stoic and resolute, Miller says.

Even the oft-labeled “liberal” newspapers can fall victim to touch-up jobs, Miller maintains. He refers to a recent Washington Post profile of News York Times columnist Paul Krugman, which described how Times Executive Editor Howell Raines barred Krugman from accusing Bush of “lying” during his presidential campaign. Yet on the same op-ed page, conservative
columnist William Safire called Senator Hillary Clinton a “congenital liar.”

“What if Bush is really lying?” Miller proposes. “You can’t say it.”

Miller fumes that such realities show how right-wing influence on the media has been growing since the late 1960s. Since then, conservative think tanks and massive influxes of money have turned the journalistic tide à droite, he says.

“The theory of bias against the right-wing is a cult-like myth that honest conservatives like William Kristol will admit doesn’t exist,” Miller says.

“I bet Karl Rove would too — he’s got the press wrapped around his little finger.”

Shortly after the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, the federal government surveyed the sorts of air defense systems available from a variety of agencies – for use here, or elsewhere in the country. The government then conducted experiments to determine how they could best work in concert with one another.

The missile launchers that can be seen from the South Capitol Street bridge are the result of the government’s planning efforts.

The protection measures would include Customs Service aircraft flying high, keeping track of air traffic over the metro area, Air National Guard fighter jets patrolling above and Army radar systems positioned alongside Avenger air defense missile systems mounted on HumVees.

The government put these measures in place during President Bush’s January State of the Union message, then pulled them back. They went back into place when officials determined there was an increased likelihood for terrorist attacks and increased the nation’s Homeland Security alert status to orange from yellow.

Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said the latest terrorism alert represented “the most significant” such warning since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.

On the five-color alert scale, red is the highest, but no such terrorist warning level has yet been issued.

Peace Begins in the Neighborhood

Seattle, Washington – “Forty-nine, fifty,” said Daniel Schwenk, while working his way along a row of protesters waving “No Iraq War” signs to Lake Forest Park’s evening rush hour.

“I wasn’t counting,” he quipped. “I was guessing ages.”

He could have been serious.

Schwenk, a 50-year-old biotech worker from Bothell, reflects the effort to broaden the demographic and geographic reach of the region’s growing anti-war movement.

Where opposition to the Vietnam War more than 30 years ago grew out of youthful rebellion, the local effort to prevent the United States going to war with Iraq has a more Main Street feel.

And where most protests in recent years focused on massing big numbers of people in downtown Seattle, the recent wave of vigils and demonstrations are penetrating suburban communities like Burien, Bothell, Lake Forest Park and Bellevue, where more than 1,000 candle-wielding marchers showed up for a Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Day peace rally.

During the World Trade Organization protests three years ago, demonstrators chanted, “This is what democracy looks like.” Now one anti-war activist jokes about chanting, “This is what suburbia looks like.”

Unlike the Vietnam protests, which took years to materialize, protests against a war in Iraq are up and running before the first bomb has dropped. Participants go to great lengths to avoid being seen as countercultural or anti-American — witness the ubiquitous red, white and blue signs.

Much of the local organization comes from Sound Nonviolent Opponents of War (SNOW), a coalition of traditional activist groups, churches and scores of new neighborhood organizations. A single e-mail effort aimed at raising $10,000 for “War Kills the Innocent” ads on Metro buses wound up raising nearly $30,000, said Howard Gale, a member of SNOW’s coordinating committee.

Meanwhile, the coalition encourages would-be activists to design small vigils tailored to their own temperaments. “It’s your neighbors, and it creates a sense of community,” said Fred Miller, a SNOW organizer.

Such decentralized activities “probably happened during the 1969-70 period, but not since, not on this scale,” said Todd Gitlin, former president of the Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) who now teaches a class on social movements at the Columbia University. It’s a measure of organizational strength, Gitlin said, but also the depth of anti-war feeling.

“You can’t generate this degree of tenacity without a broad base of feeling along those lines,” he said. “The support for the war has not been deep, and the opposition, to a unilateral war anyway, has been steady and widespread.”

It’s difficult to gauge how widespread that opposition is. After Secretary of State Colin Powell addressed the United Nations Security Council last week, providing evidence Iraq was secretly building weapons, a CNN/USA Today/Gallup poll found more Americans supporting a U.S. invasion of Iraq. Fifty-seven percent of those who heard or read about Powell’s speech favored an invasion, while 15 percent opposed one and 26 percent were unsure.

An ABC/Washington Post poll taken at the same time found respondents roughly split over going to war without U.N. support.

Jack Spencer, national security analyst for the conservative Heritage Foundation, said the reach of the protest movement is largely a sign of professional organization and networking, often with computers and the Internet.

“Unlike the peace movement of the ’60s and early ’70s, where it was a new phenomenon to have these really large social movements, what we’ve had since then are the same people who learned the trade back then professionalize the demonstrations,” he said. “That’s what you have now: professional peace activists who have developed new means and new tactics to get their message across.”

Spencer is doubtful that they represent a big slice of the American public. “The fact of the matter is, most of these people will jump on any bandwagon that will take them to a protest, whether it’s the World Bank or the IMF (International Monetary Fund.) There’s nothing like a good war to bring them together.”

The notion of organizing by neighborhoods came about largely by happenstance. Miller, a board member of the Peace and Justice Alliance and a political organizer since the ’70s, attended a cider-making party/anti-war vigil at the Ballard home of a neighbor and noticed the conversation had a block-party quality.

So when SNOW held its Dec. 8 Call to Action at Garfield High School, Miller and other organizers had attendees break off into more than 30 neighborhood groups and plan their own events.

Different neighborhoods took different tacks. The Snoqualmie Valley and Carnation group could look at nonviolent parenting. Wallingford could have the Wallingford Peace Singers.

That was in keeping with SNOW’s desire to let people express their opposition to the war, said Miller, “without having to buy into a lot of counterculture rhetoric and theory, and also not have to buy into the counterculture. If you go downtown and there are a lot of people wearing masks, that will turn off a lot of people that live north of 65th.” Diane Schachter, a Woodinville resident and therapist, was rattled when she put out “No Iraq War” signs and a meeting announcement at stop signs in her neighborhood, only to see them gone three hours later.

