SERBIA: Reformist Prime Minister Assassinated

Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, a pro-Western leader who led the charge to topple former President Slobodan Milosevic, was slain today by gunmen who ambushed him outside a government building in Belgrade. The 50-year-old leader died in a Belgrade hospital after undergoing surgery for wounds to the abdomen and back.

Two suspects were arrested, and the government complex where the prime minister was gunned down was sealed off by heavy security. Belgrade police stopped and searched cars in the center city, and all bus, rail and air traffic from the city came to a halt (Dusan Stojanovic, Associated Press/Yahoo! News, March 12). Top Serbian officials immediately convened an emergency session (Julijana Mojsilovic, Reuters/Yahoo! News, March 12).

Djindjic may have been targeted for assassination last month when a truck swerved into his motorcade's lane, nearly causing a collision. Djindjic said in a newspaper at the time, "If someone thinks the law and the reforms can be stopped by eliminating me, then that is a huge delusion."

Djindjic's pro-Western, reformist stance earned him many enemies, according to AP. He was pivotal in arresting and handing over Milosevic to the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in June 2001, and he recently promised he would try to arrest former Bosnian Serb commander Ratko Mladic, who was No. 2 on the tribunal's most-wanted list after Milosevic. Mladic is thought to be hiding in Serbia (Stojanovic, AP/Yahoo! News).

Djindjic's handover of Milosevic, violated a constitutional ban on extraditing Serbian citizens, won an international economic trade package of $1.2 billion but elicited sharp criticism from Serb nationalists and from former Yugoslav President Vojislav Kostunica, who stepped down earlier this month after the formation of the new state of Serbia and Montenegro (Stojanovic, AP II/Yahoo! News, March 12). Kostunica and Djindjic sparred frequently over the pace of reform, with Djindjic often forced to back down before the popular president.

Djindjic was a dissident student leader in the 1970s and rose to prominence in 2000 in a street uprising against Milosevic. He took office as prime minister in February 2001 following elections the previous December (Mojsiliovic, Reuters/Yahoo! News).

IRAQ: Security Council Still Undecided As Open Debate Continues

Twenty-eight nonmembers of the Security Council spoke about the disarmament of Iraq yesterday at the United Nations, while the Security Council's six undecided members floated a disarmament deadline of April 17 and the United Kingdom scrambled to forge a compromise between the United States' hard-line position -- which would require disarmament by March 17 under threat of military attack -- and the desire of many council members to push back the deadline.

Nonpermanent Security Council members Angola, Cameroon, Chile, Guinea, Mexico and Pakistan rallied Monday behind a proposal giving Iraq until April 17 to disarm, arguing it would allow the council to lay out specific benchmarks and assess Iraq's compliance. As part of the plan, Baghdad would need to answer some or all of 29 unresolved issues mentioned by U.N. Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission chairman Hans Blix in his report Friday to the Security Council. Mexico and Chile, which yesterday fended off a vote for today on the U.S.-British-Spanish-authored resolution, led the effort by the six to form the proposal (Steven Edwards, National Post, March 11). White House spokesman Ari Fleischer shot down the idea as a "nonstarter" (Los Angeles Times, March 12).

In an attempt to strike a compromise between the countries that seek to go to war soon and those that want to give inspections more time, Canadian Ambassador Paul Heinbecker detailed his government's compromise proposal. "Both sides have valid arguments," he said. "The division of this council has regrettably drawn the focus of the world away from the crucial issue of disarming Iraq and shifted it, instead, onto diplomatic competition."

Canada believes "a message of absolute clarity and urgency needs to be sent from this council to the Iraqi government as to what is required of it and by when," he added. Although the Canadian proposal for a compromise deadline for Iraq has been in circulation for several weeks, this was the first time a Canadian official has publicly spelled out the plan.

Heinbecker said that while cooperation by Iraq "must be immediate and proactive, disarmament and verification cannot be instantaneous." Therefore the council should ask Blix "to bring forward the program of work urgently, within a week" and then establish "the priorities among those tasks," especially concerning the stocks of anthrax, VX gas and chemical weapons shells.

