As he walked his daughter Anne Marie down the aisle for her wedding on Nov. 2, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell had a double reason to rejoice. Even as the bridal party drove to the church in Maryland, Powell was on his satphone talking with French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin. Minutes before the wedding convoy drew up, the pair finally agreed on a crucial compromise in the wording of the United States’ proposed U.N. Security Council resolution on Iraq. A relieved Powell switched off his phone– for 20 minutes. “The phone was only shut down when I started down the aisle,” he joked afterward.
A week of haggling still lay ahead. But the outcome–a unanimous 15-0 vote in the Security Council last Friday, with even Syria agreeing to Washington’s tough line–is widely seen as a triumph for Powell. It wasn’t just because of his hands-on role (he was calling some of his foreign counterparts so often that he put their numbers on his speed-dial). The strategy of going through the Security Council was Powell’s, one he had to sell back in August to a skeptical President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
Just a month ago Powell faced near-certain defeat in the Security Council. The first U.S. draft, a copy of which has been obtained by NEWSWEEK, called for “all necessary means to restore international peace and security.” It also permitted any permanent Security Council member to send its own inspectors, backed by armed force. “It was the only way to get the Pentagon to sign off on it,” said one source. Most Security Council members opposed those demands. The tide turned only when Bush intervened in late October, approving a new draft resolution with softer language. But the test of Powell’s approach will come in the next several weeks, starting on Nov. 15, the deadline for Iraqi compliance. Officials fear that Powell’s major concession–agreeing to go back to the Security Council before opting for war–could provoke a new debate if Saddam, as expected, offers just enough compliance to satisfy war-skittish Security Council members like Russia.
Powell’s personal credibility is on the line–and so is the president’s. The day after his daughter’s wedding, U.S. and French sources say, Powell assured de Villepin that Washington would allow a genuine Security Council debate in the event that chief U.N. inspector Hans Blix reports Iraqi defiance or deceit. Bush repeated the assurance to French President Jacques Chirac–and in return, sources say, got Chirac’s promise that if Saddam defied the U.N., France was ready to contemplate his overthrow.
Bush has approved a bold invasion plan that calls for a first phase of liberating southern Iraq while isolating Saddam in Baghdad. The United States has stealthily massed in the Persian Gulf enough weaponry for three tank divisions and a Marine division; an initial assault could begin within two weeks of Bush giving the order. The administration is also finalizing plans for a post-Saddam Iraq, NEWSWEEK has learned. Officials say the scheme realistically sets aside hopes for early democracy in Iraq, calling instead for a U.S.-led occupation force lasting several years and a carefully selected representative government with delegates from the major Iraqi ethnic and religious groups. It calls for a “pluralist system, not democratic in a literal sense,” says one senior diplomat who has been briefed on the plan.
North Korea: More Lies?
When Pyongyang admitted in September that its agents had kidnapped more than a dozen Japanese in the 1970s and ’80s, the North Korean regime seemed to be turning over a new leaf. Dictator Kim Jong Il apologized for the deaths of eight of the abductees, and declared that those responsible had been punished.
Since then Pyongyang has admitted lying about its nuclear program. And according to the families of the abducted Japanese, Pyongyang is being no more truthful about the eight deaths. The regime claims that abductee Shuichi Ichikawa drowned while swimming in September of 1979. He detested swimming, and in any case, people rarely swim in North Korea in September. Even more suspicious is Pyongyang’s claim that the two men responsible for the kidnapping program were Jang Pong Rim and Kim Song Chol. (For their alleged roles, Jang was executed in 1998 and Kim Song Chol was sentenced to 15 years in a prison camp.) But in 2001, South Korea’s Monthly Chosun published a story that implies Jang might just be a scapegoat. The magazine obtained a fax from a North Korean defector–which checked out with reliable intelligence sources–that said Jang was instead arrested and purged for failing to complete a 1997 assassination attempt on Lee Hanyong, the author of a tell-all book on the North’s first family. The order was allegedly given by Kim Jong Il’s eldest son, Kim Jong Nam. No mention was made of Jang’s role in the abductions. Much to the dismay of the victims’ families, Jang is no longer around to unravel any North Korean lies. And the imprisoned Kim Song Chol clearly has no comment on the matter. North Korea may have found the perfect silent scapegoats.
Italy
Trying to Dodge Blame
Italians have good reason to be angry with their politicians. Last week false-accounting charges in a case involving Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi’s soccer club, AC Milan, were thrown out because they had exceeded the statute of limitations (thanks to a new Berlusconi law redefining false accounting and cutting the statute of limitations in half). Hours later Berlusconi requested the transfer of a different corruption charge out of Milan, testing out a brand-new piece of home-cooked legislation that allows for such a transfer if the defendant thinks local magistrates might be biased. Berlusconi’s request was denied, but he may have another chance at a Nov. 22 hearing. If he succeeds, the trial will start all over again, which may take just enough time to win Berlusconi an acquittal under–yes–the new statute of limitations.