But through the SNOW database, she hooked up with eight local people for a meeting at her house, and was comforted by finding kindred spirits.

As the talk of war mounted, Caroline Tellez, 43, of Bothell wanted badly to send a message, “to let our president know in any way I could that there are many people that do not agree with his ideology in regard to going to war.” Fueling her conviction was the suicide two years ago of a half-brother, a veteran of the Vietnam War who “didn’t get over it.”

But she was nervous about being in the public eye. She is an independent voter and worried that anti-war activity might have a partisan flavor.

These days, standing vigil at a busy corner in Lake Forest Park, Tellez feels at ease.

With Tellez one Saturday was Tom Kresbach, a 53-year-old computer programmer from Brier. He protested briefly against the Vietnam War but later went there as a lab technician for the 9th Medical Lab.

“We were a bunch of hippies,” he said. “Now, it’s middle-aged baby boomers with three kids, people holding down one, two, three jobs coming out to demonstrate.”

Earlier, at an organizational meeting in Lake Forest Park’s Third Place Commons, Tellez, Kresbach and about 30 others met near the sign-up tables for the North King County Little League.

With the exception of one young man with dyed hair and a military jacket, the crowd was in its 40s and 50s. One older man wheeled an oxygen tank. Kresbach warned demonstrators to keep their children well back from the road.

But sometimes there is a partisan, even radical flair.

That same meeting had visitors come by selling T-shirts with a Merriam-Webster definition of “bush,” the adjective and in their opinion the President: “falling below acceptable standards: UNPROFESSIONAL .

At a rally at Shoreline Community College, a Revolution Books table included “I’d Rather Be Smashing Imperialism” bumper stickers. At the close of the rally, when the 90 or so attendees assembled for a group photo, shouts of “Stop the police state!” and “The pigs are here!” rose. They were followed by someone else shouting, “Shut up!”

It was a microcosm of the national peace movement, whose multiple groups can create a festival of agendas.

United for Peace and Justice, which includes about 35 Washington groups, opposes an Iraq war but also plans to attack “new repressive measures at home.” There are local peace groups that identify themselves as Republicans, as business people, as families of armed services personnel.

Veterans for Common Sense insists on a Congressional Declaration of War before an Iraq conflict, but Sgt. Joe Bons, a member and Gulf War veteran from Graham, Pierce County, said the group is not explicitly part of the peace movement. He signed its statement on Iraq out of concern for the chemical and biological agents that troops might be exposed to.

“I’m sure there are those of us out there that say, ‘Screw this, let’s not do this again,’ ” he said, “but it primarily has to do with force protection.”

SNOW has a simple strategy — let people express disapproval through nonviolent means — which may explain much of its appeal. Eventually, the group would like to try to change U.S. foreign and economic policies, but has yet to discuss long-term strategies.

Meanwhile, it concentrates on making its opposition visible, whether through lawn signs or people on overpasses

Are these efforts having an effect? Even if the U.S. doesn’t go to war, it’s unlikely the White House would let on if protesters played a role. For instance, President Richard Nixon didn’t acknowledge the anti-war movement influenced the Vietnam War, said Gitlin, the former SDS leader.

“After the fact, there’s some evidence that there were certain war plans that were tamped down or overridden because of fierce anti-war opposition,” Gitlin said. “But in real time, you can’t tell. You can only guess.”

“Toxic Sludge is Good For You” (Chapter 10)

The Mother of All Clients

by John Stauber and Sheldon Rampton

On August 2, 1990, Iraqi troops led by dictator Saddam Hussein invaded the oil-producing nation of Kuwait. Like Noriega in Panama, Hussein had been a US ally for nearly a decade. From 1980 to 1988, he had killed about 150,000 Iranians, in addition to at least 13,000 of his own citizens.

Despite complaints from international human rights group, however, the Reagan and Bush administrations had treated Hussein as a valuable ally in the US confrontation with Iran. As late as July 25 – a week before the invasion of Kuwait – US Ambassador April Glaspie commiserated with Hussein over a “cheap and unjust” profile by ABC’s Diane Sawyer, and wished for an “appearance in the media, even for five minutes,” by Hussein that “would help explain Iraq to the American people.”69

Glaspie’s ill-chosen comments may have helped convince the dictator that Washington would look the other way if he “annexed” a neighboring kingdom. The invasion of Kuwait, however, crossed a line that the Bush Administration could not tolerate. This time Hussein’s crime was far more serious than simply gassing to death another brood of Kurdish refugees. This time, oil was at stake.

Viewed in strictly moral terms, Kuwait hardly looked like the sort of country that deserved defending, even from a monster like Hussein. The tiny but super-rich state had been an independent nation for just a quarter century when in 1986 the ruling al-Sabah family tightened its dictatorial grip over the “black gold” fiefdom by disbanding the token National Assembly and firmly establishing all power in the be-jeweled hands of the ruling Emir.

Then, as now, Kuwait’s ruling oligarchy brutally suppressed the country’s small democracy movement, intimidated and censored journalists, and hired desperate foreigners to supply most of the nation’s physical labor under conditions of indentured servitude and near-slavery. The wealthy young men of Kuwait’s ruling class were known as spoiled party boys in university cities and national capitals from Cairo to Washington.70

Unlike Grenada and Panama, Iraq had a substantial army that could not be subdued in a mere weekend of fighting. Unlike the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, Hussein was too far away from US soil, too rich with oil money, and too experienced in ruling through propaganda and terror to be dislodged through the psychological-warfare techniques of low-intensity conflict.

Waging a war to push Iraq’s invading army from Kuwait would cost billions of dollars and require an unprecedented, massive US military mobilization. The American public was notoriously reluctant to send its young into foreign battles on behalf of any cause. Selling war in the Middle East to the American people would not be easy. Bush would need to convince Americans that former ally Saddam Hussein now embodied evil, and that the oil fiefdom of Kuwait was a struggling young democracy.

