Today September 11 is a sad and cruel reminder of the criminal terrorist attacks in the USA which resulted in at least 3000 deaths. We extend our condolences to the families of the dead and to the injured. With millions of people throughout the world, we share the pain and sorrow of the American people.

GA Debate tomorrow. This will highlight the sight against terrorism generally and specifically positions re Iraq. It is indeed one of the most important debates held in UNGA.

Therefore appropriate to discuss the issue of terrorism.

2. Terrorism pre-dates September 11

Many countries have experienced terrorism for many years, these inter alia include, Algeria, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Rwanda, Angola, Kashmir, Balkans, Spain, Palestine, Sri-Lanka, Latin America, Nairobi and Dar es Salaam.

3. Genesis of terrorist groups.

Mujadeen created in 79 by the CIA to fight the Soviets. Estimated 100,000 militants from 40 countries trained in Pakistan by the CIA [Bin Laden one of trainees] and they received most sophisticated weapons including Stinger missiles.

4. SA unequivocally condemns terrorism.

• SA recognises the right of the USA administration to seek out those responsible for those acts of terror perpetrated against people on September 11 and to ensure that justice is meted out to them.
• The claim that this is a clash of civilisations should be emphatically refuted – we should guard against the notion that the fight against terrorism is a fight against Arab or Islam or any specific language, culture, religions or racial group "clash of civilisation".
• There are different types of terrorism, and no universal definition as yet, e.g. the Anthrax campaign in the USA, the Oklahoma bombing.
• No agreement re definition of terrorism.
• Any coalition to fight terrorism should be under the aegis of the UN.
• SA commitment to cooperate.
• Instability and volatility of region. The fight against terrorism must take this into account.
• The fight against terrorism is a long-term one and includes military, legal, economic, political and diplomatic means.
• In order to defeat terrorism we must adopt a Holistic approach by dealing with the root causes, inter alia, conflicts especially in the Middle East, poverty and underdevelopment, drugs trafficking, transnational crime, arms smuggling and money laundering.
• I wish to congratulate Judge Goldstone who was appointed by the International Bar Association to the International Task Force on Terrorism.

New concepts such as "axis of evil", coalition of the willing, "with us or against us"; notion of pre-emptive strikes. Internationally there was a marked shift to the right. Need to look at root causes of terrorist.

Confronting Anti-American Grievances [Brezezinski – NY Times 01/09/02]

The Bush administration’s definition of the challenge that America confronts has been cast largely in semi-religious terms. It is as if terrorism is suspended in outer space as an abstract phenomenon, with ruthless terrorists acting under some Satanic inspiration unrelated to any specific motivation.

Some supporters of the administration, arguing that Islamic culture in general is so hostile to the West, and especially to democracy, that it has created a fertile soil for terrorist hatred of America.

Missing from much of the public debate is discussion of the simple fact that lurking behind every terroristic act is a specific political antecedent. That does not justify either the perpetrator or his political cause. Nonetheless, the fact is that almost all terrorist activity originates from some political conflict and is sustained by it as well.

To win the war on terrorism, one must therefore set two goals: first to destroy the terrorists and, second, to begin a political effort that focuses on the conditions that brought about their emergence.

Kofi Annan: "Let us remember that none of the issues that faced us on 11 September has become less urgent. The number of people living on less than one dollar a day has not decreased. The numbers dying of HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and other preventable diseases have not decreased. The factors that cause the desert to advance, bio diversity to be lost, and the earth’s atmosphere to warm have not decreased. And in the many parts of the world afflicted by the scourge of war, innocent people have not ceased being murdered, mutilated, or dragged or driven from their homes.

In short, the agenda for peace, development and human rights set for us in the Millennium Declaration is no less pressing. If anything, it has taken on a new urgency. Seldom has the danger of division within the human family, and the need to resist that danger, been more clearly understood.

We face two possible futures: a mutually destructive clash between so-called "civilisations" based on the exaggeration of religious and cultural differences; or a global community, respecting diversity and rooted in universal values. The latter must be our choice – but we can achieve it only if we bring real hope to the billions now trapped in poverty, conflict and disease."

Profound impact of September 11 – question being asked, why America?

David Levering Lewis (Pulitzer prize winner): 9-11 produced the greatest violation of our sense of self since Pearl harbour. And indeed when people asked, "Why do they hate us?" a large number of Americans were encouraged to believe that there might be an earnest and prudent and informed search for answers to that question. We thought, incumbent upon the citizens of the most powerful nation on the planet to understand why – after the initial burst of outraged sympathy – people in Europe as well as the developing world were prone to say that there were good reasons not to be astonished that such a terrible assault happened?

