BusinessWorld October 1, 2002
Glimpse of Iraq on the Web
By Jovi Tanada Yam
Does Saddam Hussein possess weapons of mass destruction?
United States President George W. Bush strongly believes so. Thus, Mr. Bush has asked the US Congress for the authorization to take military action against Iraq. British Prime Minister Tony Blair also agrees with Mr. Bush. In a speech delivered to the House of Commons, Mr. Blair explained Saddam's weapons of mass destruction program is "active, detailed and growing."
If you want to take a glimpse of what's apparently taking place in Saddam's territory, then log on to the GlobalSecurity website www.globalsecurity.org.
The website, featured in a series of Wired.com articles, is run by a small Virginia nonprofit group from the basement of a Washington suburban office buiding. It gives ordinary citizens like you and me a glimpse of what may be Saddam Hussein's biological, chemical and nuclear arms-making facilities.
By publishing its analysis of commercial satellite pictures, GlobalSecurity.org is educating the internet-going public. More than 100,000 people per month visit the website to learn about Iraqi weapons programs.
According to an Associated Press article, GlobalSecurity posted pictures of the Tuwaitha nuclear complex, 25 miles southeast of Baghdad. The images revealed "unexplained construction" at a facility "known to be associated with a clandestine nuclear program." Within days, the Iraqi Foreign ministry had given reporters unprecedented access to the plant. A top official, Saeed Hassan Al-Mousawi, insisted that Tuwaitha was now nothing more than a mushroom farm. And he displayed a printout from the GlobalSecurity site to prove the Americans and British were "lying."
How does GlobalSecurity get its pictures? It either purchases archival photos from Space Imaging or Digital Globe, the two major commercial satellite imaging companies, for $250 each. Or the group spends up to $6,000 to specifically direct a satellite to take pictures of a particular region.
Chris Simpson, an American University communications professor, quoted in a Wired.com article, said, "Now it's possible for ordinary people to have a more sophisticated view of what's taking place. It makes the whole debate clearer and more factual. It's more specific than Bush saying, 'You have chemical weapons,' and the Iraqis saying, 'No we don't.'"
Said John Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org on the website's mission regarding the seemingly looming war ahead, "The volume and granularity of information is so much greater in the hands of government decision makers that it induces a sense of arrogance. The great unwashed don't know what's going on and don't have to be consulted. Well, now we all know what we're talking about."
Copyright © 2002 BusinessWorld Publishing Corporation
