India's CIA spy scandal
India's external intelligence service, the Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) has launched a major internal investigation for possible moles following the apparent defection of a senior officer recruited by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA).
The Indian government fears that the defection of Rabinder Singh, who held the senior rank of joint secretary and who headed the agency's Southeast Asia department, is only the tip of the iceberg in a possible infiltration operation by the CIA and Mossad, Israel's foreign intelligence service.
The focus of the investigation will be RAW, as well as the Intelligence Bureau, which handles counterintelligence and the Defence Intelligence Agency. The mole hunt is expected to extend to Indian embassies around the world where RAW personnel operate under diplomatic protection, particularly those who liaise with foreign intelligence agencies.
According to informed intelligence sources, several Indian operatives have already been suspended pending investigation. One senior intelligence official committed suicide on 13 June in New Delhi, although it is not yet clear whether this incident was linked to the current Singh investigation.
The scandal, which broke on 5 June, risks damaging India's post-11 September 2001 strategic alliance with the USA and an earlier one with Israel, Washington's key ally in the Middle East. It is also likely to result in New Delhi placing limitations on intelligence sharing with both the USA and Israeli, which could impact on the US-led 'war on terrorism'.
India has decades of experience in combating such militants based in Pakistan and Afghanistan. There is speculation that the current scandal, which could extend throughout the Indian intelligence establishment, will also result in a wide ranging shake-up and reorganisation of the Indian intelligence agencies.
Predictably, Indian security authorities are saying little about the Singh case, but domestic sources report that counterintelligence became suspicious of Singh about six months ago, putting him under surveillance and tapping his telephones. It is not clear what alerted security authorities, but he was confronted by counterintelligence officials on 19 April (shortly after he had been in the USA) and questioned about 'sensitive files' he had allegedly removed from RAW's headquarters in south New Delhi.


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India heads toward radical security shake-up
A proposal to revamp India's armed forces and its intelligence services could be the most radical since the country achieved independence 54 years ago. Scrutiny of the current security establishment follows the infiltration of Pakistani troops and
Islamic mercenaries into the mountainous region in the northern, disputed state of Kashmir in May 1999. JID's India analyst reports from Delhi.
The proposals submitted to the government by the group of ministers headed by Federal Home Minister Lal Kishen Advani are the distillation of the recommendations of four task forces on restructuring India's intelligence, internal security and defence and border management established last year. These specialist groups were set up following an official review of the Kashmir incident which led to 11 weeks of fighting during which 1,200 combatants died.
If the reforms proceed according to plan, India will soon have a Chief of the Defence Staff (CDS) selected from among the heads of the army, navy and air force. Besides heading the proposed nuclear command, the CDS will also be in charge of the new Defence Intelligence Agency (DIA) which will be headed by a three-star general. The DIA will have the responsibility of co-ordinating the directorates of military, naval and air force intelligence.
Meanwhile, the Intelligence Bureau (IB), India's internal information gathering agency, is to be given overall responsibility for internal security operations, with its director having wider powers than at present. The Research and Analysis Wing (RAW) is also due to undergo a significant reshaping of its external intelligence gathering role.
The task force on restructuring India's intelligence services, which is headed by former RAW head and Kashmir governor Girish Chandra Saxena, calls on the country's information gathering establishment to take "an honest and in-depth stock of their present efforts and capabilities to meet challenges and problems". It also advocates the overall upgrading of technical, imaging, signals, electronic counter-intelligence and economic intelligence capabilities, as well as a system-wide overhaul of conventional intelligence gathering.
New charter for Intelligence Bureau
Saxena's report gives the IB a formal charter for the first time in its almost 150-year old history, giving the Bureau specific responsibility for the collection and dissemination of all intelligence on internal security. The IB is also designated the nodal organisation for counter-terrorist and counter-intelligence work and is tasked with ensuring the security of information systems. Officials say this new charter will free the Bureau from much of its political surveillance work and election-related information gathering forced upon it by successive governments. By the end of the year, the IB should also have created India's first dedicated police computer network and terrorism database.
One major shift envisaged for the IB is the separation of information gathering from its analysis. Since the late 19th century, when the organisation was first set up by the British colonial administration to gather information on the dreaded Thug cult, the IB has placed particular emphasis on information analysis. Consequently, the operational businesses of micro-intelligence gathering, running sources and producing actionable strategies has often suffered. This problem was further exacerbated after the IB was striped of its technical assets with the founding of the RAW in the 1960s.
Under the proposed revamp, the Bureau will be provided with an independent communications intelligence capability, enabling it to monitor all forms of cellular, landline, radio-frequency and internet traffic. It will have its own cryptographic resources, along with state-of-the-art direction-finding equipment to locate transmissions by terrorists waging civil war in areas such as Kashmir and the north-eastern states bordering Burma (Myanmar) and Bangladesh. In addition to gaining new assets, however, the IB will acquire additional responsibilities.
New powers for overseas operations
So far RAW has had the responsibility for conducting overseas espionage operations, but now the IB will be empowered to execute "deep penetration" operations aboard. For this, the Bureau will be required to upgrade the quality of its personnel and expand their training. State governments too will feel the impact of these proposals with the establishment of joint intelligence task forces, as well as recommendations that the capabilities of police anti-terrorist units be upgraded.
The RAW, meanwhile, is expected to emerge from the restructuring as a "leaner and more focused" organisation. Its subsidiary outfit, the more or less moribund 30,000 strong Shanti Suraksha Bal (SSB) or Peace Protection Group - recruited to act as a paramilitary force along the border with China in the 1960s - will be absorbed into the paramilitary Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP). However, some of its covert operatives will be handed over to the Bureau, with a few being retained by the RAW to meet in-house security needs. The report points out that this would free several RAW officers to concentrate on gathering external intelligence and running trans-border operations.
In addition, RAW has successfully thwarted moves to by the army to take over its high-profile Aerial Reconnaissance Centre (ARC), set up with American help after the Indo-China border conflict in 1962. The Army had demanded that it be given control of the ARC, which operates a fleet of aircraft especially equipped for high altitude operations. They also feature precision imaging equipment. Presently RAW plots an annual agenda for the ARC, based on broad army assessments of surveillance flights.
Under the revamped set up, the army will have more direct representation in the ARC in the form of a Military Intelligence Advisory Group which will be involved in its day-to-day operations.
The proposed DIA has also been empowered to conduct trans-border operations. It will now be able to carry out operations to gather tactical intelligence in neighbouring countries and to run its own agents. The director-general of military intelligence is presently authorised to execute intelligence gather

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Tel Aviv in range of new Hizbullah rockets
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Monday, July 26, 2004
JERUSALEM ? Israeli military intelligence chief Maj. Gen. Aharon Zeevi-Farkash has told the Cabinet that Hizbullah has 30 rockets capable of reaching Tel Aviv, potentially armed with chemical warheads.
In his briefing, Zeevi-Farkash said Hizbullah has been equipped with long-range surface-to-surface rockets that can reach the Tel Aviv area. The general said Hizbullah has at least 30 rockets with ranges of 115 kilometers and 215 kilometers. Another 500 were deemed as medium-range rockets, which can reach a distance of about 75 kilometers.
The intelligence chief said Syria wants to tip some of the Hizbullah rockets with chemical warheads. He said Syria has already been launching tests of CW warheads on medium-range rockets. Hizbullah was said to have more than 13,500 rockets and missiles stationed in southern and eastern Lebanon, Middle East Newsline reported.
Zeevi-Farkash also told the Cabinet that Egypt has foiled a plot to smuggle 60 surface-to-surface rockets to the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian insurgency groups.
Zeevi-Farkash said Hizbullah attempted to smuggle the rockets through the Sinai Peninsula to weapons tunnels that connect with the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah.
Zeevi-Farkash was not quoted as saying whether the rockets were captured or were still in the hands of arms dealers in the Sinai Peninsula. The military intelligence chief said the rocket shipment was blocked before it arrived in Rafah.
In May, Israeli intelligence reported that Palestinian insurgents had ordered a large shipment of rockets, anti-tank missiles, rocket-propelled grenades and surface-to-air missiles. Intelligence officers said a large amount of Cobra RPGs from Egypt's defense industry was smuggled into the Gaza Strip.
Hours later, Palestinian gunners fired anti-tank weapons and Kassam-class short-range missiles toward Israeli communities throughout the Gaza Strip. A Kassam missile landed near a community center in Neve Dekalim and five children were injured.
Israeli officials have termed the Palestinian rocket and missile arsenal a leading threat to the Jewish state. They said Israel and the United States were developing the Mobile Tactical High Energy Laser to respond to the Kassam threat.
Earlier, an Israeli Air Force AH-64A Apache attack helicopter targeted a suspected Hamas weapons workshop in the northern Gaza Strip. Israeli military sources said the facility, which produced Kassam missiles, was struck.
In the West Bank, Israeli border police killed six Fatah insurgents in the northern city of Tulkarm. The insurgents, who included the local Fatah commander, were said to be heading for an attack inside Israel.
Copyright ? 2004 East West Services, Inc.

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CCP newspaper: Beijing believes regional war 'inevitable,' sees U.S. as 'strategic target'
A Chinese Communist Party-owned newspaper reported last week that Chinese leaders plan to resolve the "Taiwan issue" before 2020. The Hong Kong-based Wen Wei Po reported July 15 that the Central Military Commission in Beijing recently met to hear a speech from commission chairman Jiang Zemin and to set a timetable for resolving the Taiwan crisis. The report quoted an informed source as saying that a new world war was unlikely but that "regional wars are inevitable."

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DIA: North Korean missile could deliver bio warhead to U.S.
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N. Korea frequently sought special oil for military use from China
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Chinese hit S. Korean security agencies with organized cyber-attack
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>> BACK TO THE FUTURE?