How could the Bush Administration build US support for “liberating” a country so fundamentally opposed to democratic values? How could the war appear noble and necessary rather than a crass grab to save cheap oil?

“If and when a shooting war starts, reporters will begin to wonder why American soldiers are dying for oil-rich sheiks,” warned Hal Steward, a retired army PR official. “The US military had better get cracking to come up with a public relations plan that will supply the answers the public can accept.”71

Steward needn’t have worried. A PR plan was already in place, paid for almost entirely by the “oil-rich sheiks” themselves.

Packaging the Emir

US Congressman Jimmy Hayes of Louisiana – a conservative Democrat who supported the Gulf War – later estimated that the government of Kuwait funded as many as 20 PR, law and lobby firms in its campaign to mobilize US opinion and force against Hussein.72

Participating firms included the Rendon Group, which received a retainer of $100,000 per month for media work, and Neill & Co., which received $50,000 per month for lobbying Congress. Sam Zakhem, a former US ambassador to the oil-rich gulf state of Bahrain, funneled $7.7 million in advertising and lobbying dollars through two front groups, the “Coalition for Americans at Risk” and the “Freedom Task Force.”

The Coalition, which began in the 1980s as a front for the contras in Nicaragua, prepared and placed TV and newspaper ads, and kept a stable of fifty speakers available for pro-war rallies and publicity events.73

Hill & Knowlton, then the world’s largest PR firm, served as mastermind for the Kuwaiti campaign. Its activities alone would have constituted the largest foreign-funded campaign ever aimed at manipulating American public opinion.

By law, the Foreign Agents Registration Act should have exposed this propaganda campaign to the American people, but the Justice Department chose not to enforce it.

Nine days after Saddam’s army marched into Kuwait, the Emir’s government agreed to fund a contract under which Hill & Knowlton would represent “Citizens for a Free Kuwait,” a classic PR front group designed to hide the real role of the Kuwaiti government and its collusion with the Bush administration. Over the next six months, the Kuwaiti government channeled $11.9 million dollars to Citizens for a Free Kuwait, whose only other funding totalled $17,861 from 78 individuals. Virtually all of CFK’s budget – $10.8 million – went to Hill & Knowlton in the form of fees.74

The man running Hill & Knowlton’s Washington office was Craig Fuller, one of Bush’s closest friends and inside political advisors. The news media never bothered to examine Fuller’s role until after the war had ended, but if America’s editors had read the PR trade press, they might have noticed this announcement, published in O’Dwyer’s PR Services before the fighting began: “Craig L. Fuller, chief of staff to Bush when he was vice-president, has been on the Kuwaiti account at Hill & Knowlton since the first day. He and [Bob] Dilenschneider at one point made a trip to Saudi Arabia, observing the production of some 20 videotapes, among other chores.

The Wirthlin Group, research arm of H&K, was the pollster for the Reagan Administration. . . . Wirthlin has reported receiving $1.1 million in fees for research assignments for the Kuwaitis. Robert K. Gray, Chairman of H&K/USA based in Washington, DC had leading roles in both Reagan campaigns. He has been involved in foreign nation accounts for many years. . . . Lauri J. Fitz-Pegado, account supervisor on the Kuwait account, is a former Foreign Service Officer at the US Information Agency who joined Gray when he set up his firm in 1982.”75

In addition to Republican notables like Gray and Fuller, Hill & Knowlton maintained a well-connected stable of in-house Democrats who helped develop the bipartisan support needed to support the war. Lauri Fitz-Pegado, who headed the Kuwait campaign, had previously worked with super-lobbyist Ron Brown representing Haiti’s Duvalier dictatorship.

Hill & Knowlton senior vice-president Thomas Ross had been Pentagon spokesman during the Carter Administration. To manage the news media, H&K relied on vice-chairman Frank Mankiewicz, whose background included service as press secretary and advisor to Robert F. Kennedy and George McGovern, followed by a stint as president of National Public Radio. Under his direction, Hill & Knowlton arranged hundreds of meetings, briefings, calls and mailings directed toward the editors of daily newspapers and other media outlets.

Jack O’Dwyer had reported on the PR business for more than twenty years, but he was awed by the rapid and expansive work of H&K on behalf of Citizens for a Free Kuwait: “Hill & Knowlton . . . has assumed a role in world affairs unprecedented for a PR firm. H&K has employed a stunning variety of opinion-forming devices and techniques to help keep US opinion on the side of the Kuwaitis. . . . The techniques range from full-scale press conferences showing torture and other abuses by the Iraqis to the distribution of tens of thousands of ‘Free Kuwait’ T-shirts and bumper stickers at college campuses across the US.”76

Documents filed with the US Department of Justice showed that 119 H&K executives in 12 offices across the US were overseeing the Kuwait account. “The firm’s activities, as listed in its report to the Justice Department, included arranging media interviews for visiting Kuwaitis, setting up observances such as National Free Kuwait Day, National Prayer Day (for Kuwait), and National Student Information Day, organizing public rallies, releasing hostage letters to the media, distributing news releases and information kits, contacting politicians at all levels, and producing a nightly radio show in Arabic from Saudi Arabia,” wrote Arthur Rowse in the Progressive after the war.

Citizens for a Free Kuwait also capitalized on the publication of a quickie 154-page book about Iraqi atrocities titled The Rape of Kuwait, copies of which were stuffed into media kits and then featured on TV talk shows and the Wall Street Journal. The Kuwaiti embassy also bought 200,000 copies of the book for distribution to American troops.77

Hill & Knowlton produced dozens of video news releases at a cost of well over half a million dollars, but it was money well spent, resulting in tens of millions of dollars worth of “free” air time. The VNRs were shown by eager TV news directors around the world who rarely (if ever) identified Kuwait’s PR firm as the source of the footage and stories. TV stations and networks simply fed the carefully-crafted propaganda to unwitting viewers, who assumed they were watching “real” journalism.

After the war Arthur Rowse asked Hill & Knowlton to show him some of the VNRs, but the PR company refused.