In addition, he said, the council should set a deadline of three weeks "for Iraq to demonstrate conclusively that it is implementing these tasks." At the same time, the council "should consider authorizing members states now to eventually use all necessary means to force compliance," he said -- in other words, authorize the use of force, but not immediately. If after three weeks, Iraq was complying, the council would set a further deadline and continue the process until Iraq is disarmed and an on-going monitoring system to ensure compliance is in place.

The last time a council debate on Iraq was opened to nonmembers of the council was Feb. 18-19. Little has apparently changed, with the vast majority of speakers opposing any rush to war, but also criticizing Iraq's failure to fully cooperate with the weapons inspectors.

"The fundamental issue is the peaceful disarmament of Iraq," said Ambassador Dumisani Kumalo of South Africa. "Resolution 1441 is about disarming Iraq through inspections. It is not a declaration of war. ... Any timetable developed without taking into account the program of the inspectors can only lead to an unnecessary ultimatum for war."

Algerian Ambassador Abdallah Baali said, "Iraq has to try harder" and work to "promptly and unambiguously" convince the world it does not have weapons of mass destruction. On the other hand, he said, "Is it reasonable whereas the inspections are beginning to bear fruit and Iraq has entered into a phase which is proactive with the inspectors … that there be an abrupt end put to the inspections and that the disarmament of Iraq be carried out by force?"

Australia was once again the strongest ally of the United States and United Kingdom in the debate. "The inspectors will never be able to do their job properly. It is time that all the members of the Security Council acknowledge this," said Ambassador John Dauth. More time and more capabilities "will mean nothing unless Iraq genuinely wants to cooperate," he added. "The best and perhaps last hope of achieving a peaceful solution is for the Security Council to send a clear message to Iraq through a new resolution that it must disarm fully," said Dauth.

Iraqi Ambassador Mohammed al-Douri defended his government's cooperation and said the charges made by the United States and United Kingdom "could not stand up to the facts. … None of the allegations have proven to be true." He said the drone aircraft recently discovered by UNMOVIC is "a small experimental primitive aircraft" which "is radio-controlled and within the sight range of the ground controller" and does not exceed 8 kilometers. "Hence it is not a weapon of mass destruction," al-Douri said. "We leave to [the council] to ascertain the truth of these allegations that convey the bankruptcy of the American administration in convincing the international community," he added (Jim Wurst, UN Wire, March 12).

In Iraq today, journalists visited a site north of Baghdad to view the unmanned drone whose mention in chief weapons inspector Blix's latest written report prompted U.S. anger because he did not mention it in his oral presentation to the Security Council Friday. Americans considered it a possible smoking gun because it was undeclared and could be used to spread chemical weapons.

Associated Press, however, reports that the drone seemed to be made of balsa wood and duct tape, and that an Iraqi official said it could not be controlled for more than five miles -- far short of the U.N.-mandated 150-kilometer limit. The official said the drone was used for reconnaissance and aerial photography (Niko Price, AP/Yahoo! News, March 12).

Meanwhile, British ambassador to the United Nations Jeremy Greenstock continued his quest for Security Council backing for a second resolution. "We are busting a gut to see if we can get greater consensus in the council," he said yesterday (Los Angeles Times, March 12). Diplomats say the British delegation wants to delay the March 17 deadline until March 21 or 24 and is pushing for inclusion of about a dozen benchmarks for disarmament compliance, including an accounting of stores of anthrax, VX, chemical weapons munitions and missile systems (Evelyn Leopold, Reuters, March 12). At the top of the list would be interviews outside the country with Iraqi weapons scientists (Los Angeles Times).

The United States is pressing for a vote by Friday. Some undecided members of the Security Council are giving signs they might support a resolution if the deadline were pushed back by 10 days or so, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reports.

Greenstock shied away from trying to push it beyond March. "Don't look beyond March," he told reporters (Shelley Emling, Atlanta Journal-Constitution, March 12).

As British diplomats shuttle between the camps, one of the main disagreements is over whether Baghdad's failure to meet the deadline -- whatever it turns out to be -- should prompt an automatic attack.

War is an unpopular option in the United Kingdom, with only 19 percent of the public supporting war without a U.N. resolution and members of Prime Minister Tony Blair's party and Cabinet issuing challenges and threats in the event of war (Los Angeles Times).