Back to the past in Iraq
Iraq's new internal intelligence service, the General Security Directorate (GSD), established by the transitional government of Prime Minister Iyad Allawi faces an uphill struggle in its mission to crush the plethora of insurgent groups that have dragged the country to the brink of anarchy.
The GSD, the latest US effort towards remaking Iraq's security apparatus, will include former members of Saddam Hussein's feared security services, collectively known as the Mukhabarat. These former Ba'athists and Saddam loyalists will be expected to hunt down their colleagues currently organising the insurgency.
The US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is supporting the new service, which was unveiled by Allawi after the US-led Coalition handed over sovereignty to his interim government on 28 June 2004. However, the USA is having its own serious problems in functioning effectively in Iraq even though it currently has hundreds of operatives deployed. Before the 2003 invasion, Iraq had been a 'black hole' for the CIA, which found it almost impossible to recruit agents because of Saddam's all-pervasive secret police.
Yet the CIA's vast deployment in Baghdad, Basra, Mosul and other cities has hardly been able to dent the insurgency. In December 2003, the CIA station chief in Baghdad was removed because his ability to lead the complex intelligence operation was in doubt and a more experienced officer was sent in. Since last year's invasion, the CIA's Baghdad station has become the largest in the agency's history, bigger even than the station in Saigon during the Vietnam War. The overall mission in Iraq - originally planned for 85 personnel - presently numbers 500, including 300 full-time 'case officers' running intelligence-gathering operations. With the war on terrorism now covering five continents, US intelligence capabilities are stretched extremely thin, or "beyond the limits" as one informed intelligence source told JID.
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The US and France Tip the Scale in Lebanon's Power Struggle
by Ziad K. Abdelnour
In recent months, the United States and France have put considerable pressure on Syrian President Bashar Assad not to interfere in Lebanon's presidential election this fall, while encouraging Lebanese politicians to exert control over the political process. This unusual display of trans-Atlantic coordination in Middle East policy has begun to reshape political alignments in Lebanon and encourage the growth of a broad-based pro-democracy movement.
Background
The Lebanese constitution stipulates that the president, elected by parliament every six years and by law a member of the Maronite Christian community, may not serve two consecutive terms in office (a proviso intended to prevent office-holders from using their position to secure their own reelection). However, President Emile Lahoud does not want to leave office when his term expires in November and for nearly a year his supporters have been floating the idea that Article 49 of the constitution should be amended to allow for either an extension or renewal of his term.
If Lebanese parliament members were able to vote freely, a constitutional amendment would not even be under discussion. Lahoud's archenemy, Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, has a bloc of over 40 allies in the 128-member parliament (a result of the billionaire's profligate spending in the 2000 election cycle), while another political nemesis of the president, Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, has a 14-member bloc. Since a constitutional amendment allowing Lahoud to stay in office would require the support of a two-thirds majority in parliament (and a two-thirds majority in the cabinet, which Hariri's allies can also defeat),[1] it would not have a prayer of approval unless Syria, which continues to dominate the country militarily and politically, intervenes and instructs them to vote for it.
This has happened before. Several weeks prior to the end of President Elias Hrawi's term in 1995, the head of Syrian military intelligence in Lebanon, Maj. Gen. Ghazi Kanaan, arrived at a party attended by most of Lebanon's political elite and flatly announced that parliament must amend the constitution and extend Hrawi's tenure by three years.[2] Parliament obediently convened later that month and overwhelmingly approved the extension of Hrawi's term. Prior to the election of Lahoud in 1998, Syria forced again forced parliament to override the constitution, which bars officers from entering public office directly from the military (Lahoud was then army chief-of-staff).
On the surface, the willingness of Lebanon's governing elites to set aside their own preferences and implement Syrian will doesn't appear to have changed. In late June, Beirut MP Nabil de Freij, a member of Hariri's parliamentary bloc, openly acknowledged that his bloc's ultimate position on the matter depended on Damascus, which has the "last word in the elections here."[3] Until Syria makes its choice known, however, no one really knows what the reaction will be.
While Lahoud is a strong Syrian ally, Assad has remained tight-lipped on whether he will support an extension. Asked in a May 1 interview with the Arabic satellite news channel Al-Jazeera if he supports a particular candidate for the Lebanese presidency, Assad replied carefully, "Syria will support a non-sectarian president in Lebanon, a president for all the Lebanese people."[4] The statement was deliberately vague. Opponents of Lahoud interpreted the statement as meaning that the next president should have broad-based support. The president's supporters saw it as code for an extension, since Lahoud is, if nothing else, non-sectarian (most members of his own sect loathe him). What wasn't vague about the statement was its implication that Syria would do the choosing. In this and other interviews, Assad did not give the perfunctory "whomever the people choose" reply that heads of state typically offer when asked about foreign elections.
Syria also pressured both opponents and advocates of an extended incumbency to abstain from publicly committing themselves to either position. Lahoud has not publicly declared his intention to stay in office after November, while Hariri has not openly rejected the idea since last summer (when declared that he would shoot himself if "outside" pressures forced him to approve an extension, eliciting a sharp reprimand fro Damascus).[5] In fact, the vast majority of Lebanese politicians have not taken clear positions on the subject. "They all seem baffled and waiting, it's as if they are waiting for the secret word to arrive from Syria," says Baabda MP Bassem Sabaa, one of the few parliament members who have openly declared his opposition to amending the constitution.[6]
Assad imposed this moratorium on discussing extension because he wants to keep his options open for as long as possible - it's easier to pass off a last minute decision as an outgrowth of Lebanese consensus if members of the governing elite haven't already staked out diametrically opposed positions. While Syrian decisions on such important matters have nearly always been announced at the eleventh hour so as allow no time for Lebanese opposition to coalesce, Assad has an even more pressing reason for keeping the "Syrian card" face down for as long as possible - the United States and France both want Lahoud out, so the Syrian dictator is waiting to see what concessions he can get in return for installing a more acceptable president. The fact that Syria's need to shore up its relations with Western governments weighs more heavily on its decision than local political considerations is significant. "The wind is blowing badly for Syria," the diplomat explained, "even its Lebanese allies sense its regional weakening."[7]
The problem with Assad's strategy has been that mainstream Christian opposition figures in Lebanon don't fully observe Syrian guidelines on political expression. Maronite Patriarch Nasrallah Butrous Sfeir announced early this year that he opposes amending the constitution and most members of the mainstream Qornet Shehwan Gathering soon followed. This left Lahoud and his allies in a bind - staying quiet would allow opponents of extension to monopolize the public debate. However, responding to the criticism by publicly advocating extension would risk drawing Hariri and his more numerous allies into announcing their rejection of an extension. Blowing the lid off the debate would not only anger Assad, but would work against the president politically - once a large number of parliament members have expressed opposition to an extension for Lahoud, Syria would do better to choose someone else than to intervene on his behalf without any political cover.
So, until recently, the Lahoud camp remained tight-lipped on the question of extension, focusing instead on undermining the prime minister's credibility (conventional wisdom holds that Hariri will resign if Lahoud's term is extended, so Syria's
choice boils down to Hariri or Lahoud - meaning that their political struggle is basically zero-sum). Hariri's crowning economic (and diplomatic) achievement - persuading the international community to bail out the debt-ridden Lebanese government at the November 2002 Paris II conference - was tarnished when Lahoud's allies later prevented him from honoring the conditions (primarily privatization) of the loan. In recent months, Lahoud's tactics appear to have gotten more unruly. In May, violence erupted between anti-Hariri protestors and Lebanese army units in the Shiite southern suburbs of Beirut, leaving six dead. Why Lahoud sent the military into this area (a highly unusual action, since Hezbollah controls the area)
remains a mystery, but Hariri's allies believe he conspired with the Shiite fundamentalist group to stage the riots in hopes of persuading Syria that the prime minister is a liability.
Outside Impetus
Because of his efforts to sabotage Hariri's economic recovery program and his close cooperation with Hezbollah, Lahoud has long been viewed with distaste in both Paris and Washington. Hariri, in contrast, is a personal friend of French President Jacques Chirac (in part, it is rumored, because of his illicit contributions to the latter's political campaigns) and enjoys close contacts with American officials (he has visited Washington numerous times, while Lahoud has never even been invited).
In recent months, the United States and France have put considerable pressure on Assad to allow a constitutional presidential succession in Lebanon and Chirac has encouraged European governments to do the same. Following the third meeting of the EU-Lebanon Cooperation Council in Brussels on February 24, the European Union issued a press release saying that it "will closely follow the presidential elections to be held in Lebanon later this year," adding that "full respect for constitutional rules, and free and fair elections at regular intervals, are a key feature of democracy."[8] At a joint press conference in Paris on June 5, US President George W. Bush and French President Jacques Chirac made coordinated statements of support for Lebanese sovereignty. "We have expressed renewed conviction and belief that Lebanon has to be ensured that its independence and sovereignty are guaranteed," Chirac declared. His use of the term "ensured" was seen in the Lebanese media as implying that external pressure should be brought to bear on those who compromise this sovereignty. Bush added that "that
the people of Lebanon should be free to determine their own future, without foreign interference or domination."[9]
Just two days after the Bush-Chirac press conference, Assad publicly pledged not to interfere in the choice of Lebanon's next president. "We will support any president that comes through a consensus among the Lebanese," he told the Kuwaiti daily Al-Rai Al-Aam. "The decision on extension is Lebanese. It does not belong to the president of Syria."[10]
Rather than calming the political storm in Lebanon, Assad's neutrality pledge intensified it. Taken at face value, the Syrian pledge would effectively bar Lahoud from continuing in office because Hariri's allies are powerful enough to defeat any proposed constitutional amendment. For this reason, the prime minister and his allies quickly sought to portray the pledge as having been intended at face value. Speaking to reporters during an official visit to Bulgaria on June 9, Hariri said that Assad's statement was a "call on potential presidential aspirants in Lebanon to come forth and declare their political programs."[11] Within a few days, two Maronite politicians - Western Beqaa MP Robert Ghanem and Batroun MP Boutros Harb - did exactly that, joining MP Nayla Mouawad as the only candidates in the race.
The Lahoud camp struck back on June 11, when the head of the Lebanese branch of Syria's ruling Baath party, Assem Qanso, declared that he supports extending or renewing Lahoud's term in office. Because of Qanso's close ties to both Syrian intelligence and the president, his statement was widely seen as an attempt to "dilute" Assad's neutrality pledge. The Hariri camp and the mainstream Christian opposition loudly protested. Al-Nahar newspaper, whose editor, Gibran Tueni, is a staunch critic of Lahoud, reported that Qanso "received a harsh scolding from Syria" after making his remarks, but no one was really sure whether it was the Lahoud camp, or Syria itself, that was trying to "dilute" Assad's pledge. Qanso later issued a clarification, saying, "I do support an extension or renewal for President Lahoud, but my position is not an echo to what Syria wants." However, he added that "anyone who opposes Lahoud after his term is extended or renewed would then be an opponent of Syria."[12] The most plausible interpretation is that Assad wanted to temper the impact in Lebanon of his neutrality pledge (which was clearly made as a result of external pressure) without actually retracting or qualifying it himself
The Opposition Unites
Until recently, the political struggle between pro-Hariri and pro-Lahoud factions of the governing elite was viewed with ambivalence by pro-democracy opposition groups in Lebanon. Although mainstream Christian opposition figures objected to an extension, they also feared the prospect that Hariri would win out and secure the election of a weak president (like Hrawi). While a number of leftist factions have been at the forefront of opposition to the Syrian occupation in recent years, they have tended to view the prime minister as being worse than Lahoud because of his anti-labor economic policies and greater role in institutionalizing corruption in the political class. The two main nationalist groups - the Free National Current, led by Michel Aoun, and the Lebanese Forces (LF), led by the jailed Samir Geagea - have viewed the prime minister and president as equally pernicious outgrowths of Syrian hegemony.
On June 17, however, opposition leaders from across Lebanon's intricate political and sectarian spectrum gathered together and issued the most broad-based and uncompromising anti-government challenge the Arab world has seen in many years. "The current authority is a threat to Lebanon's future . . . we the undersigned are seeking change, a peaceful change by democratic means," read what is now known as the Beirut Declaration.[13] Although not explicitly stated, the "democratic" change called for in the declaration means above all the replacement of Lahoud in November. The organizers of the Beirut Declaration had originally planned to unveil the document at a prominent Beirut hotel on June 20, but the owners of the venue backed out at the last minute, claiming to have come under pressure from the intelligence services (which Lahoud controls). Instead, the declaration was released at a hastily arranged news conference at the Press Federation.
Significantly, the declaration was signed by leaders of two key leftist groups - the Democratic Forum and the Movement for a Democratic Left (MDL). The Democratic Forum, a mainly Muslim party led by former Bint Jbeil MP Habib Sadeq, held its own conference in mid-June, entitled "the National Campaign for the Protection of the Constitution and Defending the Republic," and explicitly voiced its opposition to Lahoud. "The extension of the term of the last president and the current quest to amend the Constitution . . . [are] flagrant violations against our nation and the rights of its citizens," said Sadeq in his address to the forum.[14] The MDL, led by Communist leader Elias Atallah, was formed in February with a more explicitly anti-Syrian platform.[15]
Meanwhile, the Lahoud and Hariri camps continued their tit-for-tat departure from the Syrian-imposed moratorium on discussion of extension during the last week of June. Former Parliament Speaker Hussein al-Husseini issued perhaps the starkest rejection of extension yet by a major political figure, declaring that "these fantasies are an attempt to change the system, undermine the essence of the [1989 Taif Accord] settlement and lay the groundwork for civil war."[16] A day later, former Interior Minister Michel Murr, Lahoud's in-law and father of current Interior Minister Elias Murr, declared that the constitution will be amended in September to allow for a prolongation of the president's tenure. Hariri struck back the next day by declaring, with equal confidence, before the 10th Arab Investment and Capital Market Conference in Beirut that "at the end of the day, Lebanon has a democratic system, and there is a rotation in authority. There is no person with a post that doesn't eventually change."[17]
On July 2, Health Minister Suleiman Franjieh - one of Syria's closest allies in Lebanon - dropped a bombshell. "I, Suleiman Franjieh, oppose the extension," he declared, adding that press leaks by "extensionists" claiming that Syria supports Lahoud's continuation in office after November 23 "are merely smoke bombs." While acknowledging that an extension of Lahoud's term is possible, Franjieh called it "the option with the least chances."[18]
The defection of Franjieh, who is known to have presidential ambitions and gets along with Hariri, appears to have weakened the Lahoud camp. On July 4, Hezbollah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah expressed doubts about the viability of extension. "Some people keep telling us that it is necessary to amend the constitution in order to resolve our problems. But we all know that the issue is more complicated than that." Nasrallah said.[19]
Meanwhile, the Bush administration is sending clear signals to Lebanon's governing elite that it opposes extension. Rep. Ray LaHood (R-IL) , a congressman of Lebanese descent who frequently communicates the administration's views during his trips to Lebanon, met with Hariri on July 10 and told reporters: "Our country, the US, thinks it is absolutely critically important . . . that there not be an amendment . . . the elections must be carried out."[20] Although US Ambassador Vincent Battle has not publicly expressed the administration's position on the matter, he offered a revealing hint as he rose to depart from a dinner held in his honor on July 12. Urged by the guests to stay longer, he replied with a smile: "la tamdid" (no extension).[21]
It appears that United States and France intend to push even more aggressively for a constitutional presidential succession in the months ahead (Syrian and American officials will reportedly meet in Rome in late July to discuss the issue).[21] This presents Assad with a vexing Catch-22: if he caves into the pressure, he will effectively relinquish some of Syria's authority over Lebanon and allow the West to make further inroads into the country's political process; if he doesn't, Syria will further isolate itself internationally and alienate most of Lebanon's governing elite.
Notes
[1] Technically speaking, the prime minister can prevent the cabinet from even considering an amendment because he alone has the constitutional authority to call cabinet meetings.
[2] The London-based Arabic daily Al-Hayat published the following account of the incident: "Kanaan then raised his hand,

