The Great War for Civilisation (228 page)

663 “What's the better option”:
International Herald Tribune
, 23 March 1991, quoting
Wash
ington Post report by Dan Balz and Al Kamen, “U.S. Fears of a Divided Iraq Muddle Policy on Hussein.”

664 “to harvest them, the wheat with the chaff”:
Guardian
, 27 March 1991, quoting
WashingtonPost
report by Nora Boustany, “Republican Guard reaps harvest of death.”

664 “consigned the Iraqi insurgents”:
Independent
, 28 March 1991, “White House leaves Iraqi rebels to their fate,” by Edward Lucas, quoting
The New York Times
.

665 “the mightiest military machine”:
Independent
, 2 April 1991.

665 “the logic of intervention”:
New York Times
, 31 March 1991.

665 “there would be, downtown Baghdad”:
International Herald Tribune
, 16 January 1991, quoting
Los Angeles Times
report by James Gertstenzang, “Bush's Gulf War Regrets: ‘Could Have Done More' Against Saddam.” The Bush interviews were broadcast on PBS in January 1996.

666 “It was almost a healing process”: Associated Press report, Washington, 2 August 1991.

666 “is betting that Americans”: Associated Press report, Houston, 8 April 1991.

680 “Hard to imagine the quality”: Note to the author from Larry Heinzerling, 5 March 1991.

(n.) 681 the object of an unnecessary controversy: See Makiya,
Cruelty and Silence
; also review by Mouin Rabbani in
Middle East Report
, March–June 1993; review by Eqbal Ahmad in
The
Nation
, 9–16 August 1993; Makiya's response to Ahmad in
The Nation
, 8 November 1993; review by As'ad Abu Khalil in
Middle East Journal
, Autumn 1993;
The Independent
, 27 May 1991 (containing the author's original report from Dahuk), and
The Independent
, 13 September 1994, “Showering Platitudes on Islam's Suffering Women,” by Robert Fisk; typical of the mis-sourcing of the reports was a letter to the author from Mouin Rabbani, 13 November 1994, referring to the 13 September 1994
Independent
article which mentioned “raping rooms,” and claiming inaccurately: “I believe I am right in stating that it [Makiya's book] is the source of your . . . statement.”

686 Some would say that 200,000 died: See, for example, statement by the Islamic Union for Iraqi Students and Youth (London), 1992, “Saddam Launches Ruthless Campaign to Wipe Out Marsh Arabs,” which refers to the crushed uprising as “a betrayal that will be forever engraved on the minds of Iraqi civilians.”

Chapter Seventeen: The Land of Graves

701 the return of Kuwaiti civilian prisoners: Schwarzkopf,
Autobiography
, p. 485.

701 “We settled for”: Ibid., pp. 485, 488.

703 A Harvard team of lawyers:
Public Health in Iraq After the Gulf War
, Harvard Study Team report, May 1991.

706 “Big picture”:
Washington Post
, 23 June 1991.

706 “With no domestic sources”: Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities, U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, 22 January 1991, cited in
The Progressive
, September 2001.

707 the Tigris River had changed colour:
Independent
, 25 April 1998, “Poisoned Tigris spreads tide of death in Iraq.”

(n.) 707 The evidence of massive human suffering: UN Humanitarian Panel's Report on Sanctions, 30 March 1999; “if the substantial reduction”: UNICEF Iraq,
Child and Maternal MortalitySurveys, Executive Summary
, August 1999.

708 A mere glance at the list: Simons,
Scourging of Iraq
, p. 118, table 3.1.

708 just before Christmas 1999:
Guardian
, 4 March 2000.

708 167 Iraqi children were dying:
Toronto Star
, 25 June 2000.

(n.) 708 For example, the Iraqi: K. M. Al-Chalabi, “Spinal Cord,” Journal of the International
Spinal Cord Society,
2004, pp. 447–9.

709 “The World Health Organisation”: From a speech by Dennis Halliday on Capitol Hill, Washington, 6 October 1998.

709 “here we are”:
Guardian
, 2 August 2000.

709 “We know that”: Letter from Arvin Sumoondur of the Foreign Office's Middle East Department to Dr. Stephen Goldby, 19 October 2000.

Chapter Eighteen: The Plague

718 RAF pilots flying out of: See John Pilger, “The Cost of Conflict,” in
The Saddam Hussein
Reader: Selections from Leading Writers on Iraq
(ed. Turi Munthe) (New York: Thunder's Mouth Press, 2002), pp. 363–4, citing a study by Dr. Eric Herring, Iraqi sanctions specialist at Bristol University, UK, and the
Washington Post
, October 2002.

