http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/010923/nysu001a_1.html Sunday September 23, 10:53 am Eastern Time

Press Release

SOURCE: Newsweek

Pentagon Board Wants Hit on Iraq After Afghanistan, But Secretary of State Powell Fears Strike Could Shatter Arab Anti-Terror Coalition

Rove and Hughes Not Included in Nightly Meeting of Principals

NEW YORK, Sept. 23 /PRNewswire/ -- At a two-day meeting last week of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, which is chaired by hard-liner Richard Perle, eminent conservatives including Henry Kissinger, James Schlesinger, Dan Quayle and Newt Gingrich reached a consensus that U.S. military forces should strike Iraq shortly after an initial blow against Afghanistan in response to the terror attack on New York and Washington, Newsweek reports in the current issue.

``When the U.S. loses what may be more than 6,000 people, there has to be reaction so that the world clearly knows that things have changed,'' Gingrich tells Newsweek. But Secretary of State Colin Powell fears a strike on Iraq could shatter his efforts to build a worldwide anti-terror coalition. The aim would be to pool intelligence on terrorists with ``global reach'' and to gain police cooperation which he and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice believe is at least as critical to cracking down on terror as military action, report Foreign Editor Michael Hirsh and Diplomatic Correspondent Roy Gutman in the October 1 issue of Newsweek (on newsstands Monday, September 24).

The strike-Iraq contingent fears American credibility will be damaged if the U.S. gets bogged down in Afghanistan. It also believes Saddam's weapons of mass destruction could be used against America next, Newsweek reports. There is ``a recognition that it will be very tough to get bin Laden in the rocky and mountainous terrain of Afghanistan,' said one participant in the Pentagon meetings. ``There's a feeling we've got to do something that counts -- and bombing some caves is not something that counts.''

On the other hand, Powell and deputies believe a full-blown military strike on Baghdad would only kill many Iraqis, enrage the Arab world and probably not dispose of Saddam, who has slowly won new allies with promises of oil deals since 1991.

As the debate continues, the importance of conventional political considerations are being played down. Newsweek reports that President George W. Bush's closest domestic advisers, Karl Rove and Karen Hughes, don't take part in the key nightly ``principals'' meetings of Powell, Rice, Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

(Read Newsweek's news releases at http://www.Newsweek.MSNBC.com. Click "Pressroom.")

SOURCE: Newsweek

-- Swissrose (cellier3@mindspring.com), September 24, 2001

Answers

In the 1981 book "With Enough Shovels", by Johnathan Sheer; Richard Perle was identified as one of Ronald Reagan's team, who believed that an all out thermonuclear war with the Soviet Union could be WON.

The main remaining hope is that the Enemy forces will commit blunders and errors, worse than those committed by the U. S. military planners; or that technical equipment failures cause most, or all, the intended thermonuclear detonations to be 'duds.'

-- Robert Riggs (rxr.999@worldnet.att.net), September 25, 2001.

I CAN'T belive they've got Dan Quayle serving on their war advisory committee! Don't you American folk have any control over your goverment anymore???? How can you sit back and let this buffoon (or is it babboon,) hold high office in your country?? I wouldn't trust that twit to be left alone in a room full of blunt objects, let alone trust him to be judicious and wise in a world crisis. ;)

the main chimp seems to have mastered the "reading off the autocue" trick, but beyond that....well, I'm sure his grasp of the situation is less secure than might ideally be the case.

Scares me that Kissinger is in on the plans too. Just one miscalculation here could be disasterous.

-- number six (iam_not_a_number@hotmail.com), September 25, 2001.

Number Six, in spite of the *media* portrayal (which you have evidently swallowed hook, line and sinker), Dan Quayle is a very intelligent, well-educated, and good man, especially compared to the recent incumbent's administration.

-- Kathleen Sanderson (stonycft@worldpath.net), September 25, 2001.