saying that the vote would take place by a raising of hands and would not be secret . . . Everyone looked as if they had just

been through a cold shower . . . The party broke up early. Presidential hopefuls departed with their wives, one complaining

of tiredness, another saying he had a headache." Al-Hayat (London), 2 October 1995. See also "Syria wants Lebanese

legislators to extend Hrawi's term for three years by a show of hands," Mideast Mirror, 2 October 1995.
[3] "MP: Politicians lack courage to speak up on mandate," The Daily Star (Beirut), 26 June 2004.
[4] Al-Jazeera Satellite TV (Qatar), 1 May 2004 (Federal News Service translation, 5 May 2004).
[5] The Daily Star (Beirut), 22 August 2003.
[6] "MP: Politicians lack courage to speak up on mandate," The Daily Star (Beirut), 26 June 2004.
[7] "Lebanon's presidential race starts, with the Syrian card face down," Agence France Presse, 15 June 2004.
[8] Statement by the European Union on the third meeting of the EU-Lebanon Cooperation Council, Brussels, 18 February 2004.

Italics added for emphasis.
[9] Remarks by President Bush and President Chirac in a Joint Press Availability, The White House, Office of the Press

Secretary, 5 June 2004.
[10] Al-Rai Al-Aam (Kuwait) 7 June 2004.
[11] Al-Nahar (Beirut), 10 June 2004.
[12] Al-Nahar (Beirut), 15 June 2004.
[13] Naharnet.com; The French daily Le Monde published the entire text of the five-page declaration on June 21.
[14] "Lahoud's term in the spotlight," The Daily Star (Beirut), 16 June 2004.
[15] "The Syrian leadership's treatment of Lebanon . . . has allowed the destruction of all attempts at rebuilding the

state, has emptied its institutions of their effectiveness and transformed them into meaningless instruments at the service

of material and political ambitions," the MDL declared in its first official public statement in February 2004.
[16] Naharnet.com (Beirut), 23 June 2004.
[17] "Hariri: Investors should ignore bickering," The Daily Star, 25 June 2004.
[18] Al-Nahar (Beirut), 3 July 2004.
[19] The Daily Star (Beirut), 6 July 2004.
[20] "US congressman opposes amending the constitution," The Daily Star (Beirut), 12 July 2004.
[21] Al-Nahar (Beirut), 14 July 2004.
[22] "Damascus gives opinion on presidential elections in September," The Daily Star (Beirut), 13 July 2004.
? 2004 Middle East Intelligence Bulletin. All rights reserved.



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US 9/11 Probe Misses Saudi-Iranian-Syrian Rescue Operation for Saudi Terrorists
DEBKAfile Special Report
July 21, 2004, 4:05 PM (GMT+02:00)
A potential mine of terrorist information
20 July: Anxious to blunt the general impression that their findings are tainted by the US presidential election campaign,

the Sept. 11 commission whose report comes out Thursday, July 23, finds this horror was preventable - but assigns no blame,

whether to the Clinton or the Bush administrations.
Furthermore, the recommendation to appoint a cabinet-level chief for all 15 intelligence agencies is unlikely to be carried

out before the November election. Even when it is, calling up an idyll of cooperation between the CIA and the FBI would

stretch the imagination.
In 1996, after participating in the inquiry into the Aldrich Ames affair, the late Senator Patrick Moynihan declared the

entire CIA should be torn down and rebuilt. That was not feasible either.
But shortly afterwards, in April 1997, the CIA and the FBI both found out that Osama bin Laden was preparing to attack New

York?s World Trade Center ? and did nothing.
However it will be much harder to ignore Sandy Berger, Clinton?s national security adviser, being caught filching terror

papers from the National Archives, in advance of his testimony to the panel. n particular, questions are bound to be asked

about three missing documents, one an ?after-action report? criticizing the Clinton administration?s handling of al Qaeda

millennium threats and identifying American vulnerabilities at airports and sea ports in the year.
This paper was penned one year before the September 11 attack.
The 9/11 commission has gained considerable attention by ?discovering? that Iran had given free passage to five al Qaeda

terrorists who took part in that attack. The Iranians shrugged off the accusation with the comment that the long Iranian-

Afghan border is easily breached undetected by anyone who wants to sneak across.
Neither Tehran nor the Senate members are revealing the real story of Iran-al Qaeda relations, or its contemporary sequels.