Obviously the phony TV news reports had served their purpose, and it would do H&K no good to help a reporter reveal the extent of the deception. In Unreliable Sources, authors Martin Lee and Norman Solomon noted that “when a research team from the communications department of the University of Massachusetts surveyed public opinion and correlated it with knowledge of basic facts about US policy in the region, they drew some sobering conclusions: The more television people watched, the fewer facts they knew; and the less people knew in terms of basic facts, the more likely they were to back the Bush administration.”78

Throughout the campaign, the Wirthlin Group conducted daily opinion polls to help Hill & Knowlton take the emotional pulse of key constituencies so it could identify the themes and slogans that would be most effective in promoting support for US military action.

After the war ended, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation produced an Emmy award-winning TV documentary on the PR campaign titled “To Sell a War.” The show featured an interview with Wirthlin executive Dee Alsop in which Alsop bragged of his work and demonstrated how audience surveys were even used to physically adapt the clothing and hairstyle of the Kuwait ambassador so he would seem more likeable to TV audiences.

Wirthlin’s job, Alsop explained, was “to identify the messages that really resonate emotionally with the American people.” The theme that struck the deepest emotional chord, they discovered, was “the fact that Saddam Hussein was a madman who had committed atrocities even against his own people, and had tremendous power to do further damage, and he needed to be stopped.”79

Suffer the Little Children

Every big media event needs what journalists and flacks alike refer to as “the hook.” An ideal hook becomes the central element of a story that makes it newsworthy, evokes a strong emotional response, and sticks in the memory. In the case of the Gulf War, the “hook” was invented by Hill & Knowlton. In style, substance and mode of delivery, it bore an uncanny resemblance to England’s World War I hearings that accused German soldiers of killing babies.

On October 10, 1990, the Congressional Human Rights Caucus held a hearing on Capitol Hill which provided the first opportunity for formal presentations of Iraqi human rights violations. Outwardly, the hearing resembled an official congressional proceeding, but appearances were deceiving. In reality, the Human Rights Caucus, chaired by California Democrat Tom Lantos and Illinois Republican John Porter, was simply an association of politicians.

Lantos and Porter were also co-chairs of the Congressional Human Rights Foundation, a legally separate entity that occupied free office space valued at $3,000 a year in Hill & Knowlton’s Washington, DC office. Notwithstanding its congressional trappings, the Congressional Human Rights Caucus served as another Hill & Knowlton front group, which – like all front groups – used a noble-sounding name to disguise its true purpose.80

Only a few astute observers noticed the hypocrisy in Hill & Knowlton’s use of the term “human rights.” One of those observers was John MacArthur, author of The Second Front, which remains the best book written about the manipulation of the news media during the Gulf War.

In the fall of 1990, MacArthur reported, Hill & Knowlton’s Washington switchboard was simultaneously fielding calls for the Human Rights Foundation and for “government representatives of Indonesia, another H&K client. Like H&K client Turkey, Indonesia is a practitioner of naked aggression, having seized . . . the former Portuguese colony of East Timor in 1975. Since the annexation of East Timor, the Indonesian government has killed, by conservative estimate, about 100,000 inhabitants of the region.”81

MacArthur also noticed another telling detail about the October 1990 hearings: “The Human Rights Caucus is not a committee of congress, and therefore it is unencumbered by the legal accouterments that would make a witness hesitate before he or she lied. … Lying under oath in front of a congressional committee is a crime; lying from under the cover of anonymity to a caucus is merely public relations.”82

In fact, the most emotionally moving testimony on October 10 came from a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl, known only by her first name of Nayirah. According to the Caucus, Nayirah’s full name was being kept confidential to prevent Iraqi reprisals against her family in occupied Kuwait. Sobbing, she described what she had seen with her own eyes in a hospital in Kuwait City. Her written testimony was passed out in a media kit prepared by Citizens for a Free Kuwait.

“I volunteered at the al-Addan hospital,” Nayirah said. “While I was there, I saw the Iraqi soldiers come into the hospital with guns, and go into the room where . . . babies were in incubators. They took the babies out of the incubators, took the incubators, and left the babies on the cold floor to die.”83

Three months passed between Nayirah’s testimony and the start of the war. During those months, the story of babies torn from their incubators was repeated over and over again. President Bush told the story. It was recited as fact in Congressional testimony, on TV and radio talk shows, and at the UN Security Council.

“Of all the accusations made against the dictator,” MacArthur observed, “none had more impact on American public opinion than the one about Iraqi soldiers removing 312 babies from their incubators and leaving them to die on the cold hospital floors of Kuwait City.”84

At the Human Rights Caucus, however, Hill & Knowlton and Congressman Lantos had failed to reveal that Nayirah was a member of the Kuwaiti Royal Family. Her father, in fact, was Saud Nasir al-Sabah, Kuwait’s Ambassador to the US, who sat listening in the hearing room during her testimony. The Caucus also failed to reveal that H&K vice-president Lauri Fitz-Pegado had coached Nayirah in what even the Kuwaitis’ own investigators later confirmed was false testimony.

If Nayirah’s outrageous lie had been exposed at the time it was told, it might have at least caused some in Congress and the news media to soberly reevaluate the extent to which they were being skillfully manipulated to support military action. Public opinion was deeply divided on Bush’s Gulf policy.

As late as December 1990, a New York Times/CBS News poll indicated that 48 percent of the American people wanted Bush to wait before taking any action if Iraq failed to withdraw from Kuwait by Bush’s January 15 deadline.85 On January 12, the US Senate voted by a narrow, five-vote margin to support the Bush administration in a declaration of war. Given the narrowness of the vote, the babies-thrown-from-incubators story may have turned the tide in Bush’s favor.

Following the war, human rights investigators attempted to confirm Nayirah’s story and could find no witnesses or other evidence to support it. Amnesty International, which had fallen for the story, was forced to issue an embarrassing retraction. Nayirah herself was unavailable for comment.

