U.N. Sanctions Keep Iraqis Poor, Hopeless

NEW THREATS:

War with chemical, biological arms

Keay Davidson / SF Chronicle 16jan01

In the 10 years since high-tech weapons dazzled the world in the Persian Gulf War, military technology has advanced in new directions.

But the world has changed, too. Old enemies have vanished or have been vanquished, to be replaced by new ones with different munitions and motivations.

And, experts fear, the "smart" weapons of Gulf War glory may not be ideal for fighting the likely foes of tomorrow -- small, shadowy bands of terrorists who fight for their ideals not with bombers and troops but with computer keyboards and bottle-sprayed microbes.

The super-weapons of the Gulf War were products of Cold War science, a titanic enterprise that cost U.S. taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars and that generated lethal gizmos worthy of James Bond: "smart" bombs that allegedly zipped down chimneys, unpiloted "drone" aircraft that transmitted TV images of enemy movements, infrared scanners on space satellites that detected heat from the engines of enemy trucks rumbling through the desert night.

The Gulf War "was really the first (time) anyone talked about all these 'smart' weapons as a way to fight a war, rather than with the nuclear weapons of the Cold War," says Jim Tegnelia, vice president of Defense Department programs at Sandia National Laboratories in Albuquerque.

Today, the cutting edge of military technology aims at empowering individual solders in the field. One device could do for biowarfare what cell phones did for communication: The handheld gadget detects deadly biological agents.

Its inventors at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory have dubbed it HANAA, for Hand-Held Advanced Nucleic Acid Analyzer. They claim it can distinguish an Ebola virus from a cold germ within 15 minutes.

Killer microbes are exactly the threat dreaded by many military analysts, now that the traditional U.S. foe -- the former Soviet Union, with its bulging arsenal of nuclear weapons -- has become our debtor and almost our pal.

Biological and chemical agents are called "the poor man's nuclear weapons:" When used against civilian populations, their shock value would more than compensate for their tactical inefficiency on the battlefield.

If an enemy force sprayed killer germs on U.S. troops, soldiers could use HANAA to quickly identify the microbes and take an antidote.

For example, if troops inhaled a toxic cloud containing pulmonary anthrax, they could die within days. Before HANAA, experts might have needed weeks to identify the killer and protect soldiers.

With the device, the microbes could be identified within "about 15 minutes, although we have done it as fast as seven," says Ron Koopman, a physicist who is special projects manager for the "Chem/Bio" National Security Program at Livermore.

Decades ago, Americans feared death from the sky -- a murderous rain of inter-continental ballistic missiles fitted with Soviet nuclear warheads.

But nowadays, "the biggest thing we have to worry about are Ryder rental trucks," says Sunnyvale's Chuck Hansen, creator of the acclaimed CD-ROM "Swords of Armageddon," a rich mine of documents on Cold War nuclear weapons.

He was alluding to the truck carrying explosive agents that right-wing terrorists used to destroy a federal office building in Oklahoma City in 1995.

"Look at that whacked-out cult in Japan that spread (nerve gas) in the subway system," Hansen adds.

Politicians talk about guarding against terrorists armed with biowarfare agents, but Hansen is pessimistic: "The border's just too porous, both the Mexican and Canadian borders. We'd probably have to become a police state to stop it."

In his view, the era after the Gulf War is one in which America's enemies are defined by comparatively small, fierce nations like Iraq and affiliated terrorist groups, not by geopolitical octopi like the old Soviet Union. Less than a year after the Gulf War, the bankrupt Soviet Union -- which was humiliated by its inability to intervene on behalf of its Iraqi ally -- vanished into history.

"The nature of the threat has certainly changed," says Hansen, who is preparing a new edition of his CD-ROM. "Great big nuclear-bombing tank battles on the plains of Germany probably aren't going to happen now. Instead, the kinds of threats we face will be the kind we faced in the last 10 to 15 years - - small conflicts in faraway places."

"Take the Cole incident," he says, referring to the October bomb attack on a U.S. destroyer in Yemen. "Trying to protect against that, the military is faced with almost the same kind of threat they faced with the (suicide dive- bombing) kamikazes at the end of World War II.

"If somebody really wants to get through to you and is willing to sacrifice their lives to do it, they can probably get through to you."

In interviews, military experts cited other post-Gulf War trends in weaponry:

-- Improved radar for use in bad weather and difficult terrain. The high- tech weapons of the Gulf War functioned unusually well at least partly because they were used in a region with relatively simple weather and terrain -- in other words, sunny skies and largely flat desert terrain.