In apparent acknowledgment of London's bind, U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld told reporters yesterday that "to the extent [the British] are not able to participate [in military action], there are work-arounds and they would not be involved, at least in that phase of it." Anti-war Labor party members seized on the comments as a graceful way for London to back out of military obligations, but yesterday afternoon British Defense Secretary Geoffrey Hoon said Rumsfeld "has every reason to believe there will be a significant military contribution from the U.K." (CNN.com, March 12).

U.S. diplomats said the United States is playing hardball with the swing votes, suggesting to Angola that its $20 million annual humanitarian aid might be cut, to Chile that it might not win congressional approval of a free-trade agreement in the works, to Guinea and Cameroon that they might not have U.S. support for international loans and to Mexico that the United States could boycott Mexican goods.

Pakistan is reportedly not subject to such pressure, presumably due to its much-needed assistance in tracking down terror kingpin Osama bin Laden (McQuillan/Squitieri, USA Today, March 12). Senior Pakistani officials have said that amid strong domestic anti-war sentiment, Islamabad has decided to abstain from a Security Council vote authorizing war against Iraq, but Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali stopped short of declaring a policy of abstention in an hour-long televised speech to the nation yesterday (Victoria Burnett, Boston Globe, March 12).

For Mexico, however, abstention seems not to be an option. "Abstentions, increasingly, are seen as 'no' votes," said U.S. ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza, and in Mexico's case could damage pending immigration reform (Marion Lloyd, Boston Globe, March 12).

U.S. Tests Bomb; Iraq Fortifies; Drone A Dud

Yesterday in Florida the U.S. Air Force tested the largest conventional bomb in its arsenal, the 21,000-pound Massive Ordnance Air Burst, known informally as the Mother Of All Bombs (Atlanta Journal-Constitution).

A senior defense official insisting on anonymity said the purpose of the test was to convince Iraqi soldiers that resistance is futile. The Pentagon has said planes are dropping hundreds of thousands of leaflets over Iraq printed with exactly that message. With 225,000 American, British and Australian troops in the Gulf region, Rumsfeld said yesterday that the United States is in contact with members of the Iraqi military who would cooperate in undermining Saddam Hussein (Tom Infield, Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service, March 12).

In the meantime, Iraqi media reports say Hussein is sending Republican Guard officers to key locations where troop morale may be low. The eight Republican Guard divisions -- 80,000 troops -- have encircled Baghdad, and the 25,000-member Special Republican Guard is fortifying government buildings and presidential palaces (Smith/Rennie, London Telegraph, March 12).

Kurdish civilians fleeing the northern city of Kirkuk say the wellheads of the north's richest oilfields have been mined, apparently as part of a defensive strategy to virtually set the region on fire in the case of U.S. attack (Anthony Loyd, London Times, March 12).

Legal Challenges To War Emerge In U.K., U.S.

The London Independent reports today that a growing number of high-profile British lawyers are making the case that war against Iraq without U.N. support would be illegal. One of the ramifications of waging an illegal war, the paper reports, would be that British soldiers could be prosecuted by the newly inaugurated International Criminal Court, unlike their American and Iraqi counterparts, whose countries are not signatories to the Rome Treaty that established the permanent war crimes tribunal (Robert Verkaik, London Independent, March 12).

A group of U.S. legislators, soldiers and parents of soldiers are also challenging war on Iraq on legal grounds, saying the U.S. Congress cannot transfer its power to declare war to the president, as it did in October. The lawsuit is in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Boston (Michael Powell, Washington Post, March 12).

Pope John Paul II and top Vatican officials are also loudly criticizing a war with Iraq, calling it a "crime against peace." The Pope, who supported humanitarian intervention in Bosnia and East Timor, has said a preventive strike against Iraq is unjustified both legally and morally (Victor Simpson, AP/Yahoo! News, March 12).

Expert Panel Predicts Huge Reconstruction Hurdles

A Council on Foreign Relations-convened task force co-chaired by former U.S. Undersecretary of State Thomas Pickering and former U.S. Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger issued a report today warning that rebuilding Iraq will be a massive, complicated and costly undertaking.

