The Scotsman, UK--Special Forces Quitting to Cash In on Iraq--New WMW

[Gloria]

Full excerpts, links up now at http://www.zianet.com/insightanalytical
Tomorrow at Buzzflash.com


1//Asia Times Online, Hong Kong--BIN LADEN BETWEEN A HAMMER AND HARD PLACE (Unlike in the past, though, when operations have focused on limited targets and been of short duration, the current offensive is all-embracing and has as its ultimate goal the destruction of the Afghan resistance (with the cherry on the top being bin Laden's capture). NATO forces have already occupied key places in Afghanistan in an attempt to block off the border and to wait for fugitives flushed out from Pakistan. The anvil is almost in place on one side of the border. Now it is up to the Pakistanis to do their bit on the other side. And the United States is not taking any chances. US Central Intelligence Agency director George Tenet visited Islamabad recently on an unofficial trip. . Sources familiar with the meetings told Asia Times Online that a roadmap was sketched for the region, including a "full-scale war" if necessary to smoke out bin Laden and Mullah Omar.)



2//The Scotsman, UK--SPECIAL FORCES QUITTING TO CASH IN ON IRAQ (Britain’s elite special forces are facing an imminent crisis because record numbers of men are asking to leave their units early, lured by high wages on offer in a growing security industry in Iraq…In operational terms, this could mean that this year, the equivalent of one entire special forces squadron out of a total of six in the SAS and SBS is on its way to seek its fortune in the new Iraq…British, US and South African private military companies are all making money in Iraq following the fall of Saddam Hussein last year…In particular demand are former members of Britain’s special forces.)



3//The Sydney Morning Herald, Australia--MORE AUSTRALIAN TROOPS BOUND FOR IRAQ(Australia will send a defence force team to Iraq to help train the new Iraqi armed forces, Defence Minister Robert Hill said today…Senator Hill said extra security personnel and two more light armoured vehicles would be deployed to protect the training teams, which will be based outside Baghdad. Extra ADF personnel would also be attached to coalition training headquarters.)



4//The Independent, UK--EU TELLS RUSSIA TO BACK DOWN IN TRADE ROW (Russia will be given a tough warning today to back down in a simmering dispute over the EU's eastward enlargement, as the row threatens to escalate into an all-out trade war. Relations between Brussels and Moscow have reached a new low as the EU prepares to expand on 1 May to include three countries that were once part of the Soviet Union, and a host of former Iron Curtain nations.)



5//The Globe and Mail, Canada--SCANDAL MAY TAINT PRIVY COUNCIL OFFICE(The hunt for culpable parties in the federal sponsorship scandal will extend to the uppermost reaches of the public service, says a highly placed Liberal official…It is "widely expected" within Mr. Martin's government that officials who served in the PCO, the senior bureaucracy that serves the prime minister, helped set the stage for the abuses — from rule-bending to possible fraud — that flowed from the sponsorship program, said the Liberal source, who requested anonymity.)