But Berlusconi’s maneuvering wasn’t what angered Italians most last week. After an earthquake that destroyed a school in the region of Molise, killing 26 students, Italians demanded answers. They learned that additional classrooms at the school should, in fact, never have been built last year. Head contractor Giovanni Martino swore that the construction met required building codes. The fault lies with those who ignored the fault lines–the government. In 1998 Romano Prodi’s government ordered a comprehensive study of zones at risk for earthquake activity. Seismic maps of vulnerable areas–which included Molise–were drawn and were to be distributed so that local authorities could rewrite building codes. If the maps had been heeded, the Molise school would have been made earthquake-proof before another story was added. Sadly, no one in the Molise government ever heard of the maps; Regional Vice President Aldo Patriciello says he doubts the study existed. But it did, says the National Council for Public Works. “Bureaucratic glitches” held up its distribution, according to a spokesperson.
To make matters worse, the government also discarded sensitivity last week. Antonio Parlato, a deputy commissioner of Italy’s national insurance agency, announced on Tuesday that the children killed in Molise would not be covered. Berlusconi stepped in as public anger mounted, declaring that Parlato misread the agency’s rules. But as the government waffled, private firm Riunione Adriatica di Sicurta–which insured the school building–agreed to pay as much as 2.2 million euros in total to the victims. Perhaps this will serve as a lesson for Berlusconi. Sometimes the business world has to step in to save government mistakes–not the other way around.
CORRECTION
The quote “Diana’s capacity to embarrass the royal family is beyond belief–even from the grave” (PERSPECTIVES, Nov. 11, 2002) was incorrectly attributed to Simon Perry of People magazine. NEWSWEEK regrets the error.
CATHOLICS
Time For a New Plan
This week, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops will gather in Washington, D.C., to officially adopt their strategy for dealing with sex abuse. But critics of the new policy say it’s the same old story. The plan dictates that Roman Catholic bishops oversee church investigations into sex-abuse complaints. In order to decide whether a priest is fit to serve, the bishops will use secret tribunals. And church law dictates that neither the alleged victim nor the accused be allowed to testify in person or attend the proceedings. Instead, their interests are represented by canon lawyers, usually priests. The cases are then decided by a judge or panel of judges, who are also usually members of the clergy. On top of all this, the FBI’s Kathleen McChesney–whom the bishops have named to head their newly created Office for Child and Youth Protection–has acknowledged to NEWSWEEK that she doesn’t even know if she’ll be privy to the workings of these secret courts. So much for bringing this seemingly never-ending mess out into the open.
IRAN
Silenced Surveys
In September 2001, an Iranian poll produced some surprising results: while the majority of Iranians remained suspicious of U.S. government policies, 74 percent supported resuming political ties with the so-called Great Satan. But rather than heeding the people, Iran’s hard-line clerics decided to plug their–and the world’s–ears. Authorities shut down the Ministry of Culture and Islamic Guidance’s Research and Survey Institute, which conducted the poll, and arrested its manager, Behrouz Geranpayeh, on charges of fabricating public opinion and espionage. The next month an independent research institute was also closed down; its managing directors were arrested, too.
Since then, opinion polls and surveys in Iran have ground to a halt. Pollsters are now even afraid of giving out the results of old surveys about social problems and relations with the West. Last week a judge ordered the arrest of prominent reformist Abbas Abdi, who was one of the leaders of a group of students who seized the U.S. Embassy in November 1979 and now manages the Ayandeh Research Institute. Authorities accuse his institute of organizing “surveys to inform U.S. intelligence and political officials of Iran’s domestic matters.”
Hard-liners may find that shooting the messengers could lead to unforeseen consequences. “In the near future, no social research and opinion polls will be conducted because people are afraid they’ll be arrested for asking questions,” says one pollster who wisely wished to remain anonymous. “We have a lot of problems like drug addiction, prostitution and AIDS in Iran. We need statistics to deal with these problems, otherwise we all have to wait for a catastrophe.” Shutting down the flow of information could prevent the hard-liners themselves from realizing how fraught social tensions are becoming in Iran. Says Vafa Tabesh, a close associate of the arrested Abdi, “These actions will harm the people, the country and eventually the same people who carry out the arrests.” The hard-liners may be in for some hard lessons.
HUMOR
Is It OK to Laugh Yet?