Brinkley: I can’t think of a time in our history in which the world as a whole seems so uniformly uncomfortable with what we’re doing in the world. The potential for unleashing a level of anti-Americanism around the world is higher than it’s ever been.

Schlesinger: The go-it-alone policy of the United States – of the present administration – shows a certain amount of condescension and contempt for international institutions and for international opinion. We may be omnipotent, but we’re not omniscient.

[Japan Times – 22/08/02 – Bruce Ackerman] In the face of the father’s multilateralism, the son is constructing a double unilateralism – freed from the restraints of the Security Council abroad and Congress at home, the imperial presidency claims the authority to strike pre-emptively at any danger.

[Sunday Times – 08/09/02 – Noam Chomsky] 44 years ago, President Dwight Eisenhower described "the campaign of hatred against us (in the Arab world), not by the governments but by the people". His National Security Council outlined the basic reasons: the US supports corrupt and oppressive governments and is "opposing political or economic progress" because of its interest in controlling the oil resources of the region.

Chomsky argues that post September 11 surveys in the Arab world reveal that the same reasons hold today.

Post September 11 rantings of Osama bin Laden – for example, about US support for corrupt regimes, or about the US "invasion" of Saudi Arabia – have a certain resonance, even among those who despise and fear him. From resentment, anger and frustration, terrorist bands hope to draw support and recruits.

In the Foreign Affairs Journal, Samuel Huntington wrote in 1999: "While the US regularly denounces various countries as ‘rogue states’, in the eyes of many countries it is becoming the rogue superpower … the single greatest external threat to their societies.

Many analists have noted that the current "campaign of hatred" in the Arab world is, largely fuelled by US policies toward Israel-Palestine and Iraq.

[Bruce Ackerman – Prof of Law and Political Science – Yale University]. Article 51 expressly recognises the inherent right of all states to engage in self-defence in the case of "armed attack". In the president’s speech at West Point in June, he argued for an expansive reading of this provision. States need not wait for an imminent attack before invoking self-defence, he declared. They should be authorised to launch pre-emptive strikes long before terrorists are in a position to cross borders with weapons of mass destruction.

Ackerman argues that while Iraq’s missiles can reach Israel, they can’t touch American soil. It will create a devastating precedent for India or Pakistan or China when they, too, seek to evade the Security Council by invoking an open-ended and fact-free notion of "pre-emptive self-defence".

One former official with the first Bush administration says: "We’re not talking about pre-emption in the way we talked about it in the cold war," namely a response to an imminent attack. "With Iraq, we’re talking about a premeditated attack." The danger is that every country could decide pre-emption is a good idea. US Defence Secretary – a few days ago rejected calls for evidence re Iraq WMD capacity. "The USA was not seeking to place the Iraqi leader on trial or for punishing somebody for doing something wrong … this is self defence and the United States task is to see that we do not allow an event to happen that one has to punish for".

Ken Adelman, Reagan’s former disarmament chief, argue that "chicken little" moderates have consistently underrated the use of US power. Back in the ‘70s, Kissinger pushed for détente with Moscow – until Reagan came in, dubbed the Soviet Union an evil empire, spent billions more on defence and, lo, the USSR collapsed.

Perle aligns himself with those who "believe that US power is always potentially a source for good in the world," and that the lone superpower has a special obligation to snuff out threats to global security.

Some very worrying and dangerous ideas are being propogated, e.q.:, [Spectator – 10/08/02] – Mark Steyn – A War for Civilisation. What’s the real long-term war aim of the United States? To bring the Middle East within the civilised world. How do you do that? Tricky, but this we can say for certain: you’ll never be able to manage it with the present crowd – Saddam, the ayatollahs, the House of Saud, Boy Assad, Mubarak, Yasser. When Amr Moussa, Secretary-General of the Arab League, warns the BBC that a US invasion of Iraq would ‘threaten the whole stability of the Middle East’, he’s missing the point: that’s the reason it’s such a great idea.

So if you want to destabilise the entire region, where’s the best place to start?

Saddam is living proof to the boneheads on the ‘Arab Street’ that you can be violently anti-American, anti-Israel, anti-everything, and get away with it. So Saddam has to go. It’s not strictly necessary for a new regime in Iraq to be better than its predecessor, only different. That sends the important message that whose fingernails you rip out in the dungeon of the presidential palace is your affair, but start monkeying with us and you’ve written your last romantic novel, moustache boy. That’s the immediate and critical US aim.