721 “I can honestly say”:
Ha'aretz
, 28 September 1998.

724 “UNSCOM directly facilitated”:
Washington Post
, 6 January 1999, report by Barton Gellman.

734 I still treasure a sarcastic letter: Lord Gilbert to the editor, the
Independent
, 30 May 1988.

740 “The Government is aware”: Letter from Ministry of Defence Secretary of State Doug Henderson, dated 22 December 1998, to Dr. Evan Harris, MP, answering a letter from his constituent, Dr. Mercy Heatley of Oxford.

(n.) 740 When I travelled to Bosnia: See the author's reports in the
Independent
between 11 and 16 January 2001.

Chapter Nineteen: Now Thrive the Armourers . . .

769 expressing its confidence: see
Financial Times
, 29 July 1991, “Government licensed gas chemical sales.”

778 “individuals who do not come within the definition of civilians”: Article 50, paragraph 3, of the Geneva Conventions' Protocol 1.

784 I made a formal request: Fisk letter to Lt. Col. Byars of U.S. Defense Department, Washington, 6 May 1997.

785 Thus did a U.S. marine missile: My detailed account of the missile attack on the ambulance, “Return to Sender,” was published in the
Sunday Review
of the
Independent on Sunday
, 18 May 1997.

(n.) 785 In the late 1970s:
Independent
, 24 June 1997, “A Rocket Is Returned to Sender.”

Chapter Twenty: Even to Kings, He Comes . . .

791 “we are not going to let”: George Bush in Beirut, 26 October 1983.

796 Dinner with the PLK: Author's notes of dinner with King Hussein at the Royal Palace, Amman, 25 September 1993.

(n.) 801 A British diplomat: Author's notes of conversation with Alan Urwick, British ambassador in Amman, 17 April 1983.

807 why Queen Noor wept: Speech given by Leith Shubeilath in Irbid, Jordan, 7 November 1995.

818 “I am your elder brother”: See Seale,
Asad
, p. 430.

820 For the Alawis: See ibid., p. 8.

822 Before the First World War: For a discussion of Arab demands on the Ottomans at this time, see especially Antonius,
Arab Awakening
, pp. 101–25, and Kamal Salibi,
The ModernHistory of Lebanon
(New York: Caravan, 1977), pp. 156–9.

823 “We had become like animals”: See
Daily Star
(Beirut), 14 December 1998, “When life was worth a radish,” by Carl Gibeily.

824 a heavily stained pamphlet: Antoine Yammine,
Quatre ans de misère: Le Liban et la Syrie
pendant la guerre
(Cairo: Imprimerie Emin Hindi, 1922).

825 A French scholar: See Khoury,
La France et l'Orient Arabe
, pp. 68–71.

826 The scholar and historian: See Antonius, pp. 190–1.

Chapter Twenty-one: Why?

828 “Sana Sersawi speaks carefully”: This article was finally published in the
Independent
on 28 November 2001 under the headline “New evidence indicates Palestinians died hours after surviving camp massacres.”

834 “So it has come to this”:
Independent
, 12 September 2001, “The Wickedness and Awesome Cruelty of a Crushed and Humiliated People.”

(n.) 841 Arab elections: See
Keysing's Record of World Events, 1993
, pp. 39711, 40797; SANA (Damascus), 2 February 1999; AP, Algiers, 16 April 1999. See also
Independent
, 8 October 1999.

(n.) 846 “a treacherous and cowardly crime”:
The Second Afghan War 1878–80
, Appendix XII, pp. 656–7.

847 Wahhabism, the strict, pseudo-reformist: for a modern critique of Wahhabism, see Abu Khalil,
Battle for Saudi Arabia
, pp. 52–75.

848 In 1998, a Saudi student: Nawaf Obaid, Improving U.S. Intelligence Analysis on the Saudi
Arabian Decision-Making Process
, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University, 1998, submitted to Ambassador Ronald Neumann, deputy assistant secretary for Near East affairs; see especially pp. 18–19, 21–25, 27, and 36.

848 The Saudis deployed 10,000 troops: See
The Times
, 5 December 1979, “Last of the Great Mosque rebels rooted out by Saudi forces”; also
Guardian
, 6 December 1979, “Saudis identify disfigured body of Muslim rebel who led siege in Grand Mosque,” by John Andrews.

