>> OUR FRIENDS THE SAUDIS...PRINCELY PREROGATIVES?

Saudi Minister and Prince Pays Monthly Stipend and Debts of Surrendered Wanted Terrorist and Family

http://www.memri.org/bin/latestnews.cgi?ID=SD75404
On June 23, 2004, Saudi Crown Prince Abdallah declared on behalf of King Fahd a one month ultimatum during which Al-Qa'ida members should surrender themselves to authorities. Responding to this ultimatum, number 25 on the 26 most-wanted list Othman Bin Hadi Al-Maqbul Al-Omari surrendered on June 28, 2004. Al-Omari was described by the authorities as a "weapons smuggler of the first degree." [1] The following is the sequence of events surrounding Al-Omari's surrender, as reported by the Saudi media:
The turning in of Al-Omari was mediated by the extremist Wahhabi cleric Sheikh Safar Al-Hawali, who currently serves as a mediator between wanted terrorists and Saudi authorities.
Al-Hawali described to the Saudi government daily Al-Watan the process of turning Al-Omari in. He said that he met Al-Omari in his home in Jeddah, where they had dinner and discussed Al-Omari's demands in return for turning himself in. Those demands were described by Al-Hawali as "simple demands" which the Ministry of Interior can not reject. During the meeting, Al-Omari confessed to Al-Hawali that he had "planned to carry out an operation that would cause bloodshed and destruction, but reneged after he was convinced it wouldn't bring any good, and that such acts are forbidden."
After the meeting, Al-Hawali accompanied Al-Omari to the home of Prince Muhammad Bin Naif Bin Abd Al-Aziz, who is the son of Interior Minister Prince Naif, for whom he also serves as assistant for security affairs, holding the title of Minister. According to Al-Hawali, the minister prepared a "great human" reception for Al-Omari, and "blessed him and praised him for his courageous stand to surrender himself shortly after the amnesty was declared."
Al-Hawali noted during the two hour meeting that "Prince Muhammad Bin Naif gave the wanted terrorist Othman Al-Omari the possibility of choosing which prison he wishes to remain in until the end of his interrogation - whether in Riyadh, Jeddah, or in the Al-Namas region [in which he lives] in order to be close to his family." Al-Hawali described this proposal as "clear proof that Prince Muhammad Bin Naif understands the feelings of the wanted, and is determined to secure their tranquility." Al-Omari chose to stay in one of Jeddah's prisons.
Al-Hawali also told the daily that "Prince Muhammad Bin Naif stressed to Al-Omari that he would be well-treated throughout his interrogation and trial, and that the state pledges to grant his family protection, and to support it financially and morally, like the families of the other wanted men, whom [the families] are not to blame for what happened." [2]
A few weeks after Al-Omari was turned in, the Saudi newspapers reported that the Saudi authorities had paid off Al-Omari's debts. According to Al-Watan, Othman Al-Omari's mother expressed her "gratitude and appreciation of Prince Muhammad Bin Naif for his noble initiative to pay off the debts of her son, who recently turned himself in to the Saudi authorities." The mother recounted that "Prince Muhammad Bin Naif contributed the entire sum, totaling 170,000 SR [$45,300], as well as a grant of 30,000 SR [$8,000] to Al-Omari's family. In addition, a monthly stipend of 3,000 SR [$800] will be paid to Othman Al-Omari's children, as well as a salary of 2,000 SR [$530] to Othman Al-Omari himself." [3]
The Saudi government daily Al-Riyadh reported that Al-Omari's four children also expressed their gratitude and appreciation to Prince Muhammad Bin Naif for "his initiative which saved their father from debts of 170,000 SR [$45,300]." [4]
[1] Al-Hayat (London), June 30, 2004, Al-Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), July 1, 2004.
[2] Al-Watan (Saudi Arabia), June 30, 2004.
[3] Al-Watan (Saudi Arabia), July 20, 2004.
[4] Al-Riyadh (Saudi Arabia), July 21, 2004.
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>> MEANWHILE...

Va. Couple File Lawsuit to Free Their Son Held in Saudi Arabia
By Caryle Murphy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, July 29, 2004; Page A08
A Falls Church couple who contend that U.S. authorities are responsible for the year-long detention of their 23-year-old son in Saudi Arabia filed a petition yesterday in federal court in Washington seeking his release.
In papers filed in U.S. District Court, Omar and Faten Abu Ali are requesting that Ahmed Abu Ali, their U.S.-born son, who was arrested in June 2003 while studying in Saudi Arabia, be returned to this country. If he has done something wrong, they say, he should be tried in a U.S. court.
The couple's petition argues that their son's detention is an example of "extraordinary rendition," a practice in which U.S. authorities transfer individuals suspected of terrorist connections to foreign intelligence services that often use coercive interrogation techniques illegal in this country.
Although U.S. authorities "did not send . . . Abu Ali to Saudi Arabia," the court papers state, "they accomplished the same objective as the rendition for interrogation policy by requesting their agents, Saudi officials, to arrest, detain, and interrogate him in furtherance of U.S. interests."
Morton Sklar, executive director of the World Organization for Human Rights USA, a human rights group assisting Abu Ali's family with the petition, said, "We've been looking for a case to directly challenge the practice of rendition to torture . . . to stop the policy itself."
The court papers name Attorney General John D. Ashcroft, FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and several FBI agents as the U.S. officials responsible for Abu Ali's extended detention.
Department of Justice spokesman Charles Miller said that he had not seen the petition but that "when we do respond, it would be in court." FBI spokesman William Carter said, "If there has been a habeas corpus filing, that precludes us from making any comment on it." State Department spokesman Edgar Vasquez said, "We have not yet seen the lawsuit, but we do not normally comment on ongoing legal matters." Brian Roehrkasse, a Homeland Security spokesman, also declined to comment, citing "pending litigation."
Adel Al-Jubeir, foreign affairs adviser to Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah, could not be reached for comment. Previously, Jubeir said that the U.S. government is aware of why Saudi Arabia is holding Abu Ali and that his government "would be willing to consider" an extradition request "when it was made."
The exact number of people "rendered" or moved to foreign countries with U.S. assistance is unknown, but two cases have received widespread publicity.
Canadian citizen Maher Arar -- who U.S. authorities alleged had links to al Qaeda -- was sent from a New York airport to Syria last year, where Arar said he was tortured for 10 months before being released. And in late 2001, two Egyptians living in Sweden were kidnapped and flown to Egypt with U.S. assistance.
Abu Ali's case is different in that he is an American citizen and was already in the country where he is now detained.
"I'm sure the U.S. government's approach to this is going to be to say he is being detained by a foreign government and we don't have anything to do with it," Sklar said. "But the evidence contradicts it. . . . There are so many indications that the U.S. government was causing this."
Abu Ali's parents, who emigrated from Jordan, say in their petition that a U.S. consular officer in Riyadh informed the State Department that a senior Saudi official had "indicated to him that Ahmed Abu Ali could be returned to the U.S. at any time if the U.S. issued a formal request."
At a May 14 meeting, State Department employee Matthew Gillen told the family "that no current investigation of Ahmed Abu Ali by either the U.S. or Saudi Arabian government was taking place" and that he would "make the formal request to Saudi Arabia necessary for [it] to release him," the petition asserts. But in a June 21 meeting, it adds, Gillen said he could not make that request "due to an investigation taking place in the Department of Justice."
The court papers disclose that prosecutors subpoenaed "numerous witnesses who were friends or acquaintances" of Abu Ali to a grand jury about seven months ago and that in May, FBI agents and federal prosecutors from Alexandria again "sought to interview" Abu Ali in Saudi Arabia. The family alleges that U.S. officials "have sought to coerce" Abu Ali, who also has Jordanian citizenship, into "abandoning his U.S. citizenship so that he could be sent to Sweden or some other country."
U.S. officials have declined to give an explanation for Abu Ali's lengthy detention. But their interest in him appears to stem from alleged ties to some of the 11 Northern Virginia men accused in federal court in Alexandria of undertaking paramilitary training to wage "violent jihad" on behalf of Muslims abroad. Two of those men were also accused of conspiring to support al Qaeda.
Three of the defendants, all U.S. citizens, were arrested in Saudi Arabia at the same time as Abu Ali and brought back to the United States. At a bond hearing for one of them in 2003, an FBI agent testified that Abu Ali had told his Saudi interrogators that he had joined an al Qaeda cell in Saudi Arabia and wanted to plan terrorist attacks.
But Abu Ali was not charged in the Alexandria case. And late last year, U.S. counterterrorism officials who spoke on the condition that they not be identified gave varying assessments of his importance as a terrorism suspect. One official called him "a player" with significant ties to al Qaeda; another said he was "very peripheral."
? 2004 The Washington Post Company
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Her Virtual Prison
Carmen bin Ladin lifts the veil on the culture that produced her infamous brother-in-law.
BY DANIELLE CRITTENDEN
Thursday, July 29, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT
Very few first-person accounts have emerged from behind the Saudi veil. For good reason: The rare Saudi woman not stifled into submission would risk severe punishment for speaking out. This is the importance of "Inside the Kingdom," by Carmen bin Ladin. Don't be put off by the author's last name. Ms. Bin Ladin is not a distant relation seeking to cash in on her family's notoriety. She is the ex-wife of Osama's older brother Yeslam, and she has her own story to tell. Her memoir is perhaps the most vivid account yet to appear in the West of the oppressive lives of Saudi women.
Carmen, who grew up in Geneva, is the daughter of a Swiss father and Iranian mother. She was raised as a Muslim of liberal outlook. When she met Yeslam in Geneva in the early 1970s, she had no reason to doubt that he was as forward-looking as she. She followed her husband to business school in California and then back to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, and the bin Ladin family business.
The bin Ladens (the spelling varies: Carmen favors "Laden" for plural forms) are one of the richest and most important non-princely Saudi clans. Yeslam's father, the founder of the fortune, had died by the time Carmen joined the family. He left behind 22 wives, 25 sons and 29 daughters. Yeslam was known to his relatives as "Number Ten," referring to his position in the line of patriarchal succession.
Carmen's life in Saudi Arabia began when her car pulled up to Yeslam's mother's compound outside Jeddah. In the mid-1970s, the town was still not much more than a donkey crossroads in the middle of the desert. If winds weren't whipping up the sand in blinding funnels, the sun was scorching down with unbearable heat. Shrouded in her unfamiliar and suffocating black robes, Carmen entered what sounds like a luridly decorated marble tomb. From then on, she was no longer free.
Each day, Yeslam vanished to work. Carmen and her young daughter passed the hours in the company of his mother and sister. Rarely could she leave the house--rarely, even, did she see sunlight. Courtyards had to be cleared of male servants before she could poke her head outside; she was not even permitted to cross the street alone to visit a relative. When she did venture out, she had to wear a choking abaya and thick socks to hide her ankles. "It was like carrying a jail on your back," she writes.
Nor was she much freer inside the house. She could not listen to music, pick up an uncensored book or newspaper, or watch anything on television but a dour man reading the Quran. Nor could she absorb herself in household tasks. These were left to foreign servants, including the care of children.
Carmen was horrified by the effects of this isolation and uselessness. "The Bin Laden women were like pets kept by their husbands;. . . .Occasionally they were patted on the head and given presents; sometimes they were taken out, mostly to each other's houses;. . . .I never once saw one of my sisters-in-law pick up a book. These women never met with men other than their husbands, and never talked about larger issues even with the men they had married. They had nothing to say."
She would meet Osama only a couple of times. (She describes the young Osama as "tall and stern, his fierce piety intimidating.") She had more contact with his young wife, Najwah, in the female section of one of the segregated bin Laden houses: Najwah, like so many women raised in Saudi Arabia, "never permitted herself to want more from her life than obedience to her husband and father." She carried her obedience to such extremes that it nearly killed the couple's infant son. The child had become dehydrated in the heat. Carmen watched as Najwah pitifully tried to spoon water into the baby's mouth. Najwah would not use a bottle because Osama did not approve of this newfangled Western technology.
At first, Carmen consoled herself with hopes that the oil boom would soften the harsh bedouin culture of Saudi Arabia. "Naively I believed that economic change would be followed by social shifts, too." But after the Iranian revolution of 1979, the Saudi rulers crushed all liberalizing trends in their society. Yeslam, too, changed for the worse. He returned with Carmen to Geneva to expand his business but this time took along the rigors of Saudi Islam. The marriage deteriorated, and Carmen began to fear for the future of her three daughters. Although Yeslam had never been an attentive father, he sought custody of them in the couple's divorce proceedings. If he prevailed, the girls could have vanished into Saudi Arabia, never to be seen by their mother again.
Fortunately, the Swiss courts awarded custody to Carmen. She has emerged from her ordeal with some urgent insights into the kingdom from which she escaped: "Osama bin Laden and those like him didn't spring, fully formed, from the desert sand. They were made. They were fashioned by the workings of an opaque and intolerant medieval society that is closed to the outside world. It is a society where half the population have had their basic rights as people amputated, and obedience to the strictest rules of Islam must be absolute. Despite all the power of their oil-revenue, the Saudis are structured by a hateful, backward-looking view of religion and an education that is a school for intolerance . . . .When Osama dies, I fear there will be a thousand men to take his place."
Yet Carmen's own example is reason for optimism. The contempt for outsiders that Osama blindly swallowed repelled his sister-in-law--and drove her to seek a freer life for herself and her daughters. Let us hope that more brave dissenters--female and male--will follow her lead.

Ms. Crittenden is the author of "What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us" and "Amanda Bright @ Home," a novel. You can buy "Inside the Kingdom" by Carmen bin Ladin from the OpinionJournal bookstore.
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>> DAILY HOWLER...JOD DATABASES



Group Sues Justice Department Over Access to Lobby Records
By Ted Bridis Associated Press Writer
Published: Jul 29, 2004
WASHINGTON (AP) - A watchdog group sued the Justice Department on Thursday to compel officials to turn over records from a database on foreign lobbyists, which the department said would overwhelm its computer system.
A lawyer for the Washington-based Center for Public Integrity said in the lawsuit that the information sought is "readily reproducible in electronic form." The lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, also asked the judge to award the group its attorney's fees.
A Justice Department spokesman, Charles Miller, declined to comment on the lawsuit.
The group since January has sought information about lobbying activities that is available under the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act, a 1938 law passed in response to German propaganda before World War II.
Database records describe details of meetings among foreign lobbyists, the administration and Congress, and payments by foreign governments and some overseas groups for political advertisements and other campaigns.
The Justice Department previously told the center that it could not provide the records before the end of the year.
Thomas J. McIntyre, chief in the Justice Department's office for information requests, explained in a May 24 letter that the computer system - operated in the counterespionage section of the department's criminal division - "was not designed for mass export of all stored images" and said the system experiences "substantial problems."
The government said an overhaul of the system should be finished by December and copies should be available then.
On the Net:
Justice Department: www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fara
Center for Public Integrity: www.publicintegrity.org
AP-ES-07-29-04 1448EDT
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>> AHEM...

- Three of four Al Qaida web sites have Internet roots in the United States
Most of the websites aligned or identified with Al Qaida stem from the United States. About 76 percent of the Al Qaida-aligned websites were registered or supported by Internet service providers in the United States. A study by the Washington-based Middle East Media and Research Institute reported that Islamic groups have increased their dependence on the Internet for operations and recruitment...
-Kuwait's Al Qaida problem: Recruiters targeting teens...
-Well-funded Moroccan terror network called threat to Europe...
-Korea's Pohang Iron & Steel continues China offensive...
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>> GOOD NEWS?

http://theworld.org/latesteditions/20040727.shtml
North Korea report (4:00)
More than 200 North Korean refugees flew into South Korea today under a veil of secrecy. It's the largest single group of defectors to date from the Stalinist north. The World's Katy Clark has the story.

Follow-up interview (4:30)
The more than 200 North Korean defectors that arrived in South Korea today is the largest single group ever to cross into the south. Some say that number is part of an even bigger group, possibly signalling an exodus. But South Korean officials are keeping a tight lid on the details. Host Jennifer Glasse speaks with Ambassador Jack Pritchard, a top advisor to President Bush on North Korea, about the effect on relations between the North and South and the US reaction.


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>> WELL SAID AIDAN...



PYONGYANG WATCH
N Korean refugees the beginning of a flood?
By Aidan Foster-Carter
Some 460 North Korean refugees flew into Seoul's Songnam military airport on two chartered Asiana flights on Tuesday and Wednesday. They came from the same officially unidentified Southeast Asian country. (Shall we stop the pussy-footing, please? It's Vietnam, is it not?)
This is an important moment. First of all, the numbers. At a stroke, the Vietnam 460 take the total of North Korean defectors, as they are officially called, reaching South Korea this year, which stood at 760 as of end-June, almost up to the 1,285 who arrived in the whole of 2003.
For decades after the Korean War, the number of North Koreans escaping to the South was tiny, reflecting the near-impassability of the heavily mined and fortified border, the ironically named Demilitarized Zone. A rare soldier or two has made it across the DMZ - in both directions, as we've been reminded recently with the weird tale of Charles Robert Jenkins: the 8th US Cavalry sergeant who disappeared northward across the line in January 1965, and lived in North Korea for the next 39 years until he and their two daughters were reunited with his Japanese abductee wife - you couldn't make this up, could you? - first in Indonesia and now in Japan, where the US Army may yet be stupid enough to charge him with desertion rather than treat him as an intelligence gold mine. But all that is another story.
Take me to the river
So if you want to leave North Korea - and who wouldn't? - you have to head north, across the long river border into China. Hitherto that hasn't been too hard, though some reports say fences are now being built. The west-flowing Yalu is difficult, but in the northeast the Tumen River freezes in winter, while in summer some sections are shallow and narrow enough to wade across. Border guards can be eluded, or sometimes bribed.
No one knows quite how many North Koreans have made that journey over the past decade, since the Democratic People's Republic of Korea's (DPRK) chronic malnutrition spiraled into outright famine. The often-quoted figure of 300,000 is plausible, if this means cumulative crossings. But the number actually hiding out in China at any given time is probably much lower, especially since Beijing has cracked down viciously on these fugitives in recent years.
Surveys by aid organizations, working in the border area under very difficult conditions, suggest that most such refugees come from North Korea's northeastern border province of North Hamgyong. That figures, on two counts: the border is near, and conditions are desperate. Formerly an industrial area, too mountainous to grow much food, Hamgyong-pukdo has seen its factories close and its people starve, in unknown numbers. Andrew Natsios - author of the first book on what he calls the Great North Korean Famine, and currently head of the US Agency for International Development (USAID) - accuses Kim Jong-il's regime of "triage" in North Hamgyong: in effect cutting it off and letting it starve.
So those who can, vote with their feet. A majority seem to be women - and not all of them leave voluntarily. There are many reports now of North Korean women being sold into China, whether for marriage, or to work in bars or worse. As always in such trafficking, abuses are numerous because rights are non-existent. This is a nasty, sordid business.
China persecutes the starving
It's no exaggeration to accuse all governments concerned - make that unconcerned - of behaving appallingly. North Korea, naturally, starves and mistreats its people, and then has the gall to regard any who flee as traitors, and punish them accordingly. If at first you leave simply out of hunger or to find work, but then get caught in China and sent back to be beaten up and jailed, naturally you emerge with no great love for the Dear Leader (Kim Jong-il) and flee again, this time determined never to go back to such a hell-hole. "Persecuting the starving" is the all-too-apt title of an Amnesty International report on this bitter process.
This well-documented cycle gives the lie to China's despicable refusal to treat any North Koreans who are illicitly on its territory as refugees. The party line from Beijing is that they're all economic migrants. As such, under a border treaty with North Korea, China can and does round them up and send them back. Worse, it won't even let the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) - which has an office in Beijing, but itself stands accused of failing to press hard enough on this issue - visit the border areas and see for itself. All this contravenes international conventions to which China is a signatory.
So what's a poor North Korean in China to do? Staying put, you have to hide out. A few activist non-governmental organizations (NGOs) - mostly South Korean, some Japanese or American; often Christian or Buddhist - may help you, but they too must be furtive, as they risk arrest and deportation: one such, Kim Hee-tae, was released this month after two years in a Chinese jail. Because of the need to hide, your kids - many refugees are children - can't go to school. It's no life at all, by normal standards. But anything has to be better than North Korea.
Seek asylum - but where?
Other than lie low, or return to North Korea, there are two options. One is to seek asylum in a foreign mission in China. Two years ago there was a rush of embassy incursions in Beijing, aided by activists. The lucky ones who made it eventually got to Seoul; but since then security around embassies has been tightened, and a crackdown in the northeastern border area means that in a sense this tactic has made life worse for the far larger number who remain in China. (Activists hotly argue the pros and cons, as may be imagined.)
A few still succeed via this diplomatic route, such as a group in June who got into a German school in Beijing. But for most, the only option is to continue the journey: to get out of China into another country, they hope more welcoming, and thence onward to Seoul.
That means going either north or south: to Mongolia, or Southeast Asia. Either journey is both physically arduous and risky. On April 2 a 17-year-old boy, Lee Chol-hun, who had spent half his life hiding in China, was shot - in the back, by some accounts - and killed by a Chinese border guard while trying to cross into Mongolia. (Ah, the heroic People's Liberation Army, bravely defending the motherland against all comers!) Read more on http://www.northkoreanrefugees.com/boyshot.htm.
Even once over the border, the unforgiving Gobi takes its toll. Yoo Chul-min was just 10 when he perished on July 7, 2001, lost and exhausted in the desert. For his tragic tale, with pictures of a bright-eyed boy in a baseball cap, and of the wooden cross that marks his lonely grave, see http://www.familycare.org/stories/yoochul.htm.
Underground railway
The southerly route, which more take, has its own perils. You have to cross the length of China. Physically you blend in, but just hope no one tries to talk to you and twigs that you're a foreigner. Again this is costly and risky. An "underground railway" of activist NGOs may help with money and safe houses. But mostly you're on your own: not in the arid Gobi, but trying to cross the thick steaming jungles of Southeast Asia undetected. Thailand is the preferred destination, but beggars can't be choosers. So North Koreans turn up in Vietnam, Laos, or even - God help them - Myanmar.
Even there, they often have to continue an underground existence. No doubt we'll get the full story on - and stories of - the Vietnam 460 eventually, but probably they represent an accumulation over several years. The South Korean government that believes in quiet diplomacy on such matters - too quiet by half, say critics, considering it technically recognizes all North Koreans as Republic of Korea (ROK) citizens - had no doubt been negotiating delicately behind the scenes with Hanoi to bring them to Seoul. There are even reports that Vietnam was threatening to send them back - presumably to China, which would then deport them to North Korea, as is feared to have happened in several recent cases.
Vietnamese sensitivities
Vietnam, though nominally communist, is not especially friendly with North Korea, but it has its own sensitivities on the refugee front (remember boat people?). There's also an ongoing issue with the Montagnard minority, who've been fleeing to Cambodia to escape state persecution. In the party paper Nhan Dan last Sunday, a Vietnamese Foreign Ministry spokesman, Le Dung, accused UNHCR of conducting "many wrong activities to lure ethnic-minority people in the Central Highland to illegally flee to Cambodia, and [it] even considered to give these people political refugee status".
Not to be outdone in the persecution stakes, on the same date the Cambodian government arrested two reporters (one Irish, Kevin Doyle of the Cambodia Daily) who were trying to reach 17 Montagnard asylum-seekers - and charged them with human trafficking. They were released a day later, after "confessing". Radio Free Asia, one of whose stringers was arrested, has more details.
Coming to America?
The international ramifications run wider yet. More than 1,000 Montagnards won asylum in the United States after an earlier crackdown in 2001. Some US human-rights activists would like North Koreans to be similarly welcomed in the land of the free. On July 21, the US House of Representatives unanimously passed the North Korea Human Rights Act (NKHRA) 2004. If this becomes law - which is far from certain: it has yet to go to the Senate, and time is short - this would mandate the US to foreground human-right issues in all its dealings with North Korea. One specific provision is to make it easier for North Koreans to seek asylum in the US. Last year just nine applied, of whom six were refused.
This too is controversial. Most of the NKHRA's backers are on the Republican right. (An even tougher separate North Korea Freedom Act, currently before the Senate, avowedly seeks regime change.) The bills' opponents - including South Korea's ruling Uri Party, which is getting up a petition on the subject - fear that raising all this will offend Kim Jong-il's delicate sensibilities. Pyongyang might then pull out of the six-party talks and various dialogues and projects with South Korea, thus jeopardizing what little progress has been achieved in recent years.
Engage and press
I beg to differ. Western European countries, which have recognized North Korea en masse since 2000, see no contradiction in seeking engagement with Pyongyang while actively pursuing human-rights concerns. Thus it was European Union states that this year and last submitted resolutions condemning North Korean human-rights abuses to the UN Commission on Human Rights (UNCHR; not to be confused with UNHCR). South Korea abstained on this; last year it absented itself from the vote. But the resolutions passed, and a special rapporteur has been appointed to probe and press on these matters, to Pyongyang's fury.
How can that not be right? Read any of the websites that give you chapter and verse on the terrible sufferings of North Korean refugees - too many to list: just Google! - and if your blood doesn't boil, may I suggest you take your heart in for a service. This of all areas is one where, frankly, I find it hardest to keep the cool detachment of an "expert". In that capacity, I've written no fewer than five reports on North Korea refugee issues in recent years for UNHCR (two are still on their website). But as a human being, I find the hypocrisy and silence of all the governments concerned nauseating.
Lee Chol-hun and Yoo Chol-min, and thousands more, are dead. They deserved better. They had a right to live - and to lead a proper life, not the living hell of a subject of Kim Jong-il or a fugitive in China. So I'm glad for the Vietnam 460: May there be many more. Any decent human being or government should do everything in their power to help them gain sanctuary and a chance to live a human life: the kind you, dear reader, and I take for granted as our birthright as human beings and free people.
Moment of truth
For South Koreans, though, this is an awkward moment of truth. The ROK government is not only slow to help - it has even sometimes initially turned away its own citizens: old prisoners of war illegally held for half a century in North Korea - but also grudging in its provision for the few that do make it to Seoul. Its Hanawon facility, which trains North Koreans for what in some ways is life on another planet, has a capacity of only 400. So the Vietnam 460 have had to be housed at a commandeered training center elsewhere.
Even so, defectors find it tough to adjust to South Korean turbo-capitalism. They face prejudice, and about half are unemployed. Yet if the South can't even integrate the mere few thousands it has so far, how on earth would it cope if it faced a Germany scenario - and suddenly had to take on all 22 million of its impoverished Northern brethren?
That, of course, is the nightmare Seoul seeks to avoid at all costs. Fair enough, in my view, to try a gradualist approach with Pyongyang and hope for a soft landing. If it can be brought off, this would indeed be less risky, and much less costly, than if Kim Jong-il's regime were to collapse on a sudden. Maybe, at long last, the Dear Leader will see reason.
Prepare for the worst
Yet a preference for evolution over revolution is no excuse either for not preparing for a less desirable outcome - which sheer prudence requires, so as not to be overwhelmed if collapse comes - or for not fighting for the human rights of all North Koreans here and now, be they refugees or still enjoying the doubtful mercies of the Dear Leader's rule.
Pyongyang can bleat about being persecuted all it wants, like the late British comedian Kenneth Williams: "Infamy! Infamy! They've all got it in for me." Not so. On human rights, as on nuclear weapons and a host of other concerns, all that the world asks - and is entitled to ask, and must go on asking - of the DPRK is to behave in a civilized way, like a modern 21st-century state: to treat its people properly and live up to international norms, standards and treaties, many of which it has in fact signed, and so is legally bound by.
As for South Koreans, they had better brace themselves. Why would, or should, their Northern cousins not seek a better life than Kim Jong-il has ever vouchsafed them? South Koreans in the past fought hard for their own human rights against their own dictators, rightly scorning pleas to desist on grounds of national security or economic development. How can they now hesitate to help, let alone deny the same rights to democracy and a decent life to their Northern brethren, without arrant selfishness and rank hypocrisy?
Come to that: how will the cherished goal of Korean reunification really be achieved? By letting a few befuddled lefty activists cavort with cynical DPRK apparatchiks in Incheon to celebrate paid-for summits, as we saw last month? Or by South Koreans taking to their bosom the tired, huddled masses who are Kim Jong-il's victims, to give them the rights to a life hitherto denied to them? In a word: reunification with and for whom, exactly?
So, welcome the Vietnam 460. May many follow them. And will the last North Korean to leave please turn out the lights? No need: Kim Jong-il's power cuts have already rendered it a land of darkness, in every sense. Let there be light, and life. No more weasel excuses.
Aidan Foster-Carter is honorary senior research fellow in sociology and modern Korea, Leeds University, England.
(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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Rising tide of N. Korean defectors worries Seoul
Special to World Tribune.com
EAST-ASIA-INTEL.COM
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
More than 200 North Koreans defectors move into buses after arriving at Seongnam military airport in South Korea behind a wall of secrecy as the government played down the biggest influx yet of defectors from the Stalinist state.
SEOUL -- The announcement that a total of 400 North Korean defectors now staying in a Southeast Asian country are coming to South Korea this week is raising social and political concerns.
The number of North Korean defectors to South Korea has increased from only 60 in 1999 to 297 in 2000, and to 572 in 2001 and more than 1,000 in 2003. During the first half of this year, the number reached 760 and is steadily increasing. More than 5,100 North Korean refugees have found home in the South so far. And there are no reliable estimates of how many more will arrive in the next few years.
While politicians and nongovernmental organization (NGO) groups welcome the triumph of the government's quiet diplomacy to repatriate North Korean defectors to Seoul en mass, they fear that this will lead to many problems, including the lack of facilities to house them and personnel to educate them.
Another concern, rarely voiced in the increasingly pro-North Korean South, is that there may be infiltrators among the genuine defectors or that their status as second class citizens could in the future be exploited by the North as the two sides proceed toward unification.
The South Korean government has repeatedly assured the nation that it would take in all North Korean defectors willing to come to South Korea. But the facilities have proven inadequate to accommodate ate those that have come in.
Hanawon, the housing and educational facility, had the capacity for only 400 even after an expansion this year. Consequently the original education curriculum is being reduced from six months to two months, which is said to be far from adequate to educate the North Koreans from socialism to capitalism. Moreover, the government settlement subsidy of 36 million Won will be reduced to 20 million Won, not enough to rent a house.
South Korean society is not united about assisting the defectors, and contributions from the civilian sector are still limited. The slow recovery of the South's economy is an added burden.
Then again, there is the danger of diplomatic friction with China and discontent from Pyongyang over the defector issue. More than 100,000 North Korean defectors are are believed to be scattered and in hiding in China, fearing arrest and deportation to North Korea. In recent years, as China stepped up its efforts to apprehend defectors, South Korean NGOs have been helping them find their ways to such neighboring countries as Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and Burma.
According to an NGO member helping North Korean defectors, the 400 defectors are coming not from one Southeast Asian country, but two. "We have been helping them with shelter and food, but as the number increased, it put the countries into a difficult position," he said. That provided a common ground for working out a solution with South Korean government, according to the NGO volunteer worker.
Copyright ? 2004 East West Services, Inc.
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N. Korea Upset at South Over Defections
By SOO-JEONG LEE
The Associated Press
Thursday, July 29, 2004; 3:28 AM
SEOUL, South Korea - North Korea called the mass defection of nearly 460 of its citizens to South Korea this week a "planned kidnapping" and lashed out Thursday at Seoul and other parties involved in the two-day airlift.
The North Koreans, believed to have fled their communist homeland via its border with China before heading to a Southeast Asian country, arrived in Seoul in two planeloads Tuesday and Wednesday in an operation shrouded in secrecy.
South Korean government officials have been reluctant to confirm the arrival and have declined to reveal the Southeast Asian country from where the defectors arrived, apparently to spare that government from diplomatic reprisals by North Korea.
North Korea's statement Thursday, by a spokesman from the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of the Fatherland, was the North's first public response to the defector airlift.
"This is an organized and planned kidnapping as well as a terror crime that took place in broad daylight," the spokesman said, according to KCNA, the North's official news agency.
"The South Korean government will be fully responsible for the outcome of this situation, and other forces that cooperated in this affair will also pay a big price," the spokesman said.
Despite the harsh words, the latest incident was unlikely to damage relations between Pyongyang and Seoul, an analyst said.
"North Korea is using harsh words as they usually do, but if they are in need of something from the South, such as economic aid or food aid, they will come out to talks with the South," said Park Joon-young, a North Korea expert in Seoul. "The North Koreans act in accordance with their interests, so I don't think it will effect inter-Korean relations."
The first group of 230 defectors arrived Tuesday on a specially chartered flight by South Korea's Asiana Airlines, the country's Yonhap news agency reported, followed by a second batch of 227 defectors on a Korean Air flight Wednesday.
The government barred reporters from covering the events, but TV footage captured from afar showed defectors getting off planes before being whisked away in buses.
It was by far the largest arrival in what has become a steady stream in recent years of North Koreans fleeing repression and hunger in a country that has depended on outside help to feed its 22 million people since 1995.
Most of the North Koreans flee across their country's long border with China, and human rights groups say hundreds have made their way to Vietnam, Thailand, Cambodia and other Southeast Asian countries, hoping eventually to go to capitalist South Korea.
Over 5,000 North Koreans have defected to South Korea since the 1950-53 Korean War. Last year, the number of defectors arriving in the South reached 1,285, up from 1,140 in 2002 and 583 in 2001.
South Korea's Unification Minister Chung Dong-young said the number of North Korean defectors was expected to reach 10,000 within a few years and that the government needs to upgrade its policies on handling them.
The Koreas were divided in 1945. Their border remains sealed and heavily guarded by nearly 2 million troops on both sides following the 1950-53 Korean War that ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.
? 2004 The Associated Press

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>> ALAS FOR HIS VIRGINS?

Saddam Suffers From Prostate Infection
By RAWYA RAGEH
Associated Press Writer
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) -- Seven months after being taken prisoner, former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein suffers from a chronic prostate infection but has rebuffed suggestions that a biopsy be performed to rule out cancer, Iraq's human rights minister said Thursday.
Tests show that, despite the prostate problem, the 67-year-old deposed dictator is otherwise in good health and has even shed some extra weight while in U.S. detention, Human Rights Minister Bakhtiar Amin told Al-Jazeera television.
He said X-ray and blood tests came back negative for cancer, but officials wanted to take a biopsy to be safe.
Chronic prostate infections occur in about 35 percent of all men over 50, but are not linked to cancer. Routine screening for prostate cancer, especially among older men, is becoming more common.
Saddam has been held by U.S. officials at an undisclosed location in Iraq since his capture by U.S. forces last December near Tikrit. He had been on the run since his regime collapsed in April in the face of a U.S.-led invasion.
There have been several media reports saying his health was deteriorating, something the U.S. military denied Thursday.
"Saddam did not have a stroke, and he is not dead," 1st Sgt. Steve Valley told The Associated Press. He did not provide further information.
A Jordanian-based spokesman for the International Committee of the Red Cross, the only neutral entity with access to Saddam, said Thursday the organization had no information about a downturn in Saddam's health.
"Saddam's sickness was rumors spread by the media," Mu'in Kassis told The Associated Press. The ICRC said it has visited him at least twice to check on his condition and carry messages to his family.
According to Amin, Saddam has lost weight after following a diet. He spends his time reading the Quran, writing poetry and tending to a garden, Amin said.
Mohammed al-Rashdan, a member of Saddam's defense team, said the lawyers have received unconfirmed information that Saddam suffered a stroke. He urged the Iraqi government to allow them, his family or a neutral party to send a doctor to Iraq to examine Saddam.
Officials at the Iraqi prime minister's office said they had no information on the ousted leader's condition.
Caused by a variety of bacteria, prostate infections develop gradually and can remain undetected for a long time because symptoms are typically subtle and sometimes there are none at all.
The infections are not easy to cure because antibiotics do not accumulate in high concentrations in the prostate. Treatment usually involves several months of strong antibiotics.
? 2004 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Insurgents target Jordan's key logistical role in Iraq
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Wednesday, July 28, 2004
AMMAN -- Insurgents in Iraq have attacked Jordan's position as a vital logistics base for members of the U.S.-led military coalition in Iraq.
Sunni insurgency groups have abducted Jordanian nationals and threatened them with execution unless the Hashemite kingdom ends assistance to the United States and other militaries in Iraq. So far, one Jordanian firm announced it would withdraw from Iraq.
"Jordan has profited handsomely by its ability to send supplies to militaries in Iraq," a Western diplomatic source said. "If that goes, it will hurt both Jordan as well as the coalition."
Over the last year, Jordan has been employed to provide logistics, training, supplies and even intelligence information to members of the military coalition in Iraq, Middle East Newsline reported. Western diplomatic sources said Jordan was preferred over Kuwait, Iraq's southern neighbor, by members of the coalition with troops in central and northern Iraq.
[On Wednesday, more than 50 Iraqis were killed in Baaquba, north of Baghdad. U.S. officials said a minibus packed with explosives blew up near a police station where hundreds of young men were waiting to apply to become officers.]
Amman's role has also committed the kingdom to train 32,000 Iraqi police officers as well as an unspecified number of Iraqi military troops until 2007. Industry sources have estimated this contract at more than $1.3 billion.
Last week, Jordan agreed to serve as a support base for South Korea, which has pledged to deploy 3,000 troops in Iraq. Seoul plans to begin sending its forces to Iraq in August.
Jordanian officials said Amman will cooperate with Seoul on a range of requirements for South Korean deployment in Iraq. They cited Jordanian intelligence, logistics and supplies for South Korean troops planned to be stationed in northern Iraq.
The two countries agreed on Jordan's role during a visit by King Abdullah to Seoul. On July 24, Abdullah met South Korean President Roh Moo-hyun in Seoul and discussed the situation in post-war Iraq.
Officials did not report the value of Amman's supply and support agreement with South Korea. Jordan has helped other members of the U.S.-led coalition, including the United States, with logistics, supplies and training. Jordan's military has also sent advisers in Iraq.
Sunni insurgency groups aligned with the former Saddam Hussein regime have warned Jordan to end the supply route to the U.S.-led military coalition. Scores of truck drivers transporting supplies to Baghdad have already been abducted or attacked in Iraq near the Jordanian border.
On Tuesday, the so-called "Group of Death" warned that it would attack vehicles coming from Jordan into Iraq. "Group of Death" announced a July 30 deadline for Jordan to stop all supplies to Iraq.
So far, at least one Jordanian supplier of the military coalition said it would withdraw from Iraq. The announcement by the Amman-based Daoud and Partners came after two of its employees were abducted and threatened with execution unless the firm paid $140,000 and left Iraq. Daoud has provided construction and catering services to the U.S. military.
"We consider all Jordanian interests, companies and businessmen and citizens as much a target as the Americans," a masked member of "Group of Death" said in a video supplied to news agencies. "We will cut the road between Jordan and Iraq so that Jordanian supplies cannot supply the U.S. Army."
Copyright ? 2004 East West Services, Inc.

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>> SAY WHAT?


La red contra el lavado deja escapar a los peces gordos
Por Marcela Sanchez
Especial para washingtonpost.com
Friday, July 23, 2004; 8:09 AM
Cuando de lavado de dinero se trata lo mejor es hacerlo a alto nivel.
Hace m?s de dos a?os, la Ley Patriota de Estados Unidos estableci? como requisito para todas las instituciones financieras informar a las autoridades cualquier actividad sospechosa con el prop?sito de asegurar que no sean utilizadas para financiar terrorismo, lavar dinero u ocultar ganancias de actividades criminales.
Desde entonces, sin embargo, algunos gobiernos que Washington cataloga como patrocinadores de terrorismo, junto con funcionarios corruptos de otros pa?ses y narcotraficantes han usado muchas instituciones financieras conocidas sin que ninguna instituci?n lo informara a tiempo. Entre ellas: el principal banco de Puerto Rico, Banco Popular; la sucursal estadounidense del banco suizo UBS; el Hudson United Bank de New Jersey; y Terrabank en Miami.
La semana pasada, investigadores del Senado revelaron que el Riggs Bank, una respetada instituci?n de Washington, ayud? al ex dictador chileno Augusto Pinochet a ocultarle hasta $8 millones a fiscales internacionales. Denunciaron adem?s que representantes del banco le entregaron a Pinochet, a domicilio y en persona, su dinero antes de que las autoridades pudieran congelar sus cuentas.
El problema en el Riggs no se limit? a Pinochet sino que incluy? tratos sospechosos con funcionarios de Arabia Saudita y con Teodoro Obiang Nguema, dictador de Guinea Ecuatorial. En vez de provocar rechazos, ejecutivos del banco parecieron demasiado deseosos de atender a las necesidades de clientes de mala fama mientras que reguladores federales a duras penas tomaron cartas en el asunto. Acciones legales claves contra Riggs solo ocurrieron, seg?n los investigadores del Senado, "despu?s de que informes de prensa negativos empezaron a generar preguntas p?blicas".
Ir?nicamente los bancos podr?an aprender algo de las centenares de empresas no bancarias que env?an miles de millones de d?lares en remesas cada a?o alrededor del mundo desde peque?as y modestas oficinas en comunidades ?tnicas y de inmigrantes. Incluso antes de la Ley Patriota, los remitentes de dinero con licencia empezaron a auto regularse y hoy figuran entre las instituciones financieras que mejor conocen a sus clientes y con m?s frecuencia informan a las autoridades sobre actividades cuestionables.
Desde mediados de los 90, autoridades federales sospechaban que los remitentes de dinero eran muy propensos a actividades criminales, particularmente lavado de activos. Para sobrevivir y prosperar en un mercado r?pidamente creciente - y evitar procesos judiciales - los remitentes tomaron la delantera.
Los bancos, por otra parte, no han tenido esos mismos "incentivos" para reformarse, haciendo que la eterna lucha por detectar y castigar actividades ilegales en la forma de transacciones financieras internacionales sea hoy muy desequilibrada y de eficacia cuestionable.
"El sistema regulador en su totalidad tiene un serio problema de aplicaci?n desigual de leyes y regulaciones", dijo Charles Intriago, un exfiscal federal que ahora es presidente de lavadodinero.com. Mientras docenas de peque?os remitentes de dinero han sido sancionados, sentenciados o sufrido multas millonarias, dijo, ning?n comerciante de valores de un tama?o considerable ni banco alguno en los ?ltimos 13 a?os han sido sentenciados. Mientras sigan recibiendo siempre la carta para "Salir libre de la c?rcel" como en el juego de Monopolio, los bancos no tomar?n las leyes en serio, agreg?.
En el 2001, un padre y sus dos hijos, due?os de una compa??a de env?os de remesas en Miami, fueron atrapados en una operaci?n encubierta y sentenciados a 188 y 155 meses respectivamente por lavar $714.000 d?lares. En el 2003, en la acci?n m?s severa contra un banco en a?os, el Banco Popular de Puerto Rico fue acusado por no informar sobre el lavado de $21.6 millones de dinero de la droga y conminado con procesos judiciales. Pero despu?s de que el banco pag? una multa de $20 millones, acept? su responsabilidad y prometi? portarse bien en el futuro, el gobierno acord? no enjuiciarlo. (Para aquellos que est?n llevando cuentas, $21.6 millones es $20.9 millones m?s que $714.000 - y aun as? el presidente del banco se quej? de haber sido tratado injustamente).
Por a?os los bancos estadounidenses han estado neg?ndole cuentas o cerr?ndoselas a los remitentes por temor a que sean propensos a actividades criminales. M?s a?n, en un esfuerzo por proveer a m?s inmigrantes con necesarios servicios bancarios, l?deres a lo largo de las Am?ricas est?n llamando a una mayor participaci?n de los bancos en el multimillonario negocio de remesas. El resultado podr?a ser quitarle negocio a aquellos con protecciones ejemplares contra el lavado de dinero y d?rselo en cambio a aquellos con un manchado historial.
Claro que no todos los bancos son culpables y ese es precisamente el mensaje que quisieran enviar los remitentes sobre s? mismos. Mientras existen todav?a miles de remitentes sin licencia, hay docenas con licencia que trabajan duro para cumplir plenamente con las leyes y regulaciones estadounidenses.
Aun as? el Departamento del Tesoro estadounidense contin?a se?al?ndolos a todos como negocios arriesgados. Por lo menos en esos casos los bancos est?n escuchando cuidadosamente a los reguladores y optando por cerrarle sus puertas incluso a los remitentes con licencia. En casos m?s importantes, sin embargo, grandes instituciones bancarias mantiene el dudoso honor de lavar las cantidades m?s grandes de dinero para los clientes m?s prominentes y corruptos - con poco temor a las consecuencias.
? 2004 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive





Anti-Laundering Net Lets Big Fish Slip
By Marcela Sanchez
Special to washingtonpost.com
Friday, July 23, 2004; 7:57 AM
When it comes to money laundering, it's better to do it big time.
More than two years ago, the USA Patriot Act established reporting requirements for all financial institutions to ensure that they are not used to finance terrorism, launder money or stash funds generated by criminal activity.
Since then, however, certain governments that Washington lists as sponsors of terrorism along with corrupt foreign officials and drug traffickers have used many well-known financial institutions without those institutions reporting any suspicious activities. Among them: Puerto Rico's largest bank, Banco Popular; the U.S. branch of the Swiss bank UBS; New Jersey's Hudson United Bank; and Terrabank in Miami.
Just last week, Senate investigators revealed that Washington's own Riggs Bank helped former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet hide up to $8 million from international prosecutors and that bank representatives hand-delivered Pinochet's money to him before U.S. authorities could freeze his accounts.
The problems at Riggs didn't end with Pinochet, but included suspicious dealings with Saudi officials and with Teodoro Obiang Nguema, Equatorial Guinea's dictator. Instead of raising red flags, bank executives seemed too willing to cater to notorious customers while federal regulators were too slow, at the very least, to take action. Key enforcement actions against Riggs only occurred, according to Senate investigators, "after negative press reports began raising public questions."
Ironically, banks could learn something from those hundreds of non-bank licensed money transmitters that send billions around the world from small and inconspicuous offices in immigrant and ethnic communities. Even before the Patriot Act, licensed money transmitters began to regulate themselves and today they are second to none among financial institutions in knowing their clients and reporting questionable activities to authorities.
Ever since the mid-1990s, federal authorities suspected that transmitters were vulnerable to criminal activity, particularly money laundering. In order to survive and thrive in a rapidly expanding market -- and to avoid prosecution -- transmitters got ahead of the curve.
Banks, on the other hand, have lacked some of these "incentives" to reform, making the eternal struggle in tracking and prosecuting illegal activity in the form of international financial transactions today a very unbalanced operation of questionable efficacy.
"The whole regulatory system has a serious problem of uneven application of laws and regulations," said Charles Intriago, a former federal prosecutor who now runs moneylaundering.com. While dozens of small money transmitters have been penalized, prosecuted or suffered forfeitures, he said no securities dealer of any significant size or any U.S. bank in 13 years has been prosecuted. As long as they receive a "Get Out of Jail Free" card every time, banks won't take enforcement seriously, he added.
In 2001, a father and two sons, owners of a money transmitter company in Miami, were caught in a sting operation and later sentenced to 188 months and 155 months respectively for laundering $714,000. In 2003, in the harshest action against a bank in years, Puerto Rico's Banco Popular was accused of failing to report the laundering of $21.6 million in drug money and was threatened with criminal charges. But after the bank paid a $20 million fine, accepted responsibility and promised to behave in the future, the government agreed not to prosecute. (For those keeping score, $21.6 million is $20.9 million more than $714,000 -- and still the bank's president complained of having been unfairly singled out.)
U.S. banks for years have been denying or closing the accounts of licensed money transmitters for fear they are too prone to illegal activity. What's more, in an effort to provide more immigrants with useful banking services, leaders throughout the Americas are encouraging banks to be more involved in the multimillion-dollar remittance business. The result may be to take business away from those with exemplary safeguards against money laundering and put it instead in the hands of those with a spotty track record.
Sure, not all banks are culprits, and that's exactly the point licensed transmitters would like to make about themselves. While there are still hundreds of unlicensed money transmitters, there are dozens of licensed ones trying hard to fully comply with current U.S. laws and regulations.
Yet the Treasury Department continues to label them all as risky. At least in this instance, banks are willingly listening to regulators and opting to close their doors to licensed transmitters. In more important cases, however, large banking institutions maintain the dubious honors of laundering the largest amounts of money for the most prominent and corrupt customers -- with little fear of the consequences.
Marcela Sanchez's e-mail address is desdewash@washpost.com.


? 2004 Washingtonpost.Newsweek Interactive

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>> OH PERVEZ?


Pakistan's king-maker drops a bombshell
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - In a surprise development on Wednesday, Pakistan's political map was potentially redrawn with the country's leading king-maker, Pir Pagara, announcing his separation from the ruling Pakistan Muslim League to revive his own party, which he had earlier merged with the PML on the personal request of President General Pervez Musharraf.
The PML, which dominates parliament, was created as an umbrella pro-government bloc to serve as an obedient vehicle for Musharraf to push ahead with his agenda and to give him a defined role once he eventually sheds his uniform.
The move by the influential politician is likely to be followed by other defections from the PML, and comes amid a number of developments that will shape the future of Pakistan in the coming months.
These include military operations in the sensitive tribal regions to track down foreign insurgents, a new military initiative in Balochistan province against nationalist insurgent tribes, the issue of sending troops to Iraq, and the installation of a non-political technocrat (Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain) as prime minister. Further, two generals are due to retire in October and will need to be replaced, and by the end of the year Musharraf is bound by the constitution to choose between one of the two hats he currently wears - chief of army staff or president. Exiled former premier Benazir Bhutto is also tipped to return to the country soon to revitalize her opposition Pakistan People's Party against Musharraf.
At a hastily called press conference on Wednesday, Pir Pagara said he would reinstitute his Pakistan Muslim League (Functional) party as an independent entity.
Syed Shah Mardan Shah, or Pir Pagara II, is one of the most powerful spiritual personalities in the country, with about a million spiritual disciples among the tribes of Sindh. Over the years he has carved a career for himself as a king-maker, rather than a participant in direct politics. His father was a prominent freedom fighter in British India, from Sindh, although the ruling British called him a traitor and hanged him. Later, though, the British sponsored Pir Pagara to study at Oxford. He returned at the request of Pakistan's first premier, Liaquat Ali Khan, in the early 1950s, and was launched into national politics on the PML's platform.
Being the head of an armed militia called Hur (free and brave man), he supplied thousands of volunteers to the Pakistan army in the 1965 and 1970 wars against India, which helped him forge deep ties in the military. On many an occasion he has publicly stated that "I take orders in national politics from GHQ", meaning general army headquarters in Rawalpindi.
Now at this most critical juncture of national politics, which many analysts are calling a major transition period, the GHQ's man has turned.
After hearing of Pir Pagar's news, Asia Times Online tracked him down to his palatial residence in Karachi, where many of his disciples were gathered. They regularly shower him with rupees when he makes an appearance, no matter how brief.
Sitting in his office in his house, behind a door decorated with the sign of Scorpio, Pir Pagara was having a meal of fried fish and lentil. In an hour-long meeting, he relied mostly on his expressions, rather than his tongue, his typical way of communicating.
"I think it is the beginning of the end, isn't it?" this correspondent asked in reference to Pir Pagara's decision to part ways with the ruling PML.
"We merged in the ruling party after the president gave me lots of assurances, and we were united for the cause of the Pakistan Muslim League, not for the cause of the rule of Jat [a reference to the Jat tribe of premier Hussain, who has appointed Jats to key positions in the PML]. What's your news from the center?" Pir Pagara asked.
"I spoke to a few friends in the National Assembly who are associated with the ruling Pakistan Muslim League and they are really frustrated. You may agree with me that ours is a tribal society where different systems work, and perhaps many may not accept a non-political entity like the technocrat Shaukat Aziz [Finance Minister and prime minister-designate] who is not interested in the ruling party members nor their interests. What's your feedback?"
Pir Pagara took a bite of his fish and nodded his head in the affirmative.
Asia Times Online continued, "You know better than me, in Punjab, all feudal families have their men in positions in the army as well as in parliament."
Pir Pagara's eyes shone and he shook his hands, but his mouth was busy chewing fish. Finally he said, "But Saleem, the president's men are guiding him [Shaukat] the wrong way."
All this while Pir Pagara's telephone kept ringing and was answered by his men, but he refused to speak directly to any of the callers, including one from the highest office of Sindh province who wanted to ask whether Pir Pagara continued to support the provincial government there. As this was a strictly private business, this correspondent took his leave.
Pir Pagara has reportedly made it clear that until Musharraf personally speaks to him and accepts his complaints about the present and future premiers, he will not listen to or meet with anybody.
Whether or not Pir Pagara changes his mind, the first real bullet of dissent has been fired and the game is on.
(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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>> REUTERS AHEM?

Pakistan Says Captures a 'Most Wanted' Qaeda Man
29 minutes ago Add World - Reuters to My Yahoo!
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan said Friday it had arrested a senior al Qaeda figure wanted for the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa that killed hundreds of people.
Interior Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat identified the man as Ahmed Khalfan Ghailini and said he was a Tanzanian national wanted for the synchronized bombings that killed more than 200 people at the U.S. embassy in Kenya and 11 at the embassy in Tanzania.
"He carried head money of $25 million," Hayat told Reuters.
He said Ghailani was one of about a dozen people arrested on Tuesday when security forces raided a suspected militant hideout in the city of Gujarat, about 110 miles southeast of the capital Islamabad.
Ghailani is on the FBI (news - web sites)'s "Most Wanted Terrorists" list for his alleged role in the 1998 bombings, which also said it was "offering a reward of up to $25 million for information leading directly to the apprehension or conviction of Ahmed Ghailani."
Ghailani was among seven people about whom the United States said in May it was seeking information amid fears of a possible attack in the near future.
A Pakistani official said Tuesday that Pakistani security forces were holding three Africans, including a Tanzanian, suspected of being militants after a shootout last week.
Another said the suspects had been trying to flee Pakistan along with their families, using fake documents, after living in neighboring Afghanistan (news - web sites).
Pakistan, a key ally in the U.S.-led "war on terror," has arrested hundreds of al Qaeda members since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States. Several senior al Qaeda figures have been handed over to Washington.

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Face value
A different sort of oligarch
Jul 29th 2004
From The Economist print edition
Reuters
Having got rich in Russia, Kakha Bendukidze now wants to be the world's most capitalistic politician
FORGET eBay. If you want to buy a dysfunctional boiler house, an international airport, a tea plantation, an oil terminal, a proctology clinic, a vineyard, a telephone company, a film studio, a lost-property office or a beekeepers' regulatory board, then call Kakha Bendukidze, Georgia's new economy minister. His privatisation drive has made him a keen seller of all the above. And for the right price he will throw in the Tbilisi State Concert Hall and the Georgian National Mint as well.
Mr Bendukidze made his name and fortune as an industrialist in neighbouring Russia, putting together the country's biggest heavy-engineering group, OMZ, before returning to his native Georgia in June of this year with a mandate to reverse more than a decade of post-Soviet decay. He insists that he was taken by surprise when Georgia's president, Mikhail Saakashvili, and prime minister, Zurab Zhvania, nobbled him for a chat in the course of a private visit he made to Tbilisi in May, and then offered him a ministerial job the same evening. But having said yes, he is cracking ahead, doing everything that businessmen must dream of making governments do. He says that Georgia should be ready to sell "everything that can be sold, except its conscience". And that is just the start.
Next year--if not sooner--he will cut the rate of income tax from 20% to 12%, payroll taxes from 33% to 20%, value-added tax from 20% to 18%, and abolish 12 kinds of tax altogether. He wants to let leading foreign banks and insurers open branches freely. He wants to abolish laws on legal tender, so that investors can use whatever currency they want. He hates foreign aid--it "destroys your ability to do things for yourself," he says--though he concedes that political realities will oblige him to accept it for at least the next three years or so.
As to where investors should put their money, "I don't know and I don't care," he says, and continues: "I have shut down the department of industrial policy. I am shutting down the national investment agency. I don't want the national innovation agency." Oh yes, and he plans to shut down the country's anti-monopoly agency too. "If somebody thinks his rights are being infringed he can go to the courts, not to the ministry." He plans, as his crowning achievement, to abolish his own ministry in 2007. "In a normal country, you don't need a ministry of the economy," he says. "And in three years we can make the backbone of a normal country."
Good luck, and he will need it. Mr Saakashvili's new government has taken over a country where half the population lives on less than $2 a day, relations with Russia are tense, and rebel regimes control two provinces. The previous president, Edward Shevardnadze, a former Soviet foreign minister, was driven out in November by huge public demonstrations against election-rigging and corruption.
Mr Bendukidze is the second minister plucked from the Georgian diaspora. The first, the French-born Salome Zourabichvili, was France's ambassador to Georgia until Mr Saakashvili made her his foreign minister. She wants to build political ties with the West, in order to help Georgia to fend off fresh attempts at domination by Russia. Yet at the same time, Georgia needs investment from Russia's booming corporate sector--and here Mr Bendukidze's experience should come in useful. Until May he was a prominent figure in the circle of top Russian tycoons known as the "oligarchs", albeit a notch below the oil barons, such as the now-imprisoned Mikhail Khodorkovsky of Yukos and the soccer-mad Roman Abramovich of Sibneft and Chelsea Football Club.
A clever and likeable man, aged 48, Mr Bendukidze was a scientist until the Soviet Union collapsed, and never did seem to be one of nature's metal-bashers even at the height of his empire-building. He says now that he was preparing to retire from business some months before the offer came from Mr Saakashvili. Early this year OMZ looked set to merge with another Russian engineering company, Power Machines, though that deal now seems to be off. Still, Mr Bendukidze has put his shares in trust, and resigned as chief executive. He is a political liberal as well as an economic one, and thus no soul-mate of Russia's president, Vladimir Putin, says a western diplomat who knows him well. Asked whether he was retreating from Russia for fear that the persecution of Mr Khodorkovsky might turn into a purge of oligarchs in general, Mr Bendukidze will not be drawn, saying only that "we have had times [in Russia] harsher than this."
He is frank about the failings of the chaotic and often rigged Russian privatisations of the 1990s which made him and other oligarchs rich. He snapped up most of OMZ's assets for peanuts-- though, by the standards of the day, he subsequently earned his fortune, restructuring the company and halving its workforce. The lesson he drew from the Russian experience, he says, is to change the method of privatisation, not the principle of it. He promises public sales to the highest bidder, and cash only: "no conditions, no promises, no beauty contests".
Georgia on my mind
He insists that Georgia is a more "individualistic" place than Russia, and thus more receptive to reform. Georgians may take some persuading. A knot of demonstrators blocks Mr Bendukidze's way to work each morning. Opinion polls show only lukewarm support for privatisation. Mr Saakashvili and Mr Zhvania claim to admire his radicalism, but they may yet feel obliged to curb it if they want to conserve political capital for sparring with Moscow or with rebel regions. To Mr Bendukidze, such problems are another argument for boldness: big improvements in business conditions are needed in order to offset big political risks and to keep investors coming. "Other governments make budgets," he says. "We are making a nation."
Copyright ? 2004 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.

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>> IRAN WATCH...FULL SPEED AHEAD?

Le diff?rend entre l'Iran et l'Agence internationale de l'?nergie atomique rebondit
LE MONDE | 29.07.04 | 13h39 * MIS A JOUR LE 29.07.04 | 15h36
A 8 heures par e-mail, recevez la Check-list, votre quotidien du matin. Abonnez-vous au Monde.fr, 5? par mois
T?h?ran a bris? des scell?s appos?s par l'AIEA.
L'Iran a bris? des scell?s appos?s par l'Agence internationale de l'?nergie atomique (AIEA) sur des centrifugeuses servant ? la production d'uranium enrichi, ? Natanz, une installation nucl?aire situ?e ? 250 km au sud de T?h?ran, ont indiqu? des diplomates ? Vienne mercredi 28 juillet. L'uranium enrichi est un composant n?cessaire ? la mise au point de l'arme nucl?aire.
"Cette d?cision indique que l'Iran a repris la fabrication et l'assemblage de centrifugeuses", en infraction d'un engagement pris en 2003 de suspendre toutes ses activit?s d'enrichissement d'uranium, a indiqu? un diplomate. "T?h?ran n'a toutefois pas repris les op?rations d'enrichissement ? proprement parler", a pr?cis? un autre diplomate, soulignant que la R?publique islamique n'a "pas l'obligation l?gale" de suspendre l'enrichissement.
L'Iran, que les Occidentaux soup?onnent de vouloir mettre au point la bombe atomique sous couvert d'un programme nucl?aire civil, avait accept? en octobre 2003, ? l'occasion d'une visite des ministres des affaires ?trang?res fran?ais, allemand et britannique, de suspendre unilat?ralement et temporairement ses activit?s d'enrichissement. Il s'?tait en outre engag? ? appliquer le protocole additionnel au Trait? de non-prolif?ration nucl?aire (TNP) avant m?me de l'avoir ratifi?.
MANQUE DE COOP?RATION
Mais l'arrangement avait ?t? remis en question fin juin, quand l'Iran avait annonc? qu'il reviendrait sur son engagement de suspendre la production et l'assemblage de centrifugeuses de type P2, apr?s que le Conseil des gouverneurs, l'organe ex?cutif de l'AIEA, eut reproch? ? T?h?ran un manque de coop?ration et l'eut mis en demeure de fournir tous les renseignements demand?s pour prouver qu'il ne cherchait pas ? acqu?rir l'arme nucl?aire.
L'Iran accuse Paris, Berlin et Londres de ne pas avoir rempli leur part du contrat qui consistait, selon T?h?ran, ? faire en sorte que le dossier nucl?aire iranien soit referm? par l'AIEA ? la fin juin. Mercredi ? T?h?ran, le vice-pr?sident de la commission parlementaire des affaires ?trang?res et de la s?curit? nationale, Mohamoud Mohammadi, a averti que le nouveau Parlement conservateur iranien ne ratifierait pas le protocole additionnel au TNP, aussi longtemps que l'AIEA n'aurait pas class? le dossier nucl?aire de la r?publique islamique.
La ratification est li?e ? "une condition : l'AIEA doit d'abord reconna?tre notre droit ? utiliser la technique nucl?aire ? des fins pacifiques", a-t-il ajout?. "Notre crainte, c'est que le protocole additionnel soit utilis? contre nous comme une arme de pression politique. S'ils -l'AIEA- traitent notre dossier d'un point de vue strictement technique, alors nous coop?rerons", a-t-il dit.
Le dossier nucl?aire iranien devrait une nouvelle fois ?tre examin? lors de la prochaine r?union du Conseil des gouverneurs, ? partir du 13 septembre, ? Vienne. Les Etats-Unis font pression ? l'AIEA pour que ce dossier soit transmis au Conseil de s?curit? de l'ONU, seul habilit? ? d?cr?ter d'?ventuelles sanctions internationales.

L'Iran a d?cid? de reprendre la fabrication de centrifugeuses parce qu'il juge les Etats-Unis obnubil?s par l'?lection pr?sidentielle du 2 novembre et les Europ?ens trop divis?s pour exercer de r?elles pressions, estiment des sources diplomatiques ? Vienne. Des discussions doivent avoir lieu cette semaine entre T?h?ran et les Europ?ens, ? Londres ou ? Paris. - (AFP.)
* ARTICLE PARU DANS L'EDITION DU 30.07.04
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Iran Defies Pressure, Resumes Tests of Nuke Plant
Reuters
Thursday, July 29, 2004; 8:23 AM
By Francois Murphy
VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran has defied international pressure and resumed testing a facility for converting uranium, a key part of the process of enriching the element for use as fuel or in a nuclear bomb, diplomats said Thursday.
The European Union's "big three" -- France, Britain and Germany -- strongly criticized Iran when it tested the site in March, saying it sent the wrong signal and would make it harder for Tehran to regain international confidence.
The EU three were due to meet Iranian officials in Paris on Thursday to discuss Tehran's nuclear program.
The United States says Iran is stringing the international community along with talks over its nuclear program while buying time to make an atomic bomb. Iran denies the charge, saying it is only interested in generating electricity.
While Iran said in April it intended to run the tests at its uranium conversion facility near the central city of Isfahan, the move snubs a request by the U.N. nuclear watchdog for it not to test the site.
The testing would produce a small amount of uranium hexafluoride, the gas which is pumped into centrifuges to obtain enriched uranium, one western diplomat said.
"They are testing the equipment. As a by-product, some UF6 (uranium hexafluoride) is produced," he said.
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nuclear watchdog declined to comment.
Iran promised the EU three in October it would suspend all activities related to uranium enrichment. But Iran says it still has the right to produce uranium hexafluoride and build centrifuges. The IAEA says the suspension was meant to apply to both.
After Iran told the IAEA in April it intended to conduct the tests, the IAEA governing board passed a resolution in June that "calls on Iran ... voluntarily to reconsider its decision."
Full Legal Notice
? 2004 Reuters



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Tehran breaks U.N. seals on nukes
By David R. Sands
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Iran has broken seals placed on nuclear centrifuges by U.N. inspectors and resumed work on the equipment, raising fresh fears that a deal to keep Tehran from joining the world's nuclear-armed powers has collapsed.
Diplomats at the Vienna, Austria-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United Nations' lead agency on nuclear proliferation, confirmed yesterday that Iran had resumed construction of centrifuges, a key part of the nation's nuclear program.
The equipment can be used to produce the material needed for atomic bombs. Iranian officials reportedly broke the IAEA seals on the centrifuge equipment late last month.
Diplomats told reporters that Iran has stopped short of using the centrifuges to begin production of enriched uranium for the bombs, a step that clearly would violate Iran's obligations under the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.
State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said U.S. officials had not confirmed the Iranian move independently but that it fit with what the Bush administration considers a clear pattern of cheating by Iran's Islamic government on its nuclear pledges.
"Iran's commitment to cooperating with the IAEA, to put it kindly, remains an open question," Mr. Ereli said, "given its past failures to follow through on promises made to the [IAEA] board of governors."
Paul Leventhal, president of the Washington-based Nuclear Control Institute, said the Iranian decision was "clearly provocative" and a direct challenge to diplomatic efforts to rein in its nuclear programs.
"The Iranians only confess to what they are caught doing, so we don't know how much more there is to learn," he said. "Iran has been playing a very dangerous cat-and-mouse game, constantly testing how much they can get away with."
The resumption of centrifuge construction also is a direct challenge to the efforts of Britain, France and Germany, which struck a deal with Tehran in October to halt efforts to build the centrifuges or seek to enrich uranium.
The three European powers have resisted a U.S. effort to refer Iranian violations to the U.N. Security Council for sanctions and other punitive measures, arguing that diplomacy is a better path for gaining Iran's cooperation.
Iranian leaders insist that their nuclear programs are intended only for civilian energy purposes, and only grudgingly have conceded to violations uncovered in recent months by IAEA inspectors.
Tehran also has argued that the accord with the three European powers was voided when the IAEA Board of Governors issued another critical report on Iran's nuclear cooperation at the board meeting in June. The construction resumed after the October moratorium expired, Iranian officials said.
Iranian President Mohammed Khatami said earlier this month, "Nothing stands in the way" of renewed centrifuge activity. Iranian officials reportedly informed IAEA officials of their decision to break the seals and said a separate pledge not to produce weapons-grade uranium remained in force.
Despite the disclosures, British diplomats said Iran and the three European powers will hold a previously scheduled meeting later this week at an undisclosed European location.
"We still firmly believe that this is the right way to achieve our goal," a British Foreign Office official told Reuters news agency yesterday.
The prospect of a nuclear-armed Iran could be destabilizing in the region, in particular for Israel, which launched a pre-emptive strike against Iraq's nuclear facilities when Saddam Hussein began efforts to build a nuclear program.
Israeli Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon said on Israeli television yesterday that Iran had "broken the rules of the game."
"This should not only concern Israel, but all the countries of the free world," Gen. Yaalon said.
But Seyed Masood Jazayeri, spokesman for Iran's hard-line Revolutionary Guards, accused Washington of using its "wild dog" -- Israel -- to go after Iran's nuclear programs.
If Israel tried to disrupt the Iranian program, it "would be wiped off the face of the Earth and U.S. interests would be easily damaged," Mr. Jazayeri warned yesterday, according to the Iranian news reports.
*This article is based in part on wire service reports.

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Iran Seeks Nuke Bomb 'Booster' from Russia-Report
Reuters
Wednesday, July 28, 2004; 1:22 PM
By Louis Charbonneau
VIENNA (Reuters) - Iranian agents are negotiating with a Russian company to buy a substance that can boost nuclear explosions in atomic weapons, according to an intelligence agency report being circulated by diplomats.
But the Russian government, which monitors nuclear-related exports closely, denied any Russian companies were planning to supply Iran with the substance, known as deuterium gas.
The two-page report cited "knowledgeable Russian sources" for the information, which Washington will likely point to as more proof that Tehran wants to acquire nuclear weaponry.
"Iranian middlemen ... are in the advanced stages of negotiations in Russia to buy deuterium gas," the report said.
Iran denies wanting atomic arms and says its nuclear program is for peaceful purposes. Deuterium is used as a tracer molecule in medicine and biochemistry and is used in heavy water reactors of the type Iran is building.
But it can also be combined with tritium and used as a "booster" in nuclear fusion bombs of the implosion type.
It is not illegal for Iran to purchase deuterium but it should be reported to the IAEA.
Diplomats say the suspicions surrounding Iran's nuclear program are so great that it would be wise for Tehran to exercise maximum transparency on all such "dual-use" purchases and declare them ahead of time to the U.N. nuclear watchdog.
"Iran has not declared this to the IAEA. Their cover story is that they want it for civilian purposes," said the diplomat who gave Reuters the report.
The report, which did not name the Russian firm, said purchase talks were in the final stages. It added that Iran had tried to produce deuterium-tritium gas -- with the help of Russian scientists -- but had so far failed.
MOSCOW DEFENDS COOPERATION WITH IRAN
Moscow has been criticized by Washington for building the Bushehr nuclear power plant in Iran, despite U.S. concerns that it is a cover for Iran to acquire know-how and import items that can be used for bombs.
Reacting to the report, the Russian Foreign ministry issued a statement saying that in its nuclear cooperation with Iran, Moscow strictly sticks to intergovernmental agreements which do not provide for supplies of the deuterium gas.
"The Russian side is not planning to carry out any such supplies," the statement said.
Anything concerning nuclear exports is under tight government control, including details of separate deals. The government has said it keeps the situation in the sector under control and rejected any idea of major nuclear smuggling.
Envoys linked to the U.N. nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said buying deuterium alone was not evidence of intent to acquire a weapons capability.
They cautioned that the report appeared designed to win over nations who are not convinced Iran wants the atomic bomb.
The United States and others are pushing the IAEA to report Iran to the Security Council for possible punishment with economic sanctions for allegedly seeking nuclear weapons in defiance of its treaty obligations.
"Iran needs to know that they will suffer deeply if they get nuclear weapons," said the diplomat who provided the report. France, Germany and Britain have been negotiating with Iran to persuade it to cooperate fully with IAEA inspections to allay Western doubts and are resisting referring Tehran to the U.N.. A high-level meeting is expected in Paris on Thursday.
The U.N. has been investigating Iran's nuclear program for nearly two years to determine whether allegations that it has a secret atomic weapons program are false, as Tehran insists.
While it has found many instances where Iran concealed potentially weapons-related activities, the IAEA says it has no clear evidence that Tehran is trying to build the bomb. The United States and its allies say there is sufficient evidence and the agency is being too cautious. (Additional reporting by Oleg Shchedrov in Moscow)
? 2004 Reuters

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Statoil: U.S. Is Probing Iranian Deal
The Associated Press
Thursday, July 29, 2004; 9:51 AM
OSLO, Norway - Statoil ASA said Thursday that the U.S. Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation of a consulting deal in Iran that led to the resignation of the Norwegian company's two top executives and nearly $3 million in fines.
The investigation by the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York in Manhattan is in addition to a separate inquiry by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission of the same deal.
Both agencies are investigating the state-owned Norwegian company because its shares trade on the New York Stock Exchange.
Statoil drew heavy criticism last year after allegations surfaced that a $15.2 million consulting deal it made with Iran's Horton Investment Ltd. in June 2002 was part of an attempt to improperly influence Iranian oil officials.
An investigation by Norway's economic crime police, Oekokrim, resulted in a fine of 20 million kroner ($2.9 million).
Former chief executive Olav Fjell, who resigned in September 2003 because of the deal, was cleared of any wrongdoing, police said. Then-board chairman Leif Terje Loeddesoel also resigned in September during the scandal and was cleared of wrongdoing.
Statoil made the consulting agreement with Mehdi Hashemi Rafsanjani, the son of former Iranian President Hashemi Rafsanjani, though his name did not appear in the paperwork, investigators said. That raised suspicions that the money might have been intended to influence Iranian public officials.
The Norwegian company canceled the contract on Sept. 10, 2003, and the next day police raided the company's offices in the southwest city of Stavanger.
A police report said Oekokrim concluded that the contract "involved an offer of improper advantages in return for Mehdi Hashemi and/or others influencing persons who were or would be involved in the decision-making processes relevant to Statoil's commercial activity in Iran."
The report said, however, that no evidence of Statoil money actually being used to influence Iraqi officials was discovered.
Statoil was founded in 1972 to oversee Norway's oil interests. It was partly privatized in 2001 when the state sold 17.5 percent of its shares to investors.
On the Net:
http://www.statoil.com
? 2004 The Associated Press


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>> IRANIAN JUSTICE...ALLAH KNOWS THE TRUTH - RIGHT?


Iran offers new explanation for Kazemi's death
Associated Press and Canadian Press
POSTED AT 8:23 AM EDT Wednesday, Jul 28, 2004
Tehran -- Iran's judiciary said Wednesday Iranian-Canadian photojournalist Zahra Kazemi died in custody from a fall after her blood pressure dropped during a hunger strike, a sharp shift in position on a case that has strained relations between Tehran and Ottawa since her death a year ago.
The judiciary also denounced President Mohammed Khatami's reformist administration, which offered Monday to help identify the murderer of Zahra Kazemi, accusing it of providing fuel for a "spiteful" foreign media.
"The death of Mrs. Zahra Kazemi was an accident," a judiciary statement said. A copy was obtained by Associated Press.
"With the acquittal of the sole defendant," the statement said, "only one option is left: The death of the late Kazemi was an accident due to fall in blood pressure resulting from a hunger strike and her fall on the ground while standing."
A Tehran court cleared secret agent Mohammad Reza Aghdam Ahmadi, the sole defendant in the case, on Saturday of killing Ms. Kazemi, who died of a fractured skull and brain hemorrhage in detention last July.
Ms. Kazemi, a Montreal freelance journalist born in Iran, died on July 10, 2003, while in detention for taking photographs outside a Tehran prison during student-led protests against the ruling theocracy.
Iranian authorities initially said Ms. Kazemi died of a stroke, but a presidential committee later found that she died of a fractured skull and brain hemorrhage. Mr. Ahmadi was charged with "semi-premeditated murder." He denied it, and a team of lawyers representing the victim's mother contended that the real killer was Mohammed Bakhshi, a prison official who was being protected by the hardline judiciary.
Mr. Bakhshi was cleared of wrongdoing before Mr. Ahmadi's trial.
On Tuesday, Ms. Kazemi's son said Ottawa should kick Iran's ambassador out of the country.
Mr. Hachemi made the appeal just before he met Foreign Affairs Minister Pierre Pettigrew, who has yet to decide on concrete action to show Ottawa's displeasure with the Iranian government.
Mr. Hachemi, who has been harshly critical of Ottawa's handling of the affair, saw no reason to change his tone after his meeting with Mr. Pettigrew.
The minister refused to make any firm commitments to any of his proposals, he said.
"Until I hear him commit, he has failed me, he has failed my mother and he has failed human rights. ... The minister has not respected the memory of my mother.
Canadian officials have said they are considering a range of diplomatic pressure tactics, but have not indicated that expelling ambassador Mohammed Ali Mousavi is among them.
They are, however, studying the possibility of taking the Kazemi case to the International Court of Justice at The Hague -- another demand made by Mr. Hachemi.
Iran-Canada relations, soured by the slaying and subsequent quick burial of Ms. Kazemi in Iran against her son's wishes, further deteriorated after Iran rejected the idea of Canadian observers at the trial. The Canadian ambassador was barred from attending the last session of the otherwise open trial.
The Iranian judiciary's statement also accused Iranian government spokesman Abdollah Ramezanzadeh of making "irresponsible" comments when he directly challenged the judiciary Monday by saying Iran's Intelligence Ministry was prepared to identify the person behind Ms. Kazemi's murder if the judiciary allowed it to do so.
Mr. Ramezanzadeh, it said, was inciting public opinion, an accusation that could put the judiciary and government in a direct confrontation if formally pursued as a criminal charge. Judiciary spokesman Zahed Bashirirad said Wednesday there was no intention to indict Mr. Ramezanzadeh at the moment.
The judiciary statement said Mr. Ramezanzadeh had ignored the fact that the court gets the final say in any legal case.
Nobel Peace laureate Shirin Ebadi, who represents the victim's mother, has rejected the court proceedings as flawed, and has vowed to "work until my last breath" to find the murderer.

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Iranian Prosecutor Shuts 2 Newspapers
Outlets Reported on Trial That Implicated Official in Death of Detained Photographer
By Karl Vick
Washington Post Foreign Service
Tuesday, July 27, 2004; Page A18
ISTANBUL, July 26 -- An Iranian prosecutor has ordered the closures of two newspapers that reported last week on a trial involving a case in which he is alleged to have been involved.
The prosecutor, Said Mortazavi, shut down Jomhouriat, which had published for only 12 days, and Vaghayeh Ettefaghieh over their coverage of the trial of an intelligence agent accused of beating and killing an Iranian Canadian photographer at a prison in the Iranian capital, Tehran, last year. Mortazavi, who supervised interrogations at the prison, has been accused by Canadian authorities of having a role in the killing. The only person charged, however, was the agent, Mohammad Reza Aghdam Ahmadi.
On Saturday, a Tehran court acquitted Ahmadi, and Iran's hard-line judicial branch subsequently declared that the case would never be solved.
The shuttering of the newspapers served as an example to other Iranian news media, sources in Tehran said. According to the sources, who said they were warned by Mortazavi's office not to give interviews to the foreign press but who passed information through intermediaries, the papers may be able to reopen in August.
"It shows how Mortazavi has done everything he could to hide and cover up the evidence," said Stephan Hachemi, son of the slain photojournalist, Zahra Kazemi. "There is no hope. They have proved that Iran has no intention whatsoever of bringing justice to the case of Zahra Kazemi."
When Kazemi died in detention after a blow to the head, Mortazavi ordered Iranian officials to announce that she died of natural causes, according to two outside investigations. She was later found to have died of a brain hemorrhage caused by a fractured skull.
Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi, an attorney who represents Kazemi's family, threatened to take the case to international courts.
Iranian reformers embraced the case of Kazemi, an Iranian-born Canadian citizen who was widely seen as a surrogate for Iranian nationals who disappear into a judicial system that answers only to the theocracy's most senior cleric. But outcry over this case spread beyond the country's borders.
Canada recalled its ambassador after he was denied a promised seat at the trial. The envoy had also been recalled last summer after Kazemi's body was buried in Iran without an opportunity for an independent autopsy abroad.
"This trial has done nothing to answer the real questions about how Zahra Kazemi died or to bring the perpetrators of her murder to justice," Canadian Foreign Minister Pierre Pettigrew declared in a statement.
Reporters Without Borders, an advocacy group based in Paris, denounced the trial as "a masquerade of justice orchestrated by the Iranian authorities" and called for the European Union to impose sanctions. The group also protested the shuttering of the two newspapers.
In a symbolic gesture, about 300 journalists bound their hands Monday to protest mounting restrictions on free expression. Ebadi attended the meeting of the Journalists' Professional Association.
For hard-liners in Iran, the judiciary has long served as both a stronghold and a sanctuary, where appointed conservatives have been able to thwart the efforts of elected reformers. Mortazavi has been its most notorious operative, closing more than 100 newspapers that questioned Iran's authoritarian rule.
But after 25 years as one of the world's most isolated states, Iran has also made clear an appetite to cultivate economic and diplomatic ties abroad. The decision to open its shadowy nuclear program to international inspectors was linked to promises of trade with Europe.
External pressure forced Iran's judiciary to proceed with the trial, which could only embarrass hard-liners, according to foreign diplomats based in Iran. After Ahmadi was acquitted, the state offered to pay "blood money" to Kazemi's family, "as Islamic law stipulates . . . for a Muslim within state responsibility when perpetrators of a crime are not identified," the judiciary said in a statement published by Iran's official news agency.
Hachemi, the victim's son, scoffed at the offer and called for Canada to break diplomatic relations with Tehran, as Washington did in 1979 after the takeover of the U.S. Embassy there. "Since we don't have a dialogue with Iran, what's the use of having an ambassador?" he said.
Meanwhile, a spokesman for the reformist faction of the government on Monday repeated an offer to the judiciary for "a full and transparent investigation."
A diplomat based in Tehran said that such a probe would be highly unlikely after Mortazavi and other hard-liners thwarted two earlier investigations but added that the case "is not going to die an easy death."
? 2004 The Washington Post Company
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>> DARFUR ETC MALAYSIAN CONNECTION...

LINKS...
http://www.aisehman.org/

The Pain That Will Never Go Away
Cruelty and death reign in Sudan, and war brews.
The world rushes to help, while we, we Malaysians celebrate another deal in our pockets:
A three-member consortium led by Malaysia's MMC Corp (MMCB.KL) has won a US$65.6 million contract to build an oil pipeline in Sudan's Melut Basin, MMC said on Monday [July 26].
The consortium, which include China's Sinopec (SNP.N) (0386.HK) and Oman Construction Co., won the deal from Petrodar Operating Company which is developing two oil reserves - Block 3 and 7 - in Sudan's southeast, MMC said in a statement.
The project, due to be completed in May 2005, involves laying a 490-km export pipeline for segment B1 of the Melut Basin Development Project.
Petrodar is a venture between China National Petroleum Company International (Nile) Ltd, Petronas Carigali Overseas Sdn Bhd, Sudapet Ltd, Gulf Oil Petroleum Ltd and Al Thani Corp.
Sinopec, Asia's largest refiner and China's leading importer of gas oil, holds the majority 41 percent stake in Petrodar.
Petronas Carigali, the overseas exploration arm of Malaysian energy firm Petronas, holds 40 percent, while Sudapet, Gulf oil and Al Thani jointly hold the remaining 19 percent. [Reuters via Sudan Tribune: Malaysia's MMC, Sinopec in Sudan oil pipeline deal]
The last three companies that have annouced plum deals in Sudan -- Ranhill, Lankhorst and MMC -- are all led by Muslim Malaysians. Well done.
Ladies and gentlemen of the Foreign Ministry and Petronas: if you're reading this [and I know some of you are], and you feel you can outlast me on this one, you thought wrong.
The shit in Sudan is going to last longer than you think, and I will try my level best to be the pain in your orifice until you show some balls and some spine.
Posted at 01:37 AM in Current Affairs | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)
Tuesday, July 27, 2004
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>> UN BAH...

U.S. Drops Sanctions From U.N. Resolution
By KIM GAMEL
ASSOCIATED PRESS
UNITED NATIONS (AP) -
The United States dropped the word "sanctions" from a draft U.N. resolution on Sudan on Thursday due to opposition on the Security Council, but it retained a threat of economic action against Khartoum if it fails to disarm Arab militias in Darfur.
The Security Council announced it was ready to vote Friday on the resolution, which has been revised four times in the past week as the United States sought to overcome objections.
Pakistan, China and Russia argued that the 15-nation Security Council argued that Sudan should be given more time to end the violence that some have called ethnic cleansing and even genocide.
In Kuwait, Secretary of State Colin Powell told reporters the United States acquiesced in the change from "sanctions" to "measures" because the latter word was more acceptable to a broader number of Security Council members.
He acknowledged that there is concern in Egypt and some other countries that too much pressure on the Sudanese government could cause internal problems that would make the situation worse.
"At the same time, everybody recognizes that pressure is needed or else we wouldn't get any action at all," Powell said.
Algerian Ambassador Abdallah Baali, whose country also opposed the previous text, welcomed the new version and said he hoped for a unanimous vote. "At first glance, we feel that we are more comfortable with this text than we were with the other versions," he said.
U.S. and British officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Pakistan, Russia and China still had reservations but they were confident the minimum nine "yes" votes could be obtained.
The new draft would still call on Sudan to disarm Arab militias blamed for rampant violence in the western region of Darfur.
It requires U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan to report every 30 days "and expresses its intention to consider further actions, including measures as provided for in Article 41 of the (U.N. Charter) on the Government of Sudan in the event of noncompliance."
The previous text had specifically threatened "the imposition of sanctions."
The draft also would impose an arms embargo that would apply to individuals, groups or governments that supply the pro-government Arab militias known as Janjaweed or rebel groups.
The Janjaweed have staged a brutal campaign to drive out black African farmers over the last 17 months. At least 30,000 civilians, most of them black villagers, have been killed, more than 1 million displaced and some 2.2 million left in urgent need of food or medical attention.
U.S. Ambassador John Danforth insisted the changes did not weaken the text and said he hoped for a unanimous vote to send a strong message to the Sudanese government to stop the violence.
"It's the potential of sanctions in 30 days," he said, reading the article from a copy of the U.N. charter. "The government of Sudan must fulfill that responsibility to the people of Darfur. If it does not then there will be consequences."
Measures included in the 68-word Article 41 exclude the use of armed force but say "complete or partial interruption of economic relations ... and the severance of diplomatic relations" could be considered.
Danforth stressed the importance of "starting the clock ticking," with the 30-day clause, saying it was crucial to increase pressure on Sudan to rein in pro-government Arab militias who have killed thousands in a brutal campaign against black farmers in Darfur.
Sudan's U.N. Ambassador Elfatih Mohamed Erwa criticized the resolution Wednesday, saying it was politically motivated. He said his government would work with the African Union to stop the violence.
"We are going to work with the African Union, not because there is a set of sanctions, but because we believe that this is the right path," he said.
Egypt, which is not on the Security Council but wields great influence in the Arab world, also said it would try to prevent a resolution threatening sanctions from being adopted.
The Sudanese government, which has accused the international community of meddling, has promised to disarm the militias and says sanctions will only hurt those efforts.
The new draft also retains a clause calling on Sudan to "fulfill its commitments to disarm the Janjaweed militias," as it told Annan it would do on July 3.
The Darfur conflict stems from long-standing tensions between nomadic Arab tribes and their African neighbors over dwindling water and farmland. Those tensions exploded into violence in February 2003 when two African rebel groups took up arms over what they regard as unjust treatment by the government.
U.S. and humanitarian officials have accused the Sudanese government of backing the Janjaweed, a claim the government denies.

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France
The price of unexpected success
Jul 29th 2004 | PARIS
From The Economist print edition
AFP
The prime minister may have saved his skin by doing better than expected at promoting change-but voters are still not impressed
WHEN President Jacques Chirac unexpectedly retained Jean-Pierre Raffarin as his prime minister, despite this year's dismal round of election results, savvy voters felt a game was being played: Mr Raffarin's role was to take the rap for some tough measures that lay ahead. Widespread unrest over a reform of public-health insurance and a move to privatise the electricity utility was widely expected. The unions would take to the streets. Public services would be paralysed. All this confirmed the view that Mr Raffarin was being used as a fall-guy.
Yet as France's parliamentary year ended this week, Mr Raffarin has several grounds for satisfaction. He has survived a vote of confidence. He has also just passed one clutch of reforms, and unveiled a fresh round for the autumn. Has his last-ditch effort to keep his job paid off?
Against the odds, the government has pulled off three important initiatives. The first is a law to turn Electricit? de France, a nest of Communist-backed unionism, into a public company. Although workers will retain their civil-service perks, this opens the way for partial privatisation. The government insists that it will keep a 70% stake, but similar promises have been disregarded in the past. Given the symbolism of EDF, whose powerful unions have petrified previous governments, this change in itself is no small achievement.
Second, the government has passed a law to prop up France's public health-insurance system. Though health care is first-class, costs are out of control. The French are second only to the Americans in popping pills, and spend 9% of GDP on health, second in Europe only to Germany. This year, France's public-health fund deficit is expected to top ?13 billion ($15.7 billion).
The reform stops short of a radical overhaul. Fran?ois Bayrou, a centrist politician, dismisses it as a r?formette. Yet it nevertheless introduces important principles that have long been resisted by politicians and doctors. These include an up-front, non-reimbursable charge (initially one euro) for consulting a doctor; the introduction of computerised and shared medical records, to cut down on duplicated testing and to help diagnoses; and the requirement to be registered with a single family doctor, who will act as a gatekeeper for specialist consultations. Such changes may appear simple common sense, but in France's liberal medical world they are regarded as big infringements on individual freedom. Hoped-for efficiency gains, if achieved, will be accompanied by an increase in social charges to help to control the deficit.
The third reform, guillotined through parliament this week to howls of protest from the opposition Socialist Party--a move which in itself triggered the vote of confidence--decentralises a bit of the civil service. The law devolves certain responsibilities, including national roads, most ports and airports, certain social-housing funds and training schemes, and technical secondary-school employees and caretakers. Some 130,000 civil servants will be transferred to local authorities. The government says it wants to rationalise a labyrinthine public service. It also calculates that it will be less difficult to shed bureaucratic jobs in future if they are not all centrally based.
All of which led Mr Raffarin, flush with his successes, to claim this week that it had been "a great year of reform for France". The health reform in particular, he added, showed that it was possible to modernise France without provoking a choc social. In a bid to reassert authority, he unveiled a fresh burst of reforms for the autumn.
On the labour market, the unemployed will be given incentives and help to find work, including the possibility of benefit cut-offs; discussions will re-open on ways to make the 35-hour week more flexible. On the public service, there will be a reform to ensure that basic trains and other public services operate during strikes, to avoid the habitual paralysis; some 10,000 civil-service jobs will be cut. On education, research will get a big cash injection, while secondary schooling will be reformed. In short, Mr Raffarin seemed to say, he has life left in him yet. Indeed, the man whom many consider a caretaker, has now lasted longer as prime minister than both Alain Jupp?, in 1995-1997, and Mr Chirac's most recent term, in 1986-1988.
All the same, Mr Raffarin can scarcely be complacent. His confidence rating has sunk from a high of 64% in 2002 to just 26% today. Worse, according to the latest monthly popularity ranking from IFOP, a pollster, he ranks a miserable number 32--below both the Communist and the Trotskyite leaders. A majority of deputies in the ruling Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) have now swung behind Nicolas Sarkozy, the ambitious finance minister, for the vacant job as its new boss.
This weakness is partly explained by Mr Raffarin's unpopular reforms. But it also undermines their impact: the prime minister pushes through important reforms with one hand, while handing out concessions to special-interest groups--tobacco sellers, research scientists, part-time theatre technicians--with the other.
Mr Raffarin may have secured his job for the autumn. He certainly reckons on keeping it longer: he has started to plan a campaign for a yes vote in the French referendum on the European constitution, due to be held in late 2005. But the more restless that UMP deputies become, the more his lack of popularity, and authority, will be a problem. If the president keeps him on, it will probably be because--for now--he has no acceptable alternative.
Copyright ? 2004 The Economist Newspaper and The Economist Group. All rights reserved.

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>>ROVE SMILES?

Kerrys raced to dump foreign stocks
By David R. Guarino
Read Guarino's Road to Boston Blog
Thursday, July 29, 2004
John Kerry's family dumped millions of dollars of foreign holdings as he launched his White House bid, gobbling up Made in the USA stocks in a huge politically savvy international-to-domestic shift.
The investments, mostly in the name of Kerry's multimillionaire wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, sold stock in massive overseas players like Heineken, Sony, British Petroleum and Italian Telecom for red, white and blue companies like McDonald's, Dell and Kohls.
In all, the Kerrys dumped as much as $16 million worth of international stock and bought between $18 million and $32 million in domestic holdings between 2002 and 2003, records show.
The swaps, detailed in Kerry's financial disclosures for the presidential race, come to light as the Bay State senator tonight wraps himself in Americana to accept the Democratic Party nomination.
The senator's campaign said the investments are managed not by the Kerrys but by professional investment managers for the family trustees - of which Heinz Kerry is only one.
Marla Romash, a senior adviser to Kerry, said the financial decisions aren't political.
``The trustees and Mrs. Heinz Kerry have asked these investment managers, who make their own investment decisions, only to take appropriate steps to ensure that investments are responsible and financially prudent,'' Romash said. ``The trustees review these investments periodically with the managers to ensure that these investments are responsible as well as financially prudent.''
But the timing of the sales appears to be an anomaly among a relatively consistent investment pattern.
Through most of Kerry's federal disclosure forms, the Heinz Kerry trusts - which invest some of the massive inheritance after the death of her first husband, Sen. H. John Heinz III, more than a decade ago - show steady investments and sales of overseas assets.
In the spring of 2002, as Kerry seriously began weighing a presidential run, there appeared to be a marked increase in sales of overseas holdings.
The forms, which only list a range of figures, show the trusts sold between $7.2 million and $16.1 million in assets that year. The trust reported dividends of as much as $68,000 on the sales.
Among the assets dropped were: Cadbury Schweppes, the British candy and soda maker - with between $50,001 and $100,000 in stock sold in March 2002; Japan's Canon, Sony and Toyota - with more than $100,000 in each sold in March 2002; and France's Vivendi, Total Fina, Suez and Compagnie De Saint-Gobain.
The records also show the trust sold between $250,001 and $500,000 of BNP Paribas stock in April 2002, before the French bank was ensnared in the Iraqi oil-for-food scandal at the United Nations.
Later that year and in 2003, the trusts began bolstering its domestic holdings - buying more than $50,000 in Harley Davidson stock, more than $100,000 in Costco, more than $250,000 in Kohls, Raytheon, and Kraft Foods, and as much as $1 million in Dell and McDonald's.



PORTRAIT
John Kerry, aristocrate de gauche
LE MONDE | 26.07.04 | 13h30 * MIS A JOUR LE 27.07.04 | 15h21
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Fils de diplomate, remari? ? une riche h?riti?re, le candidat d?mocrate ? la Maison BLanche a tout du privil?gi?. Ses convictions, pourtant, sont plus profondes qu'il n'y para?t.
Le probl?me de John Kerry, ce n'est pas qu'on ne le conna?t pas, c'est qu'on le conna?t trop." "Encore un de ces riches ?litistes de gauche du Massachusetts qui pr?tend ?tre un homme du peuple ! Impayable !" "Il se pr?sente comme un candidat populiste. Sa premi?re femme venait d'une grande famille de Philadelphie, qui p?se 300 millions de dollars. Sa seconde femme est une h?riti?re des cornichons et du ketchup." "Pour se d?fendre de l'accusation d'?tre distant, Kerry cite l'?crivain fran?ais Andr? Gide : "N'essayez pas de me comprendre trop vite !" Pas de probl?me ! Nous n'avons jamais entendu parler d'Andr? Gide."
Dans la campagne pour l'?lection pr?sidentielle du 2 novembre, les caricatures volent bas. Les pol?mistes de droite n'ont pas ? envier l'ardeur des "Bush-haters" ("ha?sseurs de Bush") de gauche. Pour les r?dacteurs de publicit?s t?l?vis?es, les chroniqueurs radio ou les sites Internet r?publicains, John Kerry repr?sente tout ce qu'un conservateur am?ricain d?teste. Il appartient ? la haute soci?t? de Nouvelle-Angleterre, il a v?cu en Europe, il est cultiv?, de gauche, catholique de la tendance tol?rante. Qui plus est, il si?ge au S?nat depuis presque vingt ans, et les "politiciens de Washington" ont, par d?finition, mauvaise r?putation. Il a m?me fini par devenir ami avec l'autre s?nateur du Massachusetts, Edward Kennedy, parangon de la gauche d?mocrate la plus traditionnelle, certains diraient sectaire.
Naturellement, les caricatures ont raison. Elles sont m?me au-dessous de la v?rit?. Il est difficile d'imaginer un homme politique plus compliqu? que John Forbes Kerry. Sa naissance, d?j?, est un d?fi aux id?es re?ues. Son p?re ?tait un diplomate au patronyme irlandais, de confession catholique, form? aux universit?s Yale et Harvard.
Richard Kerry n'a jamais dit ? son fils ce que celui-ci a appris par un article du Boston Globe en 2003 : ses grands-parents ?taient des juifs d'Europe centrale, convertis au catholicisme en 1902 et arriv?s aux Etats-Unis en 1905. Fritz Kohn a emprunt? le nom d'un comt? d'Irlande pour devenir Frederick Kerry. Avec sa femme, Ida, il s'est install? ? Chicago, puis ? Brookline, dans le Massachusetts. Apr?s deux faillites, Frederick Kerry n'en a pas support? une troisi?me et s'est tir? une balle dans la t?te, dans les toilettes d'un h?tel de Boston, en 1921.
La m?re de John Kerry, Rosemary Forbes, appartient ? l'une des familles les plus anciennes de cette grande bourgeoisie de Boston surnomm?e "les brahmanes", tant elle forme une caste s?re de sa valeur et de sa place dans la soci?t?. Les Forbes se sont enrichis dans le commerce avec la Chine - celui de l'opium, entre autres - et poss?dent des terrains ? Cape Cod, lieu de vill?giature des fortunes de Nouvelle-Angleterre.
Le p?re de Rosemary avait ?pous? une descendante de John Winthrop, qui fut, au d?but du XVIIe si?cle, le premier gouverneur du Massachusetts. Ces Forbes-l? vivaient en Bretagne, ? Saint-Briac-sur-Mer. John et Margaret Forbes avaient onze enfants, et c'est ? Saint-Brieuc, o? il ?tudiait la sculpture, pendant l'?t? 1938, que Richard Kerry a rencontr? celle qui est devenue sa femme, trois ans plus tard. Pilote d'essai de l'arm?e de l'air, Richard Kerry a ?t? hospitalis?, pour une tuberculose, dans le Colorado. John est n?, ? Denver, le 11 d?cembre 1943.
Pourtant, bien qu'apparent?s ? la plus ancienne aristocratie de ce pays qui ne conna?t pas les titres de noblesse, le futur s?nateur, ses deux s?urs et son fr?re n'ont pas ?t? ?lev?s dans le luxe. Leur famille maternelle ?tait une branche modeste de la tribu Forbes, et leur p?re ?tait un diplomate de niveau moyen, qui n'a jamais atteint le rang d'ambassadeur.
Quand John, apr?s un s?jour dans une pension suisse, est entr? au coll?ge Saint Paul, dans le New Hampshire, sa scolarit? a ?t? pay?e gr?ce ? la g?n?rosit? d'une grand-tante. A Saint Paul, il ?tait doublement isol?, catholique dans un milieu anglican - la religion des grands bourgeois anglophiles du Nord-Est - et imp?cunieux parmi des jeunes gens aux poches pleines, assur?s de leur avenir et qui trouvaient un peu ?trange de travailler autant qu'il le faisait. "Il ?tait tr?s pugnace", a racont? un de ses condisciples, Danny Barbiero, lui aussi atypique dans cet ?tablissement. Et d'ajouter : "Ce n'?tait pas cool de l'?tre, ? Saint Paul. Vous n'aviez pas ? l'?tre. Vous aviez un droit de naissance."
Le jeune Kerry s'impose par l'effort. Il est bon ?l?ve. Il brille au hockey sur glace, dans une ?quipe dirig?e par Robert Mueller, aujourd'hui directeur du FBI. Il fait du th??tre et joue - ou pr?tend jouer, il y a d?bat sur ce point... - de la guitare basse dans un groupe de rock. Il ?crit dans le journal de l'?cole, o?, en mai 1962, deux mois apr?s les accords d'Evian, qui ont mis fin ? la guerre d'Alg?rie, il publie un curieux po?me sur de Gaulle et le d?clin de l'empire fran?ais.
Il drague les filles, parmi lesquelles une demi-s?ur de Jackie Kennedy, ce qui lui vaut d'assister ? la r?gate de l'America Cup, au large de Rhode Island, sur le m?me voilier que le pr?sident des Etats-Unis. Il commence peut-?tre, alors, ? se croire un destin. En tout cas, quand il entre, la m?me ann?e, ? Yale, il se sent chez lui, dans cette universit? prestigieuse, et tient des discours de plus en plus cat?goriques sur la politique nationale et internationale.
Partisan enthousiaste de John Kennedy, il devient pr?sident de la Yale Political Union, association d'?tudiants qui organise des d?bats politiques. Il est initi?, aussi, ? la myst?rieuse Skull and Bones Society ("Soci?t? des cr?nes et des os"), cette confr?rie de Yale ? laquelle ont appartenu les deux George Bush et qui, comme toutes les soci?t?s secr?tes, excite les imaginations. En fait, on y est coopt? pour ses m?rites, qu'ils soient scolaires, sportifs ou de camaraderie. Y ?tre admis est, ? la fois, un rite de passage - le nouvel arrivant doit, notamment, raconter en d?tail sa vie sexuelle depuis l'enfance - et une voie de socialisation. Sur les quinze membres de Skull and Bones qui ont obtenu leur dipl?me de sortie en 1966, quatre se sont engag?s dans les forces arm?es. Bien qu'il ait pass? une grande partie de son temps, pendant sa derni?re ann?e ? Yale, ? s'initier ? l'aviation, avec son camarade Frederick Smith, futur fondateur de Federal Express, John Kerry a choisi la marine plut?t que l'arm?e de l'air.
L'influence de son p?re, qui s'?tait engag? lui-m?me ? la fin de ses ?tudes, semble avoir ?t? grande, mais ambigu?. Richard Kerry a quitt? le Foreign Service en 1962, las de ses lourdeurs bureaucratiques et amer de ne pas avoir vu ses qualit?s reconnues. Dans un entretien au Boston Globe, en 1996, il a expliqu? qu'il consid?rait la guerre du Vietnam comme "une grave faute politique", mais que son fils voulait "brandir le drapeau"et qu'il ?tait "tr?s immature ? cet ?gard".
En octobre 1965, John Kerry a remis au vice-pr?sident Hubert Humphrey, de passage ? New Haven, dans le Connecticut, o? se trouve l'universit? Yale, une p?tition condamnant les manifestations contre la guerre. Pourtant, sept mois plus tard, choisi pour prononcer le discours de fin d'ann?e universitaire, le jeune engag? critique la politique du pr?sident Lyndon Johnson. "Nous n'avons pas r?ellement perdu le d?sir de servir. Nous nous interrogeons sur les racines de ce que nous servons", dit-il.
L'h?sitation de John Kerry face ? la guerre du Vietnam semble annoncer celle dont il a fait preuve, pr?s de quarante ans plus tard, au sujet de l'Irak. Lui qui s'?tait prononc?, au S?nat, en 1991, contre la premi?re guerre du Golfe, a longtemps tergivers? avant de voter, en octobre 2002, la r?solution autorisant George Bush ? employer la force contre Saddam Hussein.
Un an plus tard, il a refus? le collectif budg?taire de 87 milliards de dollars destin? ? couvrir les d?penses militaires et l'occupation du pays. Dans une d?claration dont les r?publicains n'ont pas fini de se d?lecter, il a expliqu? qu'il avait "vot? pour avant de voter contre". "En effet, c'est beaucoup plus clair comme ?a", ironise le vice-pr?sident, Richard Cheney, de r?union publique en d?ner de collecte de fonds. Le s?nateur a voulu dire qu'il soutenait le projet, avec un amendement d?mocrate pr?voyant de r?duire les baisses d'imp?ts sur les hauts revenus, et qu'il a vot? contre apr?s que cet amendement eut ?t? rejet? par les r?publicains.
La question n'est pas l?, ?videmment. Elle est de savoir si, trois ans apr?s les attentats du 11 septembre, alors que leurs forces sont engag?es en Afghanistan et en Irak, et face ? une menace terroriste qui n'a pas diminu?, les Am?ricains peuvent s'en remettre ? un homme qui para?t craindre de faire la guerre.
A ce doute sur sa d?termination, John Kerry r?pond en invoquant, inlassablement, ses ?tats de service au Vietnam. Il y a ?t? bless? plusieurs fois, il y a abattu au moins un ennemi, il y a sauv? des camarades, il en est revenu d?cor?. "Cela fait trente-cinq ans que je d?montre ce qu'est ma politique", d?clare-t-il dans l'hebdomadaire The New Yorker(dat? 26 juillet). Il a approuv? les interventions dans les Balkans, d?cri?es, ? l'?poque, par les r?publicains. Il a soutenu les actions men?es en Ha?ti et ? Panama. "Je suis clair, dit-il, sur ma volont? d'employer la force, si n?cessaire, pour prot?ger nos int?r?ts dans le monde et, ?videmment, la s?curit? de notre pays." A ses yeux, l'Irak n'est pas un bourbier dont il faudrait sortir au plus vite et ? tout prix, mais une erreur ? r?parer.
A la fin des ann?es 1960 et au d?but des ann?es 1970, John Kerry dirigeait les Vietnam Veterans Against War, les anciens combattants oppos?s ? la guerre. "C'est un fumiste, non ?", demandait Richard Nixon, ?lu pr?sident, en 1968, en promettant de mettre fin ? la guerre et qui l'a prolong?e pendant sept ans. T?moignant au S?nat, avec l'aide d'Edward Kennedy, et ? la t?l?vision, le lieutenant Kerry a d?nonc?, en 1971, les "atrocit?s" que cette guerre faisait commettre aux soldats am?ricains.
Une des cl?s de sa pens?e se trouve peut-?tre dans le livre que son p?re a publi? en 1990, The Star Spangled Mirror ( Le Miroir ?toil?). Richard Kerry y d?non?ait les fautes que peut commettre l'Am?rique quand elle se persuade de sa sup?riorit? et de sa mission civilisatrice. John Kerry ne partage pas le radicalisme de son p?re, mort en 2000, mais il ne cesse de reprocher ? George Bush d'avoir men? "la politique ?trang?re la plus arrogante, la plus inepte, la plus brutale et la plus id?ologique de l'histoire moderne". Il croit ? la n?cessit? des interventions humanitaires, mais, dans le grand d?bat am?ricain sur ce que doit ?tre la politique des Etats-Unis vis-?-vis du reste du monde, il se situe du c?t? des "r?alistes", qui donnent la priorit? aux alliances et ? l'?quilibre des puissances, contre les "id?alistes", qui pr?chent la diffusion de la d?mocratie.
Son mariage, en 1970, avec Julia Thorne, s?ur d'un de ses camarades de Yale, s'est achev?, en 1988, par un divorce. Sept ans plus tard, le s?nateur du Massachusetts a ?pous? Teresa Heinz, veuve d'un de ses anciens coll?gues, le r?publicain John Heinz, mort dans un accident d'avion. H?riti?re des conserves Heinz, Teresa Kerry g?re une immense fortune, et le s?nateur m?ne grande vie, avec elle et leur famille recompos?e, de leur maison de Boston ? celle de Georgetown, quartier chic de Washington, de l'?le de Nantucket aux pistes de ski de l'Idaho, d'une propri?t? ? Pittsburgh, en Pennsylvanie, berceau de la famille Heinz, ? un chalet ? Aspen, dans le Colorado.
Cela n'emp?che pas le candidat d?mocrate de faire partie de ces privil?gi?s qui pensent que l'Am?rique a du chemin ? faire pour tenir ses promesses en mati?re de justice, d'?quit? et de solidarit?. Pour George Bush, c'est "toujours le m?me vieux pessimisme". Pour John Kerry, c'est "la confiance dans ce dont ce pays est capable".
Patrick Jarreau
* ARTICLE PARU DANS L'EDITION DU 27.07.04


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Kerry Spot [ jim geraghty reporting ]
[ kerry spot home | archives | email ]
NRO.COM
TALE OF A TAPE [07/28 11:11 AM]


John Kerry at Kennedy Space Center. Remind you of another Mass. liberal in a tank?
Wednesday morning, the GOP fired one of the biggest guns in its counter-spin arsenal: a twelve-minute video of John Kerry's statements on Iraq and how to handle Saddam Hussein, contrasting his pro-war views of 1998 and 2003 with his antiwar views of 1991 and 2004.
While the charge that John Kerry is a flip-flopper is nothing new, rarely has the case been made so comprehensively, in such detail, relying almost entirely on the Democratic senator's own words.
There are quite a few Kerry quotes that have disappeared down the memory hole that are worth recollecting. Like his statement on Dec. 11, 2001, on The O'Reilly Factor (does it seem shocking now that Kerry once appeared on O'Reilly's show?): "I think we ought to put the heat on Saddam Hussein. I've said that for a number of years, Bill. I criticized the Clinton administration for backing off of the inspections when Ambassador Butler was giving us strong evidence that we needed to continue. I think we need to put the pressure on no matter what the evidence is about September 11."
Got that? Tougher stance than Clinton. Evidence about 9/11 is irrelevant.
Kerry on Larry King Live, several days later: "I think we clearly have to keep the pressure on terrorism globally. This doesn't end with Afghanistan by any imagination. And I think the president has made that clear. I think we have made that clear. Terrorism is a global menace. It's a scourge. And it is absolutely vital that we continue, for instance, Saddam Hussein."
Afghanistan's not enough. Continue the fight. Take Saddam Hussein.
Then this exchange with Chris Matthews on Feb. 5, 2002: Matthews asked, "Do you think that the problem we have with Iraq is real and it can be reduced to a diplomatic problem? Can we get this guy to accept inspections of those weapons of mass destruction potentially and get past a possible war with him?"
"Outside chance, Chris," Kerry responded. "Could it be done? The answer is yes. But he would view himself only as buying time and playing a game, in my judgment. Do we have to go through that process? The answer is yes. We're precisely doing that. And I think that's what Colin Powell did today."
There was no complaining then about a "rush to war." No warnings that Saddam Hussein's WMD programs might not be as advanced as the administration feared. No skepticism about the intelligence, no blood-for-oil, no conspiracy theories about Chalabi and Halliburton and neocons.
Finally, his speech to the Democratic Leadership Council's national convention on July 29, 2002: "I agree completely with this administration's goal of a regime change in Iraq."
What makes the video more than a collection of Kerry's rhetorical hits is its documentation of how outside events were influencing the Democratic senator's political positions. Specifically, as 2003 wore on, Howard Dean rocketed to the top of the Democratic-primary polls and garnered laudatory press coverage. And Kerry obviously, blatantly, started borrowing Dean's anti-war rhetoric.
By August 2003, Kerry was declaring on Meet the Press, "The fact is, in the resolution that we passed, we did not empower the president to do regime change."
By October, the struggling Kerry was insisting that the war he had said he "agreed completely with" was unnecessary. "But the president and his advisors did not do almost anything correctly in the walk-up to the war. They rushed to war. They were intent on going to war. They did not give legitimacy to the inspections. We could have still been doing inspections even today, George."
Remember, the previous February, Kerry had dismissed diplomatic negotiations for more inspections as Saddam's "buying time and playing a game."
Judging by the 100-percent certainty with which Kerry made both sets of comments, he doesn't seem to even acknowledge that they contradict each other. Both appear to accurately express his views at the moment he speaks them.
The point is that there isn't truth or untruth to Kerry's views. There is simply what is needed and what is not needed, and the True North of Kerry's rhetorical and policy compass is whatever he needs politically at that time.
George Clooney's character in Three Kings, a film about the first Gulf War, explains to three soldiers under his command that "the most important thing in life is necessity... As in people do what is most necessary to them at any given moment."
What does Kerry stand for? Whatever is most necessary to him at that particular moment.
One could say that's not unique to Kerry, and may be a common trait among politicians. But what would this mean in a president? Periodically, Sen. Edward Kennedy or some other Democrat will make the stupendously illogical charge that George W. Bush made the call to go to war in Iraq in order to boost his poll numbers. But the political boost from a war, the rally-around-the-flag effect, is notoriously short lived. Winston Churchill won World War II and got tossed out on his tush by British voters almost the moment the war ended.
President Bush didn't decide to got to war to boost his poll numbers. In spite of the near-certainty that it would erode his high poll numbers after toppling the Taliban, Bush made the decision to go ahead.
What would John Kerry do in a similar situation? How dire would a threat have to be for him to risk his popularity on an unpopular war? Or would he put his faith in diplomacy with dictators and agreements with rogue states -- "buying time and playing a game," as he once described it?
Before the voters can consider that question, Kerry's long and meandering views on Iraq have to be brought front and center before the millions of Americans who are not paying close attention to this race. Unfortunately, this video format doesn't lend itself well to the traditional methods.
It's way too long to condense into a 30- or 60-second ad. If it were shown during the GOP convention, it would be putting the spotlight on the challenger instead of the president, and much of the media would explode with fury at the "negative campaigning." Some political shows might spotlight it, but few would be willing to let it run for the entire eleven minutes. Maybe C-SPAN will show it. Perhaps it could serve as the entertainment for the Bush "House Parties."
Maybe talk radio could run the audio of the tape uninterrupted.
A GOP source says the idea of buying airtime on the networks, like H. Ross Perot did in 1992, has been tossed around. One way or another, this 11-minute tape will be coming to a place near you in the not-too-distant future.
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>> WHAT REALLY HAPPENED IN BOSTON...

The Party's Parties
Lavish Parties Lead to Access at Nominating Convention

By Meredith O'Brien

WASHINGTON, July 8, 2004 -- At this year's Democratic national convention in Boston, special interests are planning and paying for a reported 200 private parties and receptions for lawmakers and party officials. Corporations, unions, lobbying firms and interest groups will host the Democratic elite at nightclubs, fine dining establishments, museums--even Fenway Park.

Though party officials will not comment on or release a list of the parties, the Center for Public Integrity has identified 70 events, 33 of which are hosted by Boston 2004, the private host committee designated to raise funds and organize welcoming events for the convention. The remaining parties have as sponsors the likes of insurance giant American International Group, biotech firm Genzyme, telecommunications firms Time Warner and Comcast, lobbying firms Patton Boggs LLP and Foley Hoag LLP, unions including the AFL-CIO and the International Brotherhood of Carpenters, and trade groups like the American Gas Association and the National Association of Broadcasters.

Corporations and unions used to be able to curry favor with lawmakers by pouring unlimited amounts of cash into the soft money coffers of one or both major political parties. Organizations and issue oriented groups used to show their affection and keen interest in parties' actions the same way, making sure that their money kept them in the game.

But now that once healthy spigot of unlimited campaign cash has been shut off by campaign finance laws prohibiting soft money donations, companies and interest groups have sought out other ways to show the political parties that they're players too, and to make sure that the next time a bill or policy they're interested in crops up, that they are consulted.

One solution: Lavish parties at the presidential nominating conventions.

In the words of one campaign finance expert, they are raising party planning "to an art form." While exclusive parties are not new to the convention scene, watchdog groups say this year's receptions will be more extravagant to make up for the absence of soft money donations. "This year, the number of private affairs is expected to far exceed previous conventions," wrote Bill McConnell in the trade publication, Broadcasting and Cable. "Independent party planners will throw nearly 50 blowouts costing $100,000 or more each, according to estimates."

However, the precise number of parties and where they're being held is a quasi-secret, reserved for only those in the know. When asked by the Center for Public Integrity for a list of private parties and receptions to be held in Boston during the late-July convention, the spokeswoman of the city's host committee, Boston 2004, played it close to the vest. "We have nothing to do with that," said Spokeswoman Karen Grant. "There's nothing coordinated." But the Boston Globe reported in June 2004 that it had obtained a "confidential calendar of private events, produced by the Boston 2004 convention host committee . . . [showing] nearly 200 receptions, luncheons and after-hours parties."

The official parties
There are official parties of course, hosted by Boston 2004, some 33 of them--at a total $1.8 million price-tag--at locations around the Hub, from museums, historic sites and parks, to a brewery, a cookie factory and university campuses. The biggest one is the reception for 15,000 members of the media at the just opened Boston Convention and Exhibition Center facing Boston Harbor. The Boston Globe is one of the sponsors for the $800,000 shindig, geared toward putting the best face on the city for the media who will project its image to the world for a week. The paper is contributing $500,000.

The other official gatherings are welcoming parties for the 56 state and territorial delegations attending the convention. Some delegates will be feted in historic style--the Pennsylvania delegation in the gold-domed State House on Beacon Hill and the hometown favorites, the Massachusetts delegation, in the grand Boston Public Library.

Others will be treated to unique receptions. Ohio delegates, for example, will be meeting at the Samuel Adams Brewery. Minnesota and North Dakota delegates will be welcomed at the Dancing Deer Baking Company, home to the "Break the Curse" molasses clove cookie, in honor of the Boston Red Sox's long World Series championship drought which coincided with the team trading Babe Ruth to the New York Yankees.

On a less culinary note, the New Jersey delegates will gather in the Charlestown Navy Yard at the U.S.S. Constitution Museum, home of the over 200-year-old ship, while the California delegates will be consorting with wild life at the Franklin Park Zoo.

The unofficial parties
While the official parties are sure to be interesting, look for the real political action elsewhere, like at the Bay Tower Room with panoramic views of the city, or at Felt, the uber hip nightclub, or even at Locke-Ober, the high-end French restaurant favored by Boston's political establishment.

These are among the sites of some of the private gatherings slated for select Democrats during convention week. Companies ranging from telecommunications giants to insurance, fuel, bio-tech and financial institutions are ponying up hundreds of thousands of dollars to honor and fete those with power.

"It's not an opportunity that we want to let slide by," Daphne Magnuson, spokeswoman for the American Gas Association (AGA) told the Boston Globe, adding that the group has budgeted $700,000 to stage parties at the Boston and New York national conventions this summer.

The AGA has at least four events slated for the convention week, according to press reports. The trade group will host a dinner honoring Sen. Max Baucus, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Finance Committee, a late-night reception for the Congressional Hispanic Caucus at a hopping nightclub, luncheons in the honor of Sen. Byron Dorgan and Sen. Jeff Bingaman of the Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee and a reception for governors, according to the Boston Globe.

Two events are rivaling one another for the honor of being the hottest event in town: The Creative Coalition's benefit gala at Louis Boston, home of the Asian/French fusion Restaurant L in the city's high-end shopping area (Newbury Street), and the gala for Massachusetts Sen. Ted Kennedy at Boston Symphony Hall.

The Creative Coalition--a group comprised of members of the arts and entertainment community--has the upper hand when it comes to Hollywood wattage. It's lined up celebrities like Boston's home boy Ben Affleck, Oscar winner Chris Cooper, actor William Baldwin and actress/Air America talk show host Janeane Garofalo to attend a fundraiser for the non-profit group, hosted with the Recording Industry Association of America, Esquire, Allied Domecq and Volkswagen. Alternative rockers the Red Hot Chili Peppers are scheduled to perform at the fundraiser. Tickets to the event range from a low of $1,000 for one ticket, to $50,000, which would buy you 40 tickets, gift bags, 20 VIP tickets and Green Room Access, according to the Creative Coalition's site, which lists issues such as arts and music education, First Amendment rights, gun control and campaign finance reform as topics of importance to the group.

But when it comes to old fashioned political clout, the party for Kennedy, featuring Yo-Yo Ma and the Boston Pops, with conductor John Williams, is a strong competitor. The event, which is estimated to cost $400,000-$600,000, is being sponsored by a handful of corporations and unions, including, Raytheon, Bristol-Myers Squibb, the AFL-CIO and the International Brotherhood of Carpenters, which all gave $100,000 each, according to the Boston Globe.

Kennedy will receive more accolades at the Boston Park Plaza Hotel when the Irish American Democrats and the Italian American Democratic Leadership Council team up for a reception. U2 lead singer Bono and Stephen Stills are among the celebrity guests. Kennedy, along with Rep. Mike Capuano, also of Massachusetts, is scheduled to make an appearance at the Biotechnology Industry Organization's reception at the Museum of Science that week.

For Democratic governors making the sojourn to Boston, many groups are awaiting them. The AGA is planning a reception for them at Ned Devine's Irish Pub in Faneuil Hall. There's going to be a Boston Harbor waterfront "All-Star Salute to Democratic Governors" on Rowe's Wharf, according to the Democratic Governors' Association's web site. And, in honor of those All-Stars, the governors will head to Fenway Park for what's being billed as "an afternoon at one of America's most storied ballparks," brought to them by UBS Financial Services.

Meanwhile members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus will be honored by the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute with a reception at the swank nightspot, Felt, sponsored by the AGA. Listening to the tunes of Los Lobos, members of the caucus may be able to mingle with special invited guests New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton. Sponsorship ranges from $25,000 to $50,000, according to the group's web site.

Clinton will be featured at a number of events during the convention, including a lunch at Locke-Ober, a restaurant famed for its JFK room and JFK lobster stew, sponsored by American International Group, reports the Boston Globe. The senator and her husband, former President Bill Clinton, will be honored at the State Room restaurant with views of the city; the 500-person event is being held by Democratic fundraiser and contributor Elaine Schuster and other donors, according to press reports. Another Boston night club, Avalon, will be the site of a gathering for New York lawmakers, including Clinton, that's expected to be attended by 2,000 people.

Massachusetts Congressman Bill Delahunt, looking to capitalize on the party going, is hosting a campaign fundraiser at a championship golf club, Granite Links in nearby Quincy. For $2,000 per ticket, one can participate in the golf tournament and enjoy the clambake afterwards, according to the Hill. For non-golfers, they can chip in $1,000 and just go for the food.

One of the most talked about parties is Louisiana Sen. John Breaux's Caribbean bash, sponsored by more than a dozen media lobbyists, according to Broadcasting & Cable. Featuring jerk chicken, Red Stripe beer and the tunes of Ziggy Marley and Buckwheat Zydeco, the $300,000 party for more than 1,000 will be held at the New England Aquarium.

Below is a list of parties compiled by the Center for Public Integrity from news reports and Internet searches. (It is not a comprehensive list of all, unofficial events.)