“This is the first allegation I’ve had that she was the ambassador’s daughter,” said Human Rights Caucus co-chair John Porter. “Yes, I think people . . . were entitled to know the source of her testimony.” When journalists for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation asked Nasir al-Sabah for permission to question Nayirah about her story, the ambassador angrily refused.86

Front-line Flacks

The military build-up in the Persian Gulf began by flying and shipping hundreds of thousands of US troops, armaments and supplies to staging areas in Saudi Arabia, yet another nation with no tolerance for a free press, democratic rights and most western customs. In a secret strategy memo, the Pentagon outlined a tightly-woven plan to constrain and control journalists.

A massive babysitting operation would ensure that no truly independent or uncensored reporting reached back to the US public. “News media representatives will be escorted at all times,” the memo stated. “Repeat, at all times.”87

Deputy Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Pete Williams served as the Pentagon’s top flack for the Gulf War. Using the perennial PR strategy of “good cop/bad cop,” the government of Saudi Arabia played the “heavy,” denying visas and access to the US press, while Williams, the reporters’ friend, appeared to intercede repeatedly on their behalf.

This strategy kept news organizations competing with each other for favors from Williams, and kept them from questioning the fundamental fact that journalistic independence was impossible under military escort and censorship.

The overwhelming technological superiority of US forces won a decisive victory in the brief and brutal war known as Desert Storm. Afterwards, some in the media quietly admitted that they’d been manipulated to produce sanitized coverage which almost entirely ignored the war’s human cost – today estimated at over 100,000 civilian deaths.

The American public’s single most lasting memory of the war will probably be the ridiculously successful video stunts supplied by the Pentagon showing robot “smart bombs” striking only their intended military targets, without much “collateral” (civilian) damage.

“Although influential media such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal kept promoting the illusion of the ‘clean war,’ a different picture began to emerge after the US stopped carpet-bombing Iraq,” note Lee and Solomon. “The pattern underscored what Napoleon meant when he said that it wasn’t necessary to completely suppress the news; it was sufficient to delay the news until it no longer mattered.”88

Footnotes

69. John R. MacArthur, Second Front: Censorship and Propaganda in the Gulf War, (Berkeley, CA: University of CA Press, 1992).

70. Ibid.

71. Hal D. Steward, “A Public Relations Plan for the US Military in the Middle East,” Public Relations Quarterly, Winter 1990-91, p. 10.

72. “H&K leads PR charge in behalf of Kuwaiti cause,” O’Dwyer’s PR Services Report, Vol. 5, No. 1, Jan. 1991, p.8.

73. “Citizens for Free Kuwait Files with FARA After a Nine-month Lag,” O’Dwyer’s FARA Report, Vol. 1, No. 9, Oct. 1991, p. 2. See also Arthur E. Rowse, “Flacking for the Emir,” The Progressive, May, 1991, p. 22.

74. O’Dwyer’s FARA Report, Vol. 1, No. 9, Oct. 1991, pp. 2.

75. O’Dwyer’s PR Services Report, Vol. 5, No. 1, Jan. 1991, pp. 8, 10.

76. Ibid., p. 1.

77. Rowse, pp. 21-22.

78. Martin A. Lee & Norman Solomon, Unreliable Sources: A Guide to Detecting Bias in News Media (New York: Lyle Stuart, 1991), p. xvii.

79. Transcript, “To Sell A War”, pp. 3-4.

80. MacArthur, p. 60.

81. Ibid.

82. Ibid., p.58.

83. Ibid.

84. Ibid., p. 54.

85. New York Times/CBS News poll, as reported in O’Dwyer’s PR Services Report, Jan. 1991, p. 10.

86. “To Sell A War,” pp. 4-5.

87. MacArthur, p. 7.

88. Lee & Solomon, p. xix.

“Risky Nerve-Gas Drug”

To the Editor of the New York Times:

Re: “Drug Tested in Gulf War Is Approved for Troops” (news article, Feb. 6), about the Food and Drug Administration’s approval of pyridostigmine bromide (PB), a drug to help protect troops against a nerve gas that might be used in any war with Iraq: Scientific research should rule out the drug as a cause of Gulf War veterans’ illnesses before it is given to today’s troops.

Pyridostigmine bromide was once an “investigational” drug. In other words, the government was uncertain during the Persian Gulf War whether it would harm the troops that it was intended to protect.

More than 200,000 troops who went to the gulf healthy have sought health care and disability compensation for a variety of illnesses; scientific studies are still inconclusive about the effects of pyridostigmine bromide on healthy humans.

The government must protect our troops from lethal exposures before our commander in chief sends them into battle, including replacing faulty protective gear. But let’s not roll the pyridostigmine bromide dice on the men and women who fight our wars.

Ronald F. Conley

National Commander

The American Legion

Washington, DC

http://www.legion.org

The former Cold War adversaries agreed a joint declaration, which was read out by President Jacques Chirac at the start of a press conference with Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, in Paris.

“There is still an alternative to war, we are sure. The use of force must be only a last resort. Russia, Germany and France are determined to give every chance to the peaceful disarmament of Iraq,” the statement said.

There is no precedent for a decision by two senior Nato allies to join Russia, the former Cold War foe, in a joint statement defying the United States. Russia and France are also permanent members of the UN Security Council with the power of veto, while Germany currently holds temporary membership.

President Putin, starting a two-day state visit to France, said that a military intervention against Baghdad could have “serious consequences”. M. Chirac said “nothing justified” a war today. He said that France, with Russia and Germany, was making a “moral judgement” but not deliberately seeking to damage the transatlantic alliance.

The statement by the three countries went on to repeat, almost word for word, the approach adopted by France at the Security Council last week, calling on the United Nations arms inspectors to be given more time and to be “substantially strengthened”.

Mr Putin said that he was ready to deploy Russian surveillance aircraft in support of the inspection effort.

German ideas, which had built on the French initiative, and which were floated at the weekend, for Iraq to be policed by United Nations troops and placed under a total flight ban, were absent from the statement.

France has formally denied any connection with such a plan, and after it was criticised by Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, Germany appeared yesterday to be quietly dropping the idea.