None of the above will happen without a massive humiliating military defeat of the Arab world’s Number One loonitoon. Shortly thereafter, the Ayatollahs and ol’ man Yasser will be gone, and the House of Saud, Junior Assad and Mubarak will follow. In 1991, Afghanistan was still communist, as were the Central Asian republics; Pakistan was under the corrupt Sharif regime; and the newly united Yemen was on its way to civil war. Eleven years later, General Usharraf is trying his hardest to be Washington’s new best friend, and American forces are in Afghanistan, Kyrgyzastan, Uzbekistan and even Georgia. The Middle East’s eastern and northern borders have quietly become and American sphere of influence.

[Fareed Zakaria - Newsweek 02/09/02] – "To Fire on Iraq, Use a Trigger" – If the administration wants to take military action against Iraq – and I believe it should – it will have to find a provocation, a casus belli. Some suggest that we push Saddam Hussein and hope he reacts.

It’s worth trying but probably won’t work. Saddam knows that America is praying he will do something provocative.

All of which means, inevitably, that Washington will have to try to provoke a crisis over inspections. The United States should propose a new and vigorous system of UN inspections – with a clear deadline for compliance. If Saddam refuses or delays, he will give America a rationale that has UN sanction and can be used to build international support. Unfortunately, the superhawks think inspections are a trap.

The administration seems to believe that it already has a trigger. Saddam is building weapons of mass destruction, and the Bush doctrine of "pre-emptive action" argues that, in an age of terror, the US does not have the luxury of waiting to be attacked.

But Iraq is not gearing up to attack America right now. Invading it would be a preventive war. After all, if developing weapons of mass destruction is enough to trigger an American invasion, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, India and China are all legitimate targets.

That’s why we need to get to work, find a trigger and then carefully start shooting.

Some of Mr Bush’s advisers were saying nearly a year ago that September 11 provided an excuse to settle old scores with Iraq. There are others in the administration who see regime change in Iraq as just one step in a grand plan to "pacify".

Winston Churchill said: "never, never, never believe that any war will be smooth and easy, or that anyone who embarks on that strange voyage can measure the tides and hurricanes he will encounter".

It is therefore important that we strengthen to voices of reason. 70% of Arab population is … … and 80% are unemployed. They are all a time bomb.

[Washington Post, writers group - Daily Yamuiri, Japan – 18/08/02, pg 8] Two very different rationales for US action. The United States’ Iraq war would be pre-emptive but, in principle, defensive in character. The argument for it is that Saddam Hussein is building weapons of mass destruction. The United States needs to take him out because that is the only way we can be sure of taking out his weapons.

The second Iraq war would be a much bolder enterprise. Its goal is to revolutionise the entire Middle East. If Hussein is driven from power, the idea goes, Iraqis will then build a thriving democracy. A free Iraq will become a model for Arab and Muslim nations. The Arab-Israeli dispute will become less intractable and moderation will become contagious.

The staunchest advocates of military action embrace both arguments.

[Citizen – 09/09/02] A military strike against Iraq to topple the regime of President Saddam Hussein will neither resolve the problem nor serve Washington’s own interests, the Saudi intelligence chief said.

"The Kingdom rejects launching strikes against Iraq and does not agree to any military offensive against it", he said.

US President Bush had supported the establishing of an independent Palestinian state, but steps being taken by the United States "do not lead to stability in the region," Prince Nawaf charged.

Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov said attempts to interfere in the internal affairs of other countries could "not only complicate the situation in the region, but could also cause irreparable damage to co-operation within the framework of the international coalition against terrorism".

Arthur Schlesinger Jr: We now have the possibility of going to war with Iraq and destabilising the entire Arab world.

The attitude on the "Arab street" remains resolutely cold. It is usually dangerous to generalise about the Arab world because of its diversity, but when it comes to America, there seems near universal agreement.

Distrust of America is pervasive.

In Egypt and Jordan, two of America’s closest allies in the region, there is a general sense that Washington has squandered any sympathy dividend.

No one quarrels with Mr Blair’s judgement of the Iraqi leader.

Making the case against Mr Hussein is not at all the same as making the case for war to replace him.

But facts about Mr Hussein’s tyranny is not the same as concluding that the west should go to war to remove him. Unless we are about to embrace an international system in which all murderers and tyrants are removed from office by American military. War would involve heavy civilian casualties and, serious losses for the invading troops. The consequences for the rest of the region would be dangerously unpredictable. War could solve one problem to create many others. Both principle and pragmatism, in other words, argue that removing Mr Hussein by force should be the last resort.