Official parties (Sponsored by Boston 2004 and others as noted)
Party thrown for Given by Location Type of location Date
Media Boston Globe and Boston 2004 Boston Convention & Exhibition Center Reception 24-Jul
New Jersey delegation Boston 2004 Navy Yard Constitution Museum Historic naval yard, Charlestown 25-Jul
South Dakota delegation Boston 2004 Navy Yard Commandant's House Historic naval yard, Charlestown 25-Jul
Nevada delegation Boston 2004 Navy Yard Pier 1 Historic naval yard, Charlestown 25-Jul
Iowa and Missouri delegations Boston 2004 New England Aquarium, downtown Aquarium 25-Jul
Texas delegation Boston 2004 Hyatt Harborside East Boston 25-Jul
Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming delegations Boston 2004 Museum of Science, downtown Museum 25-Jul
Michigan delegation Boston 2004 State Street Financial Center, Chinatown 36-story, high-rise building in Financial District 25-Jul
New York Delegation Boston 2004 L Street Bathhouse, South Boston Recreation Center 25-Jul
Louisiana, Kansas, Nebraska delegations Boston 2004 Wang Center, downtown Performance Hall 25-Jul
DC, Maryland, Delaware delegations Boston 2004 Children's Museum, downtown Interactive museum 25-Jul
Arizona, New Mexico, Utah delegations Boston 2004 Jorge Hernandez Cultural Center, South End Municipal center 25-Jul
North Carolina delegation Boston 2004 Student Center at the University of Mass.-Boston University campus 25-Jul
Wisconsin delegation Boston 2004 Boston Nature Center Nature center 25-Jul
Virginia, West Virginia delegations Boston 2004 Hyde Park Library, Menino Wing Library 25-Jul
Puerto Rico, US Virgin Island delegations Boston 2004 Adams Park, Roslindale Park 25-Jul
Ohio delegation Boston 2004 Samuel Adams Brewery Brewery 25-Jul
Tennessee delegation Boston 2004 James Michael Curley House, Jamaica Plain Historical building 25-Jul
Guam, American Samoa, Alaska, Hawaii delegations Boston 2004 Millennium Park, West Roxbury Park 25-Jul
Indiana delegation Boston 2004 Strand Theater Performance Hall 25-Jul
Minnesota and North Dakota delegations Boston 2004 Dancing Deer Baking Company, Roxbury Cookie makers 25-Jul
Florida delegation Boston 2004 Northeastern University University campus 25-Jul
Connecticut, Maine, NH, VT, RI delegation Boston 2004 Museum of Fine Arts, Fenway area Museum 25-Jul
Georgia delegation Boston 2004 Shirley-Eustis House Historical building 25-Jul
South Carolina, Alabama delegations Boston 2004 Museum of the National Center of Afro-American Artists, Roxbury Museum 25-Jul
California delegation Boston 2004 Franklin Park Zoo Zoo 25-Jul
Oklahoma delegation Boston 2004 Parkman House, Beacon Hill Historical building 25-Jul
Illinois delegation Boston 2004 Institute of Contemporary Art, Back Bay Art gallery 25-Jul
Pennsylvania delegation Boston 2004 State House, Beacon Hill State House 25-Jul
Massachusetts delegation Boston 2004 Boston Public Library, Back Bay Library 25-Jul
Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi delegation Boston 2004 Spangler Center at Harvard Business School, Allston University campus 25-Jul
Oregon delegation Boston 2004 Boston Latin School, Mission Hill School campus 25-Jul
Colorado delegation Boston 2004 Home of ambassador Swanee Hunt, Cambridge Private home 25-Jul


Source: Boston 2004 web site, web sites, news reports

Unofficial parties (Sponsored by private groups, businesses and organizations)
Party thrown for Given by Location Type of location Date
The Creative Coalition and the Recording Industry Association of America Benefit gala hosted in association with Esquire, Allied Domecq & Volkswagen Restaurant L, described by Zagat Survey as Asian and French fusion food. Restaurant 28-Jul
Democratic Governors' Assn Democratic Governors' Assn Boston Harbor Waterfront "All-Star Salute to Democratic Governors," "Rock the Harbor" opening reception, Rowe's Wharf Overlooking the Harbor 25-Jul
New York Delegation Unclear Avalon, Landsdowne Street, Boston Nightclub 28-Jul
Former President Bill and Sen. Hillary Clinton Elaine Schuster and other donors State Room, Boston Restaurant in Bay Tower overlooking the city 25-Jul
Sen. Ted Kennedy A half dozen corporations and unions, including Raytheon, Bristol Myers Squibb, AFL-CIO, and International Brotherhood of Carpenters Boston Symphony Hall, home of the Boston Symphony & Pops Performance hall 27-Jul
Sen. Hillary Clinton and NY lawmakers AIG (insurance) Locke-Ober, Boston Restaurant 28-Jul
Fundraiser for Rep. Bill Delahunt (Mass.) Rep. Bill Delahunt Granite Links championship Golf Club overlooking Boston Harbor Country club Unknown
Sen. Hillary Clinton and Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm Emily's List Boston Convention & Exhibition Center Convention center 27-Jul
Sen. John Breaux, Louisiana Media lobbyists New England Aquarium Aquarium 27-Jul
Sen. Ted Kennedy and other lawmakers Irish American Democrats and Italian American Democratic Leadership Councils Park Plaza Hotel 25-Jul
New England delegation Genzyme Genzyme headquarters, Cambridge Biotech firm headquarters 26-Jul
Sen. Ted Kennedy and Rep. Michael Capuano (Mass.) Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) Museum of Science Museum 28-Jul
Congressmen and staff Biotechnology Industry Organization (BIO) Genzyme HQ, Cambridge Luncheon at biotech firm Unknown
Delegates Time Warner Tia's, Boston Restaurant on Long Wharf with waterfront view 25-Jul
Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle and Senate Democratic Whip Harry Reid Comcast, Citigroup and other sponsors Dinner Restaurant Unknown
Lawmakers Fox News Concert at Fenway Park Baseball park Unknown
Senate Democrats Consumer Electronics Association and other sponsors Unknown Unknown Unknown
Sen. Max Baucus, (Mont.), ranking member of the Finance Committee American Gas Association Unknown Unknown 26-Jul
Congressional Hispanic Caucus American Gas Association Late night reception at Felt Nightclub 26-Jul
Sen. Jeff Bingaman (N.M.) and Sen. Byron Dorgan, (N.D.), members of Energy & Natural Resources Committee American Gas Association Unknown Unknown Unknown
Democratic Governors' Assn American Gas Association Ned Devine's Irish Pub, Faneuil Hall Restaurant 28-Jul
Rep. Barney Frank (Mass.), ranking member of the House Financial Services Committee Financial Services Roundtable Bay Tower, Boston Restaurant in a high rise with views of city July 27-28
Rep. Ed Markey (Mass.), ranking member on the House Telecom and Internet Subcommittee Massachusetts Broadcasters Association and National Association of Broadcasters Boston College Club, Boston Private club 26-Jul
Massachusetts Congressional delegation Patton Boggs LLP and Mass Mutual Financial Group Dinner Unknown 26-Jul
Congressmen from Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Pennsylvania Sovereign Bank New England Reception, Fenway Park, .406 Club Baseball park skybox 26-Jul
Democratic Women Bingham McCutchen, The Alliance of Women's Business & Professional Organizations, The Boston Club, the Massachusetts Women's Political Caucus and Women's Bar Assn of Massachusetts Bingham McCutchen law firm Law firm offices Unknown
Democratic National Convention Chairwoman Alice Huffman Foley Hoag LLP and the United Way of Massachusetts Bay (Luncheon) Unknown Unknown Unknown
Planned Parenthood Foley Hoag LLP Unknown Unknown Unknown
Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Foley Hoag LLP (Fundraising reception) Unknown Unknown Unknown
LGBT delegates, Massachusetts AFL-CIO and Massachusetts legislators Bay State Stonewall Democrats Goulston & Storrs, Boston Law firm offices 25-Jul
Sen. Tim Johnson, (S.D.), member, Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee Securities and bond market groups Unknown Unknown Unknown
Blue Dog Coalition A dozen trade groups and companies Roxy, Boston Nightclub Unknown
Sen. John Breaux (La.) The Creative Coalition and Congressional Quarterly blu, restaurant at Sports/LA, Boston Restaurant at a health club 27-Jul
The Creative Coalition, Music for All Foundation, National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) The Creative Coalition, Music for All Foundation, National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM) Sports Club/LA, Boston Health club 27-Jul
Emily's List and Revolutionary Women Emily's List and Revolutionary Women Boston Convention & Exhibition Center Convention center 27-Jul
Bay State Stonewall Democrats Bay State Stonewall Democrats John Hancock Hall, Boston Concert hall 27-Jul
Rep. Barney Frank (Mass.) Bay State Stonewall Democrats Marriott Copley, Boston Hotel 29-Jul
Democratic Governors' Association UBS Financial Services Fenway Park Baseball park 28-Jul


Sources: Boston Business Journal, The Boston Globe, The Boston Herald, Broadcasting & Cable, The Hill, National Journal, Roll Call, Times-Picayune, various organizations' web sites



>> LEFT WATCH...BANG THE DRUM SLOWLY?


The Condition of the Working Class in China
On March 16 the AFL-CIO filed a remarkable petition with the U.S. government asking that the U.S. trade representative take action to promote the human rights of China's factory workers. The petition charged that China's brutal repression of internationally recognized workers' rights constitutes an unfair trade practice under section 301 of the Trade Act of 1974. It was the first time in the history of section 301 that a petition has invoked the violation of workers' rights as an unfair trade practice, although it is quite common for corporations to use section 301 to challenge other unfair trade practices, such as violation of intellectual property rights.
The petition thoroughly documents the Chinese government's systematic violation of workers' rights and demonstrates how such exploitation costs hundreds of thousands of U.S. manufacturing jobs and puts downward pressure on wages around the world.
The petition attracted enormous attention around the world. BusinessWeek claimed it was a "milestone" that "articulated a coherent intellectual position that makes a logical link between trade and labor rights." Even the Washington Post editorial page, which has always been fierce in its opposition to linking trade and labor rights, stated that the petition deserved "qualified sympathy."
On April 29 the Bush administration rejected the petition. While refuting none of the charges made in the petition, the administration referred to it as an example of "economic isolationism." Tom Donahue, the president of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, was perhaps more honest about why the petition was rejected: "Had the administration accepted the petition . . . we would have married forever human rights and trade, and that would have been a huge mistake."
One wishes Mr. Donahue had explained himself a bit more: a mistake for whom? For ruthlessly exploited workers in China? For laid off manufacturing workers in the United States? Or for American business, which is complicit in and profits from, the exploitation described below?
We are glad to reprint an edited excerpt (minus the footnotes) of the AFL-CIO's petition. The principal author of the petition is Mark Barenberg, a professor of international law at Columbia University. The entire petition, over 100 pages long with 346 footnotes, can be downloaded from the AFL-CIO's Web site at http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/globaleconomy/upload/china_petition.pdf . Eds
Each year, millions of Chinese citizens travel from impoverished inland villages to take their first industrial jobs in China's export factories. Young and mostly female, they are sent by their parents in search of wages to supplement their families' income. They join an enormous submerged caste of temporary factory workers who are stripped of civil and political rights by China's system of internal passport controls.
They enter the factory system and often step into a nightmare of twelve-hour to eighteen-hour work days with no day of rest, earning meager wages that may be withheld or unpaid altogether. The factories are sweltering, dusty, and damp. Workers are fully exposed to chemical toxins and hazardous machines, and suffer sickness, disfiguration, and death at the highest rates in world history. They live in cramped cement-block dormitories, up to twenty to a room, without privacy. They face militaristic regimentation, surveillance, and physical abuse by supervisors during their long day of work and by private police forces during their short night of recuperation in the dormitories.
They can do little to relieve their misery. Their movements are controlled by the Public Security forces, who ruthlessly enforce the pass system. They are not permitted to seek better-paying jobs reserved for privileged urban residents. If they assert their rights, they are sent back to the countryside, or worse. Attempts to organize unions or to strike are met with summary detention, long-term imprisonment, and torture.
Enmeshed in bonded labor, they frequently cannot even leave their factory jobs, no matter how abusive. They have minimal access to China's legal system, which, in any event, is corrupted by the local Party officials, who extract personal wealth from factory revenue. Their impotence is reflected in their desperate acts of violence and their shocking rate of suicides intended to draw attention to their plight.
Unremitting repression of labor rights robs China's workers of wages, health, and dignity. By lowering wages by between 47 percent and 85 percent, the repression also diverts millions of manufacturing jobs from countries where labor rights are not so comprehensively denied, increasing unemployment and poverty among workers in developed and developing countries. Highly conservative methodologies show that China's labor repression displaces approximately 727,000 manufacturing jobs in the United States alone, and perhaps many more.
China's current level of investment in new factories is unprecedented and will deliver an even greater supply shock to global industry in the next five years, producing even greater losses in U.S. manufacturing jobs-unless the president takes decisive action. Developing countries such as Bangladesh and Indonesia will each lose up to one million manufacturing jobs to China, and Central America and the Caribbean will lose up to one half million jobs in the textile and apparel sector alone. Workers in all countries have a common interest in safeguarding the human rights of China's factory workers.
This petition is not targeted against "free trade" or against China's "comparative advantage" in global markets. Rather, this petition challenges the artificial and severe reduction of China's labor costs below the baseline of comparative advantage defined by standard trade theory. China reduces labor costs by a system of government-engineered labor exploitation on a scale that is unmatched in the present global economy.
The American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations (AFL-CIO)-whose constituent unions represent more than thirteen million workers in the United States, including more than two million manufacturing workers-files this petition under sections 301 and 302 of the Trade Act of 1974, as amended, seeking action by the president to end the Chinese government's unremitting repression of the rights of its manufacturing workers.
Section 301(d) of the Trade Act provides that a trading partner's persistent denial of workers' internationally recognized rights constitutes an unreasonable trade practice. These basic workers' rights include freedom of association; the right to bargain collectively; freedom from compulsory labor; and standards for minimum wages, hours of work, and occupational safety and health. This petition shows that the People's Republic of China (PRC) persistently denies these rights.
China has signed many toothless international agreements requiring it to enforce workers' rights and broken them all. It is therefore appropriate that the U.S. trade representative impose trade remedies against China commensurate with the cost advantage caused by China's repression of workers' rights.
The purpose of the trade remedies is not protectionist. They are, rather, intended to bring about positive change for China's workers and to ensure fair global competition for workers everywhere. In this spirit, the USTR should also negotiate a binding agreement with China, specifying incremental decreases in the trade remedies if China increasingly complies with workers' rights, measured by specific and verifiable indicators. When China fully protects the basic rights of its workers, it can enjoy normal access to U.S. markets and create jobs that are not an affront to human dignity.
Congress first mandated that our trading partners enforce workers' internationally recognized rights in the mid-1980s. One explicit goal of Congress was to implement the Universal Declaration of Human Rights of 1948, which declares that unionization, employment, and adequate wages are fundamental human rights.
Even before the dramatic acceleration in the flow of manufacturing jobs to China in the last few years, Congress had concluded that "[t]he lack of basic rights for workers" in developing countries is "a very important inducement for capital flight and overseas production by U.S. industries."
Congress also recognized that the denial of workers' fundamental rights distributes the benefits of economic growth to "narrow privileged elites," thereby "retarding economic development." Congress was right. Econometric analysis of cross-country data for a large sample of economies in the 1980s and 1990s confirms that the denial of labor rights reduces wages and economic growth, increases inequality, and hampers democratic development.
China's denial of workers' rights is encouraged by a system of world trade and finance that fails to enforce minimum standards of decency at work. Low-wage countries compete for mobile capital. Even if political elites wish to raise the labor standards of their people, they face extreme pressure not to do so, in the absence of global standards that ensure that their competitors will do the same.
Like the discredited laissez-faire regimes of the nineteenth century, today's global rules protect rights of property, contract, and capital but not fundamental rights of personhood, community, and labor. Section 301(d) embodies an alternative model, in which human and social rights are the necessary precondition to democratic and equitable development. Consistent with that model, section 301(b) authorizes the president not only to take trade action to improve China's immediate labor-rights practices but to take any action within his foreign-affairs power to change the rules of trade and finance that encourage China's violations.
The president should therefore refuse to enter into any new trade agreements under the auspices of the World Trade Organization, until that organization gives protection to workers' fundamental rights that is equivalent to the protection given to commercial interests.
The Model of Economic Development
Embodied in Section 301(d)
Petitions under sections 301 and 302 are typically filed by U.S. corporations seeking to protect their commercial interests against unfair trade practices by foreign governments. Those unfair trade practices include barriers to imports from the United States, subsidies of exports to the United States, failure to enforce the intellectual property rights of U.S. companies, and many others.
The workers' rights provisions of section 301 are distinctive in several ways. First, unlike other unfair trade practices enumerated in section 301, the workers' rights provisions are aimed at safeguarding fundamental human rights. That aim cannot be dismissed as "protectionist." The goal of those provisions, and of this petition, is not to deny jobs and economic advancement to China's workers. To the contrary. The goal is to use the enormous economic leverage of the United States to induce positive change in China-to achieve respect for the basic rights of China's factory workers.
In 1984, when Congress first authorized the president to use this type of leverage, it made this purpose plain:
The United States has embraced labor rights, in principle, as well as political rights for all of the people of the world upon adoption of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948. The Declaration specifically affirms for each person the right to a job, the right to form and join unions, and the right to an adequate standard of living.
Second, section 301 presupposes that securing the fundamental rights of China's workers is concordant with, and indeed a precondition to, protecting the fundamental rights of U.S. workers. Section 301 protects the rights of U.S. workers against erosion by unfair competition with overseas workers who are denied those rights. Congress knew that
the lack of basic rights for workers in many [less developed countries] is a powerful inducement for capital flight and overseas production by U.S. industries.
In evaluating the burden on U.S. commerce caused by China's violations of workers' rights, the USTR should therefore focus on the impact on employment, wages, and associational rights of U.S. workers-not on the revenue and profit of U.S. multinational corporations, which may indeed benefit from the exploitation of overseas labor. Under section 301, those profits are ill-gotten and cannot constitute a "benefit" that offsets the burden on U.S. workers. For the same reason, Congress could not have intended that the USTR count the cheaper price of U.S. imports produced by China's exploited workers as a "benefit" to U.S. commerce that offsets the burden on U.S. workers. In any event, U.S. consumers themselves do not wish to buy goods that are cheapened by shattered workers' rights in China and tainted by shattered working lives in the United States.
Third, the workers' rights provisions of section 301 are a sharp alternative to the model of globalization now embodied in the WTO. In the latter-the model of a laissez-faire constitution-it is enough to protect global rights of property, contract, and investment. Congress, to the contrary, recognized that an economic constitution lacking social rights will not produce equitable and sustained economic development, whether for developing or developed countries:
[P]romoting respect for internationally recognized rights of workers is an important means of ensuring that the broadest sectors of the population within [developing countries] benefit from [access to U.S. markets]. The capacity to form unions and to bargain collectively to achieve higher wages and better working conditions is essential for workers in developing countries to attain decent living standards and to overcome hunger and poverty. The denial of internationally recognized worker rights in developing countries tends to perpetuate poverty, to limit the benefits of economic development and growth to narrow privileged elites, and to sow the seeds of social instability and political rebellion.
In the model of development embodied in section 301(d), the global integration of labor markets, capital markets, and markets in goods and services is not intrinsically a bad thing. If workers' rights are vigorously enforced, then the impoverished and underemployed-whether in China, India, Indonesia, Mexico, or the United States-may improve their standard of living and generate new domestic demand in a virtuous cycle of equitable development, while providing new markets for overseas investors and workers, including those in the United States.
If, however, the workers' rights of one-quarter of the world's workforce are radically suppressed-as they, in fact, are in China-then labor conditions for the world's unskilled and semiskilled workers are worsened; domestic and global demand is depressed; excess productive capacity is created; and a path of inequitable, unsustainable development is promoted.
And when the fundamental right of association is denied, a crucial pillar of democratic governance is lost. The right to form autonomous associations in civil society is a precondition to resisting state tyranny and to mobilizing citizens for participation in pluralist political institutions. In recent years, autonomous worker organizations helped democratize such countries as South Africa, Brazil, Poland, and South Korea-a fact that is not lost on leaders of the Chinese autocracy.
Repudiation of Free Labor Markets
China is now moving up the technology ladder at a rapid pace, becoming an export powerhouse in such sectors as high-technology electronics and precision machinery. Yet, in the post-Mao era of economic reforms, there is still nothing resembling a free labor market in the manufacturing sector. Quite the contrary. Through an extraordinary feat of state engineering, China created and perpetuates an enormous sub-caste of factory workers. The existence of the sub-caste is one of the preconditions of China's superheated investment in manufacturing. The real earnings of this sub-caste have remained static or fallen throughout the unprecedented boom in capital investment. China will continue to serve as the world's sweatshop, producing low-technology goods alongside high-technology goods for decades to come-unless the Chinese government radically reverses course and dismantles its controls over factory workers.
There are more than 750 million workers in China-more than the workforce of all OECD countries combined. China's 2002 census showed approximately 160 million in manufacturing and mining, nearly twelve times the manufacturing workforce in the United States. China's manufacturing workers are employed in several different types of enterprises-privately invested enterprises (PIEs), joint-ventures, foreign-invested enterprises (FIEs), urban collectives and cooperatives, township and village enterprises (TVEs), and state-owned enterprises (SOEs).
To the extent that the Western media and public have any knowledge of these enterprises, they may be most familiar with images of large showcase factories owned by Western multinational corporations that have come under pressure from consumer and labor activists. But the vast majority of export workers labor in other facilities, out of public view, producing either directly for export or as subcontractors for larger export enterprises.
Large concentrations of manufacturing enterprises are located in the well-known coastal export regions of the Pearl River Delta (Guangdong) and Yangtze River Delta (Shanghai and Jiangsu). But literally hundreds of towns and cities throughout China have declared themselves export zones. Local officials compete for investment. They benefit personally by extracting revenue from enterprises and workers.
China has approximately 780 million peasants. Between 180 and 350 million are estimated to be "excessive" or in "dire poverty" and available for urban employment. Ten to twenty million will enter the nonagricultural workforce each year during the next two decades. That is, every year, China will add more nonagricultural workers than the total manufacturing workforce of the United States. In the next three to five years, China will add more workers to its urban workforce than the total manufacturing workforce of the United States, the European Union, and Japan combined.
Classical trade theory maintains that developing countries like China have a "natural" comparative advantage in labor-intensive, unskilled production owing to their large pool of impoverished workers in the countryside. Some cheerleaders of globalization postulate that the pitifully low wage earned by China's export workers-as little as 15 cents to 30 cents per hour-and the brutal treatment they receive are "legitimate," owing to the workers' lack of skill, their abundance, and their low level of productivity. In free labor markets, according to neoclassical economic theory, all workers earn (and deserve) their marginal productivity-that is, they earn what their output is worth.
But the assumptions underlying this simple theory crumble against the hard realities of China's political economy. China's inflation-adjusted manufacturing wages have fallen in the last decade, while labor productivity has rapidly increased from year to year-creating an enormous "wedge" between wage and productivity growth that flatly contradicts na?ve economic theory.
It may be true-under assumptions of full employment and perfectly competitive labor markets-that wages grow at the same rate as productivity. But in China, neither assumption holds. Hundreds of millions of destitute peasants are unemployed or underemployed.
Equally important, workers are not allocated to China's factories by a competitive market. China enforces internal passport controls that create an enormous, submerged caste of exploitable factory workers who are temporary migrants from the countryside. The Chinese system is not formally based on racial differences, but in practice migrant workers are distinguished by dialect and ethnicity; and the privileged class of permanent urban residents in fact treats migrant workers from the countryside as an ethnically inferior sub-caste.
Under the hukou ("household registration") system enforced by the much-feared Public Security Bureau (PSB), all Chinese citizens must live and work only in the place where they are permanently registered, generally the village, town, or city where their mother or father was registered. A Chinese citizen's place of permanent residence is therefore an inherited status. It is recorded in the "hukou bu," or registration booklet that all Chinese households must hold. The hukou bu also designates each household as either rural or urban. In practice, the inherited distinction between rural and urban residents produces a deeply entrenched caste system.
The permanent residence of the vast majority of Chinese citizens, of course, is in rural villages. Since the 1980s, peasants holding rural hukou have filled the need for labor in China's manufacturing sector, through a governmentally controlled system of labor allocation. If peasants obtain certifications from both sending and receiving provinces, they may migrate to manufacturing towns and cities-but only temporarily and only to fill designated jobs as laborers in factories, construction sites, domestic work for urban families, and assorted menial labor. They are prohibited by law and social prejudice from competing with people holding urban hukou for higher-paying jobs in technical, administrative, professional, or managerial jobs. Those holding urban hukou, in turn, generally do not seek employment in the low-paying, abusive, and dangerous factory jobs filled by desperately poor migrants from the countryside. Permanent urban residents view the new class of temporary migrant factory workers with extreme prejudice, hostility, and disdain.
The language of neoclassical economics is not entirely apposite in this context of government labor allocation. Nonetheless, for purposes of explication, we can say that factory workers' supply curve is artificially shifted downward-that is, workers offer their labor for lower wages-by at least four sets of government policies that sharply curtail their bargaining power.
First, China's manufacturing workers are not permitted to organize independent unions to defend their basic rights and raise their wages. They are not permitted to strike. The full force of state terror-beatings, imprisonment, psychiatric internment, and torture-is deployed against workers' attempts to exercise their right of association.
Second, the internal passport system denies migrant workers other basic civil and social rights in their temporary urban life, further suppressing their bargaining power and wages. Managers and local officials extract fees and deposits from newly arriving migrant workers and threaten them with even more severe penalties if they quit, enmeshing workers in a system of bonded labor. They are expelled and relocated to the countryside when they are no longer needed in the factory, when they are injured or sickened, or when they seek to assert their labor rights. Local officials in exporting areas compete for investment and, legally or corruptly, extract personal wealth from both state and private enterprises. Migrant workers therefore expect and get little legal protection or recourse from government officials.
Third, as already mentioned, migrant factory workers are denied access to better-paying skilled, technical, administrative, and managerial employment options in the permanent urban sector. They are frozen out of the better-paying urban labor market and overcrowded into the lower-paying rural and factory labor markets. If rural citizens were permitted to work in any urban job, not just in factories or construction sites, factory wages would rise-even if the relative wages of permanent urban citizens who now have privileged access to higher-paying jobs outside the factory system might fall.
Fourth, the "reservation wage" of migrant factory workers is set, in part, by the level of subsistence in the countryside. That is, in order to attract the rural unemployed to migrate into unskilled factory production, employers need only offer a wage that marginally exceeds rural subsistence levels plus transportation costs, not a wage that adequately compensates the workers' productivity. The degree of destitution in the Chinese countryside-and, therefore, the level of wages that must be offered by factories in order to lure migrant workers from the countryside-is anything but "natural" or "pre-political."
In both the pre- and post-reform eras, economic development strategies systematically transferred resources from those holding rural hukou to those holding urban hukou. A recent OECD study concluded that, in the mid-1990s, the Chinese government transferred more than $24 billion each year from the rural to the urban economy. Political scientists and economists have comprehensively mapped this fundamental fact of Chinese political economy. An urban hukou entitles one to public housing, health care, and pensions-all denied to holders of rural hukou. In the pre-reform era, "[t]he main enforcement mechanisms included the state control of agricultural production and procurement, the suppression of food-staple prices, and restrictions on rural-to-urban migration via a household registration system." In the post-reform era, the government continue to undertake "massive transfer[s]," by means of large-scale government investments in city infrastructure and social services to urban elites, paid for in part by an inflationary tax borne principally by the peasantry and in part by urban subsidies channeled through the state-owned banking system, in which rural residents must deposit their savings.
On top of these nationwide policies, local officials support themselves by imposing crushing taxes on rural citizens, driving peasants into factory work:
The economics are simple, residents said. People in Xiaoeshan eat most of what they grow, and by selling the rest they earn an average annual income of about $25 each. But local officials demand about $37 per person in taxes and fees. Several peasants who refused to pay last year were arrested.
Migrant factory workers "remain confined within . . . the state's persisting imperative: to ally urban growth and productivity with cost-saving, and, as a 'socialist' state, to provide for the city dweller while preserving the ruralite as docile, disposable trespasser, and drudge."
In light of these various mechanisms for artificially suppressing workers' bargaining power, it is not surprising that Chinese factory workers live under conditions that neutral researchers (and Chinese officials themselves) describe as "bestial," "horrific," and "abominable." They are often beaten and physically humiliated by supervisors and private security guards. They are paid far less than the legal minimum wage, which is itself set far below the minimum wages of countries at a comparable level of development. Their wages are often arbitrarily withheld or unpaid. Many work twelve- to eighteen-hour days, seven days a week, without a day of rest for months at a stretch. "Death by over-working"-or guolaosi-has become a commonly used term in contemporary China, and it is not used metaphorically. Most firms implement few health and safety measures, exposing workers to death not only by exhaustion but by toxins and machinery as well. China's rates of industrial death and lost limbs exceed any in history.
As a result, a startling number of workers take desperate, violent measures simply to draw attention to their plight-from blocking roads and railways to self-immolation. In contrast with other developing countries, most Chinese migrant workers wish to return to the countryside rather than settle in the city.
The Sub-caste of Migrant Factory Workers
The vast bulk of China's factory workers are temporary migrants holding rural hukou. The hukou system enmeshes factory workers in a system of bonded labor, a form of forced labor that violates Conventions 29 and 105 of the International Labor Organization and constitutes an unreasonable trade practice under section 301(d) of the Trade Act. Chinese citizens holding rural hukou who seek work in towns and cities without government permission are outlaws.
In 1958, the National People's Congress enacted Regulations on Household Registration in the People's Republic of China. These Regulations are still in force. Sections 15 and 16 require that migrants register with the PSB within three days of arrival to the city and re-register after three months. In 1994, the Ministry of Labor issued regulations requiring migrants to obtain from their home government a "registration card for leaving the area for work" and from the urban government a "work permit for personnel coming from outside." The registration card and the work permit together constitute a "migrant employment permit." Migrants may be recruited only into designated occupations in a receiving area.
The 1995 Measures on Application for and Issuance of Temporary Residence Permits require migrants to obtain temporary residence permits from the urban PSB. These measures therefore enable the PSB to maintain surveillance of migrant workers in their urban domiciles as well their workplaces. The PSB is required to record the migrant's temporary address and ensure that the migrant's landlord has permanent urban hukou. The measures further authorize local governments to impose fees for the residence permits, require migrants to obtain such permits as a precondition to obtaining work permits, and impose fines on migrants who fail to register with the PSB and on employers who hire unregistered migrants. Migrants are required to carry the residence permits at all times and show them to PSB officers upon request.
In order to change her job, a migrant must retrace these steps-that is, the migrant must again obtain a permit to leave her place of permanent registration and then obtain a temporary residence permit and temporary work permit from the receiving urban government.
In addition to the central government's regulations, each provincial, city, and local government has issued its own regulations concerning the fees and certificates that migrants must obtain in order to temporarily reside and work there. Local regulations on temporary residence and work are often complex, ambiguous, or simply unavailable to the public. They are widely impenetrable to migrants, especially the many who are illiterate.
Regardless of the clarity or transparency of the substantive regulations, they are administered arbitrarily and corruptly. Police extort payments from migrants or summarily expel them on the pretext that they fail to meet local regulations. Urban officials sporadically and violently "sweep" migrants out of cities and towns in large numbers-often in response to the demands of permanent residents, who view the migrants as a criminal underclass. For example, Beijing reported that it had taken 98,000 migrants into custody for lack of proper documentation and that 300,000 were "mobilized to leave the city" in 1997 alone. Since the late 1990s, greater unemployment among workers holding permanent urban hukou has led to greater antipathy to migrant workers by urban authorities.
Local governments-relying on a 1982 law of the State Council, which authorized local governments to designate jobless migrants as "vagrants and beggars"-have placed jobless migrants in detention and forceably "repatriated" them to their place of permanent residence. Local governments each year have held tens of thousands of migrant workers in "Custody and Repatriation Centers," on the ostensible ground that they cannot show temporary residence and work certificates required in that jurisdiction. Local authorities force detainees in these centers to work on public projects. Detainees are raped, beaten, and otherwise abused. Local officials require detainees to pay "ransoms" to gain release from custody. Once released, migrants are forceably repatriated to their place of permanent registration.
Migrants who fail to find jobs, who lose jobs, or who assert their labor rights remain subject to arrest, detention, fines, and (after processing in the aid stations) expulsion. Cities facing shortages of "drudge" labor may temporarily lighten registration fees and certification requirements or may reduce the level of police violence against migrants. Some local governments in China are currently experimenting with systems of temporary registration that do not impose de jure fees and that require migrants to carry and show their national identification cards rather than household registration booklets and other temporary permits. But, again, the hukou system, regulatory controls over temporary residence and temporary work, and the strong opportunities and incentives for abuse by police and employers remain in place throughout China.
Alliances between locally entrenched interests and the PSB strongly support the continuance of controls over migrants. As explained above, Party cadres have financial interests in the revenue produced by export enterprises, either as direct "partners" or as beneficiaries of exactions and extortion, and therefore have a strong interest in maintaining a cheap factory labor force. Local officials also benefit directly from the official or unofficial revenues produced by work and residence permits. These primary sources of local revenue have become even more vital since 2002, when the central government curtailed the financing of local governments by revenues from state-owned enterprises. And the powerful PSB sees the hukou controls as a necessary tool of social control.
Bonded Labor
Bonded labor is a form of forced or compulsory labor that is well recognized in international and domestic law. Bonded labor exists when a worker can exit or quit employment only after payment of severe monetary penalties, repayment of a debt, or loss of a "bond" posted by the worker upon initial hire. Because exit from the workplace is so costly, the worker is subject to highly abusive working conditions.
Academic and human-rights researchers have detailed the mechanisms through which China's hukou system produces bonded labor. Workers arriving from the countryside must pay substantial fees to local government officials and to employers in order to obtain residence and work permits required by the hukou system. Some of these payments are mandated by central and local law; some are "extra-legal" exactions by corrupt local officials and managers. As described above, the required fees and certificates vary widely from locality to locality, and are administered by local officials with almost complete discretion. Workers routinely go into debt in order to make these various up-front payments.
For example, a migrant to Shenzhen in 2001 needed the following documents, each of which required payment of a substantial fee: a border region pass, a personal identity card, an unmarried status certificate, a certificate to prove birth within China's one-child policy, a work permit, and a temporary residence permit.
On top of these, the migrant was required to pay a bond or "deposit" to the employer. These deposits are as much as four thousand yuan, exceeding one year's wages. Some local governments require enterprises to pay "new-hire" fees, but managers pass those fees on to new workers as well. These investments often exceed the migrant's life savings. To pay for them, migrants incur substantial debt, often payable to their own employer. As in classic bonded labor, a workers' up-front deposit will be lost and her debts will be in default, if the worker attempts to exit the employment relationship.
In addition to the deposit and the debt to cover the deposit, employers frequently withhold several months pay, which workers will also forgo if they quit or assert their rights. Some enterprises respond to a worker's threat to leave the job by imposing severe monetary penalties on co-workers-especially on the friends who initially referred the worker. Enterprise managers also seize workers' ID cards, residence permits, and work permits, making migrants more vulnerable still to arrest, fines, imprisonment, and repatriation if they leave the factory compound.
The deposits paid to employers, the wages withheld by managers, the new-hire fees passed on to workers, the withholding of ID certificates and residence permits, the threatened penalties against co-workers, and the debt accrued by workers to pay both government officials and managers together constitute an effective system of up-front bonds posted by migrant workers at the start of their employment. Chinese workers are acutely aware of the cumulative penalties they face if they quit or are fired for protesting.
New migrants' feverish effort to find jobs in order to avoid expulsion from urban areas, and their submission to employers' terms no matter how unfair, is a common sight in contemporary China.
Professor Anita Chan has identified yet another way in which the hukou system suppresses the labor standards of China's manufacturing workers:
[T]he Chinese hukou system and the pass system under apartheid in South Africa generated quite similar outcomes. They produced a large, vulnerable underclass living in constant insecurity, accompanied by daily discrimination, repression, hardship, and denial of their human dignity.
In light of these circumstances, it becomes possible to perceive how the Chinese hukou system can keep wages down more easily than in Mexico. . . .[I]n Mexico the workers who produce for export are, as in China, largely migrants from the countryside, and the majority similarly are female. But there is a major difference. Almost all of the Chinese female migrant workers are single women in their late teens or early twenties who, because of the household registration system, cannot bring their families with them. Many factories make sure that only single women are recruited by asking to see their officially issued identity certificates, which in keeping with the Chinese state's strict family-planning policy require that the marital and family planning status of each woman is listed. Since the workers are poor single women living in dormitories, management only needs to pay them enough for their individual survival.
In Mexico, the context is quite different. While most of the women workers in the maquiladoras are migrants from poorer regions, many of them have come with their families, since there is no pass system, and quite a number are single mothers. Very often these women workers are the sole breadwinners. Since they live with their families, a part of their waking hours has to be spent on "unproductive" chores (from management's vantage point): in commuting, in household tasks such as cooking, taking care of the old and the young. No matter how ruthless, there is a limit to the amount of overtime that management can squeeze out of these Mexican workers-fewer hours than with the young single women in dormitories in China.
The hukou system accounts in part for the fact that factory wages fell by 15 percent to 46 percent when temporary migrant workers-young, single, and bonded-replaced permanent urban residents in factory jobs. It also helps explain why migrants' wages fail to conform with the neoclassical economic assumption that wage growth tracks productivity growth-why, that is, their real wages have fallen in the last decade, while productivity has steadily risen.
Minimum Wages, Maximum Hours
In its 2003 Annual Report, the Congressional-Executive Commission on China concluded that China's factory workers "continue to work hours well in excess of legal limits, and for wages that are frequently not calculated according to law." China's failure to enforce minimum wage and maximum hours standards violates International Labor Organization Conventions and constitutes an unreasonable trade practice. According to Professor Chang Kai of the People's University School of Labor and Human Resources in Beijing, China "has ignored the protection of laborers' rights, especially migrant laborers' rights. We have no clear system that says who must bear responsibility when wages aren't paid, and how those responsible are to be punished."
The wages and hours of China's factory workers are effectively unprotected by legal regulation or by contract. Migrant workers are paid extremely low monthly sums-from 200 to 600 Rmb (approximately $24 to $72)-in return for working as many hours as employers can extract from them.
Nonpayment of wages is pervasive. According to a government survey, three out of four workers are unable to collect their pay as promised. An independent researcher found that "the illegal retention of workers' wages for between one and three months exists in 80 percent of foreign-financed firms" in Dongguan. A majority of workers must resort to begging or intimidating their employers simply to get paid. As a consequence, the wages actually collected by workers are well below the amount negotiated at the start of their employment. This results not from enterprises' financial difficulty but rather from employers' "deliberate malpractice," permitted by the negligible bargaining power of China's bonded workers. Factory workers fear that they will be discharged and lose their deposit "if they pursue their wages."
Hourly wages and unit labor costs are therefore greatly suppressed. Manufacturing wages for female workers range as low as 12 cents to 30 cents per hour. Male workers earn approximately 10 percent or 15 percent more.
The only real limits on wages and hours in China's factories are the physiological and psychological limits of the young women and men who work in that sector. Enterprises frequently push beyond those limits, and workers spontaneously protest by blocking roads or railways. Many threaten or commit suicide. Even these sad protests are met with government repression. Public Security forces in many cities have implemented policies of detaining any worker who threatens to commit suicide as a means of collecting wages.
It is true that the central Chinese government has formally promulgated guidelines for minimum wages and maximum hours. In practice, however, wage-and-hour rules are simply not enforced. To the contrary, local governments act as enforcers for enterprises' all-out suppression of labor costs. As detailed above, local officials and enterprise managers are allies in the unrestrained drive to export at lowest costs; and destitute migrants are in no position to demand that wage-and-hour standards be honored. Reebok's director of labor monitoring throughout Asia states,
Who enforces Chinese labor law? Nobody. If it were enforced, China would be a much better place for millions of people to work in. But it is ignored more than in any other country I work in.
Summary and Conclusions
This petition has shown that China's unremitting repression of workers' rights takes wages, health, and dignity not only from China's workers. It also displaces and impoverishes workers-and their families and communities-in the United States and throughout the world. All countries, including China and the United States, face strong incentives to compete for mobile capital and jobs by cheapening the labor and debasing the lives of their working citizens. These incentives are created by global rules that protect rights of property and contract but not rights of personhood and labor.
Nearly seventy years ago, the United States rejected rules like these, in our domestic multi-state system. Congress concluded that trade across borders "was the means of spreading and perpetuating . . . substandard labor conditions among the workers of the several states." In order to eliminate each state's incentive to perpetuate substandard labor conditions, it was necessary to enforce labor rights at the federal level. All states must be concurrently bound by labor rights, or each state would seek competitive advantage by suppressing those rights.
Fifteen years ago, in section 301(d), Congress elevated the same policy from the interstate to the international level. Congress authorized the USTR and the president to enforce workers' rights among our trading partners, for the sake of their workers and ours.
It is time for the USTR and the president to implement this policy. So long as China is not bound to honor workers' rights, China's rivals will resist complying with those rights. But so long as they resist, China too will complain of competitive disadvantage. Therefore, all countries should be concurrently bound by fundamental workers' rights, or each country will seek competitive advantage by suppressing those rights. For the same reason, all countries must be assured that those rights will be enforced evenhandedly from country to country.
These goals can be met if all countries are obligated, as a precondition to gaining the rights and benefits of membership in the WTO, to comply with the covenants of the International Labor Organization, the UN agency authorized to promulgate and supervise compliance with internationally recognized workers' rights. It is time that the United States used its extraordinary bargaining power to ensure that no country enjoys the rights and benefits of WTO membership unless it complies with ILO covenants. For this reason, the president should direct the USTR to enter into no new WTO-related trade agreement until such time as all WTO members are required to comply with the core covenants of the ILO. Fundamental workers' rights must be given the same protection that is now given to rights of commerce.
Nearly a century ago, Congress declared that "the labor of a human being is not a commodity or article of commerce." Perversely, global rules today give greater protection to articles of commerce than to the work of human beings. We can and must change these rules.
? 2003 Foundation for Study of Independent Ideas, Inc
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>> LEFT WATCH...TRYING TO FORGET REAGAN?

A Thought Experiment for the Left

by Mitchell Cohen
Here is a thought experiment for the left. It requires a bit of historical imagination, something for which the left is known. Its political implications are weighty. So weighty, I think, that the answer-your answer, Comrade Reader-to the question I pose at its end might well reveal if you can say to fellow citizens that you have the wherewithal to hold political power on their behalf (yes, I assume representative democracy, for all its flaws).
Imagine that you have become president of the United States in a particular set of circumstances. Let's call these circumstances the Historical Original Position, or HOP for short. HOP situates you in the Year of Our Relativity, 1981. As I construct it, you will perceive readily that HOP entails fantasy as well as events that occurred that year and before. In fact, the more you know about those pre-1981 events, the better. Later, when you step into the HOP, I will ask you to drop a veil over your memory for the sake of my argument. I will ask you to pretend that you are ignorant of all post-1981 history. Forgive me if I do not entirely do so. For the sake of our purposes here, I must integrate into my design some hints, just a few, about later decades.1 I think-hope-it will make sense since we are all reasonable historical creatures.
So here's the HOP. Due to an unexpected constellation of events, an insurgent movement called Democratic Equality wrests the Democratic presidential nomination from Jimmy Carter in 1980. You replace him. Let's give "you" a persona: you are Eugenia Norma Harrington, a distinguished civil rights attorney, long an eloquent advocate of social and economic fairness in America. You assemble a broad center-left political coalition against the Republican nominee, Ronald Reagan. Remarkably, you win the election and become the country's first woman-and first truly left-wing-president. The Democrats sweep both houses.
Reagan heads back west in a wagon train (he aims to live out his days encouraging Republican movie stars to act as if they are suitable for public office). Jimmy Carter seeks to be an effective ex-president, leading observers to suggest that he should have sought this job in the first place. Walter Mondale joins the new cabinet as secretary of the treasury. You have appointed him-the "centrist" on your team-to reinforce the coalition that enabled you to defeat Reagan. You ignore sniping that his appointment turns your administration into "a grotesque sellout to the priorities of the ruling class." (See Alexander Cockburn, "Stooges Yet Again: You can always tell an objective social democrat," in the Nation, November 32, 1980.)
In fact, you assemble a first-rate cabinet. Almost all its members read-and some even write for -Dissent. As might be expected, you place great emphasis on social and economic policy. "By the end of my presidency," you declared in the campaign, "markets will serve human needs, not vice versa. By the end of my presidency, we will have health insurance that is friendly to the sick, instead of to insurance companies. We will have an energy program that is friendly to the environment and not to the priorities of oil companies and Mideast potentates. By the end of my presidency, labor law will be reformed in order to bolster trade union organizing." (The AFL-CIO's leader protests this last point: "Why get distracted from anticommunism?"). You initiate a domestic agenda that combines investments in education and job training with affirmative action to address poverty and racism in the country.
Fortunately, those Iranian students freed the American hostages in Tehran on the day of your inauguration. That makes things a little easier as you order a general review of foreign policy. "Let's put real heat on South Africa and also on that SOB Pinochet," you say to your secretary of state. "And let's bolster the Solidarity movement in Poland. It's had a rough time, fighting the Communist Party's 'revolutionary consciousness' with 'trade union consciousness.'"
An Economic Security Council and More
Even though you are known for your domestic concerns, you have thought a lot about international affairs, especially the gap between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres. You ask the secretary of state to draw up plans for a new Economic Security Council (ESC) at the UN, an idea you've liked ever since you read Michael Harrington's The Vast Majority. The ESC will war against global poverty and illiteracy. One of its chief tasks will be to find ways to counter-balance the power of multinational corporations and financial institutions. "No global five year plans," you advise the secretary, "but real programs that will subordinate global markets to global social decency."
"Thatcher will howl."
"Then we'll be doing the right thing," you reply, "Why don't we see if we can get Willy Brandt's input? Speak to our friends in the Swedish Social Democratic Party. Most important, have some long conversations and then ongoing consultations with democratic socialists and trade unionists in Latin America, Africa, the Mideast, and Asia."
You and your secretary of state agree on the importance of designing the ESC so as to avoid past UN failures. The ESC must be structured so that it cannot be turned into an arena for cold war rivalries or a means to sustain third world dictators or promote the third worldist fantasies of intellectuals who sup with those dictators or serve as yet another forum for yet another resolution about "the Question of Palestine."
Why do some people think third world tyrants are liberators?, you wonder. Just because they spout left-wing words and denounce imperialism? Saddam Hussein, Iraq's ruling thug, who invaded Iran a few months back, gave a speech recently in which he declared, "Socialism does not mean the equal distribution of wealth between the deprived poor and the exploiting rich; this would be too inflexible. Socialism is a means to raise and improve productivity."2 Socialism? Sounds like National Socialism.
Over the years you have come to suspect that ideological "third worldism," which once moved you deeply-for all the right reasons, because you despise imperialism-is often quite bad for people living in the third world. It does seem to get people jobs, indeed even tenured jobs, but mostly in the first world. And you want the ESC to help the poor, to feed them, to empower them.
You are especially concerned about the long-term impact of American power in the world. Even though the country is still reeling from its disastrous war in Vietnam and seems weakened also by your predecessor's botched policies in Iran and Nicaragua, you know that only wishful thinking-sometimes Soviet, sometimes French, sometimes just na?ve leftist-will make America's global role dissipate. Actually, you think that Soviet power may decline. Some of your friends are amazed when you say this, but you reason that a gerontocracy can fashion the future for just so long. Moreover, you have been talking to people who study Russia through its complex history rather than by a mechanical application of the theory of totalitarianism. So you doubt if America's rival is shaped solely by-or frozen in-an idea.
Perhaps the United States should be prepared for big changes in Moscow a few years hence. You recently read an article in which a neoconservative academic, who was thought to have had a future in a Reagan administration, distinguished totalitarian regimes from authoritarian ones. The former are fixed forever because ideology remakes every nook and cranny and brain cell in them while that doesn't happen in the latter. (See Jeane J. Kirkpatrick, "Why Totalitarianism is Objectively Undemocratic but Authoritarianism is Subjectively Liberal," Commentary, Thermidor, 1979.) You wonder how this professor would explain post-Mao China. There is movement there-is it movement from totalitarianism to authoritarianism? Perhaps "totalitarianism" shouldn't provide a totalizing explanation of the country in the first place. Best not to mistake a design, however grand, for reality, and then divide the world according to who fits it.
Then there is the Mideast. It is also in the HOP. Nineteen seventy-nine created a dramatically new era there because of the Egypt-Israel treaty and the Iranian revolution. The impact of these events is not yet fully clear. Then there is civil war in Lebanon and, moving east, the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. As it happens, you were looking through a file on the Arab-Israeli conflict that morning. "Well, at least something went right in the region, the Israel-Egypt peace. At least, we can give Carter some credit," you remark.
"That's true," responds the secretary of state, "but only some. Remember that he initially had a completely mistaken strategic concept for the region-one that many of our European friends applauded. He wanted an international conference under joint U.S.-Soviet auspices to push a 'Comprehensive Settlement' of all Arab-Israeli problems in one quick swoop.
"Sadat understood that this had to fail, and that is why he is the real strategic hero. He understood how that sort of conference would have rendered Egyptian flexibility hostage to Syria's extremist posturing, to its macho nationalism. It would have also been hostage to the ambitions of Syria's patron. Moscow wanted to reassert itself after its military advisers were thrown out of Egypt in '72 and it was sidelined by Kissinger's 'step by step' diplomacy following the '73 war. Sadat thought that if he could cut a deal with the Israelis, it might be a real step toward solving other issues and encourage other Israeli compromises.
"That's why he accepted the idea of Palestinian 'autonomy,' rather than demanding immediate Palestinian statehood," continues the secretary, "It was not just because he wanted a separate peace, like half the Arab world charged, but because it opened a way to a next step. It's worth noting that Rabin, who was Israeli prime minister when Carter came into office and who said back then that he didn't care if he had to visit the West Bank with a passport, also resisted Carter's international conference idea. Like Sadat, he thought that it would create negotiating conditions in which nobody could bend. The first thing Sadat's trip to Jerusalem did was to subvert Carter's approach. It was direct negotiations that finally produced something-an end to three decades of war between two countries. Carter's role at Camp David was then truly impressive, even heroic, yet only after he yielded to political reality."
"It is amazing," you observe to the secretary, "that an old fanatic like Menachem Begin agreed to a total Israeli pull-back from Sinai. Who would have believed that when he defeated the Labor Party in the 1977 elections? Still, the peace treaty would never have passed the Israeli Parliament without Labor's support-too much of Likud opposed it. And we are still left with the West Bank settlements and the Palestinian issue."
"True," says the secretary, "but the Israelis are pulling out of Sinai, and that is a valuable precedent. Even belligerent Ariel Sharon, champion of the Sinai settlements, called Begin during the negotiations at Camp David to say he'd yield them for a peace treaty.3 It will be interesting to see if Sharon actually takes charge of tearing them down. I've always sensed that this fellow is unusually brutal and mendacious, but that cuts two ways; he can also betray his own constituents, the folks who rallied to him for saying he'd make no concessions."
"Hard to tell," you say, "In the meantime, Begin is running for reelection and Sharon could be defense minister. What if we linked U.S. aid to both West Bank settlements and terrorism? For every Israeli settler who crosses the '67 borders, we deduct some aid money to Israel, and for every Palestinian terror bombing, we restore it. That would squeeze 'em both."
"Won't American Jewish leaders yell?"
"Perhaps, if they are not too busy having their pictures taken with Begin. In the meantime, we need to start worrying about the situation in Lebanon. It is unsettling, and one just never knows what sort of stunt Arafat could pull next. Whenever he is unhappy with developments, he throws everything into the air and hopes the Europeans will save him. What could be worse than a brawl in Lebanon with Arafat leading the Palestinians and Sharon as Israeli defense minister?"
"Arafat versus Sharon as prime minister."
"There's a nightmare for you. What do you think we should do about Arafat?," you wonder out loud. "He rejected Camp David, embraced Khomeini, presents no proposals except 'Give me what I demand.' Many of our European friends say, 'Give him a chance.' I wonder if they haven't made a myth of him. Did you ever read the interview of Arafat by Oriana Fallaci back in '72? She went in as a left-winger ready to be sympathetic to a third world hero. She left disillusioned. I have it over here. Arafat says to her, 'The end of Israel is the goal of our struggle and it allows for neither compromise nor mediation . . . revolutionary violence is the only system for liberating the land of our fathers . . . The purpose of this violence is to liquidate Zionism. . . .We don't want peace. We want war, victory. Peace for us means the destruction of Israel and nothing else.'"
"And read this," you add, "Arafat is supposed to be a Palestinian nationalist leader, but he insists here that 'From an Arab point of view, one doesn't speak of borders; Palestine is a small drop in the great Arabic ocean. And our nation is the Arab one; it is a nation extending from the Atlantic to the Red Sea and beyond.' He is being interviewed in Jordan and he insists they are in Palestine, that Jordan is Palestine. Doesn't Sharon say that? Arafat says that 'there is no difference between Palestinians and Egyptians. Both are part of the Arab nation.' So he agrees with Golda Meir that there are no Palestinians? Look at how he speaks about terrorism. Fallaci says to him that PLO bombings kill civilians, and Arafat replies, 'civilians or military, they're all equally guilty of wanting to destroy my people . . . civilians are the first accomplices of the gang that rules Israel.' Imagine, he says this just months before the massacre at the Munich Olympics. Fallaci asks him if he respects his foes, and he says 'As fighters, and even as strategists . . . sometimes yes. . . . But as persons no.' You must concede that Israelis are brave soldiers, says the interviewer. 'No! No! No!,' replies Arafat, 'No they're not! . . . They're too afraid of dying.' He declares, 'Losses to us don't count, we don't care if we die.'4 This guy will drive his people off a cliff while insisting he knows the one route to freedom. Shouldn't this guy have to take a driver's test before they give him diplomatic license? And then be given constant retesting?"
"Our European friends say he changed with his UN speech in '74," comments the secretary, "Nixon went to China. Sadat went to Jerusalem."
"But Voice of Palestine reported on July 7, 1979, that after meeting with Austrian chancellor Bruno Kreisky, 'Brother Abu Ammar [Arafat's nom de guerre-Eds.] reiterated the PLO's refusal to hold any dialogue with the leaders of the Zionist entity.' According to Tehran television on August 1, 1979, Arafat sent a telegram to Khomeini declaring, 'We will continue on the path of jihad and sacrifice until God almighty bestows final victory on us.' And PARS, Tehran's domestic news service, reported on August 6, 1979, that Arafat sent a telegram to Iran's foreign minister declaring, 'The nation of Palestine and the Arabs support the holy Islamic revolution in Iran and are determined to continue their fight and armed confrontation to recapture Palestine and free the Holy-land from the claws of the Zionists.' Our European friends seem to take Arafat at his word to them while ignoring the rest of his sentences.
"A lot of Israeli policy is bad," you continue. "Still, Israelis would be idiots to disregard this relentless rhetoric. On the other hand, the Israelis can defend themselves with their army and that doesn't require Jewish Khomeinis in West Bank settlements and Gaza. We need to distinguish support of Israel from backing deluded right-wing policies, just as we must distinguish Palestinian suffering from Arafat's appalling leadership. It seems to me that our Mideast policies should seek to consolidate the Israeli-Egyptian peace process, find ways to temper the Israeli-Palestinian struggle, and we must keep a sharp eye on Lebanon."
Complications
Then the secretary of state says, "There is another matter-the Persian Gulf and the Iran-Iraq War. Ever since Saddam attacked Khomeini's regime last September the area has suffered enormous carnage, massive misery, and high death tolls. Tehran has declared that it will fight back until there is a regime change in Baghdad. 'God wants us to share, together with the nation of Iraq, in the honor of toppling Saddam and his executioner regime,' declared Iran's prime minister, Ali Raja'i. 'The war against Iran is a war against Islam,' declared Ayatollah Khomeini himself. Khomeini, who was expelled in October 1978 from Najaf, Iraq, where he was a refugee from the shah [He then went to France.-Eds.], also denounced Saddam as a 'Zionist.' Why else would Saddam attack Iran? No, it is Khomeini who is really the 'Zionist,' Saddam riposted. Also, Syria's dictator, Hafez al-Assad, who backed Iran against Iraq, he, too, is a closet 'Zionist,' says Saddam. At least these two Supreme Leaders, Saddam and Khomeini, agree on something, the vast influence of Zionists.
"In fact, Saddam completely misread his enemy. He believed internal struggles had so weakened Khomeini's regime that it would simply fall apart as Iraq's army advanced. Saddam's illusion may have been encouraged by evaluations he received from Iranian exiles who fled to Baghdad after Khomeini's revolution. But the Iraqi invasion helped the new Iranian regime to consolidate instead. Saddam, already Iraq's strongman for some years, consolidated his own power in July 1979, a month after he officially became Iraqi president, by executing a third of the Baath Party's leadership.
"Saddam thought he could outsmart everyone," the secretary of state continues, as he hands you more papers, "and he outsmarted himself. Despite his initial battlefield success, he found himself in a military deadlock by late November 1980, not long after you defeated Reagan. Iran has now launched a massive counterattack. The situation is even trickier because the French have been helping Saddam to build a nuclear reactor. What is with that fellow Chirac? He seems to have been infatuated by Saddam, fantasizing that this dictator is a Napoleon-Nasser-de Gaulle. Because French Socialists gave the Israelis nuclear technology in the fifties, Chirac the right-winger wanted to correct this 'strategic error' in the 1970s by giving nuclear technology to Saddam.5 I heard that some wit renamed Iraq's Osirak nuclear site 'Ochirac.' "
"Fortunately, Chirac is no longer prime minister," you respond to the secretary, "now that our friend Mitterrand won the presidential election and there is a socialist government in Paris. I hope its grasp of the consequences of these sorts of policies is more astute. And let's make sure ours is astute too and pay special attention to developments in this region."
More Complications
So that provides part of the HOP into which you, Comrade Reader, will have to step when you make your decision as president of the United States. Imagine that these preceding conversations occurred in late May 1981, a few months after you moved into the White House. Let's now go forward to December of the same year. And please remember that the veil has dropped over you and you know nothing of what happens in the world after that month's end.
There have been Iranian offensives and victories. Saddam's army is in deep trouble. Soon his regime may be too. In late September, after a rout of the Iraqis, there were fevered, celebratory speeches in the Iranian parliament, the Majlis. Allah's hand has been revealed though Iran's triumphs. The Iranians dealt the Iraqis more blows by early December and severed crucial communications and logistical ties among Iraqi forces.6 In the meantime, the war has made it impossible for Iraq to use the Gulf for oil exports, and Baghdad is dangerously dependent on a pipeline through Syria-Iran's ally and Iraq's rival. Foreign exchange reserves have plummeted, and Baghdad will have to impose economic austerity soon.
According to intelligence reports, one of Iran's next campaigns will be called "Operation al-Quds," that is, "the Holy"-the Arabic word for Jerusalem. Khomeini is proclaiming that the march to Baghdad will lead eventually to Jerusalem. Even if this is just propaganda, it makes the Jordanians nervous, because their kingdom, which backs Iraq, is the most plausible path there. And Khomeini could well send holy warriors on a detour through Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.
It is very worrisome. You call up the national security adviser, and secretaries of state and defense and tell them you want to meet by the week's end to consider policy options. Then you riffle through a background file assembled by your national security adviser, who also provided a "General Assessment." It reads:
These two lands have a long, difficult history between them. The immediate source of conflict is a return to old quarrels, partly over the Shatt al-Arab, a waterway into the Gulf. It is the border between the two countries for some of its route. The Algiers Accord of 1975 supposedly settled this matter, but Saddam agreed to it under pressure because of the shah's support of Kurdish rebels. Once the agreement was signed and the shah withdrew support, the Kurdish struggle for national liberation collapsed. In the aftermath tens of thousands of Kurds were "transferred" by Saddam out of their homelands. Then Saddam got busy repressing Iraqi communists, throwing away the "National Action Charter" signed by the Baath with them in 1973. Hard to tell the greater danger: reaching an agreement with Saddam or not reaching an agreement with him.
The United States is on the outs with both Tehran and Baghdad. The Soviets have been Iraq's main arms supplier since 1958, but Baghdad sought to diversify its sources in the 1970s. It bought more and more from France, which became its second major weapons supplier-about 40 percent of Iraq's arms-by the time of the attack on Iran. In the 1970s France emerged as the third biggest exporter of arms to the Third World. Obviously, this is tied to sustaining huge investments in its domestic arms industry. All this is part of Paris's assertion of military independence after quitting NATO's joint command. France has been selling Iraq very advanced weapons and Mitterrand has made it clear that this will continue. Still, he, like everyone else must have been secretly relieved when Israel bombed Iraq's nuclear site last summer.
Baghdad's turn to Paris seems to have been prescient. Moscow is angry at Saddam for attacking Iran without the consultations Baghdad promised in the Iraqi-Soviet Friendship Treaty of 1972. The Soviets held back military supplies at the beginning of the war, but are preparing to deliver again. The Soviets and the French are attempting balancing acts between Iran and Iraq, seeking to extend sway in countries at war with each other. France's investment in Iraq grows by leaps and bounds, much to Iran's chagrin. Reliable sources report that Iraq is buying British medical kits-10,000 of them-that are apparently for workers in chemical weapons factories. Iraq is importing howitzers from South Africa, cluster bombs from Chile, and weapons from Argentina's junta.
The regional context makes matters more jittery. Islamic extremists assassinated Sadat just two months ago. The TV news shows the assassins and their collaborators behind bars screaming fundamentalist slogans. One of them, Ayman al-Zawahiri, the founder of Egyptian Islamic Jihad who studied at the American University of Cairo, seems especially fanatical, railing and ranting against infidels and traitors, Americans, and Zionists, hailing Sadat's murder. Wouldn't want him out of jail. Islamic fundamentalists seem to be on a roll- Sunnis as well as Shiites, for all the antagonisms between them. The momentum and self-confidence of each reinforces the other.
Sadat made a big mistake when he relaxed restraints on the Muslim Brothers and their ilk after Nasser died. He wanted them to counter-balance pro-Soviet factions in Egypt, but he did this just as the Saudis, flush with petrodollars, were investing in Wahhabi fundamentalism everywhere. Can you ever re-control decontrolled fundamentalists who believe the future is theirs? The United States is fiddling with jihadists too, thinking they may be useful against the Soviets in Afghanistan. Last year, Brzezinski gave a speech on the Afghan border to anti-Soviet Mujahideen in which he urged, "This is your God-given country. Go and liberate it in a Holy War against the godless Communists."7 Better think twice about this. There are also a number of reports of fundamentalist stirrings in Syria, especially in the town of Hama. If there is a regime able to handle the Muslim Brothers, it is Syria. It will simply dispatch them, no questions asked, and there will be no condemnatory resolutions passed by the UN or the Arab League. (They are usually too busy condemning Israel for something real or something imaginary.)
Then there is Lebanon, where a transformation is also underway. The Shiites, who make up some 40 percent of the population, its most deprived sector, have mobilized. They are clashing constantly with the PLO mini-state that was established in southern Lebanon after Arafat was expelled from Jordan. The Lebanese confessional system was stacked against the Shiites, but now, in the midst of civil war, they are demanding their due as never before thanks partly to the leadership of a charismatic religious leader, Iranian born Musa al-Sadr. He died under bizarre circumstances after a trip to Libya in 1978. (Qadaffi claims al-Sadr boarded a return flight, but he wasn't on it when the plane arrived in Lebanon; nobody ever found him.) So he became a galvanizing myth, and then just after his disappearance, the Iranian revolution energized Lebanese Shiites even more.
In short, the Mideast presents its usual tumultuous picture, you think. Lebanon is fractured, but everywhere else there seem to be authoritarian nationalist regimes on one hand and civil societies in which religious fundamentalists are emerging as the most vigorous component on the other. And things are becoming more and more precarious because of the Iran-Iraq War. A miserable regime may defeat a wretched one. Now you, as president, must make a choice. You meet your national security adviser and your secretaries of state and defense in the Oval Office.
What to Do?
The national security adviser begins: "The United States has pursued some ill-conceived policies and has had some bad luck in this area. There are a few key issues, all linked: What are the consequences if we do nothing? What influence do we have? Can we achieve anything positive? Do we have some overriding interest in sticking our nose in just now? We already have a recession at home that has been helped along significantly by the oil crisis following Khomeini's rise. But the immediate, very big question is this: If Khomeini, who is devoted to spreading his Islamic revolution, marches to Baghdad and a swell of triumphalist fanaticism rises mightily throughout the region, what then?"
"What is our latest evaluation of Khomeini?," you ask. "And what of left opinion? After all, the hostages were released after we won the election. As I recall, some prominent American intellectuals, not just Foucault in France, thought highly of him."
"That's right," says the national security adviser, "did you read in the file I prepared that New York Times op-ed piece from February 1979 by Richard Falk, the professor of international law at Princeton? He visited Khomeini in France. His article complained that the ayatollah was maligned when Carter and Brzezinski 'until recently associated him with religious fanaticism.' Falk protests that 'The news media have defamed him in many ways, associating him with efforts to turn the clock back 1,300 years, with virulent anti-Semitism, and with a new political disorder, "theocratic fascism" about to be set loose on the world.' He explains to readers that Khomeini 'indicated' that non-religious leftists would be able to participate fully in an Islamic republic and that 'to suppose that Ayatollah Khomeini is dissembling seems almost beyond belief.' He adds that 'the depiction of him as fanatical, reactionary, and the bearer of crude prejudices seems certainly and happily false.'8
"The article is entitled 'Trusting Khomeini,'" you note. "I hope he doesn't write on 'Trusting Arafat' to convince Israelis to make concessions to the Palestinians. People will run into Sharon's arms after reading it."
"There's more," says the national security adviser. "Anthony Lewis then wrote a Times column chastising Falk for 'trusting in illusions'-things were getting increasingly repressive in Khomeini's Iran-and Falk insists that 'to single out Iran for criticism at this point is to lend support to that fashionable falsehood, embraced by Mr. Lewis, that what has happened in Iran is the replacement of one tyranny by another.'"9
"Well, I don't think we'll consult him," you comment. "For starters, I don't intend to wear a veil myself. The reasoning reminds me a little too much of intellectuals who 'understood' Stalin-in contrast to the bourgeois idiots. We need a left foreign policy that is free, really free, of cognitive dissonance." You turn to the secretary of defense and ask him to assess the impact of the Iranian revolution on the Iraqi military.
"It's hard to say," the secretary, responds. "Intelligence here is always difficult. Sixty percent of Iraq is Shiite. While they are not all of a stripe, and while they tend to be Iraqi nationalists-Iraq's ground troops in the war are heavily Shiite-they are also not so pleased by Saddam, whose Baath power base is mainly Sunni and tribal. Still, imagine Shiite fundamentalist regimes in Tehran and Baghdad concurrent with a fascist regime in Damascus, energized Shiism in Lebanon, and invigorated Sunni fundamentalism in an uncertain, post-Sadat Egypt.
"No intelligent person, no matter how anti-imperialist, however much he despises Western oil companies, can imagine that it would be good for religious fanatics and their allies to control this region of the world, not to mention the West's oil supply-just as no intelligent person could be happy about Saddam marching into Tehran, with his fascist regime asserting control over oil and the Gulf on behalf of a pan-Arab chauvinism. Even if one argued-it is a legitimate claim-that we are imperious outsiders, especially given our past support for the shah, that brutal megalomaniac, the consequences would be dreadful. But right now, it looks more likely that Khomeini could win."
"Problem is," says the secretary of state, "our influence is at a nadir. U.S. policy in the seventies was based on 'two pillars,' both of them conservative, dominating the Gulf-Tehran and Riyadh. Now those reactionary Saudis are petrified and Tehran is utterly hostile to us. Relations between the United States and Iraq were broken in 1967, in the aftermath of the Arab-Israeli war. We began some trade again in the mid-1970s, and it increased in late '79. We have some presence in Baghdad through our interests section in the Belgian embassy. We are getting conciliatory signals from Saddam. He is running scared, very scared. And we have received a quiet message from Mitterrand: 'Saddam must not fall.' He isn't saying that merely because of French investments in Iraq. He sees the dire consequences, long and short term, of a Khomeini sweep. So the crucial question is, should we tilt to Iraq? Or rather, what if we don't?"
The national security adviser asks, "What are the alternatives? A UN resolution? A UN-coordinated oil embargo against both sides? It'll never work. Moscow and Paris are too invested. Besides, there isn't much reason to have faith in the UN when it comes to this part of the world. Look at what it did during the crisis before the '67 Arab-Israeli War. Nasser mobilized his army, demanded removal of UN Emergency Forces that served as the buffer between Egypt and Israel for a decade, and next thing you know, the UNEF is on the way out. UN Secretary General U Thant stuck to international legalisms and the result was war. Anyway, nobody who has paid attention to Khomeini or Saddam can believe that either will knuckle under an embargo, not to mention the demands of international law or the UN. We need a policy that won't help the UN shoot its own foot.
"Still, we'd better deliberate hard about a 'tilt' to someone like Saddam. If we help him too much, he'll become the danger, almost certainly. And we don't want to give him the wrong help. Think of his pursuit of nuclear power and those British medical kits he imported. One easily imagines him deploying the worst weapons against his neighbors and his own population. He is atrocity incarnate. Remember, he launched this war."
"Moreover," you interject, "ours is supposed to be a foreign policy of the left. That is a matter of our values, but also of politics. If we botch this, if we show the American people that the left cannot conduct foreign policy, then we can expect Reagan's wagon train to turn around.
"Can a foreign policy of the left tilt to a regime like Saddam's? Hard to justify, even if it only means that we will give him satellite intelligence and carefully gauged arms assistance. I must say that the very need to make this decision irks me. Were we out of government, we would probably be writing articles for Dissent saying that the problem is the overall direction of American foreign policy. Except we won the election, and we already reoriented policy with the long term in mind.
"We cannot make decisions in government as if we were out of government. We cannot invent choices that are comfortable to us and then choose between them. How can we find some practical equilibrium between our left-wing values and the intransigent realities of the world out there-like the consequence of the aggressive ambitions of either a fascist dictator or a 'fanatical, reactionary, and the bearer of crude prejudices,' to quote Falk. Regardless of what we do, neither Saddam nor Khomeini is likely to function in ways that are wholly rational and predictable. Can we minimize the maximum damage each might do? If we do nothing, if we don't 'tilt' to Saddam, the regional and then global consequences are likely to be catastrophic. Military intelligence makes it clear that the hour is very late. If we do tilt to him, our hands become very dirty, and a lot of the consequences are unpredictable."
You light a cigarette. You quit smoking years back, but you've been cheating in recent days as you contemplate the decision you might have to make. You inhale deeply and say, "Here is what I think we must do. . ."
And here is where I will ask you, Dissent reader, to recall that you are supposed to imagine yourself to be Eugenia Norma Harrington, the fortieth president of the United States, in this Historical Original Position. The veil you wear is not one of Khomeini's choosing, but a historical one: you don't know any post-1981 history. You may ask what I would do were I the president. I do have a view about this-one that I don't like. But because I am the architect of this thought experiment, I won't say. I will step back (I hear that I am not the first grand designer to do this), and ask you, Madame President: will you tilt to Iraq?

Mitchell Cohen is co-editor of Dissent.

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L'?ditorial du Monde
Hors de Guantanamo
LE MONDE | 27.07.04 | 12h23
Pour ?tre inform? avant tout le monde, recevez nos alertes par e-mail. Abonnez-vous au Monde.fr, 5? par mois
QUATRE des sept Fran?ais d?tenus sur la base am?ricaine de Guantanamo, ? Cuba, ont, enfin, quitt? cette zone de non-droit pour rentrer ? Paris. Cela faisait des mois que le gouvernement fran?ais n?gociait leur retour, afin que leur situation soit examin?e dans un cadre juridique normal.
La France n'?tant pas en odeur de saintet? ? Washington, la lib?ration de ses ressortissants n'avait pas ?t? jug?e prioritaire ; elle suit celle de 135 d?tenus d?j? remis ? leurs pays.
Pendant que diplomates et organisations de d?fense des droits de l'homme vont continuer ? s'activer pour obtenir le transfert des autres d?tenus, le sort des quatre hommes attendus mardi 27 juillet va - enfin - d?pendre de la justice. Une justice antiterroriste certes, mais ob?issant aux r?gles du droit et fondant ses d?cisions sur des preuves tangibles. Il lui reviendra de d?cider, dans les r?gles, s'il existe des charges contre eux, ou bien s'il convient de les lib?rer, comme cela a d?j? ?t? le cas ? Londres ou au Danemark.
S'ils sont blanchis, ce sera un nouveau coup dur pour la cr?dibilit? de la "guerre contre le terrorisme" conduite par le pr?sident Bush, au m?pris du droit - national ou international - ni de la morale. Du non-droit ? Guantanamo aux prisons de Bagdad, l'exemple donn? par les Etats-Unis n'est pas ? l'honneur de la plus grande d?mocratie du monde et l'image de ce pays en a s?rieusement p?ti ? travers le monde.
Au m?me moment, ? la suite du d?saveu historique inflig? le 28 juin ? l'administration Bush par la Cour supr?me, qui a donn? le droit aux "combattants ennemis" d?tenus ? Guantanamo de se pourvoir devant la justice civile am?ricaine, le Pentagone a mis en place une instance militaire devant laquelle les d?tenus vont pouvoir contester leur statut. Il aura fallu ? certains d'entre eux jusqu'? deux ans et demi avant de pouvoir ainsi se d?fendre.
Nul ne nie qu'il y a sans doute, parmi les quelque 600 d?tenus de Guantanamo, de vrais terroristes li?s ? Al-Qaida. Mais ces soup?ons ne justifient pas pour autant le traitement juridique et physique qui leur a ?t? r?serv? depuis leur arrestation.
L'histoire montre que les Etats qui ont choisi de lutter contre le terrorisme ou l'oppression par des moyens non-d?mocratiques n'ont jamais r?ussi. Ces m?thodes n'aboutissent g?n?ralement qu'? jeter le discr?dit sur ceux qui s'y livrent - et sur ceux qui les y autorisent. La sup?riorit? de la d?mocratie tient dans son refus de se livrer ? des actions d?gradantes et ill?gales. M?me si, dans des circonstances exceptionnelles, comme le 11 Septembre, elle peut - et doit - se doter de moyens exceptionnels pour se d?fendre. Mais toujours sous le contr?le de la justice.
Alors que s'ouvre, avec la convention d?mocrate, la phase finale de la campagne pr?sidentielle, il faut esp?rer que, sans baisser la garde, les Etats-Unis reviennent ? la l?galit?. Et que le respect du droit, un temps oubli? ? Washington pour des raisons discutables, redevienne le fondement de la d?mocratie am?ricaine.
* ARTICLE PARU DANS L'EDITION DU 28.07.04
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WORLDWIDE ADDICTION TO PETROLEUM
Is there really a rise in oil prices?

Which energy source will we use in future? Despite forecasts of a change to nuclear power, oil will continue to play a key role. According to the International Energy Agency demand will increase by 1.9% a year, from 80m barrels a day in 2003 to 120m in 2020. By then Arab countries will produce 41% of global supplies rather than the present 25%.
by Nicolas Sarkis

WHAT is behind the current steep rise in oil prices? Is it temporary and linked to the economic and political climate, or the start of a cycle that will bring a long-term increase in energy prices? Is it, as some fear, the prologue to another oil crisis caused by the inability of supply to keep pace with demand?
These questions are legitimate. Some observers thought that the invasion of Iraq by the United States in March 2003 would lead to a quick rise in Iraqi output and a drop in oil prices to about $20 a barrel. But two months later the oil market came to the boil and has been bubbling ever since. This spring the unexpected rise in prices speeded up despite a seasonal drop in world demand of about 2m barrels a day.
The drop in prices after the last meeting of Opec (1) on 3 June and the announcement of an increase in US reserves did not dispel concern. World demand is expected to rise again in the immediate future and the underlying factors that boosted prices to more than $40 a barrel have not gone away. The key factors are the global political situation and market forces.
The price hike would not have been as sudden if conditions in Iraq were different and Saudi Arabia not vulnerable to terror attacks. Widespread insecurity and recurrent sabotage of oil facilities in Iraq dragged production there down to 1.33m barrels a day (bpd) in 2003, compared with 2.12m in 2002. Production rose to 2.3 bpd in May 2004, but that is still well below the levels in 1999-2001.The new authorities have frozen contracts negotiated or signed by the Ba'athist regime with international companies to exploit new oilfields, which were expected to double output within six to eight years. Recent terror attacks in Saudi Arabia, which is the world's largest exporter, especially an attack that targeted a petrochemical facility and wells, were a serious shock.
The current frequency of attacks makes people fear that they will be a recurring feature in Saudi Arabia, Iraq and other Gulf states, with the possibility of lasting disruption of exports. The big difference from the crises of 1973 or 1979 is that the basic problem then was an embargo instituted by the governments of Opec countries or a change in political regime (as in Iran after the Islamic revolution). Now unpredictable attacks by unknown groups are the problem, plus the threat of the destabilisation of the Saudi regime that undermines that country's ability to continue its central role in supplying world demand.
Tensions caused by the deterioration of the situation in Iraq and Saudi Arabia are mostly responsible for the latest price rise, called the risk premium. This runs at $6-10 a barrel, depending on circumstances, and covers both higher insurance charges and the impact of speculation on futures markets (major investment banks have allocated tens of billions of dollars to these).
Geopolitical tension and speculative buying have amplified a bullish trend rooted in a change in the balance between supply and demand. Three main factors demand our attention. The first, often overlooked, is the impact of ethnic conflicts and strikes on Nigerian oil production. (The strike that paralysed the oil industry in Venezuela in 2003 also led to a substantial drop in output.)
The second problem is that refining bottlenecks are common in countries with the largest consumption. After inadequate investment in recent years, global capacity currently totals 83.6m bpd, slightly more than the 82.5m bpd peak in demand in February. The structure of refining capacity is unsuited to the current demand for refined products, particularly in the US, which uses 9.6m barrels daily; a petrol shortage in May caused prices to rise steeply. When the price of refined products rose, crude oil prices followed.
The third problem is that on 10 April Opec decided to reduce its production ceiling to 23.5m bpd; this led to a sharp protest in industrialised countries, adding to tension and exacerbating the rise in prices. In practice Opec members have not reduced real output, and overall supply is still sufficient to cover demand.
Oil market statistics are fuzzy. Surprisingly, Opec members publish production figures three months late, maintaining the confusion between their theoretical production quotas and actual output, which generally exceeds quotas. Operators and observers play hide-and-seek, attempting to track tankers as they leave loading ports and consulting secondary sources to assess, as far as possible, the daily production of oil. A lack of transparency does not only apply to real output figures but affects data on production capacity and variations in unused capacity in exporting countries. This is very important at times of low unused capacity, as at present.
The most reliable estimates are that unused capacity is now about 2.5-3m bpd worldwide. Most of this is in Saudi Arabia; production is at full capacity in non-Opec and most member countries. A major disruption in Saudi or Iraqi exports, or a strike or serious accident in another main exporting country, could cause a shortfall in supply, driving market prices up again. This risk contributed to the latest price hike; the expected increase in world demand in the second half of 2004 will stretch the meagre resources available.
Another void in oil statistics centres on the doubts about official data on proven reserves and the reliability of medium- and long-term forecasts of global supply and demand. When an international company such as Shell, with shares quoted on stock exchanges, cuts its reserves forecast by about 25% in a few months, it is hardly surprising that figures published by other large corporations should be queried.
Official statistics on proven reserves in Russia and the main Opec members, which are not checked by independent bodies, have prompted serious doubts for many years. There is a major problem here. The reserves of the eight largest national companies in Opec countries theoretically amount to 662bn barrels, compared with only 57bn barrels held by the top eight international companies. The recent controversy after the Simmons report (2) on the state of the Saudi oil fields and the scope for developing the reserves of Saudi Aramco (the national oil company), which amount to almost a quarter of the world total, exacerbated concern.
World demand, currently at 80.3m bpd, is expected to rise to almost 120m bpd by 2025, roughly twice the level of the 1970s. Can supply follow? Only the Middle East can provide the bulk of it, which means output must more than double to avoid shortages. In the medium term obstacles to this are mostly political. To increase output will require huge investments in the region, estimated at $27bn a year. But for that to be possible there must be a favourable political climate, which is far from the case. Beyond that lies the big unknown, in the Middle East and elsewhere: when production will peak, in one country after another, before irreversible decline.
The Association for the Study of Peak Oil international conference in Berlin in May 2003 was not reassuring. Disregarding claims of both optimists and pessimists, the number of new finds is falling, as is their volume. Only one giant oil field, Kashagan in Kazakhstan, has been discovered in the past 30 years and new finds do not compensate for the oil extracted every year. A geologist says that oil exploration is now like a hunting expedition on which hunters have improved the perform ance of their guns through better technology but game is small and scarce.
We should not ignore another grim reality: by 2025 the steep increase in world demand and decline in reserves and output in industrialised countries will increase their dependence on imported oil. US imports will rise from 55.7% to 71%, western European imports from 50.1% to 68.6%, and Chinese from 31.5% to 73.2%. This growing dependence, in a sector as vital as energy, explains the oil wars that the big powers and their com panies are waging to gain control of reserves in the Middle East, Africa (3), Central Asia and Iraq (4). There has been serious reason to question the interpretation of the current rises - are they the first sign of a crisis caused by the imbalance between steadily rising demand and inadequate production capacity?
The expansion of production capacity over the next few years depends just as much on political stability, particularly in the Middle East, as on the volume of reserves available. Longer term the slow but inexorable exhaustion of reserves means that a gradual switch to other energy sources is inevitable. Besides political stability this transition requires sufficiently attractive energy prices to allow global investment in energy production, a sum estimated by the International Energy Agency at $16,480bn (at 2000 prices) between 2001 and 2003.
Oil and gas industries will need money, and more will be needed to develop other energy sources. The fears caused by the rise in oil prices may help end the torpor made possible by adequate supplies and oil prices which, even at their current level (adjusted for inflation), are no higher than the record set 25 years ago.
* Nicolas Sarkis is director of the Arab Petroleum Research Centre and editor of 'Le p?trole et le gaz arabes'
(1) Opec's 11 members are Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, Qatar, United Arab Emirates, Algeria, Libya, Nigeria, Venezuela and Indonesia.
(2) Matthew Simmons, president of the Simmons & Company international investment bank, advises the US vice-president Dick Cheney and was the brains behind the new US energy policy.
(3) See Jean-Christophe Servant, "The new Gulf oil states", Le Monde diplomatique, English language edition, January 2003.
(4) See Yahya Sadowski, "No war for whose oil", Le Monde diplomatique, English language edition, April 2003.
Translated by Harry Forster
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED ? 1997-2004 Le Monde diplomatique
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>> RICIN...

Ricin found in baby-food jar
Associated Press
POSTED AT 5:05 PM EDT Wednesday, Jul 28, 2004
Irvine, Calif. -- Trace amounts of the deadly poison ricin have been found in at least one jar of baby food that had been tampered with, the FBI said Wednesday.
The FBI and prosecutors are investigating two suspected cases of food tampering. No injuries or arrests have been reported, FBI spokeswoman Laura Eimiller said.
Authorities have not disclosed the amount of ricin discovered, the number of baby food jars that contained the poison or a possible motive.
On June 16, a man told Irvine police that as he was about to feed his son, he found a note inside a jar of baby food warning that it had been contaminated. A similar case was reported by an Irvine couple on May 31 involving the same baby food, Gerber Banana Yogurt, police said. A note was also found inside that jar. Investigators were testing Gerber Banana Yogurt removed from the store where both jars were purchased. They did not specify whether the ricin was found in both jars. Authorities did not disclose the contents of the notes but said they referred to an Irvine police officer. Ricin is made from castor beans and can be fatal if swallowed, inhaled or injected. A dose about the size of the head of a pin could be enough to kill an adult, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.


>> NEXT DAY...


Ricin in baby food appears isolated
By Ben Fox, Associated Press | July 29, 2004

IRVINE, Calif. -- Police said yesterday they are looking for a man who may have witnessed the tampering of two jars of baby food that were contaminated with ground castor beans containing tiny amounts of the poison ricin.
The contamination of the jars also included notes that referred to an Irvine police officer.
US Food and Drug Administration officials who tested the baby food said the ricin was not in the purified form that can be deadly. Rather, it was a less toxic, natural component of the castor beans, which can be obtained from ornamental plants.
''It's unlikely there would be serious injury with the level of castor bean found in those two jars we tested," said Dr. David Acheson, chief medical officer with the FDA's Center for Food, Safety and Applied Nutrition.
Small amounts of the food were eaten, but the babies had no symptoms, he said.
Authorities have not disclosed a motive but want to question Charles Dewey Cage, 47, of Irvine, a possible witness who was ''in the area at a relevant time," said Orange County District Attorney Tony Rackauckas.
Authorities called it an isolated case and said no more contamination was found at the store where the two jars were bought.
''There's no reason to believe there is any more out there," said Dan Henson, a special agent with the FDA.
The jars of Gerber Banana Yogurt also contained notes that referred to an Irvine police officer whose name was not released, but their exact contents were not disclosed. The officer is not a suspect, authorities said.
On June 16, a man told Irvine police that as he prepared to feed his son, he found a note inside a jar of baby food warning that it had been contaminated. A similar case was reported by an Irvine couple on May 31 involving the same baby food, police said. A note was also found inside that jar.
The Gerber Products Co., based in Parsippany, N.J., is working with investigators. Authorities told the company the contamination ''absolutely" occurred after the food was manufactured, said Gerber spokeswoman Terry Boylan. Gerber baby food jars are vacuum sealed and should pop when opened. If they don't, it could indicate they have been tampered with, Boylan said.
Ricin can be fatal if swallowed, inhaled, or injected. A dose about the size of the head of a pin could be enough to kill an adult, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

? Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.

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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

Osama being treated by Pak Army
CHIDANAND RAJGHATTA
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/789042.cms
TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ SATURDAY, JULY 24, 2004 12:56:40 PM ]

WASHINGTON: Pakistan's intelligence officials knew in advance about the 9/11 attacks, a well-known American analyst has said, based on a ''stunning document'' that he claims was given by a Pakistani source to the 9/11 Commission on the eve of the publication of its report.
The document, from a high-level, but anonymous Pakistani source, also claims that Osama bin Laden has been receiving periodic dialysis in a military hospital in Peshawar, says Arnaud de Borchgrave, editor-at-large of the news agency UPI.
''The imprints of every major act of international Islamist terrorism invariably passes through Pakistan, right from 9/11 - where virtually all the participants had trained, resided or met in, coordinated with, or received funding from or through Pakistan,'' Borchgrave cites the confidential document as saying.
But one does not have to go to Borchgrave's unnamed sources to find Pakistan's involvement in terrorist activity leading to 9/11. The 9/11 commission report itself nails Pakistan in chapter after chapter, revealing that the Pakistani intelligence was in cahoots with the Taliban and al Qaeda, far more than Iran and Iraq ever were.
Among the inquiry commission's observations, quoted verbatim here
* ''Pak[istan's] intel[ligence service] is in bed with bin Laden and would warn him that the United States was getting ready for a bombing campaign'' - quoting Richard Clarke
* ''Islamabad was behaving like a rogue state in two areas - backing Taliban/bin Laden terror and provoking war with India'' - quoting NSC Bruce Riedel
* Pakistani intelligence officers reportedly introduced bin Laden to Taliban leaders in Kandahar -Commission's own observation.
* Pakistan's military intelligence service, known as the ISID (Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate), was the Taliban's primary patron - Commission's observation
* Pakistan helped nurture the Taliban. The Pakistani army and intelligence services, especially below the top ranks, have long been ambivalent about confronting Islamist extremists. Many in the government have sympathized with or provided support to the extremists - Commission's observation.
Elsewhere, even as the Bush administration made a big to-do about ten hijackers passing through Iran and tried to implicate Teheran on that grounds, the 9/11 report shows that several hijackers who rammed the planes into American targets used Karachi as a base and trained there for weeks on end.
In fact, the report paints Karachi as the gateway to terrorism, drawing an elaborate picture of the 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed using the port city to plan the attack, gather the hijackers there, and put them through their paces.
''Much of his (KSM's) activity in mid-1999 had revolved around the collection of training and informational materials for the participants in the planes operation,''the 9/11 report says. ''For instance, he collected Western aviation magazines; telephone directories for American cities such as San Diego and Long Beach, California (from Karachi flea markets); brochures for schools; and airline timetables, and he conducted Internet searches on US flight schools.''
''He also purchased flight simulator software and a few movies depicting hijackings. To house his students, KSM rented a safehouse in Karachi with money provided by bin Laden,'' the report adds.
But all this is not good enough for the American media, which has almost completely ignored Pakistan's role in 9/11 while going on a feeding frenzy over a few speculative morsels tossed out by the Bush administration about the involvement of Iran and Iraq.
Not a single US TV channel or newspaper collated, let alone reported or highlighted, the multiple indictment of Pakistan contained in the report. Even a cursory key word search would have shown more than 200 references to Pakistan, many of them damning. There are less than 100 references to Iran and Iraq combined.
While the commission report repeatedly implicates Pakistan and its intelligence agency ISI in terrorist activity, it too appears to have failed to record some well-chronicled events that might have pointed to the impending catastrophe.
For instance, the report does not contain any reference to Niaz Khan, a Pakistani waiter in Britain who walked into an FBI office in New Jersey nearly a year before 9/11 and alerted them about a plot to fly planes into buildings. Nor does it go into reports that terrorist mastermind Mohammed Atta received a wire transfer of funds from a source in Karachi connected to the ISI.
Despite this, Pakistan finds itself incriminated in the report far more than Iran or Iraq. The commission itself is frequently censorious of Pakistan's role, but in the end it recommends more carrots as a means of bringing back what it suggests is a failed state from the brink.
Pakistani officials have issued their pro forma denials about Islamabad's involvement, clutching instead at a few paras in the report that recommend a sustained (and conditional) US engagement with the military dictatorship.

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Kargil warning went unheeded
Kanwar Sandhu
Delhi/ Chandigarh, July 24
The Cassandra Effect
A report warning of possible intrusions into Dras and requesting permanent defences was shot down
Wargame conducted by Army's 121 Brigade before the Kargil intrusions had inferred that the enemy would try to "capture dominating heights in Dras Defended Area so as to interdict NH 1A".
The Brigade Major had made a written request to HQ 3 Infantry Division for permanent defences at Tiger Hill, Talab and Saddle. The request was turned down.
Pak intrusions into these areas were detected in May 1999. In the war that followed, the battle for Dras cost 474 Indian soldiers' lives.
Around January 1999, months before the Kargil war, the Indian Army conducted a wargame called Exercise JAANCH. Field commanders found weaknesses in the defence and inferred, among other things, that the enemy would "capture dominating heights in Dras Defended Area so as to interdict NH 1A (The Srinagar-Leh road)". Their concerns were ignored and recommendations to strengthen defences shot down. Months later, Pakistani troops occupied those heights and the Kargil war followed.
A confidential letter of the then Commanding Officer of 16 Grenadiers, Col P. Oberai to Headquarters, 121 Brigade dated January 30, 1999 is telling. It mentions that during one of the visits of the Brigade Commander (Brig Surinder Singh) to Dras Defended Area it was felt that the defences needed a re-look in view of the possibility of the enemy capturing certain heights in the vicinity of the Indian Army's defences, thus rendering some posts untenable. Following this, the then GOC of 3 Division (Major General V.S. Budhwar), during his visit on November 25, 1998 ordered that the existing defences of Dras be wargamed.
Wargame "JAANCH" followed. Among the inferences drawn on the enemy's likely aim was that he would "capture dominating heights in Dras Defended Area so as to interdict NH1A". During "JAANCH" it was also found that there was a paucity of troops for holding defences at Gap, Hump, Tiger Hill, Sando and Bimbat LC.
Under the heading "Threat Perception", it was mentioned that the forces which were likely to be available to the enemy for an offensive against the brigade sector included one reserve battalion each from the brigades of the Force Commander Northern Areas. In addition there were two Mujahid/ Chitral Scouts which were likely to relieve two regular battalions from an Infantry brigade. "Considering the above, the adversary is likely to muster 5-6 battalions for a meaningful offensive against own Brigade Sector", the note said.
The note suggested that an ad-hoc battalion headquarter under the Second in Command of the battalion should be positioned at Talab. At Tiger Hill, a protective patrol was recommended.
Similarly, at Saddle, deployment of a section (about 10 troops) was suggested. Incidentally, while capture of Talab was essential to reach Tiger Hill, Saddle was in the vicinity of Tololing.
Giving a reference to the Brigade Commander's verbal directions in his communication, the CO concluded that the "adversary had the wherewithal of launching a brigade size force in the Dras Defended Area as the prevalent terrain favours such an operation. By incorporating the proposed deployment it would also ensure upsetting the time frame of the adversary and stalling his misdemeanour in the Dras Defended Area. As such it would be prudent to review the present deployment ..."
Subsequent to this communication the then Brigade Commander made a presentation on February 24, 1999. Following this on March 18, the officiating Brigade Major of the Brigade, Lt Col. Anil Pandey made a projection to HQ 3 Infantry Division for defence stores. Among the various places where permanent defences (PDs) were sought were Talab (four), Tiger Hill (one) and Saddle (3). In fact while demanding PDs, Tiger Hill and Saddle were put in "priority one". A PD is usually a cement and steel structure.
On March 1, the Brigade had also sent a seven-page note to the Division on counter-insurgency (CI) operations in the Dras sector stating ominously: "Militancy has taken roots in the Dras area and is likely to escalate in the coming months." On March 31, the Brigade in another communication to the Division stated: "There is likely to be an upgradation in the anti-national elements (ANE) threat, with greater chance of interdiction of NH1A..."
The Division Headquarters turned down the demand for defence stores as requested by the Brigade on March 18, 1999. Ironically the letter of Major Pradeep Kumar, GSO2 Ops for Col GS of the Division, is dated May 3, 1999 when the first of the intrusions were detected in the Kargil sector. The letter to the Brigade stated: "Your report on defence stores has been perused by the GOC. Disparity between availability and your requirement is glaring." It further stated: "This disposes of your letter under reference."
This information adds a different dimension to the events leading to the war, which has so far been attributed mainly to failure of intelligence. The Kargil Review Committee in its report "From Surprise to Reckoning" had surmised that "Pakistan achieved surprise by carrying out an operation considered unviable and irrational by Indian Army Commanders." The operation was not considered unviable or irrational.
The Army Headquarters, when asked, did not attach much importance to the pinpointed recommendations made after wargame "JAANCH".
The then GOC, 3 Div, Maj Gen V.S. Budhwar, being abroad, could not be contacted. The then GOC, 15 Corps, Lt Gen Krishan Pal (Retd), said that he did not recall any such exercise.
"It must have been conducted at the brigade or division level." But he refused to blame anyone, "The responsibility, if any, was mine", he said.
The then Chief of Army Staff, Gen V.P. Malik (Retd), when contacted too did not recall any such exercise that pinpointed such concerns. "How come this has not surfaced all this while? If only Brig. Surinder Singh had done what I asked him to do during my visits, intrusions would not have taken place," he added.
Brig Surinder Singh, when asked about the steps taken by his Headquarters said that, "I was informed that patrols were sent out by the units but these made little headway in view of the weather conditions. However, had the concerns being projected repeatedly been heeded by the higher formations, the enemy could have been deterred from occupying those heights."
So who was responsible for glossing over the imminent security concerns in Dras, as the new set of documents show? Earlier only documents relating to Brig Surinder Singh's briefing of the then Army Chief and others in August 1998 had surfaced.
An Army spokesperson maintained that "comprehensive inquiries had been made into the Kargil war and appropriate action against certain commanders in the chain have been taken, commensurate with the degree of their culpability."

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Alleged Syrian nuclear plans elicit debate

By Will Rasmussen
Daily Star staff
Saturday, July 24, 2004
BEIRUT: Charges have surfaced in recent weeks in Western newspapers that Syria may have acquired nuclear weapons technology on the black market, although some US experts believe the allegations are based more on politics than on evidence.
Although US officials have never publicly stated that Syria has sought nuclear weapons, Western diplomats and a US intelligence official asserted in the Los Angeles Times last month that Syria may have purchased centrifuges, used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, from Pakistani nuclear scientist Abdel-Qadeer Khan.
Reuters, The Times in London and The Ottawa Citizen published similar reports within weeks of the Los Angeles Times story.
In a statement issued earlier this year, Syrian president Bashar Assad denied that Syria had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and called for a nuclear-free region.
International Atomic Energy Agency head Mohammed al-Baradei said Wednesday that "we have no proof that Syria is trying to engage in nuclear activities in violation of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty."
US experts, meanwhile, disagree over whether Syria has the ability or the desire to develop the weapons.
Allegations of nuclear ambitions are the latest in a string of US criticisms of the Syrian regime, which has also been accused of sponsoring organizations on the US State Department terrorism list, maintaining a military presence in Lebanon and deploying ballistic missiles.
"Syria is on a long list of countries like Iran and, formally, Iraq, North Korea and Pakistan, which have a history of seeking WMDs," said Jack Spencer, a senior defense analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a Washington-based think tank with ties to the Bush administration. Syria has "tapped into the black market before," and "it's reasonable to assume" they would be a part of the Khan network, he told The Daily Star in a phone interview.
Khan, considered the father of Pakistan's nuclear program, sold centrifuges to Iran, Libya and North Korea over two decades, and some in the Bush administration considered Syria to be a potential customer even before the recent alleged detection.
While not specifically mentioning Syria, John Bolton,
US undersecretary of state for arms control, told the UN in April that in addition to Iran, Libya and North Korea, "several other" nations sought centrifuge technology.
Some US experts, however, have questioned the reliability of the US intelligence.
Syria's alleged development of chemical weapons may not be indicative of its interest in nuclear weapons, said Patrick Clawson, deputy director of The Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Syria, he said, "lacks the interest and the educational base needed to develop weapons" and would be worried about a "nasty" Israeli response should they develop a nuclear program.
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>> FALLUJAH CHRONICLES...


PART 1: Losing it
In early May I took a taxi from Amman to Baghdad. After passing through Jordanian customs and approaching the Iraqi border post, my driver warned me to remain in the car. The Iraqi resistance had people working for it at the border post, he said, and if they saw my US passport they would contact their friends on the road ahead. They would welcome us with rocket-propelled grenades and small-arms fire. I pushed the seat back as he said and closed my eyes. Soon we were driving east to Baghdad on Iraq's Highway 10, and I had sneaked into the country without any US or Iraqi official's cognizance. As we drove past the charred hulks of sport-utility vehicles (SUVs) whose drivers had been less savvy than mine, and whose passengers had been less lucky than me, I wondered who else was infiltrating Iraq with the same ease I did.
When I got to Baghdad my colleagues were aghast to hear that I had taken the road. Nobody drove into Iraq anymore, not since April, when a rebellion had virtually severed the western Anbar province from the rest of the country. Thousands of mujahideen had manned roadblocks, searching for foreigners to kidnap or kill, at least 80 US military convoys were attacked and anybody who could was flying into the country. The locus of fighting had been Fallujah, a dusty town emerging from the desert about 60 kilometers west of Baghdad. Not a place you would remember unless you were kidnapped there.
Fallujah had always been a little different from the rest of Iraq. An American non-governmental organization project manager told me with bewilderment of his meeting with a women's group from the town who shocked him by being more radical than the men. "We must be willing to sacrifice our sons to end the occupation," they told him.
Combining rigid religious conservatism, strong tribal traditions and a fierce loyalty to Saddam Hussein, Fallujah battled five different US commanders who were brought in to tame the wild western province of the country. According to Professor Amazia Baram, an Iraq expert from the University of Haifa and the Washington-based United States Institute of Peace, Saddam found greater loyalty in the 300,000-strong city of Fallujah than he did even in his home town of Tikrit. He never executed Fallujans, though he did kill Tikritis who were his relatives, and Fallujans dominated his security and military services. Their proportion of the intelligence services was the highest in the country. This was already beginning to be the case under the Iraqi monarchy, continuing under the regime of the Arif brothers from 1963-68. The Arifs themselves hailed from Fallujah. After the first Gulf War of 1991, Saddam went to Fallujah, not Tikrit, to declare his victory in "the mother of all battles". He was greeted there with genuine love. Also unlike Tikrit, where the tribes are urbanized, the tribes of Fallujah are concentrated in the rural areas surrounding the city, and thus have not modernized and abandoned tribal mores as much as tribes in other parts of the country.
Situated on a strategic point bridging the Euphrates River in the desert, Fallujah is the center of a fertile region on the outskirts of the desert leading to Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Syria. Its location makes it a smuggling center. After the latest war, Fallujah did not suffer from the same looting seen in other parts of the country, as there was less reason to be hostile to the former regime and its institutions. Saddam had given Fallujah virtual autonomy. The religious and tribal leaders appointed their own civil management council even before US troops arrived. Tribes assumed control of the city's institutions and protected government buildings. Religious leaders, whose authority was respected, exhorted the people to respect the law and maintain order. Local imams urged the public to respect law and order. Tight tribal bonds also helped preserve stability. Trouble with Americans started soon after they arrived, however.
A March 29 protest, coinciding with Saddam's birthday, against the 82nd Airborne Division's occupation of a school turned bloody when US soldiers killed 17 protesters and killed three more in a follow-up protest two days later. A cycle of attacks and retaliation had begun, with the Fallujah-based resistance increasing in sophistication and successive US units throwing their might upon the city in futile efforts to pacify it. Finally, on March 31, four American contractors were killed and mutilated. This was an Iraqi tradition called sahel, a word unique to Iraqi Arabic, meaning the act of lynching. It originally meant dragging a body down the street with an animal or vehicle, but eventually grew to mean any sort of public killing. Iraqis have a history of imposing sahel, even on their leaders, as the former royal family learned.
The slayings of the American mercenaries provoked a Stalingrad-like response by the Americans called Operation Vigilant Resolve. After a month-long siege of Fallujah, during which US forces battered the city in pursuit of about 2,000 armed fighters, the United States received an offer from a coalition of former generals, tribal leaders and religious leaders. The Americans described it as a success but Fallujans were clear that they had liberated their city. The arrangement struck with the Americans was simple: Leave us alone or we will fight you. The details of the agreement went largely unpublished, but the US, which only a week before had vowed to take the city by force, had agreed that General Jassim Muhamad Saleh, a former Republican Guard commander, would establish what has been called both the Fallujah Brigade and the Fallujah Protection Army (FPA). After the US-trained Iraqi army had mutinied, refusing to fight in Fallujah on the grounds that they had joined to defend Iraq, not kill Iraqis, General Jassim and his supporters approached marine commander Lieutenant-General James Conway and offered salvation. "It got to the point that we thought there were no options that would preclude an attack," Conway said. Lieutenant-Colonel Brennan Byrne described it as "an Iraqi solition to an Iraqi problem". They would crown General Jassim as warlord of Fallujah. "The plan is that the whole of Fallujah will be under the control of the FPA," Byrne said.
One senior US official explained to the Washington Post on May 19, "What we're trying to do is extricate ourselves from Fallujah." But Brigadier-General Mark Kimmitt, deputy commander of operations for the coalition, maintained that marines were not "withdrawing" but were rather "repositioning" and would remain "in and around Fallujah". I saw no marines inside the city and I was told by Fallujah police and soldiers that they would shoot at Americans if they came in, contradicting a statement by the commander of US military operations in the Middle East, General John Abizaid, who said, "We want the marines to have freedom of maneuver along with the Iraqi security forces." Kimmitt insisted, "The coalition objectives remain unchanged, to eliminate armed groups, collect and positively control all heavy weapons, and turn over foreign fighters and disarm anti-Iraqi insurgents in Fallujah." I found no evidence of such policy. Though Kimmitt claimed General Jassim and his 1st Battalion of the Fallujah Brigade would subdue the resistance and foreign fighters, I found the general beholden to the mujahideen leaders, seeking their approval, collaborating with them, and under their command; quite the opposite of Kimmitt's claim that "the battalion will function as a subordinate command under the operational control of the First Marine Expeditionary Force". And though Jassim was to have been replaced by General Muhamad Latif over allegations of war crimes committed during Jassim's repression of the 1991 post-Gulf War uprising, I found Jassim still in "command".
April was the worst month for the US-led occupation, which fought a two front war in the Sunni Triangle as well as against the Army of the Mahdi, a militia controlled by radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, in Baghdad's Shi'ite neighborhoods and the Shi'ite south of the country. Fallujah had become a rallying cry for Iraq, uniting its antagonistic Sunni and Shi'ite communities against the occupation, and solidifying the bonds between their militias, creating a popular resistance in Iraq for the first time. After their Fallujah siege, during which all ceasefire attempts had failed, the marines began their withdrawal from the city on April 30. Obstinate resistance fighters who rejected the ceasefire terms killed two marines with a roadside bomb that day, trying unsuccessfully to provoke the marines to violate the accord, and the US withdrawal went ahead as planned. US marines described their May 10 half-hour incursion into the city as the first of the new joint patrols they would make with the Fallujah Brigade, but Fallujans described it as the last time Americans would be allowed to enter their city. There have been no further US patrols in Fallujah.
On the main street of Fallujah, once called Habbaniya Street but renamed Sheikh Ahmad Yassin Street in honor of the Hamas leader killed by the Israelis, laborers with scarves protecting their faces from the dust gather to be picked up for day jobs. It was these angry, unemployed young men, armed with their shovels and pipes, who dismembered the four contractors after the mujahideen had ambushed their vehicles. Young boys sell bananas and Kleenex boxes. The boys serve as an early-warning system for the city, notifying the fighters if they spot foreigners. Fair-skinned journalists told me of hiding low in their cars to avoid arousing attention, only to have the Kleenex boys spot them and shout "American! American!" At a major road intersection, anti-American graffiti in English are scrawled on the walls as a warning to US soldiers.
The boys gathered around me and the laborers removed their kafiyas from their faces to talk. They witnessed the attack on the contractors, they said, describing how the two cars had stopped at a red light and the mujahideen opened fire on them from other vehicles. The rear car was hit and the front car sped off and made a U-turn, but it too was hit. A mujahid shouted: "I avenged my brother who was killed by the Americans!," and the assailants left. An angry mob on the street mutilated the bodies, burning them and beating them with pipes until they were partially dismembered, a gruesome scene captured on film. I asked one Kleenex salesboy if he had done it. "I would even pull Bush down the street!" he smiled. A laborer said, "God and the mujahideen gave us victory. It will spread to all of Iraq and all the way to Jerusalem."
The bodies were dragged about a kilometer and a half to the old Fallujah bridge and hung from it. Blackwater, the company that employed the four Americans, later claimed they had been held at a roadblock, but in the films of the attack that I watched on promotional jihad compact discs (CDs) sold in Fallujah, there was no roadblock, and it is unlikely that any Blackwater employees ever returned to Fallujah to investigate. According to a US Army major familiar with the events, the murder and mutilation of Americans three kilometers from a US base provoked the marines into taking premature action. "The result on marine operations was that the marines were forced to respond to the incident and thus were not able to choose the timing or location for their operations," he said. "In other words, they had to attack Fallujah immediately, as opposed to being able to go with their original highly publicized plan of putting platoon-sized elements living with the people, using minimal force combined with a visible maximum presence and developing intelligence portfolios to allow targeted action as opposed to blunt, broad-spectrum action that has had the predictable results of pissing off a lot of Iraqis while being a focal point for nation-wide resistance elements."
He blamed Blackwater's mercenaries who, in Afghanistan, had almost gotten into firefights with US troops. "Cowboys," he said. "Their reputation is not good ... basically they are good at shooting guns but do not have a reputation for people with brains or situational awareness. This comes from some friends that worked with them in Afghanistan. My guess is that they did not coordinate their move with the marines in the area [who probably had no idea they were in Fallujah]. The ones who were killed were driving in the city with no crew-served weapons or anybody riding top cover outside of an SUV. That is really stupid. Basically a bunch of high-paid dumb-ass special-forces types who wanted to get in a firefight because they thought they were bulletproof."
Near the old bridge where the charred bodies were strung up is the Julan neighborhood on the northwestern border of the town. I found the neighborhood's people sorting through the rubble of their destroyed homes, flattened as if by an earthquake. AC-130 gunships, attack helicopters, and even fighter planes had pummeled the neighborhood where mujahideen held out. I found one man standing in the center of an immense crater that had been his home, his children playing on piles of bricks. Another man sat collapsed in despair in front of the gate leading to his home that had been crushed as if by a giant foot. He played with his worry beads indolently. One by one the men of the neighborhood asked me to photograph the damage US marines had inflicted upon them. As I was doing so a white sedan pulled up and two men covering their faces with checkered scarves emerged, demanding to know my identity. They were afraid of spies, they told me. I convinced them I was just a journalist and they escorted me to a mosque whose tower had collapsed from a US attack. In the still-seething Julan neighborhood, fighters were bitter about the compromise reached with the Americans that ended the fighting, and threatened to kill the leaders who had negotiated and approved the settlement.
Down the railroad tracks on the eastern edge of Fallujah, the Askari neighborhood suffered a similar fate, its homes eaten by US bullets and shells. It is here that US troops man the Fallujah checkpoint alongside Fallujan soldiers, some wearing the uniforms of the former army. Dozens of cars line up there to wind slowly around barricades and be searched for weapons and foreign fighters. My driver resented the hour-long wait and took the back roads into Fallujah, through a moonscape of sand dunes, past abandoned cement factories with cranes frozen atop like skeletons. Fallujah is a center for cross-border smuggling in Iraq and apart from the patronage it received from Saddam, smuggling was the primary revenue earner. As long as Fallujah's businessmen are permitted to continue their smuggling activities, the town will remain quiescent. Trails carved out of the desert lead into the town from every direction, and the main road is ignored by those who know. On my way out we drove past a lot in the desert where a dozen rusted trucks were parked, with Hebrew writing on them and Israeli license plates, probably stolen in Israel and sold in Jordan. No soldiers or marines regulated traffic in the area, I noticed, as we bumped our way over the dunes.
Fallujah's lawlessness was actually threatening the economy by obstructing the essential traffic coming in through Jordan. Iraqi friends who had driven the western roads described seeing thousands of mujahideen manning checkpoints made of concrete blocks and logs in the middle of the road and demanding identification cards at gunpoint, searching for foreigners. For the month of April, they had managed to take over the west. They had not been killed or disarmed, so there is no reason to think they cannot do it again.
Referring to Iraq's Highway 10, a former American marine currently working very closely in a civilian capacity with the marine commanders in Fallujah explained to me, "Fallujah sits on a major artery between Baghdad and the rest of the world. There is no fucking way we will let them stand in our path. We're trying to rebuild the country. Fallujah is in the way. We will be moving massive amounts of people and material in the region. We would have been using the western route a lot more if it was safe." I asked him who was in control of Fallujah. "I can tell you who is not in control," he said. "The marines." He told me of kidnapping incidents he knew about. "People disappear into the hole of Fallujah," he said. "The mujahideen control the city." He was suspicious of anointed warlord General Jassim's ability to control the city, telling me, "I don't trust Jassim or the Fallujah model." He was convinced that the status quo in Fallujah would have to be corrected. "The situation will change," he said. "We should have never gone inside the city. This is not a Marine Corps mission. The marines are a mobile, self-sustainable fighting force. The Marine Corps doesn't do occupation. We would kick ass shutting borders. The Corps does short displays of massive power. The Marine Corps goes into violent situations, kicks ass and then lets the army handle things. The Marine Corps cannot handle logistics or stay long." The planned handover of sovereignty to the Iraqis on June 30 would not reduce the need to reassert control over Fallujah, he said, adding, "What will be gone after June 30? A three-letter acronym and some Bush flunkies and third-stringers."
The marines rely on private companies to supply them with their arms, food, water and all other essential materiel, from Baghdad, Jordan and Turkey. Companies use their own private armies composed of former intelligence and army servicemen to protect the convoys that support the marines in the entire west. They too are vulnerable to the mujahideen. Forgotten is the importance of the Habaniya airbase, also called Al Taqaddum, 80km west of Baghdad. Seized by allied special forces even before the war itself began, it was the main Iraqi airbase outside the former "no-fly zone" imposed after the 1991 Gulf War. It remains essential to support the 25,000 marines occupying western Iraq. The lines of communication, or LOCs, that much of the occupation and economy depend on are thus vulnerable to interdiction, passing through inhabited and agricultural areas that provide cover for the resistance.
US marines conducted their last patrol into Fallujah on May 10. It was a hasty affair. A convoy drove up to the headquarters of the new Fallujah military force for a brief meeting and left. The mood was festive on the streets. Thousands of residents came out for a carnival-like victory celebration. Fighters carrying their weapons piled on to pickup trucks and shot into the air, songs were sung and a sheep was slaughtered on the street. Men queued to sign up for a newly formed military unit, collecting the forms from an Iraqi officer wearing the uniform of the disbanded Republican Guard, seated behind a desk.
A marine colonel responsible for civil-affairs operations in Fallujah admitted to me that he had no role in the negotiations that led to the settlement and knew nothing about them. He and his men were not even permitted to enter the city. Though marine commanders had claimed they would conduct joint patrols with local forces in the city, since May 10 the marines have stayed away. The colonel admitted to me that he did not even know who was in charge of Fallujah.
Brigadier-General Kimmitt had announced: "We have to win this war in Fallujah one neighborhood at a time. We're going to do it on our terms, on our timeline, and it will be overwhelming." But General Mattis and his men, escorted by the new Fallujah Brigade for their own protection, had barely been able to penetrate the city. After their safe exit from Fallujah after that last incursion, and after Iraqi forces had raised their own flag - not the new one issued by the Iraqi Governing Council - over the eastern checkpoint, Mattis concluded with a speech: "My fine young sailors and marines, sometimes history is made in small, dusty places like this. Today was good history because we did not get into a fight. Not a shot was fired. We did not come here to fight these people, we came here to free them." He had forgotten all his demands, including the handover of heavy weapons, the men who killed the four American contractors, and any foreign fighters. The commander of the most powerful fighting unit in the world was satisfied, according to the Associated Press (AP), with the mere fact that "nobody shoots", and that "any day that there is no shooting it is good". On April 20, US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had warned: "Thugs and assassins and former Saddam henchmen will not be allowed to carve out portions of that city and to oppose peace and freedom."
The police, civil-defense corps and Fallujah Bigade, all ostensibly under final US authority, told me they would attack Americans should they enter. Although the well-dressed General Muhamad Latif was said to be in control, and General Jassim dismissed, the men of the Fallujah Brigade were still commanded by Jassim, it was to him they gave their allegiance and it was to him the town leaders came to discuss plans for the new army. Jassim's men were not arresting the mujahideen. Their ranks included mujahideen. The general himself was beholden to the mujahideen leaders, seeking their approval, collaborating with them, and under their command. The police were afraid of mujahideen units who were terrorizing them and civilians.
If Fallujah was quiet now, it was in part because mujahideen leaders had left the city. Some had sought refuge in Baghdad's Aamriya district, home to Sunni radicals and adjoining the resistance center of Abu Ghraib. Residents of Aamriya told me that after the entrance of mujahideen from Fallujah into their neighborhood, attacks against Americans there had ceased in order to avoid provoking the Americans and revealing their identities. Mujahideen in Fallujah, eyeing the surrounding villages where there tribes were based, and the nearby city of Ramadi, expected similar battles to occur there, leading to the liberation of more territory and a country governed by the resistance. They had been planning for this at least since February. Leaflets had been circulated by "the Army of Muhamad", instructing people what to do when the Americans left. Meanwhile, a group called the Mujahideen Brigades circulated leaflets in Baghdad urging people to stay home because "your mujahideen brothers in Ramadi, Khalidiyah, and Fallujah will bring the fire of the resistance to the capital Baghdad, and support our mujahideen brothers in the Army of the Mahdi in liberating you from the injustice of the occupation. Forewarned is forearmed." Other leaflets circulating in Fallujah after the accord condemned the leaders who negotiated it for weakening the resistance.
Should the Fallujah model be applied elsewhere in the Sunni Triangle, it is clear that radical Sunnis in alliance with former Ba'athist officers would seize control - a warlord with a cleric legitimizing him in every city. Within Fallujah, some neighborhoods were still controlled by irredentist mujahideen, bitter at the ceasefire that betrayed their cause. They were threatening the very radical leaders who had tenuous control of the city, condemning their moderation. With no clear leader, the people of Fallujah were worried about internal power struggles turning bloody.
So could the Fallujah model be applied elsewhere? And should it? Supporters of armed resistance to the occupation had assisted the fight in Fallujah, providing food and medicine and smuggling weapons in with the aid that was trucked in from the Mother of All Battles Mosque in Baghdad's Ghazaliya district. Now Fallujan leaders were supporting Muqtada al-Sadr's Shi'ite fighters in the south, and meeting with leaders from other Sunni parts of the country.
Leaving aside virtually independent Kurdistan, which has been ruled by two US-supported benevolent warlords for 14 years, there are no military figures who could command legitimate authority in the Shi'ite neighborhoods of Baghdad and the the Shi'ite south. There are only religious leaders such as Muqtada and the network of clerics and gangs he controls. This would be ceding the country to Khomeinist thugs who would impose the strictest form of Islam, meting out religiously inspired death sentences like the Taliban. Abdel Aziz al-Hakim of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution of Iraq, Ahmad Chalabi of the Iraqi National Congress and interim Prime Minister Ayad Allawi all command armies, but have no significant popular support. Journalists are already asking for written guarantees from militia leaders in Karbala and Najaf in order to operate while Americans desperately search for a suitable local leader to impose his own order. And if US troops cannot deal with the mujahideen, how will the inchoate Iraqi regime?
Members of the former governing council have already voiced their displeasure. Governing council spokesman Haydar Ahmad told the Arabic news network al-Arabiya on May 2 that the Ministry of Defense had not been consulted prior to the formation of the Fallujah Brigade, adding, "The tragedy of Fallujah cannot be ended by forming a force without consulting the authority in this country." Erstwhile US ally Chalabi, interviewed by alJazeera on May 3, said that "the issue is that those who carried arms and the terrorists who fight against the new situation in Iraq are from the Ba'athists and the remnants of Saddam's regime. They should not be given legitimacy to control any area in Iraq by force." Chalabi compared the solution in Fallujah to returning control of Germany to the Nazis, adding that "The terrorists are free in the secured haven of Falluja." Chalabi and two other governing council members, Muhammad Bahr al-Ulum and Adil Abdel Mahdi, had co-signed a statement supporting the Iraqi defense minister's rejection of what they termed "the Republican Guard brigade" in Fallujah as part of the new Iraqi army. A spokesman for leading moderate Shi'ite cleric Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani objected that "members of the Ba'ath Party committed the worst crimes and made bloodbaths and the biggest mass graves in the history of humanity". The number of armies in the country is only increasing, and unless the United States wants an Iraq of warlord-controlled, radical Islamic fiefdoms like it has in Afghanistan, Fallujah looks like a model for disaster.
Tomorrow: PART 2, The fighting poets
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PART 2: The fighting poets
On May 11, one day after US marines conducted their last patrol into Fallujah following their decision to pull back and hand over to a Fallujah Brigade after a bloody month-long siege, hundreds of dignitaries gathered under a long tent in the city 50 kilometers west of Baghdad for a poetry celebration organized by the National Front of Iraqi Intellectuals.
It was staged in front of the unfinished Rahma Hospital, and a podium was placed on top of the rough gray stairs at the hospital's entrance, with the front's emblem and Iraqi flags draped on the podium. Tall columns and arches framed the background. Graffiti on the walls of the hospital read, "Long live the mujahideen and the loved ones of Mohammed", "Victory is Fallujah's and defeat for the infidel America" and "the Fallujah martyrs are the lights for the way to the complete liberation of Iraq".
Clerics resplendent in their turbans, tribal leaders wearing white kafiyas, or headscarves, businessmen, military and police officers and men in Ba'athist-style matching solid-color open-collar shirts and pants called "safari suits" sat on plastic chairs under a long tent shading them from the noonday sun. Banners hung on the sides of the tent and walls of the hospital made clear the sentiments of the moment: "All of Fallujah's neighborhoods bear witness to its heroism, steadfastness and virtue", "The stand of Fallujah is the truest expression of the Iraqi identity", "Fallujah, castle of steadfastness and pride" and "The martyrs of Fallujah, Najaf, Kufa and Basra are the pole of the flag that says God is great".
Above the podium, tough-looking men wearing sunglasses and grimaces looked down on the crowd. A banner above them described the event as a poetry festival to support Fallujah against the occupation. Cans of soft drinks and bottles of water were provided for the honored guests.
"Hey Fallujah," called one poet, "when I wrote my poem you were the most beautiful verse inside it and without your stand I could not raise my head again." Another poet, with the strong accent of Shi'ite southern Iraq, declared: "Fallujah is full of real men." Bridging the Sunni-Shi'ite divide, he referred to the important Shi'ite martyr Hussein, who is venerated for defying Sunni tyranny: "From the 'no' of Hussein Fallujah learned so much." He continued that just as "Hussein was supported by 70 of his followers, we have to be like his followers and end the internal strife ... I have a brave friend from Fallujah and I came from Karbala." He led the audience in chants and hand-clapping, calling for unity between Sunnis and Shi'ites.
Another Shi'ite poet from Baghdad, Falah al-Fatlawi, declared that radical Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's Army of the Mahdi militia "awoke for Fallujah, and Sadr's voice from Najaf" declared the value of Fallujah. "We will never sell it," he said, "people sacrificed their spirit for Fallujah, one heart, one line, Sunni and Shi'ite for Fallujah!" Mohammed Khalil Kawkaz recited a poem called "The Fallujah Tragedy" in a barely intelligible local accent. "Fallujah is a tall date palm," he said. "She never accepts anybody touching her dates, she will shoot arrows into the eyes of those who try to taste her, this is Fallujah, your bride, oh Euphrates! She will never fall in love with anyone but you ... Americans dug in the ground and pulled out the roots of the date palm."
Choosing an interesting metaphor, given the recent decapitation of American Nick Berg, he announced: "We will slit the throats of our enemies!" and added that "the earth hugs the destroyed houses ... the women burned and the children suffered, calling to the governing council, you are deaf and dumb O governing council! You found honor in meeting him who pillaged Fallujah [the Americans]."
He cried to the Euphrates River, asking it why it did nothing to help the city: "Oh Euphrates, what happened to you that you just lay down? Get up and fight with your waves and swallow this country [US] and the others [the coalition], stand with Fallujah! You are the Iraqi flag, they tried to change you but they cannot, for you are her love! Oh Fallujah, you are my blood, my eyes, my everything! All the mosques say God is great and call for jihad, as the Americans bomb their towers! No honor, no justice, no right, nothing, but we have the scarved ones [mujahideen] who will restore all, he brought them, prisoners, hostages, like a wolf and he negotiated and sold them in the market! He who did not bleed for you [Fallujah] is dishonorable!"
Another poet shouted, "Congratulations on the victory of the revolutionaries, your heads will always be high and the one who wanted to conquer you hangs his head low!" A poet from the southern Shi'ite shrine city of Najaf sang, "I brought with me all the love from Najaf to this city and I send it as kisses to the people of the Anbar."
A 12-year-old boy from Najaf followed him, and the microphone was lowered to accommodate his small stature. He wore a pressed white shirt neatly tucked into his jeans, and he waved an arm angrily, pointing a finger at the sky. "I came from Najaf to praise the heroes of Fallujah!" he shouted, and ended by calling to God, screaming, "Ya Allah! Ya Allah," and then burst out sobbing. Older men escorted him off as he wiped away his tears, and he was embraced and kissed in succession by the dignitaries in the front row. He returned to recite another bellicose poem, this time brandishing a Kalashnikov as long as he was tall.
Listening to the hyperbolic poems amid a devastated city I was reminded of Ma'rouf al-Resafi (1875-1945), nicknamed "the poet of Iraq". A teacher, writer, translator, journalist, historian and politician, Resafi traveled for much of his life and settled in Fallujah, from which he fled in 1941 to Baghdad when British troops and mercenaries attacked it. He wrote famous poems in tribute to Fallujah, including one that went:


Oh Englishmen, we will not forget
Your cruelty in the houses of Fallujah
Sanctioned by your army, wanting revenge
Its parasites dazzled by Fallujah's inhabitants
And on the defenseless you poured a glass
Of blood mixed with betrayal
Is in this the civility, and loftiness
Your people claim to ascend to?
Seated majestically in the center of the crowd, prominently next to the chief of police, Colonel Sabar Fadhil al-Janabi, Sheikh Dhafer al-Ubeidi, the guest of honor, rose to speak, a white scarf framing his dark-bearded face and a gold-braided translucent cape draped over his shoulders. "There was never unity in Iraqi history like this," he said, describing the event as "the wedding day for Fallujah". Muslims had not felt such joy, he said, since Saladin liberated Jerusalem in 1187. Silencing the enthusiastic crowd, he continued: "I don't like clapping, so if I say something you like then say 'Allahu Akbar' [God is great], which is in accordance with our traditions. Clapping is for poets, not religious leaders."