Who would’ve thought that the author of the funniest post-September 11 critique temps at Martha Stewart–as a fact checker? David Rees’s “Get Your War On” hits on everything from the war in Afghanistan to anthrax to Enron. Illustrated with clip art of vacant office workers and narrated with a hip-hop-like cadence–“Oh Yeah! Operation: Enduring Freedom is in the house!” says a guy in one strip–“GYWO” conveys a hilariously deadpan fatalism while managing to provide an articulate expression of our anxieties. “I was trying to churn up all this stuff,” says Rees, who, by the way, is calling from a pay phone to get his interview on. “My colleagues don’t want me going on while they’re trying to meet a deadline.”
But a lot of other people want to hear what he has to say. During the past year, his site, mnftiu.cc, got 25 million hits; now Soft Skull Press is publishing the “GYWO” book, with 16 new pages of work. Rees began posting “GYWO” on Oct. 9, 2001, two days after the bombing of Afghanistan began and nearly a month after 9-11.
Rees dredged up a lot of anger. In the first installment, a cubicle drone fingering a primitive keyboard says, “You know what I love? I love how we’re dropping food aid packages into a country that’s one big f–ing minefield! That’s good!” Rees sent a link to 10 friends, who e-mailed it to 10 more and so on. Most of the responses he received came from Generation Y, which had never confronted grief and fear of this magnitude. “One of the e-mails I’d get was, ‘Oh my God, me and my friends thought we were the only people thinking this way’,” Rees says.
That Rees found humor at such a humorless time isn’t surprising: he’s a quirky but thoughtful guy. He plays guitar for a rock band called The Skeleton Killers. He solicited money for “GYWO” only so he could buy a seersucker suit for his July wedding. And then there’s his gig at Martha Stewart. Rees temps because, well, he needs the cash: he’s donating all his proceeds to Adopt-A-Minefield. So, for now, it’s Operation Enduring Martha.
Sign of Trouble
Critically revered Icelandic band Sigur Ros is a high-minded, genre-busting group, known for eight-minute songs that build to ecstatic climaxes. But that’s no excuse for naming their album this: “( ).” What does it mean? Who knows? Maybe it’s a joke, an Icelandic knee-slapper that just doesn’t translate, but I doubt it. The four men of Sigur Ros (which means “Victory Rose”) have never been the funny-ha-ha type. After all, the new album–which, parentheses be damned, I’ll call “The New Album”–has eight songs, and all of them are untitled.
This sort of nonsense might fly in Reykjavik, but it’s forgivable elsewhere only if the music is something special. The trouble with “The New Album,” whose overall tone is more spare and sorrowful than Sigur Ros’s breakthrough CD, 1999’s “Agaetis Byrjun (Good Start),” is that too many of the songs build and build and then… end. The band’s got gorgeous melodies to burn, but they wind up being much ado about not enough. Long stretches of the CD bring the same exhilaration as a good, hard, soul-cleansing cry. The rest sounds more like the score to a sad movie than a proper album. Let’s put this in language Sigur Ros can understand. :-(
JEWELS
Secret of the Elite
For the past 25 years the international jet set has whispered about the anonymous Paris showroom of the world’s greatest living jeweler. A mere 250 or so elite buyers actually own his work, and admittance to his showroom is by introduction only.
This world is that of Joel Arthur Rosenthal, a New York native who works under the acronym JAR. He has never advertised and has had one previous exhibit–15 years ago for just a few hours in New York. He has never wished to expand beyond his single shop and produces only around 50 pieces each year. But now, on the cusp of turning 60, Rosenthal has decided it’s time to let the world decide if the hype’s really justified, displaying 400 pieces at London’s Somerset House.
The exhibit is held in darkness, seemingly an annoying conceit. But as each piece sparkles, alive under the beam of a tiny flashlight, it becomes clear these are unlike any other jewels you’ll ever see. There’s a wealth of wildly imaginative designs and rare combinations of color. Rosenthal sets tiny rubies with amethysts, pink tourmalines and orange sapphires to create a spray of violets that look fresh from the market. The metalwork, a mix of silver, gold and other metals Rosenthal will not reveal, is so fine it almost vanishes.
The entire world may have been invited to Rosenthal’s elite club this time, but don’t expect him to start taking orders from just anyone. For Rosenthal, the personal connection with the customer has always been crucial. When a friend once asked him to set an emerald for his sister’s wedding, the designer first required he write a five-page essay about their relationship, so he could personalize the gift. It’s hard to say whether Rosenthal or his jewels are more precious. But when one is faced with this exquisite collection, it’s hard to blame his clients for keeping their secret for so long.