The case unmade is that we have reached the point at which containment and deterrence can no longer work; and that the danger from Iraq is as present as it is clear.

Scowcroft said an attack on Iraq "would seriously jeopardise, if not destroy, the global counterterrorist campaign we have undertaken." Henry Kissinger, while more hawkish in arguing for Saddam’s ouster, also called for more diplomatic groundwork. Dick Armey, the outgoing House majority leader, also came out against a war.

[Newsweek – 02/09/02] Susan Eisenhower, Ike’s granddaughter and president of the Eisenhower Institute. This year is the 50^th anniversary of her grandfather’s election, which marked the end of the "Grand Old Party" (GOPs) traditional isolationist stance. The Bush hawks, who declared their desire to scale down US commitments to peacekeeping and nationbuilding during the 2000 campaign, have brought isolationism back "in a different form," she says. True, post-9-11 they are more globally minded, but their mixed message of forceful engagement, si, diplomacy, no, is a way of eating their cake and having it too – exercising global leadership, as America’s dominant position demands, but remaining a nation apart, as old-style American Conservatives have always sought.

One is experiencing massive information dissemination, misinformation, selective reporting and interpretations e.q.,

[Cape Times – 10/09/02] A report by a think-tank on Iraq’s nuclear capability was seized on by Downing Street as "evidence" of the threat posed by President Saddam Hussein and the need to take military action.

[Financial Times – 08/09/02]. Anyone giving half an ear to news reports quoting top US and British officials over the weekend might have concluded that Saddam Hussein was on the point of acquiring a nuclear weapon.

The same might be true of first reports of a new assessment of Iraq’ weapons of mass destruction capabilities published yesterday by the London-based international institute for strategic studies. The London Evening Standard’s front page headline, for example, screamed "Saddam A-Bomb within months".

In fact, the ISS concluded that of the three types of deadly weapons – nuclear, biological and chemical – "nuclear weapons seem the furthest from Iraq’s grasp".

The institute notes that the International Atomic Energy Agency – the UN body cited, apparently mistakenly, by US and British officials for supposed new evidence – had been satisfied in 1998 that the main facilities needed to produce a nuclear bomb had been destroyed.

The ISS says: "Even worst-case assessments judge that Iraq will require several more years before it can develop (nuclear weapons) capability, assuming it can obtain access to substantial foreign materials and equipment."

The report concedes that Iraq’s military capability, including weapons of mass destruction, is far weaker now than it was before the Gulf War in 1991.

The study maintained Iraq would be able to produce a crude nuclear device if it received enough weapons-grade material and extensive help from a foreign source. It admitted that "there is no evidence that Iraq had done so".

Developing its own bomb would take several years and "how such a weapon can be delivered and its effectiveness remains open to questions".

The report concluded that Iraq’s chemical, biological and ballistic missile programmes were all far less potent now than 11 years ago.

Paul Beaver, of Jane’s Defence Weekly said: "There’s nothing new here, no killer fact that makes me believe we should go to war."

The Liberal Democrat foreign affairs spokesman, Menzies Campbell, said it contained "nothing startling, nor anything that could not have been inferred from Iraq'’ previous behaviour""

Conservative defence spokesman Bernard Jenkin said the report showed how little was known of what was going on in Iraq, and urged the government to publish its own much-trailed, but delayed "dossier" that is meant to contain evidence that Saddam presented a threat.

CIA saying Iraq would take five to seven years to complete an indigenous nuclear programme.

[Cape Argus – 09/09/02] Scott Ritter, a former UN arms inspector who rejects US charges that Iraq is developing weapons of mass destruction, has said in Baghdad it would be a "historical mistake" for Washington to attack Iraq.

Ritter, who for seven years was a member of the UN team in charge of dismantling Iraq’s weapons, urged Baghdad to let UN weapons inspectors return without conditions.

Ritter, a former US Marine, resigned his UN post in 1998 – the year inspectors left Iraq – and later accused Washington of using the inspections teams for espionage.

On leaving his UN job, Ritter accused the UN and the US of not being tough enough on Iraq when it violated Security Council resolutions.

But he subsequently became a vocal critic of US policy on Iraq.

His 1999 book, Endgame, charged that CIA operatives had compromised his mission in Iraq.

"Iraq, during nearly seven years of continuous inspection activity by the United Nations, had been certified as being disarmed to a 90-95% level."

Another matter of concern increasingly being made is the growing threat to governments made in the field of human rights, democracy, etc.