Dhafer warned that Zionists, imperialists and Masons were leading the occupation and inciting sectarian war. "The meaning of Fallujah has become victory," he told them. Fallujah was now haram for the Americans, he said, religiously prohibited, until judgment day. "And Iraq will be haram for America until judgment day." Dhafer wished peace upon the crowd and descended to shouts of "God is great!"
As the tribal leaders seated behind Dhafer parted and lumbered out of the tent, holding their gowns up slightly with one hand, I stopped one of the guests, Sheikh Abdul Rahman al-Zowabi, to ask him about the event. "It is a victory celebration," he told me. "It is a message that all Iraqis are one people, as you saw, and there are many well-known people here from all Iraq." I asked the chubby sheikh if the battle would continue, and he laughed, answering, "Fallujah is part of the victory, but there are more battlefields. There will be a popular rebellion in all of Iraq."
I asked him what political plan they had for the rest of the country, and his answer was typical of what I have been hearing in Iraq for the past 13 months. "We want a national government that represents the Iraqi people," he said. When I pressed him on what type of government, he said, "We want any government that satisfies the Iraqi people." And did the tribal leader want a democracy? "We don't hate democracy, we believe in democracy, but it should come from the Iraqi people. We have our own special democracy that takes Iraqi history and culture into consideration." He explained proudly that "the first code of laws on Earth was Hammurabi's code in Iraq, before America even existed", referring to "priest king" Hammurabi (circa 1792-1750 BC), who united all of Mesopotamia under his 43-year reign of Babylon.
Zowabi's companion, a tall, gaunt sheikh with a thin mustache, told me, "We don't want freedom or democracy if it comes from America." Another sheikh cut him off, shouting, "How can you tell a foreigner that you don't want freedom or democracy? He will tell the whole world." The interrupted sheikh did not respond, telling me only that "America should leave today, before tomorrow".
PART 3: The Fallujah model
With Fallujah being touted by Iraqi fighters as a successful example of how to liberate their country from the US-led occupation, and by the occupation leaders as a successful example of how to hand over the country to its people and avoid further bloodshed, I set out to discover the reality behind the "Fallujah model".
What I found was a city run by the Iraqi resistance, itself divided between those who supported the ceasefire with occupation forces in May that ended a month's heavy fighting in the city and those who sought to continue the struggle throughout Iraq "and all the way to Jerusalem".
To learn more about the history of Fallujah's resistance, I visited the opulent home of Abu Mohammed, a former brigadier-general in the Iraqi military. We sat in his guest hall, decorating with expensive but gaudy art, flowery and uncoordinated, typical for the region, watching a news broadcast on the assassination of Iraqi Governing Council president Izzedin Salim.
The brigadier-general's three cheerful young boys were play-fighting on a sofa, grinning at me shyly, hoping to get the attention of the foreigner. Abu Mohammed has a baby face and dimples, and smiled as much as his frolicking boys. Like most of Fallujah's people, he traced the beginning of the resistance to the US Army's killing of 17 demonstrators in late April of last year.
Abu Mohammed explained that Fallujah was more traditional than most Iraqi cities. "It is conservative and the influence of mosques is great and widespread." Saddam Hussein's control of thought and ideas, he said, meant that "you could only express yourself through the mosques and it was in the mosques that people felt there was an authority who cared and listened to them". Abu Mohammed added that "the level of education of imams in the mosque was not high".
Abu Mohammed, like all members of the previous army, lost his job when the US occupation dissolved it, along with outlawing the Ba'ath Party. He explained that this had only created enemies for the Americans. He spoke of "the massive use of force" and "disrespect for our traditions" that Fallujah experienced, as well as the "media showing American raids and attacks", meaning that "former regime people like me were forced to support revenge".
"After the war ended," he said, "we expected things to improve, but everything became worse, electricity, water, sewage, draining, so mosque speakers openly spoke of jihad and encouraged prayers to join it after a month of occupation." Abu Mohammed explained that the "mosque culture developed against the Americans in this year. The mosques were free. Mosque culture in Fallujah centered on the jihad. This attracted foreign Arabs who felt constrained by their own regimes, and of course there were neighboring countries who supported this financially. Nobody in Fallujah opposed the resistance and many different resistance groups came in. Weapons were very available in Fallujah. All soldiers and security personnel took their weapons home, and the Ba'ath Party had also distributed weapons."
Abu Mohammed was bewildered by what he called "the stupidity of the Americans", explaining, "They didn't seize ammunition depots of the army that contained enormous amounts of weapons." The military experience, the financing and the weapons were all present in Fallujah, he said, and "the nature of the people here is violent because they grow up with weapons from childhood and weapons become part of our personality". He added that "the imams of mosques took over the defense of Fallujah efficiently".
When the fighting in April started, "the people here were monitoring American movements and had the upper hand. Military experience let them know where the Americans would attack. Fallujans were expecting this to happen, especially after the four [US] contractors [were killed], and they prepared themselves for the fight. The resistance spread into positions assigned to them by Sheikh Dhafer [al-Ubeidi] and Abdallah Janabi, and the military planning and street fighting in defense of one's home requires less strategizing."
Abu Mohammed admitted that "the presence of alJazeera's [Qatar-based television station] exaggerated pictures and incitement of people led people inside and outside Iraq to sympathize with Fallujah." He compared alJazeera's Fallujah correspondent to a sports commentator: "His broadcasts were like a sports commentator, not a journalist, encouraging people to support one team against the other. And he raised the spirits of fighters."
Abu Mohammed was concerned about the new status of Fallujah. "There is no law in Fallujah now," he said. "It's like Afghanistan - rule of gangs, mafias and Taliban. If they decide somebody is a spy they will kill him. There is no legal procedure. Imams of mosques who left during the fighting were prevented from returning to their mosques." He feared that soon differences would emerge among different mujahideen groups, leading to further violence.
He told me a new Fallujah army had been formed "to contain the former army and resistance leaders from taking over and subverting the rule of law". Abu Mohammed was skeptical about the new army that he had joined. "What is the point of this new army? Who does it kill? Who does it defend?" he asked, adding that "the religious leadership decides who gets into the new army". He himself was approached by delegates from a leading mosque run by Janabi, who brought him forms and told him he was approved.
After the first five days of fighting, the former brigadier sent his family out of the city. Now they had returned, and his oldest boy was serving me coffee, but he wanted to leave the city. He told me his beliefs were different than most of his neighbors. "I am looking for the future of my children," he said.
Across the town, I visited the headquarters of the Islamic Party. One of the 25 parties belonging to the US-appointed Iraqi Governing Council, its controversial leader was Dr Muhsin Abdel Hamid. The party had strong anti-Shi'ite undertones, and Hamid had already claimed, incorrectly, that Sunnis were the majority in Iraq.
The party offices were located in an old cinema, earning it the nickname "the cinema party" by Fallujans who viewed it as too cooperative with the Americans. The Islamic Party dominated the city council, but its members were not active during the fighting and some left the city, earning them the contempt of Fallujans, who divided their community between those who stayed and fought and those who left.
By the doors boxes of medical supplies were piled high and several men in sweatpants were sprawled in front, holding Kalashnikovs. Inside the theater, piled on seats and on the stage, were thousands of boxes containing medical supplies, as well as food for the families of "martyrs" and the wounded. The party was sending hundreds of these by truck to Karbala and Najaf, where Shi'ite militias were battling occupation forces. By the door I found a poster advertising an "Islamic music band" called "the voice of the right". It showed a bloody heart in the center of Iraq with a hand plunging a spear through it. Another poster showed two pages, one with American soldiers and one with Iraqis and mosques: "With the Prophet's guidance we will unite to turn the page on the occupation." On a table they sold copies of the party's newspaper, Dar Assalam, and a radical Sunni magazine it supported called Nur, meaning "lights".
I met with Khalid Mohammed, the office director, who insisted on speaking only classical Arabic, or Fus-ha, an annoying habit akin to speaking Shakespearean English in daily conversation. Though the Islamic Party had been a key player in the negotiations with the Americans that brought about the hudna, or ceasefire, Mohammed was worried about groups in the city "who reject the hudna and want to turn Fallujah into a center to export the rebellion". Three differences had emerged during the fighting, he said, "and when we worked on the ceasefire there were other fighters who want fighting to continue until the occupation ends". Mohammed confirmed to me that former Iraqi Republican Guard general, Jassim Mohammed Saleh, had not been dismissed as some reports said but was in fact the No 2 man in power in the city.
The Islamic Party's main competition comes from the Association of Islamic Scholars, headquartered in the Abdel Aziz Mosque of the Nazal neighborhood, which was a key battle zone during the siege.
The association, long committed to resisting the occupation, commanded its own mujahideen units during the fighting. According to a Coalition Provisional Authority official familiar with Iraq, Sheikh Harith al-Dhari, one of the association's leaders in Baghdad, is also an important leader of the resistance. The mosque was alleged by Americans to contain mujahideen and was attacked, its green dome speckled with bullet holes. On one of the mosque's walls a banner announced that "violation of the mosque's sanctuary dishonors the world's Muslims". Papers taped to columns on either side of the entrance gate said, "God chose for you a group of martyrs from the city of clerics and religious science and congratulations to them who now live in the stomachs of the green birds," a reference to heaven for martyrs. Another paper said, "Congratulations on your victory, O people of pride and virtue, O heroes of Fallujah." Colorful stickers I had also seen on car bumpers in the streets showed an Iraqi flame burning the Israeli flag alongside the new Iraqi flag that the governing council had approved. Abdel Hamid Farhan, the mosque leader, told me his city was not yet free and would not be until the rest of the country was liberated.
On the large concrete blocks that guard the Fallujah provisional council from attack, I found the same resistance posters I had seen elsewhere in the city and throughout the west of the country. The resistance had capable graphic designers working for it. "Iraq is the beginning of the end of the occupation," it said, showing a fist lunging out of Iraq into an Iraqi flag. On the flag it said, "Congratulations to Fallujah's people, jihad, martyrdom, victory." Two armed resistance fighters were on either side, their faces covered by kafiyas, scarves. A US flag with a Jewish star on it was on fire, its flames burning American soldiers. The poster was produced by "the Islamic Media League".
Inside, Saad Ala al-Rawi, a lawyer and head of the local provisional council, was receiving petitioners behind his desk. He had a thin mustache and wore the Ba'athist "safari" uniform of matching shirt and pants. An elderly woman draped in a black abaya, her face wrinkled and full of traditional tribal tattoos, had come to ask for help and was shouting her problems in the presence of several sweating portly men wearing dashas and kafiyas.
Al-Rawi had taken part in the negotiations with the Americans, but was surprised to learn that simultaneous negotiations were being held without their knowledge to establish the Fallujah army and appoint General Jassim. He didn't want to answer questions about this. Though he appreciated the role played by three Iraqi Governing Council members in the negotiations, "we were expecting something stronger", he said, "because they are Iraqis and we are Iraqis from the same country. The minimum they could do was threaten to resign because their people were being slaughtered in Fallujah." I pressed him about the other negotiations, but he refused to discuss them.
He, too, mentioned the April 29, 2003, school demonstrations as a key event. "The resistance started that day," he said. "Fallujah was the first city that resisted the occupation. The killings continued when they would open fire randomly on us and raid our houses. Because of these events, sympathy with the resistance increased." His 45-member council was formed on April 1 this year. "We have spent most of our time negotiating with them [the Americans] over their human-rights violations."
Referring to the attack on the four American contract workers, he told me, "For us as Muslims and Arabs, we condemn the mutilation and burning of the four, but in a war killing happens on both sides. We are at war, so killing is normal. But mutilating bodies is not acceptable." He added that the Americans used the incident as an excuse to attack Fallujah. I asked him if they would shoot at US troops should they re-enter the city. "Let me ask you this," he said, "if someone invades your house, will you just stand by?"
TOMORROW: All power to the sheikh
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PART 4: All power
to the sheikh
On Friday, March 14, I pulled up to the mosque of Sheikh Dhafer al-Ubeidi, a key cleric in organizing the resistance in Fallujah, along with Abdallah Janabi. Hadhra Mosque lies inconspicuously across the street from the Rahma Hospital, where two days before I had attended a poetry festival staged to celebrate US forces pulling out of the city after a month-long siege. Fallujah is known as medinat al-masajid or the city of mosques, for its 80 mosques, but Hadhra Mosque is small and modest compared with others in the city, its colors faded, its dome small. But if there is a final authority for the resistance in Iraq, a command and control center, this is it.
I had been warned that Dhafer ran the city, and to operate in it I would need his "clearance". Other journalists who had not done so were held up by armed gangs. A writer for a leading US newspaper was caught at a checkpoint attempting to disguise his face with a woman's black veil. Another writer for a top US magazine was held after coming out of the marine base in an armored car, with an armed driver, bulletproof vest, US passport with Israeli stamps and a receipt from the Israeli-Jordanian border crossing in his pocket. My contact in Fallujah was asked by Dhafer to confirm whether these and other foreigners held by local militias were in fact journalists. I was hoping to get a piece of paper from the sheikh that would be a license to work in the city.
As I got out of the car in front of the mosque, a big explosion shook the city, and in the distance I could see a large mushroom cloud growing, and then being dispersed by the wind. Probably a mortar converted into a roadside bomb. The police car in front of the mosque veered off to take a look. On the tall fence lining the mosque, a banner announced, "Sunnis and Shi'ites are committed to defeating the Zionist plan." It did not explain what plan was being referred to; apparently the locals already knew. The white paint was peeling off of the rusted gate. A sign above the gate bore the title al-Hadhra Muhamadia Mosque and Madrassa (religious school). The mosque's manar, or tower, was damaged from a US shell.
Leaflets and announcements were taped on to the gate. One said that "the fatwa [religious verdict] council asks for pictures and evidence of occupation forces violating human rights and any attack on our values and our Islamic symbols. Please give them to the council in the Hadhra Mosque." Another one contained a long verse dedicated to a man martyred by the Americans. An announcement from the Telecommunications Ministry reminded people not to pay telephone repairmen, who were salaried by the ministry. Another one from the qaimaqamia (an old Ottoman word for "city hall") instructed people about what documents they should bring "to receive compensation for martyrs, and wounded people, and damaged vehicles". A similar one asked the families of martyrs to go to the courts to get a death certificate and then to the hospital to get additional proof of death in order to process their compensation claims.
Finally an announcement from the Mujahideen Council declared that "imams [mosque leaders] are responsible for their mosques and the mujahideen have no rights to interfere in mosques after today". It added that "some thieves go to markets, confiscating goods and money and consider themselves mujahideen, but they are liars and we ask the people of the city of mosques to catch these people and educate them [forcefully] and the mujahideen will support them to prevent strife in our city".
Past the security guards a tall palm tree provided a bit of shade on the path to the mosque's office. The windows of the mosque and its offices were still crossed with tape to prevent shattering from fighting. Inside the office I found an acquaintance I had known in Baghdad a year before, Taghlub al-Alusi, a gentle elderly man, tall and dignified, with sharp lines on his face. He was born on Alus, an island in the Euphrates River to the north, but he had lived in Fallujah for 42 years until moving to the United Arab Emirates in the late 1990s, where he worked as an engineer.
I had met Taghlub in Baghdad's Sunni stronghold Adhamiya on a visit to the offices of the National Unity Movement, a party established by Iraq's most famous living Sunni thinker, Dr Ahmad Kubeisi. Kubeisi's movement had been the great hope of Iraq's Sunnis, and I had followed it closely since he returned from a self-imposed exile in the UAE that had started in 1998 and ended with a triumphal Friday sermon in the Abu Hanifa Mosque, Iraq's main Sunni mosque, in Baghdad's Adhamiya district. For this sermon, hundreds of people had stood and knelt barefoot outside the packed mosque. On top of its walls young men held banners proclaiming "one Iraq, one people", "we reject foreign control", "Sunnis are Shi'ites and Shi'ites are Sunnis, we are all one", "all the believers are brothers", and similar proclamations of national unity.
Kubeisi's sermon that followed prayers was unique for its nationalism. Baghdad had been occupied by the Mongols, he said, referring to the sacking of the capital of the Muslim world in 1258. Now new Mongols were occupying Baghdad and they were creating divisions between Sunnis and Shi'ites. However, the Shi'ites and Sunnis were one and they should remain united and reject foreign control. They had all suffered together as one people under Saddam Hussein's rule. Saddam oppressed all Iraqis and then he abandoned them to suffer.
I continued following Kubeisi after he formed his unity movement. Last summer he spoke in Baghdad, condemning the attacks against American soldiers because they were premature and should not begin until it was seen whether or not the Americans acted on their promise to leave as soon as possible. Kubeisi admitted that Sunnis were pushed aside because the United States viewed them as hostile and that the Shi'ites were the temporary victors. Speaking in Samara last summer, Kubeisi prohibited attacks against Americans. "We waited 35 years under Saddam and we should give the Americans a year before we fight them and tell them to leave," he said. Kubeisi was based in the UAE state of Dubai and traveled back and forth between there and Baghdad. According to his supporters, he was informed by the Americans that he would be denied re-entry to Iraq.
Taghlub, my acquaintance, had worked with Kubeisi's movement for three months, but left because "I found them inefficient". He told me Kubeisi was now "sleeping in Dubai" after being threatened by the now-defunct Iraqi Governing Council, the Americans and the armed Badr Brigade of the Supreme Council for Islamic Revolution in Iraq. Taghlub's son Mohammed was a religious student in the mosque and helped his father in administering it. When I mentioned Kubeisi's movement he shook his head. "It was a failure," he said. Taghlub's older brother, Sheikh Hisham al-Alusi, had once led Hadhra Mosque, but after being seriously injured in an assassination attempt he was confined to a wheelchair and was too feeble to move on his own, so he appointed Dhafer as his replacement. According to a Coalition Provisional Authority official who met with Taghlub often when Taghlub led the negotiations that ended in US forces withdrawing and handing power over to Fallujans, Taghlub was a leader of the resistance in Fallujah.
Removing my shoes and leaving them by the door, I was escorted into a sparse office and seated on an old sofa. I was offered a glass of water. Taghlub completed his conversations with callers and sat close to me, the deep lines on his face giving him an even more distressed look than normal. He was very worried about the Americans having entered Karbala that day. "It's holy for us too," he said of the shrine city containing the tombs of Hussein and Abbas, two of the Prophet Mohammed's grandchildren. "They are our forefathers," he explained, rejecting any hint of Sunni-Shi'ite conflict.
A continuous stream of visitors came to see the town leaders present in the office, to ask for help and hold whispered conversations. Abdel Basit Turki, the former interim human rights minister, entered with a small entourage, including three clerics from Samara and a local tribal sheikh. Dressed in an elegant suit, the tall man had come to pay his respects and receive the gratitude of the town's leaders. Turki is from western Iraq, born in Haditha, a town to the north of Fallujah, though when I asked him where he was from he only smiled and said, "I am an Iraqi."
Turki was an economics professor who never left Iraq under Saddam's regime. He served as minister from August 30, 2003, until April 8 this year, when he resigned to protest US actions in Fallujah. "I resigned because the American military used force to solve problems that could be solved by referring to the Iraqi people," he told me, adding, "Their attitude to the Iraqi citizens makes the future of human rights in Iraq insecure." He complained about "Americans using Apaches to raid Sadr City, besieging Fallujah and even using fighter jets against the city, converting homes into mass graves. As minister of human rights I had to resign to show the people I identified with them." He complained that his challenge had been twofold, dealing with "the former regime's human-rights violations and the violations resulting from the occupation by foreign troops. My main challenge [is] to educate people about human rights during an occupation. You cannot educate people about human rights when they are being bombed and killed." He added that he had received pressure from the Americans to deal only with human-rights violations of the previous regime.
Turki's companion, Sheikh Ahmad, from the mosque of Risala al-Muhamdia in Samara, a city to the north of Baghdad, had also come to pay his respects to Iraq's first liberated city. "What happened in Fallujah is expected to happen in other cities in Iraq," he told me, predicting an intifada shaabia (people's uprising). "All the people of Iraq will erupt in revolution, and at that moment it will make no difference if you are Sunni or Shi'ite," he said.
A 12-year-old boy entered the room, to the delight of the mosque's leadership. They introduced him as Saad, a brave boy who had fought as a capable sniper during the battle with the Americans. He was hugged and kissed by all the men in the room, who congratulated him for being a batal, or hero. Already a seasoned scrapper, he smiled proudly, and thanked them in a hoarse adult voice with the confidence of a grown man. He was insolent to the older and bigger boys, who seemed scared of him. I was nervous around him too - he reminded me of a rabid pit bull. After prayers I saw him lingering outside the mosque, slinging a Kalashnikov with the magazine inside, providing security.
Sheikh Hisham al-Alusi was wheeled in and the men came over to kiss him on the head, and praise Allah for his recovery. He explained that he had been shot three months before. "They shot 30 bullets at me, but only one entered my body," he explained. It was his first day back at the mosque, and Dhafer deferred to him, letting him take the desk. Hisham was pale and spoke in a whisper. He had been a member of the US-backed town council and had eschewed incitements of violence. Two masked men in a car pulled up next to him when he was leaving the Hadhra Mosque and shot him. The people in the mosque told me he had been shot by the resistance, apparently either out of a desire to hide the fina, or internal strife in their community, very typical of Muslim clerics, or simply to pin the blame on the Americans. When I confronted a source about having been lied to, he told me implausibly that the assailants were in fact US agents.
Soon after, General Jassim Mohammed Salih of the Fallujah Brigade walked in, wearing a white dishdash and white scarf. After exchanging greetings with the guests in the increasingly crowded office, he briefed them on the latest political events, barking gruffly in clipped military style, his jowls shaking, as he fingered yellow prayer beads. "I spoke to Brahimi yesterday and he says hi to all of you," he said, referring to United Nations representative to Iraq Lakhdar Brahimi. He then defended the need for the Fallujah army he did or did not command, depending on whether one listens to Fallujans or Americans. "Everybody else has militias and it's not called terrorism," he said, "but when an army defends its city this is called terrorism." Jassim stressed the central role of the army, explaining that "the army is the people's, not Saddam's, and anybody who comes in and attacks the institution of the army finds half a million people carrying guns against him". "Even Saddam," smiled Dhafer. I left to allow the unofficial town council to meet in private.
Returning to the mosque for Friday prayers, I removed my shoes again and walked over the prayer mats spread outside to accommodate the crowds overflowing from inside the mosque, and sat in the small garden beneath a palm tree. Taghlub's son Mohammed informed me that I was not allowed to record Dhafer's khutba, or sermon. "It is a special khutba for the people of Fallujah only," he explained. It was the first time in 13 months in Iraq that I had been told not to record a sermon.
Dhafer stood at the mosque's pulpit and from outside I could only hear him on the loudspeakers. His raspy voice was angry and high-pitched from the beginning. As is the convention, Dhafer began with a general discussion of religion, then became increasingly specific and political. "We told you last Friday and we are still telling you that after God gives you victory and safety you have to fight fitna," (internal strife, the greatest evil in the Islamic community). Using an interesting metaphor since Islam prohibits card-playing, he told his followers, "We have seen all of our enemy's cards." He condemned the Iraqi Governing Council members "who sit with the Americans".
"Everybody hates America now because of the policies of President [George W] Bush," he said, "and his own people condemn him, so what can we do? What can we say? What are the limits of our response? What are the rights of the Iraqi people?" He then answered his queries, saying there was no action the Iraqis could not take against the Americans. "They slaughtered the Geneva Accords that we were insisting upon every Friday in our mosques, and they killed human rights. This is the tragedy of the Islamic world that we experience here in Iraq, but the gates of victory for all the Islamic world have been opened in Fallujah and victory will never stop as our Prophet has predicted. All the world can recognize now that Fallujah beat the US. This is Islam our religion and state, this is the Islam of Mohammed." Dhafer warned that "after the enemy lost his battle with us he has begun planting strife and spreading rumors".
Referring to an issue of great concern in the city, as demonstrated by one of the leaflets on the mosque's gate, Dhafer turned to the unruly mujahideen. "Some people are surprised sometimes with mistakes that some people make," he said, "but I swear by God the mujahideen are innocent from those mistakes. It's a big shame on some people who claim they are mujahideen yet they make many checkpoints in several places and steal cars or kidnap people in those places. They are not mujahideen. It looks like they were educated by our enemies [the Americans]. They went into a neighborhood in our city and they did what the Americans did, forcing people to lie on the ground, spreading their legs and putting their feet on their heads: what religion is this?" Dhafer urged the mujahideen to be more pious.
Alluding to the extrajudicial killings of alleged spies for the Americans, whom he called "the traitors who sold their religion and their honor and their land and they became apostates", the sheikh reminded his people that "the accused is innocent until proven guilty". He urged people to support the town's security forces. "The police must take more authority than they have until now," he said. "Policemen should not be lazy and civil defense should do their jobs, as should the elected army." Dhafer concluded with a prayer for the mujahideen and martyrs in Najaf and Karbala.
TOMORROW: The tongue of the mujahideen
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PART 5: The tongue of the mujahideen
After listening to a sermon by Sheikh Dhafer al-Ubeidi, a key cleric in organizing the resistance in Fallujah, the next day I returned to the mosque for a formal interview with the 37-year-old sheikh. A bevy of bony young boys hung around the mosque for no apparent reason, but were always available on command to fetch tea or water for guests. The oldest among them, a lanky, grinning 17-year-old named Ala, had been part of a delegation sent by Shi'ite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr's militia, the army of the Mahdi, during the fighting in Fallujah that ended in May with the withdrawal of US forces.
Ala was from Baghdad's Sadr City and had worked during the fighting in the mosque's infirmary, helping the wounded. I asked him why he had come to Fallujah. "It's my country and this is also my city," he said. He was the mosque mascot, a representative of the Shi'ite mukawama, or resistance, that had helped Fallujahns in their battle, cutting American supply lines near Abu Ghraib. Former and current mujahideen stood by a fence. Muscular young men, some still with bandages covering wounds from the fighting, pulled up on Jawa motorcycles, popular with the former regime's Praetorian Guard.
Sheikh Dhafer was waiting inside for me. He would be interviewing me as well, to decide if I should be given permission to visit and work in Fallujah. The sheikh was respected for having vocally criticized Saddam Hussein, resulting in several occasions of imprisonment, but Saddam never dared execute him because he was from Fallujah. A friend of Dhafer's described him to me as "the tongue of the mujahideen", meaning he was their voice. Dhafer was the director of Aman al-ulia Lilifta, the high council for fatwas, or religious verdicts, of Fallujah. Fallujah's leading cleric, the aging Abdallah Janabi, was known as the emir, or prince, of Fallujah. As head of the Mujahideen Council, he had given Dhafer authority over the city and its fighters.
Dhafer has a wide nose and long narrow eyes that disappeared whenever he smiled, which was often, covered by round cheeks. When I asked him if he was the real leader of Fallujah, Dhafer smiled disingenuously. "I am just a simple member of the city who lived through all the suffering of Fallujah," he said. I told him I had heard he was the architect of the victory over the Americans and he grinned proudly but whispered, "Don't mention that for my security."
Dhafer admitted that he belonged to the unofficial City Consultative Council of which Taghlub al-Alusi was the head. He refused to tell me how many members the council had or who they were, but he did tell me it had a core of about 50 professionals, tribal and religious leaders and "those who stayed in the city", meaning mujahideen. When I pressed him for details about the council he laughed and squinted at me suspiciously. "What are these intelligence questions you ask me?" he said. The council appointed the team that negotiated with the Americans for a ceasefire after a month-long siege and ratified the selection of the Ba'athist officers who were placed in charge of the city's security. During negotiations, Dhafer admitted to me, he would meet with the teams and follow events. In reality, all the members were appointed with his approval and they returned to him for acceptance of the accord they reached with the Marines.
"They must withdraw from all of Fallujah, including the neighboring villages," he told me. Not satisfied with limiting the liberation to Fallujah proper, he sought to extend it to the surrounding villages, several hundred thousand more people and a much wider zone of freedom. Like all Fallujahns, he viewed time as before or after "the events". "Before April 4," he said, "the first day of the siege, all of Fallujah was closed by American troops without us knowing about it. The American administration said the siege would not open until we got the people who killed the four [US] contractors." He told me the Americans had pictures of two men alleged to have led the mob that killed them and then desecrated their bodies. "How can you punish a whole city for two men we don't even know?" he asked, adding that the city's religious leaders had condemned the mutilations (though not the killings of course).
Dhafer said that "the casualties of tanks, mortars, aircraft and everything in their arsenal, without counting the people under the destroyed buildings, was 1,200 wounded, 586 martyrs, of whom 158 were women and 86 were children". By the time fighting was over, Fallujah hospital officials would claim that up to 1,000 people had been killed, mostly women and children. At least 500 were still buried in the city's two main soccer fields and others in people's gardens. "Now all people in the world know that the US administration has no honor," Dhafer said.
Though I knew from others in the mosque that Dhafer had commanded foreign fighters in Fallujah, he denied the presence of any, telling me that "everybody knows Fallujah was the main source for the former army and its officers, including high-ranking officers, so many sent their families out and stayed to fight. This is why the American Marines that managed to destroy several South American countries in hours could not even destroy the Julan neighborhood of Fallujah. We believe God was involved in the fighting. We know we did not have equal power, but God was on our side. They demoralized us with their power and we demoralized them by shouting 'God is great' from the same mosques they were shooting at." I had seen at least four damaged manars, or mosque towers, in the city. "We demand that the manars not be repaired so that generations remember what they did."
Someone entered the office and whispered in the sheikh's ear that the Americans were approaching the city. He left hurriedly to see what was going on, so I spoke to Colonel Sabar Fadhil al-Janabi, chief of Fallujah's police force, known as the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps, or ICDC, who had come to complain to Dhafer about the problems he was having with the mujahideen and seek his help. The 49-year-old former military officer had been in the police for the past nine months, but only took over control during "the events" of April. The police were involved in defending the city against the Americans, he told me, as well as evacuating wounded people and preserving law and order. He refused to answer questions about the number of police under his command, and when I pressed him he smiled and said, "This is an intelligence question," explaining that the Americans did not know and were trying to find out. He would not even provide me with a rough figure, except to say, "We have enough."
The colonel had come to seek Dhafer's assistance with the main problem he was facing. "The people wearing kafiyas who are above the law," he said, meaning the scarf-clad mujahideen. They were mistreating his forces. He asked Dhafer for his help and support in establishing the authority of his policemen. Outside, his men waited for him in civilian clothing with walkie-talkies and Kalashnikovs. They were new, replacing the old police who had fled.
Though I repeatedly tried to meet General Jassim Mohammed Salih of the Fallujah Brigade in private, I was told he was out of Fallujah in a nearby secure village, away from the mujahideen who sought to kill him. I visited another officer, General Mohammed Saleh's headquarters several times, and was told every time that he was not present, though I could see his car and driver inside. Outside his headquarters, six of his soldiers languished in a pick-up truck with its doors open to let in the breeze, should there be any. They were listening to a tape of an angry cleric sermonizing against the Americans. On the walls outside the headquarters someone had written "Allah is great, come to the jihad!" Instead of meeting the generals I talked to some of the soldiers under their command, guarding a roundabout near the train tracks. A dozen soldiers were wearing at least half a dozen different types of uniforms from the old army, though none had boots, and they wore dusty leather dress shoes instead. They told me that they did not all have boots when they served under the previous regime, and some had to buy their own boots in the market.
One man wore a jungle-patterned uniform belonging to Saddam's special forces, others had several shades of olive and khaki, as well as the old Republican Guard uniform. They mocked one man for wearing an American Army-issued uniform with the "chocolate chip" pattern, but he vehemently denied it was American, insisting it was an old Iraqi desert uniform. They were proud of their old uniforms, their lieutenant explaining to me, "We are not Saddam's army. We are soldiers for Islam and for the defense of the city." Another agreed, explaining, "We did not volunteer for Saddam but for the defense of the city and country." They had all belonged to the army before the occupation, and lost their jobs when US proconsul L Paul Bremer dismissed the army in May of 2003. They had joined the new Fallujah army when General Jassim formed it.
I asked them what they would do if Americans crossed the railroad tracks and entered the city. "They won't enter the city," I was told sharply. "We will shoot them," said another. Another man elaborated, "If Americans come inside the city we will fight them again." The lieutenant explained that "we have direct orders to fight the Americans without referring to our commanders first for permission".
Though they were currently an army belonging to the city of Fallujah, they admitted that "if the ministry of defense is formed under the authority of the Iraqi people we will join it". They saw themselves as a model for the rest of the country. "All the governorates and cities are trying to do what we did," one said to me, "we are an example." They were the first to achieve liberation, they explained, because "Fallujah is the mother of mosques and we are committed to our religion and united. Fallujahns are used to being independent and dignified. Our dignity is the most important thing to us." They were also the best-fed army in Iraqi history, with a pile of finished dishes on the grass beside them. Dhafer's Hadhra Mosque paid families to cook food for the soldiers and deliver it to them.
The following day I visited the mosque and found a new man sitting behind the desk. Haji Qasim, a former army intelligence officer, served as Taghlub's representative on an advisory council, and was, they told me "Sheikh Dhafer's right-hand man". Qasim, who received the honorific "Haji" after making the pilgrimage to Mecca, was also the founder of Fallujah's Center for the Study of Democracy and Human Rights, formed in January 2004, though in my visits I never found him studying either, only running the mosque's affairs with his assistant, Mohammed Tarik, the 32-year-old executive director of the center and a member of the town council. Tarik was a professor of the agriculture department of Anbar University, having received a master's degree in bio-technology from Baghdad University, but everybody in the mosque called him "doctor". Tarik had been present during the fighting, providing an administrative and management role for the fighters and aid workers. He admitted to me that the mosque had been a center for the mujahideen where the defense of the city was organized.
As we were talking, a fit-looking teenager on crutches hobbled in morosely. He wore a soccer uniform, but his training pants had a hole for the screws coming out of his right thigh. He had come to pick up forms from Qasim to receive compensation. An American helicopter had shot him in his car. When he saw me, a foreigner, he turned incandescent. He demanded to know who I was, what my identity was, and Tarik got up to whisper in his ear. The young man threw his forms down and walked out. The other men apologized uncomfortably, explaining what happened to him while Tarik went to talk to him.
While I was waiting for Tarik to return, 11 policemen stormed in and angrily complained to Qasim about not being paid and about the dismissal of some officers they respected. They said they were representing 351 policemen and demanded higher salaries. "Aren't you a journalist?" they shouted at me. "Record this!" Following them, a man whose car had been confiscated by the mujahideen came to complain. He had come to deliver aid from the Abu Hanifa mosque in Baghdad when it was stolen from him. Qasim made a call and told the man where to go to pick up his car.
TOMORROW: Mean and clean streets
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PART 6: Mean and clean streets
Pulling up to the Hadhra Mosque headed by Sheikh Dhafer al-Ubeidi, a key cleric in the Fallujah resistance, shortly after noon prayers were over one Friday, I saw several dozen armed Fallujah Brigade soldiers, police and civilians crowded before the entrance. Some were looking inside an old car. Several more soldiers and police were guarding the gate, and there were more inside. The guard, Ahmad, was my friend and greeted me wearing a new black-and-white keffiye around his head like a bandanna. Several police approached and said "No journalists," but Ahmad said, "No, he is a friend," and ushered me into the guard room. I noticed several soldiers and policemen standing by the door to Dhafer's office. I recognized the same assistant to the chief of police I had noticed on previous visits. I asked Ahmad what was going on, did something happen? "Oh, it's nothing," he said, "a simple thing. We arrested two spies, they're British or maybe German."
I peered through the window trying to see what was going on, armed men rushed about busily. A few minutes later Ahmad knocked on the door. "Okay, come," he said. I walked across to the office, removed my shoes and entered.
Taghlub al-Alusi, the head of the unofficial City Consultative Council, stepped out looking more worried than usual, and we greeted. The room was crowded with men standing and sitting, and at first I did not notice the woman sitting in a corner before tables full of food in foam "to go" containers. She was white, and young.
Colonel Sabar Fadhil al-Janabi, chief of Fallujah's police force, was seated across from her, his back to me. He greeted me warmly, a leg of chicken in his hand. I sat down beside them and smiled at the woman. A middle-aged white man emerged from the bathroom and sat next to her. Taghlub returned to his table and with another man began carefully examining every page of two German passports, turning them around and squinting. Sitting next to the colonel was a young man, I took him to be 18. He looked just like his father the colonel. When he stood up, I saw he had a pistol on his right waist and a walkie-talkie on the other side. He was only 16, he told me. Across, on the other side of the table, sat a short, round man with layers of tape covering his nose like a pig's snout, next to him was a baby-faced man in a tailored suit. "He's the qaimaqam," I was told, the mayor. He was rehearsing a statement, asking the elders for approval. An old man sat next to me and nodding toward the German man said, "He shouldn't have worn a dishdasha [robe], it was suspicious."
Uwe Sauerman, a very tall, pale 55-year-old freelance journalist and his assistant, Manya Schodche, 24, herself very pale, had driven to Fallujah that morning. After being warned not to go to Najaf because it was too dangerous, Uwe obeyed his hotel manager's instructions and took a dishdasha with him and set off with a driver and translator. On entering Fallujah, Uwe donned his dishdasha, but was seen doing so. The German couple were stopped at the checkpoint where four US contractors had earlier been killed after being spotted by young informants posing as street sellers. They were forced out at gunpoint by six armed men, one of them in a policeman's uniform, and accused of being an American general and female soldier. Soon a mob of hundreds surrounded them, including some of the same laborers who had killed the four contractors, beating them with shovels, sticks and rocks. A plastic bag was placed over Uwe's head. Manya was slapped around and severely handled. Their translator, a Christian from Baghdad, was called a traitor and collaborator. He wore a cross. His nose was broken and he was hit in the back of the neck with a machete.
Just before they were to be doused with gasoline, the police managed to drag them into their nearby station. The mob and mujahideen attacked the station, calling for their prisoners to be returned to them, and the police transferred the four to the Hadhra Mosque under heavy security. The mob surrounded Hadhra with rocket-propelled grenade launchers and Kalashnikovs. Abu Abdallah, a foreign leader of a mujahideen unit, marched in with his Kalashnikov demanding the return of the "American spies". The Fallujah Brigade and the police nearly engaged the mujahideen in a shootout.
That same day, the committee of leaders at Hadhra had decided to confront Abu Abdallah, hoping to disarm his unit, or at least subordinate it to their command. They received word that there were two dead American spies and Fallujah went into a state of alert, expecting a US attack. The two Germans were brought to the Hadhra office and interrogated. Once "the committee for the investigation of espionage" established that they were indeed German journalists, they received apologies and were ordered to eat.
Manya's face was swollen beneath her eyes and her shirt had blood speckles on it. Uwe's face was spotted with red bruises and he winced when he moved. He had a broken tooth. His hands were trembling. The fear and tension from whatever had transpired in this room still lingered, and they were contagious. I realized my heart was racing. The translator with tape on his nose was dabbing it continuously, wiping the blood that was dripping from it. He came to sit next to us. The mayor told him, "If you don't eat I'll be angry." He answered in a nasal voice as if someone was pinching his nose, "I can't, I'll throw up." The colonel, with a mouth full of food, commanded Uwe, "Eat, eat!" Uwe obeyed.
Uwe and Manya were ordered into a nearby office where local stringers from alJazeera and al-Arabiya television networks, who had been called in, were preparing their cameras to film the mayor's press statement. They seated the Germans on a sofa on either side of the mayor, who explained that on that morning an old Iraqi car entered the city with two foreigners dressed in Arabic clothing, the man in a dishdasha and the woman in a hejab (veil). "The way they entered was suspicious and illegal," he said, "and they were brought here to the good people of the mosque." He displayed their German passports and urged all the foreign journalists to check in with the mayor's office or the police if they entered the city. "We welcome all foreign press here," he said, "Fallujah is a peaceful city, the quietest city in Iraq." The two Germans sat in a mute stupor next to him as Taghlub looked on in weary boredom.
Uwe was told he could make a statement. "When I saw the pictures of American attacks on Fallujah I decided to go to Fallujah," he said in a thick German accent, "to take pictures of the city and ask the victims of these attacks what happened to them and how are their lives. In my hotel in Baghdad they advised me to wear a dishdasha because it is better and I will be safer. Somebody shouted 'Amerikaner! Amerikaner!' and then people came, and you know what happened next? Men with guns put a bag on my head like the Americans do and I didn't see anymore. Then I was in an empty house and they interrogated me and after a while I convinced them I am a German and friend of the Iraqi people, not an American, and they were very friendly. I would like to come again to show the German people what happened in Fallujah so I will try to come tomorrow."
The mayor shook Uwe's hand before the camera and told both Germans they were welcome. Uwe was then ordered to recant his statement comparing the behavior of the mob to the Americans, and he readily complied. "When I said they used a plastic bag," he said, "it doesn't mean that we have to compare you the people of Fallujah to the Americans. I only meant that the plastic bag itself reminded me of the Americans." Uwe was told to hold his dishdasha for the cameras and then the press conference ended. Saad, a young sniper, was serving refreshments. He asked me if Manya was Uwe's daughter or his girlfriend. He didn't understand how a woman could be traveling with a man not related to her. "Just give me five minutes alone with her," he told me with a wistful smile.
Under heavy protection, Uwe and Manya were loaded into the mayor's car. A convoy of six cars, including two pickup trucks loaded with multi-colored Fallujah Brigade fighters with their Kalashnikovs at the ready, headed out. Once they exited town the convoy halted and the armed men emerged. For a moment I thought they would execute them. But they only reshuffled their men and continued to Baghdad. The Fallujah Brigade soldiers returned home. The convoy pulled up to the heavily fortified German Embassy in Baghdad's Mansour district an hour later and was greeted by bewildered German security guards. At first the guards only permitted Manya, Uwe and the mayor in. Chief of police Janabi was very offended and puffed his cheeks, threatening to go home. I pulled aside the security guard and explained to him that it was better to let the police chief in as well and he relented.
Dhafer, and two generals, had all been in the mosque prior to my arrival, but were hastily moved out for their own safety due to concerns about the mujahideen that also led to the deployment of nearly 20 Fallujah Brigade members to protect the convoy taking the Germans to Baghdad. It was clear to the men in the committee that the rogue mujahideen had to be pacified, Dhafer wasn't even safe in his own mosque.
Taghlub and the men were very upset - they nearly lost control of the town and their own power. If the Germans had been killed, the Americans would surely have returned. The foreign mujahideen based in the Julan neighborhood were proving especially recalcitrant. They were harassing Iraqis for smoking cigarettes and even for drinking water using their left hand, considered impure. They had banned alcohol, Western films, makeup, hairdressers, "behaving like women", ie homosexuality, and even dominoes in the coffee houses. Men found publicly drunk had been flogged and I was told of a dozen men beaten and imprisoned for selling drugs. Islamic courts were being established in association with mujahideen units and mosque leaders, meting out punishment consistent with the Koran. Erstwhile Ba'ath Party members told me they were expiating the sins of their former secularism, and Ba'ath ideology had now become Islamist. An assistant to the mayor confirmed that there were Islamic courts with their own qadis, or judges, who acted independently of the police. He added that all the spies had already been killed, "but before we killed them we made sure they were spies". He was concerned about "the mujahideen who do not know Sheikh Dhafer and the men of the Hadhra", the foreigners and uncooperative mujahideen who sought to expand the liberated zone beyond Fallujah.
TOMORROW, the concluding article: Radicals in the ashes of democracy.
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PART 7: Radicals in the ashes of democracy

The day two German journalists, Uwe Sauerman and Manya Schodche, nearly experienced sahel, the Iraqi lynching made famous by the death in Fallujah of four American contractors employed by US company Blackwater, the city's Mujahideen Council banned all journalists from the city and warned that those who entered might be killed.
Fallujah was still a safe haven for the mujahideen, including foreign fighters who were supporting the resistance. Video compact discs (VCDs) with footage of Muqtada al-Sadr's Mahdi Shi'ite fighters battling Americans in Nasiriyah were sold in Fallujah, alongside propaganda films for Sunni resistance groups based in Fallujah, such as Ansar al-Sunna and the Iraqi Islamic Army, with a cheerful reggae-like beat accompanying victorious Islamic music. Young foreign fighters from Saudi Arabia and other countries were shown giving testimonies before going out on suicide operations. The VCDs depicted various operations conducted by the resistance, primarily against US military targets, as well as various crimes of the occupation, destroyed homes, abusing prisoners, and a lot of bloody dead people accompanied by mournful chanting Islamic music.
The VCDs glorified martyred fighters, claiming they died smiling and smelling sweet - though I did not find that to be the case - they listed operations, and they displayed a lot of captured booty from attacks. One scene depicted a large spread on the carpet of what was clearly a Sunni tribal leader's guest hall or diwan, containing what appeared to be the contents of the two vehicles belonging to the four Blackwater men, many weapons, communication devices, electronic airplane itineraries printed off the Internet, identity cards, supermarket discount cards, plane tickets, anything one would expect to find in the pockets of a high-paid US contractor.
At one point the Ansar al-Sunna production showed the Spanish passports and other belongings of what it claimed were Spanish intelligence agents killed in Mansour last November. I even received two thick monthly newsletters from the Saladin Victory Group, a mujahideen unit, which included articles, poems and lists of all their operations. The mujahideen wanted to continue the battle, even after the June 28 handover of sovereignty. "As long as the Americans are in Iraq we will fight," they said. Radical Fallujan clerics had admitted to a Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) official I spoke to that the Fallujah settlement "is an opportunity to secure themselves and be sovereign and expand the liberation". If the Americans could not quell the rebellion, surely no Iraqi force would be able to, and the victory in Fallujah had only encouraged the resistance throughout Iraq.
Hijackings and kidnappings continued apace. Two trucks with furniture owned by a foreign company that supplied the Americans were hijacked near Fallujah. They were headed to the Americans' al-Fau base. A man from Fallujah came to the company headquarters and told them they could have the trucks back for money, as long as the merchandise was not bound for the Americans. A terrified representative from the company handled the negotiations, which went through the influential Sheikh Abdallah Janabi. Janabi's men were very upset about thieves giving the mujahideen a bad reputation and swore they would kill the thieves, though eventually the trucks were returned for US$4,000.
On June 9, 12 members of the Fallujah Brigade were killed in a mortar attack on their camp at the edge of town. On June 10, a Lebanese worker and two Iraqi colleagues had been captured on the highway near Fallujah. Their bodies were found two days later. Their throats had been slit. Brigadier Mark Kimmitt, the spokesman for the CPA, announced that the CPA was not satisfied with the performance of the Fallujah Brigade and implied that the marines might have to enter the city again. A small patrol did so on June 14. The next day, the marines, who said they had "prepared for a battle reminiscent of Mogadishu", had instead found that Iraqi police and soldiers turned out in full force to ensure the patrol wasn't tampered with as they passed the sand-filled barriers into the city.
Iraqi Civil Defense Corps and police lined the streets as if it were a parade. The marines stayed in town for three hours, while their officers met with city authorities, discussing reparations for the damage caused during the month-long siege and the release of prisoners from CPA prisons. The following day it was reported that six Shi'ite truck drivers carrying supplies to the Fallujah Brigade had been seized by the mujahideen, tortured and murdered, at the behest, so the families claimed, of Janabi, who denied it, adding that the Shi'ites had been working with the Americans and selling them alcohol, and had been warned to stop. Starting June 19, the Americans initiated a policy of bombing Fallujah from the skies every few days, killing scores of civilians, but claiming the strikes were targeting members of Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's network.
The following Friday, hundreds of Fallujan men attended a large demonstration after noon prayers. They were angry at being accused of harboring Zarqawi and of murdering the Shi'ite truck drivers. Janabi denied involvement again, blaming it on "those who try to make fitna [sectarian strife] between the Iraqis", but he also said the slain Shi'ites came in on US military vehicles. The crowd and speakers chanted in support of Muqtada in appreciation of his Iraqi nationalism and defiance of the Americans. The crowd denied that Zarqawi was in Fallujah, and a young cleric shouted angrily that "we don't need Zarqawi's help in Fallujah to defend our mosques and homes" because "the people of Fallujah have men that love death like the kafir [infidel] love life", meaning they had plenty of men who seek martyrdom fighting the Americans. The crowd erupted in cheers of "Allahu akbar!" ("God is great"). Huge banners supporting the Association of Islamic Scholars, which led the resistance units, were prominently displayed. The mayor of Fallujah was interviewed on alJazeera television and he denied that the six Shi'ites had even been killed in his city.
Police in Fallujah complained about Janabi's excessive power. He was emerging from behind the scenes where he had previously hidden, no longer merely delegating authority to Sheikh Dhafer al-Ubeidi, but actively involving himself in the city's affairs. A friend of mine met with the Fallujah police. The mujahideen in Fallujah expected the marines, who were massed outside the city, to invade, so Janabi called for a preemptive attack.
After negotiations with the marines, it was Janabi's mosque of Saad bin Waqqas that announced the new truce in May that ended the month-long siege of the city. In an interview for Asia Times Online, Janabi predicted that resistance activities would continue against the new Iraqi government of Iyad Allawi. He expected the new government to take its orders from the Americans and warned of increased resistance attacks and a possible civil war. The Association of Islamic Scholars was at war with the occupation, he said, because the new government rejected Islam. Janabi praised Muqtada for being a nationalist and for fighting the occupation. "We have a good relationship with him," he said.
In late July, the leadership in Fallujah met with foreign fighters in their city and expelled about 25 of them, including Syrians, Jordanians and Saudis. Several resistance groups, including the Army of Mohammed, the Victorious Assad Allah Squadron, Islamic Wrath and others issued a joint declaration that was posted on mosques and in the streets of Fallujah calling for the blood of Zarqawi to be spilled. In the statement, the many groups called for Zarqawi's head to be cut off just as he had cut off the head of his hostages, an act the declaration said was against Islam and the Iraqi resistance. The declaration also declared their friendship with Iraqi Shi'ites and called for cooperation with the new Iraqi government led by Allawi. That same week, demonstrators in Fallujah called for their homes to be rebuilt with money from Iraq's oil revenue. That same day, US planes bombed yet another house allegedly used by Zarqawi's network, killing 14 people.
My interest in the foreign mujahideen, in particular Saudis, finally became too dangerous even for me. My contact in Fallujah, himself a non-Iraqi seeking to join what he described as "al-Qaeda in the northern Anbar", encouraged me to go to the Julan neighborhood, which had been deemed by the local council to be off limits to foreigners, to meet Saudi fighters for al-Qaeda. My contact was to leave me there to go off "on a job". I began to wonder why al-Qaeda would be interested in meeting an American journalist. They are a secretive organization, interested only in reaching out to fellow Muslims for recruitment and in advertising their successes, such as the decapitation of US journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan, I recalled. These were the resistance fighters who did not recognize the authority of Dhafer and his associates, and who threatened their lives for releasing the German journalists. An American was much more valuable. That night my contact brought two Iraqis working with the Saudis to meet me in my hotel unannounced. They barely greeted me, but looked me up and down with taciturn interest, as if examining merchandise. My contact's increasingly erratic behavior and confused statements insisting he trusted me and I should trust him convinced me that if I went to Fallujah again I would not return. I had been warned that my contact had turned, and was being pressured to turn over an American to make up for the lost Germans. I knew that the foreign fighters in Fallujah were embittered over the many hostages they had been pressured to release.
I left Iraq, flying out this time to avoid the checkpoints on Highway 10. The Royal Jordanian flight remained within the airport's limits for 15 minutes, circling up in sharp spirals until it reached an altitude at which it could safely fly over Fallujah and avoid being shot down by the resistance. Soon after, an al-Qaeda unit in Saudi Arabia calling itself the Fallujah Squadron began killing foreigners. The US war in Iraq, meant to democratize the region, had instead radicalized it, created a united front, with Fallujans fighting for the honor of Palestine, and Saudis fighting in the name of Fallujah.
(This is the concluding article in this series.)

(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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The Hawks and the Doves Are Aflutter over U.S. Iran Policy
By Danielle Pletka
Posted: Friday, July 23, 2004
ARTICLES
Los Angeles Times
Publication Date: July 23, 2004
Every few years, with soothing regularity, a prominent research institution comes along to recommend that the United States reengage with Iran. The gist of such reports usually follows the same line: Isolation just isn't working; reformists (or sometimes they're called moderates or pragmatists) need Washington's help in the battle against hard-liners; the country is not (nor will it ever be) on the verge of a new revolution; and only relations with the U.S. will provide incentives for better behavior.
This week, it was the Council on Foreign Relations that sounded the call in a 79-page report from a task force chaired by former national security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski and former CIA Director Robert M. Gates.
Given the seriousness of the threat Iran poses, fresh ideas from the Council on Foreign Relations and elsewhere are, of course, welcome. Iran, after all, is Terror Central: It has become an operational headquarters for parts of Al Qaeda, continues to sponsor Hezbollah and Hamas, and senior officials remain under indictment in U.S. court for masterminding the 1996 bombing in Saudi Arabia of the Khobar Towers military housing complex, in which 19 Americans died. According to U.S. and European officials, the regime also remains bent on acquiring nuclear weapons and is well down the road to doing so.
Clearly, U.S. policy in Iran has been a failure. Its problems have persisted notwithstanding four years of tough talk from the Bush administration, a continued embargo on U.S. investment and virtual diplomatic radio silence. It's time to try something new; on that much, we can agree with the pro-engagement groups.
But that's where our agreement ends. They insist, in the face of evidence to the contrary, that dialogue and trade would succeed where a hard line has failed. Yet dialogue and trade are the hallmarks of Europe's fruitless engagement of Iran. Neither European diplomatic outreach nor cordial trading relations have achieved results. Carrot-and-stick offers, like a proffered "trade and cooperation agreement" in exchange for a stand-down on nuclear proliferation, have also failed. Engagement is a proven bust.
The fact is, neither tough love nor tough talk will achieve results in Iran because decision-makers in the government--not just the so-called hard-liners but the "moderates" and "pragmatists" as well--are committed to supporting terrorism, developing nuclear weapons and annihilating Israel. Any opening from the U.S. will only lend credibility to that government and forever dash the hopes of a population that, according to reliable polls, despises its own leadership.
So what to do? President Bush has taken the first step by making clear that the Iranian clerical regime is anathema to the U.S. national security. But we're not likely to invade for a variety of practical reasons, among them a shortage of troops and an absence of targeting information about Iran's nuclear sites. Nor can we count on Iran's weary and miserable population to rise up unaided and overthrow its oppressors; virtually all analysts agree that's not about to happen.
Instead, a new three-part policy is needed.
First, the administration must ante up promised support for the Iranian people. Just as we supported Soviet dissidents, we must use the diplomatic and economic tools at our disposal to embarrass the regime for its abysmal human rights abuses, rally behind dissident student groups and unions and let them know that the U.S. supports their desire for a secular democratic state in Iran.
Second, the administration must persuade the European Union and the International Atomic Energy Agency to stand firm in their confrontation over Iran's nuclear program. Iran has made commitments to end the production and assembly of nuclear centrifuges. It has reneged on those promises, and the next step is for the IAEA to refer the matter to the U.N. Security Council. There is quiet talk of economic sanctions in European capitals; the EU must know that a failure to follow through would mean an Iranian nuclear weapon within a few years.
Finally, the U.S. must lead in the containment of Iran. Iranian weapons imports and exports should be interdicted; financial transfers to terrorists must be identified and confiscated; terrorists traveling into and out of Iran should be aggressively pursued and eliminated.
These steps would not deliver quick solutions, but they are the only rational course available to the U.S. and its allies. We have seen that engagement with the current leadership of Iran would not achieve policy change; all it would do is buy an evil regime the time it needs to perfect its nuclear weapons and to build a network of terrorists to deliver them.
Danielle Pletka is vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute.




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Axis of Evil, Part Two
By Charles Krauthammer
Friday, July 23, 2004; Page A29
Did we invade the wrong country? One of the lessons being drawn from the Sept. 11 report is that Iran was the real threat. It had links to al Qaeda, allowed some of the Sept. 11 hijackers to transit and is today harboring al Qaeda leaders. The Iraq war critics have a new line of attack: We should have done Iran instead of Iraq.
Well, of course Iran is a threat and a danger. But how exactly would the critics have "done" Iran? Iran is a serious country with a serious army. Compared with the Iraq war, an invasion of Iran would have been infinitely more costly. Can you imagine these critics, who were shouting "quagmire" and "defeat" when the low-level guerrilla war in Iraq intensified in April, actually supporting war with Iran?
If not war, then what? We know the central foreign policy principle of Bush critics: multilateralism. John Kerry and the Democrats have said it a hundred times: The source of our troubles is President Bush's insistence on "going it alone." They promise to "rejoin the community of nations" and "work with our allies."
Well, that happens to be exactly what we have been doing regarding Iran. And the policy is an abject failure. The Bush administration, having decided that invading one axis-of-evil country was about as much as either the military or the country can bear, has gone multilateral on Iran, precisely what the Democrats advocate. Washington delegated the issue to a committee of three -- the foreign ministers of Britain, France and Germany -- that has been meeting with the Iranians to get them to shut down their nuclear program.
The result? They have been led by the nose. Iran is caught red-handed with illegally enriched uranium, and the Tehran Three prevail upon the Bush administration to do nothing while they persuade the mullahs to act nice. Therefore, we do not go to the U.N. Security Council to declare Iran in violation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty. We do not impose sanctions. We do not begin squeezing Iran to give up its nuclear program.
Instead, we give Iran more time to swoon before the persuasive powers of "Jack of Tehran" -- British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw -- until finally, humiliatingly, Iran announces that it will resume enriching uranium and that nothing will prevent it from becoming a member of the "nuclear club."
The result has not been harmless. Time is of the essence, and the runaround that the Tehran Three have gotten from the mullahs has meant that we have lost at least nine months in doing anything to stop the Iranian nuclear program.
The fact is that the war critics have nothing to offer on the single most urgent issue of our time -- rogue states in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. Iran instead of Iraq? The Iraq critics would have done nothing about either country. There would today be two major Islamic countries sitting on an ocean of oil, supporting terrorism and seeking weapons of mass destruction -- instead of one.
Two years ago there were five countries supporting terrorism and pursuing these weapons -- two junior-leaguers, Libya and Syria, and the axis-of-evil varsity: Iraq, Iran and North Korea. The Bush administration has eliminated two: Iraq, by direct military means, and Libya, by example and intimidation.
Syria is weak and deterred by Israel. North Korea, having gone nuclear, is untouchable. That leaves Iran. What to do? There are only two things that will stop the Iranian nuclear program: revolution from below or an attack on its nuclear facilities.
The country should be ripe for revolution. The regime is detested. But the mullahs are very good at police-state tactics. The long-awaited revolution is not happening.
Which makes the question of preemptive attack all the more urgent. Iran will go nuclear during the next presidential term. Some Americans wishfully think that the Israelis will do the dirty work for us, as in 1981, when they destroyed Saddam Hussein's nuclear reactor. But for Israel, attacking Iran is a far more difficult proposition. It is farther away. Moreover, detection and antiaircraft technology are far more advanced than they were 20 years ago.
There may be no deus ex machina. If nothing is done, a fanatical terrorist regime openly dedicated to the destruction of the "Great Satan" will have both nuclear weapons and the terrorists and missiles to deliver them. All that stands between us and that is either revolution or preemptive strike.
Both of which, by the way, are far more likely to succeed with 146,000 American troops and highly sophisticated aircraft standing by just a few miles away -- in Iraq.

letters@charleskrauthammer.com

? 2004 The Washington Post Company

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DAILY EXPRESS
Engagement Announcement
by Lawrence F. Kaplan
Only at TNR Online | Post date 07.23.04 E-mail this article
Oops, we invaded the wrong country. Or at least this is the impression created by the final report of the 9/11 Commission, which depicts Iran as a transit point for Al Qaeda members during the run up to September 11. It is an impression the Kerry team has done nothing to dispel. Kerry adviser Charles Kupchan says the news about Iran shows that "rather than focusing on Iraq, where there was no imminent threat to American security," the United States should have been more vigilant about Iran, "where we know there's a weapons of mass destruction program, there's a fundamentalist theocracy." In a similar vein, the report has prompted the Kerry campaign's Ann Lewis to complain that "Iran, over the last couple of years, has been moving forward toward getting a nuclear capacity--nuclear capability--and yet this administration's policy is hard to discern." She's right. The administration's Iran policy is hard to discern. Before they walk into a bind of their own devising, however, Kerry's advisers would do well to take a closer look at their own candidate's stance toward Iran. It is not hard to discern. But it is hard to defend.
At times, Kerry seems to be taking his cues from Jimmy Carter's 1976 presidential run, sounding as though he's blasting his opponent from the right while he quietly offers up solutions from the left. Nowhere is this truer than in the case of Iran, where, when you strip away Kerry's hard-boiled rhetoric about preventing the country from acquiring a nuclear weapon, what the candidate offers is a facsimile of the Clinton-era policy of "engagement." Likening the Islamic Republic to a much less dangerous threat from long ago, Kerry seeks to "explore areas of mutual interest with Iran, just as I was prepared to normalize relations with Vietnam." Hence, Kerry says he "would support talking with all elements of the government," or, as his principal foreign policy adviser Rand Beers has elaborated, the United States must engage Iran's "hard-line element"--this, while the candidate tells The Washington Post he will downplay democracy promotion in the region. In fact, as part of this normalization process, Kerry has recommended hammering out a deal with Teheran a la the Clinton administration's doomed bargain with North Korea, whereby the United States would aid the Iranian nuclear program in exchange for safeguards that would presumably keep the program peaceful. To sweeten the deal, he has offered to throw in members of the People's Mujahedeen, the Iranian opposition group being held under lock and key by U.S. forces in Iraq.
Nor will you hear any of Kerry's foreign policy advisers calling for regime change in Iran, at least any time soon. Beers has long insisted on engaging the Islamic Republic, as have Kerry advisers Richard Holbrooke and Madeline Albright. So, too, have several big name contributors to the Kerry campaign from the Iranian-American community. Indeed, in 2002 Kerry delivered an address to an event sponsored by the controversial American Iranian Council, an organization funded by corporations seeking to do business in Iran and dedicated to promoting dialogue with the theocracy. In his eagerness to engage in this dialogue, of course, Kerry is hardly alone. The Council on Foreign Relations has just released a report calling for "systematic and pragmatic engagement" with Iran's mullahs, and the Atlantic Council is expected to release a report next month recommending the same.
Like these, Kerry's calls for a rapprochement with Teheran come at a rather inopportune moment. The very regime that Kerry demands we engage, after all, has just been certified as an Al Qaeda sanctuary--and by the very commission in which the Kerry campaign has invested so much hope. The report's finding, moreover, counts as only one of Teheran's sins. Lately its theocrats have been wreaking havoc in Iraq and Afghanistan, aiding America's foes along Iran's borders in the hopes of expanding their influence in both countries, even as they continue to fund Palestinian terror groups. Then, too, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has amassed a mountain of evidence pointing to Iranian violations of the Nonproliferation Treaty. With two nuclear power plants slated to go online in Iran, and IAEA inspectors stumbling across designs for sophisticated centrifuges, even the Europeans and the United Nations have nearly exhausted their efforts to engage the Islamic Republic.
So why hasn't anyone told John Kerry? To begin with, it's not so clear the Bush team has abandoned engagement, either. Deputy National Security Adviser Robert Blackwill refuses to surrender hopes for a nuclear deal, as does Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who lauds Iran as a "democracy." To be sure, the president vows Washington will side with Iran's pro-democracy movement and that the "development of a nuclear weapon in Iran is intolerable." But long gone from the administration's rhetoric is any talk of regime change. As with so much else, when it comes to Iran, the administration finds itself divided between hawks at the Defense Department and Undersecretary of State John Bolton, on the one hand, and America's diplomatic corps and National Security Council staffers, on the other.
Put another way, the administration has two Iran policies, and the result has been a mix of good and bad. Kerry, by contrast, boasts a single, coherent, and--to judge by the description of Teheran's activities in yesterday's report--utterly delusional Iran policy. Now, if only the Bush team could sort out its own, it might have an opportunity to draw a meaningful distinction.

Lawrence F. Kaplan is a senior editor at TNR.

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Iran's Growing Threat
By Rachel Ehrenfeld
FrontPageMagazine.com | July 23, 2004
Recent events have made it clear that the threat posed by Iran should be dealt with sooner rather than later. Today's 9/11 Commission report documents extensive ties between Iran and terrorism, and the mullahs' drive to create a nuclear weapon is well known. In recent days, Iranian officials and clerics have increased the incitement for violence against American and Coalition forces in Iraq. However, ending the real threat this fundamentalist Islamic theocracy poses to the United States and the West may be impossible, thanks to the Left's and the pro-Islamists non-stop assault on the president's credibility.

The case against Iran should be air-tight. The Bush administration is now armed with:

[1] The 9/11 Commission's report, documenting the logistical, operational and material support from Iran and Hezbollah (Iran's international terrorist arm) to al-Qaeda;

[2] Iran's own admission of its intention to develop nuclear weapons;

[3] Iran's increasing anti-American rhetoric; and

[4] Iran's growing support of terrorism in Iraq.

According to the just-released 9/11 Commission Report, Iran's support of al-Qaeda dates back to 1991, when operatives from both sides met in Sudan and agreed "to cooperate in providing support--even if only training--for actions carried out primarily against Israel and the United States."
By 1993, "al-Qaeda received advice and training from Hezbollah" in intelligence, security and explosives, especially in "how to use truck bombs." The training took place in the Bekaa Valley, Hezbollah's stronghold in Lebanon.
The commission further reports that "at least 8 to 10 of the 14 Saudi `muscle' operatives traveled into and out of Iran between October 2000 and February 2001," and that Iran facilitated "the travel of al-Qaeda members through Iran on their way to and from Afghanistan." Yet in an ostrich-like move, the commission refrained from accusing Iran of supporting al-Qaeda.
This is how the commission phrased it: "There is strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9-11 hijackers...however, we cannot rule out the possibility of a remarkable coincidence...[and] we found no evidence that Iran or Hezbollah was aware of the planning for what later became the 9/11 attack."
Indeed, the commission recommends that further investigations should be carried out, but looking at the body of evidence about Iran's leadership role in worldwide terrorism and the war against the U.S., one can only hope that we can act in time to restrain it.
"Iran is closer to nuclear capability that it was two years ago," said Dr. Ephraim Kam, deputy director of the Jaffee Center for Strategic Studies in Tel Aviv, earlier this week. And U.S. Senator Sam Brownback, R-KS, also added that Iran is clearly developing nuclear weapons. Pakistan, as we found out earlier this year, provided Iran with information on how to build an atomic bomb.
Iran's admission that they are working on developing nuclear capabilities was made in November 2003 by a member of the Iranian Parliament, Ahmad Shirzad. He made reference to the existence of a then-unknown essential nuclear facility, at a time when the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and Iranian opposition had identified at least 8 different nuclear facilities in Iran. Despite all the evidence, it is unlikely that the international community will take steps to disarm Iran any time soon - indeed, the IAEA and EU overtures have been disastrous. And undoubtedly, China and Russia will block any real disarmament efforts.
Iran denies that it is developing nuclear weapons; however on July 6, 2004, the Iranian daily, Kayhan's editorial warned that, "The entire Islamic Middle East is now a volatile and tangled trap, and will be set off by the smallest bit of silliness - and will reap many victims of the sinful adventurers...Indeed, the White House's 80 years of exclusive rule are likely to become 80 seconds of Hell that will burn to ashes everything that has been built." Earlier, according to reports in the Kuwaiti, Al-Siyassah, Hashemi Rafsanjani, the head of the Expediency Council stated, "The present situation in Iraq represents a threat as well as an opportunity... It is a threat because the wounded American beast can take enraged actions, but it is also an opportunity to teach this beast a lesson so it won't attack another country." He ended his speech calling for "Death to America, Death to Israel."
Iran's support of the growing terrorist activities in Iraq and its attempts to destabilize the interim government resulted in warnings issued this week by the Defense and Interior Ministers of Iraq in an interview for the London based Arabic-daily, Al-Sharq Al-Awsat. The Defense Minister, Hazem Al-Sha'lan, after accusing Iran of supporting terrorism on Iraqi soil, warned, "We have the capability to move the assault into their country[ies]."
If you think that Iran has its hands full with terrorist activities already, think again. Last month, according to Reuters, the Islamic Republic of Iran - through the proxy known as the Committee for the Commemoration of Martyrs of the Global Islamic Campaign - launched a new campaign calling for volunteers to carry out suicide attacks against U.S and Coalition forces inside Iraq, as well as missions targeting Israel and author Salman Rushdie. Since the 10,000 volunteers already registered are not enough, they distributed a "Preliminary Registration for Martyrdom Operations" application for the position of "martyr." Announcing this new campaign, the cleric Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati urged the public that "It is the duty of every Muslim to threaten U.S. and British interests anywhere."
So, what are we waiting for? The president's impaired credibility, a dividend of the perpetual partisan assaults of the political Left, most elements of the Democratic Party in general, and the pro-Islamists anti-American elements in Europe and elsewhere now poses a grave danger to our security at home and abroad. Since the Democratic Party has embraced its activist core, its politicians have denounced the war in Iraq as unjustified and immoral, each American and Iraq death the intended by-product of President Bush's wilful lies. Ted Kennedy claimed the war was "cooked up in Texas" months or years before it was launched; Al Gore screeches that President Bush "betrayed us!"; and the Left at large has claimed the president massaged intelligence to manipulate the public into attacking the benign despot of Iraq. The 9/11 Commission's and Lord Butler's report debunked the Left's and the pro- Islamists' allegations, but the damage was already done. Having tarnished the president's veracity specifically on the War on Terror for political advantage, the Democrats hope is to render us impotent to respond to the genuine threat posed by Tehran. If the damage they have caused cannot be reversed, their self-seeking rhetoric may prove to have mortal consequences.

*Rachel Ehrenfeld is the author of Funding Evil: How Terrorism is Financed and How to Stop It and is the Director of the American Center for Democracy.



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CIA points to continuing Iran tie to al Qaeda


By Bill Gertz
THE WASHINGTON TIMES

A senior CIA official has revealed that al Qaeda operatives in Iran probably had advance knowledge of recent terrorist attacks, a sign that the cooperation between Tehran and al Qaeda is continuing since September 11.
"There have been al Qaeda people who have stayed for some time in Iran ... and because they have been in touch with colleagues outside of Iran at times when operations have occurred, it's hard to imagine that they were unwitting of those operations," the senior official said.

"And it's not hard to make the leap that they may have had at least some operational knowledge. It's harder to make the leap that they were directing operations like that."
The senior official spoke to reporters on the findings of the September 11 commission. The commission's report provides new details of Iranian government support for al Qaeda, including travel assistance to several of the hijackers involved in the 2001 airline attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon.
U.S. intelligence officials have said that a senior al Qaeda operations official, Sayf al-Adl, has been in Iran since 2002. He has been linked to the terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia in May, and to the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa.
The commission inquiry revealed that captured al Qaeda leaders Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi Binalshibh disclosed to interrogators that at least eight of the September 11 hijackers "transited Iran" on the way to Afghanistan, "taking advantage of the Iranian practice of not stamping Saudi passports," the nearly 600-page report stated.
Both terrorists said that ease of travel was the only reason the hijackers went to Iran and they denied any ties between al Qaeda and Hezbollah, an Iranian-backed terrorist group.
"In sum, there is strong evidence that Iran facilitated the transit of al Qaeda members into and out of Afghanistan before 9/11, and that some of these were future 9/11 hijackers," the report said.
The report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States also said senior Hezbollah terrorists knew about the al Qaeda members' travels to Iran.
The report said no evidence was found that Iran or Hezbollah were aware of the planning of the September 11 attacks.
"At the time of their travel through Iran, the al Qaeda operatives themselves were probably not aware of the specific details of their future operation," the report said. "After 9/11, Iran and Hezbollah wished to conceal any past evidence of cooperation with Sunni terrorists associated with al Qaeda."
The commission concluded that "we believe this topic requires further investigation by the U.S. government."
The senior CIA official confirmed that the al Qaeda hijackers had traveled through Iran but said details of Tehran's backing for the travel are not clear.
"I don't think we know that this was a deliberate Iranian policy, that is, a sanctioned policy at the highest levels of the Iranian government," the senior official said.
U.S. intelligence officials have said Iran's Ministry of Intelligence and Security, and the Qods Division of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, a unit of hard-line Islamist shock troops, are deeply involved in supporting terrorists, including al Qaeda.
The report also disclosed that "intelligence indicates the persistence of contacts between Iranian security officials and senior al Qaeda figures after [Osama] bin Laden's return to Afghanistan [in 1997]."
The commission report also said that captured al Qaeda terrorist Waleed bin Attash, known as Khallad, disclosed that Iran's government "made a concerted effort to strengthen relations with al Qaeda" after the October 2000 attack on the destroyer USS Cole in Aden harbor, Yemen.
According to the report, bin Laden rebuffed the offer from the Shi'ite regime in Iran because of fears that the cooperation would alienate Sunni supporters in Saudi Arabia.
"Khallad and other detainees have described the willingness of Iranian officials to facilitate the travel of al Qaeda members through Iran, on their way to and from Afghanistan," the report said.
Iranian border inspectors helped the terrorists by not placing travel stamps on passports, which allowed Saudi members to return to Saudi Arabia and not have their passports confiscated by Saudi authorities.
The report noted there is "evidence suggesting that eight to 10 of the 14 Saudi 'muscle' operatives traveled into or out of Iran between October 2000 and February 2001."
Intelligence information showed that senior al Qaeda leaders in Sudan during the 1990s "maintained contacts with Iran and the Iranian-supported worldwide terrorist organization Hezbollah," the report said.

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Iraq blasts Iran's 'blatant' support for insurgents

SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Wednesday, July 21, 2004
BAGHDAD -- Iraqi Defense Minister Hazim Shaalan said Iraq's neighbors have been supporting the insurgency against Baghdad. He cited Iran as exercising "blatant interference" in Iraq's affairs.
"They [Iranians] confess to the presence of their spies in Iraq who have a mission to upset the social and political situation," Shaalan said yesterday in an interview with the London-based A-Sharq Al Awsat.
"Since the establishment of the Iraqi state, Iranian intrusion has been vast and unprecedented." The defense minister did not cite other states as supporting the insurgency. But other Iraqi officials said Syria has failed to stop Al Qaida-inspired volunteers from joining the insurgency. They said the Iraqi government has invited its neighbors to a conference to discuss security cooperation.
"We are prepared to move the arena of the attacks on Iraq's honor and its rights to those countries," Shaalan said.
"We've spoken to them and confronted them with facts and evidence, but none of them have taken any action to stop supporting terrorism in Iraq.
Iraq has been preparing to launch its military, introducing new infantry, artillery and other units.
Iraqi officials said the interim government of Prime Minister Iyad Alawi will focus on developing the military over the next few weeks. They said the military would focus on border control and supporting missions against insurgents in Iraq.
"We will start to prepare the organized Iraqi Army starting from the beginning of next month and we have already prepared a command," Shaalan said.
Officials said Iraqi Army will have 40,000 soldiers in the first stage, comprising three light divisions. Battalions for the first division were being trained and equipped.
Shaalan said the military was forming an air force, navy and artillery corps. He said many of soldiers were former members of the military under the Saddam Hussein regime.
"Iraq will have a modern and powerful air force, navy, artillery and operating in accordance with advanced techniques to protect Iraq," Shaalan said. "Currently, we have surveillance aircraft in the National Guard to monitor our borders from the air."
[On Wednesday, seven Iraqis and a U.S. soldier were killed in fierce fighting with Sunni insurgents in Samara. A U.S. combat unit was pursuing insurgents who entered houses and a mosque in the city, 125 kilometers north of Baghdad.]
Officials said Iraqi security forces have also completed their first large-scale operation. The operation on July 18 included 90 members of the Iraqi National Guard and 300 police officers in a search for insurgents.
In early July, Iraq and Syria agreed to launch a joint effort to stop infiltration along their more than 500-kilometer border. But Iraqi officials have been skeptical over whether the regime of Syrian President Bashar Assad would make the required effort. Alawi was scheduled to arrive in Damascus on Thursday.
"We're talking about hundreds [of insurgents] if not in the thousands," Shaalan said.

Copyright ? 2004 East West Services, Inc.

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The Boldness of the President
http://daily.nysun.com/Repository/getmailfiles.asp?Style=OliveXLib:ArticleToMail&Type=text/html&Path=NYS/2004/07/23&ID=Ar01000
Reading the report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States, we couldn't help thinking of Justice Scalia's great dissent in Morrison v. Olson. It's the case in which the Supreme Court upheld the idea of an independent prosecutor. Justice Scalia warned of the danger that unleashing an uncontrollable prosecutor against a president could shake his courage. "Perhaps the boldness of the President himself will not be affected -- though I am not so sure," he warned.
Well, look now to what the 9/11 report has to say about the man to whom President Clinton, under attack by an independent counsel,delegated so much in respect of national security, Samuel "Sandy" Berger. The report cites a 1998 meeting between Mr. Berger and the director of central intelligence, George Tenet, at which Mr. Tenet presented a plan to capture Osama bin Laden.
"In his meeting with Tenet, Berger focused most, however, on the question of what was to be done with Bin Ladin if he were actually captured. He worried that the hard evidence against Bin Ladin was still skimpy and that there was a danger of snatching him and bringing him to the United States only to see him acquitted," the report says, citing a May 1, 1998, Central Intelligence Agency memo summarizing the weekly meeting between Messrs. Berger and Tenet.
In June of 1999, another plan for action against Mr. bin Laden was on the table. The potential target was a Qaeda terrorist camp in Afghanistan known as Tarnak Farms. The commission report released yesterday cites Mr. Berger's "handwritten notes on the meeting paper" referring to "the presence of 7 to 11 families in the Tarnak Farms facility, which could mean 60-65 casualties."According to the Berger notes, "if he responds, we're blamed."
On December 4, 1999, the National Security Council's counterterrorism coordinator, Richard Clarke, sent Mr. Berger a memo suggesting a strike in the last week of 1999 against Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. Reports the commission: "In the margin next to Clarke's suggestion to attack Al Qaeda facilities in the week before January 1, 2000, Berger wrote, `no.' "
In August of 2000, Mr. Berger was presented with another possible plan for attacking Mr. bin Laden.This time, the plan would be based on aerial surveillance from a "Predator" drone. Reports the commission: "In the memo's margin,Berger wrote that before considering action, `I will want more than verified location: we will need, at least, data on pattern of movements to provide some assurance he will remain in place.' "
In other words, according to the commission report, Mr. Berger was presented with plans to take action against the threat of Al Qaeda four separate times -- Spring 1998, June 1999, December 1999, and August 2000. Each time, Mr. Berger was an obstacle to action. Had he been a little less reluctant to act, a little more open to taking pre-emptive action, maybe the 2,973 killed in the September 11, 2001, attacks would be alive today.
It really doesn't matter now what was in the documents from the National Archives that Mr. Berger says he inadvertently misplaced. The evidence in the commission's report yesterday is more than enough to embarrass him thoroughly.He is a hardworking, warm man with a wonderful family, but his background as a trade lawyer and his dovish, legalistic and political instincts made him, in retrospect,the tragically wrong man to be making national security decisions for America in wartime.That Senator Kerry had Mr. Berger as a campaign foreign policy adviser even before the archives scandal is enough to raise doubts about the senator's judgment.
Neither Mr.Berger nor any other American is to blame for the deaths of Americans on September 11, 2001. The moral fault lies only with the terrorists, not with the victims.With the war still on,one can't help but to ponder who might best defend the country going forward, and how.
The commission's report contains plenty of other valuable information. Many of the recommendations -- to move operations functions to the Department of Defense from the CIA, to speed the transition between administrations so that key defense positions are not left vacant, to stress "widespread political participation"in the Arab and Muslim world,to declassify the intelligence budget, to provide a written national security transition handover memo when administrations change -- make sense.
Other aspects of the report, including the absence of serious recommendations for dealing with the terrorist threats from Syria or Iran, are harder to understand. The report is being taken seriously for its political ramifications for the Bush administration and for its policy recommendations. But perhaps its greatest value is as a history -- more, a sad epitaph -- of the Clinton-Berger administration.
Why was it Mr. Berger rather than President Clinton himself making all these judgment calls? As the report puts it, these decisions "were made by the Clinton administration under extremely difficult domestic political circumstances.Opponents were seeking the president's impeachment."
One can blame the special prosecutor law or Mr. Clinton for agreeing to name a special prosecutor, or one can blame the underlying reckless behavior by Mr. Clinton that got him into the "difficult domestic political circumstances." Or one can blame the Republican Congress. No matter what one's view of the underlying merits, it is hard to deny that one of the costs to the country was a preoccupied president.There's no guarantee that, in the absence of the scandal and the prosecutor, Mr. Clinton would have acted against Mr. bin Laden. But the chances would have been at least somewhat increased, and it would have been Mr. Clinton rather than Mr. Berger making the call.
The boldness of the president, in Justice Scalia's phrase,had been lost,and the man left in charge, Mr. Berger, was not up to it. When we think of the repairs that need to be made in the coming months, it is of this: The need to carry on our national politics with an eye to protecting the boldness of our leaders and particularly in a time of war. It is something to think about amid one of the bitterest, most adhominem political seasons in the history of the Republic.
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More Revelations in Berger Inquiry
Wider Circle in Administration Claims Prior Knowledge of Probe

By Mike Allen and John F. Harris
Washington Post Staff Writers
Friday, July 23, 2004; Page A08
For the second day in a row, administration officials said yesterday that more of President Bush's aides knew about an investigation of former Clinton national security adviser Samuel R. "Sandy" Berger than the White House originally acknowledged.
The question is sensitive because Democrats have charged that Republicans leaked word of the investigation to try to taint next week's Democratic National Convention and to distract attention from criticisms of Bush in the report of the commission investigating the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
A senior administration official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said that some National Security Council officials knew Berger -- who has resigned from his position as informal adviser to Democratic presidential candidate John F. Kerry -- was suspected of mishandling National Archives documents that were being sought by the commission.
National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, meeting reporters to discuss the commission's report, would not say when she was told of the probe.
"Sandy is somebody I've known a long time," Rice said. "And I think he's a good person, and I respect him. This is a criminal investigation. It's a serious matter. I'm just not going to comment about it."
The senior official said that a few NSC staff members who also report to the counsel's office had known about the inquiry.
On Wednesday, a day after saying he learned about the investigation from news reports, White House press secretary Scott McClellan added that "a few individuals" in the White House counsel's office had known about the inquiry. He said that was because the counsel's office was coordinating document production with the Sept. 11 commission.
Former Clinton press secretary Joe Lockhart, who is serving as a spokesman for Berger during the controversy, said the expanding circle of officials who the White House acknowledges knew of the criminal investigation heightens his suspicion about the timing of the disclosure that Berger is under investigation.
"This is the third day in a row that the story has changed," Lockhart said. "Did the political operation know? Did [adviser] Karl Rove know? I think it's time for them to come clean, say what they knew, when they knew it, and what role if anything they had in leaking it."
Berger has acknowledged removing copies of a classified "after-action report" that he had ordered to study the Clinton administration's handling of terrorist threats at the time of the millennium, but he said the removal was unintentional. He returned some copies after being contacted by Archives officials, but some documents are missing and were apparently discarded.
The narrowly averted millennium threat, aimed at Los Angeles International Airport and a Western hotel in Jordan, resulted in White House anti-terrorism coordinator Richard A. Clarke's preparation of the after-action review. It recommended building agent capabilities at the CIA and dramatically tightening immigration rules and border protections.
The Sept. 11 commission report said the recommendations generated an internal tug of war over CIA funding, with the agency finally getting a modest supplemental appropriation.
Also yesterday, Bruce R. Lindsey, who serves as former president Bill Clinton's liaison to the Archives, said he was not alerted to concerns about missing documents until two days after Berger's Oct. 2 visit. Berger was notified that day, and he searched his office for the missing papers. A government source claiming knowledge of the investigation said Archives officials alerted Lindsey to concerns after a visit by Berger in September. Lindsey said yesterday this was not the case.
Staff writer Susan Schmidt contributed to this report.

? 2004 The Washington Post Company

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Agencies Getting Heavier on Top
47 Executive Titles Created Since 1960

By Christopher Lee
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 23, 2004; Page A27
The federal government is top-heavy with more layers of high-ranking bureaucrats than ever before, impeding the flow of information within agencies and clouding the accountability of the officials who run them, according to a study to be released today.
The study, conducted for the Brookings Institution by government scholar Paul C. Light, found that the number of federal executive titles swelled to 64 this year. That's up from 51 in 1998, 33 in 1992 and 17 in 1960.
"It's a natural phenomenon of bureaucratic behavior, and if you don't pay attention to it it's like kudzu -- it grows," said Light, a professor at New York University's Robert F. Wagner School of Public Service.
Light and his research assistants combed the Federal Yellow Book, a directory of more than 40,000 executive branch officials. They took inventory of top managerial jobs in the 15 Cabinet departments, counting only titles that link directly to the Senate-confirmed positions of secretary, deputy secretary, undersecretary, assistant secretary and administrator.
Comparing the results with previous studies, they charted the birth and proliferation of such titles as deputy associate deputy secretary, deputy associate assistant secretary and principal deputy deputy assistant secretary. The jobs were held by political appointees and career executives.
One of the more notable growth professions was that of chief of staff to a Cabinet secretary. The first such post was created in 1981 at the Department of Health and Human Services. It spread to 10 more departments over the next decade and now exists at every Cabinet agency except Defense.
"People just end up believing from a power and perquisite standpoint that you've got to have a chief of staff if you are to be seen as a credible player," Light said.
The report cited several reasons for the overall trend, including the use of promotions rather than pay raises to reward senior employees, the creation of new positions by Congress and attempts by presidents to tighten their hold on the bureaucracy with a greater number of political appointees. The creation of the Department of Homeland Security is partly responsible for the growth, but every department except Treasury has added new executive titles since 1998.
Title creep may be good for business card printers, but it is bad for agencies and taxpayers, Light said. Information about problems -- mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by the military, say, or concerns about possible damage to the space shuttle -- has to pass through more hands before it gets to the top.
"It helps explain why information flows are sometimes so sluggish," Light said. "And it also explains why we can't hold anybody accountable for what goes right or wrong. There are just so many places that decisions get made, or not made, that you can't really figure out who is responsible."
After reviewing the study, Chad Kolton, a spokesman for the Office of Management and Budget, said in an e-mail: "President Bush has significantly improved the federal government's effectiveness, most notably in better protecting our nation by merging 22 separate agencies into a Department of Homeland Security. This largest government reorganization in more than 50 years has made us safer by streamlining bureaucracy, combining resources and improving communication."
While Bush has slowed the rate of title growth, the government is adding an average of one executive title a year, Light said.
The trend has gone the other way in the private sector. Investor pressures for more efficiency and concerns about muddled information channels sparked a drive toward fewer corporate management layers that began 15 years ago, said Michael Useem, a professor of management at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania.
"Many companies began a long march to streamline and flatten," Useem said. ". . . Everybody with any management sense whatsoever says it is a good idea, not only for information coming up, but to ensure actions get taken and not snarled in endless approval and red tape."



? 2004 The Washington Post Company
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New Details Revealed on 9/11 Plans
Interrogators Found Motives and Mind-Set

By Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 23, 2004; Page A19
If the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks had known that Zacarias Moussaoui, an al Qaeda operative now charged as a conspirator in the plot, had been arrested in August, he might have canceled the mission.
As it turned out, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, the main strategist behind the attacks, did not find out until after Sept. 11 that Moussaoui was jailed in Minnesota on immigration charges.
That revelation, from a U.S. interrogation of one of Mohammed's top deputies, Ramzi Binalshibh, is among many new details about the planning and execution of the attacks contained in the 567-page report of the commission investigating the attacks and the government's response, which was released yesterday.
Rich in specifics, the report draws on intelligence reports not previously made public, including information drawn from CIA interrogations of al Qaeda operatives that reveal new information on the plans, motives and mind-set of the terrorists involved in the attacks, as well as others at the organization's highest levels.
The commission members believe Moussaoui was to have been among the Sept. 11 hijackers, although Binalshibh has called him a poor candidate who was needed only to fill out a shaky roster. Mohammed has told interrogators that Moussaoui was going to be part of a second wave of attacks, the report said.
The commission report provides similar glimpses of other terrorists associated with the attacks, including Mohammed, who is referred to in the report as "KSM," and who promoted the idea of using the jetliners as missiles.
Mohammed originally conceived of crashing nine airliners while he would hijack a 10th himself, killing the male passengers and landing to give a speech "excoriating" repressive Arab governments and U.S. support for Israel.
"Beyond KSM's rationalizations about targeting the U.S. economy, this vision gives a better glimpse of its true ambitions. This is theater, a spectacle of destruction with KSM as the self-cast star -- the superterrorist," the report said.
Mohammed, the report found, is not the only terrorist leader with an outsize ego and a powerful blood lust.
Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who became head of al Qaeda operations on the Arabian peninsula, was "so extreme in his ferocity in waging jihad" that he would commit a terrorist act inside the holiest mosque in Mecca if he thought there were a need, according to interviews with captured terrorists, the report quoted. Nashiri, who reported directly to bin Laden, orchestrated the 2000 bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen.
Despite the attention bin Laden has received from U.S. officials, the report found that not all those working with him have accorded him undivided devotion.
Nashiri was asked to swear loyalty to bin Laden but "found the notion distasteful and refused," the report said. He was not alone: Mohammed also refused, as did Hambali, the leader of Southeast Asia's Jemaah Islamiah terrorist network who accepted bin Laden's offer in 1998 to form an alliance "in waging war against Christians and Jews."
In addition to providing new insights into some of the plotters, the report traced the evolution of the planning for the Sept. 11 attacks.
Mohammed and his nephew, Ramzi Yousef, began talking about plots to hijack U.S. airliners and crash them into buildings after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing -- for which Yousef was later convicted. Bin Laden signed on in concept in the spring of 1999.
The report reveals that the target bin Laden was most interested in hitting was the White House, even though hijack leader Mohamed Atta thought it was too difficult and preferred the Capitol.
At a meeting in Spain in July 2001, Binalshibh told Atta that bin Laden wanted the attacks "carried out as soon as possible because he was worried about having so many operatives in the United States." In early August, Atta communicated to Binalshibh that the attacks would be launched in the first week of September, when Congress reconvened.
Atta said he and Marwan Al-Shehhi would pilot airliners into the World Trade Center, and crash them on the streets of New York if they could not hit the towers. Atta had considered "targeting a nuclear facility he had seen during familiarization flights near New York," but others in the hijack plot feared they would be shot down in restricted airspace.
The commission report said that some aspects of the plot remain a mystery. For instance, two of the hijackers who have received the most attention, Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid Almihdhar, had no English skills or exposure to life in the West, unlike the others. They arrived in San Diego in 2000 and authorities have speculated about who there may have helped them.
The report said Mohammed "denies that al Qaeda had any agents in Southern California. We do not credit this denial."
Research editor Margot Williams contributed to this report.

? 2004 The Washington Post Company

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Overhaul of Congressional Panels Urged
Report Finds Responsibility, Accountability Lacking
By Dan Morgan
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 23, 2004; Page A21
Congressional oversight of intelligence and counterterrorism is "dysfunctional" and "the American people will not get the security they want and need" without far-reaching reforms of the outmoded committee system, according to the report of the Sept. 11 commission.
The report offers a broad series of recommendations, including the establishment of greatly strengthened intelligence committees with unique powers to set policy and allocate funds, the creation of permanent committees on homeland security, and the publication of the hitherto secret figure on annual intelligence spending.
"Tinkering with the existing system is not sufficient," the commission wrote as it parceled out to Congress a fair measure of responsibility for the failures in law enforcement and intelligence preceding the catastrophic attack on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001. "Our essential message is: the intelligence committees cannot carry out their oversight function unless they are made stronger and thereby have both clear responsibility and accountability for that oversight."

Earlier blue-ribbon reports criticized Congress for its lax oversight, but the 9/11 commission offers the most detailed and scathing assessment yet. Senior members of the House and Senate quickly promised speedy consideration of the proposals while acknowledging that many of the reform recommendations will encounter resistance, as they clash with institutional traditions or the interests of turf-conscious lawmakers.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), co-author of the legislation creating the commission, declared that "delay was the enemy." McCain and Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) urged congressional leaders to call a special session after the November elections to begin considering the commission's recommendations.
But, speaking a news conference attended by families of 9/11 victims and the chairman and vice chairman of the commission, McCain noted that the proposal to create either a House-Senate intelligence committee or strengthened intelligence committees in the separate chambers "is going to meet with significant institutional resistance because you're going to be removing somebody's turf."
At a news conference with the theme "Terror on the Run," House GOP leaders largely ignored the 9/11 commission's recommendations and focused instead on the achievements of the Bush administration and of the GOP-controlled Congress in fighting the terrorism threat.
"We haven't endorsed any recommendations," said House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.). He added: "We're not going to rush through anything."
Few in Congress disagree that there are serious problems with the oversight of counterterrorism and intelligence. Responsibility for oversight has been granted to dozens of committees and subcommittees whose jurisdictions overlap and conflict, often resulting in confusion and gridlock.
The 9/11 panel noted that officials from the Department of Homeland Security now appear before 88 congressional panels. In the House, the department is overseen by a committee that does not have permanent status. In the Senate, there is no such dedicated oversight panel. "One expert witness . . . told us that this is perhaps the single largest obstacle impeding the department's successful development," the report stated.
As if to underline the warnings contained in the commission report, homeland security legislation in the House was stalled this week by partisan politics. Four House committees were involved in drafting final legislation governing the funding of first responders.
In the area of intelligence, the writing of the annual budget is divided among the intelligence committees, armed services committees and appropriations committees. Congressional rules that -- among other things -- limit the terms of intelligence committee members to six years in the House and eight years in the Senate weaken the committees' "power, influence and sustained capability," according to the report of the 9/11 commission.
Membership on the intelligence panels is not generally coveted, in part because much of the work is done in secrecy. "Members get nothing from being on those panels in terms of public recognition," and as a result they often apply themselves to the work only sporadically, according to a former House Democratic aide.
To strengthen the committees, the 9/11 commission proposed a number of changes, including giving the committees more authority over a unified intelligence budget whose total size would become a matter of public record for the first time, rather than hidden in the budget of the Defense Department. Details of the budget would continue to be classified.
"Having the figure public should increase pressure to get efficiencies, particularly in the big technical programs" such as satellite reconnaissance, said Jeffrey H. Smith, a former CIA general counsel.
Staff writer Charles Babington contributed to this report.



? 2004 The Washington Post Company
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>> IRAN NEWS...

Lebanese Minister Denies Presence Of Iranian Forces In Lebanon
BEIRUT (IRNA) -- Lebanese Minister of State Karam Karam dismissed on Friday a U.S. Department of State allegation that Iranian military forces are present in Bekka, east of Lebanon.
Speaking to the Voice of Lebanon radio, Karam said that the U.S. allegation is an interference in Lebanon's internal affairs.
Stressing that no Iranian forces are in Lebanon, Karam said that only Syrian forces are currently in Lebanon.
Refuting the U.S. allegation, the Lebanese minister said that only Zionist forces have illegally entered Lebanon and are in the Sheba'a farmlands of the southern region.
Washington has brought up the issue of withdrawal of all "foreign forces from Lebanon" but ignores the occupation of a vast part of the country by Israelis forces, argued the minister.
The Lebanese media reported on Friday that the U.S. Ambassador to Beirut Mark Grossman, in a recent speech in Washington, called for a withdrawal of all foreign military forces from Lebanon, including Iranians.
Comparing the Syrian forces in Lebanon with U.S. forces stationed in some European countries, the minister said that Syrian forces are in Lebanon pursuant to an agreement signed by the two countries following the Arab-Israeli war in 1967.
He concluded by saying that friends of Lebanon such as Iran and Syria have always supported the Islamic and national resistance of the country and would continue their support in the future.


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The Two Americas Canard
By David Frum
Posted: Friday, July 23, 2004
ARTICLES
National Review
Publication Date: August 9, 2004
Together, John Kerry and John Edwards possess family fortunes totaling probably in the vicinity of $1 billion. If elected, John Kerry would be the richest president in American history, richer even than his hero John F. Kennedy. And unlike other rich men to seek the presidency--Ross Perot, Herbert Hoover, and so on--Kerry is the very opposite of a self-made man: He came by his money by marrying a woman who inherited it from her husband who in turn inherited it from his great-grandfather.
Yet the Kerry-Edwards campaign is audaciously presenting itself as a crusade against unearned wealth and privilege. As the saying goes: Only in America!
Perhaps conscious of the absurdity of the situation, Kerry has left the populist heavy lifting to his running mate, a man whose fortune is estimated in the mere double-digit millions. But even Edwards must choke a little at the preposterousness of his famous "two Americas" speech:
One America that does the work, another America that reaps the reward. One America that pays the taxes, another America that gets the tax breaks. One America that will do anything to leave its children a better life, another America that never has to do a thing because its children are already set for life. One America--middle-class America--whose needs Washington has long forgotten, another America--narrow-interest America--whose every wish is Washington's command. One America that is struggling to get by, another America that can buy anything it wants, even a Congress and a president.
By my count, that's actually five different pairs of Americas, and no two pairs overlap.
Pair 1: Those who work and those who collect rewards without working. About 60 percent of Americans work; the other 40 percent are in school, retired, unemployed, at home with small children, and so on. It's not very nice of Kerry and Edwards to try to foment divisions between working Americans and their children and retired parents--and it does not seem like very smart politics either.
Pair 2: Those who pay the taxes and those who get the tax breaks. About 65 percent of federal income-tax revenue is contributed by the top 10 percent of taxpayers. Again, you have to worry how wise it is of Kerry and Edwards to suggest that some nine-tenths of their fellow citizens are mooching off wealthy people like themselves.
Pair 3: Those who will do anything for their kids and those who never have to "do a thing" for them. It is unfortunately true that there are a lot of rotten parents out there. Edwards seems to be suggesting they are all Republicans.
Pair 4: Middle-class vs. narrow-interest America. What exactly do Edwards and Kerry offer middle-class America? Astoundingly little, really. In 1992 Bill Clinton offered middle-class tax cuts and universal government-guaranteed health insurance. True, Clinton reneged on the first promise and failed to deliver on the second--but that was after the election. Kerry and Edwards offer neither. In fact, most of their campaign promises are carefully targeted to--you guessed it--"narrow interests."
Pair 5: Those who are struggling to get by and those who can buy anything they want. Political pros sometimes talk about 70-30 issues, meaning issues on which one side outnumbers the other by better than a two-to-one margin. Edwards is going here for a 99.9-to-0.1 issue. Who in America can buy anything he wants? Not me, and probably not you either, and possibly not even John Edwards himself. His running mate sure can, however--but does Edwards really mean to condemn him?
How did Edwards talk his way into this maze?
During his own presidential campaign, Edwards plainly hankered to be a Robert F. Kennedy for our times: a handsome, wealthy man who has taken it on himself to give voice to the voiceless, hope to the hopeless--a tribune of the plebs who basks in the gratitude of the adoring throng. But while Edwards may enjoy this mawkish fantasy, the calculating part of his brain recognizes its danger. There simply aren't enough poor people in America to elect a man president, even if they all voted, which they don't and won't.
David Frum is a resident fellow at AEI.




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>> LEFT WATCH

This article can be found on the web at
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040802&s=phillips

How Kerry Can Win
by KEVIN PHILLIPS
[from the August 2, 2004 issue]
John Kerry can win, given George W. Bush's incompetence, and White House strategists realize that. All the Democrats need to do is to peel away some of the Republican "unbase"--the most wobbly members of the GOP coalition. The caveat is that not many Democrats understand that coalition or why it has beaten the Democrats most of the time since 1968. Nor do most understand the convoluted but related role of Bill Clinton in aborting what could have been a 1992-2004 (or 2008) mini-cycle of Democratic White House dominance and in paving the way for George W.
Elements of this shortsightedness are visible in both the party and the Kerry campaign. While attempts to harness "Anybody but Bush" psychologies and to attract voters without saying much that is controversial might win Kerry a narrow victory, this strategy would be unlikely to create a framework for successful four- or eight-year governance. Deconstructing the Republican coalition is a better long-term bet, and could be done. The result, however, might be to uncage serious progressive reform.
Republicans, in contrast, have been successful in thinking strategically since the late 1960s. From 1968 until Bill Clinton's triumph in 1992, Republicans won five of the six presidential elections, and even Jimmy Carter's narrow victory in 1976 was in many respects a post-Watergate fluke. The two main coalitional milestones were Richard Nixon's 61 percent in 1972 and Ronald Reagan's 59 percent in 1984.
The two Bushes, notwithstanding their dynastic achievement, represent the later-stage weakness of the coalition, which would have been more obvious without the moral rebukes of Clinton that were critical in the 1994 and 2000 elections. In the three presidential elections the Bushes have fought to date, their percentages of the total national vote have been 53.9 percent (1988), 37.7 percent (1992) and 47.9 percent (2000)--an average of 46.5 percent. Keep in mind that in 1992, Bush Senior got the smallest vote share of any President seeking re-election since William Howard Taft in 1912, while in 2000, the younger Bush became the first President to be elected without winning a plurality of the popular vote since Benjamin Harrison in 1888. The aftermath of 9/11 created transient strength, but the essential weakness of the Bushes was palpable again by mid-2004.
Strategizing on behalf of a family with more luck and lineage than gravitas, the principal strategists for each Bush President--Lee Atwater for number 41 and Karl Rove for number 43--have necessarily been Machiavellian students of the Republican presidential coalition and how to maintain it. After helping to elect 41 in 1988 because Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis was an Ivy League technocrat unconvincing as an occasional populist, Atwater observed that "the way to win a presidential election against the Republicans is to develop the class-warfare issue, as Dukakis did at the end. To divide up the have and have-nots." Since then, the focus on keeping Republicans together has evolved and intensified.
Despite the Republican weakness evident in 1992 and Bush's second-place finish in 2000, Rove is notable for his preoccupation with the GOP "base," which he presumably thinks of in normal majoritarian terms. However, in the case of Bush's running for election or re-election, it is also useful--and the Democrats of 2004 would find it particularly worthwhile--to focus on the GOP's "unbase." This, in essence, is the 20-25 percent of the party electorate that has been won at various points by three national anti-Bush primary and general election candidates with Republican origins: Ross Perot (1992), John McCain (2000) and, in a lesser vein, Patrick Buchanan (1992). Most of the shared Perot-McCain issues--campaign and election reform, opposition to the religious right, distaste for Washington lobbyists, opposition to upper-bracket tax biases and runaway deficits, criticism of corporations and CEOs--are salient today and more compatible with the mainstream moderate reformist Democratic viewpoint than with the lobbyist-driven Bush Administration. Perot and Buchanan's economic nationalism (anti-outsourcing, anti-NAFTA) and criticism of Iraq policy under the two Bushes is also shared by many Democrats.
Taking things somewhat further, these members of the "unbase" of the Republican presidential coalition ought to be the Democrats' key target because (1) they have some degree of skepticism about Bush and (2) they are the segment of the GOP coalition most logically open to recruitment for a progressive realignment, short-term or otherwise. That is the way small or large realignments work: by wooing the most empathetic part of the current coalition.
In 1992, when Perot drew 19 percent of the November vote, George Bush Senior got only about 80 percent of the Republican vote. Most of the "unbase" and part of the base deserted. If McCain had been well funded in 2000, he might have been able to get 30-40 percent in GOP primaries nationally, and even without serious money, he did win the primaries in seven states, including New Hampshire, Michigan and Connecticut. Sticking with the idea that the GOP "unbase" is somewhere between 20 percent and 25 percent, Bush can afford to lose 5 to 7 percent of the overall Republican electorate. But if he loses 10 percent, he's probably done for, and if he drops 15 percent, he's finished.
It could happen. Back in late winter, when Kerry still had a winner's aura from the primaries, one CBS News poll showed 11 percent of those who had voted for Bush in 2000 were unprepared to do so in 2004. That was enough to put Kerry ahead, at least until the GOP's spring advertising blitz.
Kerry looked better by late June, but part of the reason for Kerry's--and the Democrats'--failure to capitalize on Bush's weaknesses is that they seem unable to decide between two very different strategies. One might be called the Wall Street strategy, which includes rhetoric about failed policies in Iraq and GOP tax cuts that pander to the rich, but avoids most specifics or bold indictments of Bush failure. Critiques of US economic polarization, NAFTA or globalization are sidestepped, and the example of Clinton-era federal deficit reduction so admired by Wall Street is held up. Indeed, Kerry's demeanor is appropriate to a man married into one of the biggest US corporate fortunes.
It is plausible to think that this will enable Kerry to draw a slightly improved vote among upper-middle-class and even fat-cat Republicans disenchanted with Bush as an incompetent cowboy who has bungled Iraq and pandered to Falwell, Robertson and Bob Jones University. Pinstriped caution has already helped the Massachusetts Senator to haul in record levels of Democratic contributions, some from Republicans and independents. Still, for all its success in Manhattan, the Hamptons and Santa Barbara, this is not a strategy that resonates with swing voters in battleground states from Ohio to New Mexico.
The alternative--at once bolder and riskier, but with a larger potential electorate--involves targeting the ordinary Republicans who rejected at least one generation of Bushes to back Perot or McCain. These voters--not a few thousand elites but millions of the rank and file--are concentrated in the middle-class precincts of swing states like Maine, New Hampshire, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Iowa, Minnesota, Colorado and the Pacific Coast.
Even by the campaign's own polls, it is precisely the Perot-McCain states that Kerry most needs to win. For Democratic and left-tilting progressives, the second benefit is luring voters drawn to the outsider economics of Perot and McCain, not to the insider calculations of big donors and fundraisers like former Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin. It is the Perot-McCain constituency, more than the elite Democratic entente, that could best catalyze a bipartisan progressive coalition. A partial analogy, at least, can be made to the role that GOP progressives like George Norris, Hiram Johnson and Robert La Follette Jr. played during the 1930s in launching the New Deal. Convincing John McCain to run for Vice President in a Kerry fusion ticket would have been the strongest tactic, but Edwards is a persuasive alternative. Now for Kerry to repeat the boldness and refreshing candor would be an important further change of pace.
In addition to adopting a bolder style, national Democrats also need to grasp Bill Clinton's role during the 1990s in aborting some national trends and stirring others that did his party considerable harm. Indeed, Clinton's moral notoriety was central to the rise of George W. Bush at two junctures--Bush's initial election as governor of Texas in 1994, a year dominated (especially in Dixie) by an anti-Clinton backlash, and the presidential race of 2000, in which regional disgust with Clinton was so strong that even Tennessee Southern Baptist Al Gore could not carry Arkansas and Tennessee against the religion-linked Bush campaign for moral restoration.
Without these offsets to Clinton's lengthy prosperity, it seems clear that 1992 should have ushered in a twelve-to-sixteen-year Democratic mini-cycle. Indeed, the sixteen-point collapse in Bush Senior's vote between 1988 and 1992 was the sort of hemorrhage mostly seen on previous realignment occasions. Clinton's failure to take advantage of this opportunity, instead facilitating the Bushes' return in dynastic form, is one of the too-little-understood ingredients of the 2000 upheaval.
Part of the emptiness of the Democrats' pinstriped or don't-rock-the-boat strategy is that it doesn't grapple with these circumstances. Not just the South but the kindred pivotal border states and the Ohio Valley cannot be counted on to reward a Democrat trumpeting the Clinton memory and legacy. Nor does bland centrism effectively respond to the Bush family's regaining of the presidency in 2000 by tactics and subsequent inroads on small-d democracy and small-r republicanism to which only a feckless Democratic nominee could turn the other cheek.
However, let it pass for the moment that Bush was put in office only by a 5-to-4 decision of the Supreme Court, hijacked the Democrats' mini-cycle, fought and botched the first father-and-son war in US annals and convinced 55-60 percent of Americans that the nation is on the wrong course. There is a more stark yardstick that even cautious Democrats should understand: In 1991-92, George H.W. Bush, prior to his defeat, fell from a record high job-approval rating of 90 percent after the Gulf War to a low 30s summer bottom before the election. His son, who hit the low 90s right after 9/11, by early June had fallen to 42-43 percent, another fifty-point decline. No elected President has ever done this; the Bushes have done it twice. Maybe it's the gene pool.
Back in 1992, Pat Buchanan and Ross Perot went after Bush with the gloves off, softening him up so that the Democratic nominee Clinton didn't have to do that much. In 2000 Al Gore didn't run a strong campaign--his occasional populism was as labored as fellow Harvard man Dukakis's in 1988--but some Republicans and independents had taken their cues from McCain. This year, by contrast, Bush had no primary challenge and will have no ex-Republican third-party opponent. Sure, some Republicans have attacked Bush through books, but while that's probably been worth a point or two, it's not the same thing.
To win this election decisively, John Kerry is going to have to feel the same outrage that Howard Dean felt, and he's going to have to express some of it with the same merciless candor that the Republican dissidents have employed against two generations of Bushes. In today's circumstances of a nation on the wrong track, most swing voters--especially wavering GOP men who grew up on John Wayne movies--will not be content with pablum. The Edwards selection seemed assertive, but if Kerry reverts to equivocation, he could face the ultimate epitaph on a political tombstone: Here lies John Kerry, the first Democratic nominee to lose to a Bush President who'd already dropped fifty points in job approval and earned the snickers of half the world.

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The New Medicare Prescription Drug Law
Formulary Policies Could Limit Access to Necessary Medications
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=127965
by Jeffrey S. Crowley
July 20, 2004
A key feature of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) is its reliance on private insurers (stand alone-drug insurers and Medicare Advantage plans) to negotiate drug prices and reduce program costs. One of the major tools that they will use to steer enrollees toward preferred drugs are formularies, or defined lists of drugs for which a prescription drug plan will provide coverage. Formularies have become a common feature of existing private employer-sponsored health insurance programs, as well as Medicaid, the federal-state program that provides health coverage to nearly 53 million low-income individuals. [1] Unlike these existing programs, however, the new stand-alone prescription drug insurers are not responsible for the costs for other health services (such as hospital or physician costs) that could rise if their formulary policies are overly restrictive. Additionally, the MMA permits private insurers (both stand alone plans and Medicare Advantage plans) to operate "closed" formularies that are not permitted by Medicaid; allows people with a vested interest to create the formularies; and does not clarify the exact appeals rights that enrollees will have to access needed, prescribed drugs. These policies could result in Medicare beneficiaries being denied access to drugs prescribed by their physicians, and suffering bad health outcomes as a result.
WHAT THE LAW DOES
The MMA permits private insurers to cover most outpatient prescription drugs and biologicals. Plans cannot pay for drugs already covered by Medicare Parts A and B [2] and a limited list of drugs for so-called non-essential uses. [3] Prescription drug plans can cover all other FDA-approved medications with a valid prescription, but could limit which drugs they cover by operating formularies. Plans that elect to use formularies must meet the following requirements:
Develop through Committee. Formularies must be developed by a Pharmacy and Therapeutic (P&T) Committee, and the majority of the Committee's members must be practicing physicians or pharmacists. At least one practicing physician and one practicing pharmacist on the Committee must be independent from the prescription drug plan and have expertise in the care of the elderly or people with disabilities. [4]
Use clinical information. In developing and reviewing the formulary, the P&T Committee must base its decisions on the strength of the scientific evidence and standards of practice, including assessing peer-reviewed medical literature, such as randomized clinical trials, pharmacoeconomic studies, outcomes research data, and other information that the Committee deems appropriate. The P&T Committee must also consider whether including a drug on the formulary has therapeutic advantages in terms of safety and efficacy. [5]
Determine classes and drugs covered in each class. The formulary must include drugs within each therapeutic category and class of covered drugs, although not necessarily all drugs within such categories and classes. The law's reference to "drugs" appears to mean that prescription drug plans must cover at least two drugs in every class, although plans are able to define for themselves what is a class. The law also provides for the United States Pharmacopeia to be asked to develop model guidelines for therapeutic categories and classes, although plans will not be bound by them. [6]
Update formularies. Except to take into account new drugs and new therapeutic uses of drugs, a prescription drug plan can only change the therapeutic categories and classes at the beginning of each plan year. Plans can change the drugs included or excluded from their formulary, however, at any time. Before removing a drug from the formulary, the plan must provide notice to their enrollees through posting the formulary change on the Internet or providing the formulary to enrollees, upon request.
CONCERNS ABOUT THE LAW
Formularies have become an important tool in the management of pharmaceutical costs and in efforts to improve the quality of health services received. In some cases, physicians prescribe drugs for conditions and situations that are outdated or contraindicated. There are also large variations in pharmaceutical costs for drugs to treat the same condition, and these costs do not always correlate with the effectiveness of a drug or other clinical criteria. In these situations, formulary policies can serve important public policy goals by conserving health resources and providing higher quality care without any deleterious impacts on individuals. However, the implementation of the MMA's formulary provisions could create problems.
Closed formularies could lead to access problems. Closed formularies could potentially exclude high-cost drugs without regard for the unique needs or circumstances of individuals. Under open formularies, plans can manage utilization by denying access to certain drugs (such as higher cost drugs or drugs shown through clinical evidence to be less effective in most cases than a preferred drug) until an individual has met specific procedural requirements (such as receiving prior authorization or failing to benefit from a preferred drug). Closed formularies do not make such accommodations for normal, individual-level variations in responses to pharmaceuticals. The MMA provides for an exceptions process where an individual, with their physician's support, can petition a private plan to cover a non-formulary drug or charge the lowest cost-sharing (i.e. cost-sharing for the preferred drug in a class) for a non-preferred drug. However, private insurers retain full discretion to approve or deny all such requests. This creates the risk that needed drugs may not be accessible in a timely or affordable manner under the new Medicare benefit, as the formal appeals process could take several weeks to be resolved.
Formulary decisions are not sufficiently independent. The MMA requires that P&T Committees include at least one practicing physician and one practicing pharmacist who are independent from the prescription drug plan. The law places no minimum or maximum constraints on the size of the P&T Committee. Therefore, the value of having two independent participants could be diluted to the point of being meaningless if plan employees are permitted to dominate the P&T Committee, and outvote the two independent committee members. Since the MMA relies on P&T Committees to ensure that formularies are developed based on current clinical evidence and standards of clinical practice, it is imperative that P&T Committee decisions are not unduly influenced by a plan's management or financial interests.
Financial incentives could lead to excessively restrictive formularies. The MMA places prescription drug plans at-risk for limiting drug costs. For the law to be successful at limiting costs to Medicare and for plans to maximize their profitability, prescription drug plans will have strong incentives to limit spending. While this is intended to put pressure on plans to reduce prices, these incentives may lead plans to avoid persons with high-cost conditions or limit drug spending by developing restrictive formularies. [7], [8] Plans could achieve this goal by keeping essential medications, such as latest generation mental health drugs, off of their formularies.
There is a potential for arbitrary formulary limitations, such as no coverage for off-label uses. Plans could also develop formulary policies that impose arbitrary dispensing limits (such as providing coverage for only 3 prescriptions per month) or that limit access to prescription drugs for off-label uses. Off-label prescribing is a practice where a physician prescribes a prescription medication for a use that is not an indication that was approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). Although the MMA clearly states that Medicare prescription drug plans are permitted to cover drugs for off-label uses, the law contains no provisions that would prevent plan formularies from limiting coverage to only "on-label" uses. Many uses for prescription drugs, while not FDA approved, are therapeutically important. Persons with rare conditions have been especially likely to take drugs for non-FDA approved uses because studies have not been conducted to evaluate drug efficacy or safety in those cases. Moreover, for conditions where the standards of clinical practice are evolving rapidly, evidence of the clinical benefits of new uses of drugs is frequently not available in the "real time" needed to treat individuals with life threatening conditions.
There are no guarantees that plans will cover breakthrough drugs or life-saving drugs. Because plans have incentives to keep costs down, they may delay or deny coverage of new and expensive drugs. The plan-stacked P&T Committee may decide that a new drug belongs in an old class of drugs, and prefer an older and less effective drug instead. For persons with cancer, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer's disease, HIV/AIDS, and other life-threatening and progressively disabling conditions, access to the latest medications is important because they can prevent further disability and help the individual stay alive. New drugs are especially important to persons who have failed on all currently available treatments.
Dual eligibles could be worse off. For over 6 million dual eligibles (i.e. , low-income people with disabilities and elderly individuals enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid), Medicaid prescription drug coverage will end when the new Medicare prescription drug coverage program begins. Drug coverage for dual eligibles will shift from Medicaid to private Medicare prescription drug plans, and dual eligibles will not have the choice to retain their Medicaid prescription drug coverage instead of signing up for a Medicare prescription drug plan. Dual eligibles have poorer health status and more extensive prescription drug needs than most other Medicare beneficiaries. [9] Coverage of medically necessary drugs is particularly critical because most dual eligibles are quite poor, and thus, unable to pay out-of-pocket for non-covered drugs. For these individuals, closed formularies pose special risks. Both their ability to navigate an appeals process and afford needed drugs in the interim is limited. This could result in serious reductions in access, even in states with limits on their Medicaid prescription drug benefits. [10]
IMPROVEMENTS
Require open formularies. Legislative changes could require private plans to operate open formularies similar to those in Medicaid. While some may argue this would limit the ability of private plans to negotiate cost savings from pharmaceutical manufacturers, open formularies do not weaken a plan's ability to use tiered cost sharing, prior authorization and other tools to restrict access to drugs when this is appropriate and evidence-based. For example, for many classes of drugs, it would be clinically appropriate for a plan to use "reference pricing" where all Medicare-covered drugs are on the formulary, but individuals pay the difference in price between the preferred drug and the drug that their doctor prescribes. [11] Such a system, however, should be carefully limited to classes for which individual drugs are close substitutes for each other, and would not be appropriate in cases (such as HIV/AIDS antiretroviral drugs) where drugs within a class are less interchangeable. Open formularies provide a safety valve so that individuals and their physicians can demand exceptions to routine formulary practices when it is clinically indicated. For dual eligibles and other low-income Medicare beneficiaries, it can be especially important to ensure that all needed drugs are on the formulary, as cost-sharing protections ensure access to all formulary drugs. The MMA protects dual eligibles and other low-income Medicare beneficiaries by limiting cost-sharing to no more than $3 per prescription for a preferred drug and $5 per prescription for non-preferred drugs, with an even lower limit for dual eligibles with income below the poverty level.
Ensure that P&T Committee decisions are based on clinical evidence. Through regulations and administrative monitoring, the federal government can assure that P&T Committee formulary decisions are based on clinical evidence. The law requires P&T Committees to base their decisions on the strength of the scientific evidence and standards of practice, including assessments of peer-reviewed medical literature, such as randomized clinical trials, pharmacoeconomic studies, outcomes research data, and other information that the Committee deems appropriate. Federal officials should require plans to comply with federally-promulgated and other commonly-accepted standards of clinical practice. For example, the standard of care for the treatment of HIV/AIDS is guided by federal treatment guidelines that are evidence-based, and updated regularly. Through regulation, federal officials should develop a process whereby the Secretary annually publishes a list of clinical practice guidelines for a range of conditions with which private plan formularies must be consistent. Additionally, regulations should prohibit private plans from using cost-sharing levels and other features of a prescription plan benefit to create barriers to access to drugs that have been shown through clinical research to produce superior results. Federal officials should also commit resources to monitoring and evaluating P&T Committee practices and private plan benefit features on an ongoing basis and making recommendations for administrative and legislative improvements, when necessary.
Limit the ability of plans to drop drugs from the formulary throughout the year. The MMA provides for an annual election period when Medicare beneficiaries are permitted to change prescription drug plans. Plans are permitted, however, to change their formularies at any time. For individuals with a broad range of conditions, treatment interruptions can be extremely harmful. Furthermore, for many individuals, the sole criterion for selecting a prescription drug plan is to ensure that specific drugs are covered. The MMA should be changed to prohibit plans from dropping drugs from their formularies, except with advance notice prior to the annual plan election period or in exceptional circumstances, such as if new clinical evidence indicates that use of a drug is unsafe or ineffective. Additionally, Congress and federal officials should develop supplemental safeguards for persons with conditions, such as HIV/AIDS or mental illness, where treatment interruptions pose unique dangers to the individual or have serious public health implications.
Provide for access to non-formulary drugs for persons with serious or complex conditions. For new drugs or drugs used to treat rare conditions, scientific evidence may not be available to justify to a P&T Committee that it should add it to the plan's formulary. For individuals who have failed to benefit from all other available treatments, and persons with life-threatening conditions, a looser standard for coverage of drugs is necessary. If closed formularies are permitted, persons with serious or complex conditions, or at a minimum, persons with conditions that in the absence of treatment are expected to result in death, should be exempted from formulary restrictions and should have access to all FDA-approved drugs with a valid prescription. This is especially important when private plans have incentives to deny coverage for high-cost drugs, and clinical evidence is unavailable to support the denial of access to a new treatment. Plans that use open formularies should be required to provide for standing exceptions to tiered cost-sharing requirements so that individuals do not need to request exceptions repeatedly for drugs used on an on-going basis.
Permit Medicaid to supplement gaps in Medicare drug coverage. Because of their poorer health status and their lower incomes, dual eligibles are particularly vulnerable to not having their prescription drug needs met by private Medicare prescription drug plans. They are uniquely situated as the cohort of Medicare beneficiaries most at risk by the MMA because they are losing current protections provided through Medicaid. Congress should modify the law to permit state Medicaid programs to voluntarily supplement gaps in Medicare's drug coverage. States advocated for the ability to provide wraparound drug coverage through Medicaid before the Medicare prescription drug law was enacted, and it is consistent with the manner in which Medicaid already supplements Medicare coverage for other services for dual eligibles, such as cost-sharing and long-term services.
Jeffrey S. Crowley is Project Director for the Health Policy Institute at Georgetown University

[1] CBO March 2004 Baseline, see http://www.cbo.gov/factsheets/2004b/Medicaid.pdf.
[2] Drugs covered by Medicare Parts A and B include injectable drugs, immunosuppressive drugs used by organ transplant recipients, epoetin alfa (which is used by persons with cancer and end-stage renal disease and other conditions to treat anemia), and certain vaccines. Medicare also covers oral cancer drugs if they are also available in injectable form. Oral cancer drugs not available in injectable form, however, are not currently covered by Medicare and prescription drug plans will be permitted to cover these drugs.
[3] Except for smoking cessation drugs, the MMA prohibits Medicare prescription drug plans from covering drugs that may be restricted from coverage by state Medicaid programs. Medicaid programs that choose to cover prescription drugs are permitted not to cover the following drugs (and their medical uses): 1) Drugs when used for anorexia, weight loss, or weight gain; 2) drugs when used to promote fertility; 3) drugs when used for cosmetic purposes or hair growth; 4) drugs when used for the symptomatic relief of coughs and colds; 5) drugs when used to promote smoking cessation; 6) prescription vitamins and mineral products, except prenatal vitamins and fluoride preparations; 7) nonprescription drugs; 8) covered outpatient drugs which the manufacturer seeks to require as a condition of sale that associated tests or monitoring services be purchased exclusively from the manufacturer or its designee; 9) barbiturates; and, 10) benzodiazepines.
[4] ?1860D-4(b)(3)(A) of the Social Security Act, as added by P.L. 108-173.
[5] ?1860D-4(b)(3)(B) of the Social Security Act, as added by P.L. 108-173.
[6] ?1860D-4(b)(3)(C) of the Social Security Act, as added by P.L. 108-173.
[7] Report to Congress: New Approaches in Medicare (see Chapter 1), Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, June 2004.
[8] Huskamp, H.A. and Keating, N.L. , The New Medicare Drug Benefit: Potential Effects of Pharmacy Management Tools on Access to Medications, Harvard Medical School prepared for the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation, July 2004.
[9] Dual Eligibles: Medicaid's Role in Filling Medicare's Gaps, Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, March 2004.
[10] Crowley, J.S. , The New Medicare Prescription Drug Law: Issues for Dual Eligibles with Disabilities and Serious Conditions, Kaiser Commission on Medicaid and the Uninsured, June 2004.
[11] Huskamp, H.A. , Rosenthal, M.B. , Frank, R.G. , and Newhouse, J.P. , "The Medicare prescription drug benefit: how will the game be played?," Health Affairs (Mar/Apr 2000): 8-23.

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Working Paper

Fifty Concerns about the Medicare Law, and Ideas on How To Fix Them

by Jeanne M. Lambrew, PhD
July 22, 2004
Download Full Report >
http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=128706

One of the few statements accepted across the political spectrum is that the implications of the new Medicare law are enormous. Clearly, the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) is important because it adds a long-overdue drug benefit to the program that costs between $400 and $535 billion over ten years. Beyond this, the delivery system and design of the drug benefit; its interactions with the renamed and reinvigorated Medicare Advantage (formerly the Medicare + Choice program); and other changes have similarly profound implications. Many of the changes are clear in the structure of the legislation, [i] but others are in its details and their impact depends on their implementation.
This paper aims to both catalogue the important issues associated with the new law and suggest how they could be addressed. The 50 highlighted issues are both serious and solvable. They focus on concerns of beneficiaries -- particularly those with low income or high health care needs [ii] -- rather than those of health care providers, health plans, potential drug insurers, or drug manufacturers. Each is described succinctly, including references to both the section of the law where the issue arises and the page number in the Conference Report to Accompany H.R. 1. [iii] The regulatory and legislative fixes are brief suggestions rather than full-blown proposals. Some require further policy development and involve tradeoffs. For example, increasing consumer protections may discourage private plan participation; limiting potentially overly-aggressive cost management tools may increase Federal costs. The intent is to encourage discussion and debate about policies to ensure affordable, meaningful drug coverage, and basic benefits, for the Medicare population.
This paper places a special emphasis on potential regulatory changes to the new Medicare law. The law delegates numerous and significant policy decisions to the regulatory process and the Secretary of Health and Human Services. For example, the regulations could create a simplified appeals process for beneficiaries who lose access to preferred drugs when a plan changes its formulary midyear; they could create standards the limit employer "dropping" of their contributions to retiree drug coverage. These regulatory improvements are especially important since the odds are low that legislative changes can be enacted in the near term. The President has indicated that he will veto major legislative changes, [iv]and has declined to send to Congress a list of technical corrections as required by law. [v] As such, the forthcoming proposed regulations represent an important moment in Medicare policy making.
Download Full Report >
Jeanne M. Lambrew is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and associate professor in the Department of Health Policy at The George Washington University School of Public Health and Health Services.
[i] For an overview, see Moon M. (June 2004). How Beneficiaries Fare Under the New Medicare Drug Bill. New York: The Commonwealth Fund.
[ii] For a fuller description of the consumer issues in the new law, see Dallek G. (July 2004). Consumer Protection Issues Raised by The Medicare Prescription Drug, Modernization, and Improvement Act of 2004. Menlo Park, CA: The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation.
[iii] U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Ways and Means. (November 21, 2003). Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003: Conference Report to Accompany H.R. 1. Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office.
[iv] Bush GW. (January 20, 2004). The State of the Union Address. Washington, DC: The White House.
[v] Marre K. (June 2, 2004). "Administration: No technical Medicare bill is necessary," The Hill, p. 16.


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>> RIGHT

Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage in Action
AEI Newsletter
Posted: Thursday, July 22, 2004
ARTICLES
August 2004 Newsletter
Publication Date: August 1, 2004
Since President George W. Bush signed the Medicare Modernization Act into law on December 8, 2003, it has been criticized as too expensive (estimates range from $409 billion to $534 billion for costs to be incurred through 2013) and too complex for seniors to understand. In their new study Private Discounts, Public Subsidies: How the Medicare Prescription Drug Discount Card Really Works, AEI's Joseph Antos and Ximena Pinell compare the prescription drug discount program with other discount programs and find that it can, in fact, provide substantial savings to seniors but that enrollment requires better consumer access to program information than is currently available.
The drug discount card program mandated in the Medicare Modernization Act offers prescription drugs at savings between 5 and 50 percent greater than existing plans. Low-income seniors who lack insurance coverage can receive a $600 annual cash subsidy and access special discounts offered by drug manufacturers. Based upon estimates for prescription drugs from the Medicare website, Antos and Pinell argue that between June and December of this year, beneficiaries could save between one-half to three-quarters of their total prescription drug costs, and they present case studies with price comparisons between already existing prescription drug programs and the new Medicare discount program.
All Medicare beneficiaries who do not already have prescription drug coverage under the Medicaid program may enroll in the new program, and Medicare discount cards can be obtained through pharmacies and health plans operating under the Medicare Advantage program for an enrollment fee of no more than $30--which is waived for seniors whose income does not exceed 135 percent of the federal poverty level. The program aims to enable consumers to compare prices for drugs anywhere in the country, thereby promoting competition through price transparency.
As of the first week of June, only 2.9 million seniors were enrolled in the program, 2.4 million of whom had been automatically enrolled under Medicare managed-care plans. Antos and Pinell find that the newness of the program and the extensive criticism, coupled with the limited availability of information on the Medicare website, have inhibited enrollment, and they credit the Access to Benefits Coalition with attempting to counter these difficulties and provide a clearing-house for consumer-friendly information regarding the program.
Related Links
More about the book
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Putting Health Savings Accounts into Practice
New Guidance from the Treasury
Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) have proven to be one of the most controversial provisions of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003. Will HSAs blaze a trail to a more efficient health care system? Will they disrupt existing employer-sponsored insurance? Will they prove popular with health insurers, employers, and individual consumers? Or are they just another variation in the tax code that will be ignored by almost everyone? The future of HSAs, and their effect on health care markets, will depend greatly on how the law is interpreted by the U.S. Treasury Department's new guidance.
At this health policy discussion, Roy Ramthun and William Sweetnam Jr. of the Treasury Department will explain departmental efforts to develop HSAs within the provisions of the law. Three experts on HSAs and private health insurance markets will share their assessments of the Treasury's new guidance and its effect on the future of health insurance.
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>> NORTH KOREAN INTERLUDE...

Japan's Sinister Intention Disclosed in "Defense White Paper"
Pyongyang, July 21 (KCNA) -- The Japanese Defense Agency recently worked out a "defense white paper" for 2004 and presented it to the Cabinet meeting. In the paper Japan painted a distorted picture of the state of affairs, alleging that the situation in the Asia-Pacific region was rendered unstable by the DPRK, pulling it up again. Minju Joson Wednesday in a commentary says that as for the military capabilities of the DPRK with which Japan took issue, they are means of legitimate self-defense designed to protect the sovereignty of the country and security of the nation from the U.S. imperialists' hostile policy toward the DPRK and their moves to strangle it. Every sovereign state has the right to possess this means and there is no cause for Japan to talk this or that about the matter, it adds.
The commentary cites facts exposing the aim pursued by Japan in trying to find fault with the DPRK in the paper.
It is the petty trick of Japan to attain everything needed for turning itself into a military power and implementing its policy of overseas expansion under the pretext of coping with "threat from the DPRK", it notes, and continues:
It is a mistake if Japan thought its imprudent scheming would work all the time. Japan would be well advised to refrain from the frivolous act of absurdly slandering others. It should discard cold war mentality such as confrontation and distrust in Northeast Asia and look squarely into the trend of the times in which moves toward reconciliation and cooperation are picking up greater momentum than ever before.