The limits of "smart" weaponry became clear when the United States and its allies intervened in the Bosnian war and in Kosovo, Tegnelia says. The tree- covered Balkan terrain and sometimes difficult weather made it harder to spot enemy troop movements.

Hence the recent trend toward "smarter" radar able to see through fog, rain and trees. Scientists at Sandia Labs are developing very small, portable radar systems that can see objects otherwise veiled by weather or terrain features.

-- Improved cruise missiles. During the Gulf War, cruise missiles were confused by the relatively flat terrain of the desert, which lacked features easily recognizable by the missile's on-board radar and computers.

So now, cruise missiles navigate using the same system trusted by many hikers and campers: the GPS (Global Positioning System) satellite network.

"GPS is much more accurate," says Hansen. "In the case of the Gulf War, some of these missiles had to cross very large, featureless terrain where there were no landmarks for the radar to latch onto."

-- Robots. "Drone" aircraft are just the beginning of the roboticization of warfare, which may eventually replace many troops with machines, according to some military visionaries. Eventually, some say, robots could all but eliminate human casualties in warfare.

Although Tegnelia works for one of the nation's preeminent military labs, and welcomes roboticization as a way to lessen U.S. casualties, he isn't sure that the ultimate dream -- "risk-free" wars -- would be a total blessing.

Is the United States, he asks, prepared to risk the global revulsion that might result, should this nation be capable of exerting its military might anywhere with impunity -- and whether or not the use of force is justified?

"If you can go to war without risk, is that a morally good position to be in?" he asks. "The concept of risk-free warfare is kind of a frightening thing. "

WEAPONS OF WAR Some weapons that played a key role during the Gulf War.. PatriotLand-based anti-aircraft weapon used against surface-to-surface guided missiles, especially Scuds..Scud NATO's name for Soviet-made SS-1, surface-to-surface ballistic missile able to carry warheads with varying accuracy to targets up to 560 miles away..Tomahawk$1 million cruise missile launched from ships, submarines or B-52 bombers. They can be guided to targets 800 miles away by onboard computer..Apache U.S. Army's super-advanced AH-64 attack helicopter, designed to fight at close range night or day..AbramsM1A1 Tank Main U.S. battle tank that gained reputation as the world's best heavy tank. .Stealth F-117 Nighthawk, the world's first operational "stealth" attack plane, skimmed undetected through Iraq's radar and air defenses...Black Hawk Successor to Vietnam-era UH-1 Huey as the Army's main workhorse helicopter..Warthog U.S. Air Force's A-10 is nicknamed for its ungainly appearance. Designed for close support of ground troops, it carries guns, missiles and smart bombs..B-52 StratofortressHistory's most durable bomber, this eight-engined B-52, with its 40-foot shark- fin tail and drooping wings, was upgraded to use missiles..BradleySpeedy, tracked troop carrier with powerful 25-mm "Bushmaster" chain gun.. Associated Press Graphic

E-mail Keay Davidson at kdavidson@sfchronicle.com

Les Donison / SF Chronicle 16jan01

Baghdad, Iraq -- It's opening night of "Hello Baghdad," and the National Theater's thousand-odd seats are filled by the city's well-to-do elite.

Women in silk blouses and sparkling jewelry settle next to men in Italian leather jackets and cashmere pullovers. Ticket prices exclude most Baghdadis from attending the performance. At 1,500 Iraqi dinars -- about $1 -- the cost is prohibitive.

The play's plot centers on a handful of Iraqis -- discouraged by life under crippling international sanctions -- who leave their country in search of happiness abroad. What they find, though, are offers of menial, denigrating work that they have no choice but to accept.

"We were never so humiliated in our country, despite the hardships of the embargo," says a character named Rwayeeh. With a newfound hope of better times ahead, the Iraqis decide to return home. The audience roars its approval.

Outside the theater, a darker reality play is performed each day throughout the nation.

On Mutanabi Street in Old Baghdad, booksellers for centuries have earned modest livings through sales of the written word. Mohammed Fakhri never imagined himself here, selling the books in which he studied drama at Baghdad University in the mid-1980s with the goal of appearing one day on stage at the National Theater.

He abandoned his dream in 1990 after the U.N. Security Council imposed sanctions on Iraq following the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait, and his nation began feeling the pinch of isolation. "I preferred to keep them," he says of his books, "but the (economic) necessity of the situation forced me to sell them."