The report, Iraq: The Day After, speculates that reconstruction could cost $20 billion per year for several years and require 75,000 to 200,000 troops or more to keep the peace. The panel urged American leaders to clearly outline a political and financial commitment to reconstruction, ensure that Iraqi civilians will be safe and adequately cared for, involve international organizations in the reconstruction process so as to share the cost, and make certain the Iraqi people are closely involved in reconstruction efforts. It also endorsed a geographically based federal system of government (Agence France-Presse, March 12).

"A solution short of a federal system would risk future conflict in Iraq," Pickering said, noting the complex relations between Iraq's Kurdish and Arab communities, and the strain between the minority ruling Sunni Muslims and the majority Shiite Muslims.Schlesinger described the potential war on Iraq as "a fateful decision" that will shape U.S. relations with the entire Middle East.

Pickering added that "it's extremely important that the Arab-Israeli issue be addressed urgently and expeditiously, perhaps starting with the Quartet" -- the United Nations, European Union, Russia and United States, which are working together on Middle East peace -- "and the road map" for a future Palestinian state (Angela Stephens, UN Wire, March 12). Bush has reportedly put off dealing with the road map until after the Iraq crisis is handled, which has angered Europeans (UN Wire, March 10).

The task force's stress on the need for a long-term financial and logistical commitment to rebuilding Iraq echoed what was said regarding Afghanistan before, during and after the U.S. attack on that country in 2001. Asked by UN Wire how the Iraq and Afghanistan situations differ and whether the United States can afford a long-term commitment to both countries, task force member James Dobbins, a former ambassador and now director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at RAND, said, "The question is, how can we not afford it?"

"Iraq is simply much more important than Afghanistan," Dobbins said. "It's more centrally located. The wrong decisions could produce more conflict, not less. The stakes are simply a lot higher in Iraq" (Stephens, UN Wire).

U.S. To Pay Salaries Of Iraqi Civil Servants Following Conflict

In a glimpse of the most extensive blueprint for reconstruction seen to date, senior defense officials said the United States will bankroll employment for as many Iraqi civil servants and military troops as possible for a few months -- until the United Nations or another international organization could take over administration -- but did not say where the money would come from or how much it would cost. The goal would be to avoid the instability that comes along with high unemployment rates (Robert Schlesinger, Boston Globe, March 12). The Council on Foreign Relations report did not include this cost in its estimate of $20 billion per year, nor did it include payment for food if the U.N. oil-for-food pipeline breaks down (Stephens, UN Wire). Regular Iraqi soldiers -- as opposed to Republican Guard members, viewed as loyal to Hussein -- would be utilized by U.S. forces to help build roads and bridges and engage in other rebuilding projects. Bureaucrats would run ministries providing humanitarian assistance, Rumsfeld speculated (Schlesinger, Boston Globe).

Additionally, the Pentagon's reconstruction office has begun recruiting about 100 Iraqi expatriates to serve as liaisons and help with the transition to a new government, the Wall Street Journal reports. Two retired U.S. generals, including the new Pentagon postwar planning office chief Jay Garner and former U.S. Ambassador Barbara Bodine, would run the immediate postwar effort, answering to General Tommy Franks, who would lead any U.S. strike against Iraq (Neil King, Jr., Wall Street Journal, March 12). An umbrella contract worth up to $965 million was put out to a group of U.S. firms including Bechtel, Louis Berger, Fluor, Parsons and Halliburton's KBR engineering and construction unit. Halliburton was run until 2000 by U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney (Rennie/Laville, London Telegraph, March 12).

U.N. Talks With Saudi Arabia, Kuwait About Refugees

Expecting at least 600,000 Iraqis to flee the country, mostly toward Iran and Turkey but with some probably heading to Jordan and Syria, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees is in talks with Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, which have said they will not accept Iraqi refugees. Both countries have said they would provide financial assistance to Iran to deal with the influx. "UNHCR has appealed to all countries to keep their borders open for refugees," agency official Mamoon Muhsen said yesterday. "We also expect governments to provide every assistance and protection in cooperation with us" (AFP/ReliefWeb, March 11).The agency yesterday asked governments not to send rejected Iraqi asylum seekers back home against their will. Last year, more than 51,000 Iraqis worldwide claimed asylum (U.N. release, March 12).