Negotiations for Transfer of U.S. Military Base in Ryongsan
Pyongyang, July 23 (KCNA) -- Members of the People for Achieving Peace and Reunification and the Phyongthaek Measure Committee against the Expansion of the U.S. Military Base and civilians in Phyongthaek reportedly held a press conference in front of the building of the "government" in Seoul on July 19 to reject the negotiations for the transfer of the U.S. military base in Ryongsan. Speakers including the director of the Secretariat of the People for Achieving Peace and Reunification in their speeches noted that they would strongly oppose the 10th consultative council meeting of the future of the south Korea-U.S alliance policy initiative slated to be held in the U.S. which would discuss the issue of drawing up an agreement on the transfer of the U.S. military base in Ryongsan and an accord to implement it.
A press release issued at the press conference said the humiliating nature has been revealed by the negotiations for the transfer of the U.S. military base in Ryongsan and this is the reason why the organizations are opposed to the above-said meeting.
The demands of the U.S. were unilaterally met at the last negotiations for the transfer of the U.S military base in Ryongsan because of the inequality manifested in those negotiations, the press release said, strongly demanding a total restart of the negotiations.
It held that the U.S. should not cut back its forces in south Korea but completely pull them out of south Korea.
At the end of the press conference, the participants staged a sit-in strike in front of the building.


U.S. Reckless Military Racket Denounced
Pyongyang, July 21 (KCNA) -- The United States is staging "RIMPAC 2004" joint military exercises and a large-scale military drill code-named "Summer Pulse 04" in the Asia-Pacific region. This goes to prove that the black-hearted intention of the Bush administration to realize the strategy of preemptive attack in the Asia-Pacific region and the rest of the world at any cost has reached a very serious and dangerous phase. Rodong Sinmun Wednesday says this in a signed commentary.
It goes on:
It is the U.S. calculation that it can dominate the world only when the Asia-Pacific region is placed under its control as "the 21st century would be a century for Asia-Pacific". Its Asia-Pacific strategy is aimed to establish its domination over the region and prevent any force seeking hegemony and union from emerging. The U.S. foresees that its potential enemy may emerge in the region. The bellicose Bush group set out a new "national security strategy" the keynote of which is "preemptive attack" and is using it as a main leverage for realizing its ambition for world domination. It is now putting spurs to the moves to increase its combat capacity, focusing on Northeast Asia.
The on-going large-scale military exercises are aimed to carry out the U.S. Asia-Pacific strategy and its new "strategy of preemptive attack." In a word, the main purpose of these maneuvers is to improve the long-range deployment capacity of the U.S. forces and the mobile capability of its forces overseas and help them acquire those capabilities in order to realize the strategy of blitz warfare by a surprise war and preemptive attack.
The U.S. is staging maneuvers under the simulated conditions of an actual war with huge forces involved in an area near Taiwan. In recent years the U.S. has massively shipped its weapons into Taiwan. But the saber-rattling for a preemptive attack launched by the U.S. to realize its Asia-Pacific strategy is as dangerous an act as jumping from a frying pan into the fire.
The U.S. adventurous strategy of preemptive attack is, however, bound to go bust. It. is well advised to stop its reckless play with fire.

Participants in March for Korean Peace and Reunification Meet
Sinchon, July 21 (KCNA) -- Members of the group of participants in an international march for Korean peace and reunification held a meeting in the chest-nut valley in Wonam-ri, Sinchon County of South Hwanghae Province Wednesday to condemn the U.S. imperialists' mass killings of Koreans. They laid bouquets and flowers before the grave of 400 mothers and the grave of 102 children before listening to the testimonies made by those who underwent great misfortune and pain due to the U.S. imperialist aggressors in the land of Sinchon during the last Korean war.
Ju Sang Won, lecturer at the Sinchon Museum, who narrowly escaped death in a powder storage in Wonam-ri, told about the monstrous crime committed by GIs. He said they herded children into the powder storage and did not give them even a drop of water before spraying gasoline over them to burn them.
Then they threw hand-grenades into the storage, killing all of them, he added.
Choe Kyong Nyo, section chief of the Sinchon County People's Committee, testified to the mass killings of innocent civilians including children and old people committed by GIs and asked the marchers to fully expose and condemn these hideous crimes before the world.
Michel Watts, a participant in the march and chief of the U.S. branch of the Association for Friendship with the Korean people, said in his speech that everyone should clearly know about the bloodbath in Sinchon and the blood-stained history of the United States and that he, an American, would like to apologize for GIs' crimes in Korea.
He vowed to fight to prevent the repetition of the crimes the U.S. committed against other nations and other countries and the atrocities it perpetrated in Korea.
A letter to the U.S. president was adopted at the meeting.
The letter said the destruction and killing of civilians committed by Gis during the last Korean war are the inhumane and monstrous crimes unprecedented in the world history of war in their scale and targets and in their ferocious and brutal nature. The U.S. government should be held fully responsible for the above-said crimes and make an honest apology and compensation to the Korean people, the letter demanded, and continued:
The U.S. has stood in the Korean nation's way of independent reunification and seriously threatened peace and security on the Korean peninsula over the last 51 years. It must stop running wild, pondering over the grave consequences to be entailed by its hostile policy toward the DPRK.
If the U.S. is truly concerned for the peace and reunification of the Korean peninsula, it should immediately accept the fair and aboveboard proposal of the DPRK to seek a peaceful and negotiated solution to the nuclear issue on the principle of simultaneous actions. And it should withdraw its troops from south Korea and stop at once its military threat and blackmail which may lead the situation on the peninsula to catastrophe.
Prior to the meeting the marchers visited the Sinchon Museum.


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>> YOU DON'T SAY WATCH...


The SEC and Market Structure Reform
No Data, No Analysis, No Vision
By Peter J. Wallison
Posted: Tuesday, July 13, 2004

FINANCIAL SERVICES OUTLOOK
AEI Online (Washington)
Publication Date: July 1, 2004
The proposal of the Securities and Exchange Commission for market structure reform, like so many other recent SEC initiatives, seems entirely ad hoc. There are certainly good reasons for considering reform of a market that consists of two separate and entirely different structures--one centralized and lacking any significant competition, and the other decentralized and highly competitive--but the SEC did not present any. Instead, the commission's proposal, which is not based on either market data or a vision of how the securities markets should function, seems designed to placate contending interests rather than meet the needs of investors or companies, now or in the future.
In late February, the Securities and Exchange Commission published Regulation NMS, a long-awaited proposal for market structure reform. There is little doubt that reform is overdue. The last major restructuring of the securities markets occurred in 1975, when Congress adopted a plan for a national market system. In that legislation, which followed serious SEC studies of the securities market in 1963 and 1971, Congress seemed to contemplate a number of regional securities markets that would compete with the New York Stock Exchange and a future in which investors would be able to access these markets without the use of intermediaries. This is not, of course, the structure that has since developed. Today, the NYSE remains the dominant market for NYSE-listed securities, many of the regional exchanges have withered, and investors who want to buy or sell NYSE-listed securities must still do so by placing orders with brokers.
The Ascent of Nasdaq
But while the structure for trading NYSE-listed securities has remained largely immutable, there has been a virtual revolution elsewhere in the securities markets since 1975. An informal dealer market that traded non-listed securities over the counter in 1975 became a formalized dealer market known as Nasdaq; entirely new computerized order-matching venues (known as electronic communications networks, or ECNs), arose to challenge the Nasdaq dealer market; and in response Nasdaq itself became a fully electronic market. In some ECNs, institutional traders can trade anonymously with other institutions without the intercession of a broker. In other words, the original vision of Congress for a securities market of competing venues and direct access by investors has been partially realized--but in the Nasdaq market, not in the market for NYSE-listed shares, where Congress apparently intended that it occur.
The reasons for this are complex, but SEC regulatory decisions are probably an important factor. Since 1975, the SEC has approved rules--such as the trade-through rule--that have tended to support the dominant position of the NYSE in trading NYSE-listed securities. The trade-through rule requires that orders to buy or sell securities listed on any registered stock exchange be sent for execution to the market where the best price is posted. Because the NYSE is the largest and most liquid market for these securities, it generally has the best prices, and thus the trade-through rule has reduced the likelihood that any serious competition for the NYSE would arise.
As originally framed, Nasdaq was a dealer market; it consisted entirely of dealers who made markets in securities that were not listed on any registered exchange by offering to buy or sell shares as principals. In this market, an investor (through a broker) would survey the prices and number of shares each market maker was willing to buy or sell and then choose the dealer or dealers with whom he or she would execute a trade. Since Nasdaq was a dealer market and not a registered exchange, it was not subject to the trade-through rule and was thus vulnerable to competition from a source that offered superior prices or services.
Such a competitor appeared in the late 1990s, when ECNs began to offer computerized matching of offers to buy or sell Nasdaq securities. Over time, as institutional investors found that they could effect trades at lower cost and achieve better overall pricing on the ECNs, these competitive trading venues began to drain market share from the dealers who made up the Nasdaq market. Eventually, in a bid to remain a viable market, Nasdaq sought the approval of the SEC to become a privately owned electronic market, competing with the ECNs for market share in Nasdaq securities. It has been a difficult struggle for Nasdaq. Even with the advantages of greater liquidity, Nasdaq today has less than 20 percent of the trading volume in Nasdaq securities.
Thus, by 2004 the U.S. securities market was characterized by two entirely different trading structures. For NYSE-listed securities (as well as those listed on the American Stock Exchange, or Amex), there is a centralized registered exchange that accounts for the vast majority of the trading. For Nasdaq securities, there is a market that consists of competitive trading venues, each vying to gain and hold market share. Although some portion of trading in NYSE securities takes place on Nasdaq or the ECNs under various exemptions, by and large the two different markets do not compete to offer better services or prices to investors. What competition between them occurs is limited to vying for listings by companies that want their shares to be traded on an organized market.
It is hard to see how government support for the existence of two entirely different securities market structures can have any rational policy basis. One of these trading formats must, on the whole, be better than the other. It would be one thing if the two structures were competing--if, for example, NYSE-listed securities could be traded on Nasdaq and vice versa. Then competition would resolve the issue: the best overall system would win. This is what happens when competitive and incompatible systems arise in the private sector; competition either picks a winner, or the systems become specialized so that they serve important submarkets. As an example of the latter outcome, in computer operating systems, Windows is now the dominant form, but Macintosh retains some market share because it offers special qualities for various submarkets.
But what is unusual in the heavily regulated securities market is that government regulation seems to be preventing competition, perpetuating support for two different market structures so that competition between them cannot resolve the question of which is best for investors and public companies. It is as though the Federal Communications Commission were fostering two different and incompatible telephone systems, so that users of one system could not place calls to users of the other. We would not think this made much sense if it happened in the world of telephones, but for some reason the existence of a similar outcome in the securities market has not provoked widespread objection.
Judging the Centralized NYSE Structure
Each of the structures has its strong proponents. Supporters of the centralized NYSE structure and the trade-through rule argue that concentrating most trading in a single market reduces bid-ask spreads and thus provides investors with the best prices available in the market. They also contend that breaking up this central trading venue by permitting or encouraging competition would fragment the market, so that bid-ask spreads will widen, price discovery will weaken, investors will get inferior prices, and medium- sized and small companies will have difficulty attracting investor interest in their shares. Moreover, they argue, the specialist system utilized at the NYSE--in which a single firm is charged with maintaining an orderly market in each listed security by acquiring shares when there is an imbalance of sellers and selling shares when there is an imbalance of buyers--prevents unnecessary share price volatility and the losses that can result. Such a market is said to be better for "retail" investors, whose relatively small trades usually receive what is called "price improvement" when they are bought or sold by a specialist at a price somewhat better than that currently posted. These are powerful arguments for the centralized NYSE structure.
However, many institutional investors have complaints about trading in the centralized NYSE market. Among their concerns is the view that their trading interest--either buying or selling--has a greater "market impact" when trading occurs on the NYSE than when it takes place on the ECNs. This is a particular concern of institutional investors--mutual funds, pension funds, and other large traders--that want to buy or sell large blocks of shares within a short period of time. What they mean by greater market impact at the NYSE is the effect on share prices when the existence of a large order to buy or sell becomes known in the human-mediated NYSE market; in this case, prices rise or fall as others anticipate the effect of the order and profit from trading ahead of it, adversely affecting the average price that institutional investors receive in completing a large trade.
For this reason, many institutional investors believe that they can generally get better pricing on ECNs, where they can trade anonymously and without revealing the size of their trading interest to others in the market, thus reducing the market impact of their transactions. In a 2003 survey by Greenwich Associates for Instinet (an ECN), presented at an AEI conference in October 2003, the institutional investors who participated in the survey reported that ECNs were three times more likely to deliver low market impact than an exchange and twice as likely as a negotiated broker-to-broker trade that does not take place on the NYSE floor.[1] In the survey, ECNs were also deemed superior to exchanges in achieving anonymity, price improvement, and fast execution, but exchanges were deemed superior for certainty of execution.
As long as the trade-through rule exists, it will be difficult for institutional investors to trade NYSE-listed securities on ECNs. This is because ECNs match buy and sell orders virtually instantaneously. If, as required by the trade-through rule, these orders must be sent first to the floor of the NYSE (because a better price may be posted there), the delay before execution might mean the original match can no longer be effected. An example will make this clear. Assume that an institutional buyer wants to purchase 5,000 shares of Company A, an NYSE-listed security, that has been posted for sale on an ECN at $30. At the same time, an offer to sell 100 shares of Company A at $29.50 is posted on the floor of the NYSE. If the trade-through rule were to apply, the institutional buyer's order must first be sent to the NYSE to clear the 100-share offer before it can be executed for the full 5,000 shares on the ECN. Some surveys indicate that it takes an average of twelve seconds for the NYSE specialist to respond to an order. By that time, for a variety of reasons, the original offer at $30 may be gone. Thus, much of the value offered by ECNs for institutional trades might be lost as long as the trade-through rule continues to apply to NYSE-listed securities.[2]
Apart from institutional investors' complaints about the centralized NYSE structure and the applicability of the trade-through rule to the trading of NYSE-listed securities, supporters of a competitive market structure like the Nasdaq market argue that the competition among trading venues encourages innovation that will provide better service to investors and reduce costs. There is some evidence for this. The ability of ECNs to take more than 80 percent of trading in Nasdaq securities away from Nasdaq itself demonstrates that innovation can produce new ways of doing things that can out-compete even established institutions. In this case, to its credit, Nasdaq preserved itself by becoming an electronic market so it could compete with the ECNs, but the ultimate beneficiaries of the new trading method were investors, including institutional investors and the many shareholders and pensioners they are trading for. If the trade-through rule had been applicable to Nasdaq, it is very likely that the ECNs would never have become a significant competitive factor in the Nasdaq market.
So what we have here is a complex policy debate, revolving around questions such as these: Will a centralized market deliver better services to investors over time than a competitive market? If the trade-through rule were eliminated, would the ECNs out-compete the NYSE as they out-competed Nasdaq? Would that be a bad thing or a good thing for investors or for companies of varying sizes that list their shares for sale? There is little doubt that ECNs are a benefit to institutional investors; the benefits they offer to individual investors are less clear. Some contend that the trade-through rule and the centralized structure of the NYSE provide greater benefits to individual investors. Should the securities market be structured so as to provide benefits to institutional investors over individual investors, or the other way around? Should this question be answered through a regulatory decision or through competition and would not allowing competition be a regulatory decision in itself?
The SEC Plan
Into this policy debate stepped the SEC in February 2004, with a market structure reform proposal titled Regulation NMS. The proposed regulation would: (1) modify the application of the so-called "trade-through" rule in the trading of both New York Stock Exchange listed securities and Nasdaq securities, (2) impose a ceiling on the market access fees used by ECNs, (3) prohibit sub-penny bids and offers, and (4) change the method for the sharing of revenue from the sale of market data.
Although all of these proposals have significance for various aspects of securities market structure, the proposed changes in the trade-through rule have raised the most serious questions about what the SEC is proposing to do.
Before the publication of Regulation NMS, many observers anticipated that the SEC would eventually have to decide whether to retain the trade-through rule or to eliminate it, and that this decision in turn would suggest whether the SEC's market reform proposal would move in the direction of encouraging a centralized market like the NYSE for all securities trading, or a competitive market--like the Nasdaq market--where trading venues compete with one another.
But when Regulation NMS was published, it turned out that it was completely ad hoc. It did not seem to be based on any vision of what would be the best market for investors or even for companies that have listed their shares. It proposed to allow investors--probably institutional investors--to opt out of the trade-through rule on a trade-by-trade basis, which suggested that the SEC favored competitive markets; but then it also proposed to apply the trade-through rule to the Nasdaq market, where it had not been applicable before.
The only plausible theory for what the SEC might have been trying to do with this internally contradictory proposal is that it was a political compromise: the agency was attempting to placate the various parties in the debate by giving institutional investors and the ECNs a limited opportunity to trade NYSE securities in the electronic markets, while telling those who favor a centralized market and the trade-through rule that all the benefits of the rule will now be available to investors in Nasdaq securities. But it does not work. If institutional investors take advantage of the opt-out provision, it could substantially reduce the role of the NYSE as a central market and thus the benefits a central market is supposed to confer. And if applying the trade-through rule to Nasdaq securities has any effect, it will destroy the benefits that many see in the competitive Nasdaq marketplace. Regulation NMS, then, may be good politics for the SEC, but it is not good regulatory policy and it is certainly not real market structure reform.
More seriously, the 200-page release that accompanied Regulation NMS did not contain any rationale for the proposal--no analysis comparing the benefits that investors or companies receive from a centralized market with the benefits they derive from a competitive market, and no suggestion of what interests and purposes the SEC believes the securities market should serve. For example, an important question is whether in fact small investors--also known as retail investors--receive greater benefits from a centralized structure such as the NYSE or a competitive structure such as the Nasdaq market. It may well be true that when retail investors place orders for NYSE shares, they get better pricing on the NYSE, but it is also probably true that most small investors are shareholders through intermediaries such as mutual funds or pension funds, and these institutions may get better pricing through use of ECNs.
This is an important issue as a matter of policy, and the SEC could have contributed to its resolution by analyzing what benefits retail investors receive directly in comparison to the benefits they receive as shareholders of mutual funds or beneficiaries of pension funds. How many "retail" investors are there, and how much trading do they do? Even if we assume that retail investors receive better prices by trading on a centralized exchange such as the NYSE, do these benefits outweigh the lower overall prices that institutional traders believe they receive by trading through ECNs? On questions such as this--which should be central to a resolution of the policy issues associated with market structure reform--the SEC provides no analysis and no answers.
Unfortunately, this follows a pattern that is becoming characteristic of the current SEC. Its controversial shareholder-access proposal, for example, also had no empirical or analytical support and seems to be based entirely on placating various constituencies. Most recently, in adopting rules requiring that all mutual funds have independent chairs, the commission pointedly ignored data demonstrating that funds with non-independent chairs perform better over time than funds chaired by independent directors.
The release that accompanied the Regulation NMS proposal noted that "the objective of market center competition can be difficult to reconcile with the objective of investor order interaction." Indeed, as we have suggested above, such a reconciliation appears to be wholly impractical. But whether the SEC tries to reconcile the two systems or, more realistically, attempts to choose between them, the task is made more difficult if the agency does not do any analysis.
Comparing Securities Markets Structures
There is a good deal of useful analysis that could be done. At AEI, we have been studying the issues associated with securities market structure since early 2003 and will eventually issue a report with recommendations for reform. In connection with this project, we commissioned Professor Kenneth Lehn, a former chief economist at the SEC and now a professor at the University of Pittsburgh's Katz Graduate School of Business, to study how the three different trading venues--the NYSE, Nasdaq, and the ECNs--respond to stress. In a paper delivered at an AEI conference on June 10, 2004, Professor Lehn and two of his colleagues, Sukesh Patro and Kuldeep Shastri, presented their analysis, which contained some important data for students of the securities markets.
One of the strongest arguments for a centralized market structure is that it promotes efficient price discovery by focusing the maximum amount of liquidity in a single place. Price discovery--finding the price at which buyers and sellers will transact--is one of the principal functions of markets, and it is generally assumed that the more liquid a market, the more efficient the price discovery process. This is logical, since the concentration of buy and sell orders in a single place creates the maximum opportunity for the right price to be found, given the information available in the market at that moment.
There are two important corollaries to this idea. The first is that traders who transact in a highly liquid market get the best possible price at any given time, and the second is that an efficient and centralized market should be less volatile under stress, because the volume of buy and sell orders should keep the market from moving too rapidly in either direction in response to favorable or unfavorable news. Thus, an investor who wishes to sell on bad news should be able to get a better price in a liquid market than an illiquid one, because the volume of buy orders in a liquid market should provide some support to the price, even though the price is moving down on adverse news.
In the specific case of the NYSE and the Amex, an additional factor is said to dampen volatility. These markets both use a specialist system, in which--as noted above--an individual (employed by a specialist firm) is responsible for assuring an orderly market by buying when there is an imbalance of sellers and selling when there is an imbalance of buyers. There is a lot of skepticism about whether specialists actually do this effectively, but studies comparing Nasdaq price volatility with NYSE price volatility have in the past shown lower volatility in prices on the NYSE.
Given these assumptions, it would be expected that Professor Lehn's analysis--which focused specifically on periods of market stress--would further confirm the superiority of the centralized market structure in delivering better price discovery and lower volatility. However, this is not what the analysis showed.
In their study, Professor Lehn and his colleagues paired 341 NYSE stocks with the same number of Nasdaq stocks traded on two days during 2003.[3] Paired matching was necessary because, as noted above, the NYSE and Nasdaq are--with a very small number of exceptions--completely separate markets, trading an entirely different group of stocks. One of the major contributions of the Lehn study was the care with which pairs of stocks were matched, so that the overall efficiency of the different markets could be assessed for similar stocks on the same day. The match excluded all financial firms, utilities, ADRs, all firms with prices less than five dollars, and all NYSE firms with market values less than $300 million. The matched stocks were then divided into terciles (thirds) according to market capitalization. The large capitalization stocks, incidentally, account for most of the volume in their respective markets, including about 70 percent of the volume on the NYSE.
The authors then selected two days of market stress during 2003--that is, two days on which the markets were surprised by economic news, causing a rapid rise or fall in securities prices. The market stress days chosen were January 2, 2003, when the Dow Jones Industrial Average made its largest positive move that year, during forty minutes of trading in the morning, and May 1, 2003, when it made its largest negative move that year in a similar forty-minute period. In both cases, the market was surprised by reports from the Institute of Supply Management on that organization's index of manufacturing business conditions. The performance of both markets was then evaluated for the stress periods and calm periods on each of the two days chosen.
The data collected by the Lehn group is significant for policy analysis. It showed that for stocks in the largest capitalization tercile, in both calm and stress periods on those two days, both quoted and effective bid-asked spreads were lower on Nasdaq than on the NYSE, and in the Nasdaq market itself bid-ask spreads were lower on ECNs than they were at traditional market makers. On the other hand, for stocks in the two lower terciles, spreads were lower on the NYSE than they were in the Nasdaq market during both stress and calm periods. This result is in accord with other academic studies. However, in periods of stress for all terciles the spreads at ECNs widened less than on Nasdaq, and thus appeared to account for the relatively good performance of Nasdaq when compared to the NYSE on the top tercile and to improve the performance of Nasdaq for the two lower terciles, even though for these lower terciles Nasdaq's performance was not as good as that of the NYSE during periods of both calm and stress.
This result suggests that where there is already a high degree of liquidity in a stock there is no diminution in the quality of the market--including the process of price discovery and the suppression of volatility--when the stock is traded in a supposedly "fragmented" and competitive electronic market such as that for Nasdaq stocks. On the other hand, stocks with less liquidity may benefit from being listed on a centralized market such as the NYSE.
The implications of this data are profound. More research is probably necessary--the Lehn group is refining its work for presentation at another AEI conference in the fall of 2004--but as a preliminary matter, it appears that for large capitalization stocks the competitive structure associated with the Nasdaq market functions better under periods of both calm and stress than the centralized NYSE structure. The adverse effects of what is called "fragmentation"--the breaking up of liquidity so that spreads widen and price discovery suffer--is simply not evident for these securities. In fact, the opposite seems to be true: for highly liquid stocks, the fragmented market seems to be more orderly for these stocks than the centralized form.
On the other hand, to the extent that the SEC is interested in creating a better market for stocks of all companies, large and small, the Lehn group's results suggest that a centralized NYSE-style market may offer benefits for stocks with lower volume levels. This in turn suggests that if the NYSE were opened to competition by the electronic markets, trading in the high volume stocks might gravitate to Nasdaq and the ECNs, while trading in lower volume stocks would tend to concentrate on the NYSE and the Amex--where volatility and spreads would be lower during both calm and stress periods. More research is currently underway on this subject.
However, for purposes of this Financial Services Outlook report, the important point is that carefully designed and implemented studies could give the SEC the information necessary to understand the comparative benefits and deficiencies--for both investors and companies--of the centralized and the competitive structures that currently exist in the U.S. securities market. The fact that the SEC is attempting to implement market structure "reform" without doing an analysis of this kind should be a matter of concern to all those who understand the value and importance of the U.S. securities market.
Notes
1. Greenwich Associates, Instinet Proprietary Trade Execution Study: Research Results (October 2003), 8. For a link to the study and for other information on the AEI conference at which it was released, visit www.aei.org/event650.
2. To be sure, NYSE securities can be traded on ECNs without complying with the trade-through rule, but only if the ECN does not post a price in the Consolidated Quotation System--a system that lists all current posted prices for NYSE and other listed securities. However, without the opportunity to advertise a price, it is extremely difficult for ECNs to attract trading interest in NYSE and other listed securities.
3. The complete Lehn, Patro, and Shastri study is available, along with additional information and commentary from the AEI conference at which the study was presented.

Peter J. Wallison is a resident fellow at AEI.


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A Capital Idea from Microsoft
And a smashing endorsement of Bush's pro-growth tax cuts.
The stunning Microsoft decision to return more than $75 billion in cash to shareholders over the next four years is a smashing endorsement of the importance of President Bush's pro-growth tax cuts. It is also a tremendous boon to investors, who will recycle this windfall into thousands of businesses both large and small -- a process that will significantly increase new jobs and grow the economy.
The Redmond, Washington-based software maker intends to pay a special $3 dividend for every investor share, for a total of $32 billion. Additionally, Microsoft will double its annual dividend and buy as much as $30 billion of its own stock over the next four years. If this new policy raises the Microsoft share price -- as is likely -- then the total package could be worth over $100 billion to shareholders.
Ironically, Microsoft's corporate decision, induced by supply-side tax cuts, will also provide a huge Keynesian injection of fiscal stimulus to the economy, one that will more than offset the temporary effects of higher energy costs on consumer purchasing power. Even better, this sea-change policy will ripple through corporate America, forcing public companies to take similar actions.
When President Bush launched his initiative to equalize the tax rate on capital gains and investor dividends at 15 percent, there was a derisive outcry. Mainstream thinkers claimed the plan would only benefit the rich and have no impact on economic growth or jobs. Now that the economy -- led by business investment -- is growing at the fastest pace in two decades, the liberal establishment may wish to rethink its position.
Basically, the Bush plan significantly reduces Uncle Sam's tax bite on profits and investment capital, leaving more in private hands for channeling into job-creating businesses. Remember, both dividends and capital gains are taxed at the corporate level, the individual level, and as capital gains. While this triple taxation of capital was not eliminated, the tax penalty was substantially lowered. As the capital-gains levy was cut from 20 percent to 15 percent on the marginal dollar, the dividend rate was reduced at the top income level from 40 percent to 15 percent. Meanwhile, personal income-tax rates were reduced across the board.
The charge that this policy would only benefit the rich is patently false. A recent Zogby poll shows that a substantial 59 percent majority of investors has a portfolio valued at less than $100,000. In addition, 28 percent of investors earn a modest $50,000 to $75,000 a year; another 19 percent earn $35,000 to $50,000; and 7 percent earn less than $35,000. According to Zogby, "The majority of investors earn less than $75,000. . . . This helps explain why old-fashioned [class-warfare] populism does not work in political campaigns nationwide."
Steady dividend flows over time reduce equity risk and add enormous investor protection for retirement and other purposes. So what we're seeing now is a return to the old-time religion of investing for both dividends and capital-gains returns.
According to the American Shareholders Association, investor wealth has increased $2.2 trillion, or 25 percent, since May 20, 2003, the start date of the Bush policy. So far this year, 161 of the S&P 500 companies have raised or initiated dividends. According to Standard & Poor's, year-to-date dividend-paying issues in the S&P 500 index are averaging a 4.8 percent gain while non-dividend payers are down 3.5 percent.
Professor Jeremy Siegel of the University of Pennsylvania calculates that stock market returns including dividends have produced a 7 percent annual increase (adjusted for inflation) over long periods of time. But dividends fell behind in the last two decades because capital gains were taxed at a lower rate. Now, however, with a sharp reduction of the double-tax on dividends, dividend issuance is more efficient, with corporate payout policies more often based on the economics of a decision than just the tax consequence. Stock buybacks now have equal footing with dividend issuance. At lower tax rates, CEOs also have an incentive to pay out more cash to shareholders, rather than build internal empires or make unwise investment decisions.
In effect, the new law democratizes corporate governance. It puts real financial power into the hands of the shareholder constituency and removes it from the corpocratic front office.
Bush critics -- especially Kerry and Edwards, who wish to overturn the Bush policy -- fail to understand that reducing the double and triple taxation of investment capital is a business-funder, job-creator, and economic-grower. Simply put, capital is the best friend of both businesses and workers.
Bush's policies make more capital available by reducing its after-tax cost and raising its post-tax investment return. When it is more profitable after-tax to invest, the mighty investor class will do so. And by supplying ever more capital to business and the economy, 90 million investors will expand America's virtually unlimited potential to grow, create jobs, and prosper.
-- Larry Kudlow, NRO's Economics Editor, is CEO of Kudlow & Co. and host with Jim Cramer of CNBC's Kudlow & Cramer.
http://www.nationalreview.com/kudlow/kudlow200407230854.asp

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What Unites Europeans?
From the July 26, 2004 issue: Antipathy to the United Europe project.
by Gerard Baker
07/26/2004, Volume 009, Issue 43
UNDER PRESSURE from insurgents in Iraq, assailed by his Democratic opponent at home for a reckless "unilateralism," struggling to reassure a restive American public that his foreign policy is on the right track, President Bush has turned to an unlikely corner for help this summer--Europe.
In the space of three weeks in June, the president shuttled across the Atlantic on a diplomatic itinerary that read like that of a demented tourist--Rome, Paris, Normandy, Dublin, Istanbul. When he wasn't receiving their hospitality, Bush was treating European leaders to some of his own--at the G-8 Summit in Sea Island, Georgia, or on the fringes of President Reagan's funeral.
Throughout a hectic month, the talk was of hatchets buried, pages turned, old alliances renewed, friendships rekindled. In Paris, he enjoyed what aides said was a fine dinner with his old chum President Jacques Chirac (Bush may not have eaten any crow, but freedom fries were definitely off the menu). At Sea Island and in Istanbul, at the NATO summit, he exchanged warm words with Chancellor Gerhard Schr?der (no mention of certain former members of the German cabinet who once likened Bush to Hitler), and in Dublin he expressed his affection and appreciation for the leadership of the European Union (never a discouraging word about the differences between Old and New Europe). If Bush had broken into a few bars of the "Marseillaise" or donned a pair of lederhosen, his message could not have been clearer.
You don't have to be a cynic to believe there is a degree of pragmatism about this newfound fondness for Europe in the West Wing. Getting a U.N. resolution passed on Iraq last month was essential to an orderly transfer of power. Having the Europeans on board was the sine qua non of that project. Demonstrating to the American people that others are willing to take on some of the burden in Iraq is critical to puncturing the Kerry critique that only the Democrats can build an international coalition that will pave the way for an eventual U.S. departure.
And yet beyond these short-term political reasons, there does seem a steadily strengthening conviction, even among some of the most reluctant Atlanticists in this administration, that the United States might need Europe after all. Sure, the pacific old continent is never going to belly up to the bar when there's serious fighting to be done. And those who can produce something meaningful in military terms--the British, mainly, and some martial Eastern Europeans--have stuck with the United States all along, even in Iraq.
But Europe, the quasi-mythical entity, still seems to count to the rest of the world, and even to Americans. It just isn't enough to have the ever-loyal Tony Blair and a bunch of anonymous folk from the Eastern Bloc pulling for you if France and Germany, and through them the institutions of the European Union and NATO, are standing resentfully, contemptuously aside. If only we could get a united Europe, as we did in the Cold War, on our side, surely--Americans seem to be saying--we could achieve much more of what we want in the world.
You could be forgiven for thinking, with Americans now evidently less confident about their ability to remake the world, with Kerry and Bush apparently in a desperate competition to prove who is the more multilateralist and Euro-friendly, that this might be Europe's hour.
The once derided Old Europeans, it seems, have been vindicated and are in the intellectual and geopolitical ascendant. The French, Germans, Belgians, and others have, you would think, won the battle for the future of Europe. In Spain, Jos? Mar?a Aznar, the conservative prime minister, was ousted in March; Tony Blair and Silvio Berlusconi, Bush's other main European backers, are hanging by a thread.
With public opinion, fueled by the distortions of Michael Moore and the connivance of a complaisant media, hardening against the United States and its aims and ambitions in the Middle East, it would be easy to imagine Europeans uniting around the Franco-German leadership, with its lofty ambition to build Europe as a counterweight to American power in the world.
And yet, last month, even as Bush was making nice with European leaders, the voters on the old continent were giving a rather different verdict on them.
IN THE EUROPEAN parliamentary elections in early June, Chancellor Schr?der's Social Democrats in Germany suffered humiliation at the polls at the hands of their conservative opponents. In France, Chirac's Gaullists were soundly beaten by a combination of socialists and nationalists. Even in plucky little Belgium, the spiritual home of Europe's dreamers, the ruling party, which had fervently backed the Franco-German axis, got trounced.
It would be nice to think European voters had had a change of heart about Iraq, but sadly that was not behind the rout of the Old Europeans. In Britain, too, and in much of Eastern Europe, ruling parties got kicked.
Try as they might to blame a continent-wide set of special factors for the startling setbacks, there was one clear explanation for the rejection--and one that has even bigger implications for transatlantic relations than Iraq.
Europe's voters were reacting angrily, with a unified voice rarely seen in European politics, against the ambitious plans of the continent's elite to accelerate and deepen a process of political integration that has, as its ultimate ambition, the creation of a superstate to rival the United States.
Not only was support for governing parties substantially down, support for parties that have been opposed to European integration was up sharply. In Britain, the U.K. Independence party, which favors outright withdrawal from the E.U., got more than 16 percent of the vote, placing it third behind the already Euroskeptic conservatives and Labour. Euroskeptic (or Euro-realist, as they prefer to be called) parties did well in France, Austria, Belgium, and the Netherlands, too.
More striking still was the result in Eastern Europe. Having been admitted to the E.U. just a month earlier, voters in eight former Communist states voted against the E.U. in large numbers. In the Czech Republic, Hungary, and the Baltic states, Eurorealist parties fared well. And across Europe, in another sign of disenchantment and disdain for the European project, turnout was pitiful.
European voters--especially in the New Europe, which is alive and well, it should be noted--have good reason to react against the E.U.; there is a widespread view reflected in polls that it is out of touch, corrupt, and bureaucratic. Its economic policies stifle enterprise with complex regulations; its leading economies espouse high taxes and expensive welfare states even as the population ages rapidly. Above all, its Franco-German leadership still dreams of creating what amounts to a single, multination state, with its own foreign policy, that will make the E.U. much more effective at blocking U.S. policies.
To all this, most of Europe's voters said last month, politely, roughly what Dick Cheney said to Democratic senator Pat Leahy on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
And yet, in what must rank as another Marie Antoinette moment in Europe's history, the continent's political leaders simply ignored the popular verdict. A week after the historic elections, the E.U. leaders agreed on a treaty containing a new "constitution," the first ever for the E.U.
If ratified, this 400-page document would accelerate and deepen European integration. Over the objection of Britain to some of the more extreme elements, it would, in the fields of economics, social policy, justice and criminal law, and even foreign and security policy, establish broad, overarching European, as opposed to national, competence.
In other words, as voters were rejecting the vainglorious ambitions of Europe's elite to create a federal state, the leaders themselves were finalizing an ever more grandiose plan.
Happily, that is not the end of the story. The voters will get another chance. The treaty now has to be ratified by all 25 member states. Giving in reluctantly to enormous pressure to consult the public, at least eight countries--including Britain and France --will submit the constitution to a referendum.
In the interest of sane and safe representative democracy, it is fervently to be wished that the voters of Europe reject the plan. Under the treaty, if just one country fails to ratify it, the agreement becomes null. But another more likely and intriguing possibility is now in prospect.
Core European countries, most of whom, such as Germany, are not submitting the constitution to a vote in any case, will give their approval. France, a country with a long record of consulting its often truculent population, may prove trickier. But voters in the referendum there will come under serious pressure from all the mainstream parties to approve the treaty.
In Britain, too, Tony Blair will campaign hard for a Yes vote, but it looks a tall order. Opinion polls show more than two thirds of voters likely to reject the constitution.
If Britain rejects the treaty, it is possible the whole project will be scrapped. But more likely is an outcome hinted at in the constitution itself, which would enable those countries that want it to go ahead with closer integration in the political, economic, and social spheres. Under this "enhanced cooperation," in Euro-jargon, the core countries might accelerate the process by which they become something resembling a single state.
But other countries, like Britain, are likely to want to hold back, valuing their national independence, but also their economic systems and their foreign policies.
In a decade or so, then, it is possible to imagine not one Europe but two. A core group of countries would be characterized by aging and sclerotic economies, overregulated and overtaxed, as well as by exaggerated global ambitions to rival the United States as a superpower. An outer eurozone might be made up of Britain, Scandinavia (two of whose members have already rejected the euro), and several of the most dynamic former Communist countries, plus Turkey (which, unless French opposition prevents it again, will begin the process of joining the E.U. later this year).
These latter nations are likely to be strongly Atlanticist in outlook, promoting free markets and open trade and being broadly supportive of American global leadership--and, with Turkey on board, perhaps also offering a vital link to the Islamic world, promoting democracy and economic freedom in the Middle East, in line with the long-run strategic objectives of the United States.
Now that is a Europe America could really do business with.
Gerard Baker is U.S. editor of the Times of London and a contributing editor to The Weekly Standard.

? Copyright 2004, News Corporation, Weekly Standard, All Rights Reserved.
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Military might and political messages
By Mac William Bishop
TAIPEI - Military exercises often have as much political use as tactical utility, and this week, China, Taiwan and the US all have conducted major exercises in or around the Taiwan Strait. These maneuvers send messages about the various countries' intentions in the Taiwan Strait.
China's exercises began on July 16 and were scheduled to end Friday, July 23. Meanwhile, the United States' global Summer Pulse 2004 exercises, which began in mid-July and will last until mid-August, have moved to the Western Pacific region this week. Taiwan also is holding its annual Han Kuang (Han glory) exercises, which began on Wednesday, July 21, and will last until July 28.
The fact that the exercises are being conducted virtually simultaneously is neither an accident nor coincidental. It is also no accident that former Chinese president Jiang Zemin, now the chairman of the Communist Party's Central Military Commission, was quoted in a Hong Kong daily Wen Wei Po last week as in essence promising to attack Taiwan (seen as a wayward province) before or around the year 2020. The comments were made as China kicked off a major military exercise on Dongshan Island near China's southeast coast, only 280 kilometers from Taiwanese territory.
Yet even as China was showing off its military might near the Taiwan Strait, the US was conducting its own show of force in the Western Pacific, with an exercise called Summer Pulse 2004. This exercise is one of the largest naval drills the US has conducted in years, involving seven carrier strike groups - more than 120 warships, all over the world. The Pacific aspect of the exercise was widely interpreted by Taiwanese, as well as some Chinese and US pundits, as constituting a direct challenge to China.
The commander of US Pacific Forces, Admiral Thomas B Fargo, was in Beijing on a routine regional tour, and he was warned on Friday by Chinese Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing to stop military exchanges and arms sales to Taiwan. This is precisely what Li told US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice last week. Li said nothing about Summer Pulse 2004.
US military officials confirmed that the exercise was serving a purpose in this regard, but said it was an exaggeration to say that Summer Pulse was being held exclusively for the benefit of Taiwan and China. "It's a lie to say that the exercise is directed at China, but then again, it's a lie to say that it is not," a senior US defense source told the Asia Times Online.
Scheduling exercises no coincidence
The scheduling of these exercises is no accident, the source said, speaking on condition he not be identified further. There were very clear reasons that the US would choose to conduct parts of Summer Pulse in the Western Pacific at the same time that China and Taiwan were conducting their own exercises: to demonstrate the United States' ability to project power and to show China that the US can still play a deterrent role in the region, despite its other operational commitments worldwide, as in the Middle East.
In short, the exercises are being held by the US to remind China that it is still serious about its commitment to defend Taiwan.
China has consistently vowed that it would unify with the democratic island of Taiwan at any cost. High-ranking party officials and senior People's Liberation Army (PLA) officers in the past have said that Beijing is willing to go to war to prevent Taiwan from becoming an independent country, and Taipei and Beijing have yet to agree to formal negotiations about Taiwan's status.
Political tensions between the two rivals have increased with the controversial re-election of Taiwanese President Chen Shui-bian, and his administration's plan to formulate a new constitution is particularly worrying to Beijing. Chen promised in his inauguration speech on May 20 to confine the constitutional revisions to matters of administration and governance, and to avoid sensitive topics related to sovereignty.
"I am fully aware that consensus has yet to be reached on issues related to national sovereignty, territory and the subject of unification versus independence," Chen said. "Therefore, let me explicitly propose that these particular issues be excluded from the present project of constitutional re-engineering."
This pledge, however, did not assuage Beijing's fears that Chen had, in effect, established a timeline for independence.
China has, therefore, sought to employ various forms of pressure on Taiwan to remind the island's leaders that it was and remains deadly serious about preventing any slide toward independence. Jiang Zemin's comments and the publicity surrounding the PLA's military exercises can be interpreted in this light.
The exercises, in which 18,000 troops reportedly took part, have been conducted only 280km from the Taiwanese-controlled Penghu islands, also called the Pescadores. China's exercises are designed to demonstrate that country's ability to carry out joint operations, or missions involving naval, air and ground forces. These would be vital in carrying out a successful attack on Taiwan.
China seeks to demonstrate air superiority
According to Hong Kong's Ta Kung Pao newspaper, one of the primary goals of the exercises was to demonstrate China's ability to gain air superiority over Taiwan. Proving that it could control the air over the Taiwan Strait is of paramount importance to China, as the PLA Air Force (PLAAF) has long been outclassed by its Taiwanese counterpart, both in terms of the quality of its aircraft and the training of its pilots, according to some defense analysts.
However, the combination of increased defense spending by China and structural problems with Taiwan's military is beginning to erode the qualitative superiority of Taiwan's Air Force, according to the US Department of Defense's most recent report to the US Congress on China's military capabilities.
"The [Taiwanese] Air Force's recently completed transition from 1960s fighter aircraft to modern 'fourth generation' [advanced aircraft such as the US-made F-16 or the French-made Mirage 2000-5] units retains many of the qualitative advantages over the PLAAF. However, fighter pilot shortages are stressing personnel, and training is conservative and overemphasizes defensive counter-air missions," according to the report, Fiscal Year 2004 Report to Congress on PRC Military Power.
Correcting China's relative lack of "fourth generation" fighter aircraft is one of Beijing's top priorities. And as China's 2004 arms budget is about US$26 billion (many analysts believe China's arms budget is much higher than the official figures indicate), the PLAAF will probably not have to go begging to acquire advanced weapons systems.
"The PLAAF and the PLANAF [PLA Naval Air Forces] are undergoing significant upgrades, which include acquiring fourth-generation aircraft, air defense systems, advanced munitions, and C4ISR [command, control, communications, computers, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance] equipment," the US Defense Department's report noted.
One of the reasons Beijing wants more capable air forces is due to the Chinese strategy of preventing intervention by "third parties" (ie the United States) in the event of a Taiwan Strait conflict.
The US, which is by law committed to providing for Taiwan's defense by selling weapons to the island, has in the past shown its willingness to intervene in crises in the Taiwan Strait. Notably, in 1996, former US president Bill Clinton dispatched two aircraft-carrier battle groups to the region after China began firing missiles into the waters of the Taiwan Strait. The missile tests were apparently designed to prevent the people of Taiwan from voting for Lee Teng-hui, an avowed pro-independence presidential candidate. The threats were unsuccessful - in fact, some analysts believe they had an effect opposite to that intended by China - and Lee won the election.
Strategic cross-Strait balance shifting to China
However, the cross-Strait strategic balance has been rapidly shifting in China's favor over the past 10 years, and many analysts - including experts at the Pentagon - are starting to believe that the US would have a difficult time intervening on Taiwan's behalf should China decide to attack. Therefore, some elements of the US military want to show China that the US could respond - in a very substantial way.
Official statements from the US Navy confirm that the primary purpose of the drills was to demonstrate the US's ability to get ships where they were needed as quickly as possible.
"We've moved from our standard deployment pattern to the Fleet Response Plan, where we promised the president of the United States that we can put six carriers anywhere in the world within 30 days, and [two more carriers] shortly after that," Vice Admiral Michael McCabe, the commander of the US Navy 3rd Fleet, said in a statement on the US Pacific Command's website. "We've changed the way we maintain, the way we train, the way we equip and the way we deploy. As an example of that, this summer, in what's called Summer Pulse, we will have seven different aircraft carriers with their supporting ships operating in five different theaters."
However, a number of strategic assessments of possible "Taiwan scenarios" indicate that many US defense officials believe China is gaining the ability to defeat Taiwanese forces before foreign militaries could intervene. The US, then, is not relying on a purely military containment strategy.
"Washington does not in any way ignore China's military buildup and the possibility that it might in the long term pose a strategic challenge to the United States," said Richard Bush, the director of the Center for Northeast Asian Policy Studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC. Bush is also a former director and chairman of the American Institute in Taiwan, the US de facto embassy in Taipei.
"But successive administrations, Democratic and Republican alike, believe that US interests will be best served by a PRC [People's Republic of China] that is deeply integrated into the international community," Bush said. "If, on the other hand, the United States starts out by treating China as our enemy, it will surely become our enemy."
US not trying to 'surround' China
Another US defense expert concurred with this assessment.
"The United States policy toward China is still an engagement policy. The long-term intentions of China toward Taiwan and the rest of Asia are not clear, but the US does not actively seek to contain China," said Larry Wortzel, the director of the conservative Heritage Foundation's Davis Institute for International Studies in Washington. Nor is the US "surrounding' China", he said.
Taiwan, meanwhile, appears to be trying to adapt to the changing military balance in the Taiwan Strait, despite its relatively limited resources. Taiwan's Legislative Yuan has approved a nearly US$10 billion defense budget for this year, not including a "special budget" of approximately $16 billion earmarked for the procurement of a number of high-profile advanced weapons systems from the US. The special defense budget is at present the source of bitter debate within the Legislative Yuan, as many in Taiwan feel the money could better be spent elsewhere.
Despite the lack of a consensus on priorities, the military establishment in Taiwan is attempting to carry on as usual. The country began conducting its annual Han Kuang series of military exercises on Wednesday. The exercises, criticized by some observers as unimaginative and pointless, include a mock counter-landing operation, a rehearsal of an airborne assault, and several live-fire exercises.
But one of the most highly anticipated events in this year's exercise took place on Wednesday, when Taiwan's air force landed two Mirage fighter aircraft on the Sun Yat-sen Freeway in central Taiwan. When the freeway was built in the 1970s, several portions were designed to be used as temporary or emergency runways in the event of a war with China. Taiwan has five such freeways, several portions of which could theoretically be used as emergency airfields.
But the hype surrounding the landings was dismissed by some observers. "Landing on the freeway is no different from landing on a regular runway," said retired Taiwanese army general Shui Hua-ming. "The only difference is, well, it is the freeway, not an airport."
One foreign defense analyst held a different view. "The freeway landings are good, because it shows that Taiwan's military is trying something different," the analyst said, on condition of anonymity. "Usually, every year it was the same thing. They hold the same anti-amphibious landing exercise, blow up the same beach, and then turn around and everyone claps," he said.
Taiwan still hasn't fortified its airfields and hangars to increase their survivability in the event of a "saturation attack" by the PLA's Second Artillery Corps (China's missile forces), so the country was still vulnerable to the more than 500 short- and medium-range missiles that are deployed across the Strait, targeting Taiwan.
"This is a good sign," the analyst said. "It shows that Taiwan's military is willing to take a few risks and look for new alternatives to defend Taiwan."
Mac William Bishop is a journalist based in Taipei. Comments or queries may be sent to mwbtaiwan@hotmail.com .
(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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WANTED: AN IRAN POLICY

By AMIR TAHERI


July 20, 2004 -- IS Iran shaping up as an issue in the American pres idential election campaign?
A month ago, the question would have appeared fanciful. Then the assumption was that violence in Iraq would use up all the space there is in such a campaign for foreign policy.
Now, however, there are signs that Iran might come up as an issue over which President Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry are clearly divided -- much more so than over Iraq.
Iran offers Bush and Kerry a chance to demonstrate their different approaches to the issue of dealing with regimes that, rightly or wrongly, are perceived as hostile to the United States and/or its allies. In a broader perspective, the issue would enable Bush and Kerry to debate their views on how American power should be used in the post-Cold War world.
What is pushing Iran into the American presidential agenda?
The first issue is Iran's alleged program to build an arsenal of nuclear weapons.
There is a growing consensus, even in European circles, that the Islamic Republic has made the strategic decision to "go nuclear." The question is no longer whether anyone could persuade Tehran to change its mind on an issue that lies at the heart of its new defense doctrine.
Ardeshir Zahedi, a former foreign minister of Iran, put the case neatly in a recent article in The Wall Street Journal. He said the real question was whether the region, and beyond it the world, could live with a nuclear-armed Iran under the present regime.
The Iranian nuclear issue is likely to reach the U.N. Security Council this autumn, perhaps on the eve of the U.S. election.
The Bush administration has not developed a clear policy on the issue. Last year, it endorsed European Union efforts to persuade Tehran to abandon the military aspect of its nuclear program. With those efforts now at an end, the administration is reverting to unspecified threats to dissuade Tehran from "going nuclear."
Kerry, on the other hand, has proposed what could, in diplomatic terms, be described as a flight of fancy.
His idea is simple: The United States and its allies should offer to provide Iran with as much enriched uranium as it needs for producing electricity and, at the other end of the cycle, receive the total amount of spent uranium fuel for reprocessing.
In other words, Kerry is inviting the mullahs to give the United States control over both ends of their nuclear program. Although some in Tehran have welcomed Kerry's offer, there is little chance the Islamic Republic will accept it.
The second issue propelling Iran into the headlines concerns Iraq and Afghanistan. Both countries are scheduled to hold elections soon. And Iranian-backed elements in Afghanistan and Iraq are receiving vast sums of money and propaganda support.
In Afghanistan, they could end up winning almost 30 percent of the seats in a future parliament. That could put them in a position to form a coalition with other anti-American elements, and those opposed to democratization in general, to gain control of the future parliament.
Also in Afghanistan, Iran is sponsoring the Pushtun Islamist warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar against moderate Pushtuns led by the interim President Hamid Karzai. Most of the recent attacks against foreign-aid workers in southern Afghanistan, as well as around Kunduz, have been the work of Hekmatyar's armed gangs rather than the Taliban.
Support for Iran is less strong in Iraq -- but the impact of Iranian money, organizational skill, propaganda and intimidating tactics shouldn't be underestimated.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Islamic Republic's "Supreme Guide," has said that the "New Middle East" that is to emerge after the fall of the Taliban and Saddam must "conform to what Iran wants, not what Washington dictates."
The third issue concerns Palestine: The disintegration of the Palestinian leadership under Yasser Arafat and the dismantling of Hamas by the Israelis are creating a vacuum that Tehran hopes to fill.
Tehran is reviving the Palestinian branch of the Hezbollah, which had almost faded away since the start of the now defunct "second Intifada." Iran is supported by Syria, which is equally determined to oppose Washington's attempt at reshaping the Middle East.
Tehran still believes that control of the "Palestinian cause" could give it a leadership position in the Muslim world and enhance its defenses against military action by the United States and/or Israel.
The fourth issue concerns Iran's alleged role in sponsoring international terrorism. Tehran has not denied the CIA claims that some of the 9/11 terrorists had spent time in Iran. It is also a public fact that hundreds of Taliban and al Qaeda militants have sought refuge in Iran. Some former Taliban leaders have purchased homes in several Iranian localities, notably Pishin and Dost-Muhammad.
Groups that want the United States to adopt a "regime change" policy on Iran are building up a case against the Islamic Republic on the basis of its alleged links with terrorist attacks aimed at America and its allies in the past quarter-century. These groups (which include many Iranian-Americans) hope to persuade Bush to adopt a tougher position on Iran.
But other groups (again including some Iranian-Americans) are campaigning for a dialogue between Tehran and Washington. Kerry's senior foreign-policy aides have said he favors such a dialogue.
The dialogue idea is also promoted by a new "task force" led by Zbigniew Bzrezinski, who was President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser, and Robert Gates, the former CIA director. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright and former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Richard Holbrooke are also campaigning for "normalization" with the Islamic Republic.
Because of its internal divisions, the Bush administration has not been able to develop a policy on Iran. While Bush has described the Islamic Republic as part of an "axis of evil," Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has praised Iran as "a sort of democracy" that the United States must accommodate.
The presidential campaign might force the Bush camp to dispel the mental fog that has shrouded its thinking on Iran for almost four years. And that, in turn, could compel the Kerry camp to come up with more realistic ideas of how best to deal with a regime that, regardless of its merits and demerits, cannot be ignored in one of the world's most sensitive regions.
E-mail: amirtaheri@benadorassociates.com
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The Discovery of Iran
Are you sitting down? Iran is a terrorist state.

The organizers of the Council on Foreign Relations special task force to promote the appeasement of Iran must be cursing their uncommonly bad luck. They scheduled a meeting in Washington today to call for increasing normalization of relations between the United States and Iran. With a fine eye for dark comedy, the Council persuaded two relics of the catastrophic Carter years to appear: Zbigniew Brzezinski and Robert Gates. The principal advocate of the policy, however, is undoubtedly the president of the Council, Richard Haas, who has long seen rapprochement with the mullahs as an "historic opportunity" for the United States. Haas was the head of Colin Powell's Policy Planning Staff.
Whatever chances they had of successfully advancing appeasement were shattered over the weekend, as some talkative source at the 9/11 Commission told the old media (notably Time and Newsweek) that there was new evidence documenting the longstanding relationship between al Qaeda and Iran, including the fact that ten of the 9/11 terrorists had crossed Iran from Saudi Arabia the year before the attacks in this country, and the Iranians were careful not to stamp their passports, so that the Iranian connection could not be documented.
To be sure, the Commission leaker was careful to say there was no proof that the Iranians were witting of the 9/11 conspiracy, but that is hardly a surprise. Given the track record of CIA's "intelligence" on the role of the mullahs in the terror network, it would have been astounding if we had had any such evidence.
News stories on Sunday reminded readers that Richard Clarke had written that there was considerable evidence of collusion between Osama and the mullahs, and Asharq al-Awsat reported on the 15th that "more than 384 members of al-Qaeda and other terrorist organizations are present in Iran, including 18 senior leaders of Osama bin Laden's network." These terrorists were not, as the Iranians were quick to pretend, under arrest. Nor, as Iranian officials put it the day after, had the al Qaeda groups been destroyed. Many were living in villas near Chalous on the Caspian Sea, while others were in Lavizan, either in or near a big military base.
As luck would have it (and for this information I am indebted to the redoubtable Dan Darling), Chalous is the locus of a major underground nuclear facility that has been heavily reinforced of late, while Lavizan houses the Shiyan Technical Research Facility within one of the largest Revolutionary Guards bases in the Central Province.
What a surprise! Terrorists at Iranian military bases! Who ever would have imagined such a thing? Well, aside from NRO, which has long proclaimed Iran to be the safest of havens for Osama & co., the Iraqis not only imagined it, they knew it. Listen to the fine Iraq blogger at Iraq the Model early in July: "An Iraqi military check point...was subjected to Iranian fire on Friday.... Colonel Dhafir Savah Al Timemi mentioned that this was the 4th time the Iranians have opened fire on Shehan check point during the last week in addition to several other aggressions...Colonel Timemi said also that Iraqi border guards have captured 83 Iranians who were trying to cross Iraqi-Iranian borders illegally...."
And of course there is the ongoing slapstick routine at the United Nations Atomic Energy Agency, which constantly finds Iran cheating on its promises to tell all and show all about its atomic project, but never does anything to impose its will, bringing to mind Groucho's classic words, "I've got principles. And if you don't like them, I've got other principles."
This is all very inconvenient for Haas, Brzezinski, and the others who keep deluding themselves into believing that we can make a reasonable deal with the mullahcracy in Tehran. This is a very dangerous delusion, akin to Neville Chamberlain's conceit that he had achieved peace with Hitler, when, as Churchill put it, given the choice between war and dishonor, Chamberlain chose dishonor and got war. The Council is making the same humiliating choice.
Meanwhile, the mullahs and the other terror masters in the region quite sensibly continue to wage war against us. At the recent meetings in Tehran between a Syrian delegation led by President Bashar Assad and the Iranians, including Supreme Leader Khamenei and top deputies including strongman Rafsanjani, the head of intelligence Yunesi, several leading officials of the Revolutionary Guards, and Foreign Minister Kharazi, the two sides agreed on five key points:
A common strategy involving Iran, Syria, and Hezbollah to thwart American plans for the democratization of the Middle East;
Coordination of joint operations against the Coalition and the interim government in Iraq;
Coordination of political strategy to influence groups and countries that oppose the American presence in Iraq;
Planning for revenge should Israel attack Iranian nuclear, chemical or missile sites, or Syria's chemical and missile sites, or Hezbollah bases;
Full cooperation to prevent the reelection of President Bush, including all possible measures (such as sabotage of oil pipelines and terminals) to drive up the price of oil.
Advocates of rapprochement with Iran should be running from their announced principles as fast as they can.
Those of you who have followed along these little therapy sessions of mine know of my despair regarding this administration's fecklessness concerning the mullahs. It has pained me enormously, especially because I still believe that this president has a solid understanding of the evil of the Islamic Republic, despite the efforts of the State Department -- even after the departure of Haas -- to convince him that a really good deal is just minutes away. I have been reduced to begging "faster, please," but I have long since recognized that nothing would happen until after the elections (a potentially suicidal policy). Now the London Times has found a nameless someone in the Bush administration who promises that a second term for W. would bring vigorous support of democratic revolution in Iran, and decisive action against the atomic project. It is beyond me why anyone would take seriously such claims, given the fact that after four years in office this administration still has no Iran policy, and the deputy secretary of State, Richard Armitage, has never backed off his claim that Iran is a democracy, nor has he been gainsaid by any other top official. I certainly hope the Times is right, but I have my doubts. I'm afraid we're not going to get serious about Iran without another 9/11.
In the 20th century we were often saved from our own isolationism and self-delusion by our enemies, who attacked us and thereby resolved our foreign policy debates in favor of honorable self defense. Check this one out with the Germans regarding World War I, with the Japanese regarding World War II, with Stalin regarding the Cold War, and with Saddam concerning two Gulf wars. Osama bin Laden made a terrible mistake on 9/11, sealing the doom of the Taliban and a goodly number of his own killers, and depriving the remnant of vital support. If the Iranians approved yet another attack on Americans or on American soil, they might, let's say it as delicately as possible, no longer benefit from the benevolent shelter offered by the Middle Eastniks in the CIA and State, supported by the likes of the Council on Foreign Relations.
Maybe that would finally produce an Iran policy worthy of the name: support for democratic revolution against the mullahs. But Khamenei's and Rafsanjani's experience with the United States leaves them pretty sanguine about that risk, because every time we come up with some devastating bit of information on Iran, we immediately follow it with "but that doesn't mean that the leaders knew about it, or that it was the actual policy of the regime." You find half of bin Laden's family and top assistants in Tehran? Not to worry, maybe the mullahs didn't know. You discover that that 9/11 band crossed Iran and were assisted by the border guards and customs officials? Not to worry, that wasn't necessarily the actual policy -- this from the lips of the acting director of Central Intelligence on Fox News yesterday. Scores of Iranian intelligence agents are found in Iraq, some in the act of preparing bombs? Some bright bulb in the intelligence community puts out the line that Iran is actually helpful to us, and has actually restrained Hezbollah. We find Iranian involvement in the bombing of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia? The evidence is quashed by the Saudis, with the complicity of State and large sectors of the intelligence community.
So why should the men in the blood-soaked turbans fret over the consequences of aiding and abetting yet another murderous assault against Americans? I'm unfortunately betting on the second half of October, based on their happy experience with the Spanish elections last March.

-- Michael Ledeen, an NRO contributing editor, is most recently the author of The War Against the Terror Masters. Ledeen is Resident Scholar in the Freedom Chair at the American Enterprise Institute.


http://www.nationalreview.com/ledeen/ledeen200407190838.asp
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UNCORRECTED PROOF
Iran: Time for a New Approach _______________________________ Report of an Independent Task Force Sponsored by the Council on Foreign Relations Zbigniew Brzezinski and Robert M. Gates, Co-Chairs Suzanne Maloney, Project Director
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Founded in 1921, the Council on Foreign Relations is an independent, national membership organization and a nonpartisan center for scholars dedicated to producing and disseminating ideas so that individual and corporate members, as well as policymakers, journalists, students, and interested citizens in the United States and other countries, can better understand the world and the foreign policy choices facing the United States and other governments. The Council does this by convening meetings; conducting a wide-ranging Studies program; publishing Foreign Affairs, the preeminent journal covering international affairs and U.S. foreign policy; maintaining a diverse membership; sponsoring Independent Task Forces; and providing up-to-date information about the world and U.S. foreign policy on the Council's website, www.cfr.org. THE COUNCIL TAKES NO INSTITUTIONAL POSITION ON POLICY ISSUES AND HAS NO AFFILIATION WITH THE U.S. GOVERNMENT. ALL STATEMENTS OF FACT AND EXPRESSIONS OF OPINION CONTAINED IN ITS PUBLICATIONS ARE THE SOLE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE AUTHOR OR AUTHORS. The Council will sponsor an Independent Task Force when (1) an issue of current and critical importance to U.S. foreign policy arises, and (2) it seems that a group diverse in backgrounds and perspectives may, nonetheless, be able to reach a meaningful consensus on a policy through private and nonpartisan deliberations. Typically, a Task Force meets between two and five times over a brief period to ensure the relevance of its work. Upon reaching a conclusion, a Task Force issues a report, and the Council publishes its text and posts it on the Council website. Task Force reports can take three forms: (1) a strong and meaningful policy consensus, with Task Force members endorsing the general policy thrust and judgments reached by the group, though not necessarily every finding and recommendation; (2) a report stating the various policy positions, each as sharply and fairly as possible; or (3) a "Chairman's Report," where Task Force members who agree with the chairman's report may associate themselves with it, while those who disagree may submit dissenting statements. Upon reaching a conclusion, a Task Force may also ask individuals who were not members of the Task Force to associate themselves with the Task Force report to enhance its impact. All Task Force reports "benchmark" their findings against current administration policy in order to make explicit areas of agreement and disagreement. The Task Force is solely responsible for its report. The Council takes no institutional position. For further information about the Council or this Task Force, please write to the Council on Foreign Relations, 58 East 68th Street, New York, NY 10021, or call the Director of Communications at 212-434-9400. Visit our website at www.cfr.org. Copyright ? 2004 by the Council on Foreign Relations?, Inc. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. This report may not be reproduced in whole or in part, in any form beyond the reproduction permitted by Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. Copyright Law Act (17 U.S.C. Sections 107 and 108) and excerpts by reviewers for the public press, without express written permission from the Council on Foreign Relations. For information, write to the Publications Office, Council on Foreign Relations, 58 East 68th Street, New York, NY 10021.
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TASK FORCE MEMBERS PETER ACKERMAN DAVID ALBRIGHT SHAUL BAKHASH* ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI Co-Chair FRANK CARLUCCI ROBERT EINHORN ROBERT M. GATES Co-Chair H.P. GOLDFIELD* STEPHEN B. HEINTZ BRUCE HOFFMAN JOHN H. KELLY WILLIAM H. LUERS RICHARD H. MATZKE* SUZANNE MALONEY Project Director LOUIS PERLMUTTER JAMES PLACKE NICHOLAS PLATT DANIEL B. PONEMAN* STEPHEN J. SOLARZ RAY TAKEYH MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN * The individual has endorsed the report and submitted an additional view.

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CONTENTS Foreword vii Acknowledgments ix Map of the Islamic Republic of Iran xi Executive Summary 1 Task Force Report 7 Introduction 7 Why Iran Matters 9 Iran's Domestic Dilemmas 10 Iran's Approach to the World 15 Iran's Nuclear Programs 17 Involvement with Regional Conflicts 23 Recent U.S. Policy toward Tehran 33 Assessments and Recommendations 35 Additional or Dissenting Views 45 Task Force Members 49 Task Force Observers 55 Appendixes 57 Appendix A: Important Dates in U.S.-Iranian History 59 Appendix B: Iran at a Glance: Facts and Figures 66 Appendix C: Iranian State Institutions and Political Actors 69

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FOREWORD Over the past quarter century, relations between the United States and the Islamic Republic of Iran have been trapped by legacies of the past. The aftermath of the 1979 revolution transformed Iran from a staunch ally into one of the most intractable opponents of the United States in the region and beyond. Today, the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have positioned American troops along Iran's borders, making the United States and Iran wary competitors and neighbors who nonetheless possess some overlapping interests. All of this is occurring against a backdrop of the problems posed by Iran's nuclear program and its involvement with terrorism. Clearly, contending with Iran will constitute one of the most complex and pressing challenges facing the next U.S. administration. The Council on Foreign Relations established this Independent Task Force to consider both Iran's domestic reality and its foreign policy and to examine ways the United States can foster a relationship with Iran that better protects and promotes American interests in a critical part of the world. The Task Force reaches the important assessment that "despite considerable political flux and popular dissatisfaction, Iran is not on the verge of another revolution." From this finding flows its advocacy of the United States adopting a policy of what it describes as limited or selective engagement with the current Iranian government. The Council is deeply appreciative of two distinguished public servants, Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski and Dr. Robert M. Gates, for chairing this effort. Their intellectual leadership steered this Task Force toward a consensus on an issue of great international importance. My thanks also go to Dr. Suzanne Maloney, a leading American expert on Iranian society, who skillfully directed this project from its inception. Finally, I wish to thank the members of this Task Force for this important contribution to the national debate. Richard N. Haass President Council on Foreign Relations July 2004
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ACKNOWLEDGMENTS The Independent Task Force on U.S. Policy toward Iran benefited greatly from the involvement of many individuals. First and foremost, we are indebted to the leadership of the chairs, Dr. Zbigniew Brzezinski and Dr. Robert M. Gates. Their judicious stewardship, broad intellectual vision, and vast experience framed this entire project. From February to May 2004, Task Force members and observers participated in four meetings that took place at the Council on Foreign Relations in Washington, DC, and New York. The discussions reflected the depth of the group's collective expertise on the subject matter at hand, as well as the wide range of their experience in government, academia, business, and nongovernmental organizations. The willingness of all the participants to share ideas and offer suggestions on the report itself has greatly elevated the final product. In addition, several Council members outside of the Task Force itself generously contributed their time, interest, and perspectives on Iran. The report is richer as a result of their input. Thanks go to Christopher Angell, a research associate at the Council, for his work in staffing the Task Force meetings, organizing material distributed to Task Force participants, and managing the many administrative details involved with this undertaking. We were also fortunate that one of the Council's military fellows, U.S. Navy Captain David Marquet, was involved as the project coordinator. Lindsay Workman and Abigail Zoba were both tremendous assets to the Task Force effort, and Lee Feinstein, the executive director of task forces at the Council, provided support and guidance throughout the process. We would also like to thank Sandy Crawford at Texas A&M University and Trudi Werner and Candice Wessling at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All those involved with this project are ultimately grateful to Richard N. Haass, president of the Council, who challenged the Task Force to think critically and carefully in examining the issues at stake.
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Finally, the Task Force would not have been possible without the financial support of the Leonard and Evelyn Lauder Foundation and the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. We deeply appreciate their generosity. Suzanne Maloney Project Director
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Map courtesy of United Nations Cartographic Section: http://www.un.org/Depts/Cartographic/english/htmain.htm.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Twenty-five years after its Islamic revolution, Iran represents a challenge and an opportunity for the United States. The issues at stake reflect the urgent and multifaceted dilemmas of U.S. security in the post-9/11 era: nuclear proliferation, state support of terrorism, the relationship between religion and politics, and the imperative of political and economic reform in the Middle East. At this time, as Iraq--Iran's neighbor and historic adversary--embarks on a difficult transition to post-conflict sovereignty, and as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) extends its scrutiny of Iranian nuclear activities, Iran looms large on the U.S. policy agenda. Recognizing this relevance to vital U.S. interests, the Task Force advocates selectively engaging with Iran to address critical U.S. concerns. The Task Force centered its deliberations on Iran's domestic situation and overall foreign policy, in order to illuminate the context for U.S. policy. It did so in the recognition that the long absence of U.S. relations with Iran, and Washington's limited ongoing contact with the country, mean that any assessment of the internal dynamics of the Islamic Republic is inevitably imperfect. Nevertheless, it is the view of this Task Force that, despite considerable political flux and popular dissatisfaction, Iran is not on the verge of another revolution. Those forces that are committed to preserving Iran's current system remain firmly in control and currently represent the country's only authoritative interlocutors. Direct U.S. efforts to overthrow the Iranian regime are therefore not likely to succeed; nor would regime change through external intervention necessarily resolve the most critical concerns with respect to Iran's policies. The ferment of recent years demonstrates that the Iranian people themselves will eventually change the nature of their government for the better. In the meantime, the durability of the Islamic Republic and the urgency of the concerns surrounding its policies mandate the United States to deal with the current regime rather than wait for it to fall. U.S. concerns have long focused on Iran's activities and intentions toward its neighbors. Over the past decade, Iran's foreign policy has gradually acceded to the exigencies of national interest, except in certain crucial areas where ideology remains paramount. As a result, Tehran has reestablished largely constructive relations with its
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neighbors and has expanded international trade links. The changing regional context has produced new pressures and uncertainties for Iran. The Task Force concluded that, although Iran's leadership is pursuing multiple avenues of influence and is exploiting Iraqi instability for its own political gain, Iran nevertheless could play a potentially significant role in promoting a stable, pluralistic government in Baghdad. It might be induced to be a constructive actor toward both Iraq and Afghanistan, but it retains the capacity to create significant difficulties for these regimes if it is alienated from the new post-conflict governments in those two countries. The Task Force also reaffirms the proposition that one of the most urgent issues confronting the United States is Iran's nuclear ambitions. Although Task Force members voiced differing opinions on whether evidence is sufficient to determine that Iran has fully committed itself to developing nuclear weapons, the Task Force agreed that Iran is likely to continue its pattern of tactical cooperation with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) while attempting to conceal the scope of its nuclear program in order to keep its options open as long as possible. At the core of the Task Force's conclusions is the recognition that it is in the interests of the United States to engage selectively with Iran to promote regional stability, dissuade Iran from pursuing nuclear weapons, preserve reliable energy supplies, reduce the threat of terror, and address the "democracy deficit" that pervades the Middle East as a whole. For these reasons, the members advocate a revised strategic approach to Iran. A Revised Approach to Iran The Task Force concluded that the current lack of sustained engagement with Iran harms U.S. interests in a critical region of the world and that direct dialogue with Tehran on specific areas of mutual concerns should be pursued. 1) A political dialogue with Iran should not be deferred until such a time as the deep differences over Iranian nuclear ambitions and its invidious involvement with regional conflicts have been resolved. Rather, the process of selective political engagement itself represents a potentially effective path for addressing those differences. Just as the United States maintains a constructive relationship with China
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(and earlier, did so with the Soviet Union) while strongly opposing certain aspects of its internal and international policies, Washington should approach Iran with a readiness to explore areas of common interests, while continuing to contest objectionable policies. Ultimately, any real rapprochement with Tehran can only occur in the context of meaningful progress on the most urgent U.S. concerns surrounding nuclear weapons, terrorism, and regional stability. 2) A "grand bargain" that would settle comprehensively the outstanding conflicts between Iran and the United States is not a realistic goal, and pursuing such an outcome would be unlikely to produce near-term progress on Washington's central interests. Instead, the Task Force proposes selectively engaging Iran on issues where U.S. and Iranian interests converge, and building upon incremental progress to tackle the broader range of concerns that divide the two governments. 3) U.S. policies toward Tehran should make use of incentives as well as punitive measures. The U.S. reliance on comprehensive, unilateral sanctions has not succeeded in its stated objective to alter Iranian conduct and has deprived Washington of greater leverage vis-?-vis the Iranian government apart from the threat of force. Given the increasingly important role of economic interests in shaping Iran's policy options at home and abroad, the prospect of commercial relations with the United States could be a powerful tool in Washington's arsenal. 4) The United States should advocate democracy in Iran without relying on the rhetoric of regime change, as that would be likely to rouse nationalist sentiments in defense of the current regime even among those who currently oppose it. The U.S. government should focus its rhetoric and its policies on promoting political evolution that encourages Iran to develop stronger democratic institutions at home and enhanced diplomatic and economic relations abroad. Engaging with the current government to address pressing regional and international issues need not contradict U.S. support for these objectives; indeed, engagement pursued judiciously would enhance the chances of internal change in Iran. 5) The Task Force is mindful of repeated efforts over the last twenty-five years to engage the regime in Tehran, and that all of these have come to naught for various reasons. However, the Task Force believes that the U.S. military intervention along
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Iran's flanks in both Afghanistan and Iraq has changed the geopolitical landscape in the region. These changes may offer both the United States and Iran new incentives to open a mutually beneficial dialogue, first on issues of common interest, such as regional stability, and eventually on the tough issues of terrorism and proliferation. We recognize that even the most perspicacious policy toward Iran may be stymied by Iranian obstinacy. Recommendations for U.S. Policy In pursuit of the new approach outlined above, the Task Force recommends the following specific steps to address the most urgent issues of concern: 1) The United States should offer Iran a direct dialogue on specific issues of regional stabilization. This should entail a resumption and expansion of the Geneva track discussions that were conducted with Tehran for eighteen months after the 9/11 attacks. The dialogue should be structured to encourage constructive Iranian involvement in the process of consolidating authority within the central governments of both Iraq and Afghanistan and in rebuilding their economies. Regular contact with Iran would also provide a channel to address concerns that have arisen about its activities and relationships with competing power centers in both countries. Instead of aspiring to a detailed road map of rapprochement, as previous U.S. administrations have recommended, the executive branch should consider outlining a more simple mechanism for framing formal dialogue with Iran. A basic statement of principles, along the lines of the 1972 Shanghai Communiqu? signed by the United States and China, could be developed to outline the parameters for U.S.-Iranian engagement, establish the overarching objectives for dialogue, and reassure relevant domestic political constituencies on both sides. The effort to draft such a statement would give constructive focus and substance to a serious, but also realistic, bilateral dialogue. Should that effort end in stalemate, it should not preclude going forward with the dialogue on specific issues. 2) The United States should press Iran to clarify the status of al-Qaeda operatives detained by Tehran and make clear that a security dialogue will be conditional on
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assurances that its government is not facilitating violence against the new Iraqi and Afghan governments or the coalition forces that are assisting them. At the same time, Washington should work with the interim government of Iraq to conclusively disband the Iraq-based Mojahideen-e Khalq Organization and ensure that its leaders are brought to justice. 3) In close coordination with its allies in Europe and with Russia, the United States should implement a more focused strategy to deal with the Iranian nuclear program. In the immediate future, Iran should be pressed to fulfill its October 2003 commitment to maintain a complete and verified suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities. While this suspension is in effect, the United States and other members of the international community should pursue a framework agreement with Iran that would offer a more durable solution to the nuclear issue. Such an agreement should include an Iranian commitment to permanently renunciate uranium enrichment and other fuel-cycle capabilities and to ratify the International Atomic Energy Agency's (IAEA) Additional Protocol, an expanded set of safeguards intended to verify the peaceful intentions of its nuclear program. In return, the United States should remove its objections to an Iranian civil nuclear program under stringent safeguards and assent to multilateral assurances that Tehran would be able to purchase fuel at reasonable market rates for nuclear power reactors, as long as it abides by its nonproliferation commitments. The agreement should also commit both sides to enhancing political and economic relations, through a dialogue that would take place in parallel to Iran's established talks with the European Union. In the short term, the United States should press the IAEA to exercise its Additional Protocol verification rights vigorously in order to deter and detect any clandestine nuclear activities. This should serve as a decisive test case for Iranian compliance with its obligations under Article II of the Nonproliferation Treaty and for the credibility and viability of the global nuclear nonproliferation regime. Tehran must clearly understand that unless it demonstrates real, uninterrupted cooperation with the IAEA process, it will face the prospect of multilateral sanctions by the United Nations Security Council. Over the longer term, the United States should aim
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to convene a dialogue on issues of cooperative security involving Iran and its nuclear-armed neighbors. 4) The United States should resume an active involvement in the Middle East peace process and press leading Arab states to commit themselves to providing genuine, substantive support for both the process and any ultimate agreements. Iranian incitement of virulent anti-Israeli sentiment and activities thrives when there is no progress toward peace. Efforts to curtail the flows of assistance to terrorist groups must be coupled with steps to offer a meaningful alternative to the continuing cycle of violence. A serious effort on the part of Washington aimed at achieving Arab-Israeli peace is central to eventually stemming the tide of extremism in the region. 5) The United States should adopt measures to broaden the political, cultural, and economic linkages between the Iranian population and the wider world, including authorizing U.S. nongovernmental organizations to operate in Iran and consenting to Iran's application to begin accession talks with the World Trade Organization. Iran's isolation only impedes its people's ongoing struggle for a more democratic government and strengthens the hand of hard-liners who preach confrontation with the rest of the world. Integrating Iran into the international community through formal institutional obligations as well as expanded people-to-people contacts will intensify demands for good governance at home and add new constraints on adventurism abroad.
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TASK FORCE REPORT INTRODUCTION The past two years have witnessed a series of extraordinary changes across the wider Middle East, a region long characterized by a dangerous status quo. Since the tragic turning point of 9/11, two governments whose threat to their citizens and their neighbors was well established--Afghanistan and Iraq--have been destroyed. In their place, a new set of strategic realities and opportunities have emerged. To date, however, one U.S. policy problem in the Middle East has remained curiously impenetrable to the changes that have buffeted its neighbors: Iran. Nearly a quarter-century after the revolution that replaced a modernizing monarchy with a radical religious state that has abrogated a close alliance with Washington, U.S.-Iranian relations remain trapped by the legacies of the past and the very real differences of the present. These differences principally concern Iran's apparent efforts to acquire a nuclear weapons capability and its continuing support for militant groups involved in a variety of regional conflicts, including the Palestinian-Israeli dispute. But U.S. interests with respect to Iran go beyond these differences, important though they are, to include promoting democracy and prosperity in the Middle East and ensuring a stable flow of oil from the Persian Gulf. In a region beset by turbulence and unpredictability, antagonism between Washington and Tehran has a curious constancy. The estrangement persists despite considerable internal change within the Islamic Republic since its chaotic post-revolutionary inception and despite the fact that the rift arguably undermines the interests of both states. However, dispassion remains a commodity in short supply in the Middle East, and Iran today endures as the only country in the region to categorically reject formal diplomatic relations with Washington. Such durable antagonism might be sustainable in another part of the world, or in relations with another kind of state, but where Iran is concerned it is profoundly problematic. First, the rift defies the realities of this globalized era. As the most populous country in the Middle East and one of the world's leading energy producers, Iran today
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cannot enjoy the luxury of wholesale recalcitrance and isolationism as pursued by rogue states such as North Korea. By the same token, Iran's intrinsic involvement with its neighbors and with the global political and financial order limits the efficacy of any U.S. policy of outright isolation or simple disinterest. Moreover, the official enmity between Washington and Tehran belies the convergence in their interests in specific areas. The strategic imperatives of the United States and Iran are by no means identical, nor are they often even congruent, but they do intersect in significant ways, particularly with respect to the stabilization of Iraq and Afghanistan. In both these countries, the short-term needs and long-term vision of Washington and Tehran are surprisingly similar. Although they may differ profoundly on specifics, both the United States and Iran want post-conflict governments in Iraq and Afghanistan that respect the rights of their diverse citizenries and live in peace with their neighbors. The hostility that characterizes U.S.-Iranian relations undermines these shared interests and squanders the potential benefits of even limited cooperation. As tenuous new governments in Baghdad and Kabul embark on precarious post-conflict futures, the United States and the region cannot afford to spurn any prospective contributions to its stability. Finally, the estrangement has tended to further entrench some of the very policies that are sources of conflict between the United States and Iran. The frustrating but familiar interplay between Tehran and Washington has generated a self-perpetuating cycle whereby mutual distrust begets uncompromising assertiveness and unyielding negotiating positions. Tehran's nuclear programs are driven in part by aspirations for an ultimate deterrent against any threat to its national security; these efforts, in turn, stiffen U.S. resolve to mobilize an international consensus in opposition to Iran's policies. Overcoming the absence of any U.S.-Iranian contacts may be the only alternative to utilizing force in mitigating Washington's major concerns about Iran's behavior. The Task Force was challenged to examine the issues at stake with respect to Iran and to propose a future course to best address U.S. concerns and advance U.S. interests. At the core of this effort is an overarching conviction that Iran poses a complex and compelling set of concerns for many important U.S. security interests, particularly curbing terrorism and checking the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The
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report begins with an overview of these interests, offers an assessment of the general trends shaping Iranian internal politics and international relations, and analyzes the critical areas of proliferation and regional conflict. Finally, it offers the assessments and recommendations of the Task Force for dealing with these challenges. WHY IRAN MATTERS The United States is currently engaged in a vast region encompassing the Middle East and central Asia to an extent unprecedented in its history. This region is complicated, volatile, and vitally important to an array of U.S. geostrategic interests. Iran occupies a central position--literally and symbolically--in the Middle East, and as such its internal and international conduct have wide-ranging repercussions for the region as a whole and for U.S. interests within it. Consider Iran's environs. To the east is a fractious Afghanistan that is the fountainhead of chaos fueled by religion and drugs. To the southeast is Pakistan, a nuclear-armed state that may be on the verge of another ethno-religious explosion. To the northeast is Turkmenistan, whose erratic communist ruler has isolated his country from the world. Across Iran's northwest border is Azerbaijan, with a government still navigating the challenges of post-Soviet transition. Also to the northwest is Turkey, the single successful democracy in the Muslim Middle East and, if it joins the European Union, a potential border with the West. To the west is Iran's historic adversary, Iraq, occupied by 140,000 U.S. troops and currently in turmoil. Finally, to Iran's south and southeast lie the vulnerable Gulf sheikhdoms, its regional rival Saudi Arabia, and the passageways through which 40 percent of the world's oil must flow. Iran thus lies at the heart of the arc of crisis in the Middle East. Its intricate political, cultural, and economic ties to Afghanistan and Iraq--including longstanding involvement with opposition movements that have worked with Washington to establish successor governments in each country--make Iran a critical actor in the postwar evolution of both countries. Its large endowment of natural resources--approximately 11 percent of the world's oil reserves and the second largest deposits of natural gas--
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positions Iran as an indispensable player in the world economy. Its status as the largest Shia state and heir to the first religious revolution in modern times means it heavily influences wider doctrinal debates surrounding Islamic governance and jurisprudence. Finally, Iran's long history as a cohesive state with a tradition of constitutionalism and experience in representative government means that its political experience may prove a valuable model for any regional transition to a more democratic order. Two recent developments highlight the most urgent priorities for U.S. policy toward Iran. The first was the decision by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) at its June 14-16, 2004, board of governors meeting, to rebuke Iran for failing to cooperate adequately with the organization's investigation into its nuclear program. The latest IAEA report, based on an inquiry launched more than two years ago and intensified by a series of revelations concerning Iran's clandestine nuclear activities, illustrates the complexities that the international community faces in contending with Iranian resourcefulness and diplomatic dexterity in covering for its extensive nuclear activities. It also highlights the need for the West to develop an effective strategy for countering Iranian proliferation efforts. Beyond the nuclear imbroglio, the evolving situation in Iraq also underscores the vital relevance of Iran for U.S. policy there. As Iraq navigates its recent transfer from international occupation to limited sovereignty, the prospects for its short- and long-term stability hinge to a considerable extent on the role of its neighbors. By virtue of its history and geography as well as its intricate religious ties to Iraq, Iran has and will continue to bear unique influence over the transition to a post-Saddam Hussein Iraqi political order. Given the centrality of success in Iraq to the United States' broader international objectives, the U.S. government has an important stake in ensuring that the role of Iran in the future evolution of Iraq is a positive one. IRAN'S DOMESTIC DILEMMAS Ultimately, any U.S. policy toward Tehran must be conditioned by a credible assessment of the current regime's durability. The breach between the countries began with a
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revolution, and many argue that it cannot conclusively end without another comprehensive transformation in the nature and composition of the Iranian government. Moreover, recent political ferment within Iran and expectations of a demonstration effect from regime change in Iraq has given rise to persistent anticipation that such a revolution is imminent. Although largely overly optimistic, these forecasts have helped shape U.S. policy toward Tehran, conditioning the administration of George W. Bush to reach out to putative opposition leaders and making U.S. policymakers reluctant to engage with the current regime in order to avoid perpetuating its hold on power. Inevitably, the distance established by geography and political separation complicates any accurate understanding of Iran's domestic politics today. Still, certain broad conclusions can be drawn from a careful consideration of the recent patterns of politics in Iran. Most important, the Islamic Republic appears to be solidly entrenched and the country is not on the brink of revolutionary upheaval. Iran is experiencing a gradual process of internal change that will slowly but surely produce a government more responsive toward its citizens' wishes and more responsible in its approach to the international community. In contrast to all of its neighbors--and to the prevailing stereotypes inculcated by its own vitriolic rhetoric--Iran is home to vigorous, albeit restricted, political competition and a literate, liberalizing society. Even after the recent political setbacks, Iran today remains a state in which political factions compete with one another within an organized system, where restrictions on civil rights and social life are actively contested, and where the principles of authority and power are debated energetically. Although Iran's political competition and debate are robust, however, they nevertheless exist within the narrowly defined constraints imposed on the country by its unique governing framework, which accords ultimate power to unelected and unaccountable Islamic clerics, culminating in the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. Under this regime, the Iranian government enforces severe restrictions on all aspects of political, cultural, and economic life, and routinely violates even those limited protections enacted in its own constitution and laws. The restricted scope of Iran's electoral politics was made only too clear in recent parliamentary elections, held in
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February 2004, in which a clerical oversight body disqualified more than 3,000 candidates from competing, including eighty then-members of the parliament. Iran's theocratic system is deeply unpopular with its citizenry. In their own media as well as in dialogue with external interlocutors, many Iranians--across a wide spectrum of age, class, and ethnic and religious backgrounds--are candid and scathing in their criticism of their government and its policies. Iranians also expressed this criticism through a series of surprising electoral outcomes in the late 1990s that, even within the narrow limits of permissible politics, indicated resounding support for progressive reform of the governing system. Large-scale demonstrations are rare due to fear of repression, but they have surfaced intermittently and with great intensity in various parts of the country. Most notable were the July 1999 and June 2003 student protests, both of which were violently crushed by government security forces. A central factor in Iran's political agitation is the coming of age of a new generation of Iranians whose expectations and sense of political entitlement has been framed by their rearing under the revolution. Young people comprise as much as 70 percent of the population and are positioned to serve as arbiters of the country's political order in the near future. Generally speaking, young Iranians are highly literate, well educated, and supportive of expanded social and cultural liberties and political participation. Given that approximately one third of young job-seekers are unemployed, economic interests rank high in their list of political priorities. With the disqualification of liberal-minded candidates from Iran's 2004 parliamentary elections, the country's reform movement has effectively been sidelined as a significant actor in formulating domestic or international policy. Reformist leaders were largely unwilling to challenge the basic parameters of Islamic politics and their organization, which includes nascent political parties such as the Islamic Iran Participation Front, proved unable to mount an effective bid for change. As a result, the reform movement's central strategy--gradual change brought about from within the existing governing system--has been discredited by Iranian citizens as a viable pathway to reform. As a June 2004 report by Human Rights Watch details, Iran's conservative forces quashed efforts to promote peaceful political change with a deft strategy of silencing public debate and eliminating potential opposition leaders.
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Still, the influence of reformers--both as individuals and through the articulation of their ideas--remains notable, albeit indirect. The reform movement has had an important role in shaping public expectations and in setting the context for future change, and future leaders of any post-Islamic Republic political movement will likely come from reformers' diverse ranks. Just as these people emanated from the alienated ranks of the early revolution, the Task Force anticipates that the students, journalists, and political actors who have been frustrated in their attempts to implement gradual reform may now redirect their efforts to mobilize public support to press for fundamental changes to the political system. Conservatives and hard-liners who are committed to the preservation of the Islamic Republic's status quo remain firmly in control of all institutions and instruments of power in Iran. They represent the locus of power and the only authoritative interlocutors for any diplomatic interface. Although some may be amenable to limited moderation of Iranian policies and rhetoric, conservatives have repeatedly demonstrated their willingness to preserve the regime by crushing anti-regime protests and imprisoning or even killing their political opponents. Yet despite their commitment to retaining the current system (and, in part, because of that very factor), at least some segments of Iran's conservative faction, such as former President Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, are capable of making limited concessions to reform in their policies both at home and abroad. Conservatives' overriding interest in retaining power means that they have an increasing imperative to avoid provoking international tensions, so as to preserve and expand the economic opportunities available to Iran in general and to their own privileged elite cohort in particular. Some conservatives appear to favor a "China model" of reform that maintains political orthodoxy while encouraging market reforms and tolerating expanding civil liberties. For this reason, Iran's economy offers an ever-more important avenue of potential influence by outsiders. High global oil prices have boosted the overall growth rates of the Iranian economy, but structural distortions--including massive subsidies, endemic corruption, a disproportionately large public sector, and dependency on oil rents--severely undermine the strength of the Iranian economy. Iran's economic woes pose
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direct, daily hardships for its population, whose income measured on a per capita basis has fallen by approximately one third since the revolution. With as many as one million new job-seekers coming into the market each year, the single greatest challenge for any government in Iran will be generating conditions for job growth. Iran needs a substantial and sustained expansion of private investment sufficient for its productive capacity in order to meet these demands, including as much as $18 billion per year in foreign direct investment. Iran's conservatives tout their capabilities to address these economic challenges, but in fact neither they nor their rivals can boast a successful track record on the economy. This is due, in part, to the political sensitivities that are invoked in sound economic development. Real reform would effectively undermine the power of the state and the monopoly enjoyed by Iran's elites. Creating a secure climate for foreign investment, meanwhile, would necessitate a more accommodating international posture. Ultimately, economic reform in Iran would promote more responsible governance at home and abroad. Unfortunately, however, high oil prices have enabled Tehran to defer these politically painful steps. Following a brief period of increased political ferment in the late 1990s, Iran's public has become intensely disillusioned with both the status quo and available political alternatives and has become manifestly disengaged from the political process itself. They have shunned the reform movement (most recently by delivering it a surprising defeat in 2003 municipal elections) and are increasingly frank in their outright rejection of any political formula that retains the current theocratic system. Despite this widespread alienation from the prevailing political order, Iran does not now appear to be in a pre-revolutionary situation. Iranians are protesting the political system by withholding their participation from any form of organized politics, including involvement with the opposition. People are frustrated with the Islamic Republic, but they have also demonstrated that they are not yet prepared to take that frustration to the streets. This disengagement from politics is a direct product of Iran's recent history. Having endured the disappointment of their last democratic experiment gone awry, Iranians are weary of political turmoil and skeptical that they can positively change their political circumstances through mass mobilization.
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Moreover, to date, no organization or potential leader has emerged with the apparent discipline or stamina to sustain a major confrontation with the government's conservative forces. Several national student organizations, such as the Office for the Consolidation of Unity (Daftar-e Takhim-e Vahdat), are vocal proponents of democratic change, but government repression has muted their effectiveness. As a result of these factors, the current Iranian government appears to be durable and likely to persist in power for the short- and even medium-term. However, Iran's generational shift and prevailing popular frustration with the government portend the eventual transformation to a more democratic political order in the long term. That process is too deeply entrenched in Iran's political history and social structure to be derailed or even long delayed. IRAN'S APPROACH TO THE WORLD Throughout the history of the Islamic Republic, Iran's domestic dynamics have had a direct impact on its foreign policy agenda and approach. In the past, factional infighting has precipitated some of the most provocative elements of its foreign policy, such as the 1979 seizure of the U.S. Embassy, the 1989 promulgation of a fatwa condemning writer Salman Rushdie to death, and the more recent "Dialogue Among Civilizations" initiative. Today, internal rivalries continue to infiltrate Iran's external activities, and, as a result, Iran's many official institutions often pursue policies in direct contradiction with one another. Over the course of the past twenty-five years, Iran's foreign policy has moderated in significant and meaningful ways. Whereas the Islamic Republic initially repudiated the prevailing norms of the international system, today its government has largely abandoned its efforts to topple the region's existing political order and approaches interstate relations primarily on the basis of national interest rather than ideology. In seeking to project its influence and protect its interests, the Islamic Republic has increasingly yielded to realist principles. Today, Iran's foreign policy exhibits striking extremes of accommodation and antagonism.
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Commercial considerations figure prominently in the realignment of Iranian foreign policy. Iran's interests in maintaining and expanding international trade, attracting foreign direct investment, and coordinating oil policy with other leading producers to prevent a future price collapse have shaped its approach to the world and conditioned its partial abandonment of confrontational tactics in favor of a more accommodating stance. These broad contours of Iranian foreign policy are evident in its successful implementation of detente with its neighbors in the southern Persian Gulf, in its pragmatic approach to its northern neighbors in the Caucasus and central Asia, and its cultivation of close ties with a range of regional actors, including India, Russia, China, Japan, and the European Union. This latter effort is designed to offset Iran's persistent official antagonism with the United States. Tehran's approach to Washington remains one of several decisive exceptions to the general trend toward moderation and realism in Iranian foreign policy. In formulating Iranian policy toward the United States, ideological imperatives continue to outweigh dispassionate calculations of national interest. Iran's strident opposition to Israel is also the product of self-defeating dogma. These exceptions may be slowly abated by erosion of Iran's revolutionary orthodoxies, the growing importance of public support as a component of regime legitimacy, and the increasing difficulty of international integration. Nonetheless, for the immediate future, Iranian foreign policy remains captive of the regime's official enshrinement of anti-American and anti-Israeli ideology. The general framework for Iranian foreign policy has remained relatively consistent over the past several years, and is likely to continue to do so in the near future. Moreover, there is a growing consensus within Iran's foreign policy elite around the principal pillars of its strategic interests. Steps that heretofore were ideologically taboo--such as the still-incomplete normalization of relations with Egypt, whose government sheltered the deposed Shah and signed a peace treaty with Israel--today command broad-based support among most factions in Iranian politics. Recent shifts in Iran's domestic political fortunes may facilitate enhanced flexibility and coherence in its foreign policy. The recent setbacks for Iranian reformers have reconsolidated the official organs into the hands of a single ideological faction.
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Although they have historically pandered to anti-American sentiments, Iran's conservatives have also demonstrated a track record of success in crafting compromise approaches and following through with their implementation. The pragmatists who appear to be ascendant in Tehran have described dialogue with the United States as a course that is "neither wine, nor prayer"--in other words, neither prohibited nor obligatory. The prospects for additional moderation of Iran's international approach remain highly uncertain, however. The strengthened position of Iranian conservatives at home may inspire some to restoke ideological fires abroad in order to reinvigorate their domestic constituencies and justify extremist policies. An inflated sense of their own bargaining power may constrain the conservatives' willingness to moderate their own international conduct and could well lead them to anticipate disproportionate rewards for any cooperation. IRAN'S NUCLEAR PROGRAMS Over the past two years, Iran's construction of extensive uranium enrichment facilities became evident through the work of Iranian opposition groups and follow-up inquiries by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA). Hitherto undeclared, the disclosures of the research facilities in Natanz and Tehran together with a heavy-water production plant in Arak, and the acknowledgement of significant imports of uranium from China, transformed the urgency of intelligence estimates surrounding both Iran's nuclear capabilities and reduced the time remaining before it may reach a nuclear threshold. These discoveries, and the string of alarming revelations that have emerged through subsequent IAEA inspections, have also given rise to new doubts about the credibility of Iranian commitment to abide by the terms of the nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT). The revelations about the extent of Iran's nuclear program have confirmed U.S. suspicions and have transformed the assessments of others. According to the IAEA, Iran
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has achieved "a practically complete front end of a nuclear fuel cycle,"1 and considerable evidence suggests that this is part of a multi-pronged effort to acquire and/or produce fissile material. Exacerbating concern about Iran's nuclear activities is its long-established and sophisticated missile development program, which has successfully produced medium-range missiles capable of targeting regional states such as Israel. Tehran also has plans for intercontinental ballistic missiles. The Bush administration responded to these developments with a combination of tough rhetoric and concerted international pressure. The alarming nature of the disclosures helped to generate a rare multilateral consensus aligned to admonish Iran, as did the coincidental emergence of new irritants in Iran's previously smooth relations with Canada and Argentina--whose governments each currently serve on the board of the IAEA. The outcome was an unprecedented effort by the international community to exert increased pressure on Iran concerning its nuclear activities, an effort underlined by the implicit threat of United Nations Security Council action and potentially international economic sanctions. This multilateral pressure generated noteworthy short-term progress, with an October 2003 Iranian agreement to sign the Additional Protocol: mandating enhanced verification of both declared and undeclared materials and activities. The Iranians also agreed to suspend enrichment-related and reprocessing activities. The agreement was negotiated by the United Kingdom, France, and Germany, whose foreign ministers committed their governments to providing Iran access to peaceful nuclear technology. The agreement represented a limited but meaningful concession by Iran, one that reportedly evoked contentious debates among its senior leadership. At the time, it also offered a compromise that met the immediate interests both of the United States and its allies when neither side wished to repeat the acrimony that had emerged only a year earlier over Iraq. Subsequent Iranian statements and actions have significantly diminished confidence regarding Iran's intentions to abide by the terms of this deal, however. The October accord and Iran's subsequent interaction with the IAEA represent an inherently ephemeral victory in what must be, by definition, an open-ended
1 "Implementation of the NPT Safeguards Agreement in the Islamic Republic of Iran," Report by the Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, November 10, 2003.
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relationship between the Iranian government and the international community on nuclear issues. Since that time, Iran's interaction with the IAEA has been characterized by continued friction, obfuscation, and a steady flow of new revelations about the true extent of Iranian nuclear activities. Recent diversion of nuclear materials to Iran have raised expectations of further confrontations in the future. The IAEA has continued to walk a fine line, maintaining pressure on Tehran while avoiding provoking either further Iranian intransigence or a breakdown in the hard-won consensus among its own members. During a March 2004 visit to Washington, IAEA Director General Mohammad El Baradei reiterated frankly that "the jury is still out" on the status of Iran's nuclear program--as well as on the extent of the clerical regime's preparedness to abide fully by its agreements to disclose all aspects of that program.2 In June 2004, the IAEA board of governors passed its most strongly-worded resolution to date, drawing attention to Iran's failure to cooperate in a timely manner, the omissions in its disclosures to the international community, and the urgency surrounding the most problematic elements of Iran's nuclear program. The IAEA and the international community appear to be converging around the conclusion articulated by the Bush administration more than a year ago that Iran has not complied with its obligations under the NPT. In response, Tehran announced that it would resume construction of centrifuges in contravention of its earlier pledges in the October accord. Iran's Nuclear Imperatives Given its history and its turbulent neighborhood, Iran's nuclear ambitions do not reflect a wholly irrational set of strategic calculations. Arguments for enhancing Iran's nuclear capabilities are necessarily pursued in private more often than in public forums, although the recent diplomatic activities vis-?-vis the IAEA have to some extent provoked a more freely available debate. Nonetheless, the rationale behind Iran's pursuit of a nuclear option can be elucidated from the rich literature on security issues that is present in Iranian academic journals and the press. Despite the clerics' frequent rhetorical invocations referencing the Israeli nuclear capability, this is not one of the primary drivers for Iran's own program. Rather, in addition to the prodigious sense of insecurity
2 Transcript, CNN, March 18, 2004.
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inculcated by the Iraqi invasion and the experience of the war itself, there appears to be widespread consensus surrounding two other important consequences of weapons of mass destruction: prestige and leverage. The former reflects the deeply held national pride that is a distinctly Iranian characteristic; it is simply inconceivable to Iranians across the political spectrum that neighboring Pakistan, a country considered to be exponentially inferior in terms of its economy, society, and political maturity, should have access to more advanced military technology. The second factor that pervades Iranian consideration of its nuclear options, leverage, further exposes the fundamental strategic deficiencies of Iran's continuing estrangement from the United States. For many in Tehran, maintaining some sort of viable nuclear program offers the single most valuable enhancement of the country's bargaining position with Washington. The elimination of Saddam Hussein's regime has unequivocally mitigated one of Iran's most serious security concerns. Yet regime change in Iraq has left Tehran with potential chaos along its vulnerable western borders, as well as with an ever more proximate U.S. capability for projecting power in the region. By contributing to heightened tensions between the Bush administration and Iran, the elimination of Saddam's rule has not yet generated substantial strategic dividends for Tehran. In fact, together with U.S. statements on regime change, rogue states, and preemptive action, recent changes in the regional balance of power have only enhanced the potential deterrent value of a "strategic weapon." Unlike Iran's other provocative policies, which have provoked intra-factional debate and thereby played into the internal power struggle in the country, the nuclear temptation is widely shared across the Iranian political spectrum. It dates back to the pre-revolutionary period, when the monarchy began developing a nuclear program that was ostensibly for power generation purposes but understood to be intended as a launch pad for an ongoing weapons research effort. Opponents of crossing the nuclear threshold remain vocal and influential. Still, it is clear that nuclear potential resonates with a collective set of interests that do not neatly correspond with Iran's political factions. The prestige factor and the apparent deterrent that a nuclear capability represents will offer powerful incentives for an Iranian regime of any political character.
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As has become increasingly evident in the more public debate of the past several months, however, Iran's political elites are divided by a subordinate (but still critical) issue: the prospect of confrontation with the international community over a nascent nuclear weapons capability. Although reformers emphasize the benefits of Iran's regional detente and its commercial relations with Europe and Asia, hard-liners are not deterred by a prospect of international sanctions and isolation and would welcome a crisis as a means of rekindling Iran's waning revolutionary fires and deflecting attention from the domestic deficiencies of Islamic rule. Iran's Nuclear Future A number of uncertainties surrounding Iran's nuclear program remain outstanding. First, the viability of the October agreement between Iran and the three European foreign ministers remains in considerable doubt, particularly given Iran's recent decision to resume centrifuge construction. This defiant step by Tehran is the latest bid to erode the original terms of the agreement, as well as to undermine the narrow consensus that was attained between Europe and the United States on the issue. Iran's leadership appears to be trying to maintain momentum in its nuclear program while avoiding a major confrontation with the international community. Iran's commitments in the October accord were in fact quite expansive, entailing a complete suspension of all enrichment-related and reprocessing activities--originally understood to include production of centrifuge parts, assembly and testing of centrifuges, and production of uranium hexaflouride feedstock--and construction of a heavy water reactor. The primary challenge for the international community today is formulating an effective response to Iran's efforts to flout its October 2003 promises. In addition, there are a number of outstanding subordinate issues. Ratification of the Additional Protocol by the Iranian parliament has still not happened (the issue was expected to be taken up some time after the May 2004 inauguration of representatives who won their seats in the extremely flawed February balloting that produced an overwhelming conservative majority). Although Iran has promised to provisionally apply the Protocol in advance of ratification, as required by its agreement with the IAEA, the [21]
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parliamentary debate (and need for subsequent endorsement by the hard-line Council of Guardians) leaves open an opportunity for Iran to hedge or renege on its commitments. Also unresolved is a long-promised deal between Tehran and Moscow on the return of spent nuclear fuel from Bushehr, although both sides have pledged repeatedly such an accord is imminent. Russia has particular reason for concern about Iran's ultimate ambitions in this regard, since success in Iran's efforts to produce nuclear fuel would obviate the need to purchase Russian supplies of fresh fuel. Russia and Iran also remain in protracted negotiations concerning the possibility of developing a second power plant at Bushehr. Finally, even if it were to fulfill its commitments under the NPT and the Additional Protocol to the letter, Iran would still possess the legal and technical capabilities to establish an elaborate nuclear infrastructure with significant applicability for military purposes. Under its international treaty obligations, Iran is permitted to enrich uranium, construct heavy water plants, and complete an indigenous fuel cycle. Moreover, the sophisticated nature of its capabilities reveals that Iran is approaching the point of self-sufficiency, where external assistance will no longer be required to acquire a weapon capability. Should Iran reach that threshold, traditional counter-proliferation measures are unlikely to affect its nuclear timetable. Given that Iranian officials have pledged to resume its uranium-enrichment activities once the IAEA verification is complete, the October accord may have only furnished Iran with a new delaying tactic as it inches closer to full-fledged nuclear weapons status. Iran's recent conduct indicates that the government is likely to continue pursuing a sort of selective accommodation with the international community on the nuclear issue, yielding to additional inspections while continuing activities that advance its military options. This may extend to maintaining a clandestine nuclear program for military aims in parallel with its declared civilian activities, as alleged by an exiled Iranian opposition group. At a minimum, Iran's pattern of concealment and the sophisticated and extensive nature of its disclosed activities indicate that its leadership is committed to retaining all available nuclear options. As a result, the real imperative for the United States will be to maintain consensus around a continuing effort to check Iranian progress toward a nuclear weapons capability between the broad international coalition erected over the last year.
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INVOLVEMENT WITH REGIONAL CONFLICTS Three regional issues have emerged as the centerpiece of Bush administration's Middle East policy: stabilizing Iraq and Afghanistan and resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Iran has major influence in all three arenas, and can potentially play an important role in assisting or retarding Washington's objectives. U.S. policy pronouncements concerning Iranian involvement in each sphere tend to reduce its role to generalized allegations of terrorism; however, the reality is more complex, particularly with respect to post-conflict Iraq and Afghanistan. Iran has arguably benefited more than any other country from U.S. policies toward the Middle East since September 11, 2001. By removing the Taliban and Saddam Hussein from power in Afghanistan and Iraq, Washington has eliminated two of Tehran's most bitter enemies and most serious threats. What has replaced them, however, is not unambiguously preferable from Iran's point of view, however, as the new regional landscape entails profound uncertainties, new geographic proximity with the United States, and the threat (and to some extent, reality) of chaos. The Iranian government often played a constructive and unheralded role in U.S.-led efforts to establish effective institutions of central government authority in Iraq and Afghanistan. At the same time, Iranians have cultivated ties with a wide range of political actors in both countries, including extremists, as a means of maximizing their potential leverage. This cultivation has taken place via both official and informal mechanisms and ranges from the direct recognition and assistance provided to the central government in each country to financial and material support funneled to bad actors bent on subverting the nascent democratic processes underway. As a result of its compelling strategic interest in retaining influence over the dramatic evolution of its immediate neighbors, Iran's multi-level approach to Iraq and Afghanistan is certain to continue. Afghanistan and al-Qaeda Enmity between the Taliban and Iran long predated the events of September 11, 2001, that precipitated the U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan. Iranian suspicions of the
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Taliban movement were present from the outset, engendered by its origins in the radical Sunni seminaries of Pakistan and its close association with Islamabad's military and intelligence services. Ever concerned with the country's stature as an Islamic state and vulnerable to a distinctive Persian pride, Iranian officials viewed the Taliban as reactionary peasants sullying the image of Islam. Their animosity was exacerbated by the rising tide of drugs and instability from Taliban-controlled Afghanistan that too frequently spilled across the Iranian border. For their part, the Taliban's extreme ascetic doctrine reviled Shia Muslims as apostates and its militants menaced Afghanistan's Shia minority. Tensions between the neighbors nearly escalated to direct conflict in August 1998, after eleven Iranian diplomats were murdered in the Taliban takeover of a Shia city. As a result, Iran cultivated close ties to the opposition militias that were battling the Taliban, including the Northern Alliance. This history positioned Iran as an unlikely ally in the post-9/11 campaign by the United States to unseat the Taliban and deny safe haven in Afghanistan to al-Qaeda. Iran's early track record was extremely promising: Tehran continued to work in tandem with the U.S. military effort in Afghanistan through the Northern Alliance, and it played an active and constructive role in the Bonn process that produced a new central government in post-conflict Kabul. Iranian officials also point to Iran's extensive logistical efforts to facilitate the U.S. victory over the Taliban, and its considerable aid to, and early recognition of, the post-conflict administration organized under President Hamid Karzai. The Bush administration has acknowledged these efforts, but has also consistently pointed to the more nefarious elements of Iranian actions in Afghanistan. As early as January 2002, President Bush issued a thinly veiled warning to Iran against any interference in Afghanistan, stating, "If they, in any way, shape, or form, try to destabilize the government, the coalition will deal with them... in diplomatic ways, initially."3 Senior administration officials have often criticized Iran's involvement with
3 U.S. Department of State, International Information Programs, "Bush Says Iran Must Contribute to War Against Terror, Expresses hope Iran will help stabilize Afghanistan," January 10, 2002. [24]
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Afghan warlords whose independent power bases contribute to the lack of stability and tenuous nature of central government authority today. It is critical to consider recent allegations of collusion between Iranian hard-liners and al-Qaeda. These allegations contravene both the Islamic Republic's accommodating stance toward the 2001 U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan and the well-established track record of hostility between Iran and al-Qaeda's ascetic strand of Sunni militancy. Al-Qaeda's ideology and worldview are unrelentingly opposed to the Shia branch of Islam, which its theologians brand as a heretical sect. Nonetheless, both al-Qaeda's operational leadership and the radical hard-liners who dominate the senior ranks of Iran's security bureaucracy have demonstrated in the past a certain degree of doctrinal flexibility that has facilitated functional alliances, irrespective of apparent ideological incompatibility. The allegations of cooperation between al-Qaeda and Iran are shrouded by the lack of much verifiable public evidence. Some reports suggest that militants associated with al-Qaeda have had direct contacts with Iranian officials since the mid-1990s; however, no serious reports demonstrate substantive cooperation prior to the 9/11 attacks. More disturbing is evidence that, since the attacks, Iran has served as a transit route for, and has possibly offered safe harbor to, al-Qaeda operatives fleeing Afghanistan, including several prominent leaders such as spokesman Suleiman Abu Ghaith and security chief Saif Al Adel. Related to these allegations are reports that Imad Mughniyeh, the head of Hezbollah's special operations directorate and one of Washington's most wanted terrorist suspects, has also found sanctuary in Iran. When public criticism by the U.S. government on this issue intensified after early 2002, Iran confirmed that it has detained an unspecified number of individuals connected with al-Qaeda and later acknowledged that these operatives included both "small and big-time elements." The circumstances of their entry to Iran are not publicly known, nor are any details of their status beyond the announced Iranian intention to put the al-Qaeda representatives on trial. Iran also claims to have deported at least 500 individuals who fled Afghanistan on the heels of the U.S. military campaign. Although Iran has trumpeted these actions as evidence of its vigilance in countering al-Qaeda's domestic and international threat, U.S. concerns about Iran's posture intensified after May 2003 attacks
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on expatriate housing complexes in Saudi Arabia that were attributed to al-Qaeda operatives, possibly working from Iran. As a result, Washington suspended the quiet constructive dialogue between the two governments that had developed after 9/11 on a limited range of regional issues. The nature of Iran's relationship with al-Qaeda is subject to innuendo and interpretation. Its eastern borders are notoriously porous, as Iranian officials are prone to noting in its defense. However, even if this is true, Iran's opaque handling of its unwelcome guests strains credulity. One plausible, although as yet unverified, explanation is that Iran's reluctance to turn over captured al-Qaeda operatives stems from concerns that such cooperation could produce evidence of complicity between Iranian hard-liners and individual terrorists. Behind the scenes, Iranian officials have suggested exchanging its al-Qaeda detainees for members of the Mojahideen-e Khalq Organization, who are currently interned by U.S. occupying forces in Iraq. Like many other episodes in the history of its turbulent relationship with Washington, Iran's insistence on clinging to what it perceives to be a valuable bargaining chip may lead to an overestimation of its potential leverage and an ultimate weakening of its own security. Iraq As with the Taliban, Iran's long track record of conflict with Saddam Hussein is well established. The eight-year Iran-Iraq war so bitter and exhausting that it did not end in a formal peace treaty and relations between the two countries did not fully resume for the ensuing sixteen years of Saddam's rule. Here, too, Tehran and Washington found themselves improbably united by a common enemy, although the problematic history of U.S. policy toward Iraq and the implicit threat of Iran's affiliation with its Shia majority added considerable layers of complexity and wariness. In the lead-up to the 2003 campaign by the U.S.-led coalition to remove Saddam Hussein, Iranian officials opposed the war in the most robust terms, mindful of the precedent that would be set and the fact that the U.S. military would be parked on Iran's western border. In private conversations, Iranians offered their own tragic experience in Iraq as an admonition against any optimism about the prospects for a positive post-conflict scenario.
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In the immediate aftermath of the coalition victory, however, Iran also recognized an unprecedented opportunity to extend its own influence and encourage the ascension of a friendly fellow Shia government. As a result, Iran sanctioned cooperation with the U.S. occupation via one of its primary instruments for projecting power in Iraq: the Shia opposition groups. In particular, the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, which has long-standing and intricate ties to Iran's governing clergy, emerged as a central and constructive actor in the nascent politics of post-Saddam Iraq. In addition, Iran offered early recognition to the precarious provisional government and quickly launched efforts to expand economic and cultural ties with Iraqis. Just as in Afghanistan, however, Iran's cooperation did not negate U.S. concerns about its leaders' ultimate intentions and its potential for undertaking subversive activities. Tehran reportedly tested the commitment of the occupying forces to preserving Iraq's existing borders, briefly moving across the south-central border in the summer of 2003. Iran's clerical forces also began reaching out to a wide variety of Iraqi organizations and leaders, including militants such as Moqtada al Sadr (whose spiritual mentor resides in Iran). Washington has also accused Iran of allowing foreign fighters to cross its borders into Iraq. At the same time, Iranian leaders have taken advantage of the deteriorating security situation to intensify their condemnations of the U.S. presence in Iraq. This represents a combination of political opportunism and authentic empathy with the plight of the Iraqi people and the manifest instability in the sacred Shia shrine cities of Najaf and Karbala. No longer chastened by fears of Washington expanding its program of regime change, Iranian hard-liners are already asserting a newly reborn confidence that could easily tend toward greater audacity on the international scene. "The Americans, whether they want it or not, whether they accept it or not, are defeated in Iraq," Ayatollah Khamenei recently proclaimed.4Notwithstanding these very real areas of conflict, there is considerable overlap between Iranian and U.S. visions for postwar Iraq. Although their strategic rationales vary widely, both Tehran and Washington are broadly committed to promoting a unitary and even pluralistic post-Saddam Iraqi state. For Iran, the driving forces are purely
4 "Iran leader pours scorn on U.S. democracy claims," Reuters, June 3, 2004.
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pragmatic; any partition of Iraq or outbreak of civil war could pose spillover effects, imperiling Iran's own stability. Although its hard-liners may maintain ties to the rabble-rousers such as al Sadr, they are unlikely to truly align themselves with his chaotic cause, or to champion the cause of Baathist remnants that terrorize the Sunni center of the country. One Iranian newspaper derided the violence that has beset Iraq as neither guerrilla warfare nor the people's resistance, but rather "a horrible blind terror." Inconveniencing the United States is one thing; sowing turmoil on Iran's own environs is quite another. In fact, at the height of recent tensions in Najaf, Iran dispatched a team of diplomats to mediate between U.S. forces and the insurgent al Sadr forces. Moreover, the Iranian clerics, who have resisted the expansion of popular political participation at home, are proving ardent champions of pluralism in Iraq. Again, this position, paradoxically, suits their interests--a democratic Iraqi polity is likely to feature strong Shia representation, providing Iran valuable avenues through which to exert its influence. In addition, such a state would be prone to internecine political squabbling and would thereby be an implausible rival for regional hegemony. For these reasons, the very clerics who undermined Iran's recent parliamentary polls have welcomed Iraq's new interim government and encouraged the early organization of free elections. One of the central uncertainties about Iraq's evolution is the impact it may have on Iran's internal affairs. Many U.S. proponents of regime change suggested that Saddam Hussein's removal and the establishment of representative government and rule of law in Iraq would have a domino effect throughout the region, first and foremost in Iran. Undoubtedly, a stable, pluralistic Iraq that enjoys cordial relations with its neighbors may have ripple effects on the evolution of Iran's domestic political contention. And Interaction between Iranian seminaries and the historic seats of religious scholarship in Iraq will intensify the debate among Shia clerics about the most appropriate relationship between religion and politics. Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani commands a considerable following across the region--wider than that any of Iran's ruling clergy. His quiet approach to clerical involvement in politics and his reported aversion to Iran's theocratic system could create new Iranian adherents to the notion of separating religion from politics. In the short term, however, instability in Iraq is only fueling the fires of extremism throughout the region.
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Middle East Peace Process Among the most troublesome practices of the Islamic Republic is its sustained and prolonged support for militant anti-Israeli groups and terrorists. Among these, Iran's sponsorship of Hezbollah remains the most significant. Iranian officials founded the group and continue to provide training, intelligence, arms, and financing twenty years later. An outgrowth of the intricate religious and familial ties among the region's Shia clerical establishment, Hezbollah today has both military and political arms, but remains closely associated with Iran's clerical leadership. Hezbollah's track record as one of the world's foremost terrorist organizations is indisputable: until 9/11, its 1983 attack on barracks housing U.S. Marines constituted the largest loss of U.S. lives to a terrorist attack. As a result of this attack and several other suicide bombings carried out by Hezbollah operatives during that period, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage characterized the U.S. stance toward Hezbollah in late 2002 as a "blood debt." In the 1980s, Hezbollah was responsible for aircraft hijackings as well as kidnappings of U.S. citizens and other westerners who were then held as hostages. In addition, Hezbollah operatives, along with four Iranian officials, have been indicted by Argentina in connection with the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center that killed eighty-five people. Despite this history, many within the region emphasize Hezbollah's political participation--its party members hold twelve seats in the Lebanese parliament--and openly supported its role in pressuring Israel to withdraw from southern Lebanon in 2000. In this regard, even U.S. allies are split to some extent. These reservations reflect Hezbollah's evolution into something beyond a compliant Iranian surrogate. Its organization and its history reflect the complicated rivalries within the Lebanese Shia community, as well as the formative role Syria has had in shaping the group's operational imperatives. Iranian material support, channeled via Damascus, remains significant, but reliable reports suggest that only a relatively small number of Iran's revolutionary guards remain in southern Lebanon today to help coordinate that assistance. Iranian support for Hezbollah clearly transcends any factional differences among the Islamic Republic's political elite; Iran's reformers are equally committed to the
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Lebanese organization as the hard-liners. In fact, it is one of the leaders of the reformist faction of the 2000-2004 parliament--Hojjatoleslam Ali Akbar Mohtashamipur--who is credited with founding Hezbollah. President Khatami has met with its secretary general, Sheikh Hassan Nasrallah, several times in Lebanon and in Tehran, commenting recently that the group has a "a natural right, even a sacred national duty" to defend Palestinians against Israel.5 As a result, it is highly improbable that Iran can be persuaded or compelled to completely renounce its proxy. Still, some measure of Iranian flexibility may be possible even with respect to Hezbollah. Since 9/11, Iranian leaders have repeatedly advocated that Hezbollah exhibit restraint in its armed struggle against Israel, and have also hinted that a resolution to the Shebaa Farms territorial dispute could set the stage for Hezbollah to abandon its paramilitary activities. Iran's long cultivation of Hezbollah, together with its extreme antagonism toward Israel, has paved the way for expanding relations with (Sunni) Palestinian militant groups, including the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, Hamas, and Palestine Islamic Jihad. The connections among these groups, Hezbollah, and Iran have intensified steadily over the past fifteen years, as shared ideological views have facilitated operational linkages and alliances. Some reports estimate that Iran's support for individual organizations has been as high as $100 million, but Palestinian militants dispute these assertions, claiming that Iranian aid is philanthropic in nature and of a much lesser magnitude. Tehran's support to these groups has complemented its long-standing antipathy toward Palestinian leader Yasir Arafat, whose Fatah movement aligned with Iraq during its war with Iran and who further alienated the Islamic Republic through his participation in the Madrid peace process that Tehran reviled. Iran rejects U.S. criticism of its stance toward Israel and its support of Hezbollah and Palestinian militants; its official justifications differentiate between terrorist activities and what Tehran characterizes as legitimate resistance against occupation. This paradoxical position has generated occasional evidence that Iran could be persuaded to countenance an eventual peace agreement between the Palestinians and Israel. The 5 "Iran: Despite U.S. Pressure, Khatami Says Tehran Supports Hizballah," Rob Synovitz, RFE/RL, May 14, 2003.
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foreign ministry declared, as recently as October 2002, that Iran would not stand in the way of a final two-state solution, and accepted (at least in its official dialogue with Saudi Arabia) Crown Prince Abdullah's peace plan. Equally important, Iranian policymakers have recognized the risk that Iran's assistance to militants opposing the Middle East peace process could drag the country directly into conflict, particularly in the post-9/11 environment, where preemption is a tool of counterterrorism. Still, the Iranian leadership's adherence to extremist rhetoric and its close association with rejectionist groups ultimately limits the government's flexibility on this issue. Having entrenched its opposition to Israel so prominently and absolutely, Tehran has found itself in the awkward position of being progressively more unyielding than the Palestinians themselves. Since the outset of the second Palestinian intifada in September 2000, the few official voices of moderation have been increasingly drowned out by radicalism. As a result, in spite of select and very modest improvements, Iran's involvement with terrorist groups and activities remains considerable according to U.S. and European intelligence. Most notably, in January 2002, a ship laden with fifty tons of Iranian weapons and explosives destined for the Palestinian Authority was discovered off the coast of Israel, with its captain claiming that its cargo was loaded in Iran. Iran has also continued to host an annual conclave on the intifada, which draws a veritable pantheon of terrorist leaders. As the U.S. war on terrorism begins to make headway against alternative sources of funding, these groups' reliance on Tehran may only be enhanced, in turn, increasing the incentives for Iranian hard-liners to seek low-cost proxies. Although it is substantial, Iranian assistance does not constitute the primary factor in the existence or operations of Palestinian terrorism, however. Absent a return to discernible progress toward a peace settlement between Palestinians and Israelis, and/or a meaningful commitment by the Palestinians to abandon violence against civilians as their primary means of confronting Israeli occupation, these groups and their abhorrent activities are likely to persist. [31]
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The Legacies of Iranian Support for Terrorism It is important to highlight the fact that the international effort to curb Iran's terrorist associations has witnessed a few notable successes. Iran is credited with efforts to bring about the release of western hostages held by Hezbollah in the early 1990s, for example, after rapprochement with the Gulf states dictated an abandonment of the proxy movements among their Shia populations. Furthermore, European efforts to prosecute Iranian officials for their involvement in extraterritorial assassinations of dissidents--notably, the German indictment of Iran's then-intelligence minister in the 1997 "Mykonos case"--appears to have halted this once-prevalent practice. Most recently, Iranians internally have forced reforms (albeit very modest ones) to the intelligence ministry, the organization most closely identified with the practice of terrorism, as a result of popular outrage over the ministry's role in the 1998 murders of Iranian writers and political activists at home. Unfortunately, each of these steps forward has occurred in the context of worrisome reversals on other issues. For example, the release of western hostages in the early 1990s coincided with a renewed onslaught against Iranian dissidents abroad. The post-9/11 dialogue with Washington on Afghanistan, meanwhile, took place even as support to militant Palestinian groups intensified and al-Qaeda operatives were found to have operated from Iranian territory. As a result of its tendency to subvert foreign policy to its fierce domestic political competition, Iran has failed to achieve substantial diplomatic recompense for its limited bouts of cooperation. As a result, the periods of progress in Iran's domestic political situation have not led to the sort of progress on the issue of terrorism that many once hoped for. Also complicating the situation is the fact that many Iranian reformers, although generally arguing for a less confrontational foreign policy, have also maintained steady ties with Lebanese and Palestinian militants, whose cause resonates with their own ideological roots in the Islamic left wing. Popular pressure is unlikely to prove a potent force for mitigating Iran's international adventurism, simply because of the extremely limited role of Iranian public opinion in shaping foreign policy. Thanks to the steady diet of propaganda, sympathy for the Palestinians' plight is more widely felt among Iranians today than prior to the revolution. Beyond a vocal minority, however, public sympathy
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does not extend to militancy, and anecdotal evidence suggests that Iranians are more concerned with expanding their own opportunities than those of a distant population. Moreover, even if Iran's terrorist ties were fully severed today, their legacy would still be extremely problematic for the country. As a result of a 1996 U.S. law permitting lawsuits against state sponsors of terrorism, the Iranian government has been held liable for damages to families of Americans killed or wounded in terrorist bombings in Israel and kidnappings in Lebanon--damages that today total more than $1 billion. At the same time, criminal investigations into some of Iran's allegedly more far-flung activities, such as the bombing of the Jewish community center in Argentina, have just begun to produce legal actions against former Iranian officials. Accountability and expectations of restitution will remain a serious dilemma for Iran if it is to move forward and one day fully reintegrate itself into the international community. RECENT U.S. POLICY TOWARD TEHRAN Formulating U.S. policy toward Tehran has never proved simple or straightforward. Enmeshed in its own contradictions and factional contestations, the Islamic Republic resists neat prognostication, and its leaders often act in ways that appear contrary to the country's interests. In the twenty-five years that have passed since the 1979 revolution, Washington has deployed an array of policy tools, including sanctions, incentives, diplomacy, and military force. Since the mid-1990s, the United States has sought to contain the threat posed by Iran, relying increasingly on a set of economic sanctions that were comprehensive in scope but unilateral in application. These measures sought to alter Iran's objectionable policies by exacting considerable costs for such behavior, and were coupled with a similar approach toward Iraq under the rubric of "dual containment." With respect to Tehran, the efficacy of this approach was undermined by Iran's concurrent efforts to rebuild its relations with its neighbors and major international actors, including Europe, China, and Japan.
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In the late 1990s, the appearance of political liberalization in Iran persuaded the Clinton administration to discontinue the Iranian component of "dual containment." Although the bulk of the sanctions regime was maintained, Washington experimented with the possibility of engaging Tehran through modest unilateral gestures. The result was equally unsatisfying, producing only a frustrating exchange of missed opportunities as well as a continuation--and, in some important areas, an intensification--of the very Iranian policies that Washington sought to thwart. As with other aspects of his Middle East policy, President Clinton invested considerable personal attention with the intention of generating a breakthrough with Iran that might serve as a lasting legacy, only to find enhanced Iranian obstructionism as his reward. The Bush administration had begun to outline a coherent policy toward Iran during its initial months in office--mobilizing a belated, and ultimately ineffective, effort to modify the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act during its August 2001 reauthorization, for example--when the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, permanently altered its strategic calculus. In the post-9/11 environment, Iran appeared to embody the twin menaces now seen as the main threat facing the United States: the intersection of terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. At the same time, with the initiation of Washington's war on terrorism, Iran became a key player in that effort, at least insofar as it involved Afghanistan and Iraq. These dual imperatives helped to shape a disjointed and sometimes contradictory U.S. policy toward Tehran from late 2001 onward. The most dramatic development in U.S.-Iranian relations during this period was President Bush's decision to include Iran, along with Iraq and North Korea, as part of an "axis of evil" in his January 2002 state of the union address. The reference came in response to the discovery of a weapons cache reportedly supplied by Iran en route to the Palestinian Authority, but it undercut several months of tacit cooperation between Washington and Tehran on the war and post-conflict stabilization of Afghanistan. At one end of the spectrum, the administration engaged Iran in an historic dialogue on Afghanistan, which was effective in generating greater Iranian cooperation (extraordinarily, the talks were also publicly acknowledged within Iran). At the other end of the spectrum, some influential parties in Washington criticized the lack of democracy
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and appealed to Iranians for regime change in Tehran, renewing contacts with the same discredited expatriates who helped mastermind the Iran-Contra debacle in the 1980s. Differing views in Washington generated occasionally glaring inconsistencies in U.S. positions. In the aftermath of the ouster of Saddam Hussein, for example, the Pentagon publicly flirted with utilizing an Iraq-based Iranian opposition group as a vanguard force against Tehran over the protests of the State Department, which had designated the group as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. The U.S. war on terrorism has complicated the process of dealing with a country such as Iran, which is experiencing internal pressures, a slow evolution away from radicalism, and whose politics and predilections are ambiguous and opaque. Flawed assumptions about Iran's murky internal situation have weakened the effectiveness of U.S. policy toward the country in recent years. Persuaded that revolutionary change was imminent in Iran, the administration had sought to influence Iran's internal order, relying on the model of the eastern European transition from communism. However, the neat totalitarian dichotomy between the regime and the people does not exist in the Islamic Republic, and, as a result, frequent, vocal appeals to the "Iranian people" only strengthened the cause of clerical reactionaries and left regime opponents vulnerable to charges of being Washington's "fifth column." ASSESSMENTS AND RECOMMENDATIONS The United States' long lack of direct contact with, and presence in, Iran drastically impedes its understanding of domestic, as well as regional, dynamics. In turn, this reduces Washington's influence across the Middle East in ways that are manifestly harmful to its ultimate interests. Direct dialogue approached candidly and without restrictions on issues of mutual concern would serve Iran's interests. And establishing connections with Iranian society would directly benefit U.S. national objectives of enhancing the stability and security of this critical region. Dialogue between the United States and Iran need not await absolute harmony between the two governments. Throughout history, Washington has maintained cordial
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and constructive relations with regimes whose policies and philosophies differ significantly from its own, including, above all, in its relationship with the Soviet Union. By its very definition, diplomacy seeks to address issues between nations, and so it would be unwise (and unrealistic) to defer contact with Tehran until all differences between the two governments have evaporated. Conversely, however, any significant expansion in the U.S. relationship with Tehran must incorporate unimpeachable progress toward a satisfactory resolution of key U.S. concerns. Political and economic relations with Iran cannot be normalized unless and until the Iranian government demonstrates a commitment to abandoning its nuclear weapons programs and its support for terrorist groups. However, these demands should not constitute preconditions for dialogue. In launching any new relationship with Iran, it is important that expectations on both sides are realistic and are clearly communicated to the Iranians as well as between the various players in the U.S. foreign policy bureaucracy. A "grand bargain" between Iran and the United States is not a realistic or achievable goal. A quarter-century of enmity and estrangement are not easily overcome, the issues at stake are too numerous and complex, and the domestic political contexts of both countries are too difficult to allow the current breach to be settled comprehensively overnight. Moreover, even the most far-reaching rapprochement between the United States and Iran could not recreate the close alliance that existed prior to the revolution in 1979. Were the most serious U.S. concerns about Iranian behavior to be resolved, significant differences between worldviews and strategic priorities would remain. Instead, we envision a relationship where the two countries pragmatically explore areas of common concern and potential cooperation, while continuing to pursue other incompatible objectives at the same time. For these reasons, we advocate that Washington propose a compartmentalized process of dialogue, confidence building, and incremental engagement. The United States should identify the discrete set of issues where critical U.S. and Iranian interests converge, and must be prepared to try to make progress along separate tracks, even while considerable differences remain in other areas. Instead of aspiring to a detailed road map of rapprochement, as previous U.S. administrations have recommended, the executive branch should consider outlining a [36]
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more simple mechanism for framing formal dialogue with Iran. A basic statement of principles, along the lines of the 1972 Shanghai Communiqu? signed by the United States and China, could be developed to outline the parameters for U.S.-Iranian engagement, establish the overarching objectives for dialogue, and reassure relevant domestic political constituencies on both sides. The effort to draft such a statement would give constructive focus and substance to a serious but realistic bilateral dialogue. Should that effort reach stalemate, dialogue should still move forward on specific issues. In engaging with Iran, the United States must be prepared to utilize incentives as well as punitive measures. Given Iran's pressing economic challenges, the most powerful inducements for Tehran would be economic measures: particularly steps that rescind the comprehensive U.S. embargo on trade and investment in Iran. Used judiciously, such incentives could enhance U.S. leverage vis-?-vis Tehran. One particularly valuable step, which should be made conditional on significant progress in resolving one or more of the chief concerns with respect to Iran, would be the authorization of executory contracts--legal instruments that permit U.S. businesses to negotiate with Iranian entities but defer ultimate implementation of any agreement until further political progress has been reached. Commercial relations represent a diplomatic tool that should not be underestimated or cynically disregarded. Ultimately, the return of U.S. businesses to Tehran could help undermine the clerics' monopoly on power by strengthening the nonstate sector, improving the plight of Iran's beleaguered middle class, and offering new opportunities to transmit American values. In dealing with Iran, the United States should relinquish the rhetoric of regime change. Such language inevitably evokes the problematic history of U.S. involvement with the 1953 coup that unseated Iranian Prime Minister Mohammad Mossadeq. For these reasons, propounding regime change simply invites nationalist passions that are clearly unconstructive to the cause such a policy would seek to serve. Rather, Washington's positions and policies must clearly communicate to the government and citizens of Iran that the United States favors political evolution: the long-range vision is an Iran that ushers in democracy itself in a meaningful and lasting manner. [37]
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Nuclear Programs Iran's history of maintaining clandestine programs suggests that a radical change in its strategic environment would be the only enduring way its nuclear weapons programs could be thwarted. In dealing with a state determined to maintain a nuclear option, counter-proliferation efforts can only succeed in escalating the time and cost associated with such programs. A permanent solution must address the catalysts that drive Iran's pursuit of nuclear weapons: its persistent sense of insecurity vis-?-vis both regional rivals and its paramount adversary, the United States Ultimately, only in the context of an overall rapprochement with Washington will there be any prospect of persuading Iran to make the strategic decision to relinquish its nuclear program. Short of such a fundamental breakthrough in Iran's own stance, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) process offers a viable path for managing Iran's nuclear efforts, provided that there is close multilateral coordination and firm U.S. leadership. A strong European role is essential in marshalling an effective combination of pressure and incentives. But there must be direct U.S. engagement in the process to maintain vigilance and persuade Tehran of the potential costs of noncompliance. The United States should intensify its engagement with its allies on this issue. Although enhanced international scrutiny of Iran's weapons programs cannot permanently neutralize Iran's nuclear aspirations, the IAEA can play an active role in retarding these programs and in generating a coordinated multilateral stance. To this end, the United States should continue to press the agency to enforce the Nonproliferation Treaty Additional Protocol and pursue snap comprehensive inspections of Iranian facilities. Iran will provide an important test case for this verification instrument. In addition, the United States should work with the Europeans and with the IAEA to identify a set of "red lines"--conditions that, if Iran failed to fulfill, would trigger a referral of Iran's case to the United Nations Security Council. Tehran must clearly understand that unless it demonstrates real, uninterrupted cooperation with the IAEA process, it will face the prospect of multilateral sanctions by the Security Council. Further, the Task Force recommends that the United States work with its allies and the IAEA to outline a detailed framework agreement that would seek to outline a more-durable solution to the nuclear issue. The basic parameters of such an agreement [38]
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would institute ongoing rigorous constraints on Iran's nuclear program in exchange for continued access to peaceful technology and international markets. Iran would be asked to commit to permanently ceasing all its enrichment and reprocessing activities, subject to international verification. In return, the international community would guarantee access to adequate nuclear fuel supplies, with assurances that all spent fuel would be returned to the country of origin, and to advanced power generation technology (whose export to Iran is currently restricted). These commitments would permit the continuing development of a peaceful Iranian nuclear power program and provide multilateral guarantees to nuclear technology, as long as Iran abides by its nonproliferation obligations defined broadly to include cessation of uranium enrichment. Iran will inevitably resist such a proposal, as it has vocally proclaimed its sovereign rights to nuclear technology and to all those activities not specifically prohibited by the Nonproliferation Treaty. For this reason, the framework agreement should incorporate a new combination of carrots and sticks to persuade Tehran to reconsider its course. In particular, the United States should be prepared to commit to opening a bilateral dialogue with Iran on enhancing political and economic relations that would take place in parallel with the Islamic Republic's established negotiations with the European Union on trade, terrorism, proliferation, the Middle East peace process, and human rights. A viable framework agreement with Iran on the nuclear issue would demand more effective cooperation between Washington and its allies to make clear to Iran both the potential rewards for its cooperation as well as the possible costs of its continuing obstructionism. Although the United States must take a leadership role, the involvement of its allies and multilateral institutions will be essential to provide leverage vis-?-vis Iran. The United States should carefully calibrate any approach to garner the widest consensus and firm commitment to a coordinated set of steps. For example, the United States should focus its dialogue with Russia not on pressuring Moscow to abandon its involvement with the construction of the Bushehr nuclear power plant, but on persuading it to intensify its efforts to reach an agreement on the return of spent fuel from that facility. For its part, the European Union must be willing to consider curtailing economic
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relations with Tehran, should Iran be unwilling to adopt greater controls on its nuclear programs. Given the potential threat that Iran's acquisition of nuclear weapons could pose, the full range of alternatives--including military options--for confronting Tehran must be examined. Yet the use of military force would be extremely problematic, given the dispersal of Iran's program at sites throughout the country and their proximity to urban centers. Since Washington would be blamed for any unilateral Israeli military strike, the United States should, in any case, make it quite clear to Israel that U.S. interests would be adversely affected by such a move. In addition, any military effort to eliminate Iranian weapons capabilities runs the significant risk of reinforcing Tehran's desire to acquire a nuclear deterrent and of provoking nationalist passions in defense of that very course. It would most likely generate also hostile Iranian initiatives in Iraq and Afghanistan. Regional Conflicts From the perspective of U.S. interests, one particular issue area appears particularly ripe for U.S.-Iranian engagement: the future of Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States has a direct and compelling interest in ensuring both countries' security and the success of their post-conflict governments. Iran has demonstrated its ability and readiness to use its influence constructively in these two countries, but also its capacity for making trouble. The United States should work with Tehran to capitalize on Iran's influence to advance the stability and consolidation of its neighbors. This could commence via a resumption and expansion of the Geneva track discussions with Tehran on post-conflict Afghanistan and Iraq. Such a dialogue should be structured to obtain constructive Iranian involvement in the process of consolidating authority within the central governments and rebuilding the economies of both Iraq and Afghanistan. Regular contact with Iran would also provide a channel to address concerns that have arisen about its activities and relationships with competing power centers in both countries. These discussions should incorporate other regional power brokers, as well as Europe and Russia--much like the "Six Plus Two" negotiations on Afghanistan that took place in the years before the Taliban were ousted. A multilateral forum on the future of Iraq and Afghanistan would
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help cultivate confidence and would build political and economic relationships essential to the long-term durability of the new governments in Baghdad and Kabul. Critics have argued that Iran should be denied any formal role in the reconstruction of Iraq, due to the propensity of some Iranian factions to pursue destabilizing policies there. After the June 28, 2004, handover of sovereignty to the interim Iraqi administration, however, the United States is no longer in a position to implement such a veto, nor should it endeavor to do so. Convincing Iran that it has a direct stake in the successful transition of its former adversary represents the most effective means of thwarting any temptations by hard-line elements in Iran to try to undermine Iraq. Over the longer term, U.S. interests in achieving peace and stability in the Persian Gulf would be best served by engaging Iran and each of its neighbors in a dialogue aimed at establishing an effective organization to promote regional security and cooperation. Such an organization could be structured to provide a forum for regional dialogue, confidence-building measures, economic cooperation, conflict prevention, and crisis management. Settling the al-Qaeda issue must remain a high priority for the United States. Through direct dialogue with Afghanistan via a renewed Geneva track, the outlines of a reciprocal arrangement should be negotiated. In private discussions, the Iranian government has already suggested the outlines of an agreement that would trade al-Qaeda detainees for members of an Iraqi-based opposition group, the Mojahideen-e Khalq, which has long perpetrated terrorist activities against Iran. Such an explicit trade is not possible, however, due to the impossibility of ensuring fair adjudication in the Iranian system. Rather, the Task Force recommends that the United States press Iran to clarify the status of all al-Qaeda-related detainees and to extradite those who can be identified as persons pursued by other governments. At the same time, the United States should work with the interim Iraqi government to ensure that Mojahideen facilities are conclusively disbanded and that its leaders are brought to justice for their role in violence against both Iraqis and Iranians under Saddam's regime. Iran's involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a pernicious factor in an already debilitating conflict. Ultimately, the most effective strategy for extracting Iran [41]
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from the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be resuming a robust peace process buttressed by a sustained U.S. commitment to lead the effort and a broad regional consensus in support of the negotiating parties and the ultimate agreements. Should leading Arab states such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt actively support and facilitate a peace process between Israelis and Palestinians, Iran would be likely to acquiesce to this process. Iranian hostility toward the peace process is not immutable--a lonely struggle against an emerging regional consensus on behalf of radical Palestinian forces is not likely to be the path chosen by Tehran. Long-term Relations with Iran Washington should work to ensure that its rhetoric and policies target Iran's objectionable policies rather than its population. Attempting to isolate the Iranian people does not serve the cause of democracy in Iran or the region. The most appropriate and effective mechanism for contributing to Iran's slow process of change would be to intensify the political, cultural, and economic linkages between its population and the wider world. Specifically, this should entail gradually incorporating Iran into the activities of the U.S. Middle East Partnership Initiative and other regional reform programs and issuing a blanket license to authorize the activities of U.S. nongovernmental organizations in Iran. The administration should also take care to ensure that its message--the United States desires a dialogue on mutual interests and that the resumption of relations will require a positive response from Iran regarding U.S. concerns--is crystal clear to both the government and the people of Iran. Successive U.S. administrations have centered their policy toward Iran around the persuasive power of economic sanctions to change the country's positions and conduct. The comprehensive and unilateral nature of the U.S. embargo, however, ultimately deprives Washington of leverage: both the influence that comes with a government's ability to make trade ties conditional on improved political relations and the more diffuse impact business relations can have on changing political culture. The Task Force ultimately concludes that economic relations between the United States and Iran must be conditioned upon improvements in the diplomatic relationship between the two countries. Small steps, such as the authorization of trade between U.S. entities and Iran's relatively
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small private sector, should be contemplated as confidence building measures that would create new constituencies within Iran for a government that is fully integrated into the international community. In addition, the United States should relinquish its efforts to prevent Iranian engagement with international financial institutions, as these efforts are inherently counterproductive to the objective of promoting better governance in Tehran. Permitting Iran to begin accession talks with the World Trade Organization will only intensify pressure on Tehran for accountability and transparency, and may help facilitate Iran's evolution into a state that respects its citizens and its neighbors.
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ADDITIONAL OR DISSENTING VIEWS I wish to stress that support for dialogue and diplomatic and economic relations between Iran and the United States does not imply acquiescence in the violation by the Iranian government of the civil rights and liberties of its own citizens. Some Iranians understandably fear that relations with the United States will reinforce the status quo and therefore regime durability in Iran. In fact, any study of Iranian history over the last century and more suggests that interaction with the outside world greatly accelerates, rather than hinders, the pace of internal political change. I believe enmeshing Iran with the international community, expanding trade, and improving economic opportunity and the conditions for the growth of the middle class will strengthen, not weaken, the democratic forces in Iran. Shaul Bakhash The Task Force report offers sound and insightful analysis of the evolution of the Islamic Republic's internal politics, its foreign policy, and the range of U.S. interests at stake in America's relationship with Iran. However, I must take exception with the report's conclusion that a "grand bargain" between the United States and Iran is not a realistic goal. Indeed, I believe that a grand bargain may be the only realistic option for breaking out of the current impasse in U.S.-Iranian relations, which is increasingly dysfunctional for U.S. interests. We have had considerable experience, over the years, with incremental or issue-specific approaches to seeking an improved U.S.-Iranian relationship. In Lebanon, Bosnia, and, most recently, in Afghanistan, U.S.-Iranian cooperation has been important to the achievement of U.S. policy goals in challenging environments. Yet, this cooperation has never been able to serve as the catalyst for more fundamental and strategic improvement in the U.S.-Iranian relationship. Disagreements over other critical issues--especially terrorism and nonproliferation--have always undermined the strategic
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potential of U.S.-Iranian tactical cooperation. I see no reason, in the current climate, to believe that the kind of approach recommended in the report is more likely to succeed in improving the overall nature of the U.S.-Iranian relationship than earlier exercises in incremental, issue-specific cooperation. It have assumed for some years that the biggest problem the United States faces in trying to get the Iranian government to change its approach toward proliferation and support for terrorism is that most Iranian citizens have had heretofore no clear reason to "connect the dots" between their government ending both its support for Hezbollah and its support for nuclear weapons development, and having U.S. economic sanctions lifted as a result. You might find the majority of Iranians demanding good behavior by their government on these issues because the vast majority wants a better relationship with the United States as they believe that a normalized relationship with the United States is in their own economic and social self-interest. Finally, the United States should make certain that the Iranian people clearly "hear" this offer of a grand bargain. We should make this offer to the Iranian government (I would suggest through Hassan Rohani, secretary general of Iran's Supreme National Security Council), but also broadcast it directly to the Iranian people. I believe the "conservatives" in Iran will also see such an approach as a chance for them to undertake a "Nixon to China" approach and potentially achieve a goal that has benefits both internationally and more importantly, domestically as they attempt to cement their political position long term. H.P. Goldfield In consideration of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's report of July 7, 2004, on Iraq and 9/11, I believe the Council on Foreign Relations Task Force report on Iran should be very circumspect on what it concludes is happening in Iran. Until such time as U.S. intelligence is confirmed reliable, or Americans can be assured the administration [46]
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has not distorted the intelligence it receives, the report should be very cautious on what it recommends based on the assumption its intelligence is correct. Furthermore, I would have preferred that the final report dealt with engagement, beginning with subjects of common interest to the United States and Iran, rather than suggesting that engagement selectively deal only with well known but unconfirmed contentious subjects. It is certain Iran would have its own list of similar issues that the United States perceived to threaten its security. This is not a starting point for effective engagement. In a relative sense, in the region, I do not agree that Iran is an unstable country. In fact, it well may be the most stable. Although not quantified, it appears that those who have long been supported most aggressively by the United States have a much higher potential for instability than does Iran. The report's conclusion that isolation, containment sanctions, and the like have failed as foreign policy practices by the United States is welcomed. And the conclusion that the United States should adopt measure to broaden political cultural and economic linkages with the people of Iran is even more welcomed. Richard H. Matzke The report proposes a framework agreement under which Iran would cease permanently all enrichment and reprocessing activities under international verification, in exchange for guaranteed access to nuclear fuel and assured return of spent fuel to the country of origin. Russia could play a central role in advancing this kind of approach, having enacted legislation permitting it to import spent fuel from other countries, with a view to generating substantial revenues from reactor operators in countries seeking a way to manage the difficult task of managing growing stocks of spent fuel. It would be in the interest of the United States to engage Russia in early discussions to negotiate an agreement of peaceful nuclear cooperation that would permit Russia to import spent fuel of U.S. origin, to reinforce U.S. efforts to persuade Moscow to conclude and implement its proposed agreement with Iran for the return to Russia of the spent fuel from the [47]
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Bushehr nuclear reactor. It is worth noting that the nonproliferation benefits of this kind of approach--essentially providing cradle-to-grave fuel services to countries that forswear dangerous fuel cycle activities--could extend well beyond Iran. Also, the report properly notes that Iran is permitted to enrich uranium and engage in other nuclear fuel cycle facilities under its international treaty obligations, but it should be remembered that, according to Article IV of the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, the grant of the inalienable right to develop nuclear energy is qualified by the phrase "for peaceful purposes." Thus if the international community should conclude that Iranian efforts to enrich uranium or obtain plutonium were intended, in fact, to support development of nuclear weapons, then those Iranian efforts would not be permissible under its international treaty obligations. Daniel B. Poneman [48]
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TASK FORCE MEMBERS PETER ACKERMAN is the Managing Director of Rockport Capital, and Chairman of the Board Overseers of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy. He is the co-author of A Force More Powerful: A Century of Nonviolent Conflict and Executive Producer of "Bringing Down a Dictator," the Peabody Award-winning documentary on the fall of Slobodan Milosevic. DAVID ALBRIGHT is President and founder of the Institute for Science and International Security. He is a physicist who specializes in nuclear nonproliferation. For over a decade he has assessed and published widely on Iran's secret nuclear efforts. In the 1990s, he worked with the IAEA Action Team mandated by the UN Security Council to dismantle and monitor against any reconstitution of Iraq's nuclear weapons programs. SHAUL BAKHASH* is Clarence J. Robinson Professor of History at George Mason University. He is the author of Iran: Monarchy, Bureaucracy and Reform Under the Oajars, 1858-1896; The Politics of Oil and Revolution in Iran; and Reign of the Ayatollahs: Iran and the Islamic Revolution. His articles have appeared in the New York Review of Books, the New Republic, Foreign Policy, Journal of Democracy, and in scholarly books and journals. He has written opinion pieces for the New York Times, Washington Post, LA Times and other newspapers. He worked for many years as a journalist in Iran, writing for the Tehran-based Kayhan Newspapers as well as for the London Times, Financial Times, and the Economist. Before coming to George Mason University in 1985, he taught at Princeton University. He spent the past year as a Visiting Fellow at the Saban Center at the Brookings Institution, working on a book on the reform movement in Iran. Note: Task Force members participate in their individual and not institutional capacities. * The individual has endorsed the report and submitted an additional or a dissenting view.
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ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI is Co-Chair of the Task Force and served as National Security Adviser to President Carter from 1977 to 1981. He is the author of, most recently, The Choice: Global Domination or Global Leadership. FRANK CARLUCCI is Chairman Emeritus of the Carlyle Group, having served as Chairman for eleven years. His government background includes service as Secretary of Defense, National Security Adviser, Deputy Director of Central Intelligence, Ambassador, Deputy Director of OMB, and Under Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare. ROBERT EINHORN is Senior Adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, and served as Assistant Secretary of State for Nonproliferation from 1999 to August 2001. ROBERT M. GATES is Co-Chair of the Task Force and President of Texas A&M University. Dr. Gates served as Director of Central Intelligence from 1991-93. In this position, he headed all foreign intelligence agencies of the United States and directed the Central Intelligence Agency. Dr. Gates has been awarded the National Security Medal, the Presidential Citizens Medal, has twice received the National Intelligence Distinguished Service Medal, and has three times received CIA's highest award, the Distinguished Intelligence Medal. H.P. GOLDFIELD* is Vice Chairman of Stonebridge International, LLC, an international strategic advisory firm based in Washington, DC, and a Senior International Adviser to the law firm of Hogan & Hartson L.L.P. Previously, Mr. Goldfield served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce for Trade Development and as Associate Counsel to President Ronald Reagan. Mr. Goldfield also serves on the Board of Directors of Black & Veatch Holding Company, Middle East Institute, and the Israel Policy Forum. * The individual has endorsed the report and submitted an additional or a dissenting view.
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STEPHEN B. HEINTZ is President of the Rockefeller Brothers Fund. Prior to joining RBF, he was founding President of Demos, a public policy research and advocacy network. After fifteen years in public service, he served as Executive Vice President of the EastWest Institute, based in Prague, from 1990 to 1997. BRUCE HOFFMAN is Director of the RAND Corporation Washington Office and Acting Director of RAND's Center for Middle East Public Policy. He is also a Senior Fellow at the Combating Terrorism Center, U.S. Military Academy, West Point, NY. JOHN H. KELLY was Assistant Secretary of State for the Near East and South Asia from 1989 to 1991, Ambassador to Lebanon 1986 to 1988, and Ambassador to Finland 1991 to 1994. Since then he has been an international consultant and Ambassador-in-Residence at the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, Georgia Tech. WILLIAM H. LUERS is the President of the United Nations Association of USA, and served as an American diplomat for thirty years including serving as Ambassador to Venezuela and Czechoslovakia. He subsequently served as President of the Metropolitan Museum of Art for thirteen years. In his current position for five years he has been involved in high-level discussions on U.S. policy toward Iran RICHARD H. MATZKE* is President of NESW Solutions; member of the Board of Directors of OAO LUKoil, Russia's largest oil company; former Vice Chairman, ChevronTexaco Corporation; and Co-Chairman of the American Iranian Council. SUZANNE MALONEY, Director of this Task Force, has served as Middle East adviser for a major international oil company and as Olin Fellow at the Brookings Institution. She is the author of a forthcoming book, Ayatollah Gorbachev: The Politics of Change in Khatami's Iran. * The individual has endorsed the report and submitted an additional or a dissenting view.
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LOUIS PERLMUTTER has been an investment banker and has participated in various second track diplomatic discussions over the past twenty years. JAMES PLACKE served much of his twenty-seven-year Foreign Service career in Middle East oil exporting countries, concluding as a Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs with responsibility for Iran, Iraq and the gulf states, and U.S. economic relations with the Arab region. He has since been a consultant on Middle East energy economics and strategy affiliated with Cambridge Energy Research Associates. NICHOLAS PLATT is President Emeritus of the Asia Society. He served as Ambassador to Pakistan, the Philippines, and Zambia in the course of a thirty-four-year Foreign Service Career. The Asia Society organized Iran-related policy programs, cultural events, and in-country travel during his tenure as President. DANIEL B. PONEMAN*, former Special Assistant to the President for Nonproliferation and Export Controls, served on the National Security Council staff under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton. A Senior Fellow at the Forum for International Policy, he is co-author of Going Critical: The First North Korean Nuclear Crisis. STEPHEN J. SOLARZ served in public office for twenty-four years, both in the New York State Assembly and in the U.S. House of Representatives. Mr. Solarz served for eighteen years on the U.S. House of Representatives International Affairs Committee, emerging as a leading spokesman on behalf of democracy and human rights. He co-authored the resolution authorizing the use of force in the Persian Gulf War and led the successful fight for its passage on the House floor. RAY TAKEYH is a Professor of National Security Studies at the National Defense University. * The individual has endorsed the report and submitted an additional or a dissenting view.
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MORTIMER ZUCKERMAN is the Editor-in-Chief of U.S. News & World Report and the Publisher of New York's Daily News and has served as a Middle East adviser to President Bill Clinton.
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TASK FORCE OBSERVERS RACHEL BRONSON Council on Foreign Relations STEVEN COOK Council on Foreign Relations RYAN C. CROCKER National Defense University LEE FEINSTEIN Council on Foreign Relations JUDITH KIPPER Council on Foreign Relations DAVID L. PHILLIPS Council on Foreign Relations KIM SAVIT Senate Committee on Foreign Relations PUNEET TALWAR Senate Committee on Foreign Relations [55]