Neither do they name the third and fourth parties to the relationship. That story began eight years ago with the June 25,

1996 al Qaeda truck bomb that blew the facade off the Khobar Towers in the eastern Saudi town of Dhahran, where US crews who

flew the warplanes protecting Saudi oil fields were quartered. The attack claimed 19 American lives and left 500 maimed, some

gravely.
Already then, Iran not only allowed al Qaeda terrorists to pass through its territory but provided the intelligence and

logistical support for the attack. According to DEBKAfile?s counter-terror sources, the Saudis extracted this information

from Saudi al Qaeda assailants who fled to Damascus after the bombing. Syria later extradited them with the provisos that

Riyadh not turn them over to the United States or permit American investigators to interrogate them. Riyadh kept faith with

Damascus. However the Iranians, upon learning that the captured Saudi terrorists had revealed their role in the Khobar Towers

attack, rushed former Iranian president Hashem Rafsanjani over to Riyadh for damage control. The upshot was a secret Saudi-

Iranian deal whereby Riyadh kept mum to Washington on Iran?s complicity in the assault on US troops in return for Tehran

barring Iranian soil as a base for al Qaeda or any other terrorist attacks on the oil kingdom.
Saudi rulers were therefore bound to silence by under-the-table deals with both Syria and Iran. Muzzling the Saudi al Qaeda

members involved in the Khobar attack kept the heat away from both these terrorist sponsoring governments in the critical

years of the latter half of the 1990s and up to 2000. During this period, Saudi nationals were drawn deep into bin Laden?s

machine of terror. The free passage of Saudi terrorists from their home towns to Afghanistan and back via Iran was routine in

those years and an open secret to every intelligence and counter-terror agent in the Middle East and Persian Gulf.
In October 2001, after the Sept 11 attacks provoked the invasion of Afghanistan, Iran extended a helping hand once again when

Saudi intelligence asked for permission to use Iranian airspace for a secret emergency airlift to evacuate most of bin Laden

?s Saudi combatants from the besieged northern Afghan town of Konduz.
DEBKA-Net-Weekly broke the news of that airlift at the time, together with word of Iran?s offer of safe passage to Saudi

fighters fleeing other battle arenas like Kandahar and Tora Bora.
By helping Saudi fugitives reach safety, Tehran turned the tables on Riyadh. Whereas before this episode, Iran was at Saudi

mercy over its involvement in the Khobar bombing, now the Saudis depended on Iranian silence to conceal their nationals?

massive participation in the Afghan war and correlatively the 9/11 attacks.
From that time on, the ayatollahs considered themselves released from their earlier bargain with the princes. On May 12,

2003, al Qaeda terrorists based in Iran were allowed to strike three Riyadh compounds occupied by Westerners. This decision

was strengthened by intelligence reaching Tehran, as well as US and Middle East spy agencies, that senior princes of the

Sudairi branch of the royal house, including interior minister Prince Nayef who was charged with combating terror and King

Fahd?s son Abdelaziz, were in secret dialogue with al Qaeda leaders.
All the intelligence data revealed here was known to the Clinton and Bush administrations and brought before both presidents.
Even now, the Saudi-Iranian-Syrian al Qaeda deal works when it suits the parties.
Tehran enabled senior bin Laden association sheikh Muhammed Khaled al-Harby, known also as Suleiman al-Makki, to turn himself

into Saudi authorities under the month-long royal amnesty Crown Prince Abdullah offered al Qaeda terrorists on June 23, 2004

He is said to have contacted the Saudi embassy in Tehran from his hideout on the Iran-Afghan border and flown to Riyadh. A

widely-broadcast videotape found in Afghanistan showed bin Laden showing al Harby, who is married to the daughter of bin

Laden?s No. 2 Ayman Zuwahiri, how the New York Trade Center bombing was carried out soon after the event.
US authorities hope for Saudi cooperation in questioning the sheikh, who could shed much light on the US Sept. 11 inquiry.

They may be disappointed. DEBKAfile?s counter-terror sources report that just before the US invasion of Afghanistan, al-Habry

and family went through Iran to Syria. His family still lives there. The Saudis are clamming up on the exact circumstances of

his surrender. The common intelligence assumption is that for the last three years he lived at a secret location in Syria.

But the Assad regime found it more convenient for him to turn himself in from Iran in line with the still functioning

arrangements between the four parties.
This semi-hidden transaction and other signs seem to indicate that Saudi Arabia, Iran and Syria, each for its own interests,

have decided to join forces to repatriate all Saudi al Qaeda veterans who were complicit in orchestrating the 9/11 attacks

and no longer active.
Al Kharby, who lost both feet on the battlefields of Afghanistan, is one. Another is Ibrahim al-Sadiq al-Kaidi who last

Saturday, July 17, returned to home to Saudi Arabia after presenting himself at the Saudi mission in Damascus and accepting

the royal amnesty. Riyadh is unlikely to allow US investigators to question him too under the terms of its accord with Syria.
The committee?s conclusion that America had more reason to go to war against Iran than Iraq is based on a fallacious,

possibly political, comparison. Al Qaeda?s presence in Saddam Hussein?s Iraq from 1996 was quite separate from the Tehran-

Riyadh-Damascus-al Qaeda arrangements. It has everything to do with the general terror offensive bin Laden has since launched

against the Saudi kingdom and his organization?s war against the US presence in Iraq. The thousands of Saudi terrorists who

wended their way to and from Afghanistan through Iran are now fighting American troops in Iraq.

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What's Iran Got to Do With It?

Monday, July 26, 2004
By Liza Porteus
NEW YORK ? While the Sept. 11 commission found that contacts between Al Qaeda (search) and Iraq existed in the past, it also

pointed to another country with potential ties to the terror network: Iran.
The report released Thursday by the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (search) says that

detained terrorists, possibly including Al Qaeda operational planners Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh, confirmed

that several of the Sept. 11 hijackers traveled through Iran en route to or from Afghanistan.
At least eight of the hijackers took advantage of the Iranian practice of not stamping Saudi passports, the captured terror

suspects allegedly said. They denied any other reason for the hijackers' travel through Iran.
In his State of the Union address in January 2002, President Bush (search) included Iran ? along with Iraq and North Korea ?

in the so-called "axis of evil."
Former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani said Friday that it was not certain that the hijackers passed through his

country.
"Every day, thousands of people come and go. ... Such people usually carry false passports. Moreover, many can illegally

cross the border. It has been always like this," Rafsanjani said in a sermon. "Even if it's true that they have passed

through Iran, can you really incriminate Iran with this bit of information?"
Binalshibh is a suspected coordinator of the Sept 11. attacks on the United States and has acknowledged meeting with Mohamed

Atta (search), the leader of the hijackers and pilot of one of the commercial jetliners that demolished the World Trade

Center's twin towers. Binalshibh and Atta, an Egyptian, met in July 2001.
Shaikh Mohammed reportedly was the head of Usama bin Laden's terror operations and was the mastermind of the Sept. 11

attacks, the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in Kenya, the Bali nightclub bombings, the murder of Wall Street Journal reporter

Daniel Pearl and other Al Qaeda attacks.
The two captured terrorists denied any relationship between the hijackers and Lebanese Hezbollah, the Iranian-sponsored

Shiite militant organization that is on the U.S. State Department list of terrorist groups, according to the Sept. 11

commission's report.
'We Know of a Relationship'
There is strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of Al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before Sept. 11;

some were future 9/11 hijackers, the report concluded.
There is also circumstantial evidence that senior Lebanese Hezbollah operatives were closely tracking the travel of some of

the hijackers into Iran in November 2000.
"We know of that kind of collaboration," commission co-chairman Thomas Kean, a former Republican governor of New Jersey, said

of the Iran-Al Qaeda relationship Thursday. But he said there's "no evidence whatsoever" that either Iran or Lebanese

Hezbollah knew the specifics of the attacks or helped further plans for them.
"We know of a relationship; how deep that relationship is ... that's going to require more research," Kean said.
The panel's other co-chairman, Lee Hamilton, said that relationship "really does need more investigation."
"It is our view that Al Qaeda planned this operation and carried it out by themselves," added Hamilton, a former Democratic

representative from Indiana.
Former Justice Department prosecutor John Loftus told FOX News that it is no secret Iran funded and housed training schools,

like the Mashad school, for terror groups such as Al Qaeda, Lebanese Hezbollah and Palestinian Islamic Jihad. Al Qaeda

members got to use the schools for free, Loftus said.
"Iran is the last rogue state really funding Al Qaeda," he told FOX News. "They're doing a pretty good job of this. It's more

than just telling the border guards, 'When the Al Qaeda guys come through, don't put a stamp on their passport so they can't

trace them back to Iran.'"
"This was knowing, willful assistance," Loftus said. "This is a notch higher, something that the intelligence community

missed."
Loftus, who had access to some of the highest security clearances when he was a prosecutor, said that the June 1996 Khobar

Towers bombing in Saudi Arabia was planned in Iran by Al Qaeda and Lebanese Hezbollah operatives. The bombings killed 19 U.S.

soldiers and wounded 372 more.
"The Saudis were trying to cook together a deal with Iran saying, 'You keep the Al Qaeda out of Saudi Arabia and we won't

tell the Americans that you, Iran, were one of the evil partners behind the Khobar Towers attack,'" Loftus said. "[The]

Saudis have learned that you can't make a deal like that. It's a devil's bargain."
No Evidence of an 'Official Connection'
Interim CIA Director John McLaughlin said on FOX News Sunday that it was not surprising that eight of the Sept. 11 hijackers

passed through Iran.
"Iran has been on the list of state sponsors of terrorism for many years," McLaughlin said. "Iran is the place where [

Lebanese] Hezbollah, an organization that killed more Americans that Al Qaeda before Sept. 11, draws its inspiration and its

finances."
He said the United States has "ample evidence" of people of ill repute allowed to move throughout Iran.
"However, I would stop there and say we have no evidence that there is some sort of official sanction by the government of

