Bulletin de liaison et d'information - Institut kurde de Paris

INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE, TUESDAY, MARCH 30, i993
Iraqgate: Leave No Rock Unffipped
ASHINGTON - How can Bill
W Clinton be saved from making the
same tragic blunders that ruined George
Bush in the Gulf! The new president has
already started down the primrose path
of dallying with Saddam Hussein.
Two months ago, Mr. Clinton surprised
us by saying he wouldjudge Saddam
on his future "conduct," reversing
U.S. policy to maintain sanctions on
Iraq until the dictator had been deposed.
After some heat from hawks who think
that Saddam's proven aggressive nature,
not his manipulative conduct, should determine
U.S. policy, Vice President AI
Gore was sent out to declare that U.S.
resolve to oust Saddam had not changed.
Last week, the doves within the Clinton
administration won; official poli9;
reportedly is now to "depersonalize'
U.S. differences with Iraq and to deal
with Saddam in the hope that this mass
murderer can be, in Mr. Bush's words,
brought into the family of nations.
BeTllnd the scenes, the old argument
was trotted out: Because the greater
threat is Iran, we mustn't be beastly to
Iraq, its only regional counterweight.
Some of America's geostrategists never
learn: Only last week the United
States had to secretly protest Iran's under-the-table
oil purchases from Iraq.
Iran, which doesn't need the oil, wants to
make friends with stability's enemy.
Along with U.S. condoning of Jordan's
purchases, this turns economic sanctions
to force Saddam into compliance with his
surrender terms into a dead letter.
The truth is that the West cannot
influence, let alone control, the weird
By Wllliam Safire
Iran-Iraq dynamic, which alternates between
killing each other by the millions
and enriching each other by the billions.
America's national interest is not to presume
to balance the power of both nations,
but to resist the empowering
of each until one drops its megalomaniacal
imperialism and the other its support
of religio-terrorism.
How can the new administration
learn the depth and extent of the danger
it faces in appeasing Gulf dictators? The
answer is to find out the truth about
what happened in the recent past in the
still-hidden scandal called Iraqgate.
There is an urgent need to know what
U.S. government programs were perverted
to provide secret backdoor foreign aid
to Saddam; what lies were told Congress
to conceal this conspiracy; and who
reached which prosecutors in the Justice
Department to obstruct investigation
into a $2 billion rip-off of taxpayers.
Last week, the House Judiciary Committee
voted to revive the independent
counsellaw, which the Bush Justice Department
- fearful of an unbiased look
mto its Coverup-Generals' actions -
did its best to kill forever.
The much-needed law is soon to be
taken up in hearings by the Senate's
government operations subcommittee,
chaired by Carl Levin, the Michigan
Democrat. He was prepared to delay
hearings to elicit testimony against the
bill by Caspar Weinberger, the former
defense secretary - pardoned in the
Iran-contra affair - who has strong
feelings about special prosecutors.
Let me speed up proceedings by assuring
Senator Levin that Cap will not
testify. (Ironically, the law firm that Mr.
Weinberger hliSjust entered is Rogers &
Wells, whose representation of Italy will
be part of the Iraqgate inquiry; perhaps
Cap will tell Bill Rogers how not to deal
with tenacious prosecutors.)
Republican objections to the costliness
of independent counsel have largely
been met in the proposed bill. The new
law would put a bookkeeper on the
outside prosecutor's back; extend ethics
and compensation guidelines of the Department
of Justice to the independent
counsel; and provide a fish-or-cut-bait
clause requiring reassessment by a Special
CO'Jrt every three years. It even
authorizes the attorney general to use
this process to investigate Congress.
Although a presidential signature is
promised, there is little enthusiasm on the
Hill for a law enabling an independent
force to flip over the flat rock of Iraqgate.
In the Senate, for example, the new c0-
chairmen of the Select Intelligence Committee,
Dennis DeConcini of Arizona
and John Warner of Virginia, refuse to
answer any queries into the CIA's guilty
knowledge of U.S. aid to Saddam's nuclear
buildup; that see-no-evil attitude of
senators eager to ingratiate themselves
with the "community" suggests a failure
of oversight past and future.
Time's a-wastin'; if the public does not
soon learn the crimes of Iraqgate, Mr.
Clinton may be destined to repeat them.
The New York Times.
Le Monde - 31 mars 1993
o Déc:ouverte d'un éharnler au
Kurdistan. - Un charnier de
1 500 cadavres a été découvert
près .d'Erbil, au Kurdistan, dans
l'enceinte de l'ancien quartier générai
du 5' corps d'armée irakien, a
confirmé, lundi 29 mars, dans un
communiqué publié à Londres, le
Congrès national irakien (CNI), qui
affirme regrouper l'ensemble de
I~ppposition au. ,président Saddam
Hussein. La-décoûv(~~,~. c~çbar,
nier avait été rappor.f",lavëillé;
par la BBC, citimt des responsables
kurdes selon lesquels les exécutions
dateraient du soulèvement' kurde
du mois de mars 1991 contre le
régime de Bagdad. Selon le eN/,
I( des cadavres de soldats en uniformes
et de civils ont été di couverts
». I( La plupart des soldats pore,
taient encore les plaques militaires
permettant de les identifier, et
aucun des corps n'a été enterré
c,onfo.rn:',4ment aux r,èglf!~de /'iskim».
llJoute le texte. - (AFP.)
L'Echo - 31 mars 1993
Charniers decouverts
"
dans le Kurdistan irakien
DEUXchamiers ont été découverts dans le Kurdistan irakien,
dans le nord du pays, comprenant au total plus de 1.600 cadavres,
a indiqué à Damas, l'Union patriotique du Kurdistan
(UPK) d'Irak.
; Selon un communiqué de l'UPK - une des deux principales forma'
tions,kurdes irakiennes d'oppositioI;l-, un charnier découvert récem.
meI;ltdans le nord de l'Irak contenait 1.500 corps de soldats irakiens
exécutés pour avoir refusé, de participer à la guerre cOl\tre l'Iran
(1980-1988) et à la répression contre les' Kurdes. .
50