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APPENDIXES
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APPENDIX A IMPORTANT DATES IN U.S.-IRANIAN HISTORY January 16, 1979 Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi flees Iran on the heels of mass demonstrations and strikes. February 1, 1979 Ayatollah Khomeini returns from exile. November 4, 1979 Iranian students seize 63 hostages at U.S. embassy in Tehran. April 25, 1980 A secret U.S. military mission to rescue hostages ends in disaster in a sandstorm in a central Iranian desert. July 27, 1980 Exiled Shah dies of cancer in Egypt. September 22, 1980 Iraq declares war against Iran. January 20, 1981 As President Ronald Reagan is inaugurated, Iran releases the remaining 52 American hostages after 444 days detention. January 20, 1984 The United States declares Iran a sponsor of international terrorism, making Iran ineligible for various forms of U.S. foreign assistance. 1985-86 Washington and Tehran engage in a complex scheme to fund assistance to Nicaraguan rebels through proceeds of U.S. weapons sales to Iran. August 1986 The United States prohibits Iran from receiving U.S. arms (including spare parts) under the U.S. Arms Export Control Act. October 29, 1987 President Reagan signs Executive Order 12613, which bans U.S. imports of Iranian crude oil and all other Iranian imports because of Iran's support for terrorism and its threat to maritime traffic in the Persian Gulf. 1987-88 Hostilities between Tehran and Baghdad draw in neighbors and international shippers. The United States and Iran engage in open and direct conflict in the "tanker war."
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July 3, 1988 USS Vincennes mistakenly shoots down an Iran Air Airbus over the Persian Gulf, killing all 290 people on board. July 20, 1988 Iran formally accepts UN Resolution 598 calling for a ceasefire, ending its war with Iraq. January 20, 1989 In his inaugural speech, President George H.W. Bush refers to U.S. hostages in Lebanon and adds (in what was interpreted as an overture to Iran), "Assistance can be shown here, and will be long remembered. Good will begets good will." June 3, 1989 Ayatollah Khomeini dies. Hojjatoleslam Ali Khamenei, who has served two terms as president, is appointed supreme leader. Two months later, Hashemi Rafsanjani is sworn in as Iran's president. 1990-1991 Iran remains neutral in U.S.-led Operation Desert Storm. October 1992 Iran-Iraq Arms Nonproliferation Act is signed into law. March 5, 1995 U.S. oil company Conoco signs a $1 billion deal to develop Iranian oil fields, the first such contract since the 1979 revolution; Conoco subsequently backs out of the deal after strenuous objections in Washington. March 15, 1995 President Bill Clinton issues Executive Order 12957, banning U.S. investment in Iran's energy sector. May 6, 1995 President Clinton issues Executive Order 12959, banning U.S. trade and investment in Iran. August 4, 1996 President Clinton signs the Iran-Libya Sanctions Act (ILSA) into law, which imposes at least two out of a menu of six sanctions on foreign companies that make an "investment" of more than $20 million in one year in Iran's energy sector. November 22, 1996 The European Union adopts "blocking legislation" to prevent European companies from complying with ILSA. May 23, 1997 Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Khatami wins Iran's presidential election.
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October 9, 1997 The U.S. State Department announces that the Mojahideen-e Khalq Organization (MKO) has been designated a foreign terrorist organization, banning fundraising in the United States. January 8, 1998 President Khatami calls for a "dialogue with the American people" in a CNN interview. June 17, 1998 U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright gives a major policy address on Iran, proposing the two countries construct a "road map" for better relations. July 31, 1998 Former hostage Barry Rosen meets with former student militant Abbas Abdi. September 16, 1998 220 congressmen sign a letter condemning Iran, calling for U.S. support for outlawed opposition group MKO. September 21, 1998 Khatami address UN General Assembly; Kharrazi backs out of Afghan meeting where he was to have met Albright. November 5, 1998 The U.S. government rejects an application from a Texas firm for oil swaps between Iran and Kazakhstan. January 13, 1999 The U.S. government sanctions three Russian institutes for cooperating with Iran. April 28, 1999 The Clinton administration loosens sanctions to permit sales of food and medicine to Iran. July1, 1999 130 congressmen sign a letter criticizing the Iranian regime and advocating support of MKO. A pro-MKO rally in Washington draws participation of several members of Congress. July 1999 Major protests erupt in Tehran and many other Iranian cities; the United States criticizes repression of student demonstrators. November 22, 1999 The State Department confirms that Iran rejected a U.S. request to permit consular visits. December 3, 1999 The U.S. government authorizes sales of Boeing spare parts to Iran. February 24, 2000 The U.S. Senate unanimously approves the Iran Nonproliferation Act; the House passes it with unanimous support one week later.
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February 18, 2000 Iranian reformists win a landslide victory in a general election. March 17, 2000 Albright calls for a new start in U.S.-Iranian relations and announces lifting of sanctions on caviar, carpets, and pistachios. March 24, 2000 Former Lebanon hostage Terry Anderson wins a lawsuit against Iran by default; Tehran is found liable for $341 million. April 14, 2000 The United States announces sanctions on four Iranian entities, including the Defense Ministry, for missile proliferation. June 4, 2000 Khatami's advisor on women's issues attends a UN conference in New York; several in the delegation return to Iran to protest having been fingerprinted. July 4, 2000 Iran protests the U.S. fingerprinting policy by blocking the U.S. soccer team from visiting to play a scheduled match. July 10, 2000 9,000 people protest an espionage conviction for Iranian Jews in front of Iran's UN Mission; the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke, attends. August 31, 2000 Karrubi and other Iranian MPs visit New York for an international parliamentary session and meet several U.S. congressmen at a reception. At the same time, several State Department officials visit Iran to participate in a UN conference. September 6-7, 2000 Clinton and Albright attend Khatami speeches to UN General Assembly in New York. September 15, 2000 Albright and the Iranian Foreign Minister participate in a joint UN session on Afghanistan. May 4, 2001 The Iranian wrestling team visits the United States for World Cup matches. June 21, 2001 The United States issues indictments in the 1996 Khobar Towers bombing, implicating Iran as having directed the attack by a little-known group of Saudi Shia. August 3, 2001 President George W. Bush signs ILSA Extension Act into law. September 2001 After the 9/11 attacks, Friday prayers in Tehran omit "Death to America" chants for the first time in recent history; sermons
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condemn terror attacks; Tehran's mayor sends a condolence letter to New York's mayor; several hundred Iranians gather for a candlelight vigil, but security forces break up the event. October 9, 2001 Khatami calls for an "immediate end" to U.S. military strikes on Taliban; the following day, more than 150 MPs vote to condemn the U.S. bombing of Afghanistan. October 10, 2001 The United States blocks Iran's bid to begin accession talks with the World Trade Organization (WTO). October 17, 2001 Iran's UN ambassador visits Washington for a dinner with U.S. congressmen. The United States announces that Iran has promised to rescue any U.S. pilots shot down in Iran (the agreement came in letters exchanged at the start of the Afghanistan conflict, on October 7). November 12, 2001 The Iranian Foreign Minister and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell meet at an international session on Afghanistan and shake hands in an unprecedented diplomatic overture. January 3, 2002 Israeli forces seize a Palestinian freight ship loaded with fifty tons of arms; both Israel and the United States charge Iran with masterminding the operation and sending the weaponry to anti-Israeli militants. January 10, 2002 President Bush warns Iran against harboring al-Qaeda operatives. January 29, 2002 In his first State of the Union address, President Bush declares Iran to be part of an "axis of evil," along with Iraq and North Korea. Khatami rejects Bush's speech as "bellicose and insulting;" Rafsanjani hints at oil boycott; FM Kharrazi cancels a visit to New York City. February 11, 2002 Iran commemorates its revolution's anniversary with the largest anti-U.S. protests in years; Khatami calls on Washington's "immature leaders" to change their stance. February 13, 2002 The United States and Israel block Iran's application to the WTO. April 9, 2002 Colin Powell confirms appeals to Tehran to restrain Hezbollah.
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May 9, 2002 The U.S. government imposes sanctions on Chinese, Armenian, and Modolvan companies accused of aiding the Iranian nuclear program. May 10, 2002 U.S. and Iranian diplomats meet in Paris discussions on the Nagorno-Karabakh dispute. Late May 2002 Tehran's judiciary bans press discussion of negotiations with the United States; Khatami pledges not to negotiate with Washington. December 7, 2002 Iran announces fingerprinting policy toward U.S. visitors in retaliation for U.S. immigration restrictions. December 2002 The United States accuses Iran of seeking to develop a secret nuclear weapons program and publishes satellite images of two nuclear sites under construction at Natanz and Arak. June 11-13, 2003 Anti-government protests erupt in Tehran; several thousand young Iranians are arrested; the State Department issues a statement of support for the protestors. June 19, 2003 The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board of governors calls on Iran to comply with its Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) obligations; President Bush announces the world will not permit an Iranian nuclear weapons capability and encourages Iranians to oppose the regime. August 2003 The IAEA confirms finding weapons-grade uranium at the Iranian nuclear facility in Natanz. September 12, 2003 The IAEA unanimously approves an October 31 deadline for Iran to prove it is not developing nuclear weapons September 25, 2003 IAEA inspectors confirm that highly enriched uranium was found at Kalaye Electric Company near Tehran October 21, 2003 In a deal brokered by three European foreign ministers, Iran agrees to suspend its uranium enrichment program and sign the Enhanced Protocol of the NPT.
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November 26, 2003 The IAEA board of governors issues a resolution condemning Iran's past concealment of nuclear activities and welcoming new cooperation with Tehran. December 18, 2003 Iran signs the NPT Additional Protocol, agreeing to enhanced scrutiny of its nuclear programs. December 2003 Washington sends humanitarian aid to Iran after an earthquake in Bam kills up to 30,000 people; it also relaxes sanctions to facilitate additional U.S. private assistance; U.S. and Iranian officials speak directly to coordinate aid. March 13, 2004 The IAEA approves a resolution that defers progress in verifying Iranian declarations about its nuclear activities until its June meeting.
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APPENDIX B IRAN AT A GLANCE* IRAN AT A GLANCE: FACTS AND FIGURES Population 68,278,826 (July 2003 est.) Ethnic groups Persian: 51% Azeri Turk: 24% Gilaki and Mazandarani: 8% Kurd: 7%; Arab: 3%; Lur: 2%; Baloch: 2%: Turkmen 2%: other: 1% Religions Shia Muslim: 89% Sunni Muslim 10% Zoroastrian, Jewish, Christian, and Baha'i: 1% Size of Military Forces Source: International Institute for Strategic Studies, The Military Balance, 2002/2003 Army: 325,000 Navy: 18,000 Air Force: 52,000 Revolutionary Guard Navy: 20,000 Revolutionary Guard Marines: 5,000 Rev Guard Ground Forces: 100,000 Demographics Percentage of population under 15 Source: Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations 35.2% (2001) Percentage of population under 24 Source: Population Division of the Department of Economic and Social Affairs of the United Nations Secretariat 59% (2001) Annual Population Growth Rate Source: World Bank 2004 World Development Indicators 2.3% (1980-2004) Urban population as a percentage of total population Source: UNDP Human Development Report 2003 45.8% (1975) 64.7% (2001) * Unless otherwise noted, the source for all information is the CIA World Factbook, 2003. [66]
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ECONOMY Gross Domestic Product (GDP) $458.3 billion (2002 est.) GDP per capita $6,800 (2002 est.) GDP growth rate 7.6% (2002 est.) Population below poverty line 40% (2002 est.) Unemployment rate 16.3% (2003 est.) Inflation rate 15.3% (2002 est.) Proven oil reserves Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration 90 billion barrels; 7% of world total Proven natural gas reserves Source: U.S. Energy Information Administration 812 trillion cubic feet; 15% of world total Government spending on food subsidies, as % of GDP Source: IMF 2% (2002 est.) Size of state sector as a percentage of all industrial enterprises Source: IMF 70% Expenditures as percentage of GDP: Military Education Source: UNDP Human Development Report 2003 4.8% (2001) 4.4% (1998-2000) SOCIETY Freedom House Ratings (on a scale of 1 to 7, with 1 representing the highest degree of freedom and seven the lowest level of freedom) Source: Freedom House Political Rights: 6 (out of 7) Civil Liberties: 6 (out of 7) Status: Not Free (2003) "Brain drain:" number of annual educated ?migr?s Source: IMF 150,000-180,000 ($11 billion in intellectual assets) School enrollment ratio, females as percentage of males Primary school enrollment ratio Secondary school enrollment ratio Source: UNICEF 97% 93% (1997-2000) Literacy Rate, total population Men Women 79.4% 85.6% 73.0% [67]
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Youth (ages 15-24) Source: CIA World Factbook; UNDP Human Development Report 2003 94.2% (2003 est.) Total enrollment in public universities and colleges Source: IMF 1,566,000 University acceptances by gender Source: Statistical Centre of Iran Male: 48%; Female 52% Women as percentage of total labor force Source: World Bank GenderStats 27% (2000) Women in government at ministerial level (as % of total) Source: UNDP Human Development Report 2003 9.4% (2000) Internet Users (per 1,000) Source: UNDP Human Development Report 2003 15.3 (2001) Percentage of Iranians who support relations with the United States, according to 2002 internal poll Source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty 74% Percentage of Iranians who participate in weekly or more frequent religious services, according to 2000-01 survey Source: National Science Foundation 12% Number of nongovernmental organizations* More than 8,000 * Source: Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty [68]
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APPENDIX C IRANIAN STATE INSTITUTIONS AND POLITICAL ACTORS The Iranian State: Institutions of Governance Iran's Religious Governance (velayat-e faqih) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei (since 1989) Iran's constitution empowers the clergy to select the best-qualified to serve as ruling jurist (vali-ye faqih) or Leader (rahbar). His powers include:
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Approval / dismissal of the president--- Supervision over the general policies of the government Commander-in-chief of the armed forces; power to declare war Appoints judiciary, radio and television broadcasting, and a host of other public institutions Other spheres of influence include parastatal economic organizations, Friday prayer leader network, and representatives of the Office of the Leader deployed throughout the country and throughout the bureaucracy. In 1989, constitutional revisions abolished the requirement that the Leader be recognized by his clerical peers as a marja, or recognized source of emulation, and removed stipulations for a leadership council. Since the revolution, the powers of the Leader have progressively expanded. In 1988, his mandate was made absolute and elevated to the highest order of divine commandment, and the 1989 constitutional revisions explicitly gave the position "absolute general trusteeship" over the government. Since 1989, the office of the Leader has grown considerably in size, scope, and authority. Khamenei typically aligns himself with his conservative base, but has proven capable of compromise with reformers. His absolute authority is somewhat constrained as a result of his relatively modest rank in clerical hierarchy. The Presidency Due to post-revolutionary jockeying for power, the presidency of the Islamic Republic was intended to be administratively impotent. Originally, the president's role was a formality, and a prime minister formulated and implemented policy. In 1989, Khomeini's death prompted a modest reconfiguration of the system, eliminating the office of the prime minister and converting the presidency to the nominal head of government. Presidential elections are held every four years, and the post is subject to a
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constitutional two-term limit. The presidency remains explicitly subordinated to the Leader and wields relatively limited material authority through its oversight of the various cabinet ministries. The president sits on powerful governmental bodies, but his power is contingent upon informal relationships with other power brokers. In 2002, Khatami introduced two bills for parliamentary consideration that would have considerably strengthened the constitutional authority of the president. The Guardian Council twice rejected these bills, and there is little prospect of their revival or implementation. Council of Guardians (Shura-ye Negahban) Head: Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati This body of 12 judges is comprised of six religious jurists and six lay people It is empowered to review all legislation to check its conformity with both Islam and Iran's constitution, and is also given responsibility for supervising elections. Iran's constitution empowers the six clerics on the Council with relatively wide jurisdiction. The Supreme Leader plays major role in selection and oversight of Council of Guardians. In the 1980s, the Council regularly clashed with parliament over ideology, blocking two important efforts of the post-revolutionary government--land reform and nationalization of foreign trade--on the basis of a traditionalist interpretation of Islamic law. Conflicts with parliament during 1980s led to the adoption of a new principle for decision-making, maslehat or expediency, that formally elevated Iranian nationalist interests above all other considerations, including the constraints of Islamic law. Since 1992, the Council has taken vast latitude to determine the relative freedom of elections by appropriating authority to determine the eligibility of candidates for elected office. Islamic Consultative Assembly (Majlis-e Shura-ye Islami) The Iranian parliament dates back to the 1905-11 Constitutional Revolution. Today its powers include:
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Oversight of the executive branch (via approval / impeachment of cabinet ministers) Ratification of international agreements Responsibility for economic policy-making through drafting the annual government budget and approving the long-term planning process.
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Constraints on the Majlis are considerable. All legislation must be reviewed and approved by the Council of Guardians. Assembly of Experts (Majlis-e Khobregan) Head: Ayatollah Ali Meshkini The Assembly of Experts was established in 1979 as an elite constitutional assembly and disbanded soon after the constitution was approved. A new assembly of experts was convened in 1982 over concerns about succession, with primary responsibility for selection of supreme leader. It is comprised of 86 religious scholars who are elected in national balloting to serve eight-year terms. A key requirement for candidates is religious learning, but members need not be clerics (at least in theory.) However, candidates are stringently vetted to ensure their lockstep support for the status quo. Because its responsibilities are few and highly episodic, the Assembly has little role in Iran's day-to-day politics. Expediency Council (Majma-ye Tashkhis-e Maslahat-e Nezam or Council for Assessing the Interests of the System) Head: Former president Hashemi Rafsanjani Due to persistent conflicts between the parliament and the Council of Guardians, Ayatollah Khomeini ruled in 1988 that the interests of state ranked above "all ordinances that were derived or directly commanded by Allah." The Expediency Council was established to institutionalize this principle. Its powers include:
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Mediating between parliament and the Council of Guardians on disputed legislation; Advising the leader on broad policies of the state The Expediency Council was expanded in 1997, in preparation for its assumption by then-President Hashemi Rafsanjani. Members serve five-year terms. Includes heads of the three branches of government, six clerics on Guardians' Council, relevant cabinet ministers, and others appointed by the supreme leader. Decision-making remains shrouded and secretive. IRANIAN POLITICAL ACTORS 1) Hard-liners and ultra-conservatives Agenda: Represent the doctrinaire extremist fringe of the conservative camp. Committed to imposing stringent cultural and political restrictions on society in order to achieve their vision of Islamic government and, most importantly, retain their hold on power. Traditionalist Islamic stance on the economy: e.g., antipathy
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toward government intervention in the market and reliance on Islamic values to address socioeconomic needs. Worldview envisions Iran as the leader of the Islamic world, and equates Iranian interests with Islamic interests. Parties & Organizations: Society of Combatant Clerics (Jame-ye Rouhaniyat-e Mobarez) *
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Society of the Qom Seminary Teachers (Jame-ye Modareseen-e Hoze-ye Elmiyehh-ye Qom) Devotees of the Party of God (Ansar-e Hezbollah) Hojjatiyeh Society (Anjoman-e Hojjatiyeh) Islamic Coalition Society (Jameyat-e Motalefe-ye Eslami) Leading Figures: Ayatollah Mohammad Yazdi: Former head of the judiciary and member of the Council of Guardians Ayatollah Ali Meshkini: Head of the Assembly of Experts Habibollah Asgarowladi: Secretary general of Motalefe and former commerce minister and MP in 4th Majlis; involved with leadership of Foundation of the Oppressed and the Imam Khomeini Relief Foundation Alinaghi Khamoushi: Former deputy commerce minister and current head of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry 2) Moderates and/or "pragmatic" conservatives Agenda: Favor political moderation, free markets, and cultural tolerance within limits. Prioritize national interests over ideology and economic development above all other issues. Sometimes referred to as the "modern right wing." Rhetoric and policies advocated tend to be centered around socioeconomic development. Downplays religious ideology in favor of republican and pro-market positions. Tend to swing to the right (traditional conservatives) and to the left (reformists) to maximize its influence. [72]
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Parties & Organizations: Servants of Construction (Hezb-e Kargozaran-e Sazandegi) *
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Islamic Iran Developers' Council (Etelaf-e Abadgaran-e Iran-e Eslami) Development and Moderation Party (Hezb-e Etedal va Tose'e) Leading Figures: Hojjatoleslam Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani: Former president Hojjatoleslam Hassan Rouhani: Secretary of the National Security Council and former deputy speaker of parliament Ahmad Tavakoli: Former labor minister and leading vote-getter in 2004 parliamentary elections 3) Mainstream reformists Agenda: Encompasses a broad ideological spectrum and a multiplicity of organizations and advocates. Generally, mainstream reformists favor mass political participation, socio-cultural tolerance and liberalization, and international engagement. Until recently, they were united in a commitment to achieve these objectives within the limitations of the current constitution. On the economy, some reformist organizations and leaders remain heavily imprinted with the ideological baggage of revolutionary populism, and support redistributive policies and a strong state role. Today, however, most recognize the state's limitations in improving Iran's economic predicament. Parties & Organizations: Association of Combatant Clerics (Majma-ye Rouhaniyun-e Mobarez) Islamic Iran Participation Front (Jebhe-ye Mosharekat-e Iran-e Eslami) Mojahideen of the Islamic Revolution (Sazeman-e Mojahideen-e Enqelab-e Eslami) [73]
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Islamic Iran Solidarity Party (Hezb-e Hambastegi-e Iran-e Islami) *
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Islamic Labor Party (Hezb-e Islami Kar) Leading Figures: Hojjatoleslam Mohammad Khatami: President Hojjatoleslam Ali Akbar Mohtashamipour: Former ambassador to Syria; former minister of intelligence; considered the founder of Lebanese Hezbollah Mohammad Reza Khatami: Member and deputy speaker of the 6th Majlis; former publisher of IIPF's now banned newspaper, Mosharekat ("Participation"); former deputy minister of health; former professor, Tehran University medical school; married to granddaughter of Ayatollah Khomeini Saeed Hajarian: Former deputy minister of intelligence; close political advisor to President Khatami; elected member of the Tehran City Council until 2000 assassination attempt nearly cost him his life; editor of the now-banned daily Sobh-e Emrooz Behzad Nabavi: Former minister of heavy industry; former vice speaker of the 6th Majlis; served as Iran's lead negotiator during negotiations with the United States over hostage crisis; recently targeted in corruption scandal involving semi-private oil company Mohsen Mirdamadi: Member of the 6th Majlis and chairman of the Majlis National Security and Foreign Affairs Committee; former director of IIPF's now-banned newspaper Norouz ("New Year") 4) Liberal opposition forces Agenda: Despite government repression, a small corps of individuals and organizations have remained active opponents of the government from within Iran. Chief amongst these groups is the Freedom Movement, which played a leading role in revolution and its early aftermath. Its leader, Mehdi Bazargan, resigned as head of the Provisional Government in 1979 to protest the seizure of
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the U.S. Embassy. The group survived as a unique and grudgingly tolerated critic of the Islamic regime, but was officially banned as of July 2002. Its members remain vocal detractors of Iran's system of religious governance through writing and other political organizations. Parties & Organizations: Freedom Movement of Iran (Nezhat-e Azadi-ye Iran) *
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Religious-Nationalist Alliance (Nirooha-ye Melli Mazhabi) Leading Figures: Dr. Ibrahim Yazdi: Former foreign minister in the Provisional Government; indicted while on an extended stay in the United States for cancer treatment, and returned to Iran in April 2002 to face prosecution Ezzatollah Sahabi: Son of one of the founding members of the Freedom Movement, and active in the liberal opposition during the 1960s 5) Student organizations Agenda: The Islamic government established student organizations as part of the cultural revolution that was promulgated during the 1980s. Today, these organizations have evolved to reflect the views of their membership, rather than inculcating regime loyalty, and are strident opponents of the Islamic regime. Many student leaders split early on from the mainstream reform movement in pressing for a more progressive agenda and a more aggressive effort to confront conservatives. Parties & Organizations: Office for Consolidation of Unity (Daftar-e Takhim-e Vahdat) Union of Islamic Students (Ettehadi-ye Eslami-ye Daneshjuyan) [75]
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Leading Figures: Ali Afshari: Sentenced for his participation in an April 2000 conference in Berlin and subsequently prosecuted for accusing the Revolutionary Guards of torturing him for a false confession
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Ahmad Batebi: Serving a fifteen-year jail sentence for his role in the July 1999 student protests; Batebi was made famous in a photo on the cover of The Economist magazine 6) Dissident clerics Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri: Designated Ayatollah Khomeini's heir apparent in 1985, Montazeri was stripped of this post and shunned from active political life in 1989, after protesting a regime crackdown; spent years under house arrest until his release last year; Montazeri continues to inspire an active circle of adherents, who favor his emphasis on the democratic features of Iran's Islamic system and who echo his frequent searing critiques of the regime Ayatollah Jalaloddin Taheri: Former Friday prayer leader in Isfahan who resigned his position in July 2002 with a widely-published appeal against the corruption and violence that had infected the senior ranks of the Islamic Republic; he also called for an end to Montazeri's house arrest Grand Ayatollah Yusef Sanei: Once a student of Ayatollah Khomeini, Sanei has been one of the most senior and outspoken proponents of a liberal interpretation of Islam; he is a member of the Council of Guardians, and remains a defender of Montazeri. Hojjatoleslam Mohsen Kadivar: Professor of Philosophy at Tarbiat Modares University who was arrested in February 1999 for his scathing critique of the absolutist implementation of Islamic government; head of Society in Defense of Press Freedom; served 18 months in prison Hojjatoleslam Hassan Yousefi Eshkevari: Arrested and sentenced to death in connection with his participation at an April 2000 conference in Berlin; he
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was released in August 2002, but subsequently rearrested and sentenced to severn years' imprisonment 7) Dissident intellectuals and journalists Abbas Abdi: Former student leader (and central figure in seizure of U.S. hostages in 1979) turned liberal journalist; currently serving a four-year jail term for his role in conducting an October 2002 opinion poll that demonstrated widespread popular support for relations with the United States
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Hashem Aghajari: Professor at Tarbiyat Modarres University convicted for apostasy after a speech rejecting the notion of absolute clerical authority; his death sentence set off protests across the country and, after much high-level maneuvering, was revoked; Aghajari is jailed pending retrial Emadeddin Baqi: Writer/journalist who has criticized the Islamic Republic from the standpoint of his seminary education; imprisoned in 2000 for "insulting Islam" and freed after nearly serving nearly three years; Baqi was summoned again and convicted of anti-regime activities in December 2003 Akbar Ganji: Revolutionary bureaucrat turned writer who helped expose official complicity in the "serial murders" of dissidents; prior to the 2000 parliamentary elections he accused former President Hashemi Rafsanjani of masterminding the violence as well as prolonging the war with Iraq; arrested for participation in April 2000 conference in Berlin and sentenced to ten years in jail Mohsen Sazegara: Prominent dissident journalist who was one of the early critics of the timidity of President Khatami and the reformists generally; arrested in connection with June 2003 student protests and released on health concerns after a hunger strike. His conviction was recently upheld Mashallah Shamsolvaezin: Edited a string of daring reformist newspapers, reopening under a new name within days of judicial closures of each publication; jailed in 2000 for criticism of Iranian policy of capital punishment and released after seventeen months in prison, he was recently
[77]
UNCORRECTED PROOF
summoned again by the Judiciary for his articles on the parliamentary elections crisis
* Abdolkarim Soroush: Once a leading agent of Iran's post-revolutionary cultural revolution, Soroush has been dubbed the "Iranian Martin Luther" for his writings on Islamic interpretation, which rejected the notion of religion as ideology; he has argued that Islam and democracy are fully compatible;. Soroush was targeted in the mid-1990s by hard-line thugs 8) External opposition forces Mojahideen-e Khalq Organization The MKO is a left-wing group, established in the 1960s, that initially supported the Islamic Republic and had a long history of working with clerical groups and leaders who opposed the Shah. After the revolution, the MKO and clerics clashed violently, and Mojahideen leaders fled to conduct a resistance in exile. Their collaboration with Saddam Hussein throughout the Iran-Iraq war means that the group retains little if any viability as an alternative political movement among Iranians. The MKO and its political arm, the National Council of Resistance, were added to the U.S. State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations in 1997. Four thousand MKO members in Iraq have been officially "detained" in their camps by U.S. occupying forces, although how their situation will be ultimately handled remains uncertain. Reza Pahlavi The son of the late Shah has become more politically active in recent years, and he has been embraced by some U.S. policymakers and by a sizeable minority of Iranian-Americans as a potential "catalyst" for democratic change. Nostalgia for what are now considered the halcyon days of the Shah extends to the Islamic Republic, but some there question Pahlavi's ambitions and consider him too long removed from the country to offer any prospect of leadership. Exiled student dissidents
[78]
UNCORRECTED PROOF
Since the violent demonstrations of July 1999 and June 2003, some students have fled and mobilized to oppose the regime in exile. Aryo Pirouznia and his group, the Student Committee for Coordination of Democracy in Iran, are frequently quoted--but it is unclear to what extent they remain networked to Iran's student leadership. Other opposition organizations Many small political organizations have emerged in recent years to promote political change in Iran, some as outgrowths of liberal opposition movements from the pre-revolutionary period. Few appear able to sustain significant membership or activities, either abroad or in Iran, despite laudable agendas. Satellite television Without powerful expatriate organizations, the most effective link among Iranians abroad and those still in the country is the medium of satellite television. Programs actively encourage anti-regime activities. They are popular in the United States and in Iran, but many dissidents within the country deride their agitation as emanating from "armchair revolutionaries." [79]

>> WASHINGTON PARLOR GAMES...?


The Faisal Gill Affair
By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
FrontPageMagazine.com | July 19, 2004
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=14267
Readers of this e-zine may recall a troubling warning issued on these pages last November by David Horowitz and me (an editorial entitled "Why We Are Publishing This Article" that accompanied a long essay entitled "A Troubling Influence"). What made the warning so troubling was not just that its subject -- a political influence operation being mounted during wartime by Islamist organizations against the Bush Administration and U.S. government. Of particular concern was the help it documented that such entities have received from a prominent and well-connected conservative activist, Grover Norquist.

It now appears that Mr. Norquist's help has extended beyond facilitating high-level access and influence for various Muslim-American and Arab-American entities with troubling ties to, or at least sympathy for, radical Islamofascists - and even terrorists. Reportedly, his association also helped someone affiliated with such a group to gain a political appointment to an exceedingly sensitive post: "policy director" of the Department of Homeland Security's Information Analysis and Infrastructure Protection division.

As the title of this position suggests, its occupant would have access to highly sensitive information about the vulnerability of, among other things, U.S. ports, transportation infrastructure, chemical plants, oil refineries and nuclear power plants to terrorist attack. The incumbent is a 32-year-old lawyer named Faisal Gill.

It is unclear what qualified Mr. Gill for such a post. In response to press inquiries, a DHS spokeswoman declined to describe his qualifications or background so it is not known whether he has any prior experience with intelligence or, for that matter, with security policy.

What is known is that Gill's political patrons include Grover Norquist, who was listed by Gill as a reference on employment documents. After all, Gill had been a spokesman for the Taxpayers Alliance of Prince William County, Virginia, which is affiliated with Norquist's group, Americans for Tax Reform. Gill had also worked in 2001 as director of government affairs for the Islamic Free Market Institute (also known as the Islamic Institute), whose founding president was Grover Norquist.

Interestingly, news articles published after September 11 described Gill in another capacity - as a spokesman for the controversial American Muslim Council (AMC). The AMC was founded and controlled by a prominent Islamist activist, Abdurahman Alamoudi. Alamoudi was indicted last October on terrorism-related money laundering charges. While in jail awaiting trial, he has reportedly engaged in plea-bargaining by confessing to participating in a Libyan plot to murder the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.

For some reason, Gill is reported to have failed to list his work with the AMC on his "Standard Form 86" national security questionnaire. This is a potential felony violation of the full and truthful disclosure required by law of all applying for clearances.

According to two recently published articles in Salon.com, the FBI raised concerns last March about Gill's non-disclosure of his ties to Alamoudi's AMC. At the time, he was reportedly briefly removed from his position at DHS.

Curiously, however, Gill is said to have been reinstated within days. According to a DHS spokesman, the Department had conducted a "thorough investigation" that found Gill "exceeded all requirements" for his job.

Fortunately, on 23 June, after news reports revealed Gill's omission, attendant suspension and subsequent reinstatement, the Homeland Security's Inspector General, Clark Kent Ervin, announced that he would be launching an inquiry into how Gill received a security clearance, despite the omission. For some reason, though, the IG's report is said to require as much as six-months to complete.


Several questions cry out for answers:
o Why does an intelligence office require a "policy director"?
o Given Gill's seeming lack of qualifications, how did Gill secure this sensitive position in the first place?
o If, as appears to be the case, he did so simply through political connections, did such connections subsequently trump security and legal concerns? Was he permitted to be swiftly reinstated and allowed to this day to have access to very sensitive information - even though he apparently failed to live up to his obligations to disclose a work history that might well have disqualified him?
o Will political connections also prevent the Inspector General from performing a rigorous and fullsome review of the Gill Affair?
o How on earth could it take as long as six-months to answer these and related questions? If there are, in fact, grounds for believing Gill should not continue to serve in the DHS intelligence organization, it is imprudent in the extreme to have this investigation drag on - especially if he is going to be permitted to remain in place during the interval.
Gven the sensitivity of Faisal Gill's position and the information to which it has access, this matter must be addressed and resolved at once. A failure truthfully to complete security clearance forms is a serious - and, normally, a disqualifying - offense, particularly if the information withheld is material to decisions about whether the applicant can be cleared.
At the very least, until such time as the Inspector General's report is completed, it would seem both responsible and consistent with standard operating procedures to suspend without prejudice and with pay the object of the investigation from his position. Who could possibly object to that?

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy in Washington. He formerly held senior positions in the Reagan Defense Department.
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>> WASHINGTON PARLOR GAMES...?2

The Bear's Lair: Life after Greenspan
By Martin Hutchinson
Published 7/19/2004 2:20 PM


WASHINGTON, July 19 (UPI) -- Speculation has begun on the successor to Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, due to leave office when his 14-year term as Federal Reserve Board member ends in January 2006. Whoever his successor, he won't have Greenspan's enormous credibility with the markets, so monetary policy will never be the same. This is probably a good thing.

The consumer price index for June, announced Friday, was up 0.3 percent, more than expected, and consumer prices have been rising at an annual rate of 4.9 percent in the last six months. Since wages have been rising at only 2.6 percent -- in other words falling in real terms -- it's not surprising that retail sales were weak in June, and it's very questionable how much longer the current economic "recovery" is going to last.

Contrary to much calming media and analyst speculation, the rise in inflation is not a one-time blip, but the beginning of a long-term trend, caused primarily by excessive money creation over almost a decade. Further, the May inflow of foreign funds into the U.S. economy was also announced Friday; at $54.8 billion, down from $81.2 billion in April, it dropped for the fourth-successive month. As Federal Reserve governor Susan Bies confirmed after the announcement, the growing reluctance of foreign central banks to invest their hard-earned money in U.S. Treasury bonds is going to weaken the dollar, if only to lessen a little the continuing trade deficit, now running at over $550 billion per annum.

Bies no doubt didn't want to add the corollary that if foreign central banks stop buying Treasuries, and the federal budget deficit continues at its current level, then long-term as well as short-term interest rates must rise. This is obvious at another level, too; if inflation is running at 4.9 percent per annum, or even at the 3.7 percent per annum of June's superficially-anodyne figure, then a Federal Funds rate of 1.25 percent is not the beginnings of restriction, it is still wildly inflationary, being minus 2.5 percent or more in real terms.

Now that inflation has stirred, to the 3.4 percent to 4 percent range, the neutral Federal Funds rate is not 4 percent but at least 6 percent. We are a very long way from that level, and as long as we delay getting there, inflation is likely to accelerate rather than slow. This in turn of course will make the equilibrium Federal Funds rate rise further, a vicious circle last seen in the 1970s, at the end of which the Federal Funds rate peaked at 20.06 percent in the first week of January 1981 (and then people wonder why president Ronald Reagan's policies "produced" recession in his first year of office!)

It is therefore likely that in January 2006, a new Fed chairman will be struggling with a renewed bout of price inflation, being forced to push short-term interest rates higher than the state of the economy would suggest, which in turn will produce a sluggish economy or even a recession, and an unpopular Fed. At that point, whoever is appointed may wonder whether Alan Greenspan's 18 1/2-year Fed chairmanship, with the Fed chairman acquiring unprecedented market credibility, has really been worth it. Indeed, the heretical thought may arise: is huge market credibility for an inevitably fallible Fed chairman a good thing?

Fed Chairmen always want market credibility. It helps them hang onto their job, and it gives them great power, as their lightest utterance is analyzed by the entire forces of Wall Street to divine what the future may bring. Administrations who appoint Fed chairmen also want them to have credibility for one very important reason: a Fed chairman with credibility is much more likely to be able to calm the markets in periods of difficulty, and is therefore likely to preside over a lower average level of interest rates than a Fed chairman with less credibility. The lower interest rates in turn are thought likely to produce higher economic growth.

The best example of a Fed chairman without credibility is the unlucky William Miller in 1979; a perfectly competent Jimmy Carter appointee, he was forced out when inflation refused to die down, and was replaced by the draconian but undoubtedly credible Paul Volcker. All in all, credibility in a Fed chairman is seen as a no-lose proposition, having benefits but no costs.

The benefits claimed for a credible Fed chairman are those claimed before 1931 for the gold standard: greater credibility of the currency and therefore lower average interest rates. However the gold standard, when things went wrong, imposed unpleasant costs on the economy, in terms of having to reduce government spending, raise interest rates, or suffer through a recession. "Fiat" money (i.e. money whose value and quantity is decided by the government, and doesn't depend on a particular commodity) and a credible Fed chairman, on the other hand, appear to pose no such downside costs; the combination seems to offer truly something for nothing, a gift from heaven.

Of course, there's no such thing as a free lunch. Giving Fed chairmen such credibility ought to raise the question of whether they deserve it. And, on balance, most of them don't. As exhaustively chronicled in Milton Friedman and Anna Schwarz' classic 1963 history of monetary policy, the Fed bore a large share of the responsibility for the Great Depression, and total responsibility for the unexpected second downturn in 1937-38, by keeping money supply too tight at a time of severe price deflation.

It is also unquestionably true that Fed chairman William McChesney Martin (1951-70), while having coined the immortal and very apt quote that the Fed chairman's job was to "take away the punchbowl just as the party gets going," was excessively jawboned by President Lyndon Johnson and didn't actually do so in 1966-69, leaving a ghastly legacy for his successor. That successor, Arthur Burns (1970-77) in turn allowed far too rapid a growth in the money supply in 1970-72, ensuring President Richard Nixon's re-election but that his successor, Miller, would fatally lack credibility when the going got rough. Only Volcker (1979-87), of the Fed chairmen who have served more than a couple of years, deserved the credibility that he had coming into the job, and by the middle of his eight year term, he had earned.

Greenspan gained credibility at the beginning of his term, by pumping money into the system after the October 1987 stock market crash, thus ensuring that the crash was remembered as a blip, not a recession. He then increased his credibility in 1991-92 by mistakenly keeping money supply tight, at a time when modest inflation had been caused by the bail-out of the savings and loan industry, thus prolonging the 1990-91 recession and causing President George H.W. Bush to lose the 1992 election. Since 1994, Greenspan has never seen an asset bubble he didn't like, and has prolonged first the stock market bubble of 1996-2000 and then the housing bubble of 2001-04 by an exceptionally loose monetary policy, with interest rates in 2002-04 at record low levels.

Had Greenspan lacked credibility, he would not have been able to achieve this dubious feat. His monetary laxity in the late 1990s would have been scrutinized much more carefully, his repeated statements that a "productivity feast" enabled him to expand money supply more rapidly than otherwise would have been mocked, and his failure to prevent a historic mis-allocation of America's scarce investment resources in 1998-2000 would have been derided. The result would have been a smaller bubble, much more rapidly corrected, a stock and housing market that by now would not be over-valued, and a current outlook that would be for further sound growth in the U.S. economy. By January 2006, as inflation rises and the economy sinks, the advantages of a non-credible Fed chairman will be even more apparent than they are today.

The pre-1931 gold standard, or any truly fixed-parity system, had the enormous advantage that monetary control is close to automatic. Whether politicians like it or not, the market in such a system rewards saving, both government and private, and punishes profligacy, particularly government profligacy, by causing after a relatively short period a financial crisis that forces a policy reversal. To politicians, a fiat money system with a credible Fed chairman seems to offer the best of both worlds: a low inflation, low-interest-rate environment, and only loose controls over public spending or private consumption.

But like all systems where government seeks to outwit the market, this one in the long run (and I quite grant you, it's had a good innings of almost a decade) simply doesn't work. Reducing the power of the fallibly human bureaucrat, by appointing a non-credible Fed chairman, will produce better results in the long run.

Alfred E. Neuman for Fed Chairman!

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(The Bear's Lair is a weekly column that is intended to appear each Monday, an appropriately gloomy day of the week. Its rationale is that, in the long '90s boom, the proportion of "sell" recommendations put out by Wall Street houses declined from 9 percent of all research reports to 1 percent and has only modestly rebounded since. Accordingly, investors have an excess of positive information and very little negative information. The column thus takes the ursine view of life and the market, in the hope that it may be usefully different from what investors see elsewhere.)

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Martin Hutchinson is the author of "Great Conservatives" (Academica Press, June 2004) -- details can be found on the Web site greatconservatives.com.

Copyright ? 2001-2004 United Press International
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>> WASHINGTON PARLOR GAMES...?3



Wall Street Barbecue on Capitol Hill
July 13, 2004

Coming Attractions

This week promises to be an eventful one for Wall Street as the congressional banking committees get back to work after an extended recess -- a break that prepares them for an even longer recess next month. The three major hearings on tap are:

Tuesday, July 13th, Senate Banking Committee - Review of Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act

Tuesday, July 13th, House Financial Services Committee - Oversight of OFHEO and FHFB

Thursday, July 15th, Senate Banking Committee - SEC Proposal to Regulate Hedge Funds

1. Gramm-Leach-Bliley

The senior members of the Senate Banking Committee, Chairman Richard Shelby (R-AL) and Ranking Democrat Paul Sarbanes (D-MD), are very big on oversight, which is good, because there's a lot to oversee. Conducting a review of current programs has the benefit of slowing down the creation of costly new programs and entities that will one day likewise have to be overseen by Congress.

In 1999, the Committee acceded to the demands of two leading financial services companies, Citigroup (NYSE:C) and Merrill Lynch (NYSE:MER), and changed the rules that for decades kept banks out of selling and underwriting general insurance. Citi had been working on this objective for years before the April 1998 merger of Citicorp and Travelers Insurance, but the union with the large insurer accelerated the timetable. The result was the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which updated the outdated regulatory regime for the financial services industry - but only just barely.

GLBA, as it is soon came to be known, met the immediate need of Citigroup but left a number of issues in the air for the industry. The merger, which was not legal when the deal was announced, was cleverly made contingent on Congress changing the law to enable bank holding companies to affiliate with insurance companies. From that point on, enactment of GLBA was inevitable and simply became a matter of delivering sufficient incentives to key members of Congress and calling in chits that had already been sown by Citi years before. A new ersatz vehicle, the "financial holding company" was created to accommodate banks that chose to affiliate with other financial companies. The ink was still drying when Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, who shepherded the bill through Congress, left the Clinton cabinet to join the senior leadership of Citigroup.

The other leading advocate, Merrill Lynch, trumpeted the urgent need for GLBA in increasingly shrill newspaper ads as the bill crawled through Congress. Merrill was looking for a supervisory format that satisfied EU demands that it have a single regulator, a la Basel I, for its consolidated enterprise. Under the so-called "functional regulation" scheme of GLBA, the SEC would fill that need for Merrill, much as the Federal Reserve would regulate banking organizations that chose the financial holding company format.

Of note, five years since the GLBA deal was struck, the EU is supposedly on the verge of ratifying Merrill's arrangement from a compliance and regulatory standpoint. But this is not yet certain. A nightmare scenario: the EU could look at the recent spate of corporate scandals and conclude that the SEC can't seem to regulate much of anything, at least for the moment, and certainly can't deliver anything resembling proactive surveillance. Platoons of lawyers have been gainfully employed on both sides of the Atlantic to make sure the SEC deal doesn't fall through, but don't count this chicken until it's safely in the pot.

Fed rules future deregulation

When he opened the 1999 hearings on GLBA, then-Chairman Phil Gramm (R-TX) recited a list of elements that he would not allow to get into the bill, even at the risk of ending up with no bill at all. These were brave words, but by the end of the year, the bill had built a small, powerful constituency bolstered by the tacit support of the Fed and numerous interest groups that chose to sit out this battle.

It is important to appreciate that as a direct result of GLBA the pace of so-called "financial reform" is now to be determined arbitrarily by the Fed. Asked at a recent congressional hearing when banking and commerce would be allowed to be conducted in the same entity without regulatory constraint, Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan answered candidly that convergence of banking and commerce is inevitable, but that it should not proceed until the changes of GLBA have been "fully absorbed" - meaning not while I'm still breathing.

A classic July 15, 2003 colloquy on Industrial Loan Companies that parallels the bank insurance issue between former House Financial Services Committee Chairman Jim Leach (R-IA) and a characteristically vague Greenspan illustrates the point:

Leach: This committee has given a green light to expanding a little-known charter, the industrial loan charter, to become functionally equivalent to a bank charter and to allow expansion of this charter's use nationwide without Federal Reserve or OCC oversight. Is this sound public policy?

Greenspan: "The industrial loan company issue is really a major problem with respect to commerce and banking in this country. I have always been of the opinion that over the very long run we are going to find that it is going to be very difficult to distinguish between commerce and banking with individual firms, and the issue of the notion of the current policies will become moot."

"But, well prior to that, we have a very significant problem which I think we need to address, namely, having now made a major expansion in banking and finance through Gramm-Leach-Bliley and a number of earlier activities, we have opened up our financial system very aggressively and we need to take time to begin to evaluate how significant those changes are in the world economy and in our own, and what type of regulatory structures are required and what type of risks are we running by our new, very expansionary regulatory initiatives."

"It is much too soon at this stage, in my judgment, to make an evaluation of what the consequences of or recent, very expansionary regulatory policies have been. If there is going to be a major change in policy, which, as you know, Gramm-Leach-Bliley implied and indicated that commerce and banking were still to be separated, if we are going to make that very major change--and it is a major change in regulation, it is a decision which this committee and your counterparts in the Senate, as well, both bodies, need to make, and it is a crucial decision and should not be determined by, in effect, a relatively small, presumably, act which is currently under discussion. And, indeed it is merely an amendment to a specific act which this committee is evaluating."

"Without going into the substance, which would take a while, I merely state to you that if this issue is on the table, what really is being discussed is a very much broader question, which is the issue of commerce and banking, and I hope that this committee will not allow that decision to be made inadvertently through another discussion vehicle for which there have not been significant hearings, in my judgment."

As with monetary policy, the central bank's approach to financial regulation is cautious, conducted piecemeal, but always in its own bureaucratic self-interest. The upshot, fully predictable in 1999, is that as the financial services industry becomes more global, the pace at which the leading U.S. names can adapt to market opportunities will continue to be determined by the Federal Reserve System, an institution still firmly rooted in the Nineteenth Century agrarian society that spawned it.

No fools, during every political cycle the Fed mandarins put the opening of non-bank activities up for auction, binding the largest banks to its coattails even as it speaks against the interests of other regulators. GLBA was the latest is a series of incremental changes in banking law crafted by the Fed, each of which creates as many issues as its solves, but they create rich opportunities for members of both parties to collect gratuities from the nation's largest financial institutions.

2. OFHEO and the FHLB

The election-year oversight virus also has spread to the House side, and next week, it will take the Capital Markets and Oversight Subcommittees, led by the estimable Reps. Richard Baker (R-LA) and Sue Kelly (R-NY) into the murky, shadowy world of government-subsidized housing.

The last couple of years have brought unwanted attention to Freddie Mac (NYSE:FRE) and Fannie Mae (NYSE:FNM), the GSEs that operate the secondary market for mortgages under the Orwellian premise that they can borrow cheaply because the government "implicitly" guarantees their debt, but the taxpayer need not worry, because the government is not formally obligated to back the debt. Besides, these GSEs are "Too Big To Fail," meaning that the Fed will print money to keep them afloat.

First Freddie, then Fannie, were revealed not to be the steady, risk-free overachievers they seemed after bouncing back from near-insolvency after 1989. Last year, things started coming unglued again when Freddie Mac was forced to restate earnings upward after disclosures that it had improperly accounted for earnings on the combination of mortgages, mortgage-backed securities, and derivatives that make up the asset side of its balance sheet.

Freddie responded by firing senior staff and giving assurances that it couldn't have done anything wrong. After all, it lacked the systems and expertise to account properly for its business. Besides, earnings were being adjusted upward. Freddie confessed that it was an even more profitable company than it first admitted.

At the ensuing congressional hearings, Fannie said it couldn't imagine what the fuss was about, because it was unaffected by the problems at Freddie. Ironically, most observers considered Fannie to be the riskier company, an assessment that may yet be borne out as Fannie is now engaged in an argument with its regulator over the valuation of its bond portfolio.

For investors, the immediate fallout of this controversy is increased volatility in the stocks of these quasi-governmental entities. For Congress it meant a scramble for reassurance that the agency created to regulate Freddie and Fannie was up to the task. This spring the Senate Banking Committee approved a bill intended to create a "world class" regulator, but the bill languished in the face of opposition from the GSEs and their allies in the housing, real estate, and mortgage industries.

One stumbling block came when Fed Chairman Greenspan suggested that the bill include a provision for the "orderly liquidation" of GSEs if they became insolvent. Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines bristled at the very idea and warned it could make investors skittish and drive up the cost of mortgages. Interestingly, Chairman Greenspan has already testified before Congress that much of the benefit provided by Fannie and Freddie is siphoned-off to investors and does not benefit home owners.

While Congress fiddles, the administration gives assurances that the bill isn't totally dead, because there could still be an "event" - as yet undefined. This is the financial equivalent of saying that a terrorist attack is due before the election. One senator worried out loud that if something did go wrong at the GSEs, the national debt would roughly double.

During the last round of hearings, a reporter asked SEC Chairman William Donaldson whether the GSEs should register their securities with the SEC. A loose translation of his response: "That's not my table." When a similar question was put to Treasury Secretary John Snow, he responded that it would not be a good idea to require registration, because the scope of GSE financing is so large. What are we missing here? The exemption from registration for GSEs was premised on the fact that the paper they issued was a close facsimile for Treasury risk, but that is not the case today. If we really believe all of the barnyard debris in the Basel II proposal about managing risk, then today's far more risky GSE paper needs to bear the same registration and disclosure requirements as other corporate obligations. This would effectively put all managers of GSEs (and possibly their regulators) under Sarbanes-Oxley, a fascinating possibility.

Freddie's ugly in-laws

A close cousin of Freddie and Fannie is the Federal Home Loan Bank System, created during the Great Depression to provide liquidity for the nation's S&Ls. The FHLB System consists of twelve semi-autonomous regional banks that are jointly and severally liable for the debt of the entire system. Each is, in effect, a GSE in its own right, and each is run by its own CEO earning a million-ish annual salary.

When most of the S&L industry imploded at the end of the '80s, the FHLB System, in a classic case of "mission creep," expanded to encompass serving the banking industry and, in a shameless imitation of the World Bank, promoting "economic development" in the nation's small towns and rural areas. These activities, it was hoped, would generate income that could help to service some of the debt from the S&L mess.

In recent years the star of the System has been the FHLB of Chicago, which created a mortgage finance program designed to offer competition to Freddie and Fannie by financing the retention of mortgages by the institutions that originate them. The success of this program placed Chicago far ahead of the other FHLBs in apparent performance.

The Chicago FHLB's last CEO, Alex Pollack, abruptly left the job to join a Washington think tank. Next week's hearing may shed light on whether Chicago under Pollack (a) went a bridge too far, (b) is being persecuted for having outperformed its peers, or both. We hear that scenario (a) is the more likely explanation.

The obscure regulator of the FHLB System, the Federal Housing Finance Board, recently underwent a leadership change of its own after its chairman, John Korsmo, while seeking to convince Congress that the FHFB can be a "world class" regulator, assured a congressman that losses at a FHLB would not affect its capital because they would come out of retained earnings. The astonished legislator proceeded to enlighten the regulator that retained earnings is by definition one of the components of capital - a fact usually imparted in a standard high school accounting course. So much for the world-class regulator.

The new chair of the FHLB, former banker Alicia Castaneda, made an immediate impression on MCs by calling for FHLBs to register their securities with the SEC, a position that seems to be growing in support despite yowling from the GSEs. We hear that the Colombian-born financial pro is smart and not afraid to speak the truth, two attributes that usually result in career death in Washington. Castaneda is also the first FHLB chair to actually work as a banker.

In the unlikely event Congress ever figures out the shape of a new regulator for all three GSEs (and perhaps the moribund FHLBs as well), Ms. Castaneda could be tapped to head it. You heard it here first.

3. SEC and Hedge Funds

William Donaldson, the former banker in the rumpled suit who chairs the SEC, has proposed an extension of the agency's regulatory authority to encompass hedge funds. This proposal is part of its response to the regulatory failures that came to light last year with the disclosure of late trading and market timing abuses at mutual funds. In what may be yet another classic case of mission creep, Donaldson suggested that if only the SEC had authority over hedge funds, it might have discovered the abuses at Canary Capital. Thus, the answer to the failure of an agency to regulate effectively is to give it more authority, but with fewer resources.

Other witnesses will include a representative of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, an agency the SEC has sought to either kill or swallow for a number of years. This campaign stalled during the Gramm years, in part because the chair of the CFTC was Wendy Gramm, and she enjoyed the full and unabashed backing of her loyal husband, then- SBC Chairman Gramm.

During hearings on the mutual fund scandals, Donaldson assured Sarbanes that the SEC was not only an able regulator, but that it would also go so far as to create a special unit to identify "emerging problems" that demanded the Commission's attention. Unimpressed, Sarbanes, referring to the mutual fund mess that the SEC has missed, responded in his most sarcastic tone, "I think we've identified one for you right here."

Speaking of operational risk, we note again that the SEC currently lacks the physical and human capability to screen large numbers of financial statements and identify possible bad actors, thus Donaldson's offer to Sarbanes was even more gratuitous than Sarbanes and his staff even know.

A thorny issue certain to come up at the hearing is the relationship between HFs and MFs. The fact that both types of funds are sometimes run by the same management companies is used by Donaldson as a somewhat plausible justification for bringing hedge funds under the SEC. This raises issues as to allocation of costs, including compensation. Some hedge funds have complained that they would not be able to attract mutual fund managers unless they could also manage hedge funds.

LTCM all over again

The specter of the Long Term Capital management rescue, when the Federal Reserve of New York orchestrated the rescue of a private investment pool with no formal relationship to any regulator, looms over the hedge fund hearing. Don't forget that when the five families met to work out their differences in the film "The Godfather," they met in the board room at the Federal Reserve Bank of New York - the same room used for the LTCM pass-the-hat gathering. Go figure.

Fed Chairman Greenspan considers the LTCM rescue an example of the system performing admirably under stress. He has warned that bringing hedge funds under the SEC could have a chilling effect on the willingness of investors to participate, with the unintended result that less liquidity would be supplied to markets, and the likelihood of crises would increase. Also, attempts by U.S. authorities to regulate hedge funds would encourage funds to place more of their activities offshore, which would reduce the importance of the U.S. as a financial center and make it more difficult for the authorities to monitor the funds. As long as hedge funds aren't marketed to retail investors, he insists, they should be left alone.

Donaldson will point out to the Fed and the industry's friends in Congress that increasingly hedge funds are being offered to retail investors. He will contend that in case another LTCM should occur, the least the regulators should be able to do is to gather rudimentary information to help gauge the exposure.

We will report on these and other developments next week.
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AP: Clinton Adviser Probed in Terror Memos
By JOHN SOLOMON

WASHINGTON - President Clinton (news - web sites)'s national security adviser, Sandy Berger, is the focus of a criminal investigation after admitting he removed highly classified terrorism documents from a secure reading room during preparations for the Sept. 11 commission hearings, The Associated Press has learned.
Berger's home and office were searched earlier this year by FBI (news - web sites) agents armed with warrants. Some drafts of a sensitive after-action report on the Clinton administration's handling of al-Qaida terror threats during the December 1999 millennium celebration are still missing.
Berger and his lawyer said Monday night he knowingly removed handwritten notes he had taken from classified anti-terror documents he reviewed at the National Archives by sticking them in his jacket and pants. He also inadvertently took copies of actual classified documents in a leather portfolio, they said.
"I deeply regret the sloppiness involved, but I had no intention of withholding documents from the commission, and to the contrary, to my knowledge, every document requested by the commission from the Clinton administration was produced," Berger said in a statement to the AP.
Berger served as Clinton's national security adviser for all of the president's second term and most recently has been informally advising Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry (news - web sites). Clinton asked Berger last year to review and select the administration documents that would be turned over to the commission.
The FBI searched Berger's home and office with warrants earlier this year after employees of the National Archives told agents they believed they witnessed Berger put documents into his clothing while reviewing sensitive Clinton administration papers, officials said.
When asked, Berger said he returned some of the classified documents, which he found in his office, and all of the handwritten notes he had taken from the secure room, but said he could not locate two or three copies of the highly classified millennium terror report.
"In the course of reviewing over several days thousands of pages of documents on behalf of the Clinton administration in connection with requests by the Sept. 11 commission, I inadvertently took a few documents from the Archives," Berger said.
"When I was informed by the Archives that there were documents missing, I immediately returned everything I had except for a few document that I apparently had accidentally discarded," he said.
Lanny Breuer, one of Berger's attorneys, said his client has offered to cooperate fully with the investigation but has not been interviewed by the FBI or prosecutors. Berger has been told he is the subject of the investigation, Breuer said.
Government and congressional officials familiar with the investigation, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because the probe involves classified materials, said the investigation remains active and that no decision has been made on whether Berger should face criminal charges.
The officials said the missing documents were highly classified, and included critical assessments about the Clinton administration's handling of the millennium terror threats as well as identification of America's terror vulnerabilities at airports to sea ports.

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>> VLAHOS PART 1...

Outside View: The war of Ideas -- Part 1
By Michael Vlahos
A UPI Outside View commentary
Published 7/19/2004 12:45 AM


WASHINGTON, July 19 (UPI) -- All conflicts are at some level "wars of ideas." Even archaic, almost forgotten ones, like the brief war between France and Austria in 1859 over Italian national emergence, convey some sense of a struggle for "hearts and minds."

That war was a short, glorious episode, in contrast to darker traditions of European bloodletting. In two neat engagements, Magenta and Solferino, the French defeated the Austrian army and thus insured the ultimate reunification of Italy.

Certainly there was no state strategic communications effort to rival our trinity of Public Affairs, Public Diplomacy and PSYOPS. But this hardly mattered to European opinion, and especially to Italians -- in spite of Louis Napoleon's cynical calculus to acquire large bits of alpine Piedmont as Italy's reward for French help.

That was because the French "idea" in that war of ideas had natural authority. Everyone knew the context for French intervention, and all about their legacy of revolutionary ideals and Napoleon Bonaparte's vision of heroic nationalism. Even as a faux emperor, Napoleon III was nonetheless the recognizable inheritor of a positive tradition that in propaganda terms he could play to the hilt -- which of course he did.

In this war the United States' ideas -- and the U.S. story of this war -- have no such authority. Indeed in the past year Muslim support that was fairly widespread in the wake of 9/11 has evaporated. Attitudes toward the United States across the world of Islam are highly negative and continue to harden. Furthermore, the various "ideas" and stories from the other side -- the enemy -- are sympathetically transmitted and disseminated, not merely by enemy "public affairs," but by the mainstream Muslim media itself.

We find ourselves in a particularly arduous strategic information environment. In our example, Napoleon III operated comfortably in the still received context of a glorious French ideological tradition, with an instantly recognized "idea brand." Frankly France was also up against a very weak, even a "loser" competitor in European civilization -- the Austrian Empire. In stark contrast the United States finds itself waging a war of ideas within an alien civilization that it has managed to further -- almost irreparably -- alienate.

The strategic information situation today represents a threefold challenge to the United States' info-warriors. Addressing this situation, let alone countering it, is arguably beyond the reach simply of honest self-appraisal -- going through a thorough checklist of things not done or done badly. In truth the U.S. propaganda campaign in this war has failed because:

-- It was too self-referent -- it's all about us, and what we want

-- Its vision of the situation and cultural context was just plain wrong

-- It permitted the enemy to turn our own work against us

The situation requires that the United States explicitly address the fundamental problem of "message authority" rather than continue to pretend that the normal (and initially expected) prescription for a "war of ideas" still applies. It doesn't.

Right now there is no "war of ideas" because U.S. ideas have no authority among Muslims. The U.S. strategic information enterprise must undertake an effort that is both unexampled in and orthogonal to its traditions. These traditions stressed argumentation and presentation, but assumed a shared context within which this war of ideas would be played out.

This means that the enemy and the larger cultural context in which they operated could understand and relate to U.S. ideas. In other words there was enough of a shared worldview and belief system that U.S. propaganda arguments would at least be received and treated.

In World War II, the European Theater of Operations offered a familiar and receptive landscape for the strategic information campaign, especially outside of Germany. But even Japan, which on the surface looked like a completely closed world, had been a member with serious standing in the orbit of Western civilization long enough so that channels for our message still existed, and these channels would open considerably, and play a considerably positive role, in the post war transformation of Japan.

Likewise in the Muslim world, many societies like Indonesia, Turkey and the Persian Gulf states seemed to have inclined decisively toward the West in recent decades. But this environment has three aspects that distinguish it from all World War II information venues:

-- It is not simply a question of Muslim attitudes turning sharply against the United States in the past year. More significantly, these attitudes have gelled into an Ummah-wide worldview whose very anti-Americanism is now a symbol of Muslim identity and the Muslim future. In other words a shared negative vision of the United States has become a passionate rallying point for collective Muslim purpose.

-- Furthermore, any locally targeted U.S. information effort is almost instantly shared across the Muslim world, and becomes yet another call to action in the face of urgent external threat. Radical Islamists moreover do not have to make this case. Muslims who share a collective vision of what is going on and what needs to be done -- and yet who may not be active supporters of the "terrorists" -- are the ones making the case.

-- Finally, the emerging center of gravity within Islam is not where the United States has invested its support -- rather it continues to invest in the old line Muslim establishment. But the dynamic center is among the New Islamists, who represent a growing movement across the Muslim world. Their vision is not distinctly understood by the U.S. information campaign, which tends to lump all Islamists together as "radicals." By not seriously parsing Islamism, and choosing which Islamists it can support, the United States is driving positive elements in the Muslim revival, if not directly into the arms of the jihadis, then to an ever-stronger vision of the United States as the enemy of Islam.

At this point in the conflict the U.S. strategic information effort is essentially supporting the narrative of the jihadis. If it is to have a hope of conveying its own message, it must first create the conditions where that message can be heard on its own terms. This means deconstructing the mental architecture that immediately turns the U.S. message into yet another daily motivational element in the narrative of Muslim struggle. And the only way to do this is to find a way to speak Muslims with authority -- which means the authority of their language and their ideas.

How to create this foundation for "message authority" -- meaning, how to get them to listen to us, rather than simply letting them plug what we say like unexamined artifacts into their story?

We must remember that entering a propaganda situation in which we lack message authority is something historically new to us. Mythic U.S. experiences like World War II (or even most of the Cold War) encourage us to assume, a priori, the existence of predominant authority in our message of human freedom and democracy: not unlike the example of France in the 19th century believing it naturally represented progressive nationalist ideas. The fact that we have no comparable message authority in this war means that before we attempt to gain authority we must try to understand why we have no authority in the first place. This means understanding the message that we are actually conveying, rather than the message we think we are conveying.

So the first order of business is to do a rigorous self-appraisal: Is our message too self-referent? By assuming message authority, are we simply reliving past triumphs, while in reality speaking only to ourselves? Has it in fact become all about us?

The second step is to unflinchingly approach the enemy and their social and cultural orbit. Part of the problem with being unconsciously self-referent is that we project some of what we want to see in the world of the enemy and call the desired result, reality. We need urgently to know their world as they know it, and that calls for an exercise in cultural empathy that is unfamiliar, even uncomfortable, for most people in the United States.

Third, once we truly take their measure, we must decide what constituency in the world of the enemy is its true center of gravity. With whom do we really need to establish message authority? Arguably we can do this only with a part of the spectrum of the broader belief system within which the enemy resides. Moreover, this choice needs to be our positive propaganda choice. We need to deliver our most encouraging and hopeful good news to the very center of gravity in the enemy's world.

Finally, the enemy himself must be addressed; not to try to sway him, or even to diminish him, but to limit the damage he does by turning our messages against us. We must acknowledge that this is exactly what enemy groups have managed to do so adroitly and unerringly up to now. Thus the message authority that we establish with the actual enemy must be all about stripping them of the enormous authority that they have acquired, in part by effectively turning our former authority against us.

--

(Michael Vlahos writes on war and strategy at The Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory. He was commissioned to write this paper by a senior executive at the Department of Defense. This is Part One of a four-part series on the subject of exhuming the war of ideas.)

--

(United Press International's "Outside View" commentaries are written by outside contributors who specialize in a variety of issues. The views expressed do not necessarily reflect those of United Press International. In the interests of creating an open forum, original submissions are invited.)



Copyright ? 2001-2004 United Press International


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CONVERSATIONS ON JUSTICE...

Michael Ratner and Barbara Olshansky
http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/current
Michael Ratner and Barbara Olshansky from the Center for Constitutional Rights on the threats to human and constitutional rights at Guant?namo Bay. Ratner's book is called Guant?namo: What the World Should Know.




Hamdi and the End of Habeas Corpus
The Death of the Great Writ of Liberty
By JENNIFER VAN BERGEN

Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, the unlawful enemy combatant case, is of greater importance to the future of this country than many realize. But the Supreme Court decision is full of contradictions and deceptions. On the one hand, the Court upheld the right to due process. On the other, the Court determined that an "appropriately authorized and properly constituted military tribunal" with truncated procedures might suffice.[1]

The Court cited the Geneva Conventions but only as the basis for its assertion that "detention may last no longer than active hostilities" and as support for its suggestion that a military tribunal will suffice.[2] It made no reference to the fact that for two years the United States has been violating Geneva and that such violation is a war crime.

While upholding due process, the Court ostensibly upheld the Writ of Habeas Corpus, also called the Great Writ of Liberty--the original use of which was to require the custodian of a person detained without charges to produce that person before a judge for a determination of the legitimacy of his detention. But the Court was speaking with a forked tongue. While saying Hamdi had the right to challenge his detention, the Court eviscerated that right by the applying a "balancing test" used in civil cases--a test that in fact originated in the context of the deprivation of welfare benefits. Rather than requiring the Government to supply probable cause of criminal activity in order to detain Hamdi, Hamdi has to somehow prove that he isn't what the Government says he is. The Court pointed out that the lower court "apparently believed that the appropriate process would approach the process that accompanies a criminal trial."[3] Well, yes, a person being held in custody has the right to be charged with a crime or released. But the Court rejected this approach, stating that Justice Scalia, who dissented, "can point to no case or other authority for the proposition that those captured on a foreign battlefield . . . cannot be detained outside the criminal process."[4]

Yet, considering that the "Great Writ" of habeas corpus arose out of unlawful detentions without probable cause,[5] it is hard to see why the Court would refused to apply criminal procedural protections to challenges to the detention of persons who have claimed innocence. Innocent until proven guilty is supposed to be our standard. And, otherwise, if a detained person is not charged as a criminals, he can only be detained if he is determined by a competent and independent tribunal to be POW.

The Great Writ of Liberty

Can it be that the Supreme Court justices do not know the law and history of the Great Writ of Liberty? Justice Scalia was the only justice who spoke honestly about it. He said: "The very core of liberty secured by our Anglo-Saxon system of separated powers has been freedom from indefinite imprisonment at the will of the Executive."[6]

He quoted from the famed Commentaries of the British jurist and legal scholar, Sir William Blackstone: [C]onfinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to [jail], where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government.[7] He quoted from Alexander Hamilton: The writ of habeas corpus protects against "the practice of arbitrary imprisonments . . . in all ages, [one of] the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny."[8] And he added that "[i]t is unthinkable that the Executive could render otherwise criminal grounds for detention noncriminal merely by disclaiming an intent to prosecute, or by asserting that it was incapacitating dangerous offenders rather than punishing wrongdoing."[9]

Scalia even quotes from a 1997 Supreme Court opinion, that, "[a] finding of dangerousness, standing alone, is ordinarily not a sufficient ground upon which to justify indefinite involuntary commitment."[10] Then he notes that, of course, the allegations against Hamdi "are no ordinary accusations of criminal activity," but continues that "[c]itizens aiding the enemy have [traditionally] been treated as traitors subject to the criminal process."[11] He quotes from a 1762 treatise on treason that stated: The joining with Rebels in an Act of Rebellion, or with Enemies in Acts of hostility, will make a Man a Traitor: in the one Case within the Clause of Levying War, in the other within that of Adhering to the King's enemies.[12]

Although Scalia does not point it out, this language is reflected in our Constitution, which states that "[t]reason against the United States, shall consist only in levying War against them, or in adhering to their Enemies, giving them Aid and Comfort." The provision continues that "[n]o Person shall be convicted of Treason unless on the Testimony of two Witnesses to the same overt Act, or on Confession in open Court."[13] Finally, Justice Scalia points to our treason statute and other provisions that criminalize various acts of war-making and adherence to the enemy,[14] and notes that historically remedies for indefinite detention were "not a bobtailed judicial inquiry into whether there were reasonable grounds to believe the prisoner had taken up arms against the King[, but r]ather, if the prisoner was not indicted and tried within the prescribed time," he was discharged.[15] T

his is, in fact, exactly what the Court's remedy is--a bobtailed inquiry -- , but what is even more odious is that the Court pretends to uphold the very thing it undermines: the Great Writ of Liberty. Instead of Congress having the courage to suspend the writ, as it and only it is authorized to do, or the Justice Department having the courage to bring criminal charges against Hamdi, or the Defense Department providing him with a real Geneva "status determination" hearing, or the Court insisting that the real basis of habeas corpus be upheld by mandating criminal process be followed, we have gotten, instead, the Mathews v. Eldridge standard, meant for determinations of deprivations of welfare benefits.

The Mathews standard goes like this: the process due "in any given instance" is determined by weighing "the private interest that will be affected by the official action" against the Government's asserted interest, "including the function involved" and the burdens the Government would face in providing greater process, then an analysis of "the risk of an erroneous deprivation" of the private interest if the process were reduced and the "probable value, if any, of additional or substitute safeguards."[16] What happened to probable cause of criminal activity? What happened to the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth Amendment protections? What happened to innocent until proven guilty?

Given that Hamdi may now be heard by a military tribunal with procedures that allow for acceptance of hearsay evidence (not usually admissible in regular federal courts), a presumption in favor of the Government's evidence, and the burden on the detainee to prove the Government wrong, the result will be what one conservative commentator recently wrote: "[A]s long as Hamdi is given a meaningful opportunity to convince his captors that he should be released, their denial of his claim will probably be accepted by the Court."[17]

In the meantime, Hamdi is not the only one who will lose. The Great Writ has been a core part of democratic processes for over four hundred years. The Supreme Court may go down in infamy as the one that destroyed the Great Writ of Liberty, and along with it, our freedom.

Jennifer Van Bergen, J.D., is the author of The Twilight of Democracy: The Bush Plan for America, coming out September 1, 2004, Common Courage Press. She is one of the foremost experts on the USA PATRIOT Act and has taught anti-terrorism law at the New School University.

[1] Hamdi v. Rumsfeld, No. 03-6696 (June 28, 2004) (J. O'Connor, plurality op.), Part III (D), para. 4.

[2] The plurality opinion states that "it is notable that military regulations already provide for such process in related instances, dictating that tribunals be made available to determine the status of enemy detainees who assert prisoner-of-war status under the Geneva Conventions." Hamdi (J. O'Connor, plurality op.), part III, D, para. 4.

[3] Hamdi (O'Connor), part III, C, para.2.

[4] Id., part II, para. 16.

[5] See Wayne R. LaFave & Jerold H. Israel, Criminal Procedure (Hornbook Series, 2d ed., West Publishing, 1992), ?28.2(b). ("The King's Bench apparently accepted counsels' contention that the writ could be used to enforce the Magna Charta's guarantee [of due process], but responded that it could not look beyond the crown's return [e.g., reply, mandate] , which stated on its face that the detention was lawfully authorized. Dissatisfaction with this ruling eventually led to a 1641 Act that removed the power of the Crown to arrest without probable cause and granted to any arrested person immediate access by writ of habeas corpus to a judicial determination of the legality of his detention.") (Emphasis added.)

[6] Hamdi (J. Scalia, dissent), part I, para. 1.

[7] Sir William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England, 1:132-133 (1765), quoted in Hamdi (J. Scalia, dissent), id., para. 2. (Spelling modernized.)

[8] Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 84 (G. Carey & J. McClellan eds. 2001) 444, quoted in id., para. 9. (Spelling modernized.)

[9] Hamdi (J. Scalia, dissent), Part I, para. 6.

[10] Id., quoting Kansas v. Hendricks, 521 U.S. 346, 358 (1997).

[11] Id., part II, para. 1 & (A), para. 1.

[12] Sir Michael Foster, Discourse on High Treason (1762), quoted in id., part II (A), para. 4.

[13] U.S. Constitution, Art. III, section 3. [14] Hamdi (J. Scalia, dissent), part II (A), para. 9.

[15] Id., part III, para. 2. (Emphasis in original.)

[16] Id. (J. O'Connor, plurality op.) part III (C), para. 3, quoting from Mathews v. Eldridge, 424 U.S. 319, 335 (1976).

[17] Andrew C. McCarthy, A Mixed Bag (June 30, 2004), www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200406300915.asp.
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Judge in Yukos Countersuit Steps Down
By ALEX NICHOLSON
ASSOCIATED PRESS

MOSCOW (AP) - The judge who was to hear the Yukos oil company's countersuit on a multibillion-dollar back taxes bill asked to be removed from the case Monday, citing unspecified psychological pressure, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

The request by Arbitration Court Judge Olga Mikhailova was connected to "publications in the mass media that she considered as psychological pressure," the news agency reported. A new judge will be appointed by Tuesday, Yukos lawyer Sergei Pepelyayev said.

The date for new hearings would be decided within a month, said Mikhail Dolomanov, a lawyer also representing the interests of the beleaguered oil giant, the agency said.

The Tax Ministry said Monday it was planning to seek Mikhailova's removal, according to the report. Mikhailova has written articles on tax law for a magazine edited by Yukos lawyer Sergei Pepelyayev, suggesting she had an interest in the outcome of the case, the news agency Rosbiznesconsulting reported on its Web site. The agency cited a tax ministry representative.

Mikhailova's decision further complicates the web of legal actions involving Yukos and its jailed former CEO, Mikhail Khodorkovsky.

Yukos has been ordered to pay some $3.4 billion in back taxes for 2000, an amount the company says could drive it into bankruptcy. Another $3.3 billion is being sought for 2001, and bills for other years are expected to follow.

On Monday, Yukos filed a challenge to the 2001 bill.

An appeal of the Moscow Arbitration Court's decision upholding the 2000 bill will be heard Sept. 6, the Interfax news agency reported. The Federal Arbitration court for the Moscow district, which will hear the appeal, refused to stop enforcement of the claim.

Khodorkovsky and associate Platon Lebedev are being tried on charges including fraud and tax evasion. The trial will resume Tuesday.

Also Monday, another court postponed a hearing on a defense motion to release Khodorkovsky and Lebedev from custody, the Interfax news agency reported.

The Arbitration Court ruled last month that Yukos must pay its 2000 bill by early July.

However, before that ruling, Yukos in a separate action challenged the legality of the Tax Ministry's claim. The judge in that case was removed after a challenge by the Tax Ministry, meaning the case had to be reheard. That rehearing was to begin Monday before Mikhailova.

Pepelyayev, meanwhile, accused tax officials of pressuring lawyers defending Yukos, Rosbiznesconsulting reported. He said tax authorities were conducting an unplanned audit of his firm despite a check earlier this year which revealed no legal violations, the agency reported.

"I have never come across the kind of low, unethical methods of running an arbitration dispute that the tax authorities have demonstrated in its lawsuits with Yukos," the agency quoted Pepelyayev as saying.

Yukos, meanwhile, is struggling to find a compromise that would allow it to restructure its tax debts and keep the government from seizing its key assets.

There has been no government reaction to the company's proposal to pay $8 billion over two years or to an offer from Khodorkovsky - who stepped down as Yukos chief executive after his arrest - to help settle the tax claim by turning over shares held by him and his close associates.

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Iran: Tehran Abruptly Ends Trial Into Canadian Journalist's Death

Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi is heading Kazemi's legal team

Iran's hard-line judiciary has abruptly ended the trial of an intelligence agent accused of killing Zahra Kazemi, a Canadian journalist of Iranian origin. Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi, who is leading the team of lawyers representing Kazemi's family, has accused the judge of ignoring or covering up key testimony. RFE/RL reports that the case has turned an international spotlight on reports of Iranian human rights abuses.


19 July 2004 -- An Iranian court has abruptly ended the controversial trial of an intelligence agent accused of killing a Canadian journalist.

Zahra Kazemi, a photographer of Iranian origin, died in July 2003, two weeks after being detained for taking photographs outside a Tehran prison during student-led protests against Iran's ruling establishment.

Kazemi's case had drawn fresh international attention to reports of Iranian human rights abuses and conditions inside the country's prisons. It also prompted Canada last week to announce the withdrawal of its ambassador in Tehran."I'm saying this based on the law: They have no choice than to return the case to the primary court because of the many offenses that have been committed in this case."

The court's move yesterday to end the trial prompted outrage from Kazemi's legal team, headed by Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi.

Ebadi accused the judiciary of a cover-up by pinning blame on a single intelligence agent -- Mohammad Reza Ahmadi -- and disregarding evidence that judiciary officials may have been involved in the murder.

"I don't accept this court! We don't accept this court! This court is not acceptable! The proceedings were declared over. As a sign of protest, the mother of Zahra Kazemi and we, the lawyers, together have left the court," Ebadi said.

Ebadi's legal team claims the accused is innocent and is being used as a scapegoat.

The court met only three times in the trial of intelligence agent Ahmadi, who pleaded innocent on 17 July to charges of "semi-intentional murder." Reports say a verdict may be handed down within a week.

Iranian authorities initially claimed Kazemi died naturally of a stroke. Later, a committee appointed by President Mohammad Khatami found that Kazemi had died of a fractured skull and brain hemorrhage from a blow to the head.

Kazemi's mother tearfully accused Iranian officials of torturing her daughter to death.

Ezzat Kazemi told the court that there were burns on her daughter's chest and fingers and that her nose and toes were broken.

Ebadi's legal team accuses a prison official of inflicting the fatal blow. That official has been cleared of any wrongdoing. Ebadi's team accused the court of ignoring testimony that might have incriminated him.

In a news conference yesterday, Ebadi threatened to take the case to an international court if Iranian justice provides no further avenues to pursue it.

Mohammed Seyfzadeh, part of Ebadi's legal team, told RFE/RL that he believes Iranian officials will be compelled by law to return the case to a higher court.

"I'm saying this based on the law: They have no choice than to return the case to the primary court because of the many offenses that have been committed in this case," Seyfzadeh said.

The decision to end the trial was denounced by the Paris-based Reporters Without Borders as a "denial of justice."

The European Union also expressed concern over the trial and deplored the barring of EU diplomats from the trial's final session, which was closed to foreign journalists as well.

(RFE/RL's Radio Farda contributed to this report.)



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>> IRAQ WATCH




Analysts Question Logic of Staffing Plan for U.S. Embassy
Posted July 18, 2004
By Claude Salhani

John Negroponte, the first United States ambassador to be accredited to a post-Saddam Iraqi government will preside over the largest American legation in the world once his Baghdad embassy becomes fully staffed. With the exception of the U.S. Department of State on Washington's C Street, no other American diplomatic building will hold as many as Baghdad's expected 1,600 diplomats and assorted staff.

While the exact figures are not yet finalized, estimates place the number of Americans who will be working for 10 government agencies out of the Baghdad legation anywhere from 900 to 1,500, and maybe more, once security personnel are factored in. The rest will be made up of Iraqi support staff of around 600. The 2005 operating cost of the embassy is estimated to hover around the $1 billion mark, a figure that does not include initial construction costs.

Intelligence analysts speaking on condition of anonymity told United Press International that placing such large numbers of American government personnel in any one place in such a volatile area as Baghdad "is a silly and dangerous idea given the threat level in the country."

Indeed, regardless of what security precautions are taken, housing that many American diplomats in a high-profile location such as Baghdad presents a certain danger. An embassy of this size and significance almost would be a challenge to people trying to hurt the United States in Iraq.

Furthermore, the American diplomats assigned to Baghdad will live and work in the so-called "Green Zone," secured behind walls, razor wire and sandbags, and protected by a detachment of soldiers with tanks and armored personnel carriers. Their limited expeditions out into "the real Iraq" will be few and they will find themselves escorted by phalanxes of heavily armed security guards as they ride in armored cars to and from their appointments. Washington's diplomats in Iraq will be limited in their mixing with Iraqis, and those they do meet with will be carefully vetted.

A sure bet is that many of the diplomats assigned to the Baghdad mission will never set foot outside the Green Zone. They will remain secluded in the relative safety of the diplomatic compound and will hardly ever experience cultural or social exchanges with Iraqis. This is hardly the way to win over the hearts of the people, let alone conduct diplomacy.

Additionally, much of the information-gathering will be limited by the diplomats' lack of direct contact with the people of Iraq and their absence of language allowing them to communicate directly with Iraqis. As a result, the diplomats will have to rely more on Iraqi intermediaries, with all the drawbacks that represents.

Recent history has shown that placing large groups in unfriendly environments can lead to disaster. On April 18, 1983, an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Beirut left 63 people dead, including the CIA's Middle East director and the agency's entire Middle East contingent, all killed while attending a meeting inside the embassy at the time of the blast. Another 120 people were injured in the attack claimed by Islamic extremists.

Later that year, in October, another suicide bomber drove a van filled with 12,000 pounds of explosives into a building near Beirut International Airport that housed large elements of the Marine Battalion Team serving with the Multinational Force in Lebanon. Again, the positioning of large numbers under a single roof was the cause of 241 American servicemen -- mostly Marines -- losing their lives.

Sadly, the list is longer. In Iraq a number of government buildings and diplomatic missions have been targeted by insurgents/terrorists with disastrous consequences. With that in mind, State Department and intelligence analysts have questioned, off the record, the logic of placing that many diplomats in a pre-delineated space.

Others, however, speak of "confidence and optimism" to describe the mood in the Bureau of Diplomatic Security as more than 100 DS special agents, analysts and contractors prepare to deploy to the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad.

Additionally, all State Department personnel deploying to Iraq, including Ambassador Negroponte, have had to undergo the latest training in terrorist tactics. They have been required to take the diplomatic security antiterrorism course, which covers surveillance detection, emergency medical training, and other practical topics such as training in firearms.

But with today's technology -- cell phones, the Internet, highly secure video-conferencing capabilities -- one could ask why the State Department did not choose to base more diplomats in peripheral embassies, such as in Amman, Ankara, Damascus, Nicosia or Kuwait, instead of concentrating them all in one place where despite all the training in the world, they remain vulnerable.

Claude Salhani is an editor for UPI, a sister news organization of Insight.


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U.N. OIL $$ LINKED TO IRAQI TERRORISTS

By NILES LATHEM

July 19, 2004 -- WASHINGTON -- American officials believe that millions of dollars Saddam Hussein skimmed from the scandal-plagued U.N. oil-for-food program are now being used to help fund the bloody rebel campaign against U.S. forces and the new Iraqi government, The Post has learned.
U.S. intelligence officials and congressional investigators said last night that the "oil-for-insurgency link" has been recently unearthed in the numerous probes now under way into the giant U.N. humanitarian program, in which Saddam is believed to have pocketed $10.1 billion through oil smuggling and kickbacks from suppliers.

Congressional investigators have uncovered hundreds of documents in recent weeks that detail how top officials in Saddam's regime directed companies bidding on contracts for oil or humanitarian goods to pay "after-sales fees" -- or kickbacks -- of up to 10 percent of each contract.

The documents, which come from Iraqi government files and were handed over to the congressional committees in recent weeks, reveal that the companies were ordered to wire the kickback money into secret bank accounts the regime operated outside Iraq -- separate from the legitimate bank accounts being used by the oil-for-food program.

Investigators have traced some of these accounts to banks in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon and Belarus, where money was either laundered or converted into gold and routed back to Iraq or into other accounts.

The network of bankers, front companies, couriers and money-launderers involved in handling Saddam's oil-for-food kickback schemes still appears to be active, investigators say.

U.S. intelligence officials believe a portion of the funds in these hidden accounts -- possibly millions-- is now being used to fund the Ba'athist guerrillas responsible for much of the postwar violence against coalition troops, sources said.



"We are still in the early stages of investigating this. But from what we know so far, it's the same financial system, and we believe there is now some connection between what was left over from the illegal profiteering under the oil-for-food program and the funding of insurgency," said a U.S. official familiar with the recent intelligence information.

U.S. officials revealed earlier this month that a network of Saddam's cousins led by Fatiq Suleiman al-Majid, a former henchman in Saddam's murderous Special Security Organization, is involved in funding and arming the militants.

Investigators found a money trail connected to Saddam's clansmen that flowed through banks in Syria. Some of these same banks, congressional investigators said, also handled the kickback depos- its during the oil-for-food program.

Although the Treasury Department has recovered almost $2 billion in hidden assets since the fall of Saddam and has led the way in freezing many of Saddam's foreign bank accounts, the new Iraqi government and congressional investigators believe that hundreds of millions of dollars remain unaccounted for.


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Britain Says It Has Paid Compensation in Over 120 Incidents in Iraq
The Associated Press
Published: Jul 19, 2004
LONDON (AP) - Britain has paid compensation to Iraqis for more than 120 incidents involving death, injury or property damage in the British-occupied south of the country, the government said Monday.
In a House of Commons written answer, Defense Minister Adam Ingram said the compensation cases included one death in detention, six deaths in road accidents and 11 people with injuries sustained during arrest. Twenty-four compensation cases involved property damage and 57 were for damage to vehicles in road accidents.
Ingram did not give details of the financial settlements or a total payout figure.
In May, the government said it had paid compensation for three deaths, including $3,000 to the family of Baha Mousa, a Basra hotel receptionist who died after allegedly being beaten by British troops in September.

Mousa's family, and the families of 12 other people, are attempting to bring legal action against the British government over the deaths.

AP-ES-07-19-04 1334EDT



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The Crisis of Information in Baghdad
Four Missiles, 14 Deaths
By ROBERT FISK
The Independent

This is how they like it. An American helicopter fires four missiles at a house in Fallujah. Fourteen people are killed, including women and children. Or so say the hospital authorities.

But no Western journalist dares to go to Fallujah. Video footage taken by local civilians shows only a hole in the ground, body parts under a grey blanket and an unnamed man shouting that young children were killed.

The US authorities say they know nothing about the air strike; indeed, they tell journalists to talk to the Iraqi Ministry of Defence--whose spokesman admits that he has "no clue what is going on".

And by the time, in early afternoon yesterday, that the American-appointed Iraqi Prime Minister, Iyad Allawi, said that he had given permission for the attack--even though US rules of engagement give him no such right--there had been car bombs in Tikrit in which two policemen died, one of Saddam's former generals was captured, and Fallujah became just another statistic, albeit a deeply disturbing one: this is the sixth air strike on the insurgent-held city in less than five weeks.

None of the six was independently reported. The dead were "terrorists", according to Mr Allawi's office. So were the doctors lying?

As in Afghanistan, so in Iraq. US air strikes are becoming "uncoverable", as the growing insurgencies across the two countries make more and more highways too dangerous for foreign correspondents. Senior US journalists claim that Washington is happy with this situation; bombing wedding parties and claiming the victims were terrorists--as has happened three times in a year--doesn't make good headlines. Reporters can't be blamed for not travelling--but they ought to make it clear that a Baghdad dateline gives no authenticity to their work. Fallujah is only 25 miles from Baghdad but it might as well be 2,500 miles away. Reports of its suffering could be written in Hull for all the reliability they convey.

Here, then, is the central crisis of information in Iraq just now. With journalists confined to Baghdad--several have not left their hotels for more than two weeks--a bomb-free day in the capital becomes a bomb-free day in Iraq. An improvement. Things might be getting better. But since most journalists don't tell their viewers and readers that they cannot travel--they certainly don't reveal that armed "security advisers" act as their protectors--they do not see the reality of cities such as Fallujah, Ramadi and Samara, which are now outside all government control. Indeed, US Marines are no longer allowed into the centre of Fallujah, which is now run by the Fallujah Brigade, made up of former Baathists and current insurgents. The Independent does not use security advisers in Iraq, armed or otherwise.

So what happened in Fallujah? The US attack on the house at 2am yesterday turned the building into a pit of earth in which small bomb fragments and arms and legs were found. Locals described the building as the home of poor people. Angry crowds of men cried "God is Great" at the site. And then an official in Mr Allawi's office announced that "the multinational forces [ie the Americans] asked Prime Minister Allawi for permission to launch strikes on some specific places where terrorists were hiding and Allawi gave his permission."

Precisely the same formula was used by Iraqi authorities 84 years ago when RAF aircraft made "precise" attacks on Iraqi towns and villages supposedly sheltering insurgents opposed to British occupation. Ironically, one of the US bases near Fallujah currently under constant nightly attack by Iraqi gunmen is Habbaniya--the very air base from which British bi-planes had staged their air strikes.

On an Islamist website--and, in truth, no one knows who controls it--Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, one of Osama bin Laden's junior fighters, claimed that Saturday's suicide attacks on the Iraqi Justice Minister and a military recruitment centre in Mohammediya, which killed a total of eight Iraqis, were his work. The US military blamed the bombings on "people who want to stop the progress of democracy in this country"--which is an odd way of describing an organisation that allegedly wants to destroy not just the US-appointed government here but the United States itself.

The capture in Tikrit of General Sufian Maher Hassan of Saddam's Republican Guard was being portrayed as another success by the US army. However, since General Hassan was in charge of the defence of Baghdad in 2003 and is mockingly regarded as the man who turned a potential Stalingrad into one of the easiest American military victories of modern times--which is not exactly correct, but that is another story--his capture is not going to change the deteriorating security crisis in Iraq.

With ghoulish relish, meanwhile, Saudi Wahabists posted the execution of an American captive in Saudi Arabia on a website. The pictures showed a man in a white apron sawing at the neck and vertebrae of John Palmer before eventually placing his severed head on the back of his torso.

Given such gruesome proof of Western vulnerability, it's no surprise that journalists in Iraq--where similar videos have been made--want to avoid the same fate. But it's not just the killers who want to keep the reporters indoors.

Robert Fisk is a reporter for The Independent and author of Pity the Nation. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's hot new book, The Politics of Anti-Semitism.

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>> HASTA ...


Oposici?n Mayoritaria
Gobernar con una piedra en el zapato
Gran parte de los gobiernos presidencialistas en Latinoam?rica no son mayor?a en sus respectivos parlamentos, lo cual les impide trabajar debidamente. Muchas veces la oposici?n est? en desacuerdo, sin mayor raz?n, a cualquier iniciativa gubernamental. Un analista teme que esta situaci?n lleve a un caos que aprovechen los militares para volver al poder.

Jos? Antonio Pastor
Tiempos del Mundo

La gobernabilidad puede ser entendida como la capacidad de dise?ar y ejecutar pol?ticas p?blicas con eficacia y eficiencia. Tambi?n puede verse como la capacidad estatal de reducir y resolver los problemas que plantea una sociedad compleja. Ambas facultades parten b?sicamente de ciertos modos y patrones de gobierno que implican una relaci?n complementaria y balanceada entre el Poder Ejecutivo y el Parlamento.

Salvo por los casos de Belice en Centroam?rica, de Canad? en Norteam?rica y de algunas naciones en el Caribe, los pa?ses de la regi?n se han inclinado hist?ricamente por el sistema presidencialista, cuyas principales caracter?sticas se pueden resumir en que el poder ejecutivo es unitario, el cual est? depositado en un presidente que es, al mismo tiempo jefe de Estado y jefe de gobierno.

El presidente es electo por el pueblo y no por el Poder Legislativo, lo que le da independencia frente a ?ste. Asimismo, el mandatario puede nombrar y remover libremente a sus ministros, puede estar afiliado a un partido pol?tico diferente al de la mayor?a del Congreso; pero no puede disolver el Congreso ni ?ste puede darle un voto de censura.

La gran mayor?a de los presidencialismos latinoamericanos tienen sistemas multipartidistas sujetos a alg?n grado de representaci?n proporcional para la distribuci?n de esca?os en los congresos.

Este tipo de representaci?n ha permitido que peque?os grupos tengan cierta influencia en el Poder Legislativo, pero tambi?n ha propiciado la fragmentaci?n parlamentaria, que a juicio de analistas de diferentes pa?ses de la regi?n, es peligrosa para la gobernabilidad si el oficialismo no alcanza una mayor?a importante.

Los presidentes sin mayor?as operativas en los congresos suelen tener muchos problemas. Basta con echar un vistazo a los diarios nacionales para leer de gobiernos divididos, par?lisis parlamentaria o ejecutiva, intentos presidenciales de `brincarse' al Congreso o inestabilidad del r?gimen.

Un sistema presidencial multipartidista inestable rara vez es capaz de proveer de pol?ticas acordes a las necesidades, atraer apoyo popular e inclusive sobrevivir. En ese sentido, cuantos m?s partidos pol?ticos existen, m?s dif?cil resulta encontrar mayor?as calificadas para gobernar.

El escenario ideal del sistema presidencialista es aquel en el que el presidente cuenta con la mayor?a en el Congreso y la minor?a cumple una funci?n controladora, cuestionando y pidiendo explicaciones acerca de la labor pol?tica. Los legisladores son representantes de los electores y por lo tanto, deber?an reflejar y reconocer las circunstancias que alteran a la sociedad, son los mediadores entre el gobierno y el pueblo, pero esto ocasionalmente es as?.

De moda en la regi?n

Son escasos los pa?ses donde el Ejecutivo tiene una representaci?n importante o mayoritaria en el Parlamento, en unos casos como resultado de los comicios, en otros, a alianzas sobre la marcha y en algunos, a la creaci?n coaliciones, muchas veces d?biles y sujetas a condicionamientos de cuotas de poder. As?, tenemos con sus diferentes matices los ejemplos de Panam?, Colombia, Venezuela, Argentina y Chile.

Para Rodolfo Cerdas, analista pol?tico y ex diputado de la Asamblea Legislativa de Costa Rica, el fen?meno de los gobiernos con minor?a parlamentaria se puso de moda en Latinoam?rica a ra?z del fraccionamiento electoral, por las crisis de los partidos y la incapacidad de las ?lites pol?ticas de responder a las demandas de la poblaci?n.

Todo esto ha hecho que se produzca un divorcio entre algunas formas de liderazgo, especialmente carism?tico, que emerge en las ?pocas de crisis y de la elecci?n que hace el electorado de los diputados que los representar?n. De alguna manera, la gente siente que debe balancear los poderes en caso de que el presidente no sea lo que esperaban.

"Como los partidos no tienen una estructura fuerte, los criterios que se aplican para integrar los parlamentos son distintos, esto hace que se produzca ese divorcio entre el Ejecutivo y una oposici?n cerrada en los parlamentos donde no se tiene una mayor?a", dijo el especialista.

A ello se une el problema de la cultura pol?tica, que consiste en que no hay la madurez pol?tica para que la oposici?n sepa poner l?mites a sus contradicciones con el Poder Ejecutivo, por lo que abusan de la autoridad que tienen en el Parlamento, ya no para controlar o frenar al Ejecutivo, sino para crear una situaci?n de ingobernabilidad.

"El Parlamento ya no funciona como un contrapeso natural del otro poder, sino que se produce una ruptura. La inmadurez de las clases pol?ticas dirigentes se manifiesta en los casos en los cuales los parlamentos tienen en su facultad el dar votos de censura contra los ministros y precipitar su ca?da. Donde eso se ha dado, se ha precipitado sistem?ticamente el gabinete gubernamental", a?adi?. Consultado sobre cu?l ser? el futuro de la regi?n si persisten estas condiciones, Cerdas coment? que en el mediano plazo puede llevar a involuciones en el sistema democr?tico, a que aparezcan diversas formas de autoritarismo porque la sociedad no resiste el caos y la ausencia de autoridad. "Esto puede generar, si no el retorno de acciones militares directas, s? a formas de poder pol?tico autoritario que disminuya las facultades de los parlamentos y que crean la figura todapoderosa del Poder Ejecutivo que puede, con vestiduras de tipo democr?tico, estar semiocultando una forma de dictadura pol?tica", sentenci?.