Peter Struck, the German Defence Minister, who had said on Sunday that he hoped the initiative would receive a “positive response” when presented to the UN Security Council, said yesterday the proposal was not yet ready. “The planning of the governments in Paris and Berlin are not yet so far along that they can be presented in any great detail.”

Mr Blix stressed that increasing the number of inspectors searching for banned weapons was not the issue. “The principal problem is not the number of inspectors but rather the active co-operation of the Iraqi side, as we have said many times,” he said.

The joint statement appeared to leave the door open to a possible climbdown by saying that any “substantial reinforcement” of the inspection regime would be taken “in liaison with the inspectors”.

America and Britain made clear at the weekend they opposed the initiative that calls for the tripling of UN inspectors from their current strength of 100. A Foreign Office spokesman played down the plan yesterday, saying that the reinforcement of the inspectors could not be ruled out, “but the crucial point is the Iraqi attitude”.

John Chipman, the director of the London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies, said: “This was a stillborn proposal because for it to have any chance of becoming formalised it would require a UN resolution, and the UK and US would veto it. So there was absolutely no prospect of it seeing the light of day.”

He pointed out that the initiative floated at the weekend would, in effect, rewrite UN resolution 1441 “by shifting the burden of proof back to the Security Council and the UN inspectors rather than on Iraq. It would be the inspectors’ duty to discover rather than that of Iraq to reveal.”

He also predicted problems in implementing the plan because the deployment of UN troops meant that “there would be the possibility of Iraq taking further hostages. It would also place the inspectors at greater risk.”

Significantly, the Russia-German-French declaration also called for a ceasefire in the verbal hostilities between the United States and those allies that refuse to accept its arguments in favour of an early war in Iraq.

Moscow, Paris and Berlin said that the “debate should be conducted in the spirit of friendship which characterises our relationship with the United States and other countries”.

Gamble by UK’s Ambassador to NATO Misfires, and the NATO Alliance Ruptures

By all accounts there have been few more difficult and dramatic meetings in the 54-year history of Nato. At 10.30am, the besuited ambassadors of all 19 nations assembled around a large table, knowing that they were going to depart from the habit of a lifetime and indulge in a full-scale row.

Usually meetings at the alliance are short and uncontroversial, the deals having been stitched up in corridors well in advance. But even staid diplomats describe the atmosphere yesterday as “emotionally charged” and “heated”, one adding that there was uncharacteristically “trenchant argument and plain speaking”.

On the table was a request to start sending to Turkey defensive military equipment, including Patriot missiles, Awacs surveillance planes and equipment to combat nuclear, biological and chemical warfare in case of attack by Iraq.

Under procedures laid down by the Nato secretary general, Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, the plans would have gone ahead unless an alliance member objected – to use the Nato jargon “broke silence” – by 11am. With relations between Washington, Paris and Berlin so strained on how to tackle Saddam Hussein, Lord Robertson’s decision to force the issue was always a gamble.

And when formal letters of objection were registered from France, Germany and Belgium, it failed. Turkey deepened the crisis, putting on record its desire for emergency talks under article four of the alliance’s founding treaty, a clause that covers crises where countries feel they are under military threat.

Benoît d’Aboville, the ambassador of France, spoke first. According to one of those present, he broke with his normal custom and read from a script, as if to make the point that he was under orders from Paris. The point of breaking silence, according to French sources, was not “to send a bad message at a crucial time”. Many of the measures could be taken without Nato approval, Paris argued, pointing to the fact that Germany was making Patriot missiles available to Israel bilaterally.

After briefer interventions from Germany and Belgium, all pretence of unity was abandoned. America, Canada, the UK, the Netherlands and Norway all attacked the position of the “gang of three”. According to one participant the message was: “These countries were gambling with Nato’s future”. According to another, one ambassador pointed to the three and told them: “You are doing grave damage to the alliance.”

Few dispute the gravity of the situation, particularly as ambassadors were unable to reach agreement in a second session yesterday afternoon. Such was the discord that America and France even disagreed on whether article four had been invoked before (the ambassador for the US described this as the first occasion; the French say it was used in the run-up to the 1991 Gulf War).

The row was so serious because, as one Nato diplomat put it, “the blockage in two countries [France and Germany] is at the highest possible level.”

Nicholas Burns, the youthful, sharp-suited US ambassador to Nato, abandoned customary ambassadorial anonymity to attack the three countries for taking a “most unfortunate decision”, one which left Nato “facing a crisis of credibility”.

In the sprawling complex in the suburbs of Brussels, diplomats were comparing the crisis with previous dramas that have tested its purpose: Nato’s rift with General de Gaulle in 1967, or the crises of the 1980s over the deployment of nuclear missiles in Europe, and of the 1990s over the Balkans.

The surprise is that such a big split should have been produced by such a relatively minor issue. The dispute is, as Lord Robertson pointed out, largely an issue of timing, with America determined to push the pace and France and Germany resisting.

Mr Burns argues that military deployments must be accelerated now, and that “the UN is doing contingency planning for Iraq, the EU is doing contingency planning for Iraq and all of the 19 members of Nato, individually, are doing contingency planning for Iraq”.

France says it ultimately will not block the dispatch of equipment to defend Turkey from possible attack, but that to send such a signal before Friday’s report by the UN weapons inspectors would be to prejudge their findings.

French sources made clear yesterday that the row had nothing to do with the alliance, and everything to do with the wider UN process. The decision was a result of “the evolution of the debate in New York”, said one senior French official. “It is not a problem at Nato.”

Nevertheless, Nato may be an early victim of a diplomatic rift that threatens to consign it to insignificance. Not only has the split highlighted a disagreement over what Nato is for, proving that even small deployments are contentious, it has also pushed America’s considerable impatience with the alliance to breaking point.

“We are not going to allow Turkey to go defenceless,” said one senior Nato official. “The US and other allies will ensure that does not happen.” Once again, Nato might find itself cut out of the action.

Scientists and several veterans groups said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration ignored evidence indicating serious safety concerns when it recently approved a drug called PB to protect soldiers from poisoning by a nerve gas.

