News Releases

  • New Attention to Unpublicized Provisions of Rambouillet

    WASHINGTON — New questions are continuing to emerge about the actual terms of the Rambouillet text. Milosevic’s refusal to sign Rambouillet was the cited reason that NATO began the bombing of Yugoslavia. Today, the Washington Post published an exchange between NATO spokesman Jamie Shea and a representative of the Institute for Public Accuracy: [The Washington Post, “For the Record,” Wednesday, April 28, 1999:] From a NATO press conference at the National Press Club Monday with spokesman Jamie Shea: Q: The Rambouillet Accords, appendix B in particular…called for the occupation of all of Yugoslavia…. Unrestricted passage throughout [its] air space, territorial…


  • Despite Denials from NATO Official, Questions Emerging

    Did Allies Demand Right to Occupy All of Yugoslavia? WASHINGTON — New questions are emerging about the actual terms of the Rambouillet accords prior to the initiation of NATO’s bombing of Yugoslavia. When NATO spokesman Jamie Shea appeared at the National Press Club in Washington yesterday, a representative of the Institute for Public Accuracy asked him to clarify provisions in the Rambouillet text that some analysts say allowed for the military occupation of all of Yugoslavia by NATO troops. Although Shea replied that “there was no intention whatsoever of having any kind of NATO occupation regime in Yugoslavia itself,” Appendix…


  • Is Prominent Think Tank a Bastion of Racist Theory?

    One of the most influential think tanks in the United States also houses several of the nation’s most controversial pundits on race issues. In a new analysis, researcher Deborah Toler scrutinizes what she calls the “race desk” at the American Enterprise Institute. Toler, a policy analyst with the Institute for Public Accuracy, contends that mainstream AEI conservatives and racist hate groups such as the Council of Conservative Citizens share a preoccupation with managing the emerging majority of people of color in the United States. According to AEI fellows, African Americans in particular constitute a major threat to Western civilization. In…


  • NATO: Critical Analysis

    BASIC (British American Security Information Council) BASIC can arrange interviews with Admiral Sir James Eberle, former NATO commander-in-chief; Otfried Nassauer of the Berlin Information Center for Transatlantic Security; and other NATO experts. More Information HUSSEIN IBISH Foreign policy analyst at the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Ibish said: “The Clinton administration has made it perfectly clear that it regards ethnic cleansing as a legitimate tool of statecraft. The U.S. backed ethnic cleansing when the Croatians did it to the Serbs [in 1995], Turkey to the Kurds [throughout the 1990s] and Israel to the Palestinians [in 1948]. In fact, what this war is…


  • Colorado and Kosovo: What is NATO Teaching Our Children?

    President Clinton on the school shootings: “We must do more to reach out to our children and teach them to express their anger and to resolve their conflicts with words, not weapons.” MARY JOAN PARK A peace educator and director of Little Friends for Peace, a peace camp for young people, Park contrasted Clinton’s statement on the Colorado shootings with his bombing of Yugoslavia. When Clinton said children should “resolve their conflicts with words, not weapons,” Park’s son asked: “Why doesn’t he do it?” Park said today: “Violence unleashes more violence. Yes, Mr. Clinton, let’s talk about it, not fight…


  • Earth Day and Rambouillet

    ROBERT HAYDEN Director of the Center for Russian and East European Studies at the University of Pittsburgh, Hayden said: “The administration’s Rambouillet plan was a public relations fraud rather than a diplomatic compromise. It provided for the independence of Kosovo in all but name and the military occupation by NATO of all of Yugoslavia — not just Kosovo. This was plainly a proposal that no government could accept… NATO’s bombing of the petrochemical plant at Baric only a few miles from Belgrade risked the life, health and safety of the civilian population of 2 million in the city of Belgrade.…


  • Troubling Questions About Rambouillet

    The Clinton administration has repeatedly claimed that bombing is necessary because Milosevic would not agree to negotiations, citing his refusal to accept the Rambouillet text. But did Rambouillet represent real negotiations or an ultimatum? Some have said that the Serbian parliament “voted to be bombed” because it refused NATO troops as outlined in Rambouillet. But the New York Times has reported (April 8) that “just before the bombing, when [the Serbian parliament] rejected NATO troops in Kosovo, it also supported the idea of a United Nations force to monitor a political settlement there.” Did the administration start bombing because it…


  • Results of NATO Bombing

    WILLIAM HARTUNG Senior research fellow at the World Policy Institute and author of Military-Industrial Complex Revisited, Hartung said: “The bombings may or may not ‘degrade’ Milosevic’s forces, as the Pentagon intends; but they have certainly degraded the standing of the United States as a world leader. The air war in Kosovo underscores the weakness of the ‘Clinton Doctrine,’ which involves calling in the cruise missiles to deal with any and every problem. During this decade, the United States has degenerated from the world’s sole superpower to its designated bomber. The use of NATO forces to intervene in an internal conflict…