Metamorfosis cuestionada

Tambi?n de moda en varios pa?ses del hemisferio, la discusi?n sobre la posibilidad de cambiar del sistema presidencialista a otro semiparlamentario o semipresidencialista, es vista por Rodolfo Cerdas como un peligro que no se debe menospreciar. Seg?n explic?, los problemas van en otra direcci?n y es que "no tenemos un sistema operante de partidos pol?ticos modernos, que sean representativos, que est?n en capacidad de contribuir en la formulaci?n de pol?ticas p?blicas en concordancia con las demandas de la poblaci?n".

En cuanto a la idea de reformar el sistema pol?tico, sostiene que hay que tener cuidado con esos semiparlamentarios o semipresidencialistas, porque la experiencia muestra que cuando se avanza de esa manera, lo que sucede es que se deja lo peor del sistema presidencial y se adopta la inestabilidad y lo peor del parlamentario.

"Creo que lo que hay que hacer es dar el paso maduro. En el caso, por ejemplo, de una democracia consolidada, con una tradici?n pol?tica fuerte, a un sistema parlamentario que permita u obligue a la reconstituci?n y modernizaci?n de los partidos pol?ticos. Si usted me habla de esa soluci?n en sociedades como Paraguay, Bolivia o Nicaragua, s?lo para citar unos casos, yo le dir?a que no, porque no existen las condiciones para avanzar en esa l?nea", asever?. El reci?n electo secretario general de la Organizaci?n de Estados Americanos, OEA, el costarricense Miguel ?ngel Rodr?guez, lanz? el tema a la mesa de las discusiones en su ?ltimo mensaje al pa?s como Presidente de la Rep?blica en mayo de 2001. Sin embargo, ni el debate ni un posterior proyecto de ley tuvieron el respaldo necesario para llegar a buen puerto.

Un pa?s donde las circunstancias parecieran haber convertido el sistema presidencialista en una especie de sistema parlamentario, seg?n opini?n de analistas nacionales, es Nicaragua, donde la oposici?n reina por partida doble. Los diputados liberales rompieron pol?ticamente con el presidente Enrique Bola?os, despu?s de que el mandatario desatara una cruenta lucha anticorrupci?n que envi? a prisi?n al ex presidente Arnoldo Alem?n.

El Partido Liberal Constitucionalista, PLC, encabezando una alianza de partidos, se alz? con la victoria en las elecciones generales del 2002, cuando llev? al poder a Bola?os y obtuvo 52 diputados de un total de 93 que conforman la Asamblea Nacional.

El Frente Sandinista de Liberaci?n Nacional, FSLN, alcanz? 38 esca?os y el Partido Conservador de Nicaragua s?lo uno, lo que presagiaba que la administraci?n de Bola?os gobernar?a Nicaragua con relativa tranquilidad, apoy?ndose en los diputados de su partido.

Pero en pol?tica las cosas no resultan tan exactas como las matem?ticas. Alem?n intent? conservar una buena parte de su poder pol?tico, y una vez que transfiri? la banda presidencial a su correligionario Enrique Bola?os, apoyado por los diputados liberales, fue electo presidente de la Asamblea Nacional de Nicaragua. En su calidad de ex presidente, Alem?n ten?a derecho por ley a un esca?o dentro de la Asamblea.

El ex mandatario, que a?n goza de un fuerte liderazgo, se garantiz? antes de las elecciones generales del 2001, de que los candidatos a diputados y a alcaldes municipales fueran personas cercanas a su entorno.

Las divergencias entre el ex y el actual gobernante, por el liderazgo pol?tico, se ahondaron.

A tan s?lo seis meses de instalado el nuevo gobierno, Bola?os lanz? impactantes acusaciones de corrupci?n cometidas durante el mandato anterior. Como resultado de las acusaciones, Alem?n y funcionarios de su administraci?n fueron enjuiciados y enviados a la c?rcel.

Los diputados liberales no soportaron la afrenta a su l?der y se declararon en oposici?n al gobierno. Bola?os s?lo logr? un relativo apoyo de ocho diputados que, dependiendo de las circunstancias, votan a favor de las iniciativas del gobierno y otras veces no.

Este grupo, que no ofrece un total y franco respaldo al presidente, integra ahora una bancada denominada Azul y Blanco.
Los sandinistas explotan h?bilmente las contradicciones entre bola?istas y arnoldistas, negociando por separado y logrando concesiones que, en ocasiones les generan beneficios no s?lo pol?ticos sino econ?micos para sectores sociales o aliados a su partido.

Sin un franco apoyo entre los diputados de la Asamblea Nacional, el gobierno del presidente Bola?os se debilita paulatinamente.

Algunos analistas estiman que, en poco m?s de dos a?os que restan del per?odo presidencial, no lograr? hacer nada trascendental en beneficio de la poblaci?n que sufre en el desempleo y una dif?cil situaci?n econ?mica.

La popularidad del mandatario, que al inicio fue una de las m?s alta que presidente alguno haya tenido, se desplom? estrepitosamente. Pero las circunstancias pol?ticas no s?lo opacaron la imagen de Bola?os sino tambi?n la de los padres de la patria.

El forcejeo a tres bandas entre diputados sandinistas, liberales y los pocos leales al gobierno, dio como resultado la legislatura m?s est?ril de los ?ltimos a?os. Al concluir el primer semestre del 2004, exhib?an el pobre resultado de tan s?lo 14 leyes aprobadas, lo que les hace merecedores de cr?ticas de todos los sectores sociales.

Se censura que los "padres de la patria" del ala liberal han centrado su quehacer parlamentario en una desgastante t?ctica, sin resultados positivos, para liberar al presidente Alem?n, quien permanece en prisi?n por orden judicial desde el pasado mes de diciembre. Los liberales tan s?lo apoyaron al gobierno en iniciativas en las que, de votar en contra, les hubiese significado mayor deterioro a su propia imagen, frente a la comunidad internacional y de influyentes sectores sociales nicarag?enses.

Es obvio que, aparte de la aprobaci?n de leyes que el pa?s requiere para honrar compromisos macroecon?micos contra?dos con organismos internacionales, no se vislumbran mayores posibilidades para que los diputados aprueben otras iniciativas que el gobierno impulse para materializar su visi?n de pa?s.

A juzgar por los acontecimientos, los diputados se encaminan a restarle poder al presidente Bola?os, quien deber? entregar la banda presidencial en enero de 2007. Algunos observadores pol?ticos comentan que, de no solventarse las diferencias entre los liberales, lo que a todas luces parece dif?cil, en lo que resta del per?odo de Bola?os, Nicaragua se adentrar? a un sistema de gobierno parlamentario y no presidencial.

Las divisiones por ambiciones de liderazgo dentro del liberalismo, m?s la actitud del Frente Sandinista de capitalizarlas al m?ximo, hace aparecer a los diputados de las dos corrientes pol?ticas, m?s que de oposici?n, como obst?culos a las pol?ticas de desarrollo que intenta el gobierno.

Si hasta el presente la naci?n no ha ca?do en la ingobernabilidad es porque la oposici?n sandinista y los resentidos liberales, saben que el gobierno goza de un fuerte respaldo de Estados Unidos y de otros pa?ses, los cuales aplauden la cruzada contra la corrupci?n emprendida por Bola?os. Adem?s, el pa?s se encuentra en un fase de consolidaci?n de su proceso democr?tico, e intentar deponer al gobierno es un riesgo demasiado alto que nadie parece estar dispuesto a correr.u

(*) Colaboraron en este informe Ana Paula Valverde (Costa Rica) y R?ger Su?rez (Nicaragua).

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>> REASON...?


Ten Reasons to Fire George W. Bush

And nine reasons why Kerry won't be much better

Jesse Walker





If you're looking for reasons to be disgusted with George W. Bush, here are the top 10:

1. The war in Iraq. Over a thousand soldiers and counting have died to subdue a country that was never a threat to the United States. Now we're trapped in an open-ended conflict against a hydra-headed enemy, while terrorism around the world actually increases.

One of the silliest arguments for the invasion held that our presence in Iraq was a "flypaper" attracting the world's terrorists to one distant spot. At this point, it's pretty clear that if there's a flypaper in Baghdad, the biggest bug that's stuck to it is the U.S.A.

2. Abu Ghraib. And by "Abu Ghraib" I mean all the places where Americans have tortured detainees, not just the prison that gave the scandal its name. While there are still people who claim that this was merely a matter of seven poorly supervised soldiers "abusing" (not torturing!) some terrorists, it's clear now that the abuse was much more widespread; that it included rape, beatings, and killings; that the prison population consisted overwhelmingly of innocents and petty crooks, not terrorists; and that the torture very likely emerged not from the unsupervised behavior of some low-level soldiers, but from policies set at the top levels of the Bush administration. Along the way, we discovered that the administration's lawyers believe the president has the power to unilaterally suspend the nation's laws--a policy that, if taken seriously, would roll back the central principle of the Glorious Revolution.

Two years ago, when Kathleen Kennedy Townsend was running for governor of Maryland, I noted her poor oversight of a boot camp program for drug offenders where the juvenile charges had been beaten and abused. "It's bad enough," I wrote, "to let something like institutionalized torture slip by on your watch. It's worse still to put your political career ahead of your job, and to brag about the program that's employing the torturers instead of giving it the oversight that might have uncovered their crimes earlier. There are mistakes that should simply disqualify a politician from future positions of authority." Every word of that applies at least as strongly to Donald Rumsfeld and to the man who has not seen fit to rebuke him publicly for the torture scandal, George Bush.

3. Indefinite detentions. Since 9/11, the U.S. government has imprisoned over a thousand people for minor violations of immigration law and held them indefinitely, sometimes without allowing them to consult a lawyer, even after concluding that they have no connections to terrorist activities. (Sirak Gebremichael of Ethiopia, to give a recently infamous example, was arrested for overstaying his visa--and then jailed for three years while awaiting deportation.) It has also claimed the right to detain anyone designated an "enemy combatant" in a legal no-man's land for as long as it pleases. Last month the Supreme Court finally put some restrictions on the latter practice, but that shouldn't stop us from remembering that the administration argued strenuously for keeping it.

4. The culture of secrecy. The Bush administration has nearly doubled the number of classified documents. It has urged agencies, in effect, to refuse as many Freedom of Information Act requests as possible, has invoked executive privilege whenever it can, and has been very free with the redactor's black marker when it does release some information. Obviously, it's impossible to tell how often the data being concealed is genuinely relevant to national security and how often it has more to do with covering a bureaucrat's behind. But there's obviously a lot of ass-covering going on.

And even when security is a real issue, all this secrecy doesn't make sense. Earlier this year, the Transportation Security Administration tried to retroactively restrict two pages of public congressional testimony that had revealed how its undercover agents managed to smuggle some guns past screeners. Presumably they were afraid a terrorist would read about it and try the method himself--but it would have made a lot more sense to seek some outsiders' input on how to resolve the putative problem than to try to hide it from our prying eyes. Especially when the information had already been sitting in the public record.

The administration has been quick to enforce its code of silence, regularly retaliating against those within its ranks who try to offer an independent perspective on its policies. While the most infamous examples of this involve international affairs, the purest episode may be the case of chief Medicare actuary Richard Foster, who apparently was threatened with dismissal if he told Congress the real projected cost of Bush's Medicare bill. Even if the White House didn't know about the threat--and I strongly suspect that it did--it created the organizational culture that allows such bullying to thrive.

5. Patriot and its progeny. The Patriot Act sometimes serves as a stand-in for everything wrong with the administration's record on civil liberties, and at times is blamed for policies it didn't create--those detentions, for example. Nonetheless, there's plenty of reasons to despise a law that allows warrantless searches of phone and Internet records; that gives police the right to see what books you've bought or checked out of the library while prohibiting the library or bookstore from telling you about the inquiry; that requires retailers to report "suspicious" transactions and, again, prevents them from telling you that they've done so. And there are plenty of reasons to despise an administration that rammed this bill through at the eleventh hour--and still wants to extend its reach.

6. The war on speech. Not all of the White House's assaults on our freedoms are linked to the war on terror. In March 2002, Bush signed the McCain-Feingold "campaign finance reform" bill, whose restrictions on political speech in the months approaching an election--i.e., at the time when political speech is most important--are so broad that they've forced a filmmaker, David T. Hardy, to delay the release of his documentary The Rights of the People until after November because it mentions several candidates. Bush approved this bill fully aware that it was a First Amendment nightmare; it's generally believed that he did so assuming that the Supreme Court would strike down its unconstitutional elements. Surprise: The Court weeded out a few measures but left most of them in place.

That's not to say the government hasn't done anything to increase the amount of political speech. Its ham-handed crackdown on "indecent" broadcasts--an effort that is to the cultural realm what McCain-Feingold is to the political sector--has turned Howard Stern into Amy Goodman.

7. The drunken sailor factor. Fine, you say: We all expect a Republican president to molest our civil liberties. But this one has poached the Democrats' turf as well, increasing federal spending by over $400 billion--its fastest rate of growth in three decades. Even if you set aside the Pentagon budget, Washington is doling out dollars like crazy: Under Bush, domestic discretionary spending has already gone up 25 percent. (Clinton only increased it 10 percent, and it took him eight years to do that.) "In 2003," the conservative Heritage Foundation notes, "inflation-adjusted federal spending topped $20,000 per household for the first time since World War II."

Of all those spending projects, Bush's Medicare bill deserves special attention. It will cost at least $534 billion over the next decade, and probably more. And it doesn't even deliver on its liberal promises: It does much more to distribute new subsidies and tax breaks to doctors, HMOs, and the pharmaceutical industry than it does to help seniors. The Medicare bill is to Bush's domestic policy what the Iraq war is to its foreign policy: an enormous expense of dubious merit that's come under fire from both the left and the right.

8. Cozying up to the theocrats. There are those who believe the White House is being run by religious fanatics, and there are those who believe it's mostly paying lip service to Bush's Christian base. I lean toward the second view. But whether he's cynical or sincere, there's nothing good to be said for the president's willingness to demagogue the gay marriage issue (and throw federalism out the window in the process), or--worse yet--to restrict potentially life-saving research on therapeutic cloning because it offends that constituency's religious views.

9. Protectionism in all its flavors. Bush has repeatedly sacrificed the interests of consumers to help politically significant industries, giving us tariffs on products from steel to shrimp. This doesn't just make a mockery of his free-trade rhetoric--it's also bad policy.

10. He's making me root for John Kerry. I haven't voted for a major party's presidential candidate since 1988, and I have no plans to revert to the habit this year. The Democrats have nominated a senator who--just sticking to the points listed above--voted for the war in Iraq, the Patriot Act, McCain-Feingold, and the TSA; who endorses the assault on "indecency"; who thinks the government should be spending even more than it is now. I didn't have room in my top ten for the terrible No Child Left Behind Act, which further centralized control of the country's public schools--but for the record, Kerry voted for that one too. It's far from clear that he'd be any less protectionist than Bush is, and he's also got problems that Bush doesn't have, like his support for stricter gun controls. True, Kerry doesn't owe anything to the religious right, and you can't blame him for the torture at Abu Ghraib. Other than that, he's not much of an improvement.

Yet I find myself hoping the guy wins. Not because I'm sure he'll be better than the current executive, but because the incumbent so richly deserves to be punished at the polls. Making me root for a sanctimonious statist blowhard like Kerry isn't the worst thing Bush has done to the country. But it's the offense that I take most personally.



Managing Editor Jesse Walker is author of Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America (NYU Press).


-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> THEN AGAIN...

[Disavowal]

Negative Capability
Posted on Thursday, July 15, 2004. The following assertions were collected from public statements made by George W. Bush and his official spokesmen since 1997. Originally from Harper's Magazine, May 2004.
SourcesThe President of the United States is not a fact-checker.

I'm not a statistician.

I'm not a numbers-cruncher.

I'm not one of these bean counters.

I'm not very analytical.

I'm not a precision guy.

The President is not a micromanager.

I'm not a member of the legislative branch.

The President is not a rubber stamp for the Congress.

I'm not a censor-guy.

I'm not a lawyer.

I'm not a doctor.

The President is not an economist.

I'm not a stockbroker or a stock-picker.

I'm not a forecaster.

I'm not a predictor.

I'm not a pollster, a poll-reader guy.

I'm not a very good prognosticator of elections.

I'm not a committee chairman.

I'm not of the Washington scene.

I'm not a lonely person.

I'm not a poet.

I'm not a very good novelist.

I'm not a textbook player.

I'm not an emailer.

I'm not a very long-winded person.

I'm not a very formal guy.

I am not a revengeful person.

I'm not an Iraqi citizen.

I'm not a divider.

I am not a unilateralist.

I'm not a tree, I'm a Bush.

This is Negative Capability, a reading, originally from May 2004, published Thursday, July 15, 2004. It is part of Governance, which is part of Readings, which is part of Harpers.org.


------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

>> THEN AGAIN 2...HARPERS
http://harpers.org/MostRecentIndex.html

Estimated value of a painting that the Saudi ambassador has given George W. Bush for his future presidential library : $1,000,000 [National Archives & Records Administration (Washington) ]

Value of the solid-gold model of a Saudi fortress on display in his father's presidential library : $1,000,000 [George Bush Presidential Library and Museum (College Station, Tex.) ]

Amount by which total Social Security contributions since 1983 exceed total benefit payments since then : $999,059,000,000 [Social Security Administration (Baltimore)/Harper's research ]

Year in which the Medicare hospital trust fund will be "completely exhausted," according to the trustees : 2019 [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (Baltimore) ]

Year in which trustees predicted in 1991 that the fund would be exhausted : 2005 [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (Baltimore) ]

Minimum number of U.S. surgical patients sewn up each year with sponges, clamps, or other tools left inside them : 1,500 [The New England Journal of Medicine (Boston) ]

Number of Americans who died in 2002 from infections they contracted while hospitalized for other ailments : 90,000 [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Atlanta) ]

Number of accidents on Florida highways in 2002 caused by cars parked on the side of the road : 4,220 [Florida Highway Patrol (Jacksonville) ]

Estimated percentage of women in Pakistani prisons whose crime was fornication : 80 [National Commission on the Status of Women (Islamabad, Pakistan) ]

Average number of people who die every day in Bombay commuter-train accidents : 10 [Manavta Railway Accident Response Centre (Bombay, India) ]

Percentage of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip who lack regular access to food : 40 [Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (Rome) ]

...

Algerian police admitted that a June 21 explosion at a power plant was a terrorist attack by the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat. Condom supplies in much of the world were falling short, and [New Scientist] Britain's Environment Agency said that male fish were being changed to females by hormone-laden sewage dumped into rivers. [New York Times] The EPA announced that it will fine DuPont for failing to report significant test results relating to a chemical used in making Teflon that was found in drinking water near factories and in the fetus of a pregnant employee. [New York Times] One hundred fifty million pieces of toy jewelry were recalled because of high lead content. [New York Times]

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>> LEVANT WATCH...


>> LET IT BE...LET IT BE...OH...WHISPERING...


Analysis: Is Arafat's rule ending?
By Claude Salhani
UPI International Editor
Published 7/19/2004 4:17 PM


WASHINGTON, July 19 (UPI) -- Is Yasser Arafat's long reign as the uncontested leader of the Palestinians coming to a close?

This past weekend's sudden turmoil that erupted in the Gaza Strip over growing lack of security is a clear sign that Arafat's authority as the unchallenged leader of the Palestinians is now being challenged, acknowledges a Palestinian official.

While the Gaza events have centered on the issue of a corrupt police chief, who was briefly kidnapped and later released, there are however, much deeper issues troubling the Palestinian territories. Not least among them, a number of observes say, is the belief that this may well herald the beginning of the end of the Arafat era.

The Palestinians are not alone in this belief. Israel's former Mossad chief, Ephraim Halevy, said Monday that Arafat is gradually losing power.

This recent development in Gaza is the first tangible evidence of what has been boiling under the surface for a long while, said a Palestinian official speaking on condition of anonymity.

What has happened in the Gaza Strip, in fact, comes as the result of a long list of complaints hurled at Arafat's administration by many Palestinians. Not least among their complaints is that Arafat's administration has been plagued with corruption and lack of freedom. The failure to reach a peace agreement with Israel, and the fact that Arafat has been largely ignored by both the United States and Israel, has not helped improve the situation.

Granted, the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories has not helped either, but in the words of one official, a lot more could have been done. Instead, Arafat and his prot?g?s have chosen to try and place the blame of their shortcomings on everyone except themselves.

Given the possibility of an Israeli pullout from Gaza (which by the way some Palestinians believe will never happen) and the void such a move would create, Gazans have made it known to Arafat that they demand a greater say in running the territory. Their demands were made known over the weekend, when they kidnapped the police chief, challenging Arafat.

And this time Arafat blinked.

Faced with an unprecedented popular rebuttal after naming his nephew, Moussa Arafat, as head of the General Security in the Gaza Strip to replace Abdul Razzaq al-Majayda, Arafat realized that he had no choice but to backtrack and reinstate al-Majayda.

What is happening behind the scenes is nothing short of a power-play for control of Gaza between the established authority -- Arafat's and his old guard brought to the territories from his Beirut and Tunis exiles -- and the younger generation, who now see an opportunity allowing them to have a greater say in the running of the territory. For the moment, at least, the fundamentalists, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, are staying out of the quarrel. But there is little doubt that they, too, would demand a say in running Gaza.

"What is happening is quite significant," said a Palestinian official speaking from Ramallah, explaining that he saw these recent moves as an attempt by the "rebels" to better position themselves in a way that would give them more power.

The bottom line is that barring the introduction of reform in the Palestinian territories, the overwhelming disillusion felt by the Palestinian "street" is unlikely to abate anytime soon and is likely to grow.

Arafat, report sources in the territories, has now gone into a "survival mode." The Palestinians badly want -- and need -- reforms. Living standards in the territories have suffered tremendous drawbacks, particularly since the outbreak of the second intifada, or uprising, that broke out in September 2000. And it's been downhill since.

"People in the Palestinian areas are frustrated," the official said. The standard of living has dropped, unemployment has risen and many in the PA leadership are seen as corrupt. Last year, a controversy arose over allegations that Arafat had funneled some $11 million to his wife Suha's bank account in Paris, where she lives with the couple's daughter.

Given the way things have been going in the territories, Arafat is now possibly living the final chapter of his political career. And he knows it. As a quick fix to the chaos reigning in the territories, and to prevent further mayhem, Arafat has ordered the restructuring of the PA's eight security services into three, placing them under the direction of the prime minister. But there is lack of clarity, even here.

In fact, what Arafat has done is to place what a Palestinian official called "national security services," under Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia's direction. But just what is considered "national services," as opposed to "other services," remains, as the official put it, "a matter of debate."

What also remains debatable is if Arafat can weather this storm, as he has so often done in the past. Many observers who have long followed the Palestinian leader's turbulent political career have often said that the man has more lives than a cat.

That may well be the case, but as the Palestinian official commented Monday on the past weekend's events, "Arafat may have just used up his last life." That, of course, has also been said of Arafat a number of times in the past.

-0-

(Comments may be sent to Claude@upi.com.)



Copyright ? 2001-2004 United Press International
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Republics of fearlessness?

On conjugating liberalism in Syria and Lebanon. An interview with journalist and author Samir Kassir

Michael Young



Every Friday, readers of Lebanon's most respected daily, Al-Nahar, can read a front-page column by Samir Kassir. On a bad day, Kassir (who also teaches history at Beirut's St. Joseph University) is merely annoying to those in power; on a good one, he is infuriating enough to earn newspapers irate telephone calls from the gentlemen at the security agencies, an open-ended ban from political talk shows, and, even, at one time, a detail of trailing intelligence agents seeking to make Kassir's life wretched. His story, then, is that of the liberal intellectual facing down a Middle East suffused with the futility of autocracy. Reason spoke to Kassir on Syria and Lebanon, the past and present of Beirut, and the limbo of free expression in Arab societies.

reason: You've just published two books, Syrian Democracy and Lebanon's Independence and A Soldier Against Whom?, both collections of weekly columns for Al-Nahar. Why republish the articles?

Samir Kassir: Let me admit, first, that almost every columnist has a secret dream that what he writes will stand the test of time. I am personally sensitive to this, maybe because my academic background leads me to seek coherence in my articles from week to week. Yet, publishing the books was not, or not only, a narcissistic decision. Both are intended to feed the political debate in Lebanon, especially as we are supposed to have a presidential election this year and that a great concern is that the current president, Emile Lahoud, will impose a renewal of his mandate--or that Syria might do so--despite the fact that the constitution mandates a single presidential term. The process implies that the security services, which are already pulling the strings, will go further in suppressing opposition to this scheme on behalf of the president, but also of a hegemonic Syria.

My book on Syria is a reminder that the problem we have with the Syrian regime is not merely that it has imposed itself against the free will of the Lebanese people, but also that of the Syrian people--a dimension many Lebanese choose to ignore. I want to remind everyone that the demands for reform in Syria came long before President George W. Bush chose to express them. Furthermore, both books are a signal, both to colleagues and to readers, that they don't have to buckle under pressure from those in positions of power--that they must persist in writing what they want, even if they are threatened.

reason: The book on Syria, which you've subtitled "In Search of the Damascus Spring," appears to be an admission that Syrian reform is an illusion. True?

Kassir: If you mean by Syrian reform a reform conducted by the regime, I've always been skeptical of this. In all that I've written since Bashar Assad inherited power from his father, I never succumbed to the illusion that he would willingly reform his regime. At the same time, I saw in the process of succession an opportunity for Bashar to gain real legitimacy by undoing what his father had done. That's why I've been asking for the release of political prisoners, the ending of the state of emergency, and political liberalization, including allowing freedom of expression, as prerequisites for this new legitimacy. I have refused to see the small steps Bashar has taken in this regard as gifts we should thank him for.

That doesn't mean things haven't changed in Syria. But they have changed thanks to the courage of intellectuals and political militants who decided to voice their demands publicly, through the press--the Lebanese press I should add--or through the so-called Manifesto of the 99 and other manifestos. If the "Damascus Spring" [the short-lived period of relative openness that followed Bashar's arrival to power in June 2000] means anything, it is embodied in the courage and the quest for freedom expressed by the Syrian opposition. The Syrian regime understood this and cracked down on dissidents. But that hasn't worked. Though the opposition in Syria is not in good shape, it has widened its margin of expression, though not enough to propose an alternative to the Ba'ath regime.

reason: You have written that the elephant in the living room of the Syrian opposition is its unwillingness to raise the matter of the Syrian presence in Lebanon. How is Syrian democracy related to Lebanese independence?

Kassir: I think things have evolved, especially since Riad Turk, the key figure in the Syrian opposition, addressed this issue in one of his interviews with Al-Mulhaq, the literary supplement of Al-Nahar, in early 2003. In the interview, he asked for a restoration of Lebanese independence and questioned the manipulation by the Syrian regime of the resistance, through Lebanon, against the Israeli occupation. When I meet my friends from the Syrian opposition, I feel the issue of Lebanese independence has imposed itself and that nobody questions the need to put an end to this hegemony. However, this doesn't mean they are willing to give top priority to the issue. As one Syrian dissident once told me: "We want to address the core issue, the Ba'ath regime's hegemony over Syria; once we've done that, its hegemony over Lebanon will fall apart." But I maintain the reverse is also true.

Here, I must add that my criticism was not a moral one; it was not intended to compel Syrian dissidents to feel they owed the Lebanese something because our press has been a platform for their ideas. My criticism was political: I meant that one couldn't understand Syrian politics if one didn't consider what Syria had done in Lebanon for over a quarter of a century. I feel the Syrian dissidents must be aware of this, as they know better than anyone else that their regime's raison d'?tre is to project itself across the Middle East, beginning with Lebanon. After all, if Syria is a regional power, it is because of its intervention in Lebanon.

reason: Is the Syrian-Lebanese relationship as it is shaped today sustainable?

Kassir: Let's try to characterize this Syrian-Lebanese relationship. It is not an occupation, nor is it a free association between two sovereign countries. Rather, Lebanon is a Syrian protectorate, similar to what we used to see in Eastern Europe under Soviet rule. I should add it is also a mafia-type protectorate, since Lebanon is not only a place of strategic importance for the Syrian regime, it is also a place where Syria's ruling elite, in association with Lebanese counterparts, exploits all kinds of, often illicit, economic and business opportunities.

Clearly, this situation is no longer sustainable--it never was, to my mind, given the resilience of Lebanese civil society. What has changed are two factors that helped shape this relationship: The first is the internal cohesion of the Syrian regime. It seems obvious that things are no longer as cohesive as they were under the late president, Hafez al-Assad. The second is the end of the conspiracy of silence that surrounded the Syrian takeover of Lebanon beginning in 1976, and which has continued during the post-war period, with the tacit backing of the US. Tremendous change has taken place and, although I don't agree with the principle of unilateral sanctions imposed by the Bush administration against Syria, I think the measures taken under the Syrian Accountability and Lebanese Sovereignty Restoration Act have opened a new page, one that is not to the benefit of the Ba'ath regime. I know that Syria can still provide "services" to the US. But in the changing Middle East, you no longer have to "reimburse" such services by "offering" a third country as reward.

reason: What of the reports from Damascus that Bashar Assad is essentially the weakest link in a Syrian system that he fails to control, thanks to the existence of more powerful networks--the intelligence services, the Ba'ath Party, even people in his family who are the real powers in Syria?

Kassir: "Qassiounology" [for Jabal Qassioun, the Damascus hill where the presidential palace is located] is even more uncertain than was Kremlinology. Because of the absence of transparency in Syrian politics, but also the confusion surrounding Bashar's succession, one cannot say who is in charge. Clearly, Bashar is not. But it doesn't seem that anyone else is either, except maybe for the shadow of Hafez al-Assad. Nobody has the strength to change anything. It seems there are rival centers of power inside the ruling elite--the heads of the security services, crony capitalists inside the "royal family" and Ba'ath apparatchiks. It is the shifting equilibrium among them that drives Syria today.

reason: Has the taboo of the omnipotence of the Syrian intelligence services been broken both in Lebanon and Syria? If so, where can this lead?

Kassir: In Lebanon, the taboo has been broken for years, at least from the point of view of those who want to see it broken. As I explained, that was one of the aims behind the publishing of my two recent books. Yet, among the Lebanese political elite and in the public administration the taboo is still there. In Syria, it is even more difficult to overcome, which is why we should appreciate the courage of the increasingly audacious Syrian dissidents, as was shown in two failed attempts to protest publicly in Damascus--on March 8 and two weeks ago on the occasion of the Day of the Syrian Political Prisoner. Syria has been ruled by fear. If the fear disappears, the regime will find it very difficult to hold on to power. The big question now is whether it will be able to revive this management by fear.

reason: Would a democratic Iraq precipitate grand transformation in Syria?

Kassir: Undoubtedly. Despite the quagmire in Iraq, things have already changed in Syria, although the Syrian regime has exploited the Iraqi mess to postpone domestic reform. This provides us with yet another reason to criticize American policy in Iraq. What a waste of opportunities!

reason: The title of your book on political behavior during the post-1998 period in the Lebanese state [after Emile Lahoud became president], A Soldier Against Whom?, was taken from the title of a controversial column of yours. It comes from an old student protest chant asking the military, effectively, whom were they beating upon, before answering: "Against the peasants, Oh soldier." This led the Lebanese General Security service to harass you for weeks. What happened?

Kassir: My passport was confiscated under false pretexts and intelligence agents tailed me for 40 days, around the clock. Sometimes, two or even three cars followed me, I don't know for what purpose. I have reason to think that they initially intended to harm me. However, I spotted my "followers" early on--before the passport confiscation--and I immediately contacted officials not directly linked with the military [which controls the security services] so they would intervene. After that, the agents' purpose was maybe to isolate me. It is disturbing to have people watching you wherever you go--at caf?s, restaurants, at your friends' or family's homes. But the solidarity that people displayed allowed me to stand up against this. I must add that I had the privilege of receiving the public support of Syrian dissidents in Damascus who signed a manifesto. It was the first time that such support went in this direction--from Damascus to Beirut, rather than the contrary. Finally, the mess was too big and the security services stepped back. Yet, I am still blacklisted on local television.

reason: The subtitle of your book is "The Disappeared Republic." If that's true, then of what value is Lebanon to anybody, including Syria? Why should anyone care for a republic that has, in some respects, erased itself?

Kassir: I didn't mean that Lebanon had disappeared as a state, but that the values and the procedures of the republic have been thrown off track. That does not diminish Lebanon's worth. After all, nobody forgot Poland or Czechoslovakia, despite the suppression of the opposition there. Not all values have disappeared in Lebanon. As I said, civil society has proved its resilience and intellectuals are still writing.

reason: Does Lebanon have a message to offer, in that case?

Kassir: I don't know, but I am sure the Lebanese deserve a better future. At least, they deserve to find their own way, in accordance with a rich history that cannot be reduced merely to violence. Yes, we were a laboratory for violence, but we were also, before that, a laboratory for modernity, and in some ways we still are. Lebanon has had a long-standing tradition of constitutional politics. It would not be such a bad thing for the Middle East if we could resume this history.

reason: Is there a risk that the security-oriented system you so deride will continue in Lebanon? How does the president, Emile Lahoud, fit into this?

Kassir: The security-oriented system preceded Lahoud. But it was under his mandate that Lebanon became a security-obsessed state. It is under his mandate that Lebanon has made great strides toward becoming a Ba'athist kind of regime, where security officials see citizens as enemies, or at best children who must be controlled. It is under this president's mandate that freedom of expression has been the most restrictive, although we have managed to counter this. I may be biased, but I don't see any gains under Lahoud. Even the liberation of the south from Israeli occupation was a result of the resistance, not Lahoud's actions. And even there, Lahoud and his associates, including Hizbollah, managed to squander this great success. So I don't see any reason why he should stay in power as he has been trying to do. On the contrary, the struggle against the renewal of his mandate may be the beginning of an awakening.

reason: You say freedom of expression has been restricted, yet that the Lebanese have managed to resist this. What are the forces at play here?

Kassir: Thanks to a handful of journalists, we have indeed reconquered our freedom of opinion and expression--if not yet fully our freedom of information. It is a paradox: One can write that mafias are ruling and ruining the country, and link that to Syrian hegemony; yet not a single newspaper or TV channel will try to investigate the mafias' behavior and the scandals arising from their control. You can criticize Bashar Assad by name, as you can Syria's proconsul in Lebanon, but no newspaper will investigate how a junior intelligence officer intervenes in the appointment of a bureaucrat or the winning of a contract.

reason: On a related topic, Lebanese liberalism is, in many respects, both a function and a reflection of its capital city. You've just completed a book, in French, on the history of Beirut. It provoked some debate. What was that about?

Kassir: I wouldn't quite call the two critical articles to which you're referring, among numerous others that were far more positive, a "debate." One of the articles said I had ignored the weight of [the predominantly Christian] Mount Lebanon district in shaping Beirut. This was criticism from the political right. The other, which represented criticism from the political left, accused me of focusing on the impact of the wealthy and middle classes in the development of Beirut. Yet the fact is that Beirut was a merchant city, a port, and, therefore, wealthy. It was commerce that made it what it is, and that allowed for its emerging vitality, and, ultimately, liberalism. I couldn't ignore this, even if I went to great efforts in my account to gauge the impact of modernization and Westernization on all social strata, while also highlighting Beirut's role as a cultural hub.

reason: Can we consider Beirut, through its openness, the future of the Arab city, or its contradiction?

Kassir: I hope it is the future. When you hear the crown prince of Dubai, Mohammad bin Rashed, who was central to the remarkable expansion of the Gulf emirate, it is clear that his model was initially Beirut. Now, Amman is also taking on characteristics of Beirut. Yet, Beirut also has something unique--human diversity and, thanks to its history, linguistic and political diversity. Let's hope it will keep it. If Beirut loses this diversity--and the city did not do so, despite its 15-year conflict between 1975 and 1990--it means it would have been seen as the contradiction of the Arab city, which would represent a triumph for regression

reason: If you had to define a running theme through your books, to which I must add a study in French on the first years of the Lebanese civil war, which was your doctoral thesis, as well a two-volume account of France and the Arab-Israeli conflict (authored with Farouk Mardam-Bey), what would it be?

Kassir: I find it difficult to add my two recent books to my personal bibliography. I have yet to come to terms with my duality as a scholar and a journalist, and when it comes to my books, I prefer the scholarly ones. But to answer your question, I can say I am obsessed with recent Arab history--even in my newspaper articles--and I essentially try to find out what went wrong, to quote Middle East scholar Bernard Lewis. But unlike Lewis, and though I never refrain from self-criticism, I think we Arabs are not the only ones responsible for what has happened to us. I am making this argument in an essay that will soon be published in Paris, titled "Considerations on the Arab Misfortune." The West not only brought us modernization, it also brought colonial domination as well as divisions, and it continues to do so. Just look at US support for Israel. The West should be aware that when we speak of our failures, we also mean our inability to confront its destructive hegemony.

reason: Is a liberal Middle East possible, and, if it is, does Lebanon have a role in bringing this about?

Kassir: If a liberal Middle East were not possible, things would be unbearable for secular people like us. I am convinced it is possible, but not under just any circumstances. For it to be possible, the liberal West must also be liberal in the Middle East: It must abandon its support for dictatorships, even those considered as moderates and allies. Look what happened with Libya: Once Muammar al-Qaddafi renounced his nuclear ambitions, Bush and Blair acclaimed him. What a message when you are calling for democracy in the Middle East! On the other hand, Yasser Arafat is denounced by American officials on a daily basis, despite being elected and considered by Palestinians as a leader and a national symbol. Most importantly, the West must accept that the strategic importance of the Middle East must not justify denying its peoples the right to self-determination, and that means, particularly, the Palestinians.

Under such conditions, Lebanon can once again prosper. But even now, Lebanon would show, if it were provided with the means, that political liberalism can be conjugated in Arabic, and that is the country's paramount contribution.

More Reason interviews

Reason contributing editor Michael Young is opinion editor at the Daily Star newspaper in Beirut.
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Iraqis bullish on stocks


By Tarek el-Tablawy
ASSOCIATED PRESS


BAGHDAD -- The miniature Liberty Bell clanged. Elbows flew. Sweat poured down foreheads. Sales tickets were passed and, with a flick of the wrist, 10,000 shares of the Middle East Bank had more than doubled in value.
The frantic pace yesterday of those first 10 minutes of trading typified the enthusiasm behind the Iraq Stock Exchange, an institution seen as a critical step in building a new Iraqi economy.

In five sessions, trading volume has nearly quadrupled, and the value of some stocks has surged more than 600 percent. Traders say the gains reflect the pent-up frustration of 15 months of closure.
"How can I not be excited by this?" asked Taha Ahmed Abdul-Salam, the exchange's chief executive officer, as he eyed the activity on the trading floor.
The ISX is housed temporarily in a converted restaurant. Looters had gutted the old exchange, so traders now jostle for position in a long room overlooking an old dining room. Where bartenders once chatted with patrons sidling up for drinks, a bank of secretaries logs orders.
With space limited, investors are not allowed in the exchange, let alone on the "floor." Instead, from a makeshift courtyard, they can look in through the same windows that once offered diners a garden view. Joining them are a posse of men armed with assault rifles who provide security.
Such scenes are standard in the tumultuous Iraqi capital, and the presence of security does little to dampen enthusiasm at the exchange.
The unofficial figures of the day's trade tell the story: More than $10 million in stocks changed hands, reflecting the movement of about 1.43 billion shares, though only 27 companies are listed on the exchange.
"Iraqis have always been business-savvy," said Mr. Abdul-Salam, the former research head at the old exchange. "But that we have this much activity with so few companies listed shows just how much pent-up frustration there was among investors under the previous regime."
For Iraqis, these days have been a long time coming. The ISX replaces the defunct Baghdad Stock Exchange, which was riddled with corruption. Saddam Hussein's extended family often muscled in by simply issuing new shares for companies they found attractive.
The new exchange has built-in safeguards against manipulation. It took about a year to set up, with 12 brokerage houses and banks that own it working alongside former occupation authorities to lay the legal and regulatory framework.
"This is much better than before," said Emad Shakir al-Baghdadi, a broker with the Okaz Co. firm. The removal of a 5 percent cap on price swings has added tremendous credibility and liquidity to the market, he added.
"Look at these prices," he said, glancing at the board showing offers for one industrial company at about 25 dinars, almost two-tenths of a cent. "These shares are ridiculously undervalued. That's why prices are surging as much as 600 percent from day to day."
The exchange was inaugurated last month and is open two days a week for two hours a day. Yesterday's session was the first open to the press.
Officials hope that in a month they will have all 120 companies previously listed on the old exchange on the ISX's "big board" -- actually 27 small white boards, where workers record trades with markers.
Thirty minutes after the ringing of the Liberty Bell replica -- a donation from the Philadelphia Stock Exchange -- Talib al-Tabatabie, the ISX's board chairman, hollered into the phone, struggling to be heard over the din from the trading floor, which lacks air conditioning.
"Sell? Do you want me to sell them now?" he screamed to a client over the phone, his shirt coming untucked as he waved his arms. "It's up again. We should sell."
Economists say the key to success is a strong regulatory framework, transparency and accountability. A shift to an electronic trading system is coming, officials say.
So are more regulations. Oversight here comes from the Iraq Securities Commission, headed by Luay al-Okali.
"Right now, we're all working together to build up the exchange. Later, when things are running smoother, then we'll give them a hard time," Mr. al-Okali said with a wink.
One bonus will be opening the door to foreign investment. The legal framework is in place, but the details have yet to be completed.
"My hope would be that they would quickly encourage foreign investment," said Gary Becker, Nobel laureate and University of Chicago economist. "Foreign investors often want to make sure they have majority ownership."
Brokers and ISX officials predict that the tourism and hospitality sector will be the market's new blue chips.
Yesterday, Baghdad Hotel's shares did not disappoint. In a market where many shares were trading at values equal to a fraction of a penny, the 25-cent offer for the hotel's stock was snapped up.
"Don't forget that Iraq is a tourist country. There's plenty to see here," said Muhammad Ismael, a broker with Qidwa Securities.
As the sound of gunfire reverberated in the distance, he shrugged.
"I guess it will take a little more time for them to come."

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Iraqi bourse quietly gains pace
By Deborah Haynes BAGHDAD

Iraq has a new stock exchange, launched without fanfare and staffed almost entirely by women, which aims to become the leading bourse in the Middle East.
Trading on the first morning in late June was higher than at anytime during the life span of the former Baghdad Stock Exchange, but the new bourse has yet to establish regular opening hours, its owners said.

"The plan at the moment is to open for business on Wednesday and Sunday from 10:00 am (0600 GMT) until midday, but right now the situation is very fluid so we might change," said Talib Al Tabatabaie, chairman of the board of governors.

A slim trickle of brokers entered the unmarked but well guarded stock exchange building - tucked away behind a large hotel in the center of Baghdad - early Sunday for THE BOURSE's second official day of trade.

"The old exchange used to be open three days a week for two hours at a time. We hope to match that but it will take time," Tabatabaie said.

Once trading is fully underway, the potential for growth is huge, said the exchange's chief executive Ahmed Taha.

"There is a lot of interest in this exchange. At the moment the Iraqi economy is weak but it has huge potential to grow," he said. "I don't want to be over optimistic but I think we will become larger than other exchanges in the region."

The product of more than a year's work by 12 brokerage firms and banks that jointly own it, the bourse only has 15 listed companies with about 100 more due to go public.

These firms have an automatic right to float as they were part of the former exchange, which was dissolved after the US-led invasion of Iraq last March, but there are also new companies clamoring for a piece of the action.

"Other firms want to list and we are considering them," said Tabatabaie, who owns a brokerage company with a major stake in the exchange.

In contrast to the grand plans, the new bourse has kept an extremely low profile for fear of being targeted in a wave of attacks against any perceived byproducts of the US-led occupation.

In reality, outside help was minimal to create the modest but modern trading house with its neatly arranged computer terminals, open floor for trade, and white boards to track the share price of different companies.

About 50 of the 55 staff who run the exchange are women - a rare ratio in the West but no big surprise in Iraq where women typically entered the finance industry under the previous Saddam regime because men were off fighting wars, the manager of the trading department, Jammy Afham, said.

"This stock exchange is going to help the Iraqi economy recover because it encourages people to invest money. I was surprised by the level of interest on our first day and hope this will continue," she said.

In its first morning of business on June 24, more than 500 million shares were traded - more than the Baghdad Stock Exchange ever achieved.

The old stock exchange only comprised Iraqi companies and traders using regular shares, but the new bourse will be accessible to foreigners and it plans to move from an old-fashioned paper system to a fully-automated trading floor.

"We want to open up to foreign companies and hopefully this will happen in the next couple of months," Taha said.

"We also plan to upgrade to an automated system in the next half-year."

In addition, the 38 brokerage firms and 12 banks that work the exchange are learning how to use trading units other than shares - the single instrument on the old exchange - such as bonds and swaps, Taha added.

For the time being, only brokers are allowed to make trades on behalf of clients because the owners felt a room full of traders would be too dangerous in the current security climate. But once the automated system is up and running, they noted, absolutely anyone will be able to participate.

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AT LAW

'Lawfare'
The International Court of Justice rules in favor of terrorism.

BY JEREMY RABKIN
Saturday, July 17, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

Maj. Michael Newton, a military lawyer who teaches at West Point, coined a new term earlier this year: "lawfare." It is the pursuit of strategic aims, the traditional domain of warfare, through aggressive legal maneuvers. Last Friday's decision by the International Court of Justice holding Israel's security fence in violation of international law is another milestone in the onward march of lawfare. The ICJ has now confirmed that lawfare and warfare can be pursued simultaneously.

The terror war against Israel, launched in the summer of 2000, has by now resulted in the deaths of nearly a thousand Israeli civilians. The security fence, by greatly impeding the movement of would-be terrorists into Israel, has helped to achieve a sharp decline in terror attacks over the past year. Nonetheless, the ICJ admonished that the nations of the world are obligated not to pressure Palestinians to abandon terrorism, but to pressure Israel to dismantle its security fence.

Most of the court's reasoning, based on arguments advanced by British barristers, is superficially plausible--so long as one ignores the actual political context of the dispute. Perhaps the Children's Rights Convention or the Fourth Geneva Convention do provide arguments against disrupting the free movement of innocent Palestinians. But the arguments are more plausible if one ignores the terror threat to Israeli lives, as the court essentially does. In concluding that the fence sits on "occupied territory," the court assumes that the armistice lines of 1949 are Israel's final borders, though never accepted as such by Israel's neighbors. In concluding that Israel cannot undertake intrusive measures to protect "illegal settlements," the court assumes that Jews had no claim to return to places, like the Old City of Jerusalem, from which they were forcibly expelled by Arab armies in 1949.

Who now has what rights in what territory is at the heart of the dispute. Stripped of its technicalities, the case here was Palestine v. Israel. And Israel lost by 14-1.





The statute of the ICJ provides that the court may only decide disputes submitted by states and then only with the consent of the states that are parties to the dispute. This provision follows the practice of the international court established under the League of Nations, of the international arbitration court established by the Hague Peace Conference in 1899, and of all previous international arbitrations. Serious diplomats have always doubted that international questions, involving the highest national interests, could be settled by mere legal reasoning.
The traditional approach to international arbitration would have barred the court from entering into this most intractable international conflict. Palestine, since it is not a recognized state, cannot sue before the ICJ in its own name. And since Israel assuredly did not consent to let the legality of the fence be decided by the ICJ.

The U.N. General Assembly, however, at the prompting of Arab states asked the court last December to provide an "advisory opinion" on the dispute over the fence. The U.N. Charter allows for this procedure, but only in regard to "legal issues" and only in conformity with the overall scheme of the charter. Here, the General Assembly was effectively asking the ICJ to endorse its own political conclusions, with its resolution describing the fence as a "wall" (most of it is, in fact, chain-link construction) on "occupied territory including East Jerusalem." The General Assembly was also seeking to have the ICJ do an end-run around the Security Council, which is supposed to have primary responsibility for resolving threats to peace (while at the same time circumventing the legal requirement that Israel consent to be judged in a case to which it was a party).

The council had exercised this responsibility only a few weeks earlier, by endorsing a "road map to peace" which stipulated that ultimate borders--and such questions as the ultimate status of Jerusalem--should be settled between the Palestinians and the Israelis in direct negotiations. The ICJ's ruling is likely to prove a genuine obstacle to the step-by-step bargaining process envisioned in the road map.

How can a Palestinian representative, for example, now embrace a peace plan that cedes less than full sovereign control of the Old City of Jerusalem, when the highest international court has declared that Palestinians should have the right to oust all Israeli claims to that place? How can Israel put any trust in international guarantees when even the ICJ seems so indifferent to its life-and-death concerns?

The court had many legal grounds for refusing to decide this case. And such arguments were pressed on the court not only by the Israeli government but by the U.S., by Russia, by the European Union and a majority of EU member states. All the sponsors of the "road map," in other words, urged the court to stay out of this heated political conflict. Many other governments around the world took the same view.

Given the membership of the court, where states hostile to Israel are plentifully represented, condemnation of the fence was to be expected. Most dismaying, however, was that all five judges from EU states (Britain, France, Germany, the Netherlands and Slovakia) went along with the majority. Only the dissent of the American judge, Thomas Buergenthal, argued against taking this leap into the heart of the Mideast conflict.





Israel has already announced that it will ignore the court's decision. American officials have vowed to veto any resolution at the Security Council aimed at enforcing it. But European governments, already so eager to distance themselves from Israel, may find it much harder to disclaim what the ICJ--and all its European judges--have pronounced to be the legal rights and wrongs of the Mideast conflict. For Yasser Arafat, the decision now looks like an unalloyed boon, tossed to him without extracting any serious effort to help suppress ongoing terrorist activities.
In effect, the ICJ now claims that countries beset by terrorism must ignore terror threats and focus on the court's priorities. It is a dangerous precedent for the U.S., which has often contended for interpretations of its rights, under international law, that a majority of U.N. members might dispute. To those who argue that the U.S. should join the new International Criminal Court, because that new court will be moderated in its rulings by the influence of European members, this ruling of an older U.N. court should be sobering.

The ruling raises still broader questions about the U.N.'s capacity to contribute to any serious international effort against terrorism. Even U.N. judges, we now see, have other priorities.

Mr. Rabkin is professor of government at Cornell. His new book, "The Case For Sovereignty," has just been published by AEI Press.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

Had Enough?
The U.N. handicaps Israel, along with the rest of us.

By Anne Bayefsky
The recent decision on Israel's security fence by the International Court of Justice (ICJ), the U.N.'s legal arm, is a classic example of how the vilification of Jews does not end with Jews.
United Nations mistreatment of the Jewish state takes many forms, from the refusal to admit Israel into the negotiating and electoral groups of many U.N. operations, to Israel's demonization by U.N. human-rights machinery applied to no other state. Though antithetical to the U.N.'s founding principle of the equality of nations large and small, many believe that the consequences of these facts of U.N.-life can be confined to Jewish self-determination. The ICJ has proved them wrong.
U.N. ASSAULT
The Court has declared four new rules about the meaning of the right of self-defense in the face of terrorism today.
(1) There is no right of self-defense under the U.N. Charter when the terrorists are not state actors.
(2) There is no right of self-defense against terrorists who operate from any territory whose status is not finalized, and who therefore attack across disputed borders.
(3) Where military action is perpetrated by "irregulars," self-defense does not apply if the "scale and effects" of the terrorism are insufficient to amount to "an armed attack...had it been carried out by regular armed forces." (The scale in this case is 860 Israeli civilians killed in the last three years -- the proportional equivalent of at least 14 9/11's.)
(4) Self-defense does not include nonviolent acts, or in the words of Judge Rosalyn Higgins: "I remain unconvinced that non-forcible measures (such as the building of a wall) fall within self-defence under Article 51 of the Charter."
These conclusions constitute a direct assault on the ability of every U.N. member to fight international terrorism. The U.N. Charter was not a suicide pact and Security Council resolutions in response to 9/11 were intended to strengthen the capacity to confront violent non-state actors, not defeat it.
Having couched their analysis in general terms, however, some of the judges were concerned that the go-ahead for Palestinian suicide bombers might not be obvious enough. So Judge Abdul Koroma of Sierra Leone wrote: "It is understandable that a prolonged occupation would engender resistance." Judge Nabil Elaraby of Egypt said, "Throughout the annals of history, occupation has always been met with armed resistance. Violence breeds violence." He "wholeheartedly subscribe[d] to the view" that there is "a right of resistance." Judge Hisashi Owada of Japan spoke of the "the so-called terrorist attacks by Palestinian suicide bombers against the Israeli civilian population."
The judges need not have worried. Within hours a joint statement from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Yasser Arafat's Fatah organization announced: "We salute the court's decision." Proclaimed a Hamas communiqu? "The racial wall represents the true image of the Zionist entity...The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, welcomes the ICJ's decision and considers it a good step in the right direction.... We stress the need to continue our efforts and use all available means to stop the construction of the racial wall and remove its effects." The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine issued a statement hailing the ruling as "a step forward." This judgment clearly played very well to an audience from the State Department's list of foreign terrorist organizations.
There are other disturbing features of the majority judgment and its six concurring opinions. The Court expansively declared that an advisory opinion about one state gives rise to third-party obligations on every U.N. member state. General Assembly resolutions and the output of other U.N. political bodies -- produced in a numbers game which free countries cannot win -- are given considerable weight as sources of obligations. The General Assembly's 10th Emergency Session (which is dedicated to condemning Israel) can be reconvened in perpetuity, thereby seriously reducing U.N. capacity to deal with emergencies anywhere else.
At the same time, other aspects of the Court's decision were crafted to apply to a party of one. A barrier between terrorists and their targets is illegal, according to the Court, because it "severely impedes" or "prevents the realization" of a "right of the Palestinian people to self-determination." No mention was made of the fact that the barrier can and will be moved to accord with the recent Israeli Supreme Court decision, or that previous barriers in southern Lebanon and the Sinai Peninsula were also moved. Jewish self-determination, on the other hand, was not discussed. So the impediment to self-governance by way of Palestinian terrorists who murder Cabinet ministers, or open fire at polling stations, never made it onto the Court's radar screen.
The barrier was also said to violate other Palestinian rights: freedom of movement, the right to work, to health, to education, and to an adequate standard of living. Not once did the Court refer to the individual rights of Israelis, though the rights violated by terrorism start with the right to life and end with the freedom to move anywhere without fear of dying on the way to school or work. Finding a human-rights violation meant interpreting the international rule of proportionality. Undermining all efforts to combat terrorism, the Court balanced Palestinian rights against Israeli "military exigencies" and Communist-inspired concepts of "national security" or "public order." This tactic placed only faceless beneficiaries on the other side of the scale.
Furthermore, said the Court, the right of self-defense does not apply against Palestinian terrorism because it operates from Israeli-controlled territory and is therefore not international. The international borders between Iran, the departure point of the arms-laden ship Karine-A and its intended port in Gaza, or between Damascus, headquarters of The Front for the Liberation of Palestine's General Command, and suicide bombers in Haifa, apparently slipped the judges' minds.
LONG ROAD
These legal results did not materialize in a vacuum: They were the product of the Court's insidious historical revisionism and selectivity. The 1948 war was not an aggressive assault on the nascent Jewish state by combined Arab forces after their rejection of the U.N. Partition Plan. Instead, "On 14 May 1948 Israel proclaimed its independence...armed conflict then broke out between Israel and a number of Arab States and the Plan of Partition was not implemented." The 1967 war was not another of the five successive wars Israel has been forced to wage by successive Arab rejectionists. Instead, "the 1967 armed conflict broke out between Israel and Jordan." The pre-1967 status of the territories as either "disputed" or "occupied" is crucial to the legal issues. Occupied territory requires that the land previously have belonged to somebody else. But the Court said: "there [is] no need for any enquiry into the precise prior status of those territories."
Judge Elaraby apparently forgot he was no longer Egyptian Ambassador to the United Nations -- a post he held until 1999 -- and used his judicial robes to deliberately misrepresent the content of Security Council Resolution 242. In his words "Resolution 242...called for the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from the territories occupied in the conflict." In fact, painstaking negotiations resulted in the omission of "the" before the word territories. 242 speaks of "Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict..." precisely so as not to pre-judge the outcome of negotiations over ownership of the territories or future lines of withdrawal.
Having decided that the historical ownership of the territories prior to 1967 is irrelevant, the Court took it upon itself to determine that today all of the territories "which before the [1967] conflict lay to the east of the Green Line" "including East Jerusalem" are "Palestinian territories" It did not matter that the parties to the conflict have agreed that final borders and the status of Jerusalem will be determined by negotiation. Instead, Judge/Ambassador Elaraby used his judicial pulpit to advance a long-held U.N. strategy of imposing results. Having misstated Israel's obligation under 242, he claimed: "It is...politically unsound to...confin[e] it [242's obligations] to a negotiating process." Or as Jordanian Judge Awn Al-Khasawneh, a representative of Jordan at the U.N. General Assembly for 17 years until the mid-1990s, said: "The discharge of international obligations...cannot be made conditional upon negotiations" -- international obligations to negotiate notwithstanding.
Into this cumulative distortion of history and law was injected the biggest U.N. deception of all. The Court's operating premise (accurately described by Elaraby) was simply this: "Occupation, as an illegal and temporary situation, is at the heart of the whole problem." A 56-year Arab campaign to end the "Judaization" of the region -- as a U.N. Human Rights Commission resolution describes Jews on Arab land -- was totally ignored. Judge Higgins disparagingly describes the Court's behavior (though she refuses to dissent) in a concurring opinion: "the Court states that it 'is indeed aware that the question of the wall is part of a greater whole, and it would take this circumstance carefully into account in any opinion it might give.' In fact, it never does so."
Rather than accepting their responsibility to examine the facts for themselves, the Court relied heavily on prior biased U.N. reporting. They looked to the report of Secretary General Kofi Annan in December 2003 on the barrier. He detailed Palestinian human-rights grievances about the barrier without mentioning a single case of terrorism that preceded its construction. The Court looked to the submissions of the UN special rapporteur on Israel whose mandate is to report only "Israel's violations of...international law" and not human-rights violations by Palestinians in Israel. Substantial reliance on such skewed reporting drew the International Court of Justice into the U.N. vortex of hate and discrimination directed at Israel.
Therefore, it is no surprise that within a week the Court's decision has become the subject of another 10th General Assembly Emergency Session -- reconvened for the thirteenth time to condemn Israel and to call for a plethora of future activities intended to further demonize and isolate the Jewish state. Taking their cue from Annan, who immediately pounced on the decision to make demands of Israel, there will be no pause for a single emergency session of the General Assembly on the millions dead or dying in Sudan.
Before its written release, the judgment of the Court was read aloud by its president, Judge Shi Jiuyong of China -- a place where judicial training is still grappling with the inconveniences of the non-separation of legislative and judicial authority. I listened to the broadcast from a Jerusalem television studio. When it was over, I came out into the street and found it blocked off. A few meters away a bomb disposal unit was set up beside a package left at a bus stop. Eventually the soldiers gave the all-clear. Traffic resumed and children ran out of their homes as if nothing had happened. The next day, the people at a bus stop in Tel Aviv were not so lucky, as this time the package contained a real bomb, which left one dead and thirty scarred for life. Though the Court relished the fiction that it had been asked about the legal consequences of the fence, the real-life consequences of an incomplete fence marched on.
It was no accident that the only dissenting opinion on the merits of the case came from Tom Buergenthal, a child survivor of the concentration camps of Auschwitz and Sachsenhausen. He needed no lessons about the face of evil, its methodologies, and its consequences. How sad for the rule of law that he spoke alone.
The Arab drive to destroy the state of Israel has debased the U.N., sullied its charter, perverted the meaning of human rights, and ransacked international law and its highest Court. How many more of the universal ideals upon which our world depends must be desecrated before we say "enough"?

Anne Bayefsky is a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute.

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>> HEALTH CARE


The Health Care They Want to Give You Is A Right
Why shouldn't more money buy you better health care?
Ronald Bailey



Arthur Caplan at the University of Pennsylvania is America's most famous bioethicist. He's unusually reasonable for that notoriously risk-averse breed. But lately he's been reverting to the rigid presumption of egalitarianism that infests most bioethical musings. Caplan is deeply concerned that in the future the rich will get better medicine and the poor worse--that more resources will allow people to obtain better quality products, an apparently unbearable situation when it comes to health care.
Caplan begins by decrying the development of "concierge medicine," in which groups of doctors contract with patients to give them 24/7 access for a fee. Patients who choose concierge medicine are, in effect, paying "bounties" so that they can get better service than other people. Caplan doesn't like this. But why? In free markets most goods and services are differentiated by quality and customers get what they pay for. The more one pays, the better one expects to be treated. But many bioethicists think that medicine is different--that "health care is a right." But this mentality leads them to the position that we only have a right to the health care the state chooses to give us--and that we ought to be, or at least will be, denied anything better.
Caplan writes: "From my point of view, health care ought to be a right for two reasons. If we are going to guarantee equality of opportunity to every American, then health is a key part of that equal opportunity. You have to have it in order to function in a market-based capitalist society. The other reason is it's a sign of communal solidarity. We care about one another. We're not going to let our kids who are mentally ill or our elderly just flounder around even if they can't, so to speak, earn it." But Caplan does think that some differentiation in health care can be, in principle, ethically acceptable, and that society merely ought to guarantee "access to a minimal package of health care."
But what's an acceptable minimum? In his column Caplan decries recent reform proposals for Tennessee's state Medicaid program. The reforms, known as TennCare, were launched with much ballyhoo 10 years ago. They involve the state government taking its allocation of federal dollars for Medicaid and using it to cover not only those residents who met Medicaid poverty guidelines, but also other poor residents lacking health insurance. As with most any open-ended government entitlement, TennCare is heading for bankruptcy. So the Tennessee legislature passed a reform earlier this year under which medical necessity would be defined as the least costly "adequate care," instead of the traditional standard of "most effective" care.
Although a bit vague, the concept of "adequate care" encompasses such things as requiring doctors to prescribe generic drugs whenever possible; limiting the number of prescriptions to no more than six per month without special permission; requiring co-payments from patients in order to cut down on frivolous visits; and an annual limit on the number of doctor visits. Instead of prescription medicines, TennCare patients will have to buy over-the-counter medications like Prilosec for controlling stomach acid and Claritin for allergies.
Tennessee's governor Philip Bredesen claims the reforms will save $2.5 billion for the state over the next four years. However, if the reforms are not adopted, then Tennessee will have to revert to traditional Medicaid programs. That would eliminate health care coverage for 260,000 of the 1.3 million residents currently on TennCare. On the face of it, it seems that the reforms are offering a minimal package of health care as a safety net for Tennessee's poorer residents, which is surely better for them than dropping them from the program entirely.
But Caplan isn't satisfied. He especially objects to the notion of "adequate care." "If a bureaucrat in the Tennessee department of health thinks a low-cost drug or treatment, or even no treatment at all, is 'adequate,' then that is what TennCare will provide," he complains.
Caplan isn't being completely consistent with his own judgments in the past. For example, in the early 1990s, Oregon adopted a plan to control Medicaid costs and extend coverage to more of the state's poor residents by imposing explicit rationing on medical care. The Oregon Health Plan uses a list of about 700 medical conditions, and the state will pay to treat the top 550 of those. So bureaucrats are making decisions about what is medically necessary for the poor in Oregon. For example, in 2000, Oregon refused to pay for an experimental lung and liver transplant for an 18-year-old suffering from cystic fibrosis.
Contra his current stance on TennCare, Caplan saw no problem with this. In a 1996 interview with the American Political Network he declared, "It was incredibly courageous what they did there. They took on the issue (of rationing) in a public way that was unprecedented and hasn't been duplicated since."
Caplan did add that Oregon's Health Plan has "a fatal flaw: the effort to think about rationing was confined to the poor." His implication seems to be that it's OK for bureaucrats to make medical care decisions, just so long as they are made for rich and poor alike. As Caplan told the Chicago Tribune in 1995, "The danger is, politically in this day and age, threadbare [insurance] will be considered enough. The poor will be asked to make sacrifices, and the rest of us can do whatever we want."
But he still hasn't come up with a convincing answer to the question: What's ethically wrong with people with means doing "whatever they want" with regard to their health care? They can already do whatever they want with their educations, jobs, housing, food, and so forth. So eager is Caplan to play class warfare by contrasting concierge care with adequate care that he actually misses the main lesson to be learned from TennCare--that any government-run national single payer system would inevitably run up against fiscal limits and impose rationing on everybody. Bureaucrats would then be making health care decisions for us all. But then at least we could share the "solidarity" of all having the same equally inadequate health care.


Ronald Bailey is Reason's science correspondent. His new book, Liberation Biology: A Moral and Scientific Defense of the Biotech Revolution will be published in early 2005.

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>> OIL


Securing African oil


By Gilbert Da Costa
ASSOCIATED PRESS


ABUJA, Nigeria -- A top U.S. military commander proposed American help yesterday in monitoring West Africa's Gulf of Guinea to secure an unstable region that holds as much as 10 percent of the world's oil reserves.
Gen. Charles Wald, the deputy commander of the U.S. military's European Command for Europe and Africa, said he raised the offer in talks with West African and national officials in Nigeria -- Africa's biggest oil producer and most populous nation.

Britain's Jane's Weekly defense publication has said the United States was readying a proposed African Coastal Security Program to block pirates, smugglers and other criminals in the Gulf of Guinea and around Africa.
The issue is being studied in preliminary feasibility surveys, European Command officials have told the Associated Press.
In Abuja, Nigeria's capital, Gen. Wald said he and Nigerian officials, including Deputy Defense Minister Roland Oritsejafor, discussed finding "a way that we can cooperate together in monitoring the waters off the Gulf of Guinea."
Gen. Wald called it a "hugely important" issue to nations bordering the Gulf.
"It is up to the political leaders, if they decide it is in their common interests to protect the area, we will support that," he said.
He gave no immediate details of what assistance might be involved. Jane's has suggested U.S. help could include naval vessels, communications equipment and training, as well as a counterterrorism base in the Gulf of Guinea.
Earlier this year, the United States funded a feasibility study on the creation of a possible deep-water port at the island nation of Sao Tome and Principe, off Nigeria.
Nigeria, Africa's largest oil exporter, is the world's No. 7 oil exporter and the fifth-biggest source of U.S. oil imports.
Surrounding nations in the Gulf of Guinea likewise are increasing production amid a West Africa oil boom, as the United States, Europe and Asia look for alternatives to oil from the politically volatile Middle East.
Asked whether the United States was willing to help stem attacks against Nigeria's oil industry, Gen. Wald said, "Wherever there's evil, we want to get there and fight it."
Nigeria's oil industry has been beset by armed attacks from militants -- many seeking a share of the country's oil wealth -- that at times in the past year shut down 10 percent to 40 percent of Nigeria's daily production of 2.5 million barrels of crude.
"Where you have wealth, if you don't protect it, you are vulnerable to terrorists and illegal arms dealers and so you are not safe," he said.
The West and Central African regions produce 15 percent of U.S. oil imports, a figure that could rise to 20 percent in the next decade "if it remains attractive to investment," according to a U.S. Congress-commissioned report last week by the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies.
The study urged Washington to increase intelligence and counter-terrorism efforts in Africa. It also should increase funding for training of African armies from $10 million to $100 million, with an equal amount devoted to African peace initiatives, the analysts said.
Gen. Wald said the United States was interested in expanding training and "potentially" helping equip regional peacekeepers to stem conflicts themselves.
Three African nations were singled out by the Congress-commissioned report as facing the most dire terrorism threats in Africa -- Sudan, Somalia and Nigeria. They each have large Muslim populations and the authors recommended "expanding engagement" with them.


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>> THE "GREENS" ?

Hotter-burning sun warming the planet


By Michael Leidig
LONDON SUNDAY TELEGRAPH


The sun is burning hotter than usual, offering a possible explanation for global warming that needs to be weighed when proceeding with expensive efforts to cut emissions of greenhouse gases, Swiss and German scientists say.
"The sun has been at its strongest over the past 60 years and may now be affecting global temperatures," said Sami Solanki, the director of the renowned Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research in Gottingen, Germany, who led the research.

"The sun is in a changed state. It is brighter than it was a few hundred years ago and this brightening started relatively recently -- in the last 100 to 150 years," Mr. Solanski said.
Average global temperatures have increased by about 0.2 degrees Celsius (0.36 degrees Fahrenheit) over the past 20 years and are widely believed to be responsible for new extremes in weather patterns.
Globally, 1997, 1998 and 2002 were the hottest years since worldwide weather records were first collated in 1860.
Bill Burrows, a climatologist and a member of the Royal Meteorological Society, welcomed Mr. Solanki's research.
"It shows that there is enough happening on the solar front to merit further research. Perhaps we are devoting too many resources to correcting human effects on the climate without being sure that we are the major contributor," he said.
Mr. Solanki said that the brighter sun and higher levels of so-called "greenhouse gases" both contributed to the change in the Earth's temperature, but it was impossible to say which had the greater impact.
Most scientists agree that greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide from fossil fuels have contributed to the warming of the planet in the past few decades, but have questioned whether other factors beyond man's control are also to blame.
To determine the sun's role in global warming, Mr. Solanki's research team measured magnetic zones on the sun's surface known as sunspots, which are believed to intensify the sun's energy output.
The team studied sunspot data going back several hundred years. They found that a dearth of sunspots signaled a cold period -- which could last up to 50 years -- but that over the past century their numbers had increased as the Earth's climate grew steadily warmer.
Mr. Solanki does not know what is causing the sun to burn brighter now or how long this cycle would last.
He says that the increased solar brightness over the past 20 years has not been enough to cause the observed climate changes, but believes that the impact of intense sunshine on the ozone layer and cloud cover could be affecting the climate more than the sunlight itself.
David Viner, the senior research scientist at the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit, said the research showed that the sun did have an effect on global warming.
He added, however, that the study also showed that over the past 20 years, the number of sunspots had remained roughly constant, while the Earth's temperature had continued to increase.
This suggested that over the past 20 years, human activities such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation had begun to dominate "the natural factors involved in climate change," he said.

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N. Korea's security minister disappears after train blast
Special to World Tribune.com
EAST-ASIA-INTEL.COM
Friday, July 16, 2004
Pyongyang has replaced its public security minister who has disappeared from public view after a train blast in April that

killed 161 people. There is lingering speculation the incident was linked to an assassination attempt on the North's leader

Kim Jong-Il.
Choe Ryong-Su had been dismissed from his post just one year after he assumed the important position that controls the

country's powerful secret police, a backbone of Kim's totalitarian rule.
South Korean officials said Choe's fate is unknown. Tokyo Radiopress reported that Choe has not been seen since the disaster

in Ryongchon, near the Chinese border.
The real question is whether Choe has been executed along with a number of others who may have been involved in a plot to

assassinate Kim. The train enroute from China passed through the station anywhere from 30 minutes to nine hours before the

blast.
Pyongyang watchers in Seoul had considered Choe to be one of the next generation of North Korean leaders because he replaced

Vice Marshal Park Hak-Rim, 86, one of the most influential figures in the North's military. He also replaced Park as the

member of the powerful National Defense Commission chaired by Kim Jong-Il.
The North's media gave no explanation for Choe's replacement. But South Korean intelligence officials said Choe was likely

fired due to the train blast.
According to diplomatic sources, North Korea's state security agency has concluded that the train explosion was a botched

attempt to harm Kim. A mobile phone was reportedly used to spark the explosion.
North Korea watchers said there is a possibility that Choe was punished or executed. Government officials in Seoul declined

to comment about Choe's fate, but said he has been absent from public appearances since the train explosion.
Ju Sang-Song, an army general, replaced Choe in a shakeup ordered by the North's legislature, the Supreme People's Assembly

on July 9, according to the North's official Korean Central News Agency.
Ju was promoted to the People's Army's full-star general in February 1997. He worked as a member of the North's legislature

in 1990 and 1998. His most recent post, as reported by the North's media, was as a front-line army corps commander.
Another source said the replacement was part of an effort to purge close aides to Jang Song-Taek, Kim's brother-in-law,

widely considered a candidate for the country's next leader.
Jang, husband of Kim Jong-Il's sister, Kim Gyong-Hi, has lived under house arrest following a bitter internal power struggle,

a South Korean intelligence official said.
Jang was recently arrested on charges of "creating a faction" and "peddling his power for benefits" and has led a tightly

guarded life at a guesthouse in a suburb of Pyongyang.
"Jang has been dismissed from the key post by those who support one of Kim's sons to be the next country," the source said.
Copyright ? 2004 East West Services, Inc.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

More N. Korean Bombs Likely, U.S. Official Says

By Glenn Kessler
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, July 16, 2004; Page A18
North Korea is likely to be producing nuclear bombs even as it conducts negotiations with the United States and four other

countries on ending its weapons programs, the senior U.S. official responsible for those talks told Congress yesterday.
"Time is certainly a valid factor in this," said James A. Kelly, the assistant secretary of state for East Asian affairs,

during testimony before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "We don't know the details, but it's quite possible that

North Korea is proceeding along, developing additional fissionable material and possibly additional nuclear weapons."
Although North Korea has asserted that it has produced weapons-grade plutonium since the crisis over Pyongyang's nuclear

programs began 20 months ago -- and though U.S. intelligence analysts broadly believe that the number of nuclear weapons held

by North Korea has increased from two to at least eight during this period -- it is highly unusual for a senior

administration official to concede publicly that North Korea's stockpile may be growing.
After four negotiating sessions with North Korea and its neighbors since April 2003, Kelly said, it "is clear we are still

far from agreement." The first round included China and later expanded to involve South Korea, Japan and Russia.
Democrats on the committee scolded the administration for waiting too long to present North Korea with a detailed proposal

for ending the crisis. At the most recent six-nation talks, held in Beijing last month, the administration proposed that once

North Korea declares it would end its programs, U.S. allies such as South Korea could provide immediate energy assistance.
North Korea then would have three months to disclose its programs and have its claims verified by U.S. intelligence. After

that, the United States would join in providing Pyongyang with written security assurances and participate in a process that

might ultimately result in the normalization of relations.
"The bottom line is that we now confront a much more dangerous adversary than we did in 2001," said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr.

(Del.), the ranking Democrat on the panel. He accused the administration of adopting a policy of "benign neglect" even after

learning that Pyongyang had a clandestine nuclear effort, and then taking "more than two years to resolve its internal

divisions and settle on an approach for dealing with North Korea."
Under questioning, Kelly made it clear that improving relations with North Korea would take much more than the dismantling of

its nuclear programs. In particular, he said, North Korea would need to improve its human rights record.
"We're not looking to bribe North Korea to end its nuclear weapons state," Kelly said. "We see this as a very important

objective, but then we have made clear that normalization of our relations would have to follow these other important issues.

And human rights is co-equal in importance, perhaps even more important, than conventional forces, chemical weapons,

ballistic missiles, matters of that sort."
In response to the administration's proposal, North Korea has demanded immediate assistance from the United States once it

freezes its programs. Kelly said the administration is still studying the North Korean proposal, which he called vague.
He told lawmakers that the administration does not consider the security assurances a "reward" or a benefit that could be

claimed by North Korea as a U.S. concession.
? 2004 The Washington Post Company
--------------------------------------------------------------------
North Korea: U.S. Uncertain About Pyonyang's Nuclear Intentions
By Frank Csongos
Is North Korea ready to deal and give up its nuclear-weapons program for economic aid and some sort of security guarantee

from the United States? A top U.S. diplomat who participated in recent talks with North Korea says he cannot say that the

communist North has made a decision to do so.
Washington, 16 July 2004 (RFE/RL) -- A senior U.S. official says it remains unclear whether North Korea has made the

strategic decision to abandon its nuclear-weapons program.
Assistant Secretary of State James Kelly said yesterday that North Korea did acknowledge during recent six-party talks in

Beijing that the bulk of the country's nuclear program is weapons-related. The talks involved the United States, North Korea,

South Korea, China, Russia, and Japan.
Kelly told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee that North Korea says it wants to maintain a civil nuclear program. As for

its weapons program, Kelly told the senators, "I could not say at this point that the DPRK [Democratic People's Republic of

Korea] has indeed made the strategic calculation to give up its nuclear weapons in return for real peace and prosperity

through trade, aid, and economic development." Kelly also said the United States will not establish normal relations with

North Korea even if that country agrees to abandon its nuclear-weapons program.
Kelly said North Korea proposed at the Beijing meeting it would freeze its nuclear-weapons programs -- but not necessarily

dismantle them -- in exchange for rewards. Those rewards might include energy aid and a commitment by the United States not

to overthrow the regime.
Still, the U.S. diplomat said the United States is committed to resolve the nuclear dispute through diplomatic means. "I

believe that diplomacy is the best way to overcome North Korea's nuclear threat and that the six-party process is the most

appropriate approach," he said. "Our aim is to fully and finally resolve the nuclear program, not to implement half-measures

or sweep the problem under the rug for future policymakers to deal with."
Kelly also said the United States will not establish normal relations with North Korea even if that country agrees to abandon

its nuclear-weapons program. He said that step could only be taken after the communist North improves its human rights record

and ends what he called other objectionable activities such as arms sales and suspected drug-related activities.
Commenting on the talks, Kelly said it is clear that an agreement is still far away.
North Korea has a chronic economic problem and needs food and energy aid. An estimated 10 percent of North Korea's population

is believed to have starved to death over the past decade because of the communist government's policies.
The United States says North Korea first acknowledged two years ago that it was secretly developing nuclear weapons in

violation of an earlier accord with Washington. The U.S. Central Intelligence Agency has estimated that North Korea already

possesses at least two nuclear weapons along with medium-range missiles capable of delivering them.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. Moving Weapons Out of South Korea
NewsMax Wires
Saturday, July 17, 2004
SEOUL, South Korea -- Around-the-clock train and truck convoys are moving military hardware from the tense border with North

Korea as the U.S. Army prepares to redeploy 3,600 troops to Iraq.
The massive logistical feat began July 7 and is moving hundreds of Abrams tanks, Bradley fighting vehicles, Humvees and

artillery pieces to the southern port city of Busan to be shipped out under tight security.
About 3,600 troops from the U.S. Army's 2nd Infantry Division, dug into encampments between Seoul and the heavily fortified

border with North Korea, will follow their equipment to Iraq.
The division's entire 2nd Brigade would begin pulling out of South Korea next week, and the entire unit would be in Iraq by

the end of August, Gen. Richard Cody, the Army's vice chief of staff, said at the Pentagon on Friday. It is expected to

operate in western Iraq with Marine Corps units, Cody said.
The redeployment - one of the biggest realignments in a decade along the Cold War's last frontier - was announced in May and

signals the first significant change of U.S. troop levels in South Korea since the early 1990s.
It underscores how the U.S. military is stretched to provide enough forces to cope with spiraling violence in Iraq while also

meeting its other commitments.
The equipment is arriving around-the-clock at the Busan port, where soldiers are working two 12-hour shifts, U.S. Army

spokeswoman Maj. Kathleen Johnson said.
"This is a very intensive operation, involving a large amount of equipment," Johnson said. "The scale of this operation is

about five times that of what we ordinarily do."
The 2nd Infantry Division's 14,000 troops form the mainstay of the 37,000 U.S. troops in South Korea.
For decades, the U.S. troops have buttressed South Korea's 650,000-member military in guarding against the communist North's

1.1 million-member military, the world's fifth-largest.
Since announcing the redeployment of the 3,600 soldiers to Iraq, Washington also has said it plans to withdraw about a third

of the remaining troops by the end of 2005 as part of a global realignment.
Talk of reducing the U.S. military presence is sometimes unsettling in South Korea, which still has painful memories of the

North Korean invasion that triggered the 1950-53 Korean War.
Many South Koreans fear that a reduction in U.S. troops might shake the delicate military balance on the peninsula amid

tensions over the North's nuclear weapons program. It also has prompted President Roh Moo-hyun to say his country is ready to

play a bigger role in defending itself.
U.S. troops led U.N. forces during the Korean War, defending South Korea from North Korea, which was backed by China and the

former Soviet Union. The U.S. troops have since stayed on.
? 2004 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Beijing tells Moscow of long-range missile tests during Rice visit
The Chinese government has informed Russia that it plans to conduct flight tests of three long-range missiles in July.

In the past, China's military has used the tests to send political signals. Disclosure of the planned tests came during the

visit by White House National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to China.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Infusion of Chinese spies reported in Hong Kong
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HEIMAT AHEM? WHAT? TY JAMES TARANTO ...WHERE IS RIDGE WHEN YOU NEED HIM? SYRIANS *&^%$#@!



http://www.womenswallstreet.com/WWS/article_landing.aspx?titleid=1&articleid=711
Terror in the Skies, Again?

By Annie Jacobsen

A WWS Exclusive Article


Note from the E-ditors: You are about to read an account of what happened during a domestic flight that one of our writers,

Annie Jacobsen, took from Detroit to Los Angeles. The WWS Editorial Team debated long and hard about how to handle this

information and ultimately we decided it was something that should be shared. What does it have to do with finances? Nothing,

and everything. Here is Annie's story.


On June 29, 2004, at 12:28 p.m., I flew on Northwest Airlines flight #327 from Detroit to Los Angeles with my husband and our

young son. Also on our flight were 14 Middle Eastern men between the ages of approximately 20 and 50 years old. What I

experienced during that flight has caused me to question whether the United States of America can realistically uphold the

civil liberties of every individual, even non-citizens, and protect its citizens from terrorist threats.

On that Tuesday, our journey began uneventfully. Starting out that morning in Providence, Rhode Island, we went through

security screening, flew to Detroit, and passed the time waiting for our connecting flight to Los Angeles by shopping at the

airport stores and eating lunch at an airport diner. With no second security check required in Detroit we headed to our gate

and waited for the pre-boarding announcement. Standing near us, also waiting to pre-board, was a group of six Middle Eastern

men. They were carrying blue passports with Arabic writing. Two men wore tracksuits with Arabic writing across the back. Two

carried musical instrument cases - thin, flat, 18 long. One wore a yellow T-shirt and held a McDonald's bag. And the sixth

man had a bad leg -- he wore an orthopedic shoe and limped. When the pre-boarding announcement was made, we handed our

tickets to the Northwest Airlines agent, and walked down the jetway with the group of men directly behind us.

My four-year-old son was determined to wheel his carry-on bag himself, so I turned to the men behind me and said, You go

ahead, this could be awhile. No, you go ahead, one of the men replied. He smiled pleasantly and extended his arm for me to

pass. He was young, maybe late 20's and had a goatee. I thanked him and we boarded the plan.

Once on the plane, we took our seats in coach (seats 17A, 17B and 17C). The man with the yellow shirt and the McDonald's bag

sat across the aisle from us (in seat 17E). The pleasant man with the goatee sat a few rows back and across the aisle from us

(in seat 21E). The rest of the men were seated throughout the plane, and several made their way to the back.


As we sat waiting for the plane to finish boarding, we noticed another large group of Middle Eastern men boarding. The first

man wore a dark suit and sunglasses. He sat in first class in seat 1A, the seat second-closet to the cockpit door. The other

seven men walked into the coach cabin. As aware Americans, my husband and I exchanged glances, and then continued to get

comfortable. I noticed some of the other passengers paying attention to the situation as well. As boarding continued, we

watched as, one by one, most of the Middle Eastern men made eye contact with each other. They continued to look at each

other and nod, as if they were all in agreement about something. I could tell that my husband was beginning to feel anxious.

The take-off was uneventful. But once we were in the air and the seatbelt sign was turned off, the unusual activity began.

The man in the yellow T-shirt got out of his seat and went to the lavatory at the front of coach -- taking his full

McDonald's bag with him. When he came out of the lavatory he still had the McDonald's bag, but it was now almost empty. He

walked down the aisle to the back of the plane, still holding the bag. When he passed two of the men sitting mid-cabin, he

gave a thumbs-up sign. When he returned to his seat, he no longer had the McDonald's bag.

Then another man from the group stood up and took something from his carry-on in the overhead bin. It was about a foot long

and was rolled in cloth. He headed toward the back of the cabin with the object. Five minutes later, several more of the

Middle Eastern men began using the forward lavatory consecutively. In the back, several of the men stood up and used the back

lavatory consecutively as well.

For the next hour, the men congregated in groups of two and three at the back of the plane for varying periods of time.

Meanwhile, in the first class cabin, just a foot or so from the cockpit door, the man with the dark suit - still wearing

sunglasses - was also standing. Not one of the flight crew members suggested that any of these men take their seats.

Watching all of this, my husband was now beyond anxious. I decided to try to reassure my husband (and maybe myself) by

walking to the back bathroom. I knew the goateed-man I had exchanged friendly words with as we boarded the plane was seated

only a few rows back, so I thought I would say hello to the man to get some reassurance that everything was fine. As I stood

up and turned around, I glanced in his direction and we made eye contact. I threw out my friendliest remember-me-we-had-a-

nice-exchange-just-a-short-time-ago smile. The man did not smile back. His face did not move. In fact, the cold, defiant

look he gave me sent shivers down my spine.


When I returned to my seat I was unable to assure my husband that all was well. My husband immediately walked to the first

class section to talk with the flight attendant. I might be overreacting, but I've been watching some really suspicious

things... Before he could finish his statement, the flight attendant pulled him into the galley. In a quiet voice she

explained that they were all concerned about what was going on. The captain was aware. The flight attendants were passing

notes to each other. She said that there were people on board higher up than you and me watching the men. My husband returned

to his seat and relayed this information to me. He was feeling slightly better. I was feeling much worse. We were now two

hours into a four-in-a-half hour flight.

Approximately 10 minutes later, that same flight attendant came by with the drinks cart. She leaned over and quietly told my

husband there were federal air marshals sitting all around us. She asked him not to tell anyone and explained that she could

be in trouble for giving out that information. She then continued serving drinks.

About 20 minutes later the same flight attendant returned. Leaning over and whispering, she asked my husband to write a

description of the yellow-shirted man sitting across from us. She explained it would look too suspicious if she wrote the

information. She asked my husband to slip the note to her when he was done.

After seeing 14 Middle Eastern men board separately (six together, eight individually) and then act as a group, watching

their unusual glances, observing their bizarre bathroom activities, watching them congregate in small groups, knowing that

the flight attendants and the pilots were seriously concerned, and now knowing that federal air marshals were on board, I was

officially terrified.. Before I'm labeled a racial profiler or -- worse yet -- a racist, let me add this. A month ago I

traveled to India to research a magazine article I was writing. My husband and I flew on a jumbo jet carrying more than 300

Hindu and Muslim men and women on board. We traveled throughout the country and stayed in a Muslim village 10 miles outside

Pakistan. I never once felt fearful. I never once felt unsafe. I never once had the feeling that anyone wanted to hurt me.

This time was different.

Finally, the captain announced that the plane was cleared for landing. It had been four hours since we left Detroit. The

fasten seat belt light came on and I could see downtown Los Angeles. The flight attendants made one final sweep of the cabin

and strapped themselves in for landing. I began to relax. Home was in sight.

When I returned to my seat I was unable to assure my husband that all was well. My husband immediately walked to the first

class section to talk with the flight attendant. I might be overreacting, but I've been watching some really suspicious

things... Before he could finish his statement, the flight attendant pulled him into the galley. In a quiet voice she

explained that they were all concerned about what was going on. The captain was aware. The flight attendants were passing

notes to each other. She said that there were people on board higher up than you and me watching the men. My husband returned

to his seat and relayed this information to me. He was feeling slightly better. I was feeling much worse. We were now two

hours into a four-in-a-half hour flight.

Approximately 10 minutes later, that same flight attendant came by with the drinks cart. She leaned over and quietly told my

husband there were federal air marshals sitting all around us. She asked him not to tell anyone and explained that she could

be in trouble for giving out that information. She then continued serving drinks.

About 20 minutes later the same flight attendant returned. Leaning over and whispering, she asked my husband to write a

description of the yellow-shirted man sitting across from us. She explained it would look too suspicious if she wrote the

information. She asked my husband to slip the note to her when he was done.

After seeing 14 Middle Eastern men board separately (six together, eight individually) and then act as a group, watching

their unusual glances, observing their bizarre bathroom activities, watching them congregate in small groups, knowing that

the flight attendants and the pilots were seriously concerned, and now knowing that federal air marshals were on board, I was

officially terrified.. Before I'm labeled a racial profiler or -- worse yet -- a racist, let me add this. A month ago I

traveled to India to research a magazine article I was writing. My husband and I flew on a jumbo jet carrying more than 300

Hindu and Muslim men and women on board. We traveled throughout the country and stayed in a Muslim village 10 miles outside

Pakistan. I never once felt fearful. I never once felt unsafe. I never once had the feeling that anyone wanted to hurt me.

This time was different.

Finally, the captain announced that the plane was cleared for landing. It had been four hours since we left Detroit. The

fasten seat belt light came on and I could see downtown Los Angeles. The flight attendants made one final sweep of the cabin

and strapped themselves in for landing. I began to relax. Home was in sight.

Suddenly, seven of the men stood up -- in unison -- and walked to the front and back lavatories. One by one, they went into

the two lavatories, each spending about four minutes inside. Right in front of us, two men stood up against the emergency

exit door, waiting for the lavatory to become available. The men spoke in Arabic among themselves and to the man in the

yellow shirt sitting nearby. One of the men took his camera into the lavatory. Another took his cell phone. Again, no one

approached the men. Not one of the flight attendants asked them to sit down. I watched as the man in the yellow shirt, still

in his seat, reached inside his shirt and pulled out a small red book. He read a few pages, then put the book back inside his

shirt. He pulled the book out again, read a page or two more, and put it back. He continued to do this several more times.

I looked around to see if any other passengers were watching. I immediately spotted a distraught couple seated two rows back.

The woman was crying into the man's shoulder. He was holding her hand. I heard him say to her, You've got to calm down.

Behind them sat the once pleasant-smiling, goatee-wearing man.

I grabbed my son, I held my husband's hand and, despite the fact that I am not a particularly religious person, I prayed. The

last man came out of the bathroom, and as he passed the man in the yellow shirt he ran his forefinger across his neck and

mouthed the word No.

The plane landed. My husband and I gathered our bags and quickly, very quickly, walked up the jetway. As we exited the jetway

and entered the airport, we saw many, many men in dark suits. A few yards further out into the terminal, LAPD agents ran

past us, heading for the gate. I have since learned that the representatives of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI),

the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), the Federal Air Marshals (FAM), and the Transportation Security Association (TSA)

met our plane as it landed. Several men -- who I presume were the federal air marshals on board -- hurried off the plane and

directed the 14 men over to the side.

Knowing what we knew, and seeing what we'd seen, my husband and I decided to talk to the authorities. For several hours my

husband and I were interrogated by the FBI. We gave sworn statement after sworn statement. We wrote down every detail of our

account. The interrogators seemed especially interested in the McDonald's bag, so we repeated in detail what we knew about

the McDonald's bag. A law enforcement official stood near us, holding 14 Syrian passports in his hand. We answered more

questions. And finally we went home.


Home Sweet Home
The next day, I began searching online for news about the incident. There was nothing. I asked a friend who is a local news

correspondent if there were any arrests at LAX that day. There weren't. I called Northwest Airlines' customer service. They

said write a letter. I wrote a letter, then followed up with a call to their public relations department. They said they

were aware of the situation (sorry that happened!) but legally they have 30 days to reply.

I shared my story with a few colleagues. One mentioned she'd been on a flight with a group of foreign men who were acting

strangely -- they turned out to be diamond traders. Another had heard a story on National Public Radio (NPR) shortly after

9/11 about a group of Arab musicians who were having a hard time traveling on airplanes throughout the U.S. and couldn't get

seats together. I took note of these two stories and continued my research. Here are excerpts from an article written by

Jason Burke, Chief Reporter, and published in The Observer (a British newspaper based in London) on February 8, 2004:

Terrorist bid to build bombs in mid-flight: Intelligence reveals dry runs of new threat to blow up airliners

Islamic militants have conducted dry runs of a devastating new style of bombing on aircraft flying to Europe, intelligence

sources believe.

The tactics, which aim to evade aviation security systems by placing only components of explosive devices on passenger jets,

allowing militants to assemble them in the air, have been tried out on planes flying between the Middle East, North Africa

and Western Europe, security sources say.

...The... Transportation Security Administration issued an urgent memo detailing new threats to aviation and warning that

terrorists in teams of five might be planning suicide missions to hijack commercial airliners, possibly using common items

...such as cameras, modified as weapons.

...Components of IEDs [improvised explosive devices]can be smuggled on to an aircraft, concealed in either clothing or

personal carry-on items... and assembled on board. In many cases of suspicious passenger activity, incidents have taken place

in the aircraft's forward lavatory.

So here's my question: Since the FBI issued a warning to the airline industry to be wary of groups of five men on a plane who

might be trying to build bombs in the bathroom, shouldn't a group of 14 Middle Eastern men be screened before boarding a

flight?


Apparently not. Due to our rules against discrimination, it can't be done. During the 9/11 hearings last April, 9/11

Commissioner John Lehman stated that ...it was the policy (before 9/11) and I believe remains the policy today to fine

airlines if they have more than two young Arab males in secondary questioning because that's discriminatory.

So even if Northwest Airlines searched two of the men on board my Northwest flight, they couldn't search the other 12 because

they would have already filled a government-imposed quota.

I continued my research by reading an article entitled Arab Hijackers Now Eligible For Pre-Boarding from Ann Coulter (www.

anncoulter.com):

On September 21, as the remains of thousands of Americans lay smoldering at Ground Zero, [Secretary of Transportation Norman]

Mineta fired off a letter to all U.S. airlines forbidding them from implementing the one security measure that could have

prevented 9/11: subjecting Middle Eastern passengers to an added degree of pre-flight scrutiny. He sternly reminded the

airlines that it was illegal to discriminate against passengers based on their race, color, national or ethnic origin or

religion.

Coulter also writes that a few months later, at Mr. Mineta's behest, the Department of Transportation (DOT) filed complaints

against United Airlines and American Airlines (who, combined, had lost 8 pilots, 25 flight attendants and 213 passengers on

9/11 - not counting the 19 Arab hijackers). In November 2003, United Airlines settled their case with the DOT for $1.5

million. In March 2004, American Airlines settled their case with the DOT for $1.5 million. The DOT also charged Continental

Airlines with discriminating against passengers who appeared to be Arab, Middle Eastern or Muslim. Continental Airlines

settled their complaint with the DOT in April of 2004 for $.5 million.

From what I witnessed, Northwest Airlines doesn't have to worry about Norman Mineta filing a complaint against them for

discriminatory, secondary screening of Arab men. No one checked the passports of the Syrian men. No one inspected the

contents of the two instrument cases or the McDonald's bag. And no one checked the limping man's orthopedic shoe. In fact,

according to the TSA regulations, passengers wearing an orthopedic shoe won't be asked to take it off. As their site states,

Advise the screener if you're wearing orthopedic shoes...screeners should not be asking you to remove your orthopedic shoes

at any time during the screening process. (Click here to read the TSA website policy on orthopedic shoes and other medical

devices.)

I placed a call to the TSA and talked to Joe Dove, a Customer Service Supervisor. I told him how we'd eaten with metal

utensils moments in an airport diner before boarding the flight and how no one checked our luggage or the instrument cases

being carried by the Middle Eastern men. Dove's response was, Restaurants in secured areas -- that's an ongoing problem. We

get that complaint often. TSA gets that complaint all the time and they haven't worked that out with the FAA. They're aware

of it. You've got a good question. There may not be a reasonable answer at this time, I'm not going to BS you.

At the Detroit airport no one checked our IDs. No one checked the folds in my newspaper or the contents of my son's backpack.

No one asked us what we'd done during our layover, if we bought anything, or if anyone gave us anything while we were in the

airport. We were asked all of these questions (and many others ) three weeks earlier when we'd traveled in Europe -- where

passengers with airport layovers are rigorously questioned and screened before boarding any and every flight. In Detroit no

one checked who we were or what we carried on board a 757 jet liner bound for American's largest metropolis.

Two days after my experience on Northwest Airlines flight #327 came this notice from SBS TV, The World News, July 1, 2004:

The U.S. Transportation and Security Administration has issued a new directive which demands pilots make a pre-flight

announcement banning passengers from congregating in aisles and outside the plane's toilets. The directive also orders flight

attendants to check the toilets every two hours for suspicious packages.

Through a series of events, The Washington Post heard about my story. I talked briefly about my experience with a

representative from the newspaper. Within a few hours I received a call from Dave Adams, the Federal Air Marshal Services (

FAM) Head of Public Affairs. Adams told me what he knew:

There were 14 Syrians on NWA flight #327. They were questioned at length by FAM, the FBI and the TSA upon landing in Los

Angeles. The 14 Syrians had been hired as musicians to play at a casino in the desert. Adams said they were scrubbed. None

had arrest records (in America, I presume), none showed up on the FBI's no fly list or the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists List.

The men checked out and they were let go. According to Adams, the 14 men traveled on Northwest Airlines flight #327 using

one-way tickets. Two days later they were scheduled to fly back on jetBlue from Long Beach, California to New York -- also

using one-way tickets.


I asked Adams why, based on the FBI's credible information that terrorists may try to assemble bombs on planes, the air

marshals or the flight attendants didn't do anything about the bizarre behavior and frequent trips to the lavatory. Our FAM

agents have to have an event to arrest somebody. Our agents aren't going to deploy until there is an actual event, Adams

explained. He said he could not speak for the policies of Northwest Airlines.

So the question is... Do I think these men were musicians? I'll let you decide. But I wonder, if 19 terrorists can learn to

fly airplanes into buildings, couldn't 14 terrorists learn to play instruments?

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-mail notifying you of any subsequent articles on this subject.

Do you have any thoughts about this article that you'd like to share with our e-ditors? Send them an email by clicking HERE;




----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Young guns conspire to get rid of Chirac
By Philip Delves Broughton in Paris
(Filed: 17/07/2004)
President Jacques Chirac's ambition to run for a third term as president, when he will be 74, has provoked a crisis at the

heart of his government and party which has now flared spectacularly into the open.
A younger generation, led by Nicolas Sarkozy, the finance minister, is flagrantly conspiring to end Mr Chirac's political

career on their timetable rather than his, ahead of the 2007 presidential election. Rebels say they are tired of his

moderation and cronyism and that France desperately needs more dynamic leadership.
In a once unthinkable display of lese-majeste, supporters of Mr Sarkozy booed the president during the Bastille Day garden

party at the ?lys?e Palace after Mr Chirac criticised his finance minister's ambition and manoeuvring in his annual televised

interview.
The machinations in the court of the president, the finance minister and their party, the Union pour un Mouvement Populaire,

were summed up yesterday on the front page of the newspaper Lib?ration, which showed Mr Sarkozy and Mr Chirac shaking hands

beside the headline: "How far will they go?"
The newspapers have been packed for several days with reports from meetings of loyalists on both sides. Mr Chirac's old guard

have been rallied for one last stand for their man, while Mr Sarkozy's gunslingers are taking every opportunity to paint the

president as well past his prime.
The latest twist came yesterday when Alain Jupp?, the former prime minister and Mr Chirac's chosen heir, resigned from the

presidency of the party. He had announced his resignation months ago, following his conviction for abusing public funds while

he served Mr Chirac when the president was mayor of Paris. His conviction bars him from public office for 10 years, ruling

him out of standing for the presidency at the next election.
It is up to Mr Sarkzoy, 49, who is wildly popular among his party's grassroots, whether he wants the party presidency. It

would give him control of a rich and powerful electoral machine as well as extensive powers of patronage.
Mr Chirac has said he will not allow any minister to hold a post outside government, despite the fact that he spent most of

his career doing that.
In his Bastille Day interview, he said that if any of his ministers won the UMP presidency, "they will resign immediately or

I will immediately sack them".
Mr Sarkozy has said he will decide by the end of the summer whether the finance ministry or the party means more to him.
Mr Chirac's determination to stop Mr Sarkozy's ascent, rather than take advantage of his popularity, has depressed many on

the French Right. "Nicolas Sarkozy carries many people's hope to be the next president of the republic and it would have been

much easier if Jacques Chirac calmly worked for his succession," Bernard Debr?, an MP representing the UMP, said yesterday.
During Thursday's cabinet meeting, Mr Chirac was reported to have ignored Mr Sarkozy, who for reasons of protocol always sits

next to president. Mr Sarkozy's allies said he would not respond in kind to the president's slap-down, but would concentrate

on the issues facing France.
He said on leaving the frosty meeting: "Now is not the time or place to comment, but the French people know very well what I

have tried to do for them over the past two and a half years."
Many business leaders, disenchanted by Mr Chirac's timid economic reforms, are backing Mr Sarkozy.
Last night, the minister addressed a UMP rally in La Baule on the Atlantic coast. His supporters say winning control of the

party created by Mr Chirac, then turning it against him, would be his greatest act of revenge.

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U.S. Allows Cuban Biotech Deal
NewsMax.com Wires
Friday, July 16, 2004
SAN FRANCISCO - In a rare exception to long-standing American foreign policy, U.S. officials have approved drug developer

CancerVax Corp.'s deal with the Cuban government to develop three experimental cancer drugs created in Havana.
It's the first such commercial deal approved by the U.S. government between a U.S. biotechnology company and Cuba, which has

spent $1 billion building a biotechnology program that is among the most advanced in the Third World. One of the three drugs

included in the deal attacks a cancer cell in a novel way.
The biotechnology company announced the deal Thursday.
Government approval comes as President Bush toughens the 41-year-old economic embargo of the communist nation. On June 30,

Bush implemented new rules that sharply reduce Cuba-bound dollar flows from the United States and curtail visits to Cuba by

cultural and academic groups as well as Cuban-Americans.
CancerVax will develop the drugs in its Carlsbad laboratories and share profits with the Cuban government if any of the drugs

are approved for sale in the United States. CancerVax is a small, money-losing company that doesn't have any drugs approved

for sale. It just recently began selling its stock publicly.
The deal calls for CancerVax to pay Cuba $2 million annually over the next three years.
CancerVax agreed to the U.S. government's demands to pay Cuba in food and medicine instead of cash. The State Department

recommended approval of the deal, which was ultimately granted by the Treasury Department.
Both departments said the U.S. government was open to considering similar drug deals, but that it will continue to restrict

the flow of U.S. currency to Cuba.
? 2004 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Russia Demands That Georgia Return Army Equipment
16 July 2004 -- The Russian military is demanding that Georgia return the army trucks its security forces seized last week in

the separatist republic of South Ossetia.
Speaking at the end of a two-day meeting of the Joint Control Commission on South Ossetia in Moscow, General Valerii

Yevnevich said he had conveyed his demand to the Georgian delegation.
"The vehicles with ammunition and personal belongings of the Russian military personnel must be returned without any

preconditions to the same location where they were seized," he said.
Georgia claims the Russian convoy was loaded with ammunition meant for South Ossetia's separatist regime. Russia in turn says

the consignment was destined for its peacekeeping force in the area.
The Moscow talks ended yesterday with all sides involved -- Russia, Georgia, South Ossetia, and Russia's republic of North

Ossetia -- agreeing to work together toward avert further escalation in the region.
A string of incidents involving skirmishes and the capture of Georgian peacekeepers by South Ossetian forces has kept tension

high in the area in the past two weeks.
South Ossetia seceded from Georgia in the early 1990s, but Georgia's new leaders have pledged to reassert Tbilisi's control

over the province.
(RTR/Novosti gruziya)

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New York ruckus brought to you courtesy of Teresa Heinz-Kerry
by Judi McLeod
She may sport fashionable togs rather than a face mask, but the chaos expected during the upcoming GOP convention, is partly

courtesy of the stylish Teresa Heinz-Kerry.
The Ketchup Queen financed the shadowy Tides Foundation to the tune of $4 million to date. The Tides Foundation funds the

Ruckus Society, a notorious group of anarchists who rioted and looted Seattle during the 1999 World Trade Organization riots.
This summer, the Ruckus Society has been training protesters for the GOP Convention. Included in their how-to Book for

Dummies are mass sit-ins, blockades and pie throwing at high-level officials enroute to Madison Square Gardens.
With the money of Mrs. John Kerry, Ruckus Society members live up to their name of being ready to create a ruckus anywhere,

but they're bound to be more careful in New York than they were in Seattle. And it's not because they are afraid of The

Terminator who's scheduled to give one of the GOP' keynote addresses. It's because they don't want their rioting, looting,

sit-ins and blockades to leave the impression that the Dems and their gaggle of Hollywood supporters are the bad guys. It's

the Johnny America shout mimicking Paul Revere: "The Republicans are coming! The Republicans are coming!" that they want to

stick in the public mind.
In Ruckus Society Director John Seller's own words: "The Republicans would love to have images coming out of New York City

that make them look like the reasonable ones like they're about responsibility and law and order and creating a safe society,

and that the left was unreasonable and violent."
Rhetoric aside, with tactics like dog decoys intended to deliberately miscue bomb sniffing dogs in their bag of dirty tricks,

tossing marbles under the hooves of police horses and using homemade slingshots to pelt the noble beasts, radical protesters

should be prepared to wear the unreasonable shoe that best fits them.
While some 600,000 passengers travel to Penn Station on regular working days, protesters are hoping that their handiwork will

see the necessity of having to evacuate Madison Square Garden.
All lessons being taught to willing protestors at the Ruckus knee are ones to make it less easy for the New York Police

Department to maintain public safety.
Philadelphia Police Commissioner John Timoney calls radical protesters what they are, "criminal conspirators".
"There's a cadre, if you will, of criminal conspirators who are about the business of planning conspiracies to go in and

cause mayhem and cause property damage and cause violence in major cities in America that have large conventions and large

numbers of people coming in for one reason or another."
Nothing, least of all commonsense will stop the radicals who are on a mission the equivalent of telling the not so long ago

besieged Big Apple to get out of town by sunset.
"We will draw our examples and inspiration from the brave shapers of history who came before us and those who put their

bodies on the line to gain independence," was one of the loftier protester warnings on the Internet.
Ruckus Society patron Teresa Heinz-Kerry was a flower child of the 60s when she worked as a United Nations interpreter in

Geneva. It was when she was hanging out for an Earth Day rally in 1990 that she first ran into the guy with the same initials

as JFK.
The socialite, who partly financed the coming ruckus in Madison Square Garden, is not likely to risk her public safety by

being in New York. Her protest days long over, for Teresa Heinz-Kerry the Aug. 31 Day of Civil Disobedience will be as tame

as the ketchup bottle on the kitchen table as she watches events from one of her half dozen mansions.

Canada Free Press founding editor Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the media. A former

Toronto Sun and Kingston Whig Standard columnist, she has also appeared on Newsmax.com, the Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, and

World Net Daily. Judi can be reached at: cfp@canadafreepress.com.


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Analysis: Draining The 'Cesspool': Internet Legislation In Russia
By Julie A. Corwin
Although only about 15 million Russians -- roughly 10 percent of the population -- regularly access the Internet, the reach

of news or information posted on the Internet could extend to as much as one-third of the population, according to Ivan

Zasurskii, deputy general director of Rambler. In an interview with "Novaya gazeta," No. 45, he noted that all urban

populations have access to information from the Internet via "horizontal channels" of communication. For example, radio talk

-show hosts and DJs regularly pick up "hot" themes from the Internet and immediately broadcast them. If Zasurskii is correct,

will the Internet's expanding reach attract increased attention from authorities?
After all, government restrictions on the media under President Vladimir Putin appear to be directly proportional to a

particular medium's influence. Television, the most popular media sector, is subject to the most controls, while newspapers

face considerably less scrutiny. Which path will the Internet, currently one of Russia's most vibrant information realms,

take in the future?
At present, at least two efforts are under way to draft legislation to regulate the Internet in Russia, and these efforts

could bear fruit as early as next year. Last month, State Duma Deputy Vladimir Tarachev (Unified Russia) told "Russkii

fokus," No. 21, that he has been working on a bill with an initiative group for the past three years, adding that it is 95

percent ready. After a group based in the Federation Council submits its version to the Duma, the members of Tarachev's group

will present their draft, which will serve as the Duma's alternative version.
Tarachev, who is a member of the Duma Banking Committee, said this is unlikely to happen before the end of this year. About

two weeks earlier, Dmitrii Mezentsev, chairman of the Federation Council's Information Policy Committee, told a press

conference in Moscow that he is part of a working group that is also preparing legislation to regulate the Internet, Interfax

reported on 3 June. Mezentsev said his group is still not sure whether a separate law on the Internet is needed or whether

the new version of the law on mass media currently being drafted should be augmented. He also said the shape of the new bill

will not be determined before next year.
Details of Tarachev's and Mezentsev's plans followed months of denials that a project to draft a new law on the Internet was

in the works. Duma Information Policy Committee Chairman Valerii Komissarov (Unified Russia) and committee Deputy Chairman

Boris Reznik (Unified Russia) stated categorically in March that their committee is not working on legislation to regulate

the Internet (see "RFE/RL Russian Political Weekly," 15 April 2004). However, Reznik noted that attempts to draft such

legislation have been repeatedly undertaken, and the last of these was an initiative by a deputy from the last Duma,

Aleksandr Shubin (Union of Rightist Forces). In 2000, Reznik, Komissarov, and Konstantin Vetrov, a Liberal Democratic Party

of Russia deputy who was then chairman of the Information Policy Committee, were part of a working group to develop a law on

the Internet. Their focus was drafting a law that would protect intellectual-property rights and regulate other economic-

related issues.
One difference between that attempt and the latest initiatives will likely be a new emphasis on regulating Internet content.

Mezentsev denied that he and his colleagues are even discussing the introduction of any censorship on the web. However, he

also said he would consider banning information that could pose a threat to people's lives or security. In addition, Lyudmila

Narusova, the Federation Council representative for the Tuva Republic's legislature and a member of Mezentsev's working

group, gave an interview with "Novye izvestiya" on 3 June in which she said she favors increasing state control over the

Internet because it has become "a cesspool." "On the Internet, one can find the most incredible rumors, including some that

denigrate people's reputations," Narusova said. "And while one can sue a newspaper, this is virtually impossible with the

Internet."
Some analysts linked the new legislative efforts with a broader trend of expanding state influence over civil society. In an

interview with Ekho Moskvy on 3 June, media-law expert Fedor Kravchenko commented that the purpose of the new bills most

likely is to increase state control over the Internet. "Just as now not one television company can escape the Kremlin's grip,

in the same way, most likely, they would like some instrument of control over information on the Internet," Kravchenko said.

"Today, this sphere is too uncontrolled."
Other analysts see commercial interests driving the process. Anton Nosik, editor of lenta.ru, told a press conference in

Moscow in May that Tarachev's Internet bill was developed in extreme secrecy and that the people behind it are not interested

in censorship per se, but in a "redistribution of property in the virtual market, which they have finally noticed and want to

get their hands on." Participating in a panel at RFE/RL on 10 June, Glasnost Defense Foundation head Aleksei Simonov said his

organization's priority is to preserve the law on mass media in its current form. He predicted that finishing a draft law on

the Internet could take many years, considering that the law on mass media has required almost a decade so far.
In an interview with "Novaya gazeta," No. 45, Zasurskii expressed doubt about what the government could really do to control

the Internet even if it wants to. "You have to be realistic," he said. "How many websites are there on the Internet? Imagine

that a chief commissar for regulation of the Internet in Russia has been appointed. He should present a plan for finally

regulating Internet news. He will need a budget of $5 billion. He will need around 200-300 specialists. Who will do this? Who

needs this? The Matrix will never try to control everything. Because when you try to control everything, you weaken yourself.

It is necessary to control [only] the most important." He also noted that is easy to make an electronic publication out of

the reach of authorities: "You simply relocate it to the United States and put it out in Russian. Such is the case with

newsru.com. Try and shut down newsru.com, please."
According to Zasurskii, the conflict is really a centuries-old one in Russia between conservative forces and a modernizing

elite that is using a new technology that is impossible to wipe out.


-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Russia Demands That Georgia Return Army Equipment
16 July 2004 -- The Russian military is demanding that Georgia return the army trucks its security forces seized last week in

the separatist republic of South Ossetia.
Speaking at the end of a two-day meeting of the Joint Control Commission on South Ossetia in Moscow, General Valerii

Yevnevich said he had conveyed his demand to the Georgian delegation.
"The vehicles with ammunition and personal belongings of the Russian military personnel must be returned without any

preconditions to the same location where they were seized," he said.
Georgia claims the Russian convoy was loaded with ammunition meant for South Ossetia's separatist regime. Russia in turn says

the consignment was destined for its peacekeeping force in the area.
The Moscow talks ended yesterday with all sides involved -- Russia, Georgia, South Ossetia, and Russia's republic of North

Ossetia -- agreeing to work together toward avert further escalation in the region.
A string of incidents involving skirmishes and the capture of Georgian peacekeepers by South Ossetian forces has kept tension

high in the area in the past two weeks.
South Ossetia seceded from Georgia in the early 1990s, but Georgia's new leaders have pledged to reassert Tbilisi's control

over the province.
(RTR/Novosti gruziya)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Interior Dept. Inquiry Faults Procurement
By Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 17, 2004; Page E03
The Department of Interior's inspector general found that lax procurement controls in one of the agency's contracting centers

allowed information technology contracts to be misused to hire prison interrogators.
CACI International Inc. of Arlington and Lockheed Martin Corp. of Bethesda were hired to provide interrogation support under

umbrella contracts designed to give government agencies quick access to the companies' technology products and services.
The inspector general's report, released last night, blamed a "fee-for-service operation, where procurement personnel in

their eagerness to enhance organization revenues have found shortcuts to federal procurement procedures."
Lockheed's employees were hired by the Navy for interrogation work at its base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. CACI provided

interrogators to the Army in Iraq, and one of its employees was implicated in an Army report on abuses at Abu Ghraib prison.
Both contracts were awarded by the General Services Administration and managed by the Interior Department's National Business

Center in Fort Huachuca, Ariz. The agency's inspector general, Earl E. Devaney, said a lack of oversight of procurement

officials at the center contributed to the improper contracting.
Devaney recommended that the agency end contracts with CACI and Lockheed Martin that fall outside the scope of their intended

purpose. He urged Interior to develop new policies and management controls.
Interior spokesman Frank Quimby said this week that Interior is going to "get out of the interrogation business." Calls to

Quimby were not returned last night.
A GSA investigation of CACI's contract found that it was awarded improperly but cleared the company to continue doing

business with the federal government.
? 2004 The Washington Post Company

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Nuclear Site Workers Exposed to Vapors
Associated Press
Saturday, July 17, 2004; Page A05
SPOKANE, Wash., July 16 -- Some workers at the Hanford nuclear reservation have been exposed to dangerous vapors from tanks

that store radioactive waste, a federal report said Friday.
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health investigated complaints from employees of CH2M Hill Hanford Group,

a private contractor that operates underground tanks of wastes from nuclear weapons production. The workers said their health

was at risk when working near the tanks.
NIOSH recommended that an air-purifying respirator be provided to any worker entering a tank farm, with higher-quality

equipment available for those entering known vapor-release areas.
? 2004 The Washington Post Company
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sandia Labs Reports Classified Disk Missing
The Associated Press
Sandia National Laboratories reported Thursday it is missing a computer floppy disk marked classified.
However, lab officials said they don't believe it contains any weapons information or any other information that could

harm national security.
Lab spokesman Chris Miller said Thursday the disk was not used often, so it was difficult to determine how long it had

been missing before Sandia's Security Incident Management Program was notified June 30 that it was gone. He said he wasn't

sure whether the disk was part of a December inventory.
Sandia said the disk came from a military organization, but it did not identify the item further.
"We should have protected it much better," Sandia Laboratories Director C. Paul Robinson said. "As others are doing, we

are taking strong measures to improve the tracking of all our electronic materials."
The inventory of classified so-called removable electronic media did not find any other classified items were missing.

Removable electronic media include floppy disks and CDs.
The Security Incident Management Program notified the Department of Energy and the National Nuclear Security

Administration about the missing disk. Sandia officials said they are working with those organizations to investigate.
Sandia's revelation comes on the heels of another security breach at Los Alamos National Laboratory.
The Los Alamos breach prompted the northern New Mexico lab to halt all classified work Thursday while officials conduct a

wall-to-wall inventory of sensitive data.
Los Alamos last week reported that two items identified only as removable data storage devices containing classified

information turned up missing during a special inventory.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lab Director Orders Halt to Classified Work at LANL

By Leslie Hoffman
The Associated Press
Another security breach at Los Alamos National Laboratory prompted the lab to halt all classified work Thursday while

officials conduct a wall-to-wall inventory of sensitive data.
The stand-down began at noon, and the inventory of CDs, floppy disks and other electronic data storage devices is

expected to be completed within days, lab spokesman Kevin Roark said.
Last week, the lab reported that two items containing classified information turned up missing during a special inventory

for an upcoming experiment. The items were identified only as removable data storage devices.
The incident is the latest in a series of embarrassments that have prompted federal officials to put the Los Alamos

management contract up for bid for the first time in the 61-year history of the lab that built the atomic bomb.
Lab officials are searching for the items and investigating how they disappeared. Individuals with access to the missing

items can only enter their workplace under escort and work has been shut down in part of the unit involved, the Weapons

Physics Directorate, while the investigation continues, lab officials said.
The lab has had security stand-downs in the past, the last one several years ago, Roark said.
The National Nuclear Security Agency, the federal agency overseeing the labs, sent a team to Los Alamos this week to

investigate the loss.
The University of California, which has operated Los Alamos from its beginnings during the World War II race to build the

bomb, has not decided whether to compete for the contract when it expires next year.
But UC President warned on Thursday: "These types of incidents are unacceptable and they really do have to come to an

end."
Pete Nanos, director of the Los Alamos lab, briefed the UC Board of Regents on the incident, telling them: "It's time for

all the employees at Los Alamos to take a stand and ask themselves what do I believe in. The challenge before them is clear."
Nanos told employees Wednesday that because of the latest security lapse, there is talk on Capitol Hill of drafting

legislation that would forbid UC from bidding on the lab's contract, which expires in September 2005, according to the lab's

online employee newsletter.
"People in Washington just don't understand how any group of people that purports to be so intelligent can be so inept,"

Nanos was quoted as telling employees.
He called those who don't follow security rules "cowboys" and warned the work force "we're fighting for the very identity

of Los Alamos as a science laboratory," according to the newsletter.
"It's one of the last two science labs that does national security work in any major way, and I believe we're on the

verge of losing that," Nanos was quoted as telling workers.
Steven Aftergood, director of the Federation of American Scientists' project on government secrecy, applauded the stand-

down.
"It's been a long time coming, but now it's here. It's what they have to do to confront this recurring problem,"

Aftergood said.
Similarly classified material slated for destruction was reported missing in May. Lab officials later said they believe

it was, indeed, destroyed but the paperwork was faulty.
Los Alamos has been under intense scrutiny since November 2002 when allegations surfaced about purchasing fraud,

equipment theft and mismanagement. The ensuing scandal prompted an overhaul of lab business policies and a culling of top

managers.
-- -- --
Associated Press Reporter Michelle Locke in San Francisco contributed to this story.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Pittsburgh Bank To Buy Riggs
PNC Financial to Pay $705.2 Million For Embattled Washington Institution
By Terence O'Hara
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 17, 2004; Page A01
Riggs National Corp., reeling from multiple probes into money laundering within its once-elite embassy banking division,

yesterday agreed to sell out to a Pittsburgh banking company for a bargain price.
One of Washington's oldest commercial institutions, the 168-year-old bank will become part of PNC Financial Services Group

Inc., which will pay a combination of cash and stock worth $705.2 million. The deal is not expected to be made final,

however, for at least another six months, and PNC has reserved the right to cancel the purchase if regulators or prosecutors

charge Riggs with any further wrongdoing.
PNC officials said the purchase will give them a low-priced entry into one of the most profitable and fastest-growing banking

markets in the country. All of Riggs's 51 branches, about three-quarters of which are in the District, will be renamed PNC.
Joe L. Allbritton, the face of Riggs for more than 20 years after he bought it in 1981, and his son Robert, the current chief

executive, will cash in stock options worth millions in the deal. Joe Allbritton steadfastly refused to sell Riggs during an

era of bank consolidation when ordinary shareholders might have realized more of a premium and instead charted it on a course

that produced a long, slow decline in earnings and prestige. At the same time the bank was cultivating high-risk

relationships with foreign leaders including officials of the Saudi government, Chile's Augusto Pinochet and Equatorial

Guinea's Teodoro Obiang Nguema.
There was no showy news conference with both merger partners proclaiming the deal, which valued Riggs on the low end of

comparable purchases. In a written response to a list of questions, Joe Allbritton, who remains the company's biggest

shareholder, expressed regret that the bank will lose its independence. But he said, "Now it is time to move along and let

others manage Riggs into the future."
The money-laundering scandal permanently stained one of Riggs's few remaining assets -- its good name -- and ultimately

pushed the bank to put itself up for sale.
"In its heyday it was a world-class organization," said longtime area banker Bernard H. Clineburg. "It's sad to see them go

like this."
Riggs Bank President Lawrence I. Hebert said PNC will give Riggs customers access to a broader array of products. "We have

found the best solution for shareholders, customers, employees and our communities," Hebert said.
The bank has roots in the beginnings of Washington as a city. Riggs played a role in the financial life of the young republic

and its capital unmatched by any other institution, here or in New York. The bank financed the construction of the Washington

Monument, made sure the United States had enough gold on hand to purchase Alaska from imperial Russia, and counted dozens of

presidents and their families as customers.
But in recent years it was its relationship with the diplomatic community that distinguished Riggs in Washington. The

diplomatic business, which insiders say Joe Allbritton doted on and was personally involved in, accounted for the largest

chunk of Riggs's local deposits but was an expensive and -- ultimately unprofitable -- business to maintain. Three

relationships in the division -- Equatorial Guinea, Saudi Arabia and Augusto Pinochet -- are the focus of congressional,

regulatory and criminal investigations.
Things began to go bad for Riggs soon after Sept. 11, 2001, when news reports indirectly linked a Saudi Arabia embassy

account to one of the hijackers. This, and subsequent news reports about the bank's relationship with Equatorial Guinea,

sparked intense regulatory scrutiny of Riggs in 2002 and 2003. In May, Riggs was fined a record $25 million for its failure

to abide by regulation designed to prevent money laundering.
Riggs's problems deepened this week with the release of a Senate report that found the bank had helped Pinochet hide millions

from international prosecutors, that said it appeared to help Equatorial Guinea officials divert state oil revenue to their

personal accounts and that raised questions about the relationship between Riggs and its former top bank examiner who took an

executive position with the bank when he retired.
In the past year Riggs lost approximately 22 percent of its deposits, principally as a result of the end of its relationship

with Equatorial Guinea, its largest customer.
Sources with knowledge of the matter, speaking on condition of anonymity, said regulators continue to probe senior officials

at Riggs, including Allbritton, for their role in possible money laundering. A grand jury in the District is also

investigating Riggs's handling of the Equatorial Guinea accounts.
As a result of its regulatory problems and to prepare itself for sale, Riggs has hired teams of lawyers and experts to revamp

its compliance efforts and begun divesting itself of its international and embassy business. At the same time, the bank is in

its third year of an ambitious effort to improve its retail banking operations.
PNC plans to follow Riggs's existing retail banking strategy, however, which involves opening 30 branches in the suburbs in

the next three years and revamping existing branches. About 100 new customer service and branch employees will be hired by

PNC.
No senior executives are expected to remain after the merger, and PNC officials said no Riggs board members would join PNC's

board. Many executives, however, will profit from the deal.
The structure of the purchase is unusual in that it involves both a fixed number of PNC shares and a fixed amount of cash. If

Riggs insiders exercise options to acquire more shares, it will reduce the amount of money other shareholders receive. At

PNC's closing price Thursday, Riggs shareholders would receive about $23.59 per diluted share.
Joe Allbritton, who directly owns more than 7.4 million shares but together with his wife and son controls more than 13

million shares, could earn more than $3.4 million on options he was granted in 2001 alone. When he retired, he had options on

more than 3.8 million shares.
Robert Allbritton could realize nearly $10 million in profit from options he received in the past three years.
Hebert, a longtime Allbritton lieutenant who became chief executive of the bank in 2001, last year was granted options that

are worth more than $500,000 in the merger.
Shareholders who bought Riggs in recent years -- the stock briefly hit $30 a share in 1998 but for nearly all of the past 10

years has traded for less than $15 a share -- will probably make money. Riggs stock climbed to more than $40 a share in 1986

during a bank merger heyday. The Allbritton family together owns more than 40 percent of the stock, most of it acquired in

Joe Allbritton's hostile takeover of the bank in 1981. In 1992, the Allbrittons bought another large block -- for less than

$5 a share -- of stock when Riggs needed more capital after it was hammered by the region's commercial real estate crunch.
The price PNC is paying values Riggs at about twice its book value, or the difference between its assets and liabilities.