Iran for this activity," McLaughlin said. "We have no evidence that there is some sort of official connection between Iran

and Sept. 11."
Bush Vows to Continue Checking Iran Connection
President Bush said Monday the United States was exploring whether Iran had any role in the Sept. 11 attacks.
"We're digging into the facts to see if there was one," Bush said in an Oval Office photo opportunity. "We will continue to

look and see if the Iranians were involved ... I have long expressed my concerns about Iran. After all, it's a totalitarian

society where people are not allowed to exercise their rights as human beings."
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said it had been known that there were senior Al Qaeda members in Iran "for some time" and

that Iran had been helping Lebanese Hezbollah in moving terrorists down through Syria into Lebanon, then down into Israel.
"So we know that Iran has been on the terrorist list," Rumsfeld said. "We know that Iran has been notably unhelpful along the

border of both Afghanistan and Iraq."
Some experts wonder whether Tehran will be the next U.S. target in the War on Terror. Loftus said one option the United

States could utilize to put pressure on Iran to stop its supposed dirty deeds ? such as allegedly trying to make nuclear

weapons ? would be to establish a naval blockade.
American and British officials may ask the United Nations for action against Iran, Loftus added. Meetings are planned for

September and November on the topic.
"My suspicion is, in September we'll really have evidence that Iran is lying through their teeth," Loftus said. "We'll put in

a naval blockade and without oil exports, in three weeks the economy of Iran will collapse and it will either be neutered or

there will be a regime change from within."
"We're not going to invade Iran but [are] probably going to blockade it with the full backing of the United Nations," he

continued. "That's what is in store for the fall."
FOX News foreign affairs analyst Alireza Jafarzedeh noted that besides the Sept. 11 report detailing the known Iran-Al Qaeda

ties, Iraqi officials have said Iran is the main source of foreign fighters behind the insurgency in Iraq.
"I think it all boils down to what policy the U.S. wants to pursue to contain the threat of Iran's nuclear weapons and the

bigger problems Iran is posing," Jafarzedeh said. "They [U.S.] should pursue a zero-tolerance policy."
FOX News' Bret Baier and Trish Turner contributed to this report.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Russia sticks with Iran
By Sergei Blagov
MOSCOW - Russia has indicated that an agreement on delivering nuclear fuel rods - which can be used to obtain plutonium -

could be finalized this year. Last week, the head of Russia's nuclear energy agency, Alexander Rumyantsev, told the Iranian

ambassador to Russia that the deal on the return of spent rods to Russia could be clinched during his upcoming trip to

Tehran, tentatively set for October.
This agreement was reported as close to being signed last September, but nothing happened. The deal would open the way for

Russia's nuclear supplies to Iran. Moreover, in October, Russia and Iran are expected to sign a protocol of intent on the

construction of Bushehr-2 reactor, according to Russian media reports.
Russia has said it would freeze construction on the US$1 billion Bushehr nuclear plant and would not begin delivering fuel

rods for the reactor until Iran signed an agreement that would oblige it to return all of the spent fuel to Russia for

reprocessing and storage. Sending the spent fuel out of the country would ensure that Iran could not reprocess it into

material that could be used in nuclear weapons.
According to Russia's Federal Nuclear Energy Agency, the first power unit of the Bushehr nuclear station is 90% ready: all

heavy equipment, including the reactor, has been brought and assembled. The Russian agency noted that what was left to do was

"assemble and tune up control equipment as well as control in the reactor zone".
Russia has long been under fire for its help in building the Bushehr nuclear plant. Russian President Vladimir Putin has

brushed off repeated US demands that it cancel the Bushehr 1,000-megawatt light-water nuclear-reactor project.
Last month, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Mohammed ElBaradei, said Russia's construction of

Iran's first nuclear reactor was "no longer at the center of international concern". Bushehr was a bilateral project between

Russia and Iran to produce nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, he said after talks with Putin in Moscow.
Yet Moscow's insistence on its nuclear deal with Tehran continues to cause lively debate internationally as the US and Israel

accuse Iran of seeking to produce nuclear weapons. This month, US Secretary of State Colin Powell claimed at a joint press

conference with Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom in Washington that Iran was "pursuing nuclear-weapons development, or

worse, acquiring a nuclear weapon".
Iran's Foreign Ministry said Powell's remarks were "a source of disgrace" for the US administration. "The US is not following

an independent policy towards Iran's nuclear programs but instead is toeing the line of the Zionist regime," said a ministry

spokesman.
Iranian Defense Minister Admiral Ali Shamkhani has warned that the Islamic Republic will abandon its commitments to the IAEA

if its nuclear installations are attacked. "If there is a military attack, that would mean that the IAEA has been collecting

this information to prepare for an attack," he said.
There has been widespread speculation that Israel might attack Iran's nuclear facilities, and it has reportedly conducted

military exercises for such a preemptive strike by long-range F-15I jets, flying over Turkey. An Israeli defense source in

Tel Aviv told the London Sunday Times that Israel would on no account permit the Iranian Bushehr reactor to go critical. The

Sunday Times also quoted a senior US official warning of a preemptive Israeli strike if Russia continued cooperating with the

Iranians. He said Washington was unlikely to block Israeli attacks against Bushehr and other Iranian targets, including a

facility at Natanz, where the Iranians have attempted to enrich uranium, and a plant at Arak.
Under the Iranian deal with Moscow, waste produced at the Bushehr plant containing plutonium that could be used in bomb-

making would be shipped back to Russia for storage, but the material must first be "cooled", providing Iran with what

Washington fears could be up to two years in which to extract the plutonium.
Israel estimates that Iran will be able to build a nuclear bomb by 2007, said an intelligence report delivered to Prime

Minister Ariel Sharon in private and recently leaked in part to the media.
A senior US official told the London Times that the United States would take action to overturn the regime in Iran if

President George W Bush is elected for a second term in November. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the

newspaper that Bush would provide assistance to Iran's population to help them revolt against the ruling theocracy.
Iran has remained a sore point in Russian-US relations, despite a new wave of cooperation after September 11, 2001. Although

Russia's insistence on its nuclear ties with Iran seems inflammatory, to say the least, Moscow still insists it is driven by

mainly commercial interests. Russia's nuclear executives have claimed that "competitors" were trying to undermine Russia's

nuclear energy exports.
Obviously, the $1 billion Bushehr reactor is a big deal for Russia financially. But in addition the issue fuels Middle

Eastern volatility, which keeps crude-oil prices high, something of true interest to Moscow.
Oil and natural gas account for about one-fifth of Russia's economy and bring more than half of its export revenue. Russia

overtook Saudi Arabia as the world's largest oil producer in the first five months of this year. Because of booming exports

and high crude prices, Russia's currency reserves have reached an unprecedented $90 billion, a nearly ninefold increase in

little more than five years. Russia's private oil companies (except embattled Yukos) are also flush with cash.
However, Russia's growth in oil output and exports could falter next year as companies deplete fields and pipelines run at

full capacity. Therefore, sustaining high oil and other commodity prices by any means could be of interest to Moscow.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales

and syndication policies.)

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N Korea chooses guns over butter
By Ehsan Ahrari
The United States is once again reminded that North Korea is playing hardball when it comes to continuing its nuclear weapons

program. As recently as July 25, Pyongyang seems to have rejected the "butter for guns" proposal made by the administration

of US President George W Bush. The operative phrase here is "seems to have rejected", largely because US officials remain

uncertain that the communist Korea is definitely making that statement and categorically saying "no".
(The Bush administration has urged North Korea to take Libya's approach - declare and dismantle its weapons program and

invite in weapons inspectors in return for diplomatic recognition and economic aid.)
The Bush administration entered office scornful of the Agreed Framework that the Clinton administration had negotiated with

North Korea. The then new administration was to offer no olive branch of continuing the negotiating process with Kim Jong-

il's regime where Clinton officials had left off. The US was to get tough with North Korea. When Secretary of State Collin

Powell publicly stated the strategy of recommencing the negotiating process on the basis of continuity with the previous

administration, Bush personally vetoed him. The two countries were left with no active contacts on nuclear issues, as other

related events took their course.
Then, during the period of shrill rhetoric following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, Bush prominently listed

North Korea as part of an "axis of evil", along with Iran and Iraq, and stated unequivocally that the US would seek to

deprive them of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). One must also recall Bush's national security strategy that was issued in

September 2002, when the dual doctrines of proactive counter proliferation and regime change were formalized. All "axis of

evil" countries were following that rhetoric with rapt attention.
Then in March 2003, that rhetoric became operational in the toppling of Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. The US invasion of Iraq

was originally carried out on the pretext of depriving that country of the opportunity to develop WMD. If North Korea had any

doubts about the seriousness of America's resolve to invade a country of the "axis of evil", the March 2003 action against

Iraq removed it once and for all. Since regime survival is the primary motivation of all governments, Kim Jong-il views his

own nuclear weapons program as the ultimate guarantee against meeting the same fate as Saddam. The Iraqi nuclear weapons

program, as the world came to know definitively after the invasion, could not be resuscitated once it was uprooted under the

auspices of the United Nations in the early- to-mid-1990s.
One must also recall the US's earnestness regarding the proliferation security initiative (PSI). Established in May 2003,

this regime includes the creation of international agreements and partnerships that would allow the US and its allies to

search planes and ships carrying suspect cargo and seize illegal weapons or missile technologies. Initially, Australia,

France, Germany, Italy, Japan, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain and the United Kingdom joined this arrangement,

which, according to the Bush administration statement of September 4, 2003, underscores "the need for proactive measures to

combat the threat from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction". Even though it is consistent with UN's 1992

statement, which declares that the proliferation all WMD constitutes a threat to international and security, the PSI remains

outside the purview of the world body. At the same time, it is also in harmony with the recent statements of the Group of

Eight industrialized nations and the European Union that call for the creation of coherent and concerted efforts to prevent

proliferation of WMD.
It should also be pointed out that the PSI also has its critics. Such countries as China, Canada, Brazil, Russia, South

