DENIS HALLIDAY
Halliday is a former UN Assistant Secretary General and ex-head of the UN oil-for-food program. He said today: “The International Atomic Energy Agency inspectors were in Iraq just two weeks ago. Those types of monitoring programs could be expanded to include chemical and biological weapons capability, but re-starting an Iraq-specific regime like UNMOVIC would very difficult because of domestic pressure in Iraq. It’s very hard for Iraq to trust the UN after the UNSCOM inspectors were used for espionage. The talk of ‘axis of evil,’ ‘regime change’ and threats of a major assault on Iraq are just grossly irresponsible…. The U.S. should move to lift the economic sanctions, which are continuing to have an enormous human cost. Instead, the UN/U.S. should focus on implementing paragraph 14 of UN Security Council resolution 687, which calls for the downgrading of all weapons of mass destruction throughout the Mideast and would include Israel’s nuclear arsenal.”
ROBERT WEIL
Author of Red Cat, White Cat: China and the Contradictions of “Market Socialism” and a lecturer at the University of California at Santa Cruz, Weil said today: “The government of China has taken major steps over the past few months to…take advantage of new global developments, in particular the ‘war on terror’ launched by the United States. In the short run, these actions may benefit certain Chinese economic interests and current political and strategic goals. But they are likely to lead to a further deepening of the major contradictions which the society faces.”
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TIM SHORROCK
A journalist who has covered Korea for over two decades, Shorrock said today: “There is a great deal of consternation in South Korea because of Bush’s bellicose language and how it has undercut President Kim Dae Jung’s efforts to reconcile with North Korea. Bush is using language that North Korea has interpreted as a virtual declaration of war and has set back a peace process that seemed so promising in 2000, when the leaders of North and South Korea met for the first time. A year ago, the Clinton administration was close to an agreement that would have ended North Korea’s ballistic missile program, but the Bush administration scuttled the talks. Many Koreans are convinced that Bush is so bent on building an anti-missile system he is willing to undermine the peace process in Korea.”
YOON HYOWON
Yoon Hyowon is director of international affairs for the Korea Labor and Society Institute in Seoul. He said today: “Many fear the dark cloud of war is again coming to Korea because of Bush’s threats. Eighty percent of South Koreans are against the U.S. administration’s stance on North Korea; it is putting obstacles in the way of cooperation and reconciliation between North and South.”
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MARJORIE COHN
An associate professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law in San Diego, Cohn recently wrote the article “Milosevic Defense Will Put NATO on Trial.”
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For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020; David Zupan, (541) 484-9167