Now 40 and single ("I can't afford to marry"), he turns a profit of a dollar or two a day -- if he's lucky.

"It's hopeless," Fakhri says, his dark, anguished eyes scanning the books spread on the sidewalk. "Hopeless and sadness. We just live in this moment and there is no future."

There is little evidence to argue otherwise. A 1999 UNICEF report noted that per capita income in Iraq had fallen from $3,500 in 1989 to less than $500 a decade later. Today, 10 years after the Persian Gulf War broke out, things have only gotten worse.

Before the war, a dollar was worth about three Iraqi dinars; today, the same dollar fetches about 1,700 dinars. Although no hard figures are available,

most analysts say the national unemployment rate is at least 50 percent.

"Economic development has come to a virtual halt," the UNICEF report stated,

"and the physical and human capital stock of the country have witnessed serious deterioration."

That deterioration is plain to see. A country of relative growth and prosperity prior to 1990, thanks largely to its oil reserves, Iraq is now a place where the income of shoeshine boys and cigarette salesmen routinely exceeds that of doctors and teachers. The Iraqi middle class has virtually disappeared, its comfortable, pre-sanctions lifestyle long since vaporized by an economy in flames.

Auction houses are filled with furniture, televisions, refrigerators, even centuries-old heirlooms, all the result of families in desperate need of hard currency.

On the roads and highways, there are few new vehicles, and maintenance is a luxury most people can no longer afford. Vehicles sport cracked windshields, crumpled bumpers, balding tires and rust-eaten holes the size of footballs. By Western standards, most vehicles here are all but screaming for a date with a crusher.

Abdul Kareem Jasim owns a garage on Baghdad's northern outskirts that specializes in wheel alignments. He estimates that at least 60 percent of cars on the road are unsafe to drive.

"Before the sanctions, if there was any slight problem with the alignment, we told the owner he should fix it," he says. "Nowadays, we just ignore it, but this is at the expense of safety."

Downtown, the indoor Arabic clothing market is teeming with shoulder-to- shoulder shoppers. Sunshine sneaks through open doors to wash the interior in a dusty half-light; the power is out yet again, as it usually is for three or four hours a day throughout parts of Baghdad -- just one more obstacle to making a buck in Iraq.

Before 1990, Iraqis routinely wore clothing from some of the world's best- known manufacturers. Now, as one shop owner put it, they make do "with the worst of the worst." On this day, a pair of Chinese jeans goes for $7, a "top- end" Iraqi-made women's purse for $6 and a man's Syrian-made sweater for $4.

"We face difficulties wherever we turn," says Khatchik Lion, owner of a small children's clothing shop in the market. "It's a catastrophe."

Lion, an intense, burly chain-smoker in his mid-40s, is seated behind his desk, the tip of his cigarette glowing orange in the semi-darkness. He tells of routinely selling baby clothing at a loss to parents he senses cannot pay more. Sometimes he even gives the clothing away, he says.

Later the conversation shifts to sports -- he is also an official with the Iraqi Fencing Federation. His eyes roll and fists clench as he recounts how Iraqi athletes now are forced to live in a bubble, unable to compete with the outside world. Invitations to overseas tournaments continue to come, he says, but there is no money to finance such trips.

"It's upside down, everything," Lion says. "I'm sorry, but I am angry."

His anger, he later explains, is directed not at the people of America or elsewhere, but at the governments in Washington and London that maintain the sanctions.

Everywhere in this crumbling country, the face of Iraqi President Saddam Hussein looms. Murals large and small are plastered on walls and billboards. Here's Hussein speaking to the masses. Here's Hussein on the phone. Here's Hussein garbed in hunting apparel and brandishing a rifle. The message is both simple and ominous: Saddam Hussein is everywhere, and he's watching.

In more than 20 interviews conducted with ordinary Iraqis, phrases such as "the president is doing all he can" and "we're confident in our government" were repeated time and again, usually with little or no emotion. All interviews were conducted in the presence of a government-appointed minder.

Some Iraqis -- perhaps 2 or 3 percent of the population -- are doing just fine, despite the economic free-fall.

Those inside Hussein's inner circle are not suffering the privations of ordinary citizens. As with any besieged economy, there are profiteers, capable of turning crises to their advantage by importing hard-to-get, banned items.