Korea, India and Pakistan have expressed their concern in the past that the US seeks to use PSI as an instrument of

strengthening its supremacy in the production of cutting-edge nuclear, ballistic, biological and chemical technology and to

control global transportation routes.
Bush targets Korea
Bush, in a speech made at the Air Force Academy in June, named North Korea as one of the specific targets of the PSI.
"Because this global threat requires a global response, we are working to strengthen international institutions charged with

opposing proliferation," Bush said. "We are working with regional powers and international partners to confront the threats

of North Korea and Iran. We have joined with 14 other nations in the Proliferation Security Initiative to interdict - on sea,

on land, or in the air - shipments of weapons of mass destruction, components to build those weapons, and the means to

deliver them. Our country must never allow mass murderers to gain hold of weapons of mass destruction. We will lead the world

and keep unrelenting pressure on the enemy."
Under these circumstances, North Korea finds little reasons to abandon its nuclear program. The six-nation dialogue under the

proactive participation of the People's Republic of China, North Korea's chief interlocutor, has not emerged as a productive

forum providing confidence for Pyongyang to offer meaningful concessions. One frequently mentioned explanation is that North

Korea is awaiting the outcome of the American presidential elections. That is not an untenable course of action under the

general expectations that, if elected, John Kerry would be decidedly more interested in negotiating the denuclearization of

North Korea than Bush.
Moving away from personalities and personal preferences of Bush or Kerry, the stakes are indeed high for North Korea. As

ruthless a regime as Kim Jong-il presides over, neither he nor his neighbors are interested in the highly impetuous notion of

regime change through military invasion. So, North Korea will wait and see whether Kerry will continue his present rhetoric

of negotiating with friends and foes to resolve regional and global conflicts, or whether he will change that rhetoric once

in office. After all, Bush also paid lip service to the notion of humility in international relations while running for office.
Even with Kerry's assurances, North Korea is not likely to completely abandon its nuclear weapons option. There is a frequent mentioning of North Korea following the example of Libya and doing away with its nuclear weapons option. North Korea and Libya belong to two entirely different categories of nation states. The nuclear weapons program in North Korea is way ahead of Libya's own nuclear program when Muammar Gaddafi decided to unravel it. Besides, Libya has no powerful friend or interlocutor arguing its case with great powers or with the lone superpower. Libya is a desert state and an open target for a potential American pre-emptive attack. That was one of the chief motivating factors that drove Gaddafi to do away with his nuclear program. North Korea, on the contrary, is capable of causing much devastation to South Korea or even Japan. North Korea also has in its vicinity a sizeable number of American troops, more than 30,000, whose security is also a driving force for a pre-emption-oriented Bush administration.
On top of it all, the United States has learned a bitter lesson in Iraq: It may be easy to conquer a nation militarily; however, ruling it in peace is an undoable task, even for the lone superpower. But North Korea is not interested in such historical lessons. It must survive and that survival, in the final analysis, will only be guaranteed by acquiring nuclear weapons.
Ehsan Ahrari is an independent strategic analyst in Alexandria, Virginia.
(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)

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GAO: Pentagon Bloat Hurting Readiness
Monday, July 26, 2004
By Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
WASHINGTON ? Most government bureaucracies are hobbled by bloat, but in the case of the Department of Defense, the fat and mismanagement have begun to hurt military readiness in the field, according to a government study.
On July 7, the Government Accountability Office (search), formerly the General Accounting Office, released a report detailing how financial and business mismanagement is crippling the Pentagon. Key problems facing the military include National Guard (search) soldiers who don?t get paid, necessary equipment and supplies that don?t reach the soldiers in the field, and billions of dollars that get sucked into the black hole of bureaucracy each year.
"These instances are troubling because they hinder operational effectiveness," said Rep. Todd R. Platts, R-Pa., chairman of the Government Efficiency and Financial Management Subcommittee of the House Government Reform Committee (search).
He said the report should be interpreted, in part, as an alarm bell for soldiers' safety in the war theater. "Americans should be rightly outraged that this kind of system has been allowed to exist."
Platts held a hearing on the day the report was released to discuss the problems issued by the study, entitled, "Department of Defense: Long-standing Problems Continue to Impede Financial and Business Management Transformation."
For example, the report showed that of the 481 mobilized Army National Guard soldiers in six GAO case studies, 450 had at least one pay problem associated with their mobilization. According to Gregory D. Kutz, director of Financial Management and Assurance for the GAO, the problems have hurt retention.
"DOD?s inability to provide timely and accurate payments to these soldiers, many of whom risked their lives in recent Iraq or Afghanistan missions, distracted from their missions, imposed financial hardships on the soldiers and their families and has had a negative impact on retention," he said in the study and in testimony before the subcommittee.
The report also found that DOD incurred "substantial logistical support problems" in Operation Iraqi Freedom. In simple terms, those problems amounted to shortages in field supplies, backlogs of materials delivered to the wrong place in the war theater, cannibalization of vehicles due to a lack of new parts, unnecessary duplicate supply orders and a missing $1.2 billion in supplies that were shipped but apparently never received.
To highlight these problems, the GAO said that a 2003 analysis of more than 50,000 maintenance work orders opened during the deployment of six Navy battle groups showed that 58 percent of them could not be completed because they didn?t have the repair parts available on the ships.
"Such problems not only have a detrimental impact on mission readiness," said Kutz, "they also may increase operational costs."
A spokesperson at the DOD told FOXNews.com that the safety of the soldiers is always the top priority.
"The needs and requirements of the young men and women in the field are our number one priority. While we have no specific examples where mismanagement caused pay errors or a delay in the delivery of critical operational supplies, we recognize that problems caused by systems, training or process failure can adversely affect morale and readiness," the spokesperson said in a statement.
In one notable case, however, the GAO found that the DOD was selling chemical-biological weapons protection suits over the Internet for $3 while an audit indicated the department paid upwards of $200 each for them. Furthermore, the study found that the DOD mistakenly sold thousands of defective chem-bio suits to law enforcement agencies across the country.
Also, millions of dollars have been lost or squandered on airline tickets in the last several years, according to the report, which found that nearly 58,000 tickets totaling $21 million were paid for by the Pentagon in 2001 and 2002, though they were never used.
About 72 percent of the 68,000 premium class tickets that were paid for by the Pentagon in 2001 and 2002 were not properly authorized, and 73 percent not properly justified, said the GAO. During those years, the department spent $124 million on business class tickets. The report also found out that at least $8 million was lost due to the Pentagon paying twice for airline tickets, reimbursing personnel who never paid for the airfare in the first place.
Taken together, said Kutz, "these problems have left the department vulnerable to billions of dollars of fraud, waste and abuse annually, at a time of increasing fiscal restraint."
Chuck Pena, director of defense policy studies, said the problem is not necessarily the lack of money, but the bloat of money, and particularly money getting lost and going to the wrong places. He advocates strategic cuts in the budget, plain and simple.
"Until all the parties including the military, the civilian leadership and the Congress agree to do the right thing, you will continue to have this out-of-control budget elephant," he said, adding that it could affect the DOD's most important missions ? like the War on Terror (search).
"At the very micro-level, there are some things that need to be fixed if people are in the field and they are not getting what they need when it's bought and paid for," he said.
Jack Spencer, a senior policy analyst at the Heritage Foundation (search), said the problems associated with the massive Pentagon bureaucracy ? which accounts for over $2.5 trillion in assets and liabilities, approximately 3.3 million military personnel and annual disbursements of over $416 billion ? have petrified over the decades.
"Over the years, the Pentagon, like any other government agency, has become bloated and imbued by red tape," he said, noting

that bureaucracies "much prefer the status quo," so it is difficult to induce change, creating stagnation in thinking and

reform.
"That?s why Secretary of Defense [Donald] Rumsfeld is such a controversial figure in the Pentagon ? he?s like a big bull in a

china shop, he doesn?t care who he upsets," he said.
Rumsfeld has pushed for reforms at the DOD since before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Some of his proposals include more

rapid acquisition of supplies in theater and more flexibility in hiring and firing personnel. He has been successful in some

areas but has hit brick walls in others.
"I have to commend Secretary Rumsfeld and the administration ? from day one they made getting the DOD in financial order a

top priority," Platts told FOXNews.com.
But the GAO report gently suggests that while the administration has taken bold steps to show that it is interested in

reform, results are still difficult to grasp, and in some cases previous recommendations made by the GAO were seemingly

ignored.
Though the DOD has made some "encouraging progress in addressing specific challenges, after about three years of effort and

over $203 billion in reported obligations, we have not seen significant change in the content of DOD?s architecture or in its

approach to investing billions of dollars annually in existing and new systems," Kutz said.
Larry J. Lanzillotta, acting comptroller for the DOD, testified to the subcommittee that the horizon is nonetheless brighter,

the result of three years of active reforms that he believes will result in greater efficiency department-wide.
"We are making progress to correct weaknesses," he said. "Strong and consistent congressional support of this transformation

is vital to sustaining our progress."
Pentagon officials are imploring both the Senate and House conferees to replace money that was cut in their respective

budgets for DOD reforms. The conference committee approved the defense authorization bill earlier this week.