  • Balkan Fallout From NATO Bombing

    VIVIAN STROMBERG Executive director of MADRE (a group which has been working with multi-ethnic, democratic women’s organizations in the Balkans since 1993), Stromberg said: “We must move beyond a yearning for ‘good guys’ in the Yugoslav conflict and remember that behind the various political formations and armed groups are communities of people. In Kosovo, whole towns and villages are being burned out and butchered. In Serbia, people are being terrorized by NATO bombing… Both must stop; instead, the United Nations must do its job.” More Information MICHAEL SIMMONS Director of European Programs for the American Friends Service Committee, which has…


  • International Perspectives on the NATO Bombing

    ROBERT GREENBERG Assistant professor of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of the forthcoming “Language and Ethnic Identity in the Former Yugoslavia,” Greenberg said today: “Milosevic is looking for an exit strategy, with the cease-fire proposal and the possibility of the U.S. soldiers being released. We just don’t seem to want to deal with him. I don’t see the benefit of continuing to risk killing Yugoslav civilians and to risk losing any of our pilots. We should have some sort of resumption of negotiations; it’s an opportunity to cooperate with the…


  • Women’s Equality Day: Interviews Available

    This Monday is Women’s Equality Day — the anniversary of the 19th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, allowing women the right to vote. The following analysts are available for interviews: YIFAT SUSSKIND Susskind, associate director of MADRE, an international women’s human rights organization, said: “Women’s Equality Day provides an opportunity for us all to reflect…

  • Interviews Available: Critical Voices on Iraq

    STEPHEN ZUNES Associate professor of politics at the University of San Francisco and senior policy analyst and Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project, Zunes said today: “Claims of Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda appear to be little more than a desperate effort by administration officials to convince the American public to…

  • Iraq’s Use of Chemical Weapons: A Reason for Invasion?

    Bush administration officials have cited the Iraqi government’s use of chemical weapons as a key reason for launching an overwhelming attack on Iraq. Condoleezza Rice said last week: “He [Saddam Hussein] has used chemical weapons against his own people and against his neighbors…” On Sunday, a front-page New York Times article reported: “A covert American…

  • Reparations: Interviews Available

    On Saturday (August 17) in Washington, D.C., there will be a march calling for reparations for African Americans. The following commentators are available for interviews: JOE FEAGIN Graduate research professor at the University of Florida and author of numerous books on racism in the United States, Feagin said today: “Reparations for the enslavement and later…

  • Interviews Available: * Colombia * Mideast

    ADAM ISACSON Director of the Colombia program at the Center for International Policy, Isacson said today: “At a time when a new hardline president is declaring a state of emergency in Colombia, the U.S. government is broadening its military mission from counter-narcotics to counter-terrorism. This could lead just about anyplace. Those two trends are worrying…

  • Bush Economic Forum: Beyond the Photo-Ops

    JOHN MILLER Professor of economics at Wheaton College in Massachusetts and contributing editor for Dollars & Sense magazine, Miller said today: “The Bush administration is rounding up the usual suspects — conservative politicians, economists, business types, and even large donors — for a forum on why that pesky economy refuses to respond to Bush tax…

  • Interviews Available on Weapons of Mass Destruction: * Iraq * Hiroshima

    SCOTT RITTER Ritter, who was a chief UN weapons inspector in Iraq, is available for limited interviews. When asked by the Institute for Public Accuracy if he would be willing to go to Iraq with members of Congress, Ritter said he would consider such an option. He said today: “The offer by Iraq for members…

  • Interviews Available on Major Economic Stories

    MARK WEISBROT Co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, Weisbrot wrote the article “Economists in Denial” in today’s Washington Post. He said this afternoon: “[Treasury Secretary Paul] O’Neill is visiting countries in the grip of serious economic and financial crisis: Argentina’s economy has collapsed, and Brazil is headed toward default on its debt.…

  • War and the U.S. Congress: Responsibilities and Evasions

    MIKE GRAVEL Gravel, currently president of Direct Democracy and sponsor of the National Initiative for Democracy, was a noted critic of the Vietnam War while in the Senate. He entered the Pentagon Papers into the Congressional Record. He said today: “This is a déjà vu of Tonkin and the evidence seems to be as flimsy.…

  • Iraq: What’s Missing From the Hearings?

    As the Senate Foreign Relations Committee continues to hear testimony from the individuals it has selected, the following analysts are available for interviews: PHYLLIS BENNIS Bennis is a fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies and co-editor of Beyond the Storm: A Gulf Crisis Reader. Her testimony was put in the Congressional Record on Wednesday;…

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