The veterans groups, including Gulf War Vets, whose members first took PB in 1991 while serving in Iraq, said they plan to urge Congress to investigate the science behind the FDA’s decision.

The groups point to a 1999 study by the RAND Corporation and a 2000 report from a panel of experts convened by the Institute of Medicine, both of which concluded pyridostigmine bromide, or PB, could not be ruled out as causing Gulf War syndrome. This is a set of symptoms that includes fatigue, cognitive problems, muscle pain and weakness, and sleep disturbances experienced by some Gulf War vets who served in Iraq in 1990-1991.

Despite these studies, the FDA approved the drug last week for use in soldiers to prevent poisoning by a nerve gas called soman that can kill within a matter of minutes.

Another controversy about FDA’s decision is that PB is the first drug approved under a new rule that does not require human studies. The rule allows treatments for biological and chemical weapons to be approved on the basis of animal data because it would be unethical to expose humans to deadly agents.

In addition, the FDA did not convene an advisory panel of independent experts, as it normally does, and the agency did not consult with researchers considered to be experts in the area.

Beatrice Golomb, an assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, San Diego and the author of the RAND report, said the FDA’s approval of PB is “concerning,” in particular because “a substantial amount of research has been done since (the 1999 report) strengthening the case” of a link between PB and Gulf War syndrome.

A study released by Duke University researchers just two weeks before the FDA approved PB found a combination of three chemicals — including PB — to which Gulf War veterans likely were exposed caused testicular damage in rats. The researchers think this could explain the infertility and sexual dysfunction problems seen in some Gulf War vets.

Robert Temple, associate director for FDA’s center for drug evaluation and research, said he was not certain if the agency had reviewed the Duke study prior to approving PB.

He also acknowledged the agency decided not to conduct an advisory committee of independent researchers familiar with the topic because “we thought (the decision) was fairly clear cut.”

Sidney Wolfe, director of Public Citizen’s health research group, questioned how the decision could be “clear-cut” given there were no human studies conducted. He also noted the drug’s effectiveness at protecting against soman is questionable and there is concern it could worsen exposure to another nerve gas called sarin.

Rick Weidman, director of government relations with the Vietnam Veterans of America, noted “there is no peer-reviewed scientific study saying that PB is effective against soman and it’s safe to use.”

The agency’s decision not to hold an advisory panel meeting “is a serous problem because this would be the first drug … approved just on the basis of animal evidence so there’s more of a reason to subject it to very careful scrutiny,” said Wolfe, whose group filed a lawsuit challenging the experimental use of this drug in Gulf War vets in 1991. Public Citizen lost the lawsuit because the court ruled national security overrode the health concerns of soldiers.

The decision to forgo an advisory committee also meant the FDA did not have to take public comment on PB.

The agency also did not consult with the members of the IOM committee, Golomb, or any other experts in the area, Temple said.

Instead, the FDA “just read the reports” on PB and relied on studies in guinea pigs and monkeys to reach the conclusion the drug was safe and effective, Temple said. The safety of the drug was also backed up by its use for treating patients with myasthenia gravis, a disease that affects the muscles and for which PB was first approved in 1955.

Temple also asserted the major studies on the effects of PB in soldiers “concluded that you really couldn’t make the case pyridostigmine had anything to do with the Gulf War syndrome.”

This is an interpretation that runs in direct contradiction with those of the experts involved in those studies.

“My reading of the literature suggests there is an increasing and persuasive amount of literature to suggest … pyridostigmine contributed to the clinical health problems in Gulf War Veterans,” said Golomb, who also serves as science director for the Department of Veterans Affairs’ research advisory committee on Gulf War illnesses.

Golomb noted the FDA did not consult with her before deciding to approve PB and she is “puzzled why they didn’t talk to me.”

Harold Sox, chair of the IOM committee on health effects associated with exposures during the Gulf War that issued a report in 2000, said in presenting the committee’s report in 2000 there was “sufficiently strong (evidence) to demonstrate an association between exposure and the immediate onset of mild, transient symptoms.” Sox, who chair of Dartmouth’s department of medicine at the time and is now editor of the Annals in Medicine, noted that the long-term side effects were uncertain.

“In other words,” he said, “we don’t know if they occur, and we can’t be certain that they don’t occur.” The committee recommended further study of the link between PB and Gulf War illness.

William Winkenwerder, assistant secretary of defense for health affairs, said, “We are pleased with the FDA decision to license pyridostigmine bromide … As an FDA-approved drug for use as a pretreatment against the chemical warfare agent soman, PB provides a critical safeguard against a chemical threat.”

One concern among Veteran groups is if PB will be mandatory or voluntary for soldiers. A source at the Department of Defense, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said, “There hasn’t been any kind of decision made if it would be mandatory or even if they are going to use it.” The source added, however, that since “PB is FDA-approved a commander would be able to order it’s use.”

Several members of Congress still have concerns about PB’s involvement in Gulf War illness, including Rep. Christopher Shays, R-Conn., chair of the House subcommittee on national security, international relations and veterans affairs.

“The approval is very troubling because PB is still under investigation as a contributing factor in Gulf War illness,” Shays’ spokeswoman Betsy Hawkins said. “Just as troubling is how the doses will be set in humans since the approval was based on animal data,” Hawkins said.

Shays plans to look into how the approval of PB in the absence of human tests could impact a veteran’s ability to obtain compensation if he or she suffers an adverse reaction to it.

“We would be looking at how the fast-tracking of some of these compounds is getting them into use before adequate testing on humans has been done,” Hawkings said.

“The challenge is going to be for (a soldier) to have adequate medical records and data to demonstrate a link (between PB and an adverse reaction),” she said. “If an item has been fast-tracked and the testing has not been done it might be more difficult to prove. So we will be looking at both those things and how it’s happening and why.”

Another issue is whether PB will impair soldier’s ability to function in a combat situation. John Richardson, who retired as a Lt. Colonel in the Air Force Reserve, flew F-16 jets as a member of South Carolina’s Air National Guard and said the drug made him unable to operate as a pilot. His first dose of PB made him nauseous for two or three hours, he broke out in sweats and his eyes teared.