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Will Landmark Suit Force Immigration Reform?
Monday, July 26, 2004
By Matt Hayes
In a series of sweeps in southern California over the course of a few weeks in June, a dozen agents of the Border Patrol

arrested more than 420 illegal aliens and placed them in deportation proceedings.
Americans enthusiastically supported the sweeps, as any public opinion poll would have predicted, but Rep. Joe Baca (search),

D-Calif., and Mexican President Vicente Fox (search) were outraged.
At a Chicago rally for Mexicans living in the United States ? now about 10 percent of his nation?s entire population ? Fox

promised that his government would not permit violations of the human and labor rights of Mexicans living in the United

States. "We will stand beside every Mexican woman and man in this country,? Fox told the crowd. ?We will defend them against

the raids being carried out in the state of California."
Baca, a member of the Hispanic caucus, said in a press release, "I am doing everything I can to make sure that sweeps like

the ones last week do not happen again. I will not stop until this situation has been resolved."
During a June 25 meeting with Department of Homeland Security Undersecretary Asa Hutchinson (search), Baca and other members

of the Hispanic caucus accused the Border Patrol agents of racial profiling.
In response to the charges, Hutchinson?s office appeared to collapse. Describing the Border Patrol officers involved in the sweeps as a renegade unit that had taken it upon itself to enforce the law without having first obtained the permission of officials in Washington, the DHS, in an all-too-familiar pattern, ordered the sweeps halted.
The cease and desist order, in turn, outraged southern Californians, most notably the hosts of the influential Los Angeles talk radio program, the John and Ken Show (search) on KFI.
After days of being harshly criticized by the program for his decision to end the sweeps, Hutchinson agreed to appear on the show.
He probably regrets that decision now.
Host John blasted Hutchinson, repeatedly demanding that the undersecretary say publicly whether the DHS was going to continue the raids or not. When Hutchinson refused to say, the show?s hosts went ballistic.
Hutchinson was obviously angered by the treatment he received on the John and Ken Show, but Hutchinson and the rest of the administration should remember one thing: The radio show was precisely articulating a feeling of frustration and anger that is shared with the majority of the American people.
The feeling of anger at having our immigration laws ignored by politicians in Washington and frustration at the feeling of having no place to turn is especially acute in California ? home to roughly half of the nation?s population of foreign nationals residing in the United States in defiance of the laws of the American people.
The local frustration at the status quo makes Los Angeles an especially interesting location for a groundbreaking lawsuit two Los Angeles County taxpayers filed recently in the California Superior Court, Los Angeles.
The suit, Anderson v. Los Angeles County Department of Health (LADHS), is asking the court to order the county?s public health system to seek reimbursement for services provided at taxpayer expense to the sponsors of legal immigrants who access the health care system.
In keeping with a centuries-old American tradition to prevent social welfare systems from serving as magnets to immigrants, federal law requires many legal immigrants to have a U.S. sponsor in order to receive admittance to the United States. The sponsor must sign an ?affidavit of support,? which is a legally binding contract obligating the sponsor to reimburse public entities for any means-tested public benefit the immigrant may access.
The Superior Court suit cites a federal law that requires public service providers to seek reimbursement from a sponsor when
an immigrant he or she has sponsored uses certain taxpayer-supported services.
LACDHS provides services to thousands of immigrants at public expense every year, but has never once sought reimbursement from the immigrants? sponsors as required by federal law. Instead, the LACDHS shift the burden onto county taxpayers.
The county?s refusal to obey federal immigration law is a perfect example of why Americans are as angry as the hosts of the John and Ken Show.
Remarkably, the county intends to fight the taxpayers in the lawsuit.
As the plaintiffs? attorney, James Bame of Los Angeles put it, ?It?s really amazing that the county, while shutting down clinics meant to help Americans in need, would rather spend taxpayer money to defend an illegal practice that is costing taxpayers millions of dollars per year rather than do what my clients are requesting: simply send a bill to the people who have already agreed to pay it.?
Justice William Rehnquist once said, ?Somewhere out there, beyond the walls of the courthouse, run currents and tides of public opinion, which lap at the courtroom door.?
Given public opinion in southern California, we?re fast approaching the point at which the tide is not going to be lapping at the courtroom door; we?re looking at a tsunami of public outrage washing away the whole rotten mess.
Matt Hayes began practicing immigration law shortly after graduating from Pace University School of Law in 1994, representing new immigrants in civil and criminal matters. He is the author of The New Immigration Law and Practice, to be published in October.



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Officials: Jewish extremists may crash plane on Temple Mount

By Jonathan Lis, Yuval Yoaz and Nadav Shragai
Israeli security officials have recently become increasingly concerned that right-wing extremists might be plotting an attack on the Temple Mount in Jerusalem to derail Israel's planned withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. The Shin Bet security service and the police are preparing for a number of possible terror attack scenarios at the sacred Old City site, Israeli security sources said on Saturday night.
Speaking on the Channel Two "Meet the Press" program yesterday, Public Security Minister Tzachi Hanegbi confirmed that the security establishment had identified rising intent among right-wing extremists to carry out a Temple Mount attack.
"There is no information about specific individuals, because the Shin Bet and police would not let them continue [with their plot]," said Hanegbi. "But there are troubling indications of purposeful thinking, and not detached philosophy... There is a danger that [extremists] would make use of the most explosive site, in the hope that a chain reaction would bring about the destruction of the peace process."
Security sources on Saturday night said possible actions included an attempt to crash a drone packed with explosives on the Temple Mount, or a manned suicide attack with a light aircraft during mass Muslim worship on the Mount. Other possibilities include an attempt by right-wing extremists to assassinate a prominent Temple Mount Muslim leader, perhaps from the Waqf Islamic trust.
Israeli security sources speculate that the assassination scenario might be chosen, even though it would not cause mass injury or damage to the Al-Aqsa mosque or the Golden Dome shrine. The aim of the Temple Mount attack conspiracy, they said, would be to carry out a visible provocation that sparked violent confrontation in the territories.
Due to stringent security routines at the Temple Mount, Israeli security officials said Saturday, right-wing extremists would find it virtually impossible to use conventional routes to penetrate the site with explosives. Hence, the possibility of a large bomb being planted at one of the Muslim holy sites is "a lower-level possibility."
Saturday's disclosures about possible Temple Mount terror plans were preceded in recent months by a number of troubling indications. Nine months ago a suspect in a Jewish underground terror group affair, Shahar Dvir-Zeliger, told authorities a prominent West Bank settler activist had planned a Temple Mount attack. Zeliger cited two other names of West Bank settlers, suggesting the two were involved in the Temple Mount attack conspiracy.
Last Thursday, the Temple Mount Faithful group petitioned the High Court, asking to be given clearance to go up to the Holy

Site for prayers later this week for Tisha B'Av.

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Hanegbi: Radicals may blow up Temple Mount mosques
By ETGAR LEFKOVITS
Internal Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi
Photo: Ariel Jerozolimski
Internal Security Minister Tzahi Hanegbi warned Saturday that Jewish extremists may try to carry out an attack against Arabs on Jerusalem's Temple Mount in order to torpedo Israel's planned unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip.
"We sense that a threat to the Temple Mount from extremist and fanatic Jewish elements, hoping to upset the situation and be a catalyst for change in the political process," Hanegbi told Channel 2's Meet the Press. "The threat has increased in the last few months, and especially in the last few weeks, more than any time in the past."
Hangebi added that while there was no intelligence information pointing to specific suspects who are planning an attack, there were "worrying indications" that such plans were "not just theoretical."
"There is a danger that they would want to make use of the most explosive target, in hope that the ensuing chain reaction would bring about the destruction of the political process," he said.
In light of the warnings, police are considering banning certain extremist Jews from entering the Temple Mount, something which they have done periodically in the past, or placing certain individuals under "administrative detention," a draconian move usually reserved for suspected Palestinian terrorists.
More than 50,000 Jewish and Christian visitors have peacefully toured the ancient compound, which is Judaism's holiest site, since its reopening to non-Muslim visitors a year ago.
Two decades ago, 29 Israelis were arrested by police on suspicion of belonging to a Jewish underground which planned a series of attacks against Arabs, with 27 of them later indicted on various terror-related charges.
During their trial, it emerged that one of their plans was to blow up al-Aksa mosque on the Temple Mount.
The men involved in the conspiracy were sentenced to prison terms ranging from four months to 10 years.
Most were freed early after being pardoned by then-president Chaim Herzog.
Last week, the head of the Shin Bet Avi Dichter told the Knesset's Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee that the Shin Bet has a list of between 150 and 200 extremist Jews who are hoping for the death of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon because of his plan for a full unilateral withdrawal from the Gaza Strip and four small Samarian settlements by the end of next year.
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Nordkorea lehnt US-Angebot in Atomstreit ab
Samstag 24 Juli, 2004 13:45 CET
Seoul (Reuters) - Nordkorea hat am Samstag US-Vorschlage zuruckgewiesen, nach dem Vorbild Libyens im Gegenzug zu Hilfsleistungen und diplomatischer Anerkennung auf ein eigenes Atomprogramm zu verzichten.
"Der grundsatzliche Vorschlag der Vereinigten Staaten ist es kaum wert, weiter in Betracht gezogen zu werden", zitierte die staatliche nordkoreanische Nachrichtenagentur KCNA den Sprecher des Au?enministeriums. Der Vorschlag sei "nicht mehr als Augenwischerei", hie? es. Damit au?erte sich Nordkorea erstmals detailliert zu Vorschlagen im Rahmen der Sechser-Gesprache, an denen neben den USA und Nordkorea auch Sudkorea, Japan, China und Russland teilnehmen.
Libyen hatte sein Atomwaffenprogramm im Dezember aufgegeben. Die USA hatten Nordkorea dazu aufgefordert, diesem Beispiel zu folgen und fur den Fall einer Verpflichtung zur Atomwaffenabschaffung eine Ausweitung der Energiehilfen in Aussicht gestellt. Nordkorea beurteilte den Vorschlag allerdings als "sogar schlechter" als vorherige, da dieser eine einseitige Abrustung vorsehe.
John Bolton, Unterstaatssekretar im US-Au?enministerium, halt sich derzeit in Japan auf und wollte am Samstag bei einem Treffen mit japanischen Vertretern die Sechser-Gesprache uber das Atomprogramm Nordkoreas vorantreiben. Nordkorea verlangt fur den Verzicht auf sein Atomprogramm weitgehende politische Zugestandnisse und Wirtschaftshilfen.
Einem am Samstag erschienenen Bericht der japanischen Tageszeitung "Asahi Shimbun" zufolge kooperiert Nordkorea bei der Entwicklung von Raketen mit dem Iran, dem die USA ebenfalls vorwerfen, Atomwaffen zu entwickeln. Beide Lander gehoren zu der von US-Prasident George W. Bush definierten "Achse des Bosen". Die Zeitung berief sich auf einen namentlich nicht genannten US-Vertreter.