Most banks of this size sell for 2.5 times book value, analysts said, and many such deals have been higher than triple book

value.
"A fair offer was made for the bank," Joe Allbritton said. "The price was worked over at length and was agreed upon by all

parties. I think it is a fair price, yes."
The pending demise of the bank, after revelations of possible money laundering, left longtime customers rueful.
V. Jones, 39, of the District, a publication specialist for George Washington University, said she opened an account with

Riggs Bank a couple of weeks ago because it is in her neighborhood.
"I went with Riggs Bank because it's an old name," she said. "I even remembered it from my childhood. I was born and raised

in Washington, D.C., and now with this happening, it's going to make me go to another bank."
Riggs is the oldest publicly owned company in the metropolitan Washington area and one of the last of a long list of

disappearing local commercial icons, following companies such as Garfinckel's, Woodward & Lothrop, Hechinger, People's Drugs,

and Galt & Bro. jewelers into oblivion.
Jamel Schofield, 32, of the District, an office manager for a tour company, said she didn't like that the Riggs name will

disappear. "I think that's just sad, a sad day for D.C."
Staff writer Raymund Flandez contributed to this report.
? 2004 The Washington Post Company

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Riggs Bank Hid Assets Of Pinochet, Report Says
Senate Probe Cites Former U.S. Examiner
By Terence O'Hara and Kathleen Day
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, July 15, 2004; Page A01
Riggs Bank courted business from former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet and helped him hide millions of dollars in assets

from international prosecutors while he was under house arrest in Britain, according to a report by Senate investigators.
The report also says the top federal bank examiner in charge of supervising the District's largest bank kept details about

Riggs's relationship with Pinochet out of the Riggs case file. That happened a few months before the examiner retired from

the government and joined Riggs as a senior executive. The examiner, R. Ashley Lee, denied the allegations to Senate

investigators.
The Senate report also said Lee recommended, while still working for the government, that the bank not be punished for

failing to take steps designed to prevent money laundering.
The report, which includes the first account of Riggs's dealings with Pinochet, is the latest blow to an institution that

once billed itself as "the most important bank in the most important city in the world." In May the bank agreed to pay $25

million in civil penalties for what federal regulators called "willful, systemic" violation of anti-money-laundering laws in

its dealings with the embassies of Saudi Arabia and Equatorial Guinea. Several other federal investigations continue into the

bank's activities, and Riggs has hired investment bankers to explore a sale of the company.
Senate investigators, who spent more than a year looking into Riggs, found that the bank attempted to use offshore and other

accounts that were misleadingly named to obscure their connection to Pinochet. In documents required by federal regulators,

for example, the bank referred to Pinochet not by name but as "a retired professional" who held a "high paying position in

public sector for many years."
Senior bank officials, including former chairman and chief executive Joseph L. Allbritton, were part of an effort to win

Pinochet's business and were familiar with the activities in his accounts, the former dictator's legal status and efforts to

seize his assets around the world, the Senate report says.
In addition to its account of Riggs's relationship with Pinochet, who was held in Britain after an indictment in Spain on

charges of "crimes against humanity," the Senate report provides new details about Riggs's dealings with Teodoro Obiang

Nguema, the dictator of Equatorial Guinea.
"It's a sordid story of a bank with a prestigious name that blatantly ignored its obligations under anti-money-laundering

laws," said Sen. Carl M. Levin (D-Mich.), the ranking minority member of the subcommittee whose staff oversaw the

investigation. "And it took our regulators five years to act in any substantive way. . . . They tolerated Riggs failures and

tolerated their dysfunctional AML [anti-money-laundering] program."
Riggs officials declined to discuss the Pinochet allegations. The bank said a written statement that it has taken steps to

improve its compliance with federal bank regulations. "It is clear that Riggs did not accomplish all that it needed to,"

Riggs said. "Specifically, with respect to the improvements that were outlined by our regulators, we regret that we did not

more swiftly and more thoroughly complete the work necessary to fully meet the expectations of our regulators. For this, the

Bank accepts full responsibility."
The report raised the possibility of further legal and regulatory problems for Riggs. But a former federal banking

enforcement lawyer, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he did not have access to the examination reports and

other source materials for the subcommittee's report, said such cases can be difficult for prosecutors because to be found

guilty of criminal wrongdoing, a bank has to have known that a customer was using an account for illicit activity.
The report by the Democratic minority staff of the permanent subcommittee on investigations provides new information about

Lee's role as a federal examiner, which is already under investigation by the Treasury Department's inspector general.
In interviews with subcommittee investigators, Lee denied that he prevented information about Riggs's relationship with

Pinochet from being included in bank examination reports. Lee did not respond to requests for comment that were made through

Riggs. Lee's lawyer, Gilbert Schwartz, who specializes in banking issues, declined through a spokesman to comment yesterday.
But based on interviews with others, the report concludes that the top federal bank examiner at Riggs might have become "too

close" to the bank to be an effective watchdog during his four years overseeing the bank, from 1998 to 2002, when Riggs was

repeatedly failing to take steps required by laws designed to prevent money laundering.
Yesterday a source with knowledge of the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity said that the inspector general has

subpoenaed the bank's phone and meeting logs in an effort to determine, among other things, whether Lee attended meetings

with his former agency since he joined Riggs -- which could be a violation of government ethics rules.
The report found that Pinochet's deposits at Riggs varied from $4 million to $8 million, held in several personal and

corporate accounts. A "senior delegation" of bank officials traveled to South America in 1996 to solicit business, including

Pinochet's, the report said.
Pinochet has been linked to corruption, illegal arms and drug trafficking, and the disappearance or murder of thousands of

political opponents during his reign, which began with a 1973 coup and ended in 1990. Pinochet was found unfit to be

extradited to stand trial in Spain in 2000 and was allowed to return to Chile, where he still lives.
According to the report, in July 1996, about 18 months after opening a personal account at Riggs, Pinochet was indicted by

Spain on charges of genocide, terrorism and torture against Spanish citizens during his rule. A Riggs subsidiary in the

Bahamas then established two companies, Ashburton Co. Ltd. and Althorp Investment Co. Ltd., both putatively owned by trusts

set up by Riggs.
Nowhere on the trust or company documentation does Pinochet's name appear, though he and his family were the ultimate

beneficiaries, according to investigators. Ashburton held the most Pinochet money; it had a $4.5 million balance when it was

closed in 2002, the report said.
The report said Riggs concealed its relationship with Pinochet from regulators. In 2000, when the Office of the Comptroller

of the Currency asked for a list of clients' accounts controlled by foreign political figures, Pinochet's was not on the

list. In 2001, an OCC examiner happened upon a report about Althorp and asked about the beneficial owner. The examiner was

told, according to his notes from the time, that the account was for a "publicly known figure" and added that Riggs's

chairman, Allbritton, "knows" the customer. Pinochet's name was never offered. Not until spring 2002 did the OCC discover the

Pinochet accounts, when an examiner demanded an explanation for coded references to cashier's checks that had been mailed or

delivered to Pinochet.
The report states that Pinochet's account manager, Carol Thompson, sometimes spoke directly with Allbritton about Pinochet's

accounts. According to OCC documents cited in the report, a Riggs officer told OCC examiners that "Mr. Pinochet has a

relationship with the Chairman of Riggs."
According to the report, Lee recommended to his superiors at the OCC that it not take action against Riggs in 2001, despite

three successive examinations that detailed deficiencies in Riggs's adherence to rules designed to detect money laundering.

Lee said that Riggs officers had promised to remedy the problems, but the report concludes that he did little to ensure that

corrective actions were carried out.
Two other bank examiners told Senate investigators that in 2002, a month before Lee was approached by Riggs about a job, he

"specifically instructed" them not to include the Pinochet findings in the OCC's electronic database. Lee told the

investigators that the examiners under him may have been "confused" about his instruction to ensure the privacy of the

Pinochet matter. The examiners disputed that, saying Lee's instructions were "clear," the report says.
The subcommittee report also laid out new details of Riggs's relationship with Equatorial Guinea and of transfers into the

accounts controlled by the country's dictator of millions of dollars of deposits made by U.S. oil companies. The West African

country's government has been cited by the State Department and various nongovernmental and human rights groups as one of the

most corrupt in the world.
A spokesman for Sen. Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), chairman of the investigations subcommittee, said Coleman agrees with the

findings of the report but not a recommendation that oil companies be required to publicly disclose all payments to foreign

companies or individuals. The spokesman said Coleman wants to hear from oil companies before endorsing that suggestion and

therefore withheld his signature from the report.
Coleman spokesman Tom Steward said, "We agree with 99.9 percent of the report."
In addition to the Pinochet and Equatorial Guinea accounts, the subcommittee found others "equally troubling," including more

than 150 Saudia Arabian accounts. The full Senate Governmental Affairs Committee, as part of a larger look into terrorist

funding, is probing those accounts and has subpoenaed records from both the OCC and from Riggs.
? 2004 The Washington Post Company
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Our Broken Health Care System
By David S. Broder
Thursday, July 15, 2004; Page A21
When Bill Frist talks about health care, it pays to listen. Not only is he the majority leader of the Senate, but, as a

physician who specialized in heart transplants, he knows the medical system as well as he knows human anatomy.
What the Tennessee Republican said at the National Press Club earlier this week confirms what many in the health field, in

business and in both parties increasingly recognize: The American health care system is urgently in need of a basic overhaul.
The way Frist put it was this: "Old approaches are failing us today. They lead to costs that are growing too fast; we all

know that. They lead to access that is uneven. They lead to enormous quality chasms that exist today. And these old

approaches have no chance of addressing the new challenges of 2014."
"Indeed," he said, "I would argue that the status quo of health care delivery in this country is unacceptable today. It will

further deteriorate unless the care sector of 2004 is radically transformed, is re-created."
He spelled out some of the scary statistics behind those generalizations. Expense? The United States spends almost 15 percent

of its income on health care, far more than other advanced countries. That's about $5,540 a year for every man, woman and

child.
Costs are rising four times as fast as wages. One informed estimate places the cost of employer-sponsored health care

coverage for the average family at $14,500 in 2006, just two years from now.
The Census Bureau found last year that almost 44 million Americans had gone without health insurance for the previous year.

That number has been increasing by roughly 2 million a year. Families USA, a consumer group, says that almost 82 million

people, one out of three below age 65, were uninsured at some point during 2002-03, most of them for at least nine months.
Frist also talked about the "inefficiency" of the system, noting that "according to a recent Rand study, patients received

recommended care about only half the time for conditions such as my own specialty of heart disease, as well as diabetes."
But there is worse, he said: An estimated 98,000 people die each year from medical errors. Death rates for heart disease are

twice as high for African Americans as for whites.
It is a backward industry. Hospitals and doctors invest 50 percent less a year in information technology than retail

establishments or the travel industry. Your credit card goes with you, but your medical records -- on paper -- remain buried

in some physician's or hospital's files, inaccessible to any other provider if you get sick away from home.
If all of this suggests the need for a massive overhaul, that is exactly the impression Frist wants to leave. And he is far

from alone.
Next week the National Coalition on Health Care, a nonpartisan group billing itself as the largest and most broadly

representative alliance of organizations supporting health care reform, will outline what it thinks is needed -- changes that

it says "go far beyond any proposal now being considered."
Its president, Henry Simmons, a physician, testified to the Democratic platform committee last month and said exactly what

Frist said: "The main point I want to leave with you," Simmons said, "is that the crisis we face cannot be resolved by our

present strategies or with the patchwork efforts of the past. Neither can it be resolved by dealing with only one or several

of the problems we face. Resolution will require comprehensive health system reform."
That means dealing simultaneously with the problems of the uninsured, of cost controls, of uneven quality and of lagging

technology. It will require government action, in cooperation with business, the medical establishment and patients

themselves. It will be expensive, but private economists and government budget experts testify that without these needed

reforms, pension systems, corporate balance sheets and federal budgets all face near-certain disaster in coming decades.
Last month G. Richard Wagoner Jr., the chairman of General Motors, was quoted in the Detroit Free Press as telling a business

conference that rising health care costs are crippling the competitiveness of U.S. business and should be the top issue for

the winner of November's presidential election.
"It is well beyond time for all of us to put partisan politics behind us," Wagoner said, "and get together to address this

health care crisis."
The message is coming through -- loud and clear. Whoever is president will find the issue waiting for him.
davidbroder@washpost.com
? 2004 The Washington Post Company
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Warning Shots Fired at N.Korean Patrol Boat in West Sea
A North Korean patrol boat crossed the Northern Limit Line (NLL) at around 4:47 p.m. on Wednesday, but retreated after the South Korean Navy fired warning shots. This is the first time that a North's patrol boat has trespassed the NLL since the North and South's military authorities activated the hot line on June 15 to prevent accidental confrontation between the two nations.
According to the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS), the North's patrol boat crossed the NLL 0.7 miles towards the south while controlling Chinese ships engaging in illegal operations 15 miles west off the sea from Yeonpyong Island. But it retreated 7 minutes after the South's Navy fired warning shots.
At around 4:40 p.m., right before the boat crossed the NLL, the Navy broadcasted a warning message saying, "Your boat is approaching the NLL. Please, move back to the North immediately." Then, at 4:48, seeing the boat trespass the line, they sent another warning message three times saying, "Your boat crossed the NLL. If you do not move towards the north immediately, we will fire warning shots." Despite these warning messages, the North Korean patrol boat continued to move south, so the Navy fired two shots at 4:54 and drove the boat away north of the NLL at 5:01.
A JSC official said, "Considering that four Chinese fishing ships were operating on the northern sea when the North Korean patrol boat crossed the NLL, we think that they crossed the line accidentally while supervising illegal fishing activities."
There is a possibility, however, that the boat invaded into the NLL to test the South Korean will to guard themselves in this atmosphere in which inter-Korean military tensions have eased following the recent general-level military talks. This assumption was made because unlike other days, there were strange problems in communication between the South and North's patrol boats that day.
Last year, North Korean patrol boats crossed the NLL five times in total and retreated after receiving warning shots three times.

(englishnews@chosun.com )

------------------------------------------------------------------
Seoul's confusing love-in with Pyongyang
By David Scofield

It's been confusing times recently for North Korea's supporters and alleged collaborators in South Korea, a relatively new democracy that has launched a virtual political love-in with Pyongyang, turning a blind eye to its widespread repression and human-rights abuses. Some critics of the North, such as those who try to run an anti-Pyongyang radio station, Free North Korea, have been harassed - FNK may even be forced off the air. And yet a pro-Pyongyang professor languishes in jail - and his sentence soon may be increased for his refusal to denounce the North.
First, on July 1, the Presidential Truth Commission on Suspicious Deaths proclaimed that three North Korean spies who died 30 years ago in South Korean custody were actually "martyrs" in Korea's fledgling democracy movement. Then a day later, the state prosecutor's office announced it would seek to increase the seven-year sentence of German-Korean Professor Song Du-yul, another North Korean supporter, to 15 years for his refusal to renounce involvement in activities in "praise and support" of North Korea's leadership. The Truth Commission has little genuine interest in the plight of Song now, but 30 years after his death he too may be retrospectively labeled a "martyr" in modern South Korea's struggle to realize democracy.
Song Du-yul, like the North Korean spies of 1970, has been imprisoned under anti-subversion, anti-communist legislation that since 1991 has been called the National Security Law (NSL).
The NSL was designed to "suppress anti-state acts that endanger national security". There is no direct reference to North Korea, but Article 1 of that country's constitution states, "The Democratic People's Republic of Korea is an independent socialist state representing the interests of all the Korean people." This strongly suggests that the Pyongyang government is the only legitimate government on the Korean Peninsula and, as such, has earned the title "anti-state" by South Korean authorities.
Professor Song, who returned to South Korea last September 22 at the urging of the Korea Democracy Foundation, was detained by authorities upon arrival at Incheon airport for his "anti-State" activities. Song, a naturalized German citizen, had been convicted by a Seoul court on March 30, 2003, of joining the (North) Korean Workers Party, accepting money from that "anti-state" organization and planning meetings with the same group - offenses still punishable by death in South Korea.
Song knew there was a high likelihood he would be arrested upon his return, but the presidential election of Roh Moo-hyun, the self-styled defender of human rights and ardent advocate of democracy, prompted Song and the Korea Democracy Foundation to challenge the anachronistic law on "anti-state" activities, a decision that Song is paying for with his freedom.
Song is currently in prison awaiting a ruling on the appeal of charges against him, but he is not the only party appealing. The state prosecutor has said the court erred in not finding Song guilty of planning academic meetings in North Korea and it is appealing the sentence, demanding that Song serve a minimum 15 years for his actions and beliefs.
Of course, while Song cools his heels in detention, potentially for the next 15 years, the South Korean government is fully committed to supporting all manner of rapprochement with the "anti-state" government of North Korea. The current administration, like the preceding one under former president Kim Dae-jung, has made reconciliation with North Korea the top priority. South Korea has played host to innumerable events and festivals in celebration of intra-Korean friendship. Most recently Workers Party members from North Korea, "praisers" of the "anti-state North", celebrated with South Koreans at Munhak Stadium in the port city of Incheon in recognition of the four-year anniversary of the North-South summit of June 15, 2000. Not even the arrival of outspoken human-rights activist Norbert Vollersten, displaying photos of the malnourished and starving people in North Korea, could dampen the mood at the intra-Korean love-in.
Explicit articles within the National Security Law notwithstanding, South Korea's rapprochement polices, focused as they are on financial incentives, are illegal and punishable by prison sentences ranging from a year in prison to death, a reading of the document shows.
Intra-Korean cultural festivals and sports meets have become convenient channels for government-sanctioned cash payoffs to North Korea, an offense punishable by seven years in jail. The fourth anniversary of the now-infamous North-South Summit that was celebrated in Incheon last month in itself was a product of a widely reported US$500 million payoff to North Korean leader Kim-Jong-il. The North Korean cultural ambassadors and athletes who have come to South Korea since the summit have left with bags far heavier than when they arrived, as the goodwill of North Korea comes with a high price. Indeed, during the Peace Festival on the South Korean island of Cheju last year, North Korean participants refused to board their plane, already loaded down with new appliances from South Korea, as they said the money being sent to the "Dear Leader" was simply not enough, according to reports. The group demanded, and eventually got, an additional $1 million for Kim, it was reported.
Concerning the "cash for summit" scandal, as it was called in South Korea, former president Kim Dae-jung acknowledged that $100 million went to North Korea, while reports at the time put the amount at $500 million. Many speculated, however, that the real figure was closer to $1 billion. There was a trial and many of Kim Dae-jung's underlings were convicted of the payoff, but all received light, suspended sentences, since the crime was committed with the motive of reunification, or so thought the judge.
During the past year, the South Korean government has become increasingly savvy in finding ways to channel cash to North Korea. The much-heralded Gaesung Industrial Complex appears set to become another conduit for cash to North Korea. Since its inception, those involved with the project have expressed doubt about the viability of the project. The lack of any adherence to market principles - combined with the North Koreans' strong adherence to the pan-Korean practice of making deals and promises only to change agreements unilaterally later as it suits them - make the prospects of profit from the zone, even when the North Korean workers will be paid less than $2 a day, a very remote possibility. Undaunted, the government of South Korea has pledged that any losses incurred by Southern companies will be absorbed by Seoul. The message is clear: you invest the money, we will reimburse you.
So why is Song in jail?
The National Security Law represents to conservatives in South Korea the last line of defense, thwarting ideological invasion from North to South, and it would a mistake to assume that the leftist, pro-North rhetoric so often articulated by those in the Blue House is representative of all government organs, especially those conservative bureaucrats involved in state security. For incumbent administrations, the law's vaguely written articles allow the prosecution of, and the government maximum leeway in interpreting, "anti-state" violations, so that the law becomes a very powerful tool of internal control, and further insurance that all dealings with North Korea will be channeled through the government.
South Korea's use of the NSL to muzzle and imprison ideological supporters of Pyongyang, and not those simply committed to policies of rapprochement through financial appeasement, calls into question the liberal democracy that South Korea purports to be. True reconciliation and rapprochement should be a product of free information and open discussion. Information empowers individuals and changes societies, as the leadership in North Korea is well aware; they maintain unprecedented control over information within the country, a key to the regime's survival
But South Korea, with its liberal democratic institutions, should be establishing itself as an example to its brethren to the north. Let the people of South Korea freely speak, disagree, and debate their beliefs and convictions. The maintenance of the NSL and the imprisonment of Song give the impression that South Korea is not sure of its democracy or democratic principles, fearing plurality and discord, and opting for suppression rather than discussion and debate.

David Scofield, former lecturer at the Graduate Institute of Peace Studies, Kyung Hee University, is currently conducting post-graduate research at the School of East Asian Studies, University of Sheffield, United Kingdom.

(Copyright 2004 Asia Times Online Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact content@atimes.com for information on our sales and syndication policies.)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Logging on to terror.com
By Sudha Ramachandran

BANGALORE - While militant and terrorist groups have been using the Internet for almost a decade, its growing popularity as a meeting place for terrorist groups over the past few years has made cyberspace a key battleground in the "war on terror". Far from successful at "smoking out terrorists" from their hideouts in the mountains and caves of Afghanistan, counter-terrorism strategists are finding the task of tracking terrorists and their activities in cyberspace even more daunting.
There has been a sharp increase in the number of militant groups using the Internet for their activities. In 1998, about half of the 30 militant groups that were labelled terrorist organizations by the US maintained websites. By 2000, almost all terrorist groups had established their presence on the web. According to Gabriel Weimann, senior fellow at the Washington-based United States Institute for Peace (USIP) and professor at the Haifa University in Israel, the number of terrorist-run websites has increased by 571% over the past seven years.
The Internet has become the terrorists' preferred choice of communication for the same reasons it is popular among people in general: it is quick, inexpensive and easily accessible. What makes it particularly attractive to terrorists is that it gives access to huge audiences spread across the world, provides anonymity and is hard to police or regulate.
Not only have the number of terrorist websites increased, but also the uses to which terrorists put the Internet have diversified. Its use as a propaganda tool is perhaps the most overt. Terrorist websites typically outline the nature of the organization's cause and justifications for the use of violence. The Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE) website, for instance, carries accounts of the LTTE's "freedom struggle", the legality of its demand for an independent Tamil Eelam and the legitimacy of its armed struggle. The website carries interviews given by LTTE leader Velupillai Prabakaran and his speech on "Heroes Day". It also carries press releases that provide the media with its take on events in Sri Lanka.
But use of the Internet as a propaganda tool is just the tip of the iceberg. Terrorists are using the Internet as a weapon in psychological warfare, to raise funds, recruit, incite violence and provide training. They also use it to plan, network and coordinate attacks. Thomas Hegghammer, who researches Islamist websites at the Norwegian Defense Research Establishment, says that "in a sense, [the Internet has] replaced Afghanistan as a meeting place".
Groups with links to al-Qaeda used the Internet as a weapon in psychological warfare in the recent spate of kidnappings and beheadings that they carried out. Gruesome videos of the killing of Daniel Pearl and the beheadings of Nick Berg, Paul Johnson, Kim Sun-il and others were posted on the Internet. By doing this, the terrorists were able to reach out to a global audience, and in the process amplify many times over the terror generated by a single terrorist incident.
The "heroism" of the fighters, their "sacrifices" and their "martyrdom" are recurrent themes on which militant websites focus. These are aimed at motivating others to join the cause and also to encourage donations. It is said that while websites play an important role in motivating youngsters to contribute in one way or another to the cause, they stop short of actually recruiting through the web.
Women and children are targeted by these websites, too. Mothers are exhorted to send their sons to battlefields. One website - Princess Taliban - details the many ways women can help the jihad cause, including reading the proper bedtime stories to prepare their children for a future as combatants.
Several websites incite violence and provide know-how, even online training in terror tactics. In an interview with ABC's Lateline reporter Tony Jones, former Reuters journalist Paul Eedle, who is studying radical Islamic websites, compared the Internet with a training camp. He drew attention to two fortnightly magazines, one general political and the other specifically military, being developed by al-Qaeda in Saudi Arabia. Explaining the significance of these online training magazines to al-Qaeda, Eedle pointed out: "They have to replace their physical bases in Afghanistan somehow and so long as there is a small number of highly trained people to lead groups, then these detailed manuals of writing how to write recipes for explosives are all crucial."
The Palestinian militant group Hamas has been providing online training in bomb-making for several years. The module consists of 14 lessons, including the production of a belt filled with explosives used often by suicide bombers. Those who show lack of commitment by missing a class are not allowed to continue with the course.
"The Terrorist's Handbook", "The Anarchist Cookbook" and the "Mujahideen Poisons Handbook", which provide detailed instructions on how to construct bombs and concoct homemade poisons, are posted on several militant websites.
Another manual distributed through the Internet is "The Encyclopedia of Jihad". Prepared by al-Qaeda, it provides detailed instructions on how to establish an underground organization and execute attacks. A recent edition of the al-Qaeda's publication al-Battar - or "The Sword" - provides a comprehensive guide to kidnapping, suggested hostage-taking methods, potential targets, negotiating tactics and directions on how to videotape the decapitation of victims and post the video on the web. Incidentally, this online information was posted ahead of the recent spate of kidnappings and beheadings in West Asia.
Speaking at the New American Foundation in Washington last week, Weimann pointed out that the Hezbollah site provides links to downloadable games. "These games are training children to play the role of terrorists, to be suicide bombers and to actually kill political leaders," Weimann said.
The Internet has been described as a virtual Afghanistan, where terrorists can meet, discuss and plan their operations. Terrorists have been hiding pictures and maps of targets in sports chat rooms, on pornographic bulletin boards and on web sites. Encrypted messages are being sent in pictures on websites - a practice known as steganography - containing instructions for terrorist attacks.
In a USIP-published report "How Modern Terrorism Uses the Internet", Weimann points out that al-Qaeda used the Internet extensively while planning and coordinating the September 11 attacks. Thousands of encrypted messages were posted in a password-protected area of a website. By accessing the Internet in public places and sending messages via public e-mail the operatives preserved their anonymity. He also describes how Hamas militants and sympathizers "use chat rooms to plan operations and operatives exchange e-mail to coordinate actions across Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon and Israel". Instructions in the form of maps, photographs, directions and technical details of how to use explosives are often disguised by means of steganography, which involves hiding messages inside graphic files.
Sometimes, however, instructions are delivered concealed in only the simplest of codes. Mohammed Atta's final message to the other 18 terrorists who carried out the attacks of September is reported to have read: "The semester begins in three more weeks. We've obtained 19 confirmations for studies in the faculty of law, the faculty of urban planning, the faculty of fine arts, and the faculty of engineering." (The reference to the various faculties was apparently the code for the buildings targeted in the attacks.)
But experts like Hegghammer reject the view that militants use the Internet to plan and coordinate attacks. He believes that the sort of planning required for attacks is done in secret "very, very carefully". The Internet, he argues, is used mainly to share ideas and spread propaganda.
While it is the use of the Internet by Islamic militants that has grabbed the attention of intelligence agencies and counter-terrorism officials over the past several years, the Internet is being used by an array of groups with very different ideologies, including American white supremacist and militia groups, anarchists and groups with secessionist ambitions like the self-proclaimed "Republic of Texas". They, too, incite violence and provide input on bomb-making.
Fighting a losing battle
Counter-terrorism experts find themselves in the deep end in their "war on terror" in cyberspace. The rapid pace at which information technology is advancing makes it hard to fight terrorists. Several Islamist militant groups might be using medieval methods of violence, such as beheading, but the skill with which they are using the Internet indicates that their feet are firmly placed in the 21st century.
Shutting down websites does not help, as they re-emerge quickly on different servers. It is difficult to catch moving targets. Weimann describes terrorism on the Internet as "a very dynamic phenomenon: websites suddenly emerge, frequently modify their formats, and then swiftly disappear - or, in many cases, seem to disappear by changing their online address but retaining much the same content".
Not only is the task of intercepting encrypted messages and images on the Internet's estimated 28 billion images and 2 billion websites a tough one, but also interpreting it is difficult as it is impossible to read an encrypted message without cracking the encryption's code. Cracking a code is time-consuming. However, a highly encrypted message crossing the net can sometimes grab the attention of security sleuths who are then likely to crack it. This has prompted several militants to opt for low-tech, text only messages, as these are unlikely to catch attention.
Analysts are suggesting that instead of engaging in a futile effort of closing down websites, counter-terrorism strategists should simply listen to what is being discussed in cyberspace - in the chat rooms and discussion rooms. The discussion rooms provide intelligence on attacks, but more importantly, on how ideology and opinion is shaping in the larger Muslim community. Hegghammer argues: "That is where you really get the early signs of the ideological developments, which are later going to affect us, or might affect us, physically."
Governments and counter-terrorism experts are doing their best to keep up with the terrorists. But barring major technological advances, the cat and mouse game going on in cyberspace is likely to continue, with the mouse remaining elusive.

(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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Pakistan faces its jihadi demons in Iraq
By Kaushik Kapisthalam

When it comes to troops for Iraq, it is no secret that the United States is not too gently pressuring Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf to send soldiers for peacekeeping purposes. And with the appointment of the current Pakistani ambassador to the US, Ashraf Jehangir Qazi, as the next United Nations envoy to Iraq, it appears likely that Islamabad will bow to the pressure.
Should this happen, among the threats its soldiers are likely to face are those from a number of foreign jihadis. While current world attention - thanks to Washington's conviction - seems to be largely focused on Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and his al-Tawhid force, one of the least-reported foreign jihadi groups in Iraq is one of Pakistan's very own - Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
LeT's origins
LeT is a Pakistani Salafist (Wahhabi) jihadi group that was formed in 1986 as the military wing of the Markaz Da'wa wal-Irshad (MDI) or "Center for Religious Learning and Social Welfare". Pakistani Salafists Zafar Iqbal and Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, both professors in the Islamic studies department of the University of Engineering and Technology of Lahore, set up LeT with seed money from a Saudi "sheikh" whom many believe to have been Osama bin Laden. There were also generous contributions from the Islamic University of Medina in Saudi Arabia. Another founding member of the LeT was bin Laden's mentor, Abdullah Azzam, who also had a role in the founding of the Palestinian Hamas.

LeT and the Markaz soon set up bases in the eastern Afghanistan provinces of Kantar and Paktia, both of which had a sizable number of Ahle-Hadith (Salafi) sect followers of Islam, with the aim of participating in the jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Because the LeT joined the Afghan jihad at a period when it was winding down (the Soviets invaded in 1979), the group did not play a major part in the fight against the Soviet forces, which pulled out in 1989. However, the Afghan campaign helped LeT gain the trust of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency as well as gain a cadre of war-hardened fighters. In the 1989-90 period, however, the LeT turned its attention from the internecine squabble in Afghanistan to Kashmir, which is where it gained its notoriety.

Although confused by many analysts as a "Kashmiri" group, LeT in fact is mainly made up of Pakistani Punjabis, with a smattering of Afghans, Arabs, Bangladeshis, Southeast Asians and the occasional Western Muslim recruit. Though the LeT's nominal goal was to help Pakistan annex Indian-administered Kashmir, it fit in well with its grand plans of establishing an Islamic caliphate. LeT sees Hindu-majority India as an obstacle on a par with the US and Israel to the Islamist dream of creating a unified empire that spans the entire Muslim world. LeT is still active in Kashmir, while simultaneously being faithful to its original goal.

Dilshad Ahmad and Fallujah
In April, Indian journalist Praveen Swami, who has long experience in reporting on terrorism, defense and security matters, broke a story in Outlook about a leading LeT ringleader named Dilshad Ahmad being arrested in Iraq by British forces, and then given over to the US for interrogation. A few other people were arrested with Ahmad, who went under several aliases, including Danish Ahmad and Abdul Rehman al-Dakhil.

After the interrogators determined Ahmad's identity, they reached out to their Indian counterparts to find out more about his origins. Ahmad, a longtime Lashkar operative from the Bahawalpur area of Pakistan's Punjab province, was LeT's operational lead for its campaign of violence in India between 1997 and 2001. Ahmad is also known to be a confidant of Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi, the second-in-command in the Lashkar military hierarchy, and has trained many LeT fighters in its Maskar Abu Bashir camp in Afghanistan.

In 1998, Ahmad addressed a major LeT conference in the group's headquarters at Muridke, near Lahore, arguing for the need to extend the organization's activities outside Kashmir. Given all this, Ahmad's presence in Iraq signals an intent on LeT's part to set up a beachhead in Iraq, and therefore should have sent alarm bells ringing among US authorities. But so far there has been little direct mention of the LeT arrest in Iraq beyond the original report of Ahmad's arrest.

Other media reports, while not directly talking about LeT in Iraq, have hinted at such a presence, especially in the violence-torn central Iraqi city of Fallujah. A June 25 report in the Washington Times said that jihadis from foreign nations, including Pakistan, had set up checkpoints throughout Fallujah and were imposing Taliban-like harsh Islamic laws. Even before that a few media reports and comments by military analysts noted the presence of Pakistani jihadis in Iraq. It is quite possible that LeT operatives had set up bases in the Fallujah area in the Sunni triangle.

LeT's suitability for Iraq
Among all the Pakistani jihad groups, there are many reasons the LeT is most suited to operate in Iraq. First, unlike the Deobandi (Islamic thought) jihadi groups such as the Jaish-e-Mohammed and the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, LeT does not have any political ambitions inside Pakistan. The Deobandis have built a powerful political movement within Pakistan, but their political participation has also resulted in periodic tussles with the Pakistani army, which although highly supportive of jihad in Afghanistan and India, nevertheless brooks no challenge to its vise-like grip on political power within the nation. In contrast, the LeT-led Pakistani Salafist movement has traditionally stayed apolitical, and instead focused on global jihad outside Pakistan. Given this, LeT has had a free hand to operate within Pakistan.

Another aspect of LeT's activities is its charitable wing, the Dawa. In fact, the current name of the LeT's parent group is Jamaat-ud-Dawa, or the Party for Preaching. Through its charitable wing, LeT attracts many doctors, engineers and educated professionals to its cause. This could provide a great cover for the LeT to infiltrate into a strife-torn nation such as Iraq. The LeT also has strong links among Saudi Islamists, as well as some members of the royal family. According to LeT's own past claims, a significant portion of its funding comes from Saudi sources, given its Wahhabi ideals. LeT has a good number of Arab volunteers, and it also makes it compulsory for its non-Arab recruits to learn Arabic, which means that its members can easily mingle with Iraq's Arabic-speaking population. For all these reasons, it is not surprising that the LeT sees Iraq as a golden opportunity to strike at its biggest target - the United States.

LeT's overseas experience
LeT has a proven track record of operating far away from its Pakistani base. In what has come to be known as the "Virginia jihad" case, US authorities broke up a terrorist cell in the state of Virginia this year. The ringleader of the cell was a man named Randall Royer, an American convert to Islam. During the trial, six men pleaded guilty, while three more were convicted of terrorism-related charges. The men, belonging to various ethnic backgrounds, admitted to being members of LeT and the published indictment laid out the dates and periods when they went to Pakistan to train in LeT's camps.

The indictment also pointed out that LeT's own website, which constantly changes its address, said the group had four facilities for training mujahideen from around the world, including camps named Taiba, Aqsa, Um-al-Qura and Abdullah bin Masud. The trained LeT fighters, the website claimed, participated in jihad in Afghanistan, Kashmir, Bosnia, Chechnya, Kosovo and the Philippines. The website also prominently displayed a banner portraying LeT's dagger penetrating the national flags of the US, Russia, the United Kingdom, India and Israel. Another LeT cell was recently broken in Australia, with plans to blow up a nuclear reactor, among other targets.

A call to arms
LeT's publications, which are still freely available in Pakistan, have long been a harbinger of the group's plans. Of late, LeT's official statements have concentrated on Iraq more than Kashmir. In fact, a recent editorial in LeT's weekly Urdu publication Ghazwa (Arabic for a raid against unbelievers; September 11, 2001, is described by al-Qaeda as a Ghazwa) called for sending mujahideen to Iraq to take revenge for US actions in the Abu Ghraib prison scandal as well as for the "rapes of Iraqi Muslim women". A translated excerpt from that editorial is below:


The Americans are dishonoring our mothers and sisters. Therefore, jihad against America has now become mandatory. We [LeT] should send our mujahideen to Iraq to fight with the Iraqi mujahideen. Remember that the mujahideen are the last hope for Islam. If the mujahideen are not supported today, Islam will be erased from the map tomorrow.
In this context, Indian reporter Praveen Swami and Pakistani correspondent Mohammad Shehzad recently broke a story that claimed that up to 2,000 Pakistani men had signed up for LeT's armed operations in Iraq, based on their leaders' calls for jihad. Pakistan's border with Iran is porous and could provide an easy opportunity for LeT's fighters to enter Iraq from the east. Notably, Dilshad Ahmad was reportedly captured in Basra, which is close to Iran. LeT's intimate ties with Saudi Arabian Islamists provide another convenient route into Iraq, from the largely unguarded southern Iraqi border with the kingdom.

Banned but free?
What perplexes most analysts is why the US has not pressed Pakistan to shut down the LeT in the first place. Under pressure from the US and the military threat from India, Musharraf banned the LeT, along with some other groups, in January 2002. While more than 2,000 terrorists were arrested, all but a handful were released after a few weeks.

But what happened with the leaders was egregious. According to the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, LeT's Emir Hafiz Saeed was whisked away to a safe house of Pakistan's ISI. After a few months, he was released without any charges being pressed against him. To make up for the inconvenience, Pakistan government apparently even paid him a stipend during his "arrest".

Soon after his release, Emir Saeed barnstormed around Pakistan collecting funds and recruiting volunteers for jihad in Kashmir, Afghanistan and other places. Things got so blatant that US Ambassador to Pakistan Nancy Powell had to issue a harsh statement about the farcical ban, which forced the Pakistanis to act. Even then, the Pakistanis placed LeT on a "watchlist". To make clear where things stood, LeT organized a 150,000-strong rally just hours after being put on the list, and Emir Saeed promised the faithful that its jihad would continue in Kashmir, as well as in Iraq.

LeT also has close ties with al-Qaeda. In April 2002, top al-Qaeda leader Abu Zubaida was arrested from an LeT safe house in Faisalabad, Pakistan. Pakistani officials did not, however, arrest the local LeT leader who had housed Zubaida. LeT also prides itself in its fighters' ability to be brutal. French Islamic experts Maryam Abou Zahab and Olivier Roy note in their recent book Islamist Networks: The Afghan-Pakistan Connection that LeT teaches its members such skills as beheading and eviscerating victims to inflict terror. LeT has also pioneered fidayeen or suicide attacks with multiple fighters on the same target to cause maximum damage.

The upshot for the US and Pakistan
This saga of LeT expanding from a home-grown Pakistani jihadi group focused on Kashmir into a possible multinational terror network points out the danger in allowing nations such as Pakistan to make distinctions between "good terrorists" (who don't attack Americans or Pakistanis) and "bad terrorists" (who target Americans or Pakistanis).

For the Pakistanis, the blowback from a policy of state sponsorship of jihadi groups began in 2002 when a five-member "coalition" of the jihadi organizations was launched to avenge the US invasion as well as Musharraf's about-turn in Afghanistan, where he renounced the Taliban. The coalition was called Brigade 313 (from the number of warriors in the battle of Badr in the times of the Prophet Mohammad) and was made up of the jihadi groups LeT, Jaish-e-Muhammad, Harkat-ul-Jihad al-Islami, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen al-Almi and Lashkar-e Jhangvi. The 313 group is said to be responsible for the killings of Christians in Pakistan, and also attempts on Musharraf's life. Despite this, Musharraf has tried to cut deals with groups such as LeT, instead of shutting them down. It would be ironic if Pakistan sends its troops to Iraq, only to end up fighting terror groups fostered by its own military establishment.

For the US, the scenario is starker. Perhaps US authorities did not want to press Musharraf on LeT because they thought the group was not directly targeting Americans. Or maybe they figured that the general was sincere in his promises to shut down the group. But LeT's Iraq campaign and its ability to recruit fighters openly in Pakistan to fight Americans abroad has exposed the hollowness of such a strategy.

(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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Arms suppliers scramble into Iraq
By Thalif Deen

NEW YORK - When the 15-member United Nations Security Council legitimized the US-imposed interim government in Baghdad in June, the five-page unanimous resolution carried a provision little publicized in the media: the lifting of a 14-year arms embargo on Iraq.
The Security Council's decision to end military sanctions on Iraq has triggered a rush by the world's weapons dealers to make a grab for a potentially multimillion-dollar new arms market in the already over-armed Middle East.
The former US-run Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA), which handed over power to the new Iraqi government on June 28, finalized plans for the purchase of six C-130 Hercules military transport aircraft, 16 Iroquois helicopters and a squadron of 16 low-flying, light reconnaissance aircraft - all for delivery by next April.
The proposed purchases were part of an attempt to rebuild and revitalize Iraq's sanctions-hit, weapons-starved military.
But some experts question the strategy.
"The flow of weapons to Iraq will not improve the security situation in Iraq, nor will it make the country safe from outside threats or an external invasion," said Naseer H Aruri, chancellor professor (emeritus) at the University of Massachusetts. "With 140,000 US military personnel, 20,000 from the so-called coalition of the willing and another 20,000 contracted civilians, Iraq remains occupied and denied effective sovereignty," said Aruri, author of Dishonest Broker: The US Role in Israel and Palestine.
"Purchasing weapons at this time, therefore, is more relevant to the needs of the occupier relating to the suppression of armed opposition, and consolidation of US hegemony. Moreover, it is not appropriate for the interim government, a subcontracting agency for the United States, to go shopping for arms as numerous arms exporting countries compete feverishly for contracts," he told Inter Press Service (IPS).
The United States, the United Kingdom and Jordan are providing assistance and training for the creation of a 40,000-person Iraqi army.
With blessings from the US Congress, the former CPA also earmarked about $2.1 billion for national security, including $2 billion for the new army and $76 million for a civil defense corps.
Since late last year, Iraq has purchased 50,000 handguns from Austria, 421 UAZ Hunter jeeps from Russia and millions of dollars' worth of armored cars from Brazil and Ukraine, along with AK-47 assault rifles, 9mm pistols, military vehicles, fire-control equipment and night-vision devices.
The biggest single deal was a $327 million contract with a US firm to outfit Iraqi troops with body armor, radios and other communications equipment. The contract has been challenged by two non-US firms that lost out on the bidding process.
The decision by the CPA to purchase the handguns from the Austrian gun maker Glock late last year evoked a strong protest to the Pentagon. "There are a number of US companies that could easily provide these weapons," Representative Jeb Bradley, a member of President George W Bush's Republican Party, said in a letter to US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, "Why were other firearms companies, namely American companies, passed over?" he asked.

The US Army Corps of Engineers awarded two contracts, totaling $2.7 million, to US firms in March for transmission, distribution, communications and controls for the Iraqi infrastructure. A third contract valued at $7.8 million - for a modern, digital cellular, command and control system to link the various sites of the Iraqi armed forces and the Coalition Military Assistance Training Team - was also awarded to a US-based company.

The US has also awarded a $150 million contract for the renovation of four military bases at Umm Qasr, al-Kasik, Tadji and Numaniyah in various parts of Iraq. And the Pentagon has plans to expand existing military bases near Mosul, Baghdad and Kut, specifically for the US Army. This contract is estimated at about $600 million.

"It does not seem wise to introduce new weaponry and military capability into Iraq's volatile mix of ongoing war and occupation, civil strife and political transition," said Frida Berrigan, senior research associate with the Arms Trade Resource Center, a project of the World Policy Institute.

On average, more than two US soldiers are killed each day, she said, and inter-Iraqi violence is taking a deadly toll on civilians and government officials. "Before Iraq is outfitted with high-tech weaponry, it seems that the low-tech needs of clean water and reliable electricity should be met," Berrigan told IPS.

In addition, if experience with the Iraqi police force is any indication of what is to come from a US-armed and -trained security force, she said, this is not the right time for the interim leadership to embark on an arms spending spree.

"Instead of aiding the United States in putting down the uprisings, thousands from Iraq's newly trained police force deserted, and many reportedly turned over their US-issued weapons to street fighters. How many of the 135 Americans killed during that month faced American guns and ammunition?" Berrigan asked.

"It's a well-known fact that Iraq is saturated with weapons and ammunition, particularly firearms and light machine-guns, but also others," said Mouin Rabbani, a Middle East analyst based in Jordan and a contributing editor to the Washington-based Middle East Report.

That is one reason the US has experienced so much difficulty in its efforts to eradicate the insurgency, he said: the insurgents do not appear to be dependent on a flow of weapons from outside their borders.

At the same time, the Iraqi security forces, particularly the Iraqi national army once it is properly reconstituted, does not have - or has only very few - weapons systems normally associated with national self-defense, such as combat aircraft, artillery and air defenses, Rabbani said.

"One can argue about whether or not investing in such systems constitutes a particularly wise move by the Iraqi national authorities given the numerous and severe challenges facing Iraqi society," he told IPS.

But it is a fact that a sovereign Iraqi state has a legitimate right to acquire sophisticated weapons systems and, given the way political and military leaders invariably behave, will seek to acquire them, he added.

Rabbani said Iraq has a long military tradition, some would even say a long tradition of militarism, and the dissolution of the Iraqi armed forces, combined with the destruction of much of the heavy weaponry that was left at the end of a previous war, means the government will have to invest considerably more in developing an effective military than would otherwise have been the case.

But, he added, "It would be particularly reprehensible if American and other arms exporters exploit their control of Iraq and its government to foist upon it the purchase and acquisition of weapons systems that are either prohibitively expensive, including systems marked up in price to make a fast buck, or unnecessary."
If they do so, Rabbani said, they will be repeating a pattern of weapons sales seen during the past several decades to, for example, Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf states (part of the system known as petrodollar recycling).
Overall military spending in the Middle East is estimated to reach about $55 billion annually by 2007, rising from about $52 billion in 2003, according to Forecast International, a US-based defense market research organization.
The big spenders include Saudi Arabia, which will average more than $18 billion in defense spending annually through 2007, followed by Israel (more than $9 billion), Iran ($4.5 billion), the United Arab Emirates (about $3.7 billion) and Egypt (more than $3 billion).
A large proportion of the funds is earmarked for weapons purchases, mostly from the US, the UK, France and Russia.
Iraq's first decisions concerning military acquisitions will be critical, Rabbani said, because they will virtually determine subsequent purchases (in terms of compatibility, for example).
"It therefore seems to me crucial that such decisions be made by a genuinely independent Iraqi government, upon the recommendation of a professional assessment by a genuinely independent Iraqi military high command, on the basis of both the current and future needs of the country and its existing traditions," he said.
Even "grants" of sophisticated weapons by the US or other states with military export industries will interfere with this process, said Rabbani. "The pattern in Iraq so far is that it is being seen as a financial bonanza - and where civilian contractors like Halliburton and Bechtel have gone, military contractors such as Lockheed and Raytheon can be expected to follow."

(Inter Press Service)


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Radio Free Syria to Break Assad's Media Monopoly
By Nick Grace
June 17, 2004

Radio Free Syria will hit the airwaves this weekend, Clandestine Radio Watch (CRW) has learned, marking the first phase of a sophisticated media campaign to chip away at the Ba'ath Party regime in Damascus and to promote democracy and tolerance.
The station's inaugural broadcast will occur on June 20, 2004, and air thereafter on Sundays at 1800 UTC on 13650 kHz.
Sources within the Reform Party of Syria, which built the station, tell CRW that the schedule is planned to expand after a period of testing. Although the sources would not confirm the location of the transmitter reports in the Israeli press point to a facility in Cyprus allegedly funded by Washington. "We are not funded by anyone," one source close to the station's operations said. "Radio Free Syria is being built independently with the support of Syrian businessmen and women who want openess and peace."
Radio Free Syria will be the first station run by Syrians, themselves, that promotes democracy, freedom of conscience and respect for minority and human rights. Its planners expect this message to serve as a burst of fresh air for their target audience, which is subjected to state-run propaganda that serves to bolster the ruling Ba'ath Party as well as Islamist programming preaching intolerance broadcast by such outlets as The Arabic Radio and Hezbollah's TV and radio stations. Live roundtable discussions are planned as well as comedy and entertainment that all listeners can enjoy - Muslims, Christians, Arabs, Kurds and Assyrians.
"This is just the first phase," a planner said. "The regime's feet is about to be put into the fire."
Listeners are welcome to contact the station by e-mail, webmaster@radiofreesyria.org. The station also has a Web site that contains programming that can be downloaded, www.radiofreesyria.org.

Run by the Reform Party of Syria the station began test broadcasts on the Internet on Mar 31, 2004, and is planning actual radio broadcasts to Syria via Cyprus.


Copyright ?1996-2004 ClandestineRadio.com. All rights reserved.

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Radio Free World
Liberty-starved countries see a boom in clandestine radio.

By Nir Boms & Erick Stakelbeck
Although it often seems like a solitary outpost of democratic sanity, the U.S. is not alone in waging the war of ideas.
Since 9/11, over a dozen privately owned, pro-democracy radio stations have emerged in freedom-starved countries like North Korea, Syria, Iran, and Cuba.
From the earliest days of World War II to its peak during the Cold War, clandestine radio played a critical role in the fight for liberty. Today is no exception.
Iraq's Radio al-Mustaqbal figured prominently in the CIA's covert plans to topple Saddam Hussein throughout the past decade. Likewise, Voice of the People of Kurdistan played an integral part in the Pentagon's psychological war prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq last March, eventually helping to secure the surrender of 9,000 Iraqi soldiers at the outset of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
Following the fall of Saddam, these clandestine outlets, now fully licensed, joined the rapidly growing Iraqi media market, which is comprised of over 50 fledgling radio and television stations. Among them is Radio Dijla, Baghdad's only private, commercial radio station. Operating out of a modest house in the Baghdad suburbs, Radio Dijla allows listeners a forum to freely express their views and concerns, a concept unheard of in Iraq just 15 months ago.
In Afghanistan, where an estimated 96 percent of all households own a radio unit, clandestine radio has also begun to blossom. After the fall of the Taliban in late 2001, a pair of successful Afghan-Australian businessmen, Zaid and Sadd Moshen, returned to Afghanistan and developed the first commercial FM radio station in the country's history.
Called "Arman" (the Afghan word for home), the station addresses issues such as human rights, women's rights, national reconciliation, and the importance of private-sector contribution and social responsibility.
Beginning in 1979, Iran saw a similar rise in pro-democracy broadcasting spurred by the ascension of Ayatollah Khomeini's tyrannical regime. Today, there are no fewer than 16 clandestine, anti-government radio stations operating over Iranian airwaves.
One of the most successful of these subversive outlets is KRSI radio, which began broadcasting into Iran from Los Angeles in 1999.
"Every time we hear of a political prisoner being arrested, we announce his name, write to the U.S., U.N., and the human-rights community, and start a campaign," says Ali Reza Morovati, one of the founders of KSRI. "Now the people in Iran have a voice, and I sense that even the ayatollahs are being more cautious."
An important newcomer to the clandestine-radio arena is Syria. Last week, the U.S.-based Syrian Reform party launched "Radio Free Syria" in order to "educate the Syrian public on issues of democracy, freedom and the cessation of violence." The station, which is available on shortwave frequency and the Internet, plans to air cynical and humorous programs criticizing Syria's ruling Baath party as well as on-air plays written by dissident Syrian playwrights.
"Radio Free Syria will help us unite and consolidate the reformers inside Syria with the reformers pressuring the regime from the outside," says Farid Ghadry, president of the Syrian Reform party and Syrian Democratic Coalition.
Elsewhere, a dissident station called Radio Free North Korea began operating out of Seoul this past April, thanks to the efforts of a small group of North Korean defectors. "Our program aims to help North Koreans know better about their actual situation and to let the rest of the world know about the reality of the North Korean government," says Kim Sung-Min, the station's president and chief writer. "(Our aim is also) to finally lead the nation to become a democratic nation like South Korea."
A precedent of sorts exists for the efforts of Sung-Min, Ghadry, and Morovati: It can be argued that the U.S.-backed Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty helped hasten the fall of the Iron Curtain and defeat Soviet Communism during the 1980s. Unlike these programs, however, the purveyors of clandestine radio operate without state funding.
"What we're seeing is a true grassroots effort to democratize these countries without the help of state dollars," says Nick Grace, Washington managing editor of Clandestine Radio.com, a monitoring project that tracks subversive media around the world. "Commercial opposition broadcast radio predates September 11. However, it is clear that the war of ideas awakened a number of pro-democratic groups around the world to the effectiveness of the media as a weapon to spark a change in their respective countries."
Over the last two years, the U.S has become much more engaged in its attempts to foster democracy around the world, particularly in the Middle East. Institutions like the National Endowment for Democracy and Voice of America, along with projects like the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI), have almost quadrupled their funding over this period. MEPI, according to State Department statistics, received $29 million in 2002 and $100 million in 2003, while $145 million has been committed for 2004.
But only $3.2 million, or 3.3 percent, of MEPI's funds were directed to help indigenous NGOs, and none of this money was allocated to voices of opposition in countries like Syria, Saudi Arabia, or Iran (which is currently ripe for change, in large part because of its burgeoning pro-democracy movement).
While U.S. policymakers have invested millions in radio and TV stations that aspire to deliver a "natural" voice aired out of Washington, they've bypassed opportunities to help genuine pro-democracy advocates that often struggle merely to stay on the airwaves. If the U.S. wishes to be truly effective in its efforts to spread democracy, it should reconsider this strategy.
-- Nir Boms is a senior fellow at the Council for Democracy and Tolerance. Erick Stakelbeck is senior writer for the Investigative Project.


http://www.nationalreview.com/voices/nir_boms_stakelbeck200407130857.asp

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The Benefits Trap
Old-line companies have pledged a trillion dollars to retirees. Now they're struggling to compete with new rivals, and many can't pay the bill.

June 28 was the day hope ran out for United Airlines' 35,000 retirees. That was the day the government announced it would not guarantee the bankrupt airline's loans -- virtually assuring that if UAL Corp., (UALAQ ) the airline's parent, is to remain in business it will have to chop away at expensive pension and retiree medical benefits. The numbers are daunting. UAL owes $598 million in pension payments between now and Oct. 15, and a total of $4.1 billion by the end of 2008, plus an additional $1 billion for retiree health-care benefits, obligations the ailing airline can't begin to meet. And if United finds a way to get out of its promises, competitors American Airlines (AMR ), Delta Air Lines (DAL ), and Northwest Airlines (NWAC ) are sure to try to as well.

UAL workers are about to find out what other airline employees already know: The cost of broken retirement promises can be steep. Captain Tim Baker, a 19-year veteran of US Airways Inc. (UAIR ), was one of several union representatives sorting through that airline's complicated bankruptcy negotiations in March, 2003. Of the airline's many crises, the biggest was the pilots' pension plan, a sinkhole of unfunded liabilities. Baker reluctantly agreed to back US Airways' proposal to dump the pension plan on the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. (PBGC), the government agency that is the insurer of last resort for hopelessly broken plans. It's a move that practically guarantees that retirees will receive less than they were promised, in some cases less than 50 cents on the dollar. But of a raft of bad options, it seemed the only one that could keep the company afloat. "It was the pension underfunding and its future requirements that were going to put in jeopardy the airline's ability to get out of bankruptcy," says Baker. "At some point you have to look around and say that is all there is."

Baker has paid dearly for that decision. He was voted out of his union position by angry fellow pilots and instead of the six-figure annual pension he was promised, when he retires in 15 years he'll get just $28,585 a year from the PBGC, plus whatever he can save in his 401(k).

Stories like Baker's are becoming dreadfully common as employers faced with mounting retiree costs look to get out from under. It's not just troubled industries like airlines that are abandoning their role as retirement sponsors to America's workers, either. The escalating cost of retirement plans is a critical issue at a range of long-established companies from Boeing (BA ) to Ford Motor (F ) to IBM (IBM ), many of which compete against younger companies with little or nothing in retiree costs.

SHIFTING THE RISK
As employers abandon ever-more-costly traditional retirement plans, the burden is falling on individuals and taxpayers

Why are retirees being left out in the cold? An unsavory brew of factors have come together to put stress on the retirement system like never before. First, there's the simple fact that Americans are living longer in retirement, and that costs more. Next come internal corporate issues, including soaring health-care costs and long-term underfunding of pension promises. Perhaps most important, in the global economy, long-established U.S. companies are competing against younger rivals here and abroad that pay little or nothing toward their workers' retirement, giving the older companies a huge incentive to dump their plans. "The house isn't burning now, but we will have a crisis soon if some of these issues aren't fixed," says Steven A. Kandarian, who ended a two-year stint as the executive director of the PBGC in February. Kandarian is not optimistic about how that crisis might play out, either. "By that time it will be too late to save the system. Then you just play triage."

As industry after industry and company after company strive to limit -- or eliminate -- their so-called legacy costs, a historic shift is taking place. No one voted on it and Congress never debated the issue, but with little fanfare we have entered into a vast reorganization of our retirement system, from employer funded to employee and government funded, a sort of stealth nationalization of retirement. As the burden moves from companies to individuals -- who have traditionally been notoriously poor planners -- it becomes near certain that in the end, a bigger portion will fall on the shoulders of taxpayers. "Where the vacuum develops, the government is forced to step in," says Sylvester J. Schieber, a vice-president at benefit-consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide (WW ). "If we think we can walk away from these obligations scot-free, that's just a dream."

EVIDENCE OF THE SHIFT is everywhere. Traditional pensions -- so-called "defined-benefit" plans -- and retiree health insurance were once all but universal at large companies. Today experts can think of no major company that has instituted guaranteed pensions in the past decade. None of the companies that have become household names in recent times have them: not Microsoft (MSFT ), not Wal-Mart Stores (WMT ), not Southwest Airlines (LUV ). In 1999, IBM, which has old-style benefits and contributed almost $4 billion to shore up its pension plans in 2002, did a study of its competitors and found 75% did not offer a pension plan and fewer still paid for retiree health care.

Instead, companies are much more likely to offer defined-contribution plans, such as 401(k)s, to which they contribute a set amount. In 1977, there were 14.6 million people with defined-contribution benefits; today there are an estimated 62.5 million. Part of their appeal has been that a more mobile workforce can take their benefits with them as they hop from job to job. But just as important, they cost less for employers. Donald E. Fuerst, a retirement actuary at Mercer Human Resource Consulting LLC, notes that while even a well-matched 401(k) often costs no more than 3% of payroll, a typical defined-benefit plan can cost 5% to 6% of payroll.

Despite the stampede to defined-contribution plans, there are still 44 million Americans covered by old-fashioned pensions that promise a set payout at retirement. All told, they're owed more than $1 trillion by 30,000 different companies. Many of those employers have also promised tens of billions of dollars more in health-care coverage for retirees. Even transferring a small part of the burden to individuals or the government can have a profound impact on the corporate bottom line. The decision by Congress to have Medicare cover the cost of prescription drugs, for example, will lighten corporate retiree health-care obligations by billions of dollars. Equipment maker Deere & Co. (DE ) estimates that the move will shave $300 million to $400 million off its future health-care liabilities starting this year.

The U.S. Treasury, on the other hand, pays and pays dearly. That drug benefit, which takes effect in 2006, is expected to cost the government the equivalent of 1% of gross domestic product by 2010, and other potentially big taxpayer costs are looming, too. In mid-April, over the objections of the PBGC, Congress granted a two-year reprieve from catch-up pension contributions for two of the most troubled industries: airlines and steel. Congress also lowered the interest rate all companies use to calculate long-term obligations, lowering pension liabilities. While these moves lighten the corporate burden, they increase the chances taxpayers will have to step in. "The less funding required, the more risk that's shifting to the government," says Peter R. Orszag, a pension expert and senior fellow in economic studies at the Brookings Institution. "The question is: How comfortable are we with the risk of failure?"

Company-sponsored health care, which generally covers retirees not yet eligible for Medicare and supplements what Medicare will pay, is likely to disappear even faster than company pensions. Subject to fewer federal regulations, those benefits are easier to rescind and companies are fast doing so. It's much harder to renege on pension promises. So instead, many profitable companies are simply freezing plans and denying the benefits to new employees. Last fall, Aon Consulting (AON ) found that 150 of the 1,000 companies they surveyed had frozen their pension plans in the previous two years, a dramatic increase from earlier years. Another 60 companies said they were actively considering following suit.

STRESS ON A FRAGILE SYSTEM
The government bailout fund is $9.7 billion in the red, and Social Security and personal savings are hardly going to be enough

The cost of honoring PBGC's commitments could be higher than anyone is expecting. The government bailout fund has relied on having enough healthy companies to pony up premiums to cover plans that fail. But in a scenario of rising plan terminations, healthy companies with strong plans still in the PBGC system would be asked to pay more. For corporations already fretting that pensions have become a competitive liability and a turnoff to investors, this could be the tipping point. Faced with higher insurance costs, they could opt out, rapidly accelerating the system's decline as the remaining healthy participants become overwhelmed by the needy. In the end, the problem would land with Congress, which could be forced to undertake a savings-and-loan-type bailout. It's almost too painful to think about, and so no one does. But when the bill comes due, it will almost certainly be addressed to taxpayers.

Most worrisome is the record number of pension plans in danger of going under. According to the PBGC, as of September, 2003, there was at least $86 billion in pension obligations promised by companies deemed financially weak. That's up from $35 billion the year before. And it's on top of a record number of companies that managed to dump their troubled pension plans on the PBGC last year: 152. In 2003, a record 206,000 people became PBGC pensioners, including 95,000 from its biggest takeover ever, Bethlehem Steel Corp.

Even for healthy companies, pensions have become a serious drag. The companies of the Standard & Poor's 500-stock index, for example, continue to run an aggregate pension deficit of $149 billion, according to David Bianco, an accounting analyst at UBS (UBS ). That's despite a strong stock market in 2003, which pushed up pension plan assets, and despite the billions companies contributed, including $18.5 billion from General Motors Corp. (GM ) alone. If conditions don't change, Bianco figures the S&P 500 companies will end the year $192 billion in the hole.

WHAT TODAY MIGHT be seen as an isolated problem for a limited number of companies promises to bloom into big trouble for us all. By conventional math, the PBGC is already insolvent: As of September, 2003, it had $46.5 billion of liabilities and only $35 billion of assets, a deficit of $11.5 billion that had close to tripled in one year. The agency paid 2003 benefits of $2.5 billion, but only took in $1 billion of premium income from companies with defined-benefit plans. (The PBGC says the deficit had dropped to $9.7 billion as of March, but can't give further details.) The PBGC is not directly funded by the taxpayer, but it is backed by the U.S. government, which would likely bail it out in a crisis.

The fragility of that system only increases the stress on other sources of retirement income and insurance: Social Security, Medicare, and personal savings. Social Security has its own $11.9 trillion deficit. And the still-recent history of personal savings vehicles like 401(k)s shows that people generally save too little, pay too much in fees, and fail to adequately diversify their risk. Olivia S. Mitchell, executive director of the Wharton School's Pension Research Council, is among the many who think one result is that we will all have to work longer than we thought. "It used to be thought Social Security was the safe leg of the retirement stool, but that's not safe either," says Mitchell.

Demographic trends will only make matters worse. As recently as 1985 there were three U.S. workers for every retired person. Now it's close to even. And we're still six years away from 2010, when the first of the baby boomers will hit 65. Not only are more people retiring, but they're living longer once they get there. Today 17% of the U.S. population is age 60 or older. According to Census Dept. data, that figure will rise to 26% by 2050, when college graduates entering the workforce today can finally begin to think about retiring. It's the complete reversal of the years after World War II, when companies first began offering pension plans in great numbers. In those days the workforce was young and retirees were only a sliver of the population. It was easy to make promises.

The world has changed dramatically since then. In the '40s and '50s, if a company offered retirement benefits, its competitors probably did too. Pattern bargaining by unions held entire industries to the same standard. But companies that once could rely on geographic boundaries and market dominance to minimize the threat of upstarts and outsiders are now struggling to keep up in a global marketplace full of new competitors. Companies like IBM, Verizon Communications (VZ ), and even General Motors today must contend with rivals who don't bear the cost of old-style benefits. For every lumbering US Airways there's an agile Southwest or Jet Blue Airways Corp. (JBLU ), newer rivals with cheaper benefits. For every GM, there's a Toyota Motor Corp., with a leaner and younger U.S. workforce.

Nowhere are pension obligations a greater competitive millstone than in Detroit. The U.S. carmakers today have some of the biggest pension obligations and pool of retirees anywhere. By contrast, their Japanese competition only started U.S. manufacturing in the late 1980s, and have far lower costs. General Motors has 514,120 participants in its hourly-rate employee pension plan, all but 142,617 of whom are retired. Pension and health-care costs for those retirees added up to about $6.2 billion in 2003, or roughly $1,784 per vehicle according to Morgan Stanley (MWD ). Compare that to Toyota's U.S. (TM ) plan, which had only 9,557 participants, just two of whom were retired as of Toyota's latest Internal Revenue Service filing covering 2001. Toyota's pension cost is estimated at something less than $200 per vehicle.

The impact on profits is dramatic. Excluding gains from its finance arm, GM earned $144 per vehicle in the U.S. in 2003. GM's margins are now 0.5%, among the worst in the industry. But without the burden of pension and retiree health-care costs, the auto makers' global margins would be 5.5%, according to Morgan Stanley. That's not great, but a lot closer to Asian carmakers like Honda Motor Corp., which earns 7.5% on its global sales.

GOODBYE, RETIREE HEALTH CARE
Companies are racing to cut or drop retiree medical benefits to give a quick boost to their bottom lines

Retiree health-care coverage, which is easier to eliminate than pensions, is disappearing even faster. Unlike pensions, which are accrued and funded over time, retiree health care is paid for out of current cash accounts, so any cuts immediately bolster the bottom line. Estimates are that as many as half of the companies offering retiree health care 10 years ago have now dropped the benefit entirely. Many of those that have not yet slammed the door are requiring their former workers to bear more of the cost. Some 22% of the retirees who still get such benefits are now required to pay the insurance premiums themselves, according to a study by Hewitt Associates Inc. (HEW ). Some 20% of employers told Hewitt that they might make retirees pay within the next three years. This hits hardest those who retire before 65 and are not yet eligible for Medicare. But even older retirees suffer when they lose supplemental health benefits like prescription coverage.

IT'S NOT JUST struggling companies, either. IBM, which is already fighting with retirees in court over changes made to its pension plan in the 1990s, is now getting an earful from angry retirees about health-care costs. In 1999, IBM capped how much retiree health care it would pay per year at $7,500 of each employee's annual medical-insurance costs. Although IBM is certainly in no financial distress -- the company earned $7.6 billion on $89 billion in sales last year -- Big Blue says its medical costs have been rising faster than revenue. Last year the company says it spent $335 million on retiree health care.

This year, for the first time, many IBM retirees are beginning to hit the $7,500 limit. Sandy Anderson, who worked as a manager at IBM's semiconductor business for 32 years, and today is the acting president of a group of 2,000 retirees called Benefits Restoration Inc., saw his own insurance bill triple this year. He suspects that the company is trying to make the perk so expensive that retirees drop it, a cumulative savings calculated by the group at $100,000 per dropout.

But more than that, Anderson is angry that as a manager, IBM encouraged him to talk to his staff about retirement benefits as part of their overall compensation. The job market was tight, and IBM's message was our salaries aren't the highest, but we will take care of you when you stop working, he says. Now he feels the company is reneging. "I feel I've misled a lot of people, that I've lied to people," says Anderson. "It does not sit well with me at all." IBM says its opt-out levels are low and that it often sees retirees return to the plan after opting out for a period of time. The company also argues that it has not changed its approach to retiree medical benefits for more than a decade and that the rising cost of health care is the real issue.

Even with the reductions, Anderson and his generation of retirees are better off than many. In 2003 the giant computer maker said it would pay nothing toward health insurance for future hires when they retire.

THE PERFECT PENSION STORM
Three years of stock market declines plus record-low interest rates have left pension funds woefully underfunded

One reason companies have hit the accelerator on dumping their benefits is because of sharp price increases. Retirement plans have become radically more expensive in the past two years alone. Due to smoothing mechanisms built into pension accounting, their investments are still suffering from the equity market declines of 2000, 2001, and 2002. That has put a big dent in the value of their stock holdings, generally 60% or more of their total assets. At the same time, interest rates, which are used to calculate the size of a company's liability, have remained stubbornly low, implying a bigger pension liability. Although the recent legislation eases the problem somewhat, it doesn't nearly close the gap between what these funds owe and what they have in assets.

Combined with the rise in retirees, those market conditions have led to two years of record underfunding in company-sponsored plans. A recent study by analysts at CreditSights Ltd. found that 85% of the defined-benefit plans in the S&P 500 don't have enough assets to cover their pension obligations. Together the underfunding equals 15% of their 2003 cash flow. As a result, companies will have to put billions of dollars of cash into these plans this year to help close the gap.

It's a drastic turnaround from the late 1990s when these plans had more than enough money. In 1999, the average S&P 500 pension was overfunded by $726 million, according to CreditSights. Four years later, at the end of 2003, it was $463 million underfunded, a swing of almost $1.2 billion. A steady rise in interest rates and a strong stock market could help to solve that underfunding, but experts worry that the whipsaw effect of the past few years and the billions companies have been forced to contribute has heightened executive discomfort with the volatility of pensions. According to Credit Suisse First Boston (CSR ) analyst David Zion, the companies in the S&P 500 have contributed $88 billion to their pension plans over the past two years. They're likely to have to add another $31 billion over the next two years. Despite an $18.5 billion infusion into its pension plan in 2003, it will take years before General Motors, for example, has fully funded plans. "These things have a fairly long tail," says GM Chairman and CEO G. Richard Wagoner Jr.

Companies didn't make it any easier on themselves by contributing as little as possible to their pensions in the booming 1990s. As recently as 2001, half of the large pensions monitored by actuaries at Milliman USA were generating pension income, contributing an aggregate $12.5 billion boost to their parent companies' reported earnings. Companies with overfunded pension plans were often able to fund retiree health care with pension overage. Many companies contributed little or nothing to their pension plans as the bull market drove up assets more than enough. Former PBGC chief Kandarian notes that adjusting for inflation, in the early 1980s plan sponsors were putting $63 billion per year into their plans. By the last half of the 1990s that had dropped to $26 billion, and companies had become used to getting expensive benefits on the cheap.

WHEN THEY DID contribute, it was often not with cash but with stock, real estate, and other less liquid "alternative" investments. With pension promises basically free, companies were also offering pension increases in lieu of salary raises, increasing their obligations. From 1980 to 2000, the size of the promises made grew 2.3 times, Kandarian says.

Among those making the most extravagant retirement pledges were the steel mills, and it was in their plans that the industry's weakness was most dramatically realized. In a massive wave of bankruptcies, the steelmakers have shifted $7.5 billion of their obligations to the PBGC in the past 3 years.

But in that disaster some have found an opportunity to arbitrage the difference between the old retirement model and the new. International Steel Group Inc. (ISG ) has in the past two years grown into the largest steelmaker in the country by acquiring the mills of old steel companies, including Bethlehem Steel, LTV, and Acme Metals out of bankruptcy, once they've been freed of pension and health-care promises. These companies had been pummeled by cheaper international competition as well as lower-cost U.S. mini-mills, and as they shrank to cut costs, their retiree bases mushroomed to many times the size of the active workforce. Faced with the possibility that they would lose all the remaining jobs left at these companies, the United Steelworkers union was eventually willing to compromise.

RISK ARBITRAGE
A company free of its retiree promises can become a tougher competitor -- though former workers suffer

Free of those pension promises, ISG chairman Wilbur L. Ross Jr. enjoyed the big run-up in steel prices on a much cheaper cost base than many of his competitors. ISG's predecessor companies shed $12 billion of legacy health-care costs and another $9 billion of pension obligations. The company today claims to be competitive with both international steelmakers and efficient U.S.-based mini-mills. ISG's defined-contribution cost for employees was $45 million in 2003. Its very modest retiree health-care benefits cost $4.3 million. By contrast, Bethlehem Steel alone was paying out $500 million a year in pension benefits. Today, U.S. Steel Corp. (X ) has moved to an ISG-style defined-contribution pension plan, but only for future retirees. It still owes $8 billion to existing pensioners.

It's a bit of retiree-cost arbitrage that won't last forever. But before it's over, Ross predicts other industries will follow this harsh path to competitiveness. Those most at risk: textile makers, airlines, tire and rubber companies, auto-parts suppliers and, potentially, he says, the auto makers. "There is a huge unfunded liability that's building up because of the defined-benefit system," says Ross. "If nothing changes, the stone they [PBGC] have to roll up the hill will just get heavier."

Workers bear the brunt of it. Bill Luoma, head of the Mahoning Valley Steelworkers Retirees Council, which counts bankrupt LTV retirees among its members, says that with their health insurance gone, many have stopped visiting doctors other than for emergencies. For companies struggling to compete in the global economy, carrying those burdens themselves is like strapping on a 200-pound weight to run a 40-yard dash. But to shed them is to leave decades of workers devastated. In the end, someone will have to pay. The only question is who.


By Nanette Byrnes with David Welch in Detroit




Copyright 2000-2004, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.

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Underground Dwellers
There are more than you might think.



Last week, the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris issued a new report on the underground economy. This is only the latest study showing that a large fraction of employment and production in major countries as well as developing nations is taking place off the books, unrecorded in national accounts and untaxed by governments.

According to the report, the underground economy varies from 1.5 percent of gross domestic product in the United Kingdom to almost half in the Kyrgyz Republic. The OECD does not present data for the United States, but there is much data showing that it is a growing problem here as well. A recent book, The Shadow Economy: An International Survey (Cambridge University Press) by economists Friedrich Schneider and Dominik Enste, estimated the U.S. underground economy at between 6.7 percent of GDP and 13.9 percent in 1990, depending on the method used for calculation.

One common method is to look at currency in circulation as an indication of underground economic activity. By its nature, such activity is done almost entirely in cash so as to avoid detection by the authorities through checks or credit cards. On this basis, underground economic activity in the U.S. has probably risen sharply since 1990.

According to the Treasury Department, in 1990 there was $1,105 of currency in circulation for every American. By March of this year, that figure had risen to $2,455, an increase of 122 percent. It is highly unlikely that all of this increase is due to the needs of consumers to buy more goods and services, because per capita personal consumption expenditures only rose by 79 percent over the same period. This suggests that at least 35 percent of the increased demand for cash was for underground economic activity.

A further indication that this is the case is shown by looking at the composition of currency in circulation. Since 1990, 84 percent of the increase in currency is accounted for by $100 bills. Such bills now represent 71 percent of the monetary value of all U.S. currency, up from 52 percent in 1990. Average people do not ordinarily use $100 bills, but they are used heavily in the underground economy, which includes drug dealing and other illegal activity. Hence, it is reasonable to assume that the increased demand for $100's is due almost entirely to an increase in the underground economy.

Of course, even if this is true, it doesn't necessarily mean that the underground economy is growing here. U.S. currency is the exchange medium of choice for underground activity worldwide. Indeed, 45 percent of U.S. currency circulates outside the U.S. for this reason. According to the Commerce Department, the U.S. "exported" $16.6 billion in currency last year, almost all of it in the form of $100 bills.

The former chief economist for the International Monetary Fund notes that the European currency, the euro, is now competing for the underground economy's business by having 500 euro notes, worth more than 5 times the U.S. $100, the largest bill printed by the Treasury in more than 50 years. He notes that $1 million in $100's would fit in a briefcase, but $1 million worth of 500 euro notes would fit in a purse -- a big advantage in the underground world.

The underground economy results from many factors, including criminal activity. But the bulk of it arises from ordinary businessmen and workers who are evading taxes and government regulations. The OECD downplays the importance of taxes and puts most of the responsibility on regulation. However, other studies have found that high tax rates are the most important factor in stimulating growth of the underground economy.

"In various surveys, the tax burden has always been identified as the main cause for the growth of the shadow economy," according to Schneider and Enste. Their analysis found that a 10-percentage point increase in the tax burden would cause the underground economy to rise by 3 percent of GDP. A Federal Reserve study found an even higher response, with an increase in the tax rate from 9.3 percent to 10 percent leading to a 1.5 percent rise in underground output.

A recent IMF study found that the composition of taxation was very important. High taxes on small businesses and the self-employed were most likely to lead to underground economic activity. "Raising tax rates too high drives firms into the underground economy," the study concluded.

One indication that taxes are stimulating tax evasion here is that the amount of income reported on tax returns has fallen compared to the amount of income paid as calculated by the Commerce Department. This income gap tends to rise and fall with the tax burden.

Whether caused by taxes or regulations, it is clear that government is the prime cause of the underground economy.

-- Bruce Bartlett is senior fellow for the National Center for Policy Analysis. Write to him here.


http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_bartlett/bartlett200407140832.asp


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China's Bourses: Stock Markets Or Casinos?
They're still roller coasters of instability -- and change may take some time


When shares of Han's Laser Technology Co. began trading on June 26, it was a red-letter day for the Shenzhen Stock Exchange, which hadn't seen an initial public offering since October, 2000. But the joy was short-lived for any investors who had been hoping for more than a speculative pop from the stock. After soaring 367% on its opening day of trading, shares of the Shenzhen maker of laser markers deflated by the maximum 10% limit the next day -- and the next, and the next. By July 7, Han's Laser was nearly 50% off its high and, though still above its offering price, showed no signs of stabilizing. Such volatility "doesn't have any meaning at all," says a Han's Laser spokesman. "It only reveals speculation." To experts, the stock was acting just like the market in which it trades. "It's like a casino," says Zhang Qi, analyst at Haitong Securities Co. in Shenzhen. "Everybody's speculating."

Indeed, Shenzhen and the larger Shanghai Stock Exchange both have a reputation for being little more than short-term trading dens that scare away serious investors. That's a problem, because China has a pressing need for stock markets capable of efficiently allocating capital to its fast-growing industrial base. As in the 1990s dot-com boom in the West, nothing exposes the instability of China's markets better than IPOs. Seven other companies made their debut on the Shenzhen market the same day as Han's Laser. Each rose an average of 129.9% before beginning a downward spiral.

The stock-flipping behind these gyrations, by both brokers and retail punters, even has a name: chao gu, which translates roughly as "stir-fried shares." Fundamentals? Some companies have them, some don't. (Han's Laser, for its part, is profitable, boasting net income of $4.44 million last year.) No matter: In the 13-year history of the mainland bourses, the initial success rate of IPOs has been almost 100%. Last year the average first-day gain among the 64 new listings in Shanghai was an eye-popping 72% -- and last year was a bear market. Most quickly lose altitude. One exception: China Yangtze Power Co., whose shares have climbed steadily since it debuted last November. But trading in new stocks is typically purely speculative. Almost no one in these markets thinks of buying and holding stocks -- a sure sign of an immature market.

BRING ON THE FOREIGNERS
What can be done to create authentic market conditions? The China Securities Regulatory Commission has been declaring its good intentions since it was created in 1992. But the agency has been hampered by its inexperience and lack of independence -- it is basically an arm of the State Council, China's all-powerful Cabinet. Plus, the markets were established solely as a way for state-owned companies to privatize, not as a way to raise money for deserving companies. (The CSRC did not reply to faxed questions.)

One strategy authorities are pursuing to strengthen Chinese bourses is to allow in foreign investors. The theory is that with foreigners demanding higher standards for listed companies, trading will become more regular and IPOs more thoroughly vetted, and the reputation of the exchanges will improve, making them competitive with rival Hong Kong. Thus, under the Qualified Foreign Institutional Investors program, which began in May, 2003, foreign institutions may now invest directly in the $500 billion A-share markets of Shanghai and Shenzhen, which were previously off-limits.

But things are off to a slow start. According to the State Administration of Foreign Exchange, out of $1.8 billion in foreign investment capital approved at the end of March and earmarked for financial investments, only 63% has gone into securities and convertible bonds. The rest is parked in bank deposits. Most foreign fund managers find slim pickings among mainland equities and have concentrated on 50 to 100 stocks from the 1,300 available. "There's certainly nothing like HSBC (HBC ) or General Electric (GE ) or IBM" says Mandy Yang, general manager of China International Fund Management Co. in Shanghai, JPMorgan Fleming's joint venture with Shanghai International Trust and Investment.

The IPO practices on the Shenzhen and Shanghai exchanges are especially exasperating. For one thing, the shares are priced according to a rigid formula dictated by the government, so that IPO prices bear little or no relation to the underlying fundamentals of the company. Strict rules on who can subscribe to an IPO also create a false scarcity that drives demand -- for a short time. "The IPO market is not really market-driven, it's more regulation-driven," says Nicole Yuen, head of China equities at UBS in Hong Kong, and a member of the CSRC listing committee.

An even bigger problem with China's stock markets stems from the government's reluctance to relinquish control over state-owned enterprises when they list. About two-thirds of all listed companies' shares are nontradable blocks held by state agencies and other state-owned companies. This makes for thinly traded shares, which increases volatility. It also deters investors from taking a buy-and-hold approach, for fear the government will one day dilute their holdings by releasing its shares. One solution under consideration: allow existing shareholders to buy untradable shares at a discount.

Yet the government, despite its vow to fix the system, remains reluctant to unleash real market forces. "I don't think the capital markets have anything to do with risk; they have everything to do with funneling money to state-owned enterprises," says Carl E. Walter, chief operating officer for JP Morgan Chase & Co. in China. This in turn provides little incentive for local underwriters to conduct thorough due diligence on the stocks they bring to market. "It's a joke," says Walter.

With such structural problems, it's hard to see how the mainland exchanges will rapidly mature. But fund managers are quietly exerting more discipline on the market by buying stocks of well-run companies, to which they make regular visits. The number of funds has grown to about 135 since 1998, with some $30 billion under management, representing 5% of the market. Beginning last year, a number of foreign houses, including ABN Amro (ABN ), ING Group (ING ), and JPMorgan Fleming Asset Management (JPM ) have set up joint-venture fund companies. "Mutual funds and more transparent institutional investors have brought some sense to the market," says Joon L?, deputy chief investment officer at China International Fund Management.

The presence of long-term investors hasn't put a stop to the IPO wildness, but some brakes are being applied. On June 29, for example, Jinan Iron & Steel Group's debut fizzled, closing just marginally above its 76 cents IPO price, reflecting investor concern that a Beijing-imposed slowdown in the steel industry would hurt earnings. A flat IPO? That may be a sign that one day mainland exchanges may behave like real stock markets.


By Frederik Balfour in Shanghai, with Chen Wu in Hong Kong




Copyright 2000-2004, by The McGraw-Hill Companies Inc. All rights reserved.

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N.E. nuclear plants first to seek storage damages
Trial against US over waste costs begins
By H. Josef Hebert, Associated Press | July 13, 2004

WASHINGTON -- The government's failure to open a dump site for commercial nuclear waste could expose taxpayers to tens of billions of dollars in damages. The first in an expected string of trials to determine how much began yesterday across the street from the White House.

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More than two decades ago, the government signed a contract with utilities promising to take charge of the highly radioactive used reactor fuel at commercial power plants by 1998. But the government has yet to come up with a central storage site.

A number of court cases have ruled that the Energy Department is liable for the cost of keeping the waste -- and possibly punitive damages -- because of a breach of contract. How much is at stake is anyone's guess, but the industry has put the number as high as $56 billion.

The first case, involving three utilities that own the Yankee group of reactors in Maine, Massachusetts, and Connecticut, went to trial yesterday before the US Court of Federal Claims. The trial is expected to last seven weeks.

Jerry Stouck, a lawyer representing the utilities, outlined a case that was expected to focus on the government's repeated failures, dating to 1983, to get approval for a central waste dump at Yucca Mountain in Nevada and its refusal in the interim to accept the waste at some other facility.

The courts already have ruled that the government violated its contract with the nation's utilities to take charge of the waste. Now the utilities are seeking damages, with 65 claims having been filed.

''Damages. Damages. It's all about damages. How much money are we entitled to," Stouck said during a break in the proceedings.

The case before Judge James Merow of the claims court is limited to used reactor fuel that is being stored at Maine Yankee in Wiscasset, Connecticut Yankee in Haddam Neck, and Yankee Rowe in Rowe, Mass., nuclear plant sites. The issue is of special importance to the utilities because the reactors have been shut down and keeping the waste is more expensive and may affect site cleanup.

''If this litigation is successful, it will provide some financial relief to the electric customers who bear the increasing costs to store fuel at these sites as a result of the DOE's failure to meet its legal obligations," said Bruce Kenyon, chairman of Yankee Atomic Electric Co.

The utilities together are asking for $548 million in damages for the costs incurred to keep the spent reactor fuel in dry-cask storage until 2010. That is when the proposed Yucca Mountain waste site is expected to begin taking waste from commercial power plants.

The damages sought by the New England utilities is nearly double the $268 million cited in 1999 when they began litigation. Stouck said the costs of keeping the waste on site had been underestimated and storing it has become more expensive because of increased security needs with today's terror threats.

But the money sought in this trial is only a fraction of what the government may have to pay, given that these are only three of 65 claims filed -- claims by the owners of the country's 102 reactors at 72 power plants.

And the bill could grow if the Yucca Mountain waste site fails to open in 2010 as planned. A federal appeals court last Friday raised new questions about the Energy Department's ability to keep its timetable when it rejected the government's proposed radiation protection standard for the Yucca site.

In a recent letter to Congress on problems getting funding for Yucca Mountain, Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham estimated utilities will incur $500 million a year in costs for keeping used reactor fuel on site for every year the Yucca Mountain dump is delayed past 2010.

? Copyright 2004 Globe Newspaper Company.

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US in talks over biggest missile defence site in Europe

Ian Traynor in Warsaw
Tuesday July 13, 2004
The Guardian

The US administration is negotiating with Poland and the Czech Republic over its controversial missile defence programme, with a view to positioning the biggest missile defence site outside the US in central Europe.
Polish government officials confirmed to the Guardian that talks have been going on with Washington for eight months and made clear that Poland was keen to take part in the project, which is supposed to shield the US and its allies from long-range ballistic missile attacks.

Senior officials in Prague also confirmed that talks were under way over the establishment of American advanced radar stations in the Czech Republic as part of the missile shield project.

"We're very interested in becoming a concrete part of the arrangement," said Boguslaw Majewski, the Polish foreign ministry spokesman. "We have been debating this with the Americans since the end of last year."

Other sources in Warsaw said Pentagon officers have been scouting the mountain territory of southern Poland, pinpointing suitable sites for two or three radar stations connected to the so-called Son of Star Wars programme.

As well as radar sites, the Poles say they want to host a missile interceptor site, a large reinforced underground silo from where long-range missiles would be launched to intercept and destroy incoming rockets.

Under Bush administration plans, two missile interceptor sites are being built in the US - one in California, the other in Alaska. Such a site in Poland would be the first outside America and the only one in Europe.

"An interceptor site would be more attractive. It wouldn't be a hard sell in Poland," said Janusz Onyszkiewicz, a former Polish defence minister.

"This is a serious runner," said a west European diplomat in Warsaw. "It's pretty substantial. The Poles are very keen to have an interceptor site. They want a physical American presence on their territory. They wouldn't be paying anything. It would be a totally American facility."

"I knew about possible radar sites, but I was surprised to hear talk about missile silos," said another source in Warsaw.

In the Czech Republic, too, the proposed radar site, extending to 100 sq km, could be declared extraterritorial and a sovereign US base.

The talks are at the exploratory stage and no decisions have been taken, officials stressed. US officials played down talk of central European participation in the missile shield. But the confidential nature of the negotiations, being led on the US side by John Bolton, the hardline under-secretary of state for arms control, has angered senior defence officials in the region, who have been kept in the dark.

Milos Titz, deputy chairman of the Czech parliament's defence and security committee, learned of the talks last week and immediately called the defence minister, Miroslav Kostelka, to demand an explanation. According to the Czech web newspaper, Britske Listy, Mr Kostelka conceded to Mr Titz that the talks were going ahead and promised to supply details to the committee this week.

The committee is to hold an extraordinary session today, apparently to demand more information on the issue from the government.

According to a Washington-based thinktank, the Arms Control Association, the Pentagon has already requested modest funding for preliminary studies on a third missile interceptor site based in Europe.

Lieutenant General Ronald Kadish, director of the Pentagon's Missile Defence Agency (MDA), told Congress this year of plans to construct a missile shield base abroad. "We are preparing to move forward when appropriate to build a third [ground-based interceptor] site at a location outside the United States," he said.

In addition to Poland and the Czech Republic, the Washington thinktank reported last week that the US was also talking to Hungary about possible involvement in the missile shield which is yet to be properly tested and which many experts believe is unworkable. Sources in Warsaw said the US was also talking to Romania and Bulgaria. Last week, the Australian government signed a 25-year pact with the US on cooperating in the missile shield programme.

The two interceptor sites being built in Alaska and California are primarily to insure against a potential ballistic missile attack on the US by North Korea. The possible European site is being widely seen as a shield against missiles from the Middle East, notably Syria or Iran.

But many believe that any such facility in Poland would be concerned mainly and in the long term with Russia. Such concerns appear to be reflected in Polish government thinking.

While the Poles were still waiting for specific proposals from the Americans, said Mr Majewski, they were also insisting that any Polish participation had to be squared first with Moscow for fear of creating military tension in the region.

"The Americans are working quite hard on this," he said. "They need to clear the path with the Russians and reach a consensus before we will move ahead."

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NOW KOFI WANTS TO RUN THIS FUND...TRUST....?

http://theworld.org/latesteditions/20040713.shtml
US and UN AIDS report (4:30)
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan has asked the United States to show the same commitment to the fight against HIV/Aids as to the war on terror. Mr Annan is attending the International Aids Conference in Bangkok. He says the US was spending huge amounts to tackle terrorism and weapons of mass destruction but had failed to deliver on its promises to combat the spread of Aids. The World's Katy Clark has more.






THE REAL WORLD

Drip, Drip, Drip
More Oil for Food details leak out. When will the U.N. come clean?

BY CLAUDIA ROSETT
Wednesday, July 14, 2004 12:01 a.m. EDT

Kofigate continues. Another stack of secret United Nations Oil for Food documents has now reached the press, this batch procured by congressional sources and providing--at long last--a better view of Saddam Hussein's entire U.N.-approved shopping list. This huge roster of Oil for Food relief contracts fills in a few more of the vital details about Saddam's "humanitarian" partnership with the U.N., spelling out the names of all his U.N.-approved relief suppliers and the price of every deal.

We need no longer wonder which Russian company got the contracts, on the eve of war, in February 2003, to sell broadcasting gear to Saddam, or for how much. The U.N. list says Nord Star, from which Saddam--approved directly by Secretary-General Kofi Annan's office, in the name of relief, in the thick of the U.N. debate over Iraq--ordered up $3.4 million worth of TV studio equipment. Or, if one wants to admire the versatility of Saddam's Russian suppliers, it's now clear it wasn't just one Russian oil firm, Zarubezhneft, that made a sideline out of selling milk to Saddam. In late 2002, Russia's Kalmyk Oil & Gas Co. did a deal to supply Iraq with $1 million worth of "instant full cream milk powder."

And, if anyone has been wondering exactly which nameless Saudi supplier backed out of a $5 million contract to sell vegetable ghee to Iraq when the U.N., post-Saddam, began renegotiating a kickback surcharge of some 10% out of the remaining Oil for Food contracts, the name on the U.N. list is the Al Riyadh International Flower Co. (Which, by the way, turned up last year on a Pentagon list of Oil for Food suppliers overpaid by Saddam, with overpricing in Al Riyadh's case estimated at about 20%, and total overpayment on three contracts estimated at $8.6 million.)





This kind of information won't get you all the way to confirming the precise who, when and how-much of the illicit side deals, the U.N.-condoned influence peddling, the billions in graft and smuggling, that became the hallmarks of Oil for Food. But if, during the course of the seven year Oil for Food program, the U.N. had made a habit of releasing instead of hiding such basic details as names and prices, there might have been enough public alarm raised early on so that it might not now be necessary for anyone to investigate the program.
Transparency during Oil for Food, instead of leaks after the program ended, would have brought before the public, much sooner and more clearly, not just the strange bent of Saddam's business with his pals in places like France, Syria and especially Russia, but also his taste for selling oil via such financial hideaways as Cyprus, Liechtenstein, Panama and, above all, Switzerland. That might have fueled many more calls, much earlier, for reform. There might have been no need for the eight or nine (or have we reached 10?) investigations now in motion.

Had the U.N. been forthright about Oil for Food, there might have been no need last summer for Pentagon auditors to check the strangely high prices on many Oil for Food contracts, and report back that this U.N. relief program had entailed a spree of overpayments for such stuff as Tunisian baby food and Syrian bathroom sets--overpricing being a route for Saddam's regime to collect kickbacks from U.N.-approved suppliers. And had the U.N. published this latest leaked list, even in its current form--which, as a printout instead of a computer file, does not lend itself to a quick search--perhaps someone during those interminable Security Council fights of early 2003 might have gone through the painstaking job of adding up what France and Russia were actually raking in from Saddam's regime. Please stay tuned, especially should anyone now choose to leak the U.N.'s secret list of individual oil contracts, which would help complete the picture.

This list means progress, at least, in the great paper chase attending upon efforts to explain to the aggrieved Secretary-General Kofi Annan and his senior staff why a U.N. relief scandal involving $10 billion or more in embezzlement might be of interest even to those not working for Paul Volcker's U.N.-authorized investigation. A vast U.N. spreadsheet leaked some time back showed only the relief contracts from 1997 through early 2001, more than two busy years short of the full program.

This latest list, which runs to hundreds of pages, totaling tens of billions worth of deals, goes all the way from the first relief contract negotiated by Saddam's regime with the Australian Wheat Board, in 1997, to the final spate of Saddam's contracts processed in mid-2003 for such goods as millions of dollars worth of "detergent" from Egypt, Germany, Saudi Arabia and Syria.

Along the way, this list offers an opportunity to browse such stuff as an order for $286,481 worth of "milk and yogurt homogenizer" from the financial fields of Liechtenstein. Or the dozens of contract entries, totaling hundreds of millions worth of Oil for Food business, awarded by Saddam to one of his regime's own front companies, as designated in May by the U.S. Treasury: Dubai-based Al Wasel & Babel. It would be helpful, of course, to know the official quality and quantities of goods purchased, information still socked away in the secret hoards of the actual contracts. Although, given recent General Accounting Office testimony that Cotecna, the Swiss-based inspections firm hired by the U.N. to check Oil for Food imports into Iraq, looked at only 7% to 10% of the deliveries, we may have to hunt elsewhere for confirmation of just how well these sales figures reflect actual shipments of, say, authentic sugar and genuine steel.

But bit by bit, the picture comes into sharper focus. More than a year ago, while trolling the U.N. Web site looking for clues as to what in creation was really going on inside the black hole called Oil for Food, I came across a most wondrously cryptic notation. It appeared on the U.N.'s public list of Iraq relief contracts, a list so generic that it was impossible to identify Saddam's business partners, or how much of what, exactly, they were selling, or at what prices. But even in that bland landscape--in which, for instance, the lone word car served to describe $5 million worth of vehicles supplied via two contracts out of the United Arab Emirates--one entry stood out for sheer vagueness: The contractor's country was Russia, and the contract was for "Goods for Resumption of Project."
What goods? What project? Querying the U.N. produced only the answer that such details were secret. The U.N. was protecting the confidentiality of Saddam and his goods-for-resumption-of-project suppliers.

Now, thanks to assorted studies and leaked lists, it is possible with a little cross-referencing to discover that the supplier was a Russian state company, Technopromexport, and the contract was for "mechanical equipment," sold to Iraq for $1,475,261. The question remains: Why should this have been a U.N. secret?

The U.N. to this day has refused to release any more detail to the public, first citing the need to protect the privacy of Saddam and his business partners, then sending out letters in April reminding the overseers of oil sales and relief imports to keep quiet, and now deflecting all inquiries to the Volcker investigation--which doesn't answer questions about Oil for Food and won't have a final report out until at least the end of the year.

It's intriguing, in its way, to trace the clues back and forth, trying to piece together the biggest jigsaw puzzle of graft, fraud and theft in the history of humanitarian relief. But wouldn't it have spared us all a lot of grief had the U.N. chosen to run this program not as a private consulting arrangement with Saddam, but as an open book? Just this week, U.N. spokesman Stephane Dujarric reiterated to the San Francisco Chronicle what has clearly become Mr. Annan's party line--that the Secretariat, which collected a $1.4 billion commission on Saddam's oil sales to run this program, was "not mandated to police the contractors; it's not the way the program was set up by the Security Council members."

Interesting how Mr. Annan bowed to the Security Council when it was the ordinary people of Iraq being robbed, but now that his own office is under fire, he feels free to let his subordinates run around blaming the Security Council. Wasn't anyone at the U.N. paid to think?

Ms. Rosett is a fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies and the Hudson Institute. Her column appears here and in The Wall Street Journal Europe on alternate Wednesdays.

Afghan intelligence officials talk to Mullah Omar

KABUL, July 8: Afghan intelligence agents have talked to Taliban founder Mullah Mohammed

Omar after commandeering a satellite phone being used by his top aide, an official claimed

on Thursday.

Mullah Omar, along with Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, has escaped a US-led dragnet which

now numbers some 20,000 soldiers since the ousting of his government in 2001.

A man believed to be Mullah Omar's aide, Mullah Sakhi Dad Mujahid, was captured on Tuesday

while carrying a satellite telephone containing the phone numbers of top members of the

ousted government, Kandahar intelligence chief Abdullah Laghmanai said.

"We contacted Mullah Omar by Mullah Mujahid's phone," he said, adding that at first Mullah

Mujahid was forced to talk to his boss on the phone. "But when he (Omar) realized the

situation ... he cut off the phone."

"Salam-aleikum, where are you?" Mullah Omar asked Mullah Mujahid, according to Mr Laghmanai,

who did not say when the call was made. Mullah Mujahid, as he is known locally, was arrested

on Tuesday during a raid in Dara-i-Noor, some 70kms north of Kandahar.

The area is in the rugged border region between Uruzgan and Kandahar and known to US

military officials as the 'Taliban heartland'. Mullah Mujahid served as Mullah Omar's

secretary under the Taliban's 1996-2001 rule.

"Currently he was serving as Mullah Omar's military assistant," he said. Kandahar military

spokesman General Abdul Wasay confirmed the arrest. "The arrest of Mullah Mujahid will

pacify Taliban's activities in the area," where he was captured, he said.

Mr Laghmanai said subsequent efforts to contact Mullah Omar had been unsuccessful as the

one-eyed Taliban boss refuses to answer phone calls 'from strange numbers'.

"Maybe Omar has found out that his friend is under our control," he said. "He doesn't answer

his telephone." Mullah Mujahid was transferred in handcuffs to Kabul on Wednesday for

investigation, which authorities hope could lead to the arrest of other militants.

Mr Laghmanai alleged that intelligence reports as well as information received from Mujahid

suggested Mullah Omar was hiding in Pakistan's tribal areas near Kandahar and close to

Quetta. "The information Mujahid provided, and also our intelligence, suggests that Omar is

in Pakistan's tribal areas," he said.

FOREIGNERS HELD: Three foreigners, including a US national, have been arrested for setting

up a private vigilante group here to detain suspected terrorists, a minister said Thursday.

"Three foreigners who had formed a self-made group and were claiming their aims were to act

against those carrying out terrorist attacks, have been arrested," Interior Minister Ali

Ahmad Jalali said.

Four Afghans were also arrested along with the foreigners for allegedly illegally holding

eight local people in a private jail as part of their personal war against terror. "They did

not have any legal connection with anyone and the United States was also chasing them," Mr

Jalali said. "They are actually rebels."

"The group had illegally arrested eight Afghans from Kabul and kept them in their custody,"

Mr Jalali added. The men were arrested on Monday night in a house near the Intercontinental

Hotel in western Kabul.

The identity of the two other foreign nationals is not known. "They were operating under the

fake name of an export company," Mr Jalali told a press conference in Kabul.

A spokesman for the US embassy, who asked not to be named, said he was unable to confirm the

number of American nationals arrested. On July 5 the American-led coalition force issued a

press release in which it warned against an individual named as Jonathan K. Idema.

"US citizen Jonathan K. Idema has allegedly represented himself as an American government

and/or military official," the statement said. "The public should be aware that Idema does

not represent the American government and we do not employ him." -AFP






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Civilian shipments to Iraq hampered by insurer fears



SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
Monday, July 5, 2004
ABU DHABI - Gulf Arab insurers continue to cut back on coverage for cargo shipments to Iraq.

Industry sources said leading insurers in the Gulf Cooperation Council have significantly

reduced war risk coverage to insure business to or in Iraq. The sources said the refusal to

provide such insurance has hampered the supply of civilian cargo to Iraq.

In April, GCC insurers decided to suspend coverage for cargo destined for Iraqi transports,

Middle East Newsline reported. The sources said the insurers were willing to insure cargo

until the Iraqi port. But from the port, the cargo would not have been insured.

GCC insurers have been led by the industry in Bahrain. Insurance companies in Bahrain were

expected to benefit from a new Saudi law that would open the kingdom to foreign firms.

International insurers, such as Lloyds of London, have been willing to provide some war

coverage. But the lack of competition drove up the price of war risk coverage.

GCC insurers have offered coverage to preferred clients when backed by massive reinsurance

support from Lloyds, the sources said. They said the premium could amount to 100 times the

normal war risk premium in other countries.




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Copyright ? 2004 East West Services, Inc.
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THE TWO KOREAS:
Time to Leave South Korea

Thomas Henriksen

Why it makes sense for U.S. forces to leave Korea's demilitarized zone.

Thomas Henriksen is a senior fellow and associate director at the Hoover Institution.
Despite escalating tensions on the Korean peninsula in recent months, it is time to start

the pullback of the 14,000 American troops stationed along the demilitarized zone (DMZ) and

the GIs garrisoned in the nearby capital rather than waiting a year. Implementing Secretary

of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's plans for repositioning U.S. forces from the DMZ and their

central Seoul base will better align Washington's decades-old obligations with newfound

perils on the peninsula and beyond. The United States can honor its commitment to defend

South Korea from another northern invasion by our formidable land and carrier-based

airpower. This military reconfiguration in South Korea should be part of an overhaul of

American post-Cold War strategy.

There are two time warps on the Korean peninsula. There is the familiar one north of the DMZ

with a communist regime that resembles Josef Stalin's Soviet Russia of the 1930s, with

prison camps, starvation, oppression, and propaganda campaigns against the United States.

The other, less acknowledged, time warp is south of the DMZ. Since the end of the Korean War

in 1953, U.S. forces have been frozen in defensive positions against another North Korean

assault. Currently, there are a total of 37,000 U.S. forces in all of South Korea. Their

mission is static, and their training and equipment make them unfit for new fast-paced

operations. Moreover, North Korea's heavy-duty conventional artillery and self-proclaimed

nuclear weapons make this force more hostage than defender.

South Korea's 600,000 troops ought to assume the primary role in defending their own

country, relieving U.S. troops for security operations in liberated Iraq or for swift-

response roles in the campaign against terror, for example. American forces are stretched

thin around the globe in the Balkans, Afghanistan, Japan, Germany, and now the Philippines

and Kyrgyzstan. A rebalancing of American power should have taken place after the collapse

of the Soviet Union, when the world enjoyed a brief respite from major threats.

The current volatile international environment is no excuse not to undertake such a review

now--for it is actually during times of war, hot or cold, that conditions compel change.

Halcyon eras, like the 1990s, breed complacency. The U.S. military and geopolitical

framework underwent profound changes in World War II and again with the onset of the Cold

War. The war on terror necessitates carefully executed adjustments but so, too, does a world

vastly altered by the end of the Soviet confrontation. North Korea is no longer Moscow's

proxy.

Obviously, there are risks. A sudden transformation could cause instability in Asia. North

Korea could interpret American withdrawal as a lack of resolve. But this seems unlikely

given that an attack across the DMZ, with or without our small Maginot-line force, would be

seen as an act of war by Washington, triggering a counterattack and imperiling the Pyongyang

regime itself. In one sense, the absence of a U.S. force on the DMZ would make a massive U.

S. retaliation easier; otherwise American troops would no doubt be overrun by the world's

fifth-largest army and face the danger of errant friendly fire.

Our DMZ contingent has neither halted Pyongyang's nuclear weapons ambitions nor inhibited

its missile sales to Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, or Syria. It cannot be expected to stop nuclear

material transfers to other rogue states or possibly terrorist networks. More important,

American ground units in Korea have not assuaged fears in Japan, Taiwan, or military circles

in South Korea about Pyongyang's nuclear arming. These states will increasingly look to

their own defense. Japan, the most pacifistic state, has now openly abandoned its long-held

prohibition of U.S. nuclear-powered warships in its harbors. Defense Minister Shigeru Ishiba

stated that his country is prepared to wage a preemptive strike against a possible missile

launch by North Korea. Pyongyang's likely production of 10 or more new atomic bombs will

deepen anxiety among its neighbors. They will consider defensive measures, perhaps a nuclear

option, even with U.S. ground forces in South Korea.

Finally, the anti-American sentiment that burst forth in the South Korean presidential

elections last fall also dictates a fresh look at our presence at the DMZ. Led by their new

president, Roh Moo Hyun, many South Koreans no longer fear their brothers across the DMZ, an

impression that Pyongyang has fostered and utilized against the United States. America is

caught in the middle of its commitment to defend the South and that country's awakened

nationalism against a perceived foreign tutelage.

The last time the United States was boxed in between protecting an Asian country from its

northern communist neighbor amid anti-Americanism and emerging nationalism in the south, it

fared badly. Although we look for Vietnam War analogies in the Middle East, we might better

see shades of them in the new Korea. It makes sense to anticipate looming realities. Sooner

rather than later the divide on the Korean peninsula will end. When it does, the United

States will cut its commitment just as we did in reunified Germany after the fall of the

Berlin Wall. States nearby will counterbalance a reunified peninsula, which in all

likelihood will have nuclear capabilities.

In Germany, where anti-U.S. feelings have also arisen, it now makes strategic sense to

reposition U.S. troops from Cold War installations into the more pro-American former Warsaw

Pact countries, such as Poland and Hungary. Reconstituted into expeditionary forces, these

units could be rapidly deployed in the Middle East and Central Asia in tune with changing

American interests. But nowhere are the operational realities more out of date than in

Korea. It is time to recognize the historical wind shifts and realign our forces or be

buffeted by them.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Special to the Hoover Digest.

Available from the Hoover Press is Democracy and the Korean Economy, edited by Jongryn Mo

and Chung-in Moon. Also available is Institutional Reform and Democratic Consolidation in

Korea, edited by Larry Diamond and Doh C. Shin. To order, call 800.935.2882.

CONVERSATIONS OF INTEREST...

http://www.moretothepoint.com/

Israel's Nuclear Weapons listen
There's a "glimmer of hope" for a nuclear-weapons free Middle East. Those optimistic words were voiced today by Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, after his meeting with Israel's Ariel Sharon. That optimism is based on a host of conditions. So far, only Israel is believed to have nuclear weapons, but Iran is suspected of working hard to develop nukes of its own. Is Iran developing nuclear weapons? Are Israel's nukes making the region safer, or increasing the danger of confrontation? Warren Olney reveals just how challenging that prospect is in his conversation with a spokesman for the IAEA, the director of the Carnegie Endowment's Nonproliferation Program, other experts in Middle East arms and arms control, and Iran's first ambassador to the UN.

Ken Lay, George Bush and Texas Cronyism
In Houston today, former Enron CEO Ken Lay surrendered to federal officials and was led away in handcuffs. Later, he pleaded innocent to criminal charges of securities and wire fraud, and misleading investors, which could land him 175 years in prison and millions in fines. But in addition to being involved in one of America's most spectacular business collapses, Lay has also been a Bush family insider. Robert Bryce, author of Cronies: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas, America's Super-State, expounds.

--------------------------------------------------------

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episodes/07062004
Henry Valentino and Robert Templer
Henry Valentino, senior advisor at the International Foundation for Election Systems, on Indonesia's first presidential elections. He is joined by Robert Templer, Asia program director for the International Crisis Group.

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http://www.theworld.org/latesteditions/20040708.shtml
Pakistan report (5:15)
Pakistan is an ally in the war on terrorism. Yet the country's a hot-bed of Islamic militants. Islamic schools produce them every day. Pakistan's president has promised to crack down on those schools, but they're still operating and turning out potential recruits for terrorism. The World's Mary Kay Magistad reports from Pakistan's Northwest Frontier Province.

Security interview (4:30)
To get an assessment of the government's assessment of Al Qaeda's strategy of attack, host Marco Werman speaks to Juliette Kayyem, former member of the National Commission on Terrorism. She's at Harvard's Kennedy School of Government.

-------------------------------------------------------

http://www.theworld.org/latesteditions/20040707.shtml
Darfur and the Arab world interview (5:00)
Darfur has been called the world's worst humanitarian problem. Arab fighters have been attacking African farmers in a campaign many have referred to as ethnic cleansing and genocide. But in many Arab countries, the crisis isn't a major concern. Host Marco Werman discusses the Arab response to Darfur with Abdul Rahman Al Rashed, general manager of the satellite news channel al-Arabiya.

Iran-Israel nuclear weapons interview (5:00)
Israel, pressed by the U.N. to consider a nuclear weapons-free Middle East, expresses fear that Iran is pursuing nuclear weapons and might use them against it. Host Marco Werman examines the Middle East's unacknowledged arms race with Robert Gallucci, dean of the Georgetown University School of Foreign Service and a former U.N. weapons inspector.

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Iraq Confirms U.S. Has Removed Nuclear Material
Thu Jul 8,12:03 PM ET Add World - Reuters to My Yahoo!
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraq (news - web sites)'s interim government confirmed Thursday the United States has removed radioactive material from Iraq, saying ousted dictator Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) could have used it to develop nuclear weapons.
U.S. and U.N. officials said Wednesday Washington had transported 1.8 tons of enriched uranium out of Iraq for safekeeping more than a year after looters stole it from a U.N.-sealed facility left unguarded by U.S. troops.
Iraq's interim Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said the uranium and about 1,000 highly radioactive items from the former Iraqi nuclear research facility had been taken to the United States.
"I can now announce that the United States Department of Defense (news - web sites) and Department of Energy (news - web sites) have completed a joint operation to secure and remove from Iraq radiological and nuclear materials that the ousted regime could have potentially used in a radiological dispersal device or diverted to support a nuclear weapons program," Allawi said in a statement.
"Iraq has no intention and no will to resume these programs in the future. These materials which are potential weapons of mass murder are not welcome in our country and their production is unacceptable," Allawi said.
A "radiological dispersal device," or dirty bomb, uses a conventional explosive to disperse radioactive material over a wide area.
U.S. officials said lightly enriched uranium, which could be used in such a bomb, was airlifted to an undisclosed U.S. site after its removal from the Tuwaitha nuclear complex south of Baghdad, a one-time center of Iraq's nuclear weapons programs.
U.S. officials said the move would help keep potentially dangerous nuclear materials out of the hands of terrorists.
The Tuwaitha nuclear complex was dismantled in the early 1990s after the first Gulf War (news - web sites).
But tons of nuclear materials remained there under the seal of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, until last year's U.S.-led invasion of Iraq when it was left unguarded and looted by Iraqi civilians.
The IAEA learned a week ago that the transfer had taken place on June 23, the agency said in a letter to the U.N. Security Council made public Wednesday.

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Ariel Sharon acceptera de d?nucl?ariser Isra?l, dans un "contexte de paix"
LEMONDE.FR | 08.07.04 | 16h00
A 9 heures par e-mail, recevez les titres du journal ? para?tre l'apr?s-
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Le premier ministre isra?lien et le directeur de l'Agence internationale de l'?nergie atomique, Mohamed ElBaradei, se sont rencontr?s jeudi 8 juillet. Ariel Sharon, qui reste flou sur les capacit?s nucl?aires d'Isra?l, ne veut envisager la cr?ation d'une zone d?nucl?aris?e que dans un "contexte de paix".
Le premier ministre isra?lien, Ariel Sharon, s'est d?clar? pr?t ? d?nucl?ariser Isra?l dans un contexte de paix au Proche-Orient, a indiqu?, jeudi 8 juillet, le directeur de l'Agence internationale de l'?nergie atomique (AIEA), Mohamed ElBaradei, apr?s s'?tre entretenu avec lui. "La politique d'Isra?l continue d'?tre la m?me, ? savoir que dans le contexte de la paix au Proche-Orient, Isra?l envisagera favorablement la cr?ation d'une zone d?nucl?aris?e", a affirm? M. ElBaradei lors d'une conf?rence de presse.
"Ce n'est pas une politique nouvelle, mais j'estime que le fait m?me qu'elle soit r?affirm?e au niveau du premier ministre est un d?veloppement bienvenu et positif", a-t-il ajout?, m?me si aucune date ni aucun cadre n'ont ?t? retenus pour des discussions en ce sens.
ISRA?L RESTE "AMBIGU?" SUR SES CAPACIT?S ATOMIQUES
M. ElBaradei a par ailleurs estim? qu'"un dialogue sur des questions s?curitaires peut ?tre envisag?" avec Isra?l. Selon lui, il pourrait notamment ?tre question de "cr?er dans le cadre de la 'feuille de route' un sous-comit? charg? du contr?le des armements".
Mise au point par le Quartet international (Etats-Unis, Russie, Union europ?enne, ONU), la "feuille de route" est un plan de paix qui pr?voit la cr?ation d'un Etat palestinien d'ici ? 2005 et la fin des violences. La seconde phase de ce plan envisage la reprise de n?gociations multilat?rales notamment sur les questions du partage de l'eau, de l'environnement, du d?veloppement r?gional, des r?fugi?s et du contr?le des armements. Ce projet lanc? en juin 2003 est jusqu'? pr?sent rest? lettre morte, en raison de la poursuite des violences isra?lo-palestiniennes.
La rencontre de M. ElBaradei avec M. Sharon est survenue au dernier des trois jours de sa visite en Isra?l. Elle a dur? plus d'une heure, selon le porte-parole de l'AIEA, Mark Gwozdecky. Depuis six ans, M. ElBaradei fait campagne pour d?nucl?ariser le Proche-Orient, mais M. Sharon avait d'embl?e indiqu? vouloir pr?server l'ambigu?t? sur les capacit?s atomiques d'Isra?l.
Selon des sources ?trang?res, Isra?l disposerait de 200 ogives nucl?aires et des vecteurs ad?quats pour les larguer.
Avec AFP
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La CIA savait que l'Irak avait abandonn? son programme d'ADM
LEMONDE.FR | 06.07.04 | 08h40 * MIS A JOUR LE 06.07.04 | 15h19
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Le rapport de la commission du renseignement du S?nat am?ricain, qui doit ?tre rendu public cette semaine, devrait contenir une mise en cause cinglante de la CIA. Selon le "New York Times", l'agence d?tenait avant la guerre contre l'Irak des ?l?ments invalidant l'accusation port?e contre le r?gime de Saddam Hussein de d?tenir des armes de destruction massive.
La CIA aurait omis de transmettre au pr?sident am?ricain, George W. Bush, des informations fournies par des proches de scientifiques irakiens sur l'abandon par Bagdad de son programme de d?veloppement d'armes de destruction massive (ADM), affirme, mardi 6 juillet, le New York Times. L'existence d'ADM avait ?t? l'une des justifications de la guerre en Irak. Le secr?taire d'Etat am?ricain, Colin Powell, avait pr?sent? en f?vrier 2003 devant l'ONU de pr?tendues preuves de l'existence de ces ADM.
Le New York Times, citant des responsables gouvernementaux anonymes, pr?cise dans sa version en ligne que ce dysfonctionnement de l'agence am?ricaine de renseignement a ?t? d?couvert par une commission sp?cialis?e du S?nat am?ricain.
La CIA aurait conduit avant le d?clenchement de la guerre contre le r?gime de Saddam Hussein un programme secret d'interrogatoires des proches de scientifiques irakiens, mais n'aurait pas ensuite transmis leurs d?clarations au pr?sident ou ? d'autres membres de l'ex?cutif am?ricain, indique le journal.
La commission du S?nat a ouvert une enqu?te sur l'utilisation faite par l'ex?cutif des informations fournies par les services de renseignement avant la guerre, apr?s qu'Am?ricains et Britanniques eurent ?chou? ? d?couvrir en Irak des armes de destruction massive, dont l'existence pr?sum?e avait ?t? utilis?e pour justifier le d?clenchement des hostilit?s.
Le rapport de la commission s?natoriale du renseignement, qui devrait ?tre rendu public cette semaine, contiendra certainement une mise en cause cinglante de la CIA et de ses dirigeants, pour ne pas avoir reconnu que les ?l?ments en leur possession ne justifiaient pas l'accusation qu'ils ont port?e contre le r?gime de Saddam Hussein de d?tenir des armes de destruction massive, ajoute le New York Times.
MAUVAIS TRAVAIL DE COLLECTE ET D'ANALYSE
Les responsables de la CIA auraient minimis? l'importance des informations fournies par les proches des scientifiques irakiens, soulignant que seuls quelques-uns avaient affirm? que les programmes de d?veloppement d'ADM avaient ?t? abandonn?s, selon le journal.
La conclusion de la commission du S?nat est que la CIA et le reste de la communaut? du renseignement ont fait un bien mauvais travail dans la collecte d'information sur l'?tat des programmes d'ADM irakiens et un travail pire encore dans l'analyse des renseignements recueillis, affirme le New York Times.
Le rapport, selon le journal, cite des cas de d?formation des informations afin qu'elles corroborent la th?se que l'Irak avait bien des programmes chimique, biologique et nucl?aire.
Le S?nat a ainsi d?couvert, ajoute le journal, qu'un transfuge irakien, qui aurait fourni des preuves de l'existence d'un programme d'armes biologiques, avait en fait d?clar? tout ignorer d'un tel programme.
Un autre cas, cit? par le rapport s?natorial, concerne la saisie d'une cargaison de tubes en aluminium destin?s ? l'Irak, qui a ?t? consid?r?e comme une preuve que Bagdad tentait de fabriquer une bombe atomique, ce qui a conduit la commission du S?nat ? se demander si la CIA n'?tait pas devenue l'avocat d'une cause plut?t qu'un observateur objectif.
Mais, selon le New York Times, la commission n'a pas trouv? d'indications que les analyses de la CIA avaient ?t? modifi?es ? la suite de pressions politiques de la Maison Blanche.
Avec AFP

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Arafat's militant fighters call for reform
Move challenges leader's authority
By MOLLY MOORE and JOHN WARD ANDERSON
Washington Post
MIDEAST RESOURCES
JERUSALEM -- The armed wing of Yasser Arafat's Fatah political movement has called for a comprehensive campaign against corruption in the Palestinian Authority, recommending that Arafat relinquish some of his powers and that militant groups -- including Islamic organizations -- be granted a formal governing voice.
The proposal, a major shift in the strategy of militant fighters, was presented to senior Palestinian officials by the al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades and is the first formal attempt by an armed resistance group to seek a political role in the Palestinian Authority since the current uprising against Israel began nearly four years ago.
The 10-page document calls for the expulsion and prosecution of government officials involved in corruption, a wholesale purge of relatives and cronies of officials from government payrolls and a halt to the practice of officials monopolizing sectors of the Palestinian economy.
The paper lashes out at "wives and sons and daughters of officials who are registered as employees and receive high salaries from the Palestinian Authority and are either at home or abroad." It attacks bureaucrats who "hold official titles and government jobs ... when in fact they have no role other than the salary and position." It demands "eradication of the corruption in most of the PLO embassies and representatives" overseas.
According to Zakaria Zbeida, who heads the al-Aqsa group in the northern West Bank city of Jenin, al-Aqsa leaders in the West Bank and Gaza Strip crafted the proposal partially in response to Israel's announced plan to withdraw soldiers and Jewish settlers from the Gaza Strip within the next few years.
"We want to take part in this stage and not have the political process bypass us," Zbeida said. "We come with this initiative to prove we are not just a group of fighters throwing bullets here and there. ... We are ready to sit and talk."
The document urges separation of powers between the Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization, saying "it is inconceivable" that both organizations be headed by the same person. Arafat is chairman of the PLO executive committee and president of the Palestinian Authority.
"There's no doubt what it's calling for is significant," said Khalil Shikaki, a Palestinian political analyst. "This is a way of saying to Arafat that `It's time for you to step down as head of the Palestinian Authority.' ... That's a direct assault on Arafat. It's a clear indictment of the whole old guard."
Arafat spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeineh, dismissed the proposal, saying it did not sound "serious."
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Russia's fiscal crisis explodes
By Martin Sieff
UPI Senior News Analyst
Washington, DC, Jul. 8 (UPI) -- Plunging stock prices, a renewed Kremlin drive to smash the Yukos oil corporation and now a major bank locks out its depositors: Is Russia set for a rerun of its 1998 financial crisis?
Only a week ago, the question would have sounded alarmist, even ridiculous to most ears. But now the concerns are mounting thick and fast. Russia already faces a collapse of popular confidence in its banking system greater than any the United States has experienced the climax of the Great Depression in March-April 1933.
The Guta Bank, formerly the 22nd largest in Russia has shut its doors, frozen all its electronic operations and locked out its depositors. Concerns and rumors are swirling around the Alfa Bank.
"Spooked by the closure Tuesday of mid-sized Guta and reports that top-tier Alfa was on the ropes, depositors descended on banks in droves Wednesday, intensifying a trend that has seen an estimated $5 billion, or 10 percent of all household savings, taken out of the system in the last two months," the Moscow Times reported Thursday. A major Russian bank has locked out its depositors in a nationwide shutdown, the Moscow Times newspaper reported Wednesday.
That report followed Guta's bombshell decision to shut its doors to its depositors Tuesday.
"Due to an outflow of funds throughout June exceeding 10 billion rubles ($345 million) and a significant increase in payments in July, Guta Bank is currently unable to carry out current payments and complete payments on deposits," said a sign posted on one of the bank's Moscow branches. "Guta Bank management is undertaking necessary measures to restore (its) liquidity."
Guta officials refused Wednesday to issue any official statement. Earlier, a company representative told the paper that Guta's Internet service, its telephone-banking service and ATM networks were all down, allegedly for "technical" reason.
Also, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, chief shareholder, founder and former chief executive officer of the giant Yukos oil corporation prepares to go on trial on charges of fraud and tax evasion, top Russian officials have doubled the already killing tax bill of $3.4 billion they had saddled the company with and are talking darkly about even boosting that.
Fueled by fears over the banks and wild uncertainty over the future of Yukos, Russian stock markets have tumbling and the ruble has taken a pounding too.
Now the Moody's rating agency has given its imprint of condemnation to these troubles: it has announced that it is placing the long-term foreign currency ratings of no less than 18 Russian banks and the financial strength ratings of four banks on review for possible downgrade.
Russian banking executives understandably are playing down the significance of this decision." Russian banks understand that the situation is stable and there is money on the market," Bank of Moscow Chairman Oleg Tolkachov said.
But Moody's is not alone in its fears. On Wednesday, a senior Western finance official expressed concern over the lack of fiscal support for Russia's ruble.
The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development considers Russia's Stabilization Fund for the ruble to be scanty, OECD Economic Department Director Andrew Dean said during a review of the Russian economy, according tot a report carried by RosBusinessConsulting.
"According to him, the OECD is concerned about the fact that extra profits from oil exports are spent on decreasing the social tax instead of being transferred to the Stabilization Fund," RBC said. "It would be more reasonable for Russia to pay its foreign debt first and then start decreasing taxes, Dean believes."
Reflecting the growing worries, Russia's Central Bank Wednesday raised its official exchange rate to 35.91 rubles for one euro, dropping the value of the ruble by 0.14 rubles against the EU currency. In a three day period, the euro has gained 0.58 rubles or 1.6 percent of the Russian currency's value, the Moscow Times newspaper noted.
"The ruble's weakening against the European currency is explained as coming from a sharp surge in the euro against the dollar on the world market," the paper said. "The dollar has lost 0.5 percent against the euro over the past 24 hours and almost 2.5 percent compared with June 25."
Now Russian banks are fleeing tumbling stocks to invest in U.S. dollars. The official dollar exchange rate set by the Russian Central Bank for Thursday strengthened by 0.02 rubles against the dollar.
"As Russian stocks have tumbled, led by Yukos and the activity on the interbank market has significantly decreased, banks have nothing to do but buy dollars," RBC said. "Ruble liquidity has improved, therefore banks are more interested in dollar deals."
They are especially interested because not to use their ruble deposits is to lose them. Russia's ruble has fallen against the euro, the main currency of the European Union for three days in a row by the middle of this week.
Russia's Central Bank Wednesday raised its official exchange rate to 35.91 rubles for one euro, dropping the value of the ruble by 0.14 rubles against the EU currency, the paper said. In a three day period, the euro has gained 0.58 rubles or 1.6 percent of the Russian currency's value, it said.
Hovering over all is the question of what is going o happen to Yukos, he largest oil corporation in Russia and one of the largest in the world. For on Tuesday, Russia's top prosecutor signaled that despite previous reassurances from President Vladimir Putin himself, they were determined to squeeze Yukos until it burst.
"This is snowballing," Prosecutor General Vladimir Ustinov told Ekho Moskvy radio Tuesday, the paper said. "There is a beginning to this affair but there but it's very difficult to see the end. The level of stealing, fraud and tax evasion is so huge that it cannot all be packed into one case."
Yukos is Russia's largest oil company and is facing bankruptcy because it cannot pay off $3.4 billion in overdue taxes due by Thursday. Last week, Russia's Federal Tax Service hit Yukos with another $3.4 billion claim for 2001. Ustinov even told Ekho Moskvy Yukos could also be hit with additional tax claims for 2002 and 2003.
Russia's long-term macro-economic prospects ought to be bright. The country is one of the world's largest oil exporters and it soil and gas exports are soaring in an energy-hungry global market defined by soaring demand and inelastic supply: In other words, a major producer's sweetest dream.
But the fears sweeping Russia's bank depositors and market investors at the moment testify that without a sound financial system, the greatest natural resources cannot guarantee stability, let alone prosperity. Until President Putin and his government can address these concerns, Russia's latest crisis is likely to only grown worse.
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China calls U.S. 7-carrier exercise in Pacific 'naked intimidation'
Beijing is denouncing a large-scale U.S. naval exercise as targeted at China, U.S. officials said. The Summer Pulse exercise will involve the simultaneous deployment of seven U.S. carrier battle groups around the world. China's government is also upset that Taiwanese naval forces are involved in the exercises. A Chinese military source said China cannot handle more than two carrier battle groups. "This is gunboat diplomacy in the 21st Century," the source remarked.