“I would have not been able to effectively accomplish a combat mission while taking that pill,” Richardson said. “I don’t think someone driving a tank would be able to do much better.”

All the major veteran groups, including the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the National Gulf War Resource Center and the Vietnam Veterans of America, will write a joint letter to FDA, the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs objecting to the approval of PB, said Steve Robinson, a spokesman for the NGWRC, which represents Gulf War Vets.

The letter will also be sent to members of Congress asking them to look into the issue, said Robinson, who served as an Army Ranger in the Gulf War.

“It does not pass the common sense test,” Robinson said. “There’s too much science that says it does harm.”

The manufacturer of PB, ICN Pharmaceuticals of Costa Mesa, Calif., did not return phone calls from UPI.

U.S. encounters more resistance to Iraq plans

China adds to calls to avoid war

Brussels, Belgium (AP)- Washington’s effort to build a coalition for war against Iraq hit more resistance today from NATO and beyond, with allies balking and China adding its voice to calls for bolstered U.N. arms inspections.

A second day of heated negotiations failed to end one of the worst crises in NATO’s 53-year history: a split triggered when France, Germany and Belgium blocked U.S. plans to defend Turkey in a possible new Persian Gulf war.

After behind-the-scene talks throughout the day, ambassadors from the 19 NATO countries met for only 20 minutes this evening before ending the session. Talks were to resume Wednesday morning, he said.

“Right now we do not have a conclusion,” said NATO spokesman Yves Brodeur. Informal negotiations would continue through the night, he said.

The 15 other alliance members support the United States.

The division in the alliance also threatens to undermine the Bush administration’s attempts to muster support in the U.N. Security Council for military action against Iraq. France, Russia and Germany sought more time Monday for beefed-up U.N. inspections in a proposal opposed by Washington.

Chinese President Jiang Zemin, in a telephone call with French President Jacques Chirac, reiterated China’s stance on finding a peaceful solution to the Iraq crisis.

Beijing’s support means three permanent members of the council — with veto power — are now lined up against the United States and Britain in opposition to war with Saddam.

“The inspection in Iraq is effective and should be continued and strengthened,” China’s official Xinhua news agency paraphrased Jiang as saying Tuesday. “Warfare is good for no one, and it is our responsibility to take various measures to avoid war.”

Besides China, France and Russia also were prepared to block a Security Council resolution calling for war, after Moscow added its voice Monday in support of intensified arms inspections.

In Paris, Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin praised the French-Russian partnership against an Iraq war today. “It is up to us … to do everything possible to prevent a conflict that could seriously threaten regional and international stability,” he said in a toast to visiting Russian President Vladimir Putin.

NATO’s disarray drew international headlines, with Danish newspapers proclaiming “NATO in a historic crisis” and “NATO is the hostage of the Iraq conflict.”

The crisis cast doubt on the future of an alliance founded to fight the Cold War: In seeking to reinvent itself as a force to counter terrorism or rogue states, the alliance has yet to agree on even modest defensive measures for one of its members.

“It is a matter of enormous consequences for the alliance,” NATO Secretary-General Lord Robertson said after talks Monday failed to soften resistance to military preparations for Turkey.

The crisis, bubbling for almost a month, came to a head Monday when France, Germany and Belgium rebuffed Turkey’s direct appeal for help under NATO’s mutual defense treaty.

A second emergency meeting of the alliance’s decision-making North Atlantic Council began tonight after two postponements.

The U.S.-backed plan would involve preparations to send Turkey AWACS early warning planes, Patriot anti-missile batteries and units trained to counter chemical and biological weapons.

The United States says those measures are needed to protect Turkey from an Iraqi missile strike, as the U.S. prepares to move troops into Turkey for a possible northern front against its neighbor Iraq.

Opponents argue such military planning would set NATO on a path to war and undermine efforts for a peaceful solution. Playing down the threat to Turkey, they want to delay a decision at least until Friday’s report to the Security Council from U.N. weapons inspectors on any Iraqi progress.

Diplomats suggested today that changing the wording of Turkey’s request for help — to stress the need to calm civilians rather than prepare for war — could clear the way for a compromise but a decision could still be delayed until the end of this week.

The split has plunged the North Atlantic Treaty Organization into what some at alliance headquarters said was its worst crisis since the dispute over the deployment in Europe of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons in the early 1980s.

Some diplomats even compared it to the mid-1960s, when then French President Gen. Charles de Gaulle withdrew from the alliance military structure and forced NATO to move its headquarters from Paris to Brussels.

Some of the European allies said the split strikes at the heart of NATO’s united defense pledge.

“This is the most fundamental rule in NATO, on which we, too, base our security,” Norway’s Defense Minister Kristin Krohn Devold said, adding that she was appalled by France, Germany and Belgium’s decision.

In Washington, President Bush said: “It affects the alliance in a negative way when you are not able to make a statement of mutual defense.”

“Upset is not the proper word,” Bush said when reporters asked for his views on France’s diplomacy. “I am disappointed that France would block NATO from helping a country like Turkey to prepare.”

Washington allies hoped the holdouts would be swayed by NATO’s senior military official, German Gen. Harald Kujat, who briefed the alliance Monday on the potential dangers to Turkey from Iraq — including, diplomats said, Scud missiles tipped with poison gas or germ-warfare agents.

Turkish Prime Minister Abdullah Gul acknowledged the dispute went beyond the question of helping his country to deeper divisions within NATO.

“There is no doubt that Turkey is not the target here,” Gul said in Ankara. “A diplomatic battle is going on.”

Without NATO agreement, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld has said Washington would act on its own to defend Turkey. Already, the Netherlands is preparing to send Patriot missile units to Turkey without waiting for NATO.

In the wider context, NATO would not play a direct role in any U.S.-led offensive war against Iraq. Instead, as in 1991, Washington will rely on allies such as Britain and Australia. Germany has ruled out any participation in a war, but France, which participated in 1991, has yet follow suit.