US embassy cable - 04AMMAN699

UNCLAS AMMAN 000699 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR NEA/ARN, NEA/PA, NEA/AIA, INR/NESA, R/MR, 
I/GNEA, B/BXN, B/BRN, NEA/PPD, NEA/IPA FOR ALTERMAN 
USAID/ANE/MEA 
LONDON FOR GOLDRICH 
PARIS FOR O'FRIEL 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
 
TAGS: KMDR JO 
SUBJECT:  MEDIA REACTION ON IRAQI WMD 
 
                        Summary 
 
-- All papers published today, January 28, highlights 
developments in Iraq, including the killing of 6 
American soldiers and two CNN employees in separate 
attacks.  Front-page reports highlight the 
postponement of the Israeli Foreign Minister's visit 
to Jordan, which was scheduled to take place today, 
for "technical reasons" [there has been a number of 
protests by parliament deputies about this visit over 
the past week]. 
 
                 Editorial Commentary 
 
-- "Exposed fabrications" 
 
Daily columnist Rakan Majali writes on the back-page 
of center-left, influential Arabic daily Al-Dustour 
(01/28):  "In recent weeks, a number of American and 
British officials, including Powell's remarks in 
Moscow, have acknowledged the fact that Iraq does not 
have any type of weapons of mass destruction.  After 
nine months of Iraq's occupation, it is confirmed that 
the accusation that Iraq owns dangerous weapons is a 
fabricated allegation, on which the United States 
depended to launch a war on Iraq.  Furthermore, the 
United States is pompously determined to prove the 
allegation against Al-Qaeda organization and that it 
is responsible for the terrorist crime of 9/11, 
something that the United States adopted as a pretext 
for launching war against Afghanistan..  It is funny 
that the U.S. administration continues to hold on to 
the accusations against the Moroccan Abdul Ghani Al- 
Masoudi by saying that the German judiciary has proof 
of his participation in the 9/11 attacks, when the 
Germans themselves said that Al-Masoudi is innocent.. 
The U.S. administration is latching on to lies and 
fabrications about people, even if they are linked to 
Al-Qaeda organization.  Al-Masoudi's story is not the 
last of thousands of other stories of prisoners in 
American and western jails, where America failed after 
two years of investigations to prove Al-Qaeda's link 
to the 9/11 attacks." 
 
-- "The sand pyramid has begun to fall" 
 
Chief Editor Taher Udwan writes on the back-page of 
independent, mass-appeal Arabic daily Al-Arab Al-Yawm 
(01/28):  "They have made a mountain out of a molehill 
and they have build a pyramid of allegations and 
pretexts to justify the invasion and occupation of 
Iraq.  This is the story of Bush and Blair with the 
Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.  But, now that they 
have managed to achieve their dreams of the empire 
over the shattered pieces of Iraq and its people, the 
sand pyramid turns out to be made of elegant lies.. 
The question is however is: how did the world allow 
two leaders of two democratic countries to occupy a 
weaker besieged country and to destroy it under 
fabricated pretexts and made-up lies, leading the 
Iraqi people into a state of division, sectarianism 
and destruction?  Now that the pyramid of lies has 
collapsed, the occupiers are trying to cover 
themselves with the image of the liberators who have 
come to save the Iraqi people and give them democracy; 
another pyramid of lies, for what is happening there 
is a massacre by all means: a massacre of geography 
and a massacre of humanity.  We just hope that the 
Iraqis will survive with the least amount of losses." 
HALE