Lewis (Pulitzer prize winner): In the cold war we worried about the emergence of a national-security state. Now we have a homeland-security state emerging. We’ve been talking about the international implications of 9-11, but the domestic implications are also terribly daunting – the trimming of habeas corpus and a new imperial presidency.

We’re moving right back into that cold-war mind-set, in which we will have a black and white world of good versus evil, and we’ll be a part of suppressing dissent around the world.

War on terrorism whose objectives are scarily ecumenical and whose duration we’ve been told may be without term.

[Financial Times – 06/09/02] Mr Ashcroft’s legacy, where the intrusion of government on civil liberties seems to cut against the grain of fundamental American values. Under Mr Ashcroft, the justice department imprisoned hundreds of terrorist suspects on immigration violations. He secured broad new powers for the government under the newly enacted Patriot Act. He expanded the powers of the FBI to a level not seen since the 1960s and ‘70s when the agency kept tabs on journalists and civil rights activist. The American Civil Liberties Union spoke of Mr Ashcroft’s "seemingly insatiable appetite for new powers."

Chairperson

As I said earlier Middle East conflict is one of the most fertile breeding ground for terrorism.

Twenty years ago, the former head of Israeli military intelligence, Yehoshafat Harkabi, "to offer an honourable solution to the Palestinians respecting their right to self-determination: that is the solution of the problem of terrorism," "when the swamp disappears, there will be no more mosquitoes".

If we creating more swamps, there will be more mosquitoes, with an awesome capacity for destruction. If we devote our resources to draining the swamps, addressing the roots of the "campaigns of hatred", we can not only reduce the threats we face but also live up to the ideals that we profess.

Israel unique in that it actually encourages an invasion of Iraq. Jerusalem Post proclaimed that Bush’s hard line on Iraq puts him "at the cusp of greatness".

South Africa’s obligations

• The UN Security Council on 28 September 2001 adopted resolution 1373, which is a binding resolution on anti-terrorism measures and creates specific obligations on states to prevent and combat terrorism, and support of terrorist activities, including the financing of terrorism. Member States were requested to submit national reports on the implementation of this resolution by 27 December 2001.
• South Africa submitted its National Report to the Security Council Counter-Terrorism committee on 24 December 2001 and received the Committee’s feedback on 15 April 2002. In response to the comments of the CTC South Africa submitted a supplementary report to the CTC on 8 July 2002.
• South Africa, like many countries, has concerns about some of the ambiguous provisions of the Resolution (such as the lack of a definition for "terrorism") and the non-transparent way in which it was adopted.
• South Africa, however, adheres to and is implementing the provisions of this resolution.

• UN Security Council resolution 1390 on Afghanistan adopted on 16 January 2002 follows and expands on resolution 1373 targeting, not only Al-Qaeda members, but also individuals, groups, undertakings and entities associated with them. This resolution has shifted the focus from Al-Qaeda and the Taliban to individuals and groups across the world.
• In terms of this resolution, Member States are obliged to submit national reports on implementation measures to the Afghanistan Sanctions Committee within 90 (ninety) days of the adoption of the resolution.
• South Africa’s report on its implementation of the resolution was submitted to the United Nations by the due date of 16 April 2002 and feedback is awaited.

• The United Nations Ad Hoc Committee on measures to Eliminate International Terrorism met in New York from 29 January to 1 February 2002 to deliberate on the Comprehensive Convention against Terrorism.
• Progress on the Comprehensive Convention is hampered by the issue of distinguishing between "liberation movements" and "terrorist acts", as well as the applicability of international humanitarian law to State forces.

• There is also a lack of progress on the negotiations on the draft Convention for the Suppression of Acts of Nuclear Terrorism, dealing with law enforcement against individuals who unlawfully seize or utilise nuclear materials to perpetrate a terrorist act.
• Articles relating to the applicability of the treaty’s scope caused the deadlock. There was concern regarding the impact that this may have on South Africa and NAM’s principled position against the use of nuclear weapons in any circumstances. It is, therefore, not foreseen that this Convention will be concluded in the near future.

• Egypt announced that it has resumed sponsorship of a high-level Conference on Terrorism under the auspices of the United Nations, which has as its objective the formulation of a joint organised response by the international community to terrorism in all its forms and manifestations
• South Africa in principle supports the Egyptian proposal, provided that the scope, level and purpose of the Conference can be clearly articulated.

September 11^th brought into sharp focus the issue of terrorism and how to combat it. The major challenge confronting us is to ensure that the fight against terrorism does not create more swamps and threaten regional and international peace and security.