Information emerging from the intelligence community indicates that the Iraq Survey Team looking for Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq is coming up empty.
Bush Administration Foreign Policy Team in Disarray
As the Washington, DC area recovers from effects of Hurricane Isabel, President George W. Bush keeps trying to divert the potential “perfect storm” forming from the combination of the constant stream of bad news coming out of the Middle East and growing domestic discontent over the war and occupation in Iraq.
Are Pressures from the U.S., India, and Israel Too Much for Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons Program to Withstand?
Pakistan’s national defense strategy centers on protecting the country’s nuclear weapons capability from a threat by one or more of three states that are currently working very closely – the United States, India and Israel. That strategy includes a nuclear first-strike policy.
To Occupy or UNoccupy?
American public reaction to the most recent bill of $87 billion for reconstruction in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the rising human costs of occupation in Iraq, have concentrated the minds of the administration in a way that not even the reality on the ground could. It is a measure of how stark the impinging reality is that Washington even considered returning to the UN for yet another new and stronger resolution.
Control of Oil Revenues
While widespread ransacking was happening in Iraq after Baghdad fell, the U.S. moved swiftly to secure the country’s oil facilities. But in the months since the official end of the war, general looting and sabotage have impeded even the oil industry, frustrating efforts to quickly return oil production to prewar levels.