Russia suddenly takes active role in N. Korea's nuclear crisis; Gas pipelines a factor
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S. Korean commission justifies N. Korean spies, setting off firestorm
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N. Korea missile engineer who defected to South, now seeks asylum in U.S.
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China warns Rice it won't 'sit idle' if US backs Taiwan independence
Thu Jul 8, 1:09 PM ET
BEIJING (AFP) - China's military strongman Jiang Zemin told visiting US National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) China would not "sit idle" if foreign forces supported Taiwan independence.
AFP/File Photo
"If Taiwan authorities are determined to pursue Taiwan independence; if foreign forces interfere and support this, we would definitely not sit idle without doing anything," Jiang was paraphrased on Chinese state-run television station CCTV as saying.
The aging but still powerful former president's veiled warnings against US military intervention if Taiwan formally declares independence and China attacks the island came amid increasing tension between Beijing and Taipei.
The recent re-election of pro-independence Taiwan President Chen Shui-bian has fueled fears in Beijing that Chen may be moving toward a formal split in his second term.
Beijing hopes Washington will curb any such moves by Chen.
Jiang told Rice Taiwan was the "most sensitive" issue in Sino-US relations and expressed dismay with Washington's recent handling of Taiwan matters.
"The US side's recent series of actions, especially plans to sell arms to Taiwan made Chinese people feel seriously concerned and dissatisfied," said Jiang, chairman of the Central Military Commission.
He said while China prefers to settle the Taiwan issue peacefully, it "will definitely not tolerate Taiwan independence."
Foreign Minister Li Zhaoxing, in his talks with Rice, "strongly" urged the US to understand the sensitivity of the Taiwan issue and "gravity" of the current situation, the Xinhua news agency reported.
"The Taiwan issue has a bearing on China's key interest and is the most crucial factor that affects the smooth development of China-US relations," Li said.
He urged the US to not only stop selling arms to Taiwan, which Beijing fears will embolden Chen, but to halt military and official relations with Taiwan.
A senior administration official travelling with Rice told AFP she conveyed President George W. Bush (news - web sites)'s reaffirmation of US backing for the One-China policy, which recognizes Taiwan as a part of China, and his "non-support" for Taiwan independence or any actions by Taipei to change the status quo.
But she reiterated Washington's commitment to the Taiwan Relations Act, under which the United States pledges to defend the island if it is attacked.
"Rice, on behalf of the president, expressed our continuing commitment to the obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act ...," said the official who declined to be identified.
China considers Taiwan part of its territory awaiting reunification, by force if necessary, and has refused to recognize Taiwan's 55 years of de-facto independence since they separated at the end of a civil war in 1949.
Human rights, religious freedom and weapons proliferation issues were also raised by Rice during discussions, said the official, who declined to give details.
A US source said Rice specifically raised concerns about retired military doctor Jiang Yanyong who exposed Beijing's coverup of last year's SARS (news - web sites) epidemic, but is now reported by US media to be under 24-hour supervision and being forced to undergo "brainwashing sessions."
He had recently called for a government reassessment of the 1989 Tiananmen massacre.
Rice nonetheless painted a positive picture of US-China relations.
"China is an important power in Asia and globally and we have an excellent relationship with China," she said.
"It's a relationship that we think is built on mutual trust and an understanding that China and the United States need to cooperate."
Iraq (news - web sites) and North Korea (news - web sites) also were discussed, but no details were given by either side.
The US sees China as a key partner in trying to end the standoff with Pyongyang.
At six-party talks in Beijing last month, the United States offered Pyongyang three months to shut down and seal its nuclear weapons facilities in return for economic and diplomatic rewards.
Beijing has urged Washington to soften its tone and has indicated displeasure over the deployment this month of 10 F-117 Nighthawk stealthfighters to South Korea (news - web sites).
Rice meets President Hu Jintao Friday before leaving for Seoul.

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Rice, China's Jiang Discuss N.Korea Nuclear Issue
Thu Jul 8, 2004 08:29 AM ET
By Benjamin Kang Lim
BEIJING (Reuters) - U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice discussed the urgent issue of North Korea's nuclear ambitions with China's military chief Jiang Zemin in Beijing Thursday, but her host showed more interest in Taiwan.
The United States, North and South Korea, Russia, Japan and host China have held three rounds of inconclusive talks on how to resolve the nuclear crisis in North Korea, which Washington has branded part of an "axis of evil" along with Iran and pre-war Iraq.
Rice and Jiang "discussed the need for North Korea to give up its nuclear ambitions," said a senior U.S. administration official on her delegation. He declined to give further details.
North Korea viewed the outcome of the last round of six-way talks in June as broadly positive, but said a U.S. proposal showed there was little new on offer to resolve the crisis.
The United States offered security guarantees and South Korean aid in return for North Korea agreeing to dismantle its nuclear programs, including a uranium enrichment scheme the North denies it has.
Rice flew to Beijing from Tokyo, where she met Japanese Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi Wednesday and vowed to pursue a diplomatic solution to the standoff with North Korea, which may already have built one or two nuclear bombs.
"For the United States, the nuclear issue is an urgent one, and we are focusing on how to get the North to give up its nuclear programs," Rice was quoted as telling Koizumi.
But Jiang appeared more interested in Taiwan.
Jiang told Rice China will "not sit back and watch and do nothing if the Taiwan authorities cling obstinately to their push for Taiwan independence and if foreign forces meddle and support" the island, Chinese state television reported.
"The Taiwan issue is the most important and the most sensitive key issue in Sino-U.S. relations," Jiang said.
"China's sovereign and territorial integrity are paramount," he was quoted as saying. "We will never tolerate Taiwan independence."
"SERIOUSLY CONCERNED AND UNHAPPY"
"The Chinese people are seriously concerned and unhappy with the sale of advanced weapons to Taiwan," Jiang said. Television made no mention of the North Korean nuclear crisis.
Beijing has vowed to attack the self-ruled island if it formally declares statehood. The two have been rivals since their split at the end of a civil war in 1949.
Rice reaffirmed President Bush's commitment to the "one China" policy, the official said. Beijing switched diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing in 1979, but remains the island's main arms supplier and trading partner.
She repeated Bush's opposition to any unilateral steps to change the status quo and non-support for Taiwan independence, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Rice reiterated Bush's commitment to U.S. obligations under the Taiwan Relations Act to arm the island and maintain a sufficient self-defense capability against a Chinese attack.
Nonetheless, U.S.-China ties were good and strong.
"The relationship is very good, very strong," the official said. "We are here to keep that relationship moving forward...a sign of the president's deep commitment to the region."
Earlier in the day, Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue said Taiwan was the key to stable Sino-U.S. ties.
"Whether or not Sino-U.S. relations can maintain sustainable stability depends, to a large extent, on whether the Taiwan question can be solved properly," Zhang said.
China hoped Washington would approach Sino-U.S. relations from a strategic, long-term perspective, Zhang said.
Sino-U.S. ties have matured over the past quarter century, with trade booming and the two cooperating in several diplomatic areas, including the North Korea crisis and in the war on terror.
But tension has never been far beneath the surface, especially when Taiwan is involved.
Since Taiwan held a presidential election and a referendum in March, China has repeatedly called on the United States to stand by its commitment to the "one China" policy and refrain from sending the wrong signals to Taiwan independence seekers.
Rice will meet Chinese President and Communist Party chief Hu Jintao Friday before flying to Seoul.
? Copyright Reuters 2004. All rights reserved.
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Beijing factories hit by rolling power cuts
By James Kynge in Beijing
Published: July 8 2004 16:39 | Last Updated: July 8 2004 16:39
http://news.ft.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=FT.com/StoryFT/FullStory&c=StoryFT&cid=1087373586025&p=1012571727169
Beijing, China's capital, has become the latest of several industrial centres to fall victim to electricity shortages, with authorities preparing to impose rolling blackouts on some 6,400 factories from yesterday until the end of August.
The arrival of regular power cuts in Beijing marks the failure of efforts to shield the capital from almost nationwide shortages.
Beijing is the last of China's big cities to succumb to power rationing. Shanghai and Guangzhou have already implemented widespread curbs on power usage.
Several towns and cities in Shanxi and Inner Mongolia, two provinces near Beijing, have had their electricity and coal supplies diverted over the past few months to keep the capital running smoothly.
But the power stations serving the capital have now hit maximum capacity. Even running at full tilt, they cannot satisfy the summer surge in demand as people turn up air conditioners against an early heat wave.
Tang Fenghan, a director at Beijing Electric Power Corporation, said: "In order to guarantee electricity supply to the city, we will impose restrictions on the use of electricity among 6,400 enterprises in the suburban area of Beijing from July 8 to August 31."
The cuts would affect factories in the suburbs and outskirts and are not expected to be felt in the city proper.
Each electricity stoppage will be scheduled, officials said, allowing companies to prepare production and worker rosters well in advance.
"Some of the enterprises will have their electricity stopped once a week, some will be once a day, some will have it stopped for a whole week. It varies. Enterprises in Beijing city proper will not be affected," said a second official at the Beijing Electric Power Corporation.
Manufacturing executives said that as long as Beijing power authorities could stick to the rationing schedule they announce and unexpected blackouts were avoided, the disruption to production could be contained because overtime shifts could be arranged on days when there was enough power.
Yang Hongming, executive chairman of Datang Power, the main supplier of electricity to the capital, said the company was running at full capacity. He said problems encountered earlier this year in securing a stable supply of coal had been overcome and Datang now had an inventory of five to seven days of coal, up from two to five days a month ago.
A coal transport executive in Jiexiu, Shanxi, said the price of some types of coal had recently started to ease, reversing more than a year of increases.
In Guangzhou, authorities have forced 4,000 local companies to shut off electricity two days a week to prevent overloading the power grid. About another 100 are being asked to lower consumption by 10-20 per cent.
Electricity use in Shanghai has hit record one-day highs this summer and thousands of workers have also been told to take staggered one-week holidays for a month from mid-July.xref Is China's growth sustainable?
Join the discussion at www.ft.com/chinaforum


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S. Korean military told to lose 'hostile feelings' for the enemy
Special to World Tribune.com
EAST-ASIA-INTEL.COM
Thursday, July 8, 2004
South Korea's National Security Council Secretary Gen. Yi Chong-Sok recently told South Korean military officers to reduce their feelings of hostility toward the enemy, East-Asia-Intel.com reported in its current edition.
Yi told the officers during a military academy speech June 19: "It will make a stronger military when soldiers serve along the barbed-wire fences [in the Demilitarized Zone] with enhanced sense of citizenship and pride and affection for the country, rather than with hostile feelings toward enemy forces, will it not?"
One general then asked Yi, "I understand you are saying that arousing hostile feelings toward the enemy alone cannot render our military stronger. In that case, how can we educate our men on their perspectives toward the enemy in the reality where the North and South are confronting each other?"
Yi then sought to clarify his statement: "I only mentioned a general idea. I did not say it with North Korea in mind."
The government of South Korean President Roh Moo-Hyun has been criticized for having pro-North Korea views.
Copyright ? 2004 East West Services, Inc.

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Iraq's Dirty Stash
By H. Josef Hebert
Associated Press | July 8, 2004
WASHINGTON - In a secret operation, the United States last month removed from Iraq nearly two tons of uranium and hundreds of highly radioactive items that could have been used in a so-called dirty bomb, the Energy Department disclosed Tuesday.
The nuclear material was secured from Iraq's former nuclear research facility and airlifted out of the country to an undisclosed Energy Department laboratory for further analysis, the department said in a statement.
Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham described the previously undisclosed operation, which was concluded June 23, as "a major achievement" in an attempt to "keep potentially dangerous nuclear material out of the hands of terrorists."
The haul included a "huge range" of radioactive items used for medical and industrial purposes, said Bryan Wilkes, a spokesman for the Energy Department's National Nuclear Security Administration.
Much of the material "was in powdered form, which is easily dispersed," said Wilkes.
The statement provided only scant details about the material taken from Iraq, but said it included "roughly 1,000 highly radioactive sources" that "could potentially be used in a radiological dispersal device," or dirty bomb.
Also ferried out of Iraq was 1.95 tons of low-enriched uranium, the department said.
Wilkes said "a huge range of different isotopes" were secured in the joint Energy Department and Defense Department operation. They had been used in Iraq for a range of medical and industrial purposes, such as testing oil wells and pipelines.
Uranium is not suitable for making a dirty bomb. But some of the other radioactive material - including cesium-137, colbalt-60 and strontium - could have been valuable to a terrorist seeking to fashion a terror weapon.
Such a device would not trigger a nuclear explosion, but would use conventional explosives to spread radioactive debris. While few people would probably be killed or seriously affected by the radiation, such an explosion could cause panic, make a section of a city uninhabitable for some time and require cumbersome and expensive cleanup.
Nuclear nonproliferation advocates said securing radioactive material is important all over the world.
A recent study by researchers at the Center for Nonproliferation Studies at the Monterey Institute of International Studies concluded it is "all but certain" that some kind of dirty bomb will be set off by a terrorist group in the years ahead. There are just too many radioactive sources available across the globe, the report said.
"This is something we should be doing not just in Iraq," Ivan Oelrich, a physicist at the Federation of American Scientists, said when asked to comment on the Energy Department announcement.
Oelrich hesitated to characterize the threat posed by the uranium and other radioactive material secured in the secret U.S. operation because few details were provided about the material. The Energy Department refused to say where the material was shipped.
But Oelrich said it is widely believed that medical and industrial isotopes can be used in a dirty bomb.
The low-enriched uranium taken from Iraq, if it is of the 3 percent to 5 percent level of enrichment common in fuel for commercial power reactors, could have been of value to a country developing enrichment technology.
"It speeds up the process," Oelrich said, adding that 1.95 tons of low-enriched uranium could be used to produce enough highly enriched uranium to make a single nuclear bomb.

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Musharraf, You're No Churchill
By Robert Spencer
FrontPageMagazine.com | July 7, 2004
Call the roller of big cigars: Pakistan's Pervez Musharraf is hard at work auditioning for the role of today's Winston Churchill. Last Monday he declared: "A new iron curtain seems to be falling. This iron curtain somehow is dividing the Muslim world on one side and the West on the other side. This is very dangerous."
How dangerous? Well, the Islamic world is on the brink of falling into new "depths of chaos and despair." It seems that "Muslim states are seen as the source of terrorism," which evidently our new Churchill finds disturbing; I suppose he would prefer that we search for terrorists among the Ohio Amish. Musharraf warns of more "terrorism and an impending clash of civilizations" -- unless, that is, the United States goes to what he identifies as the root of the problem: "If you manage to finish off one organization like al Qaeda ... you've chopped off a branch of that tree, but the tree will still grow. You must identify the root, and the root happens to be political disputes ... the root happens also to be illiteracy and poverty." Many Muslims, he explained, "feel deprived, hopeless, powerless." This leaves them vulnerable to being "indoctrinated by distorted views of Islam."
Musharraf is probably not familiar with numerous studies that indicate that the conventional wisdom he is purveying here is actually false. The idea that terrorists are desperately poor, uneducated, and easily enticed by the promise of a few dollars or a bit of manipulative religious twaddle that the cynical power elite purvey but don't believe in themselves -- it flies in the face of the facts. Most recently, Marc Sageman, a former CIA case officer, has found through extensive background studies of known Al-Qaeda operatives that most Islamic terrorists are, according to a Knight-Ridder report, "well-educated, married men from middle- or upper-class families, in their mid-20s and psychologically stable ... Many of them knew several languages and traveled widely." Sageman strongly ruled out the idea that terrorists were misfits and sociopaths: "The data suggest that these were good kids who liked to go to school and were often overprotected by their parents."
Sageman says that for these men, terrorism constitutes "an answer to Islamic decadence - a feeling that Islam has lost its way." And this sentiment could never be aroused in them if they didn't already have the idea that Islam's purity could somehow be restored by violence. The reality is that educated people who begin to get serious about their Islamic faith all too often turn to terrorism because they are taught that acts of violence against unbelievers is part of their religious responsibility.
They are teaching this sort of thing in the new Churchill's back yard, although all the cigar smoke may be keeping him from seeing this fact. Last March, the acting President of the radical Muslim party Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), Qazi Hussain Ahmad, threatened to launch nationwide protests if the curriculum in Pakistan's Islamic schools (madrassas) were reformed to eliminate verses from the Qur'an that taught violent jihad. "To combat this," Qazi warned, "a major jihadi campaign has become necessary." He sent Musharraf a pointed reminder: "the general should note that the country came into existence on Islamic ideology and it could survive on that basis alone." That ideology is taught daily in many of Pakistan's 27,000 madrassas. A significant percentage of these, according to Newsweek, "steep their students in the doctrine of holy war and function openly as jihad enlistment centers."
Will Great Society programs aimed at stamping out Pervez Musharraf's twin bogeymen, illiteracy and poverty, really put an end to all this? When the Ottoman Empire was the richest, most powerful nation in the world, it still pursued jihad against Christian Europe. None of Osama bin Laden's millions have ever persuaded him that he'd rather haunt the nightclubs of Beirut than the caves of Afghanistan. But Musharraf isn't alone: few in the West want to face the implications of studies like Sageman's. It is far easier to imagine that a few dollars and a voucher or two to MIT will put everything right again in the Middle East, than to try to digest the implications of a religion in need of massive reform on a global scale.
But all this obfuscation is ultimately self-defeating: with the root causes of terror left unaddressed, the terrorists are still free to recruit and proliferate. Let Pervez Musharraf speak about the real roots of Islamic terror, and he'll actually deserve that Churchillian mantle.
Robert Spencer is the director of Jihad Watch and the author of Onward Muslim Soldiers: How Jihad Still Threatens America and the West (Regnery Publishing), and Islam Unveiled: Disturbing Questions About the World's Fastest Growing Faith (Encounter Books).
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TERRORISM MONITOR

Volume 2 Issue 13 (Jul 01, 2004)
THE WAR ON TERROR AND THE POLITICS OF VIOLENCE IN PAKISTAN
By Afzal Khan
Violence in Pakistan has gone through all conceivable phases before becoming pinned to the broader concept of global terrorism inspired by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda after September 11, 2001. Pakistan was born in violence, as communal riots broke out between Muslims and Hindus in 1947 when British India was partitioned between Hindu-majority and Muslim-majority areas. A legacy of that partition was the undetermined status of Kashmir - with a Muslim majority population and a Hindu maharajah - that led to endless insurgency and two wars between India and Pakistan in 1965 and 1971.
Prior to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the problem of violence in Pakistan had been largely confined to insurgency in Kashmir and occasional sectarian clashes between the majority Sunni Muslims and minority Shi'a Muslims - who comprise between 15 percent and 20 percent of the population. There were also episodes of ethnic fighting in Karachi between muhajirs or refugees who had originally migrated from India, native Sindhis, and other settlers such as Pathans and Punjabis from other parts of Pakistan, as well as Bihari refugees from Bangladesh after it was mid-wifed out of East Pakistan in 1971.
It was after 1979 that the whole perspective on violence in Pakistan began to change, during the military government of Islamist General Zia-ul Haq (1977-1988). As he became increasingly embroiled in the U.S.-supported war against Soviet-occupied Afghanistan, the insurgent, sectarian and ethnic violence in Pakistan began to take a new dimension. This new dimension developed into a new kind of militancy that sought legitimacy under the banner of Islam, and, henceforth, came to be labeled in the West as Islamic militancy or terrorism.
President Zia-ul Haq crossed the Rubicon after accepting - with the encouragement of the United States - millions of dollars in Saudi money tainted with the proselytizing message of Wahhabism, a fundamentalist sect of Sunni Islam. The most prominent player in that transfer of oil wealth to sustain a jihad against the infidel Russians was Osama bin Laden. He had arrived in Peshawar, Pakistan - with the blessings of Saudi royalty - to fight the jihad. In collaboration with his revered leader, Abdullah Azam, he set up in February 1980 the Maktab al-Khidmat (MAK) or Services Center, a support organization for Arab volunteers for the jihad in Afghanistan that would later evolve into al-Qaeda in 1989.
Within less than a year, MAK had several thousand volunteers training in its boot camps in Pakistani tribal territory and Afghanistan. By its second anniversary in 1982, it was estimated that MAK had trained some 10,000 jihadis, nearly half of them Saudi. Others came from Algeria (around 3,000) and Egypt (2,000). A few hundred came from Yemen, Pakistan, Sudan, Lebanon, Turkey, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Tunisia. Only a fraction of these were Afghans. [1]
Between 1982 and 1992, some 35,000 Muslim radicals from 43 Islamic countries in the Middle East, North and East Africa, Central Asia and the Far East would "pass their baptism under fire" with the Afghan mujahidin. Tens of thousands more foreign Muslim radicals came to study in the hundreds of new madrassahs that General Zia ul-Haq's military government set up along the Afghan border, thanks to Saudi money. Eventually, more than 100,000 Muslim radicals were to have "direct contact with Pakistan and Afghanistan" and be influenced by the jihad. [2]
After the Soviets withdrew from Afghanistan in 1989, Islamic militants or so-called mujahidin fought among themselves to oust the Soviet proxy government in Kabul under Najibullah, which they did in 1992. Then many of them drifted to Pakistan, beefing up the insurgency against the Indian occupation of Kashmir and boosting Sunni militancy against the Shi'a.
When the Taliban came into power in Afghanistan in 1996, the die was cast for more Islamic extremism. Pakistan supported the Taliban to be their proxy power in Afghanistan. In the meantime, Osama bin Laden was also back in Afghanistan after returning home to Saudi Arabia in 1990 and living in exile in Sudan from 1992 until 1996 for confronting Saudi royalty over its collusion with the United States in the First Gulf War against Iraq. Bin Laden's money propped up the Taliban regime under Mullah Omar. The jihadis were once again in training camps in Afghanistan. But this time they were looking to defeat the United States, Israel and India in their subjugation of Muslim brethren in the Middle East, Palestine and Kashmir.
Insurgency groups in Kashmir now had fanatical Afghans and Afghan-Arabs in their ranks to fight Indian troops in Kashmir and slaughter Hindu civilians and Muslim collaborators. Of some two-dozen Kashmiri and Pakistani insurgent groups active in Kashmir during the 1990s, bin Laden's al-Qaeda penetrated several, including Harkat-ul Mujahidin and Lashkar-e Taiba. Al-Qaeda - staunchly Sunni Wahhabi and anti-Shi'a - also financed and trained several anti-Shi'a groups such as Sipah-e Sahaba and its underground splinter arm, Lashkar-e Jhangvi. [3] This infiltration of al-Qaeda elements into Pakistan's Kashmir insurgency and sectarian terrorist groups took place during the prime ministerships of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif.
Then came September 11, 2001. The Taliban regime and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda were dismantled between October and December of that year. However, a low-level opposition continued in the mountains on the border with Pakistan's pro-Taliban tribal region. General Pervez Musharraf, who ousted Prime minister Nawaz Sharif in a military coup in October 1999, turned about-face on existing support of the Taliban in Afghanistan under U.S. pressure. Nevertheless, al-Qaeda and Taliban remnants from the war in Afghanistan poured in to take shelter in Pakistan.
Even before September 11, General Musharraf took a dim view of Islamic extremism in Pakistan. He considered those involved in sectarian violence to be terrorists, and in August 2001 he banned Lashkar-e Jhangvi and Sipah-e Mohammed. In October 2001, he sacked two of his generals he deemed to be sympathetic to the Taliban. On January 12, 2002, he delivered a landmark speech in which he announced a ban on two of the most prominent Pakistan-based insurgent groups fighting in Kashmir - Jaish-e Mohammed and Lashkar-e Taiba. This, in response to accusations by India that five members of Pakistani-backed Kashmiri militant groups were responsible for a spectacular attack on the Indian Parliament in New Delhi on December 13, 2001. [4]
Over 500 al-Qaeda militants have been handed over by Pakistan to the United States and countries of their origin since September 11. The most spectacular catch was third-ranking al-Qaeda operative Khalid Sheikh Mohammed who was captured with FBI help in Rawalpindi on March 1, 2003. More recently, the Pakistani military in the Pashtun tribal belt has been collaborating in a "hammer and anvil" exercise with U.S. forces across the border in Afghanistan to flush out al-Qaeda and pro-Taliban elements. But the hunt for Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri as well as the Taliban leader Mullah Omar has so far proved futile.
In two intensive forays into the South Waziristan tribal agency in March and June, the Pakistani military claimed to have killed many militants, remnants of the Afghan-Arabs and other foreign Muslim radicals who fought first the Russians in the 1980s, and then the Northern Alliance and U.S. forces in support of the Taliban in the 1990s and 2001-02.
There have been sporadic arrests of al-Qaeda militants who presumably have fled from South Waziristan because of these military operations. On May 19, Pakistani intelligence agencies arrested five foreign militants in Peshawar - a Saudi, a Kuwaiti, an Afghan and two Uzbeks. It was not known whether the Uzbeks were from Uzbekistan or northern Afghanistan. [5] In another report, a Russian was arrested on June 6 at a military checkpoint outside Miranshah, the headquarters of the North Wazirstan tribal agency. The man was carrying a fake Pakistani identification card and during interrogation confessed that he had been living in the tribal region for the past four years.
Most notably, the tribal insurgency in South Waziristan has been connected with violence in Karachi. A new terrorist group calling itself Jund Allah or God's Brigade allegedly trained in South Waziristan and fought the Pakistani military there before deploying in Karachi. On June 10, Jund Allah tried to assassinate Karachi's Corps Commander Lieutenant General Ahsan Saleem in a well-organized ambush that killed 11 soldiers and police in the convoy, including the driver of the general's car. Jund Allah is believed to be linked to Brigade 313, which also includes the established Lashkar-e Taiba, Jaish-e Mohammed, Harkat-ul Jihad al-Islami, Lashkar-e Jhangvi and the newer Al Alami. Al Alami, an offshoot of the banned Harkat-ul Mujahidin, has claimed responsibility for the abortive attempt on President Musharraf's life in April 2002 and the suicide bombing of the U.S. consulate in Karachi in the same year. [6]
Historical acts of violence in Pakistan have become embellished by the al-Qaeda concept of global Islamic dominance and militancy. The target of this terrorism now includes President Musharraf and all those progressive forces and institutions in Pakistan that eschew Islamic extremism and want to maintain a link with the United States and the West.

Notes:
1. Bin Laden - behind the mask of the terrorist, pgs. 91-93, Adam Robinson, Arcade Publishing, New York, 2002.
2. Taliban,Ahmed Rashid, pgs. 130-131, Yale University Press, 2000.
3. Inside Al Qaeda, Rohan Gunaratna, pg. 206, Columbia University Press, 2002.
4. Pakistan: eye of the storm, pgs. 24-29, Owen Bennett Jones, Yale University Press (Second Edition), 2003.
5. Dawn, Peshawar, 20 May 2004.
6. Friday Times, Karachi, 21 June 2004. INSIDE THIS ISSUE

1983-2003 ? The Jamestown Foundation

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Can't Keep My Hands Off of You,
No Bounce for Metrosexual Duo
July 8, 2004
PHOTOS AND MORE...
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_070804/content/rush_is_right.guest.html
Listen to Rush...
(...roll the new love song update for Kerry & Edwards: Can't Keep My [Hands] Off of You)
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: If you haven't seen this yet, what you need to do, you need to go to the Drudge Report, www.DrudgeReport.com and take a look at the pictures there. Uh, you gotta click on the link that says "Can't Keep Hands Off Each Other." Looks like these guys are bringing that old Frankie Valli song from 1967: "Can't Keep My Hands Off of You." They're bringing it to life Kerry and Edwards are. You've got to look at these pictures. My gosh it's a couple of metrosexuals, and I'll tell you why. The issues have just gone south on them. The job numbers are the best they've ever been since 2000. We've got the situation in Iraq straightening out. So all these guys can do is act weird! It's absolutely el strange-o out there. Greetings -- and to me it looks like John Kerry finally, ladies and gentlemen, has found what's he's been looking for his whole life, and that is a trophy wife, in his vice presidential nominee, John Edwards.
It's the Rush Limbaugh program, and here we are from high atop the EIB building in midtown Manhattan. In New York all week. Our telephone number is 800-282-2882. The e-mail address is rush@eibnet.com. If you'll go to the Drudge Report link that I just suggested that you go to, here's what you will see. "Hugs, kisses, to the," You'll see pictures of this! "Hugs, kisses to the cheek, affectionate touching of the face, caressing of the back, grabbing of the arms, fingers to the neck, rubbing of the knees. John Kerry and John Edwards can't keep their hands off each other." Can't take my hands off of you. (Singing.) (Laughing.) Grab that Frankie Valli song that's going to become our theme song for these two guys.
"In the past 48 hours candidate handling has become the top buzz on the trail. News photographers have been going wild with photos of the two Johns." (Laughing.) A little subliminal message there. "'I've been covering Washington and politics for 30 years. I can say I've never seen this much touching between two men publicly,' e-mailed one wire photographer. When asked for the Johns are acting out of cynical focus-grouped series of poses perhaps to show warmth to the chilly Bush-Cheney a Kerry spokesperson explained I think we're just seeing genuine affection between them."
Hey, that's going to help! But the spokesperson added, "I hope we don't see them wearing matching outfits when they ride bicycles this weekend." So there you have it. They've got to do something out there, folks. Did you find the song? Listen to this, folks. Let's go back to 1967. I can remember this one. When this song came on, all the little high school girlfriends of mine -- I didn't have a high school girlfriend -- high school girl friend, would just swoon when this song came on. Play just a little bit of it, our new Kerry and Edwards theme song. (You're just too good to be true...) Substitute "hands" here. Can't take my hands off of you. (You'd be like heaven to touch. I want to hold you so much....) They're doing it all. (At long last love has arrived, and I thank God I'm alive.) 1967. (Laughing) (You're just too good to be true. Can't keep my eyes off of you...)
Okay, that's enough. That's sets the stage for what you'll see when you scope out these pictures. Also, ladies and gentlemen, Zogby is out. No big bounce in the polls for Kerry here. Kerry Edwards pulls ahead of Bush-Cheney 48 to 46. That's about a three-point bounce. I mean the "bounce," usually you get anywhere from eight-to-12 points on something like this. Clinton got, what was it? I think Gore did get a big one with Lieberman, and Clinton, Clinton got a 19% bump when he named Gore. This is nothing. I'm telling you, folks, this is Panic City out there. This is not the way this was supposed to come down. This is going to make people think, "We've made the wrong choice," because the sole reason for this choice was to get a bump going into the convention and get another bump coming out of the convention. There's no bump going into the convention, no big bounce for Kerry. Now, we have been observing for you here, ladies and gentlemen, how the liberals bounce between the economy and Iraq, depending upon where the bad news was on that given day. There's no job growth, if the economic news is not good then they forget Iraq and terror, and they harp on the economy. If there's good economic news with job growth like there is today, they forget the economy and they go back to terror and the war in Iraq and how that's a "failure."
But now their own actions are signaling news out of Iraq as either too good or else not bad enough, and the economy is too good now to even demagogue, and so it's the Era of Good Hair; it's the Era of Warm, Fuzzy Love. Cupid's arrow has already smitten not just the anchorettes and the info babes on television. It appears that Cupid's arrow has already smitten the two candidates on the Democrat side. Are we in here for Arousal Gap 2? If we are, there's just one small problem, and that is this. Who is that dull, tall, gray guy standing next to John Edwards? (shuffling papers, laughing) I'll tell you, this is just amazing. It's December Me romance. I know May, but December Me romance. No, folks, I don't want to be misheard. I said "metrosexual," and I'm standing by it. Don't take this anywhere we don't intend it to go. We're not saying anything here. We're not saying anything. Tell you to go look at the pictures and make up your own mind.
A little more data here on the poll bounce, because Zogby gives it a two-or-three-point bounce for Kerry after selecting Edwards. "A CBS News poll taken immediately after the pick found that Kerry gained four points. An NBC News survey showed Kerry got more impressive 9% jump," or bump in the polls, but a little comparison here is interesting. "Four years ago Algore's candidacy got a 17-point shot in the arm when he chose Joe Lieberman, and in 1992 Clinton got a 19-point bounce when he tapped Gore as his running mate." So, not impressive, not exciting, has to be a huuuge let-down internally within the cloakrooms and the bowels of the Democrat digestive system, wherever it is today. This is not good news because when you get right down to it, folks, I'm going to tell you: Kerry probably did not really want this guy on a personal basis, personal way, personal level. Doesn't like him, never has liked him, doesn't think he's spent enough time, doesn't think he's paid his dues. This was poll-driven, and the polls may have misled them. We'll find out in due course.
END TRANSCRIPT
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Democrats Pooh-Pooh Terrorist Threat
July 8, 2004
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_070804/content/truth_detector.guest.html
Listen to Rush...
(...illustrate more kookism that occupies the left despite a serious warning by Ridge)
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Tom Ridge, who is the director of homeland security, made an announcement today a little bit late in the press conference, and this is basically what he said.
VOICE: Since September 11th, 2001, we have had intelligence that Al-Qaeda intends to launch more attacks against the homeland. Credible reporting now indicates that Al-Qaeda is moving forward with its plans to carry out a large-scale attack in the United States in an effort to disrupt our democratic process.
RUSH: Yeah. Now, the press is just crazy with this. The Democrats are crazy with this because it's nothing new. They think this is a ploy to take attention away from Kerry and Edwards. They think this is the administration making this up because there's no news in here, there's nothing new. Just another update on a potential threat, but no date given, no site given and so the media says, [doing impression] "This is just a trick. They're just trying to take away from the fabulous attention that Kerry and Edwards are getting." And here is sort of an illustration of that with the question that Ridge got from an unidentified reporter.
REPORTER: Sir, once again you're saying that Al-Qaeda wants to disrupt the democratic process. There are some, you know, who will interpret that as the administration sending a subtle message that a vote for John Kerry is a vote for Osama bin Laden. How do you address those concerns?
RIDGE: First of all it's the wrong interpretation. We are basically laying out before the general public the kind of information that we received and it's not us -- these are not conjectures or mythical statements we are making. These are pieces of information that we could trace comfortably to sources that we deem to be credible.
RUSH: All right. Now, here's what's happening here. And I'm not kidding you, the media all morning, I'm channel surfing around. The Media: "I haven't heard anything new here. What about that, Johnny? I haven't heard anything new, either, Carol, did you hear? No, Fred, I didn't hear anything new. How about you, Ron? No, nothing new here." They were all going back and forth, until it was learned that the Kerry campaign was offered a briefing on this information last week by the Bush administration, and the Kerry campaign refused -- well, we haven't refused it, they just haven't taken the time to get the briefing on this latest threat because, as the Kerry campaign said, "We were busy making our vice presidential selection."
So what you have here are people basically trying to say on the left and in the media, that this is a fake, trumped-up, no-news report designed politically to take away any attention from Kerry and Edwards and to highlight their lack of strength on this whole issue. And they don't have strength on this issue, because they don't talk about it and they are trying to pretend that this threat doesn't exist anyway, but they were given a chance to get this briefing and they haven't taken the opportunity to do that yet. Let me tell you what's really driving this. It's not politics -- well, there may be some politics in it -- but do any of you remember the 9/11 commission report? Remember what that's gonna say? CIA bungled this, CIA bungled that, CIA is going to take the fall for everything, and we didn't connect the dots, remember that phrase? Didn't connect the dots.
We had all this information before 9/11 happened, but nobody said anything about it, the American people weren't put on alert. That mistake is not going to be made again. That mistake is not being made again, and that's all this is. They've got information. You've got the two conventions coming up, we had what happened in Spain. Ridge that said they've got credible evidence that Al-Qaeda is working on another attack in this country. Everybody knows that if Al-Qaeda can, they will. Nobody thinks there's not going to be another one, the administration is not raising the threat level, they're simply asking people to be vigilant, and it's as much as anything, they're not going to be caught short again, they're not going to have another attack happened while nobody was told it might happen, sharing of information even though it's whatever specifics are known are not being shared or maybe there aren't any specifics known yet. They're trying to connect the dots. I think it's understandable, folks, the left would look at this cynically because they're weak on this issue. I think it's a great example, rather than rally around this, rather than hunker down and say okay, we've got a serious threat coming, and try to act as though they take it seriously too -- I'm talking about the Democrats -- they want to pooh-pooh it and say, ah, this is nothing, this is just the Bush administration feeling weak and defensive because they can't compete with John Edwards on the vice presidential ticket.
It's silly. But it illustrates the kookism and the conspiracy-theory thinking and mentality that occupies the left right now. And, by the way, we've got sound bites coming up, you know, Bush had this great slam-dunk of Edwards yesterday. [doing impression] "What about Edwards?" Well, the difference between Edwards and Cheney is Cheney could be (story) president. And so they're out there today, all these Democrats saying that, hey, Edwards has got more experience than Bush does. All right, here's the way to answer that, folks. The answer to that is fine, then we need term limits, because if you can go in the United States Senate and in five years, less than a full term, get enough experience to be president, then that's the only length of time you need to serve. Let's just reinstitute term limits. If you could become qualified to be president after five years in the Senate, let's term limit everybody to one term because you can't learn anymore after that. Hunka hunka hunka.
END TRANSCRIPT
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We're Fighting Militant Islam, Not Terror
July 8, 2004
http://www.rushlimbaugh.com/home/daily/site_070804/content/stack_a.guest.html
Listen to Rush...
(...read the article about Germany and its war on terror)
BEGIN TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: Germany said Thursday it would create a central database on suspected radical Islamists provoking concern from the country's large Muslim community. Interior minister Otto Schily also announced plans (story) to boost the fight against terrorism by pooling intelligence from the three national security agencies at a new joint analysis center.
Whoa, this is not going to please the American left! This is Ashcroftesque. This sort of stuff, why, this is the sort of stuff that countries serious about dealing with terrorists and criminals do, and Germany is one of our allies. Germany is laissez-faire. I mean Bernie Sanders will not approve of this. Kerry certainly will not approve of this. Edwards will sue Germany over this. Can you imagine you liberals in this country, the arrogance of this, a database, on the Muslim population of Germany, which is rapidly rising? Talk to the French about that, too.
A Muslim leader, reacting to news of the database, said innocent Muslims risk falling under suspicion unless the term "Islamist" was properly defined. He said, "When you speak about Islamism, you have to clarify what you mean by it. We're concerned that every Muslim could fall under this catchall term, which is unacceptable."
You've got to be careful about this because the Muslim communities around the world are doing everything they can to obscure and fog this whole notion of who is a terrorist. And that's what I was saying yesterday. I was telling some people last night. This terrorist war, terrorist is actually a misnomer for what we're up against. We are in a war against religious extremists and they are at war with other religions. These militant Islamists, Muslims, whatever you want to call them, the Al-Qaedas of the world, they are at war with the world's Christians and Jews and anybody else that disagrees with them. And their religion is Islam. They happen to be militant extremists, but this is a religious war, and they are using terrorism as their plan. But to say we're in a war against terrorists doesn't quite accurately describe this, and until it's accurately described people aren't going to know what we're really up against. And I think it's important to do that.
END TRANSCRIPT


Muslims Alarmed as Germany Plans Islamist Database
Thu Jul 8, 2004 11:25 AM ET
By Mark Trevelyan, Security Correspondent
BERLIN (Reuters) - Germany said Thursday it would create a central database on suspected radical Islamists, provoking concern from the country's large Muslim community.
Interior Minister Otto Schily also announced plans to boost the fight against terrorism by pooling intelligence from the three national security agencies in a new joint analysis center.
The moves, announced after two days of talks between Schily and interior ministers from the 16 states or 'Laender', are designed to strengthen Germany's defenses against terrorism by making its complex security structure work more efficiently.
Germany has stepped up its guard against radical Islamists since 2001, when three of the suicide hijackers involved in the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States turned out to be Arab students from Hamburg.
Authorities are investigating about 150 cases involving alleged Islamic militants, and have conducted several prominent trials.
But a Muslim leader, reacting to news of the database, said innocent Muslims risked falling under suspicion unless the term 'Islamist' was properly defined.
"When you speak about Islamism, you have to clarify what you mean by it. We are concerned that every Muslim could fall under this catch-all term, which is unacceptable," said Nadeem Elyas, chairman of the Central Council of Muslims in Germany.
"We're worried that people may be caught up arbitrarily who have nothing to do with terrorism. By arbitrarily, I mean at the discretion of officials or authorities, which would be a violation of data protection rules."
A spokesman for the federal data protection commissioner said it was important to establish clear rules on who could enter or view data on suspects, and how long entries would be held in the system.
Because of its historic experience of Nazi and Communist dictatorship, Germany has strict rules on data protection and on separating the functions of the police and the intelligence services.
With its federal structure, it also has more than 30 bodies responsible for security -- a federal crime office and two spy agencies, plus police and domestic intelligence services in every state.
To avoid duplication and the risk of vital information falling between the cracks, Schily last month proposed bringing the state services under the direct control of their federal equivalents. But the idea has been vigorously resisted by interior ministers in the 16 Laender.
The national police union said it was baffling to ordinary Germans why such questions were still being ponderously thrashed out nearly three years after Sept. 11. "One can only hope that international terrorism will show due consideration for German thoroughness," it said in a statement.
? Copyright Reuters 2004.
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The Edwards Pick
A little competition.
By National Review Editors
EDITOR'S NOTE: This editorial appears in the (forthcoming) July 26, 2004, issue of National Review.
With the selection of John Edwards, John Kerry has shown that he is more ambitious than self-indulgent. It would have been natural for Kerry to carry resentments from the primaries. He could reasonably have feared that Edwards's fans in the press would write that Kerry will be upstaged by his running mate. Kerry decided that Edwards would help him win the election, and all merely personal considerations were laid aside.
We are inclined to think that Kerry's calculation was correct: Edwards brings real strengths to the Democratic ticket. He is an attractive figure. Voters seem to respond to youth, energy, and good looks. Edwards may also help Kerry appeal to centrist voters: Americans outside the South have a dated perception of how conservative southern Democrats are. Edwards's campaign speech, though centered on the idea that Americans who are not rich have little hope of making it on their own, somehow comes across as optimistic. So Kerry may find himself competing with Edwards over who can better excite the crowds. The competition may be good for Kerry. Edwards does not much help him win voters concerned about national security -- but Kerry was always going to have to stand or fall on his own in this area.
Republicans will be tempted to make an issue of Edwards's background as a trial lawyer. They should not overestimate the extent to which the public at large shares their dislike of trial lawyers. They make their money, after all, by telling sympathetic stories that win over ordinary people.
Edwards does, however, have weaknesses. He has a very liberal voting record. Kerry-Edwards is the least ideologically balanced ticket the Democrats have run since 1984. Edwards reinforces the protectionist cast of the ticket, and of the contemporary Democratic party. While many voters worry about jobs going abroad, how well does that worrying comport with the optimism that the campaign wishes to project?
Edwards believes that President Bush, by trying to end the tax code's bias against savings, has sided with "wealth" over "work." Edwards is therefore very nearly making a frontal assault on the new investor class. Millions of Americans want to build wealth in capital markets, and do not believe they should pay taxes for the privilege. A smart Republican campaign should be able to mobilize them.
Like Kerry, Edwards voted to authorize war in Iraq -- and, like Kerry, voted against funds for the post-war mission. That is a hard position to defend, and suggests unseriousness or worse. Like Kerry, Edwards voted for the Patriot Act, and then spent months claiming that its implementation was a threat to civil liberties. Kerry has switched positions, or at least emphases, again. Presumably Edwards will, too. But voters may want a steadier commitment to fighting terrorism.
Bush and Cheney have shown some lassitude this year. They should get their campaign started. The spur of competition might do them some good, too.
http://www.nationalreview.com/issue/editors200407080833.asp

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The Anti-Growth Ticket
On torts, trade, and taxes, Kerry and Edwards will do big damage.
John Kerry's choice of North Carolina Senator John Edwards as his running mate sets in motion a classic economic-populist, class-warfare, trade-protectionism assault on the free-market principles that have made the American economy the most prosperous of any industrialized nation over the past 25 years.
Edwards may be an attractive personality and an effective communicator, but on policy substance -- namely torts, trade, and taxes -- he's resoundingly anti-growth and prosperity. (Just like Kerry.)
In a January primary speech in Des Moines, Edwards said, "There are two Americas -- one for the powerful insiders, and another for everyone else." This became his signature line. He would also say, "One America that is struggling to get by, another America that can buy anything it wants -- even a Congress and a president."
Or a political party. After all, with Edwards -- the tort bar's man in Washington -- on the ticket, the takeover of the Democratic party by the 60,000 member Association of Trial Lawyers of America is now complete.
Trial lawyers are clever and crafty -- make no mistake about it. Through aggressive venue shopping, tort lawyers like Edwards bring national cases to favored local courts and squeeze out ridiculous settlements, making millions for their firms and frequently providing little or nothing to consumers.
Here's but one infamous case: In a settlement of a class-action suit filed in Texas against the Blockbuster movie-rental company, plaintiff lawyers received $9.25 million while each class-action member received two coupons for movie rentals and one $1 off coupon. The case was about late movie return charges. The lawyers made enough money to produce their own movie, but Blockbuster customers couldn't even use their coupons to buy a bag of popcorn. Their coupons were for non-food items.
Edwards is also on the wrong side of the fence on trade. He is a devout protectionist. During the Iowa primary debate last January he proclaimed, "I didn't vote for NAFTA. I campaigned against NAFTA. I voted against the Chilean trade agreement, against the Caribbean trade agreement, and against the Singapore trade agreement."
Both Edwards and Kerry (the latter now saying he will vote against NAFTA should it come up again) are more than happy to buck the world tide and go it alone on trade -- even though steep tariffs will hurt ordinary Americans who shop low-cost imports at the giant chain stores. By protecting a small handful of unionized and inefficient companies in North Carolina and elsewhere, trade protectionism undermines the living standards of the near 135 million Americans who shop at Wal-Mart, Kmart, Costco, Target, Home Depot, and Best Buy.
On taxes, Edwards is a strong class-warrior. Criticizing President Bush during the primaries, he said, "By the time he's done, the only people who pay taxes in America will be the millions of middle class and poor Americans who do all the work."
Here, the North Carolinian runs into some factual problems. The top 1 percent of taxpayers pay over one-third of income-tax collections. The top 10 percent pay two-thirds. The bottom 50 percent pay only 4 percent of income taxes. And those making under $30,000 a year essentially pay no income taxes at all.
By the time Kerry and Edwards get finished with their proposed $900 billion tab on higher health-care spending, you can bet their tax-hiking proposals will reach much deeper into the American pocket book than their publicly stated $200,000 DMZ line.
Of course, this sort of thinking argues that successful earners and investors are never entitled to reap the fruits of their labor -- even though the rest of the population is entitled to massive health-care subsidies and central-planning price-control schemes. But the politics of envy misses a key point: Higher tax rates on success blunt incentives for the non-rich who are working hard to climb the American ladder of prosperity. Study after study shows that the middle class is shrinking -- not because more are becoming poor, but because more are getting richer.
Repealing tax cuts on investment would also do great damage to economic recovery. It was the decimated investment sector that brought the economy down between 2000 and 2002. The Kerry-Edwards tax-the-rich proposals would in effect prevent the investment seed corn from reinvigorating the very businesses that create jobs in the first place. The so-called rich won't suffer -- they're already rich. Instead, the middle class will face a higher toll-gate barrier as they try to move up the ladder.
On torts, trade, and taxes, the Kerry-Edwards vision will do enormous damage to the welfare of consumers and businesses. Opposing tort reform, raising taxes, erecting new trade barriers, and confiscating the rewards for personal effort and investment is a prescription for economic demoralization -- not growth.
A big question remains, however. Will Messrs. Bush and Cheney be successful in making this case?
-- Larry Kudlow, NRO's Economics Editor, is CEO of Kudlow & Co. and host with Jim Cramer of CNBC's Kudlow & Cramer.
http://www.nationalreview.com/kudlow/kudlow200407070839.asp
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Inquiry will back intelligence that Iraq sought uranium
By Mark Huband in London
Published: July 7 2004 22:38 | Last Updated: July 8 2004 0:49
FT.COM
A UK government inquiry into the intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq is expected to conclude that Britain's spies were correct to say that Saddam Hussein's regime sought to buy uranium from Niger.
The inquiry by Lord Butler, which was delivered to the printers on Wednesday and is expected to be released on July 14, has examined the intelligence that underpinned the UK government's claims about the threat from Iraq.
The report will say the claim that Mr Hussein could deploy chemical weapons within 45 minutes, seized on by UK prime minister Tony Blair to bolster the case for war with Iraq, was inadequately supported by the available intelligence, people familiar with its contents say .
But among Lord Butler's other areas of investigation was the issue of whether Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger. People with knowledge of the report said Lord Butler has concluded that this claim was reasonable and consistent with the intelligence.
President George W. Bush referred to the Niger claim in his state of the union address last year. But officials were forced into a climbdown when it was revealed that the only primary intelligence material the US possessed were documents later shown to be forgeries.
The Bush administration has since distanced itself from all suggestions that Iraq sought to buy uranium. The UK government has remained adamant that negotiations over sales did take place and that the fake documents were not part of the intelligence material it had gathered to underpin its claim.
Butler to say Iraq missile claim 'not supported'
Read more
The Financial Times revealed last week that a key part of the UK's intelligence on the uranium came from a European intelligence service that undertook a three-year surveillance of an alleged clandestine uranium-smuggling operation of which Iraq was a part.
Intelligence officials have now confirmed that the results of this operation formed an important part of the conclusions of British intelligence. The same information was passed to the US but US officials did not incorporate it in their assessment.
The 45-minute claim appeared four times in a government dossier on Iraq's WMD issued in September 2002, including in the foreword by Mr Blair.
It became the subject of intense scrutiny when government scientist David Kelly was alleged to have voiced concerns about the claim's accuracy to Andrew Gilligan, then a BBC reporter.
Mr Gilligan's report of his conversation with Mr Kelly unleashed a fierce dispute between the government and the BBC that culminated in Mr Kelly's suicide, an inquiry into the circumstances of his death, and the resignation of the BBC's two most senior officials.
Lord Butler is said to have produced a report that criticises the process of intelligence gathering and assessment on Iraq but refrains from criticising individual officials.


MI6 rushed to back case for Iraq war
By Stephen Fidler and Mark Huband
Published: July 8 2004 21:55 | Last Updated: July 8 2004 21:55
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The Butler report into intelligence on weapons of mass destruction will paint a picture of Britain's intelligence services rushing to try to justify a political decision to go to war in Iraq.
A central finding of the report, according to people familiar with its contents, will be that intelligence failings stemmed from Downing Street's decision first to be ready for war and later to publicly justify it by the threat seen posed by Iraq's WMD.
The report, due to be released on Wednesday, is expected to avoid criticism of government members or intelligence officials and to focus on ensuring appropriate procedures are followed in future. But it concludes that MI6, the Secret Intelligence Service, delivered inadequate intelligence, that there were flaws in the way it was assessed and that, in some respects, the way it was publicly presented was misleading.
The inquiry says that while Tony Blair's government was genuinely concerned about the spread of WMD and the risk they could fall into the hands of terrorists, Iraq had not been seen as a primary threat.
As a result, MI6 had concentrated on other threats regarded as more immediate, such as Libya, Iran and the nuclear network led by Abdul-Qadeer Khan, the Pakistani scientist. Here, the report will conclude that procedures worked well.
However, after Downing Street decided to back the Bush administration's desire for regime change in Baghdad in 2002, the intelligence services had to hurry to expand the material they produced from Iraq. This appears to have driven MI6 to rely on sources inside Iraq that could not be tested for reliability.
The report is expected to say that some of the intelligence provided by MI6 was inadequately sourced. This includes one of the most highly-publicised parts of the September 2002 government dossier on Iraq's WMD - the claim that Saddam Hussein could deploy chemical and biological weapons within 45 minutes.
But the five-person panel headed by Lord Butler has also concluded that the claim in the dossier that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger was consistent with the intelligence.
The inquiry has also found the dossier omitted caveats that were contained in the original secret assessments by parliament's joint intelligence and security committee, which evaluates the work of the intelligence services.
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Unrelated networks could jointly destabilize South Asia
By Sol Sanders
SPECIAL TO WORLD TRIBUNE.COM
July 8, 2004
A suicide bombing opposite the U.S. embassy in the Sri Lanka's capital Colombo dramatizes increasing violence in South and Southeast Asian.
The Sri Lnkan episodes could mark the end of a truce between the Tamil Tigers [ITTE] minority Tamil guerrillas, who have waged war for almost 20 years. Bitter divisions in the Sri Lankan government and the breakaway of a charismatic Tiger warlord have brought negotiations to a standstill.
The conflict not only inhibits progress in potentially rich Sri Lanka but has serious implications for India. The Sri Lankan Tamils have close ties -the insurgency depends on them - to the south Indian Tamilnad state. The ITTE ultimately aims at creating a "Greater Tamilnad" to include their 65 million South Indian fellow ethnics. Volatile Tamilnad politics with a pivotal role in New Delhi's shifting federal alliances, make such a scenario realistic enough to create an explosive issue.
Of even greater urgency for New Delhi's shaky new coalition is rapidly escalating violence in Nepal, wedged between India and Chinese Tibet. Again, for almost two decades an excruciatingly brutal insurgency has aimed at overthrowing the monarchy and establishing a self-proclaimed Maoist regime. The Maoists, who denounce the "revisionism" of current Chinese leadership, have followed the classic pattern of targeting police and school teachers, setting up guerrilla administered areas where they reward collaborating peasantry. They have been able to call strikes in Katmandu, the capital, lining up support among unemployed students and other dissidents.
Indian support along with U.S. aid to Nepali armed forces is not impeding Maoist growth. New Delhi not only has to worry about the spread of the dissidents in the border lowlands where no geographic barrier divides the two countries, but about Maoist connections in India. The Nepali Maoitss are closely allied with Naxallite guerrilla bands which operate in north central India and have been spreading south, again taking their inspiration from Mao and traditional Indian dacoitry [banditry]. Longer term political implications are even more worrying: although there have been no proved connections between the Maoists and the Chinese who still have unresolved border issues with New Delhi, the Katmandu government has recently appealed to Beijing for support with the prospect Beijing could be mediator. The Maoists through the Naxallites also have close relations with the Communist Party of India [Marxist-Leninist] ruling in India's important West Bengal [Calcutta, now Kolkata] state for two decades. [The Bengali Communist CMP took a pro-Beijing position when Moscow-Beijing alliance exploded and the Indian party split.] Further complication: the current Congress Party-led government needs the CMP for its parliament majority.
In southern Thailand, the outbreak of an old separatist movement among the majority Moslem Malays, continues to grow despite draconian military and police suppression and economic aid promises to a region which has benefited little from the country's post-World War II development. Ties between the local teenage fighters and the international Islamicist terrorist movement are unclear. But with a Southeast Asian network operating in neighboring Malaysia, Indonesia, and the Philippines allied to Osama Ben Ladin, the Thailand Islamicists using the same slogans and [if less sophisticated] tactics will inevitably build those ties if they are not snuffed out.
The threat to Bangkok may be less than the implications for Malaysia just over the border. During the Communist "Emergency" in the 1950s and 60s in Malaya and Singapore, defeated by the then British colonial government, the Communists used southern Thailand sanctuaries. There has always been Malaysian.popular sympathy with the Thai Malays.WhileKuala Lumpur, after winning a recent election against Islamicist opposition, maintains a correct attitude and promises cooperation with the Thai authorities, a local border state government is in the hands of radical Islamacists.
In the southern Philippines, again in a Moslem majority area, training camps are operating for the terrorist organization which perpetrated the deadly Bali October 2002bombing, according to U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone . As Ricciardone points out, annoying the recently reelected President Gloria Arroyo's government, the operation is a threat to the whole neighborhood. Next door Indonesia, in the midst of its first direct election for president, finds candidates angling for the Islamicist vote in what is nominally the world's largest Moslem nation. The U.S,. and its anti-terrorist allies, have been critical of Indonesia's less than enthusiastic pursuit of the Jemaah Islamiyah network, linked to Al Qaeda, which calls for a regional unitary radical Islamic state.
Asia does not face the sophisticated centrally directed Cold War campaign of combat and infiltration directed by Moscow [and later aided and abetted by the Chinese Communists]. But as elsewhere armed dissident movements with different goals have often collaborated. [The Tamil Tigers were a product of tacit cooperation between Indira Gandhi's Indian government, the Palestinian Liberation Organization, and Moscow but had working relations with India's Sikh insurgency]. The danger is if these pockets of violence grow they could work together to destabilize the whole region.
Sol W. Sanders, (solsanders@comcast.net), is an Asian specialist with more than 25 years in the region, and a former correspondent for Business Week, U.S. News & World Report and United Press International. He writes weekly for World Tribune.com.
July 8, 2004

Intelligence backs claim Iraq tried to buy uranium
By Mark Huband in Rome
Published: June 27 2004 21:56 | Last Updated: June 27 2004 21:56
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Illicit sales of uranium from Niger were being negotiated with five states including Iraq at least three years before the US-led invasion, senior European intelligence officials have told the Financial Times.
Intelligence officers learned between 1999 and 2001 that uranium smugglers planned to sell illicitly mined Nigerien uranium ore, or refined ore called yellow cake, to Iran, Libya, China, North Korea and Iraq.
These claims support the assertion made in the British government dossier on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programme in September 2002 that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from an African country, confirmed later as Niger. George W. Bush, US president, referred to the issue in his State of the Union address in January 2003.
The claim that the illicit export of uranium was under discussion was widely dismissed when letters referring to the sales - apparently sent by a Nigerien official to a senior official in Saddam Hussein's regime - were proved by the International Atomic Energy Agency to be forgeries. This embarrassed the US and led the administration to reverse its earlier claim.
But European intelligence officials have for the first time confirmed that information provided by human intelligence sources during an operation mounted in Europe and Africa produced sufficient evidence for them to believe that Niger was the centre of a clandestine international trade in uranium.
Officials said the fake documents, which emerged in October 2002 and have been traced to an Italian with a record for extortion and deception, added little to the picture gathered from human intelligence and were only given weight by the Bush administration.
According to a senior counter-proliferation official, meetings between Niger officials and would-be buyers from the five countries were held in several European countries, including Italy. Intelligence officers were convinced that the uranium would be smuggled from abandoned mines in Niger, thereby circumventing official export controls. "The sources were trustworthy. There were several sources, and they were reliable sources," an official involved in the European intelligence gathering operation said.
The UK government used the details in its Iraq weapons dossier, which it used to justify war with Iraq after concluding that it corresponded with other information it possessed, including evidence gathered by GCHQ, the UK eavesdropping centre, of a visit to Niger by an Iraqi official.
However, the European investigation suggested that it was the smugglers who were actively looking for markets, though it was unclear how far the deals had progressed and whether deliveries of uranium were made.

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The company Powell keeps
(Washington, D.C.): Last Thursday, Secretary of State Colin Powell engaged in the Bush Administration's latest outreach to members of the Arab-American and Muslim-American communities. Unfortunately, as with virtually every one of the Administration's previous efforts of this kind, those embraced by Mr. Powell are part of the problem - not the solution - in the war of ideas that is at the heart of the war on terror.
According to a press release issued last week by one of the four organizations asked to participate, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), the Secretary of State used the meeting to "discuss foreign policy" with its executive director, Nihad Awad, and representatives of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID) and the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC). Specifically, the meeting addressed: "the Middle East peace process, the war in Iraq, efforts to promote democratization and reform, America's image in the Muslim world, and the role American Muslims can play in helping to formulate polices that will improve that image."
It is entirely understandable that senior U.S. officials like Secretary Powell would want to hear - and to be seen listening to - the views of American Muslims. After all, there is a growing appreciation that, as the Center for Security Policy has long argued, if the United States and Western civilization more generally hope to prevail in the current struggle with terror-wielding enemies, the military, political and diplomatic strategies being employed must be complemented by an as-yet-unarticulated ideological component.
Enlisting Muslims and Arabs who have benefited greatly from their time in this country and who prize its tolerance, respect for religious diversity and human rights, value the rule of law in accordance with a secular, legislated code and appreciate the economic opportunities America offers could be decisively helpful in defeating our common enemies: the radical, virulently intolerant and anti-Western ideology that masquerades as a strain of the Muslim faith, known as Islamism.
With Friends Like These
While the organizations Secretary Powell chose to meet with style themselves as "leaders" of the Arab and Muslim communities in this country, they certainly do not represent the foregoing views. Instead, they or their officials have all been associated with, supported and/or defended various Islamists and their causes.
For example, CAIR's Nihad Awad has publicly announced his support for Hamas. At a September 10, 2003 hearing of the Senate Judiciary Terrorism Subcommittee entitled "Two Years After 9/11: Connecting the Dots," Sen. Chuck Schumer, Democrat of New York, stated that the Council on American-Islamic Relations has "intimate links with Hamas," and "ties to terrorism." Even Sen. Richard Durbin, an Illinois Democrat who has tended to echo the Muslim activists' line, declared at the hearing that CAIR is "unusual in its extreme rhetoric and its associations with groups that are suspect." Since 2002, three CAIR officials have been arrested and charged with terrorism-related crimes.
The Islamic Society of North America is a well-known front for the promotion of Wahhabism - Saudi Arabia's state-sponsored version of Islamism - in the political, doctrinal and theological infrastructure in the United States and Canada. Established by the Saudi-backed Muslim Students Association, ISNA seeks to marginalize leaders of the Muslim faith who do not support Wahhabism. Through its sponsorship of Islamist propaganda and mosques, ISNA is pursuing a strategic goal of eventual Wahhabi dominance of Islam in America.
The Muslim Public Affairs Council publicly opposed the United States government's designation of Hamas, Hezbullah, and the Islamic Jihad as terrorist organizations and discouraged Muslims from cooperating with the FBI after the 9/11 attacks. In fact, MPAC literature has urged Muslims not to cooperate with "police, FBI, INS, or any other law enforcement or investigator" except to report "hate crimes" or "hate incidents" against Muslims. MPAC criticized the 2003 arrest of alleged Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami Al-Arian in Florida and demands repeal of one of President Bush's most important accomplishments on the domestic front in the war on terror: the USA Patriot Act.
Although the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy purports to provide scholarship to educate policymakers and to "counter widely held prejudices and misconceptions" on Islam, two individuals who were, until last year, members of CSID's Board of Directors - Taha Jaber Al-Alwani and Jamal Barzinji - have been implicated by federal officials in "financial and ideological relationships with persons and entities with known affiliations to the designated terrorist Groups Palestinian Islamic Jihad and HAMAS."
The Bottom Line
The danger of consulting with these sorts of groups is not simply that they are unlikely to prove truly helpful to U.S. efforts to counter their ideological and institutional friends, who are our avowed enemies. Meetings like that Secretary Powell had last week actually makes matters worse insofar as it appears to validate such groups' claims to leadership of their community. That is the last thing we should be doing if we wish to enlist and empower those truly moderate, pro-American Muslims who have as much to fear from the Islamists as do the rest of us - and who are our natural allies in waging the war of ideas against the terrorists.
Center for Security Policy
1920 L Street,N.W.
Suite 210
Washington, DC 20036
E-mail the Center

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North Korea rejects disarmament timetable
By Andrew Ward and Song Jung-a in Seoul and Guy Dinmore in Washington
Published: June 28 2004 17:31 | Last Updated: June 28 2004 17:31
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North Korea has rejected a US proposal to freeze its nuclear weapons programme but said six-party talks last week about the dispute made "positive progress".
US officials arrived at the meeting in Beijing with a new offer of political and economic incentives for the regime of Kim Jong-il to disarm.
In its first public response to the proposal, North Korea on Monday said the three-month timeframe for freezing its nuclear facilities was "unscientific and unrealistic".
However, it praised the "sincere atmosphere" of the talks and welcomed the US acknowledgement that the country must be compensated for halting its nuclear programme.
Pyongyang's rejection did not come as a surprise, said a US official involved in the negotiations. But he said: "We are happy the tone went well." The US and North Korea were still "light years" apart in terms of substance but the talks in Beijing had at least kept the process going, he said. A fourth round is expected in September.
The meeting, between the US, China, Japan, Russia and the two Koreas, marked the start of serious negotiations to end the crisis after months of diplomatic stalemate. Under Washington's plan, North Korea would receive a security assurance and energy aid in return for a promise to scrap all its nuclear activities.
The communist state would be given three months to freeze the facilities and after that must meet deadlines for inspections and dismantlement. The proposal marked the first time that the administration of George W. Bush, US president, has offered incentives for North Korea to disarm, having previously ruled out rewards until the country's nuclear programme had been scrapped.
"One positive progress made at this round of talks is that agreement has been reached on taking simultaneous actions and discussing the freeze-for-compensation issue," said a spokesman from North Korea's foreign ministry.
The ministry warned that Pyongyang and Washington remained separated by "a large difference" in opinion. The biggest barrier to agreement is US demands that North Korea's suspected uranium enrichment programme be scrapped along with its plutonium-based facilities, despite Pyongyang's denial that the former programme exists.
Monday's statement called on the US to drop its "groundless claims" about uranium enrichment.
Mohamed ElBaradei, head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, the United Nations' nuclear watchdog, said on Monday in a meeting in Moscow with Sergei Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, that he was keen to visit North Korea to push for the return of UN inspectors.
"[Mr Lavrov] is going to North Korea this week. I told him he can tell them that I'm ready to come any time and discuss future co-operation," he said.
UN inspectors were expelled from North Korea in December 2002, shortly before the country restarted its nuclear reactor and withdrew from the international non-proliferation treaty.
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North Korea: playing for time
The latest round of six-nation talks to attempt to resolve the crisis over North Korea's nuclear weapons programme opened in Beijing on 23 June. JID's regional correspondent reports on the role China is playing in these negotiations and assesses Pyongyang's nuclear ambitions.
Following the previous round of talks that took place in May 2004, an effective stalemate had been reached. It appears that the regime in Pyongyang is in no hurry to make significant concessions on an issue that still has the capacity to cause political difficulties for the US administration in the run-up to November's presidential election.
The six-party talks largely came about through Beijing's consistent diplomacy in which China has sought to play the role of an 'honest broker'. The Chinese leadership has a vested interest in securing a peaceful settlement to the crisis in the Korean peninsula and has nothing to gain from a nuclear-capable North Korea fuelling an unconventional arms race in the region.
In June, the US-China Economic and Security Review Commission said China was not fully using its leverage - millions of dollars' worth of economic aid - to encourage Pyongyang to resolve the current standoff. In fact, the commission cited further proliferation to North Korea by Chinese companies supplying dual-use missile-related items and raw materials, as well as noting China's continuing opposition to the imposition of sanctions against the 'Hermit Kingdom'. It also claimed that China had allowed North Korea to use its air, rail and sea ports to ship missiles and other weapons. These criticisms are calling into question the effectiveness of the US administration's pursuit of a partnership with Beijing to resolve the crisis.
For its part, North Korea has insisted on dealing directly with Washington since none of the other parties involved in the negotiations are able to provide, on behalf of the USA, the security assurances the leadership in Pyongyang is demanding. Meanwhile, the Bush administration appears to be committed to the pursuit of its main strategy: hoping that North Korea's isolated regime, headed by the reclusive Kim Jong-il, will eventually collapse, allowing the USA to open negotiations with an alternative government.
In order to hasten the demise of the communist regime, the USA is planning for a scenario that may include launching air strikes, as well as seeking international support for an economic embargo and a naval blockade. However, this strategy is likely to alienate South Korea and Japan, while provoking a potentially serious diplomatic rift between Washington and Beijing.


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UPI Hears
Posted June 28, 2004
Insider notes from United Press Interntional
Americans whose loved ones are killed by terrorists in Saudi Arabia may soon be given the authority to decide if they should be executed. Last week King Fahd gave the terrorists one month to turn themselves in or face being killed. King Fahd guaranteed the personal safety of those who surrender, but they would be tried under Sharia law, leaving open the possibility that the families of their victims will decide their fate.
The Saudi ambassador to Britain, Prince Turki Al-Faisal, commented during an interview: "The state will drop its claim on these individuals if they give themselves up, but the private claims of the families of those who were killed or who were assaulted or who were wounded will remain for them to decide and not for the state."
When asked by interviewer Jonathan Dimbleby if the families of Westerners killed could demand that terrorists face the death penalty, Al-Faisal replied, "It is up to them. They will decide." The method of execution in Saudi Arabia is beheading by sword.
********
The growing but quiet Chinese diplomatic and economic penetration of the Middle East has been one the more striking regional developments of the last few years. While up to now Chinese interest largely has been limited to petro-states, Beijing is now expanding its reach.
At a June 23 "investment conference" held during Syrian President Bashar Assad's state visit to China, 79 Syrian businessmen met representatives of Chinese firms in Beijing's China Council for the Promotion of International Trade. Washington's sanctions are helping drive the two nations closer together; the depreciation of the dollar due to Washington's fiscal policy underwriting the war on terror combined with the Federal Reserve's decision to keep interest rates low have hammered Syria's dollar-dominated economy.
Symptomatic of the new "Silk Road" is the announcement of a $100 million deal between Syria's Fredstone Organization and China's state-owned MCC to establish the Middle East's largest tire factory in Syria, with a capacity of 2.2 million tires per year.
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Who says that there's no good military news from the Middle East? The submarine USS Razorback is returning home, having had an illustrious history spanning more than six decades. After fighting in the Pacific, the boat was present at the signing of the Japanese surrender in Tokyo Bay on Sept. 2 1945. The boat would spend the bulk of its career in Asian waters, serving in the Korean and Vietnam conflicts. It was awarded five battle stars during World War II and four during the Vietnam War.
In 1970 the old warhorse was transferred to the Turkish navy and renamed the Murat Reis. The sub, with more than 60 years' service, served longer than any submarine in history.
A group of Arkansas businessmen were determined to save a boat sharing the same name as the vaunted University of Arkansas football team and negotiated with Ankara for two years before finally gaining title. The USS Razorback sailed from the Gulf of Izmit on May 5 and will enter the Arkansas River on July 16 en route to its final berth in Little Rock. Once there, the USS Razorback will be the centerpiece of a $15 million naval exhibition and will berth beside an old friend from Hawaii, the USS Hoga tugboat, which was at Pearl Harbor on Dec. 7, 1941.
********
Proving that a war against terrorism can be won if a government is sufficiently committed, Peru's antiterrorist police arrested one of the remaining Shining Path guerrilla leaders in the capital, Lima.
Rosa Calderon Lara, alias "Comrade Gaviota" (Seagull), was working as a teacher at a school in the densely populated Ate Vitarte district and was captured at her home on June 25 after resisting arrest. Calderon Lara, also using the nomme de guerre "Irma," was a member of the assassination unit of the Shining Path's regional metropolitan committee. Police had 16 different warrants issued for her arrest for her suspected involvement in a number of attacks. Calderon Lara is said to have participated in the dynamite attack on the El Polo shopping center on March 20, 2002, which killed nine people. The blast occurred a few days before a visit by U.S. President George W. Bush.
While Shining Path's armed operations are concentrated in the central regions of Ayacucho and Junin, its political work is mostly in Lima. Shining Path began its campaign against the government in 1980. More than 69,000 people would be killed before the government's harsh tactics prevailed over the Maoist guerrillas.
UPI is a sister news organization of Insight.

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Russia vows to press ahead with Iran nuclear deal
June 28, 2004 Posted: 10:36 Moscow time (06:36 GMT)
Russia's top nuclear official vowed on Sunday to avoid any further delays in the launch of a Russian-built atomic reactor in Iran by speeding up talks with Tehran on a key bilateral deal. Russia, under strong U.S. pressure to ditch the project, has promised to sign a special agreement with Iran obliging it to return spent fuel from the reactor to Moscow to ease concerns Tehran could extract plutonium and make nuclear bombs.
But the document's signing has been delayed repeatedly, raising speculation that Moscow could bend to U.S. pressure and shelve the $800 million project. "We don't face any difficulties with signing of the deal on the return on nuclear fuel from the Bushehr nuclear plant," said Alexander Rumyantsev, head of the Russian Atomic Energy Agency.
"Our Iranian colleagues have confirmed they are ready to sign this document... We will speed up talks if we see the process is being delayed because we need to fulfil our contractual obligations." Washington has branded Iran part of an "axis of evil" of states seeking weapons of mass destruction and fears Iran would use Bushehr as a cover for the transfer of other sensitive nuclear technology.
Both Russia and Iran say Tehran could not make a nuclear bomb with the technology Moscow has been providing. Industry insiders say disagreement over technical matters between Russia and Iran, as well as Moscow's efforts to avoid spoiling relations with the United States nearly prompted Moscow and Tehran to abandon the project earlier this year.
Speaking alongside U.N. nuclear watchdog head Mohamed ElBaradei, Rumyantsev said Iran was simply taking time to study ways to "optimise costs" in the return of spent nuclear fuel. The document on the fuel's return must be signed soon for Bushehr's first 1,000-megawatt reactor to go onstream in late 2005 and reach full capacity in 2006.
Once the agreement is signed, Russia will ship fuel to Iran to start up Bushehr. Spent fuel will be sent back to a storage centre in Siberia after roughly a decade of use. ElBaradei, in Russia to mark 50 years since the launch of the world's first atomic power plant near Moscow, said the International Atomic Energy Agency was closely watching Bushehr.
"Our role is make sure that when Bushehr is completed...it is is under verification and that it is used for peaceful purposes," ElBaradei said. "We are working with the Iranians to make sure this is taking place." GAZETA.RU
Source URL: http://www.russiajournal.com/news/cnews-article.shtml?nd=44389


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Iran: Tehran To Resume Building Nuclear Centrifuges
By Golnaz Esfandiari
The head of the United Nations' International Atomic Energy Agency on 27 June urged Iran to abandon its decision to build centrifuges as part of its nuclear program. Iran announced in a letter last week that it will resume building centrifuges as of tomorrow, but will continue to suspend uranium enrichment. Iran's decision came after a recent IAEA resolution criticized Tehran for not cooperating fully with nuclear inspectors.
Prague, 28 June 2004 (RFE/RL) -- The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the United States, and the European Union have criticized Iran's decision to resume building centrifuges -- an apparatus that can be used to create weapons-grade enriched uranium.
Iran's decision to manufacture centrifuge components and assemble and test centrifuges for its nuclear program was announced last week in a letter to the head of the IAEA as well as to Britain, France, and Germany.
Iran says its decision came after Britain, France, and Germany failed to keep their promise to convince the IAEA to remove from its agenda by June its investigation into Iran's nuclear program.
Under a deal brokered last year by France, Germany, and Britain, Iran agreed to fully cooperate with the IAEA and to suspend its uranium-enrichment activities. The three European countries in return promised to ease Iran's access to advanced nuclear technology.
Tehran says its nuclear program is for civilian purposes only, and not to build weapons of mass destruction, as the United States has alleged.
Britain's "The Guardian" newspaper today quoted unnamed Western diplomats as saying Iran had never fully honored its promise. The paper quoted one as saying, "They had suspended about 95 percent of the activities, but it's the other 5 percent that bothers us."
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Assefi said yesterday that Tehran wants the IAEA and the three European countries to supervise Iran's building, assembling, and testing of centrifuges when the program resumes. Assefi said Iran will continue to suspend its uranium-enrichment program, despite proceeding with work on the centrifuges.
Defense analyst Paul Beaver said Iran's decision has a "dangerous connotation." "The problem is that, if it just builds centrifuges, it's a little bit like Iran saying, 'Well, we're going to have nuclear warheads and we're going to have ballistic missiles, and keep them in different parts of the country so you need not worry,'" he said. "It wouldn't take them very long to start the centrifuge program. I see this as a negotiating tool, a negotiating ploy. This is their current position and I can see them having that position in place as a way of trying to influence the international community and trying to gain some political or diplomatic power."
The IAEA board of governors unanimously adopted on 18 June a resolution "deploring" Iran's lack of full cooperation in disclosing the extent and details of its nuclear program. The EU-drafted resolution was condemned by Iran as politically motivated.
Speaking yesterday in Moscow, IAEA Director-General Muhammad el-Baradei expressed hope that the move will be temporary, and that Iran will go back to full suspension of its activities. "They said that they are going to boost manufacturing, assembly, and testing of part of their centrifuges," he said. "That's what the letter says. I hope it wouldn't change the dialogue. I hope it will be temporary. I hope Iran will also go back to a comprehensive suspension as they have committed to us before. So I hope this is not a major reversal. But we still need to work with them."
The United States condemned on 27 June Iran's decision to continue making centrifuges. White House spokesman Scott McClellan said, "Iran needs to come clean and fully cooperate with its international obligations." He said the United States has expressed concern within the IAEA about the need to seriously consider sending the matter to the UN Security Council. "Whether we close the Iranian file next months or in six months from now depends on the cooperation we get from Iran." -- el-Baradei
U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said that Iran was providing daily proof why it belonged in the "axis of evil" -- the phrase used by President George W. Bush to describe Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. But at the same time, Rice said that a diplomatic solution to the row over its nuclear program was still "within sight."
In a joint statement on 26 June, the United States and the European Union called on Iran to rethink its decision to resume centrifuge construction. The countries of the EU are engaged in a policy of constructive dialogue with the Islamic republic. Some analysts view Iran's decision to resume building centrifuges as a blow to the EU's policy of engagement.
Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Assefi said yesterday that Iran's decision did not mean an end to dialogue with the EU. He added that talks between Tehran and Paris, Berlin, and London are planned for the coming days. He also said Iran had cooperated with the IAEA in the past, and will continue to do so in the future.
The UN nuclear agency says it will not remove the Iranian issue from its agenda until it has the assurances it wants that Tehran is not pursuing a weapons program. Speaking yesterday, el-Baradei said, "Whether we close the Iranian file next months or in six months from now depends on the cooperation we get from Iran."

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Tehran to resume building centrifuges
By Ali Akbar Dareini
ASSOCIATED PRESS
TEHRAN -- Within days, Iran said yesterday, it will resume building centrifuges for its nuclear program in a rejection of international castigation.
But Tehran said it welcomed international supervision of the building program and said it would not use the devices to enrich uranium -- for the time being. The process can convert uranium into fuel for peaceful or military nuclear purposes.

The White House called Iran's decision further proof that it was trying to build an atomic bomb. And the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency -- the United Nations' nuclear watchdog -- said in Moscow that he hoped Iran would reverse its decision, a setback in international attempts to resolve the standoff.
"Iran's continued failure to comply with the IAEA and continued failure to [halt] all enrichment-related reprocessing activities only reinforces the concerns we have expressed," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said in Washington.
"Iran needs to come clean and fully cooperate with its international obligations."
"I hope that this decision is of a temporary nature. I hope it will be reversed," IAEA chief Mohamed ElBaradei said at a press conference in Moscow, where he was attending a meeting on nuclear power.
"Iran needs to do the maximum to build confidence after a period of confidence deficit. I look at this whole suspension of enrichment as part of this confidence building."
Iran suspended the building of centrifuges and the enrichment of uranium under international pressure, part of the IAEA's attempts to determine the intent of Iran's nuclear program, much of which was kept secret for years.
The United States accuses Iran of trying to build nuclear weapons, and President Bush has labeled Iran part of an "axis of evil" with North Korea and prewar Iraq.
Iran maintains that its atomic program is peaceful and geared toward producing energy.
Tehran's announcement yesterday came after the IAEA approved a European-drafted resolution rebuking Iran for past coverups in its nuclear program.
Iran informed the IAEA and the governments of Britain, Germany and France that it would resume building centrifuges tomorrow, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Hamid Reza Asefi said.
But Tehran invited the IAEA and the three European countries to supervise the building, assembling and testing of centrifuges when the program resumes, Mr. Asefi said.
"We will do that according to regulations, under IAEA supervision," he said.
Iran suspended uranium enrichment last year under international pressure and in a deal with Britain, Germany and France that extracted a European promise to make it easier for Iran to obtain advanced nuclear technology.
Iran says it will remain committed to that suspension despite European failure to provide the technology.
"Nothing important has happened," Mr. Asefi said. "Europeans failed to respect their commitments. Therefore, there is no reason for us to keep our moral promise.
"We remain committed to voluntary suspension of uranium enrichment. We had cooperation with the IAEA, we have [it] now, and we will cooperate with the IAEA in the future."
Though Mr. Asefi was critical of the Europeans, he said Iran's decision did not mean that Tehran would end dialogue with them. Rather, another discussion between Iranian and European analysts is planned "in the coming days."
Iran has said repeatedly that it wants to control the whole nuclear fuel cycle -- from extracting uranium ore to enriching it to a low grade for use as nuclear reactor fuel. Uranium enriched to low levels can be used in power plants, and highly enriched uranium is needed for bombs.
In an appearance on "Fox News Sunday," National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice called Iran's nuclear program a "very tough situation" but "one that still has a diplomatic solution within sight."
"But the Iranians every day demonstrate why the United States has been so hard on them and why the president put Iran into the 'axis of evil' when he talked about Iraq, North Korea and Iran back in his State of the Union address in January 2002," Miss Rice said yesterday.

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Walking Back the Chalabi Cat
By Daniel Pipes
FrontPageMagazine.com | June 22, 2004
The Iranian government learned recently that American intelligence has deciphered its codes and can read its mail. This is a blow to U.S. interests, for it means losing the ability to access the enemy's confidential communications, with all the advantages that offers.
Who is to blame for this development?
Ahmad Chalabi - the Iraqi politician whom I have known, worked with, supported, and admired since 1991 - has for the past month sat in the hot seat, accused by unnamed intelligence officials of informing the Iranian regime that its codes had been cracked.
Chalabi denies the accusation, saying that he and his organization, the Iraqi National Congress, have not received "any classified information" from the U.S. government. For what it is worth, the Iranians also deny that Chalabi told them about U.S. code breaking.
Thinking this through logically, I conclude that Chalabi is not responsible for the damage to U.S. interests; rather, the blame falls on his opponents in the Central Intelligence Agency and State Department. Here is my logic, a form of "walking back the cat" (spook-speak, defined by William Safire as applying "what is now known to the actions and events of a previous time").
To begin with, I make three assumptions: First, that the reaction in Washington (which includes possible criminal prosecutions) bespeaks sincerity and confirms that U.S. cryptographers did indeed crack the Iranian codes. Second, that Tehran interprets the U.S. reaction as proof that its codes were cracked. Third, that it is taking the necessary steps to regain secrecy.
One possibility is that Chalabi told the Iranians nothing. In which case, the allegation that he did so originated elsewhere:
? Perhaps State or the CIA made it up. (Plausible: Time magazine has documented how since April, the White House has been attempting to marginalize Chalabi.)
? Or the Iranians floated it to check if their codes were broken. (Plausible: It would explain why they used that same code to tell about the code break.)
Or Chalabi did tell them that Washington had cracked the code. In which case:
? Perhaps he made this up and just happened to be right. (Plausible: Chalabi reportedly took steps in 1995 to trick the Iranians.)
? Or he thought he was providing disinformation but actually was telling the truth. (Unlikely: Too convoluted.)
? Or he knowingly divulged classified information. (Unlikely: Why should the Americans give Chalabi, a British subject known to be in close contact with the Iranian regime, a crown jewel of U.S. state secrets?)
Whichever scenario actually took place, the implication is identical: the brouhaha in D.C., not what Chalabi did or did not say, signaled Tehran that the Americans broke their code.
That's because anyone can assert that the code was cracked, but why should he be believed? The Iranians surely would not accept Chalabi's assertion on its own and go to the huge trouble and expense of changing codes because of his say-so. They would seek confirmation from U.S. intelligence; and this is what the unnamed sources who leaked this story did - they supplied that proof. Their fury at Chalabi instructed the Iranians to change codes.
In the end, what Chalabi did or did not do is nearly irrelevant; his detractors in the U.S. government, ironically, bear the onus for having informed the Iranian opponent about a vital piece of intelligence.
Americans might pay heavily for the rank irresponsibility of those in State and the agency who publicly confirmed the code break as part of their turf wars with the Defense Department and, more broadly, their fight with the so-called neoconservatives.
On this latter point, note how gleefully elements of the American press exploited the allegations against Chalabi. To take one example of many, the Los Angeles Times on June 10 published "A Tough Time for `Neocons'," which states that neoconservatives are "under siege" partly because, "in a grave threat to their reputation, Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi ... is enmeshed in an FBI investigation of alleged intelligence leaks that supplied secrets to Iran."
Were the press properly doing its duty, it would stop playing the Washington favorites game and investigate the likely damage Chalabi's opponents have done. Were State and CIA managements doing their job, they would be punishing the elements who conveyed a vital secret to the militant Islamic government in Iran.
Daniel Pipes (www.DanielPipes.org) is director of the Middle East Forum and author of Miniatures (Transaction Publishers).

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Saudis: Al Qaeda member surrenders
Monday, June 28, 2004 Posted: 5:20 PM EDT (2120 GMT)
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia (CNN) -- One of Saudi Arabia's most wanted militants has turned himself in to the authorities, the first senior suspect to surrender under a one-month government amnesty announced last week.
Othman Al-Omari, number 19 on Saudi Arabia's most wanted list of 26, accepted King Fahd's offer of amnesty, which was made last week, according to Saudi sources Monday.
Al-Omari, who turned himself in on Sunday night, was a business partner of Shaban Al Shihri -- the first al Qaeda member to accept the offer when he turned himself in Friday.
Al-Omari and Al Shihri shared a vegetable stall in a market in Medina. Al Shihri, according to sources, was in part responsible for persuading Al Omari to turn himself in.
Sources said the most wanted list of 26 was not arranged in order of importance.
When the one-month amnesty was announced by Crown Prince Abdullah last week, sources in the kingdom said it was aimed at mid-ranking and junior al Qaeda supporters.
After that period militants would face forceful consequences, Abdullah said.
"We are announcing for the last time that we are opening the door to repentance and for those to return to righteousness," he said in a televised address last Wednesday.
The amnesty move came days after U.S. engineer Paul Johnson Jr., who was working in the kingdom, was kidnapped and beheaded -- and after months of battles between Saudi forces and al Qaeda terrorists.
"To everyone who has gone out of the righteous way and has committed a crime in the name of religion and to everyone who belongs to that group that has done itself a disservice, everyone who has been captured in terror acts is given the chance to come back to God if they want to save their lives, their souls," Abdullah said.
"If they give themselves up without force within one month maximum from the date of this speech, we can promise them that they are going to be safe."
Abdullah said all such people would be dealt with fairly, in accordance with Islamic law.
"If they are wise and they accept it, then they are saved. And if they snub it, then God is not going to forbid us from hitting them with our force, which we get from our dependence on God."
He added that Saudi forces would not hesitate to act.
Johnson Jr., who worked for Lockheed Martin Corp, was kidnapped on June 12. After a 72-hour deadline passed without the demanded release of all al Qaeda prisoners and the departure of all Westerners from the kingdom, photographs of Johnson's head and body were posted on an Islamist Web site.
Hours later, al Qaeda cell leader Abdel Aziz al-Muqrin and three other terrorists were killed in a gun battle with Saudi police, and 12 other suspected members of the cell were captured.
This month's terrorist attacks in Saudi Arabia are the latest in a string of al Qaeda gunbattles and bombings that has lasted for more than a year.
Al Qaeda attacks during the weekend of May 29 in the Saudi oil city of Khobar left at least 22 people dead -- 19 of them from other countries.
A car bombing last November believed to be the work of al Qaeda struck a mostly Arab neighborhood near Riyadh's diplomatic quarter, killing at least 17 people and wounding 122 others.
In May of 2003, triple al Qaeda car bombings in Riyadh killed 23 people, plus the 12 bombers, at three complexes housing Westerners.
CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson contributed to this report.
Find this article at:
http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/06/28/saudi.omari/index.html

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'Gitmo' court ruling heartens Saudi families
The Supreme Court said Monday that 'Gitmo' prisoners can challenge detention.
By Faiza Saleh AmbaH | Correspondent of The Christian Science Monitor
JEDDAH, SAUDI ARABIA - Abdullah al-Juaid was close to tears or joy when he heard the Supreme Court had ruled that inmates at the US naval base in Guant?namo Bay, where his brother is held, can contest their captivity in US courts.
"I'll go to the States and attend his trial if they let me. The idea of seeing him again, hearing his voice and sitting with him makes me very emotional," says the 34-year old civil servant.
The ruling applies to nearly 600 inmates, most of them captured after the 2001 fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan. The US had argued that US law did not apply to the terror suspects because the base is not on American soil.
Mr. Juaid, who filed his brief in January in connection with families of two others detained in Guant?namo Bay, says his faith in the US justice system has been restored. "I had hope that if the US government did not get involved, we would win the case," he says.
But he's still angry. "They caged my brother like an animal," he says, showing magazine photos of men in orange jumpsuits in their outdoor cages. Juaid has filled a thick file with newspaper clippings on the detainees, as well as photos and letters from his brother Abdul-Rahman, who was a student in Pakistan when the war broke out.
Like many families here, he believes his brother was "sold" by Pakistani and Afghan mercenaries to the Americans. "They took up to $3,000 dollars for each Arab they handed to the Americans," he says.
The Saudi government claims the majority of the Saudis picked up were innocent proselytizers or charity workers helping a war-torn nation. The rest, they say, were young men led astray by extremists.
While the Taliban were in power in Afghanistan, hundreds of devout Saudis considered it a pure Muslim state and traveled there to work, live, study, or train for jihad, which they believe is a duty of all Muslims.
News that their sons were at Guant?namo was a shock to many Saudi families. Saeed Salem al-Shaher, for example, received word his 20-year-old son Salem had died in Afghanistan during the US attack. Hundreds of friends and family in Asir province came to observe three days of mourning. But eight months later, Mr. Shaher learned that another son had received a letter from Salem via the Red Cross.
"I was happy he was alive but sad he was with the Americans in Cuba," he says. "I don't know what they're doing to him. In his last letter, 13 out of 29 lines were censored."
Graphic pictures of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq have caused Saudi families of Guant?namo detainees much anguish. Youssef al-Sulami has a brother at Guant?namo. "Abu Ghraib brought the pain of Yahya's detention to the forefront all over again," he says. "It feels like he was detained last week, not almost three years ago."
Mr. Sulami kept news of the Abu Ghraib scandal from his mother for weeks, hiding newspapers or not allowing them into the house. When his mother found one of the hidden papers and saw the photos, she just fell to the floor, he says.
His brother Yahya was 19 and had been married for two months when the US went into Afghanistan. Nightly news footage of the war there and the death of civilians consumed him. "Every night [Yahya] prayed for the victory of our Muslim brothers over the Americans," says Youssef. "Then one day he just left. He didn't tell us where he was going." He was arrested several months later in Pakistan. "We don't know if he'd even made it into Afghanistan," says his brother.
Badr al-Zahrani, a young teacher of the Koran, has a twin brother, Fawaz, who spent a year and a half at Guantanamo and has been jailed in Haer, near the Saudi capital, Riyadh, since May 2003. "The Americans used to spit on the Korans. Several times they urinated on some of our [Muslim] brothers," he reads from his transcriptions of talks with Fawaz. Badr has put his notes in a journal that he hopes to turn into a book one day.
Neither the men who were released, their families, nor the lawyers for the remaining 124 Saudis know why some were released and others remain at Guant?namo. Or why the Saudi government still holds the five sent back behind bars.
Officials have told the families that the five were sent by the US as a sort of trial case. "If the government releases the ones here, then the Americans might not release the rest," says Ali al-Omar, whose brother is also in Haer.
Fawaz recounted to his twin how, after months of detention in Afghanistan, they were flown blindfolded, hands and feet restrained, ears plugged, and r mouths covered, for what seemed to be days. When he landed he didn't know what continent he was on. "He thought it might be Africa or Asia, because there were a lot of trees and it was hot," he says.
"We're with the Americans in a country called Cuba," he later wrote. "Pray for me."
Unable to afford plane expenses, Badr makes a monthly nine-hour car trip to Riyadh to visit his brother. There he hears stories of mistreatment, but also of how the detainees prayed, memorized the Koran, and kept each other's spirits high. "They became very spiritual in Guant?namo. They all turned to God even more because there was no one else to turn to," says Badr.
Abdullah al-Qahtani says his brother Jaber, who worked with the Wafa charity group, was picked up while walking on the street. He heard he could get his brother released by paying money to his captors, and applied for government permission to travel to Pakistan. By the time he got it, his brother had been "sold" was on his way to Guantanamo, he says.
Juaid, the unofficial spokesman for the families in the Western mountain city of Tayef, has educated himself about international law. His conversation is filled with references to the Geneva Conventions, prisoners' rights, and the US constitution. He travels regularly to Riyadh and Jiddah to speak with officials and to the Abha and Mecca to meet and coordinate with families there. "This was something very new to us," he says. "Most of the families with sons in Guantanamo are simple and of limited income. They didn't know where to turn or who to talk to, and it took us a while to get organized."
Mr. Qahtani says that despite efforts by the lawyers and Saudi government, the case of the detainees had been stagnating for years. Now news of the Supreme Court ruling has given the families a much-needed push. "I'm so excited, I can't think or talk straight," he says. "This is the first good piece of news I've heard since Jaber was arrested. It's a victory from God. A victory for justice. Our prayers have been answered."
But Al-Juaid sounded a cautionary note as he traveled to his parents' house to tell them the good news. "This is the first step in a long journey," he says. "And I'm going to spend whatever time or money it takes till my brother comes home."

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Iyad Allaoui, le prot?g? de la CIA
LE MONDE | 28.06.04 | 13h23
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Le nouveau premier ministre par int?rim de l'Irak, Iyad Allaoui, souffre d'une r?putation sulfureuse et d'un lourd pass? au service de l'espionnage britannique et de la CIA. Portrait d'un homme du secret.
A premi?re vue, la lourde silhouette d'Iyad Hashem Allaoui dans le poste de capitaine du bateau ivre qu'est devenu l'Irak n'avait vraiment rien pour plaire aux deux marionnettistes, am?ricain et britannique, qui tirent, depuis quinze mois, les ficelles du pays. Ancien baasiste pur et dur, le premier ministre par int?rim a, contre lui, trente-deux ann?es d'exil hors d'Irak, une r?putation sulfureuse d'affairiste, un parti politique sans aucune assise populaire et surtout, surtout, un lourd pass? d'"honorable client", d'abord de l'agence d'espionnage britannique, le MI 6, puis, et concomitamment, de son homologue am?ricaine, la CIA.
Au MI 6, Iyad Allaoui a fourni, d?but 2003, la retentissante all?gation qui manquera co?ter son poste ? Tony Blair, selon laquelle Saddam Hussein dispose d'armes de destruction massive "op?rationnelles en quarante-cinq minutes".
Quant ? la CIA, elle a subi en 1996, gr?ce ? M. Allaoui, "le plus colossal fiasco de son histoire, juste derri?re l'affaire de la baie des Cochons", d'apr?s l'excellent livre de Patrick et Andrew Cockburn, deux journalistes v?t?rans ? Bagdad (Saddam Hussein, an American Obsession). On y reviendra.
Le docteur Ha?fa Al-Azzaoui a bien connu notre homme dans sa jeunesse : "Quiconque a fait ses ?tudes de m?decine ? Bagdad dans les ann?es 1960 ne peut avoir oubli? ce gros bras baasiste. Il se disait syndicaliste, se baladait sur le campus avec un pistolet au c?t? et poursuivait les ?tudiantes jusqu'? leur porte." Selon ce rare t?moin qui ?crit dans un m?dia arabe, le dipl?me dont se pr?vaut le "docteur" Allaoui "est bidon." C'est "le Baas qui le lui a fourni avant de l'envoyer ? Londres, avec une bourse de l'OMS, pour soi-disant terminer ses ?tudes, en fait pour espionner les ?tudiants envoy?s ? l'?tranger". A la fin des ann?es 1960, Iyad Allaoui est pr?sident, pour l'Europe, de l'Association des ?tudiants irakiens ? l'ext?rieur. Le poste l'autorise ? voyager, ? nouer des amiti?s avec d'autres jeunes nationalistes arabes, et aussi ? traquer les "tra?tres" et dissidents de la premi?re heure qui seront, selon le docteur Azzaoui, "d?nonc?s et punis", de mani?re parfois exp?ditive.
La rupture avec Saddam Hussein, nomm? vice-pr?sident du pays fin 1969, se produit officiellement deux ans plus tard. On parle de diff?rend personnel. Certains ?voquent plut?t un divorce politique. Iyad Allaoui est un baasiste historique premi?re version. Comme la majorit? des jeunes du Moyen-Orient ? l'?poque, il est socialiste et nationaliste arabe. Il croit aux id?aux de la r?volution. Les "d?viations" id?ologiques et la mise en coupe r?gl?e du parti par Saddam et son clan tribal de Tikrit lui d?plaisent.
On verra qu'il n'est pas le seul. Fin 1971, selon l'historiographie officielle, l'ancien pr?sident des ?tudiants irakiens d'Europe d?chire sa carte du parti et part en exil. D'abord au Liban, puis retour ? Londres. Il a 27 ans. Il ne ressemble pas encore de mani?re aussi frappante qu'aujourd'hui ? Tony Soprano, le mafieux de la c?l?bre s?rie am?ricaine.
Que fait-il ? partir de l? ? Myst?re. L'int?ress? n'a pas donn? suite aux demandes d'entretien du Monde. Aucun de ceux qu'il a accord?s jusqu'ici n'?claire cette p?riode. Selon la br?ve biographie distribu?e ? Bagdad par la coalition, il obtient sa ma?trise de m?decine en 1976, son doctorat trois ans plus tard. Il est de plus consultant de l'OMS et du PNUD. Est-il aussi, comme le pr?tendent Patrick et Andrew Cockburn, "clandestinement au service du Baas" ? Ou bien, ce qui n'est pas contradictoire, travaille-t-il d?j?, en agent double, pour le MI 6 britannique ?
Toujours est-il que sept ans apr?s sa "d?fection" officielle, trois inconnus s'introduisent, le 4 f?vrier 1978, dans sa villa londonienne et lui ass?nent trois coups de hache. Un derri?re la t?te, un sur la poitrine, un dernier sur la cuisse, qui "manque de lui sectionner la jambe". Les assassins le croient mort, il ne l'est pas. Le MI 6 le fait discr?tement admettre sous un faux nom dans une clinique galloise. Un an apr?s, il refait surface. Sa famille affirme avoir re?u une menace anonyme ainsi libell?e : "Vous pouvez vous enfuir sur Mars, on vous retrouvera." Pour M. Allaoui, qui ne pr?sente aujourd'hui aucune cicatrice apparente, pas m?me un boitillement, "c'est la preuve" que les tueurs, qui n'ont jamais ?t? identifi?s, ?taient bien aux ordres de l'apprenti sorcier de Bagdad.
Contrairement ? certains de nos interlocuteurs, plus soup?onneux quant aux circonstances de l'attentat, le professeur Saadoune Al-Douleimi, rentr? d'exil en 2003 pour diriger le Centre irakien de recherches et d'?tudes strat?giques, ne conteste pas la version officielle. "Iyad Allaoui ?tait un personnage important du Baas. Il savait beaucoup de choses et les passait au MI 6. C'est pour cela que les agents du Moukhabarat, la s?curit? de l'Etat, ont re?u l'ordre de le tuer." Le futur pilote du grand projet d?mocratique am?ricain en Irak dispara?t en tout cas des radars journalistiques.
En septembre 1980, Saddam Hussein attaque la R?publique islamique d'Iran. Une h?catombe de huit longues ann?es commence. Iyad Allaoui, alors titulaire d'un passeport britannique, passe le plus clair de son temps autour de son pays, en Jordanie, en Syrie, au Kowe?t, en Arabie saoudite. H?ritier d'une grande famille commer?ante chiite de Nassiriya, fils d'un m?decin qui fut parlementaire sous la monarchie, neveu d'un homme qui fut ministre de la sant? jusqu'? la chute du roi, en 1958, et petit-fils d'un grand notable qui participa aux n?gociations devant mener l'ancienne M?sopotamie ? l'ind?pendance en 1932, Iyad Allaoui a la politique dans le sang. Il ne coupera jamais tout ? fait les ponts avec les officiers baasistes de l'arm?e et du renseignement qui, comme lui, estiment, sans vouloir ou pouvoir agir, que Saddam Hussein m?ne le pays ? la ruine.
En 1983, les services saoudiens s'int?ressent ? leur tour ? sa personne. Il lance bient?t, depuis Djedda, la Radio de l'Irak libre, qui ne fera gu?re de vagues mais lui permettra de rester dans la course. Parall?lement, il se lance dans les affaires - p?troli?res, dit-on - et accumule un joli magot. En f?vrier 1991, alors que Saddam Hussein est chass? du Kowe?t par l'op?ration "Temp?te du d?sert" am?ricaine et que le r?gime para?t plus chancelant que jamais, Iyad Allaoui cr??e Al-Wifaq, autrement dit l'Entente nationale irakienne (ENI). Objectif : se placer pour l'apr?s- Saddam, qui ne devrait plus tarder. Mais le dictateur, ?pargn? par les l?gions de Bush l'Ancien, se maintient.
L'ann?e suivante, l'ENI, press?e par les Saoudiens et leurs alli?s am?ricano-britanniques, s'allie avec un autre mouvement, le Congr?s national irakien (CNI). Iyad Allaoui conna?t bien l'homme qui dirige cette formation rivale : c'est son cousin par alliance, Ahmad Chalabi. Les deux hommes ont les m?mes commanditaires, appartiennent l'un et l'autre ? la tendance la plus la?que du chiisme irakien et ils ont pratiquement le m?me ?ge - Allaoui est n? en 1944, Chalabi en 1945. Mais ils se d?testent cordialement. La richissime famille Chalabi a quitt? l'Irak en emportant ses millions d?s la chute de la monarchie, en 1958. En 1992, l'ann?e o? son cousin est forc? ? s'allier avec lui, Chalabi est inculp? d'escroquerie bancaire en Jordanie et condamn? par contumace ? vingt-deux ans de prison. L'alliance tactique des cousins n'ira pas loin.
Affairiste lib?ral, Ahmad Chalabi est fonci?rement antibaasiste. Il le d?montrera d?s avril 2003 en poussant les Am?ricains ? commettre l'une de leurs plus grosses fautes tactiques en Irak occup? - la "d?baasisation" tous azimuts et le d?mant?lement complet de l'arm?e et de l'administration. A l'inverse, Iyad Allaoui, comme il a recommenc? ? le faire depuis sa rentr?e ? Bagdad, s'efforce de recruter ses anciens fr?res d'armes et fera tout, d?s son retour d'exil, pour s'opposer ? la politique suicidaire des purges massives d?cid?es par le proconsul, Paul Bremer.
Au fond, rien n'a chang?. D?j?, en octobre 1995, Ahmad Chalabi avait convaincu ses ma?tres am?ricains de financer et d'armer un soul?vement populaire irakien command? par lui depuis le Kurdistan. Allaoui ne croyait pas une seconde ? ses chances de succ?s. Il avait raison. Ce sera une sanglante d?b?cle.
Quatre mois plus tard, d?ment autoris?e par Bill Clinton en campagne pour sa r??lection, l'Agence de Langley pr?pare une deuxi?me tentative de coup d'Etat. Cette fois-ci, c'est le cousin Allaoui qui a sa chance. "Contrairement ? Chalabi, se souviendra Samuel Berger, conseiller de s?curit? du pr?sident Clinton, Allaoui avait su gagner la confiance des pouvoirs arabes de la r?gion. Il ?tait bien consid?r? par ceux qui pr?paraient l'op?ration. Il ?tait moins flamboyant que son cousin, paraissait moins concern? par sa promotion personnelle."
A la mi-janvier 1996, l'affaire est faite. La CIA fournit 6 millions de dollars, les Saoudiens et le Kowe?t, idem. La Jordanie assure la base arri?re de l'op?ration. Le coup se fera par l'arm?e.
Allaoui se flatte du soutien de plusieurs dizaines d'officiers de haut rang. C'?tait peut-?tre vrai, on ne le saura jamais. Un mois avant la fin juin, date pr?vue pour l'op?ration, le patron de l'ENI, qui veut quand m?me se placer pour la suite, r?v?le au Washington Post "l'imminence d'une op?ration secr?te" contre le r?gime honni. Personne n'y croit, sauf Saddam, qui a d?j? captur? l'un des envoy?s d'Allaoui au pays. Et qui le fait parler. Le 20 juin, les arrestations commencent. En dix jours, une trentaine de g?n?raux f?lons sont ex?cut?s. Cent vingt autres seront arr?t?s et tortur?s. Au total, on estimera que la sanglante purge ?liminera pr?s de huit cents personnes. "Un colossal fiasco", ?crivent les Cockburn. Mais un fiasco secret, qui n'a co?t? aucune vie am?ricaine et qui sera discr?tement enfoui sous une pile d'archives ? Langley.
Apr?s sa d?b?cle de 1995, Chalabi est all? trouver des oreilles plus compatis- santes au Pentagone. Allaoui, lui, reste le "Joe" d?ment r?tribu? de la CIA, du MI 6 et des Saoudiens. Il dirige, en juillet 2003, le comit? de s?curit? du d?funt Conseil de gouvernement mis en place par Paul Bremer, tandis que son cousin, le g?n?ral Ali Allaoui, et son beau-fr?re, Nouri Al-Badrane, occupent les postes, plus expos?s, de "ministres" de la d?fense et de l'int?rieur - aucun des deux ne sera pr?sent dans le nouveau cabinet. Finalement, "faute de mieux", comme ils disent, les mandarins du d?partement d'Etat am?ricain l'adoptent ? leur tour, et, le 27 mai, leur poulain est nomm? chef du gouvernement int?rimaire, n'en d?plaise aux Nations unies - et aux Fran?ais, que l'int?ress? m?prise. Le voici en place pour un galop d'essai avant le grand derby ?lectoral, pr?vu pour janvier 2005. Le coureur de fond a-t-il une chance ? "Avec lui, c'est un peu la CIA qui ?pouse notre pays", constate, sans illusions, un commentateur du cru. "Mais, dans le chaos actuel, o? la priorit? absolue est le r?tablissement de la s?curit? publique, Allaoui est sans doute le meilleur du pire. Il est chiite sans ?tre religieux. Pro-sunnite sans l'?tre lui-m?me. Il est bien avec les Am?ricains, les Anglais, les Saoudiens et tous les r?gimes qui nous entourent. Sauf peut-?tre l'Iran, quoique le grand ayatollah Sistani - un Iranien - lui ait accord? une sorte de timide soutien. Bref, c'est quelqu'un qui a l'avantage de susciter une m?fiance ? peu pr?s ?gale dans tous les camps. Ce peut ?tre son avantage", conclut notre interlocuteur.
"Il faut admettre, ajoute un diplomate europ?en, que la mani?re dont il a b?ti sa strat?gie de prise du pouvoir, en infiltrant d'abord les d?bris des services secrets avant de les remettre en marche et en se conciliant les anciens g?n?raux sunnites d'une arm?e qu'il est en train de reconstituer ? sa main, est astucieuse. C'est une strat?gie ? l'ancienne, qui a fait ses preuves."
Iyad Allaoui est-il bien ce "d?mocrate irakien" annonc? par la Maison Blanche ? "Allons, ricane Ka?s Al-Azzaoui, le directeur francophile d'Al-Jadida, le journal des socialistes irakiens, c'est un ancien officier des "moukhabarates", les services secrets. Dans la r?daction, on l'appelle d?j? le "Saddam-sans-moustache"." Hazem Abdel Hamid An-Noue?mi, chercheur en sciences politiques ? l'universit? de Bagdad, n'est pas d'accord. "Bien s?r que c'est un d?mocrate, sourit-il. Un d?mocrate ? l'arabe. A l'?gyptienne, ou ? l'alg?rienne si vous pr?f?rez..."
Patrice Claude
* ARTICLE PARU DANS L'EDITION DU 29.06.04
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The Undeclared Oil War
By Paul Roberts
Monday, June 28, 2004; Page A21
While some debate whether the war in Iraq was or was not "about oil," another war, this one involving little but oil, has broken out between two of the world's most powerful nations.
For months China and Japan have been locked in a diplomatic battle over access to the big oil fields in Siberia. Japan, which depends entirely on imported oil, is desperately lobbying Moscow for a 2,300-mile pipeline from Siberia to coastal Japan. But fast-growing China, now the world's second-largest oil user, after the United States, sees Russian oil as vital for its own "energy security" and is pushing for a 1,400-mile pipeline south to Daqing.
The petro-rivalry has become so intense that Japan has offered to finance the $5 billion pipeline, invest $7 billion in development of Siberian oil fields and throw in an additional $2 billion for Russian "social projects" -- this despite the certainty that if Japan does win Russia's oil, relations between Tokyo and Beijing may sink to their lowest, potentially most dangerous, levels since World War II.
Asia's undeclared oil war is but the latest reminder that in a global economy dependent largely on a single fuel -- oil -- "energy security" means far more than hardening refineries and pipelines against terrorist attack. At its most basic level, energy security is the ability to keep the global machine humming -- that is, to produce enough fuels and electricity at affordable prices that every nation can keep its economy running, its people fed and its borders defended. A failure of energy security means that the momentum of industrialization and modernity grinds to a halt. And by that measure, we are failing.
In the United States and Europe, new demand for electricity is outpacing the new supply of power and natural gas and raising the specter of more rolling blackouts. In the "emerging" economies, such as Brazil, India and especially China, energy demand is rising so fast it may double by 2020. And this only hints at the energy crisis facing the developing world, where nearly 2 billion people -- a third of the world's population -- have almost no access to electricity or liquid fuels and are thus condemned to a medieval existence that breeds despair, resentment and, ultimately, conflict.
In other words, we are on the cusp of a new kind of war -- between those who have enough energy and those who do not but are increasingly willing to go out and get it. While nations have always competed for oil, it seems more and more likely that the race for a piece of the last big reserves of oil and natural gas will be the dominant geopolitical theme of the 21st century.
Already we can see the outlines. China and Japan are scrapping over Siberia. In the Caspian Sea region, European, Russian, Chinese and American governments and oil companies are battling for a stake in the big oil fields of Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan. In Africa, the United States is building a network of military bases and diplomatic missions whose main goal is to protect American access to oilfields in volatile places such as Nigeria, Cameroon, Chad and tiny Sao Tome -- and, as important, to deny that access to China and other thirsty superpowers.
The diplomatic tussles only hint at what we'll see in the Middle East, where most of the world's remaining oil lies. For all the talk of big new oil discoveries in Russia and Africa -- and of how this gush of crude will "free" America and other big importers from the machinations of OPEC -- the geological facts speak otherwise. Even with the new Russian and African oil, worldwide oil production outside the Middle East is barely keeping pace with demand.
In the run-up to the Iraq war, Russia and France clashed noisily with the United States over whose companies would have access to the oil in post-Saddam Hussein Iraq. Less well known is the way China has sought to build up its own oil alliances in the Middle East -- often over Washington's objections. In 2000 Chinese oil officials visited Iran, a country U.S. companies are forbidden to deal with; China also has a major interest in Iraqi oil.
But China's most controversial oil overture has been made to a country America once regarded as its most trusted oil ally: Saudi Arabia. In recent years, Beijing has been lobbying Riyadh for access to Saudi reserves, the largest in the world. In return, the Chinese have offered the Saudis a foothold in what will be the world's biggest energy market -- and, as a bonus, have thrown in offers of sophisticated Chinese weaponry, including ballistic missiles and other hardware, that the United States and Europe have refused to sell to the Saudis.
Granted, the United States, with its vast economic and military power, would probably win any direct "hot" war for oil. The far more worrisome scenario is that an escalating rivalry among other big consumers will spark new conflicts -- conflicts that might require U.S. intervention and could easily destabilize the world economy upon which American power ultimately rests.
As demand for oil becomes sharper, as global oil production continues to lag (and as producers such as Saudi Arabia and Nigeria grow more unstable) the struggle to maintain access to adequate energy supplies, always a critical mission for any nation, will become even more challenging and uncertain and take up even more resources and political attention.
This escalation will not only drive up the risk of conflict but will make it harder for governments to focus on long-term energy challenges, such as avoiding climate change, developing alternative fuels and alleviating Third World energy poverty -- challenges that are themselves critical to long-term energy security but which, ironically, will be seen as distracting from the current campaign to keep the oil flowing.
This, ultimately, is the real energy-security dilemma. The more obvious it becomes that an oil-dominated energy economy is inherently insecure, the harder it becomes to move on to something beyond oil.
Paul Roberts is the author of "The End of Oil: On the Edge of a Perilous New World."
? 2004 The Washington Post Company

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LUKoil to Pump Iraq Oil in '05
Combined Reports LUKoil plans to extract the first oil from Iraq's giant West Qurna field next year, the firm's chief executive, Vagit Alekperov, said Monday.
Alekperov's comments, quoted by Interfax, coincided with the U.S. hand-over of sovereignty to an interim Iraqi government, two days earlier than planned.
Interfax gave no details of Alekperov's comments, and there was no indication whether LUKoil had reached agreement with Iraqi officials on its rights over the field. A 1997 deal on exploration rights has been repeatedly put into question.
LUKoil spokesman Dmitry Dolgov would not say whether the company had unequivocally reached an agreement. But he did say: "I would assume Alekperov had reason to say we will be pumping oil in Iraq next year."
Iraq scrapped LUKoil's $3.7 billion deal late in 2002, months before the U.S.-led invasion to topple Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein. It accused the company of failing to meet its obligations to begin work.
LUKoil said its hands were tied by United Nations sanctions then in force. It considers the deal still valid under international law.
Alekperov has said LUKoil will need to wait until the Iraqi government was in place to start tapping the field.
LUKoil's most recent attempt to revive the contract was in March, when Alekperov went to Baghdad to sign a memorandum of cooperation with the Iraqi Oil Ministry.
(Reuters, MT)

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$2bn already invested in Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline
June 29, 2004 Posted: 09:24 Moscow time (05:24 GMT)
BAKU - Some $2bn have been spent on the project of constructing the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, the Trend news agency reported citing Nagit Aliyev, the President of the Azerbaijani State Oil Company (GNKAR). On the whole, according to him, shareholders in the project will invest about $3bn.
The current pace of construction is about 1 kilometer of a pipeline a day. Aliyev noted that the oil pipeline would be ready for operation by the time oil production started in the central part of the Azeri field.
The GNKAR head also declared that many European companies were interested in the project of laying the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzerum gas pipeline. Moreover, he mentioned that the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development had decided to allocate a $170m credit to GNKAR to finance its share in Phase-1 of the Shakh-Deniz project and $1m on reorganizing the state company.
The construction of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline is planned to be finished by the end of 2004. The capacity of the 1,760-kilometer pipelineу is 50m tons of oil per year. The cost of the construction is estimated at $2.95bn. Among shareholders in the project are BP (30.1 percent), GNKAR (25 percent), Unocal (8.9 percent), Statoil (8.71 percent), TPAO (6.53 percent), Eni (5 percent), Total (5 percent), Itochu (3.4 percent), Inpex (2.5 percent), ConocoPhillips (2.5 percent) and Amerada. RosBusinessConsulting
Source URL: http://www.russiajournal.com/news/cnews-article.shtml?nd=44405

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Switzerland Admits Being a Base for al-Qaida and 9/11
NewsMax.com Wires
Friday, June 25, 2004
BERN, Switzerland - Investigators have concluded that Switzerland was likely used as a base for financing and logistical support for the Sept. 11 attacks by al-Qaida, the country's attorney general said Thursday.
Federal Prosecutor Valentin Roschacher said authorities planned to begin court proceedings in the coming weeks in three terror cases, capping investigations started four days after the 2001 homicide hijackings in New York and Washington.
Story Continues Below
A special task force initially was charged with investigating Mohammed Atta, the alleged leader of the hijackers. Atta reportedly spent several hours in Zurich in July 2001 en route from Miami to Madrid, Spain.
But the scope of the investigation widened. The task force also focused on officials of the now-defunct Al-Taqwa Management Organization, a Swiss-based firm that went into liquidation in December 2001.
The U.S. government says Al-Taqwa helped fund Osama bin Laden's terrorist network. The company was founded in 1988 and run from Lugano by its Egyptian-born managing director, Youssef M. Nada, and his Syrian-born associate, Ali Himat.
Swiss authorities blocked the accounts of the company and the personal accounts of board members. Neighboring Liechtenstein froze the accounts of an affiliate firm.
Company officials have repeatedly denied links to terrorism, and accused Swiss authorities of taking part in a U.S.-led anti-Muslim campaign.
"I have nothing to do with terrorism. I have nothing to do with violence," Nada said in an interview late Thursday with Swiss public radio.
"If they say I am Islamist, yes, I am. If they say I am an activist, yes I am. But I am against terrorism and violence." He said bin Laden's acts were "against humanity."
Another investigation focused on a Saudi businessman with ties to Switzerland and the United States who allegedly acted as an al-Qaida contact.
The unidentified man, a former president of the Muwafaq charitable foundation, is believed to have used Swiss accounts to transfer millions of Swiss francs to individuals tied to al-Qaida. Prosecutors said Swiss authorities have frozen around $20 million in a Geneva bank as a result of their investigation.
The man has denied any links with terrorists, officials said.
A third inquiry centered on the alleged ties of Swiss-based militants to a series of bombings on foreigners' residential compounds in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, in May 2003.
The attacks, linked to al-Qaida, killed 35 people including one Swiss citizen.
Overall, Swiss investigators have blocked around $27 million in connection with investigations into al-Qaida. And since December, Swiss police have arrested 10 foreigners in connection with the Saudi attacks. Two have been released.
The suspects in custody allegedly helped citizens from Arab nations enter Switzerland illegally and provided them with fake identities.
? 2004 Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
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Speech: Terrorism - Policing the Unknown
Police Federation Annual Conference - 20 May 2004, Bournemouth
INTRODUCTION
First time speaking to this conference and grateful to you for inviting me.
Let me introduce myself. My role in the Home Office is to ensure we deliver on policing and counter-terrorism measures. I am responsible to the Home Secretary who leads on counter-terrorism and on our preparedness.
Want to focus on the broad picture of what we have in place to prevent a terrorist attack, what we have in place to recover from such an attack and the valuable lessons we have learned and progress we have made over the past few years.
Colin Smith and Paul Forbes will speak in more detail about procuring equipment and ensuring those expected to deal with a CBRN incident have the right training - now and in the future.
First, however, want to set this in context by giving you a general overview of the threat we face.
THE TERRORIST THREAT
Since 9/11 the UK has been on a heightened state of alert and that remains the position. There is considerable intelligence from various parts of the world to indicate that Al Qaida, and the groups associated with them, remain engaged in a continuing programme of terrorist activity.
Since the September 11th attacks we and our partners have had some significant successes in damaging Al Qaida's capability, and in thwarting potential attacks. By its nature much of this can not be made public though I dare say that at least some in this audience will know at least something of this through the work they do. Would like to pay tribute, in particular, to the work of the Anti-Terrorism Branch of the Metropolitan Police, to the Special Branches in all of our forces for their work and to the Security Service. All have contributed to the greatly increased joint working and intelligence-sharing which we now have both in this country and between governments and law enforcement agencies across the world.
But, despite these successes, the terrorist threat remains real, and serious. As the events in Madrid showed, no country is immune from attack, and it is simply not possible to guarantee against such attacks in the future.
What does this mean for what we ask the public to do? The threat is not, at the current time, to specific targets. But we do need to ask the general public to be continually vigilant, to take responsibility and, if in doubt, to raise their concerns; to report the bag without an apparent owner; to report the van having its number plates changed; to report any suspicious or out of the ordinary behaviour to the Anti-Terrorist hotline [0800 789 321]; and above all to work with you, the police. The balance which we need to strike is for the public to be alert to activities that give cause for concern, but not to be so alarmed by the broader terrorist threat that it disrupts their daily lives.
GOVERNMENT'S APPROACH TO TERRORISM
And what are the implications which the current level of threat carries for us - the law enforcement community? Important in that context to remember that the threat of terrorism is not new to the UK and did not start on 11 September 2001. The UK has over 30 years of counter-terrorism experience to draw on.
However, 9/11 did change the way we think about it. It underlined the threat of multiple attacks by terrorists seeking to cause maximum destruction and harm irrespective of whether they live or die. In this new world any type of attack might be used including suicide bombs or the use of chemical, biological or radiological material. We know also that some of the terrorist groups we face do not have a traditional, hierarchical structure, which makes it harder to infiltrate them and disrupt their activities. These are the challenges we have had to respond to post 9/11 and why we have had to adapt our counter-terrorism strategy accordingly.
In particular, we have had to revisit well-established crisis response mechanisms to ensure that they are fit for purpose and able not only to respond to potentially catastrophic incidents but also to respond to their consequences were they ever to happen.
To do this the Government's strategy, led by the Home Secretary, is based on :
* Prevention - addressing the underlying causes of terrorism here and overseas: that means, among other things, ensuring that our Muslim citizens enjoy the full protection of the law and are able to participate to the full in British society;
* Pursuit - using intelligence effectively to disrupt and apprehend the terrorists - we have increased joint working and intelligence sharing between governments and law enforcement agencies across the world. We are tightening our border security, making identity theft harder and bearing down on terrorist finance;
* Protection - ensuring reasonable security precautions are in place from physical measures such as increased checks at airports to Counter-Terrorism Security Advisors providing guidance on protective security to sites holding potentially dangerous CBRN materials; and
* Preparedness - making sure the people and resources are in place to effectively respond to the consequences of a terrorist attack. I will come onto this in more detail later on.
We have also recognised since 9/11 that we needed to broaden the range of stakeholders involved in counter-terrorism planning. Exercises are a good example. Previously counter-terrorist exercises tended to begin with hostage negotiation or a hijack and end with the deployment of special forces. We still exercise such scenarios but our national counter-terrorism exercise programme is now designed to test a much wider range of possible events including what would happen if bombs did go off; if they did contain chemical or radioactive material; if a biological substance was released; if it was carried across local, regional or even international borders. 3 live counter-terrorism exercises are held each year. These are supplemented by some 15 table-top exercises held around the UK. But that is only part of the picture. We are constantly testing specific elements of the response at a local and regional level.
The exercise at Bank station in London last September is a good example. It focussed on how the emergency services worked together and it specifically tested the new equipment for decontamination and the procedures that came with it. The most important outcome, as with all such exercises, were the lessons learned. In that instance the areas we identified that needed further development included:
- work to improve the ability of those wearing protective suits to be able to communicate under difficult conditions;
- Ambulance crews needing to be able to provide earlier assessment, care and delivery of specific antidotes to contaminated casualties; and
- not under-estimating the number of people and specialist equipment required to respond to such emergencies.
Let me turn now to what we have actually put in place to be able to respond to the consequences of a terrorist attack if, despite all our efforts at prevention, one were to occur.
Particularly want to focus on the work we have done to prepare for a CBRN attack. This does not mean that there is a specific or imminent threat from CBRN, but the measures we need to have in place cannot be introduced overnight. To meet this challenge the CBRN Resilience Programme was established in 2001.
The Programme consists of a structured series of projects designed to deliver the necessary equipment, training and information and to improve our resilience. A nominated department leads each individual project.
The programme is overseen by a Home Office led cross-government Programme Board, which includes senior representatives from the emergency services, the devolved administrations and local and regional government. The Board's job is to keep the projects on track; to address risks to their delivery; and to enable myself and, ultimately Hazel Blears and the Home Secretary, to make sure the programme is delivered.
So what in practical terms, has the programme delivered? Let me take this under four headings.
First, training and Personal Protective Equipment. We now have over 5,000 fully CBRN trained police officers compared to just the few specialist individuals we had on 9/11. So we are now very close to our 5% target and are working with the Police National CBRN Centre to reach this as soon as possible. The Centre also runs an annual programme of refresher training - something which I know is of concern to this audience.
At the same time we have also been concerned to meet the needs of the 95% of you in this audience who have not had specific CBRN training but who need to have some awareness of CBRN incidents and what they involve. That is why the Police National CBRN Centre and the Metropolitan Police Service have jointly produced and disseminated a CBRN awareness CD-ROM which has been distributed to all police forces. The Fire Service have a similar interactive CD-ROM and a version is to be made available to Ambulance staff shortly. We know that these CD-ROMS are being used and we have received some very positive feedback on them.
Second, decontamination equipment. In July 2003 the first mass decontamination equipment for the Fire Service began to be delivered. Since then we have provided through the New Dimension Programme 80 purpose built Incident Response Units equipped with mass decontamination equipment. In addition we have put into service 360 mobile decontamination units around the country for use by the Ambulance Service and hospital Accident & Emergency Departments. From a capability limited to occasional accidents requiring decontamination we now have the capability to decontaminate 200 people per hour at a major incident.
Third, detection equipment. The Police and Fire Services now have more effective detection equipment available to them. After 9/11 we found that an increased number of `snake oil salesmen' were approaching individual forces directly, trying to sell them detection equipment. In response to concerns from police forces that they had no way of telling which items of equipment did what they said on the box, we set up a programme to test this. We have now issued guidance on the results so that the emergency services can make an informed choice about what to buy. For the police this guidance is co-ordinated through the Police National CBRN Centre. This programme of testing is continuing and further guidance will be issued in the summer. At the same time we have been working with the emergency services to capture their own requirements for detection capabilities so that we can drive industry to develop new products that provide what we want rather than having to make do with what's available.
Fourth, guidance. In September 2001, planning and practising for the consequences of a CBRN terrorist attack was limited at best. Since then we have, in consultation with local authorities, the emergency services, the health service and across government, published guidance for the emergency services and local authorities on decontaminating people (published Feb 2003, revised May 2004); guidance on CBRN specifically for local authorities (published October 2001, revised August 2003); guidance on decontaminating the open environment (April 2004) and, most recently, guidance on decontaminating buildings and infrastructure (May 2004). The purpose of the guidance is to assist planning for recovery from a CBRN attack and to encourage those responsible for planning and their partners to give us feedback on what does and does not work. The guidance can then be kept up-to-date and issues that you identify on the ground can be taken up and resolved as part of the continuing programme of work. All of this guidance is publicly available on the UK Resilience website [www.ukresilience.info].
CONCLUSION
Hope this helps to confirm that there is real substance behind the rhetoric. Of course, in one sense no amount of training, equipment or, indeed, money will ever be "enough". Just as we can not guarantee to disrupt every terrorist plan that may conceivably exist, we can not guarantee either that we will in every conceivable circumstance; in every conceivable location or at any conceivable time of the day or night be able to mount a totally resilient response. But the fact is that we are now far better prepared than we were in the past both in terms of understanding the threat and dealing with it were it to materialise.
We are also extending our preparedness. Where we are today is not the end point. We are developing our capacity to respond to new and more severe eventualities, but always guided by the latest intelligence assessment of the threat we face. This is sensible prioritisation. It is too easy simply to invent a particularly lurid scenario and say we would struggle to contain it. The important thing is that we prioritise; that we identify the threats what we are most likely to face; and that, based on this, we deliver what is most needed in terms of people, equipment, training and funding. That is what we are doing.
This is not a job which any of us, in government, in the Police Forces or in local government can do alone. Much of what we have achieved has only been possible through joint working and we will only be able to continue to deliver by maintaining this relationship and the constructive dialogue we have established.
Thank you