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The Nature of the Enemy
Win first. Hearts and minds will come.
All of a sudden everybody's asking, "Who are we fighting anyway?" It's an interesting question, but it's not nearly as important as many of the debaters believe. The 9/11 Commission tells us we're fighting Islamists, or Islamist terrorists, and David Brooks has cooed over this, because he likes the notion that we're fighting an ideology. The White House has devoted lots of man-hours to this matter, trying to figure out how we win "the battle of ideas," and the Internet is full of people who argue, variously, that we're fighting "radical Islam," "Saddam's die-hards," "foreign fighters," or even "Islam itself." All of these "Islamic" definitions guide us back to Samuel Huntington's thesis that there is a war ? or at least a clash ? of civilizations underway. Most share the conviction that we're fighting something that is unusually dangerous because not a traditional enemy, that is to say, a state. It's much more than that, or so they believe.
I wonder. An awful lot of our enemies' ideology comes from us, as several scholars ? Bernard Lewis and Amir Taheri, for starters ? have stressed. The virulent anti-Semitism at the core of the (Sunni and Shiite) jihadists is right out of the Fuhrer's old playbook, which helps understand why jihad and the revival of anti-Semitism in Europe are running along in tandem. Sure, there's ample xenophobia in Islam, and Bat Yeor's fine work on dhimmitude abundantly documents the Muslim drive to dominate the infidel. But the kind of anti-Semitism ? hardly distinguishable from anti-Americanism nowadays ? that we find in Middle Eastern gutters has a Western trademark. It started in France in the 19th century, got a pseudoscientific gloss from the Austrians and Germans a generation later, and spread like topsy.
Notice, please, that many scholars at the time insisted that Nazism was first and foremost an ideology, not a state. Indeed, Hitler was at pains to proclaim that he was fighting for an Aryan reich, not a German state. And if you read some of the literature on Nazism or for that matter the broader work on totalitarianism produced by the "greatest generation," you'll find a profound preoccupation with "winning the war of ideas" against fascism. Indeed, a good deal of money and energy was expended by our armed forces, during and after the war, to de-Nazify and de-fascify the Old World.
But the important thing is that when we smashed Hitler, Nazi ideology died along with him, and fell into the same bunker.
The same debate over "whom or what are we fighting" raged during the Cold War, when we endlessly pondered whether we were fighting Communist ideology or Russian imperialism. Some ? mostly intellectuals, many of them in the CIA ? saw the Cold War primarily in ideological terms, and thought we would win if and only if we wooed the world's masses from the Communist dream. Others warned that this was an illusion, and that we'd better tend to "containment" else the Red Army would bring us and our allies to our knees.
In the end, when the Soviet Empire fell, the appeal of Communism was mortally wounded, at least for a generation.
You see where I'm going, surely. The debate is a trap, because it diverts our attention and our energies from the main thing, which is winning the war. It's an intellectual amusement, and it gets in our way. As that great Machiavellian Vince Lombardi reminds us, winning is the only thing.
That's why the public figure who has best understood the nature of the war, and has best defined our enemy, is George W. Bush. Of all people! He had it right from the start: We have been attacked by many terrorist groups and many countries that support the terrorists. It makes no sense to distinguish between them, and so we will not. We're going after them all.
Yes, I know he seems to lose his bearings from time to time, especially when the deep thinkers and the sheikhs and the Europeans and Kofi Annan and John Paul II insist we can't win the hearts and minds of the Middle East unless we first solve the Arab-Israeli conflict. But he has repeatedly pulled himself out of that trap very nicely, and he invariably does so in terms that show he has a uniquely deep understanding of our enemies.
He says the way to win the war is to liberate the Middle East from the tyrants who now govern it and sponsor terrorism.
And that's exactly right. There are plenty of terrorists out there who aren't Islamists. (There are even some suicide terrorists who have been forced into it; Coalition commanders are reporting the discovery of hands chained to steering wheels in suicide vehicles.) But all the terror masters are tyrants. Saddam didn't have any religious standing, nor do the Assads, but they are in the front rank of the terror masters. Ergo: Defeat the tyrants, win the war.
And then historians can study the failed ideology.
Machiavelli, Chapter Two: If you are victorious, people will always judge the means you used to have been appropriate.
Corollary from Lyndon Baines Johnson: When you have them by the balls, the hearts and minds generally follow.
Faster, please.
http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen200407261224.asp

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Deux semaines apres l'assassinat du journaliste Paul Klebnikov, le mystere reste entier et la peur gagne a Moscou
LE MONDE | 26.07.04 | 14h25
Moscou de notre envoyee speciale
Deux semaines apres l'assassinat a Moscou de Paul Klebnikov, redacteur en chef de l'edition russe du magazine americain Forbes, aucune information reelle n'est apparue sur le possible commanditaire du crime - le premier a viser, en Russie, un journaliste etranger.
Mais les hypotheses ont prolifere, revelatrices de l'etat d'esprit regnant dans la poignee de medias qui echappent encore a la "verticale du pouvoir" et qui osent s'exprimer.
Dans son numero du 25 juillet, le Moscow Times, qui continue vaillamment a paraitre pour les anglophones de la capitale, a passe ces hypotheses en revue et glisse au passage une piste nouvelle, brulante. Elle vise un homme dont on ne parle encore ici qu'a mi-voix, dans des cercles restreints : Guennadi Timchenko, vieil ami de Vladimir Poutine, gerant presume de ses comptes prives et bien place pour heriter des flux petroliers de l'agonisante societe Ioukos. Comme beaucoup d'autres, cette hypothese repose sur le seul fait que le journal Forbes avait ose parler de cet homme. L'article paru en avril, dans son premier numero, etait passe quasi inapercu, contrairement a celui qui, en mai, a dresse la liste des "cent hommes les plus riches de Russie".
C'est d'abord vers cette liste que se sont tournes les regards apres l'assassinat de Klebnikov. Les hommes ainsi exposes a la vindicte presumee du Kremlin contre les oligarques pouvaient etre soupconnes d'avoir voulu se venger. Pas les plus celebres, pas ceux qui ont leurs propres arrangements avec un pouvoir au fait de leurs secrets ; mais ceux du bas de la liste, moins connus jusque-la.
Selon une autre hypothese, le commanditaire de l'assassinat de Klebnikov serait a chercher parmi ceux qui lui ont vendu les informations pour etablir cette fameuse liste. Le but du crime, dans ce cas, aurait ete de credibiliser cette liste a l'etranger. A Moscou, elle est consideree comme fantaisiste et incomplete car basee sur les actifs declares des societes liees a ces noms. Les fortunes russes, fait-on valoir, dependent moins de la propriete que de la captation de flux financiers, et la propriete declaree est elle-meme fort eloignee de la propriete reelle.
Paul Klebnikov, issu d'une famille d'emigres russes aux Etats-Unis, voulait croire que la Russie tournait la page, devenait "normale", qu'on pouvait desormais y publier des histoires de "grandes fortunes", comme aux Etats-Unis, y inculquer par ces enquetes les rudiments d'un capitalisme vertueux.
Qui avait donc interet a tuer ce "dernier optimiste", qui personnifiait la confiance de l'Occident en la Russie ? Ceux dont le but est de discrediter et de destabiliser Poutine, assurent partisans et porte-parole du president. Ceux qui veulent que le silence regne dans les rangs, retorquent ses adversaires.
L'"ennemi-type" du Kremlin reste l'oligarque Boris Berezovski, refugie politique a Londres. Il se trouve avoir ete aussi un ennemi de Klebnikov, qui l'avait qualifie de "parrain de la mafia", dans un article de Forbes puis dans un livre. Berezovski a obtenu de la justice a Londres d'etre lave du soupcon d'avoir fait tuer en 1995 le celebre journaliste Listiev. Mais plusieurs autres assassinats ont eu lieu recemment dans son entourage, qui entretiennent aupres de certains la reputation de "tueur" de Berezovski.
Dans le cas de Klebnikov, c'est surtout l'editeur russe Valery Streletski qui a evoque la "piste Berezovski". Streletski est un proche d'Alexandre Korjakov, ex-chef de la securite de Boris Eltsine et rival celebre de son "eminence grise" Berezovski. Mais la famille de Klebnikov a dementi les propos de l'editeur sur le projet qu'aurait eu Paul d'ecrire un livre sur Listiev - c'est-a-dire, encore, contre Berezovski.
Il a ete aussi question d'un projet de livre sur les assassinats de journalistes russes, notamment sur les six tues en huit ans a Togliatti, siege des usines Avtovaz ou operait Berezovski. Mais un seul projet de Paul Klebnikov a ete mentionne par son epouse Mouza, citee par le Sunday Times : il preparait du materiel sur les menaces que fait peser le boom immobilier sur l'heritage architectural de Moscou.
Maxim Kachoulinski, remplacant de Paul Klebnikov a Forbes, a cherche, maladroitement, a minimiser ces propos en assurant que son predecesseur voulait ecrire "sur l'architecture, d'un point de vue scientifique, sans parler des destructions de monuments", selon Moscow Times. La capitale, tenue d'une main de fer par son maire Iouri Loujkov et son epouse Elena Batourina - citee dans la liste des "cent" - a ete recemment la proie d'incendies qui ont detruit des sites classes, aussitot saisis par les promoteurs. Parmi eux, celui du Manege pres de la place Rouge, le jour meme de l'election presidentielle de mars.
Il y a eu aussi l'inevitable "piste tchetchene". Klebnikov avait publie il y a plus d'un an un livre d'entretiens avec un riche bandit tchetchene lie aux services russes, mais qu'il presentait comme un "chef de guerre" des rebelles et comme un prototype de leur "barbarie". Ni celui-ci, ni les rebelles n'avaient cependant reagi a l'epoque a cet ouvrage, noye dans les flots de discours antitchetchenes en Russie.
La famille du journaliste, soutenue par le departement d'Etat americain, veut laisser le temps a Vladimir Poutine de trouver les coupables, meme si la tradition en Russie est que les commanditaires d'assassinats restent inconnus.
Il reste que, si la mort de Klebnikov (dans l'ascenseur longuement bloque de l'hopital ou il fut conduit) constitue un nouvel embarras pour le pouvoir en Russie, elle est aussi un coup porte a ses opposants democrates, car la peur gagne y compris dans les medias etrangers sur place.
Sophie Shihab
? ARTICLE PARU DANS L'EDITION DU 27.07.04