Hello Dave,
If you have a copy of this report would you please e-mail it to me privately.
Many thanks
In a message dated Tue, 12 Mar 2002 6:33:13 AM Eastern Standard Time, Dave Manneh <[log in to unmask]> writes:
> Monday, 11 March, 2002, 08:04 GMT
> War 'playing into al-Qaeda's hands'
>
>
> The war could be "deeply counter-productive"
>
>
>
> By BBC News Online's Alex Kirby
>
>
>
> Two British scholars say the US strategy for defeating al-Qaeda is in fact
> having the opposite effect.
>
> They describe the military response to the terrorism of 11 September as "deeply
> counter-productive".
>
>
>
> Unless core issues of marginalisation and disempowerment are addressed, the end
> result of responding to terror with violence will be increased support for
> groups like al-Qaeda
>
> Oxford Research Group report
>
> Broadening the war on terror from Afghanistan to Iraq, they believe, could
> provoke Baghdad into first use of chemical or biological weapons.
>
> Endless conflict, they argue, will be the consequence of meeting terror with
> violence.
>
> The two academics are Professor Paul Rogers, of Bradford University's peace
> studies department, and Dr Scilla Elworthy, director of the Oxford Research
> Group (ORG).
>
> Six months on from the attacks on the US, the ORG has published their appraisal
> of what has been achieved, entitled Never-ending War?: Consequences of
> September 11.
>
> The authors say antagonism towards the US from al-Qaeda and its allies had been
> developing for more than a decade, fuelled by the politics of the Gulf region
> after the 1991 war against Iraq.
>
> The Gulf holds two-thirds of the world's known oil reserves: US dependence on
> imported oil rose from 12.5% of consumption in 1970 to 60.9% in 2000.
>
> 'Unacceptable control'
>
> The report notes "a widespread belief that the US... [is] exerting an
> unacceptable control over the Gulf states because of its determination to
> maintain security of oil supplies".
>
> It contrasts this with an American focus on seeing al-Qaeda "simply as
> fundamentalists acting from motives of sheer hatred for the US and all it stood
> for".
>
> In Afghanistan itself, the authors say, Russia has now regained significant
> influence as a consequence of the war.
>
> They add that far more people, many of them innocent, have died there from the
> war's direct and indirect effects than in the attacks on New York and
> Washington.
>
> And they also say that the FBI believes the war has robbed al-Qaeda of only 30%
> of its capabilities.
>
> The authors say al-Qaeda's aims are to evict Western troops from the Gulf and
> to replace Saudi Arabia's rulers "with what would be considered a legitimate
> Islamic regime".
>
> It would have expected the US to respond with great force after 11 September,
> and to increase its troops in the Middle East and south-west Asia
> substantially, inciting further anti-American feeling.
>
> This is just what has happened, with sizeable US forces now in Uzbekistan,
> Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, and an initial deployment in Georgia.
>
> Iraqi threat
>
> The authors add: "Moreover, in a development that must be hugely welcomed by
> the al-Qaeda network, the US has developed a much stronger support for the
> Sharon Government in Israel."
>
> So the report says al-Qaeda is "substantially capable of further action", and
> US support for Israel is producing "a widespread anti-American mood".
>
> To attack Iraq "should be expected to lead to the use of any weapons of mass
> destruction that the regime might be able to muster", with great risk to US
> forces, Gulf state civilians and Israel.
>
> The report concludes that no state can promote a global economy while at the
> same time acting exclusively in its own perceived interest.
>
> Nor can the world afford the double standards which allow United Nations
> Security Council members to have nuclear weapons, but nobody else.
>
> The authors conclude: "Unless core issues of marginalisation and disempowerment
> are addressed, the end result of responding to terror with violence will be
> increased support for groups like al-Qaeda, and an expanded cycle of violence."
>
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