849 sixty-three men were beheaded in public: See
Le Monde
, 20–21 November 1994, “Il y a quinze ans: La prise de la Grande Mosquée de La Mecque,” by Olivier Da Lage.

849 “timeless culture”:
International Herald Tribune
, 6 July 1994 (reprinted from the
WashingtonPost
), “Saudi Arabia's Solid Foundations Assure a Durable Kingdom,” by Bandar ibn Sultan.

849 “to act with the grain”:
Focus on Saudi Arabia
(Jeddah), 23 September 1994, “My Sojourn,” by Sir Alun Munro, British ambassador to Saudi Arabia 1989–93.

849 Amnesty International appeals: See, for example, Amnesty's
Saudi Arabia: A Secret State
of Sufering
, 28 March 2000, and
Saudi Arabia: A Justice System Without Justice
, 10 May 2000.

(n.) 849 “Standing to the left”:
Irish Times
, 19 June 1997, “An Irishman at a beheading,” by Gary Keenan.

863 “The first time I arrived”: Rashid,
Taliban
, p. 56.

865 reporters found the mass grave: See especially
Newsweek
, 26 August 2002, “The Death Convoy of Afghanistan.”

875 “beaten up by a mob”:
Mail on Sunday
, 9 December 2001.

875 “if I was an Afghan refugee”:
Independent
, 10 December 2001.

875 “A self-loathing multiculturalist”:
Wall Street Journal
, 15 December 2001.

877 “how Muslims were coming to hate the West”: Film
From Beirut to Bosnia
, 1983, op. cit.

879 “impeccable English diction”: Joseph I. Ungar of “Primer,”
Beyond Bias
1994.

879 “By airing
Beirut to Bosnia
”: Laibson to Hendriks, 16 June 1994.

879 to claim that we had edited an interview: Safian to Bunting, 9 June 1994.

879 “absurd and demonstrably wrong”: Dutfield to Tomi Landis, Discovery executive producer, 19 June 1994.

879 “given the reaction to the series”: Bunting to Chrissie Smith of Baraclough Carey Productions, 28 March 1995.

886 “in terms of equipment”:
Los Angeles Times,
9 May 1986, “Strike a Success.”

886 “a piece of the action”:
Washington Post,
16 April 1986.

886 “It was the greatest thrill”:
Chicago Tribune,
16 April 1986, “Missing Jet Reportedly Fell in Sea.”

Chapter Twenty-two: The Die Is Cast

890 “where every day, fiction is spun”:
International Herald Tribune
, 4 October 2003, “When the Politicians Outdo the Artists,” by Frank Rich, reprinted from the
New York Times.

898 according to eighteen of the prisoners: See
International Herald Tribune
, 27 March 2002, “Failure to communicate: 30 captive Afghans turn out to be U.S. allies,” by John Ward Anderson, reprinted from the
Washington Post
.

(n.) 899 between 3,000 and 3,400 civilians were killed in Afghanistan: Professor Marc W. Herold,
A Dossier on Civilian Victims of United States Aerial Bombing of Afghanistan: A ComprehensiveAccounting (Revised)
, March 2002 (http://
www.cursor.org/stories/civilian_deaths
.htm); for specific reports in the American media, see, for example,
International Herald
Tribune, 2 July 2002, “Errant U.S. bomb said to kill scores” (drawing on AP and Reuters dispatches) on the Uruzgan wedding bombing and, more typically,
International Herald
Tribune
, 11 February 2002, “Afghan toll of civilians is lost in the fog of war: Families demand a reckoning for hundreds killed,” by Barry Bearak, Eric Schmitt and Craig S. Smith, originally published in the
New York Times
.

(n.) 904 a remarkable account of al-Qaeda's order of battle: Ahmed Zeidan
Bin Laden Blaqna
(
Bin
Laden Unmasked) (Beirut: World Book Publishing, 2003).

914 “We all knew it was a job we had to do”: Interview with Captain Ali Nasr, Port Said, Egypt, 22 October 1986.

915 “Hit, hit hard and hit now”: Scott Lucas,
Divided We Stand
, p. 142.

915 The
Times
led the way: Shaw,
Eden, Suez and the Mass Media
, p. 57, quoting
The Times
, 27 August 1956, “Escapers” Club.”

916 an attack on the right to speak out: Shaw,
Eden,
p. 58, quoting
Manchester Guardian
, 28 August 1956.

916 “Clark worked in unison with the
Times
”: Shaw,
Eden,
p. 59.

916 “The objection to the matter”: Ibid., quoting
The Times
, 1 September 1956, “Widening the Circle.”