Then there are people like Khalil Al-Souhaile, born into money. His family did quite well in real estate long before Hussein's ill-advised foray into Kuwait. He drives an Audi A8 -- "The fastest car on the road," he says with a laugh -- and wants for very little.

Al-Souhaile, a graduate of McGill University in Montreal, owns an upscale restaurant called Castello ("Castle"), where the specialty is filet mignon in mustard sauce. It costs about $6.50, roughly a week's pay for most Iraqis these days.

"I think, for Iraqis, we are living in very interesting times," he says.

Thirty employees, including three guards, five chefs and a cleaning crew of eight, staff his 75-seat restaurant. "I'm overstaffed," he admits, but says that he often finds -- or creates -- a place for someone desperate for a job.

"If you are a decent human being," Al-Souhaile says, "then it's very difficult to put a chunk of food in your mouth when you know someone else is suffering. The only comfort you get is that you know you're not responsible for it."

Four hours north of Baghdad, in Mosul, 36-year-old Tarak Abdullah is well acquainted with suffering. He spends his days on the street, selling plastic bags of a dark liquid that he says is the juice of dried lemons.

Asked to describe life in his country these days, Abdullah thinks for a moment, then answers slowly, but firmly, "The situation we are in is worse than death."

THE WAR ON THE WEB

Here are some Web sites that provide a varied view of the Persian Gulf War:

-- For the Pentagon perspective, two Web sites rank high. The Air Force has a page (www.af.mil/news/factsheets -- click on Airpower in Operation Desert Storm) that provides a full accounting of such things as the magnitude of the airlift the service performed (482,000 passengers and 513,000 tons of cargo), how many tents civil engineers erected (5,000), and the workload of the F-117 Stealth fighter (1,250 sorties with more than 2,000 tons of bombs dropped.)

The Army has posted a detailed history of the war, titled "The Whirlwind War," beginning with the buildup during Operation Desert Shield  www.army.mil/cmh-pg/books/www/Wwindx.htm .

-- For personal reflections on the war by key players, PBS TV's "Frontline" offers transcripts of in-depth interviews with leaders and others at www.pbs. org/wgbh/pages/frontline/gulf.

-- The Navy's role in the war is described at www.history.navy.mil/wars.

-- "Gulf War syndrome," the controversial and mysterious collection of ailments claimed by one out of seven U.S. Gulf War vets, is chronicled at GulfLINK (www. gulflink.osd.mil), a Pentagon Web collection.

The National Gulf War Resource Center (www.ngwrc.org) provides information on diagnoses, symptoms, places to get help and laws passed to aid suffering veterans, and links to other organizations dealing with the problem.

-- Gulf War vets are the subject of several Web sites. The Department of Veterans Affairs (www.va.gov) offers resources for those with medical problems,

as well as information on service benefits. At www.gulfweb.org -- a nongovernment site -- veterans can locate long-lost buddies through a personnel locator.

-- Dedications to the 148 Americans who died in action and the 121 killed in non-hostile situations also dot the Web.Members.aol.com/desertkate/dedication.html , lists servicemen and women who died by home state, and includes a brief description of how they perished. Also listed are U.S. prisoners of war.

-- The lighter side of the war can be found at www.netfunny.com/rhf, where Gulf War jokes include the following: Q: What should Iraq get for its air force? A: A refund.Source: Scripps Howard News Service

TOMORROW-- Chronicle reporter Carl Nolte, who covered the Gulf War, takes a look back at the conflict.-- The implications of the Gulf War as seen through the eyes of the people who fought it..

DESERT SHOWDOWN -- The buildup: Iraq invaded Kuwait on Aug. 2, 1990. President George Bush then cobbled together an 18-nation coalition to forestall any Iraqi move into Saudi Arabia's oil lands and to evict the invaders from Kuwait. -- The battle: Operation Desert Storm began Jan. 17, 1991, when the U.S.-led alliance launching round-the-clock aerial bombing. -- Allies' victory: After more than five weeks of bombing, the allies started the ground war on Feb. 24. U.S. commanders ended the fast-moving operation after four days. -- U.N. scrutiny: Hussein agreed to open Iraq's arsenals to U.N. scrutiny. U. N. inspectors, sucked into a maddening game of hide-and-seek, uncovered and dismantled many key components of the program but left more than two years ago without being able to complete their mission. -- The legacy: A decade later, U.S.-led military patrols still monitor no-fly zones in northern and southern Iraq.